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The Family Model of Society and Russian National Identity in Sergei N. Glinka's Russian Messenger (1808-1812)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Alexander M. Martin
Alexander M. Martin*
Affiliation:
Department of History, Politics, and International Studies, Oglethorpe University
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Extract

It was long accepted throughout the European world that a father's authority over his children should be unchallengeable and that the authority of monarchs and noble lords was absolute because they, too, were “fathers” to their subjects. A profound shift in this thinking occurred during the eighteenth century, however, as increasingly critical attitudes toward paternal authoritarianism subverted the patriarchal ideology that undergirded the old regime. Recent scholarship has even linked the outbreak of the American and French Revolutions to these changing beliefs about the nature of the family. These ideas had a powerful impact among Russia's westernized upper class and drove conservatives to search for a less harshly authoritarian justification for the old regime. Much soul-searching went into their attempt to reconcile autocracy and serfdom with the respect for human dignity and the delicate moral sensibilité that were increasingly expected of any cultivated European. Slavophilism, which glorified the common people and emphasized the duties of monarch and nobility, represented one outcome of this quest. The anguished process by which proto-Slavophile beliefs evolved out of the noble culture of the Catherinian age is strikingly apparent in the turbulent biography of the poet, playwright, journalist, and amateur historian Sergei Nikolaevich Glinka.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , Spring 1998 , pp. 28 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1998

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References

An earlier version of this article was presented at the Ohio State University conference "Russia's Golden Age" in April 1997.

1. Wood, Gordon S., The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York, 1992), 145–68Google Scholar; Lynn, Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley, 1992), 17–52Google Scholar.

2. Prerevolutionary Russian historians were inclined to regard him as a pitifully naive and mediocre writer; e.g., A. N. Pypin, hsledovaniia i stat'i po epokhe Aleksandra /, vol. 3, Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Rossii pri Aleksandre I, 5th ed. (Petrograd, 1918), 292–93, and Bulich, Nikolai N., Ocherki po istorii Russkoi literatury i prosveshcheniia s nachala XIX veka (St. Petersburg, 1902), 1: 202–3, 212–20Google Scholar. This view was generally adopted by Sovietera historians as well, who in addition have treated Glinka as a reactionary supporter of the regime; thus a 1970s university textbook on the history of Russian journalism labeled Glinka's Russian Messenger the “organ” of “government and serf-owners” ( Zapadov, A. V., ed., Istoriia russkoi zhurnalistiki XVIII-XIX vekov, 3d rev. ed. [Moscow, 1973], 114 Google Scholar). That characterization, as this essay will attempt to show, completely misses the point of Glinka's ideas. A few Soviet historians, though, have been more perceptive in their analysis, e.g., Poznanskii, Viktor V., Ocherk formirovaniia russkoi natsional'noi kul'tury: Pervaia polovina XIX veka (Moscow, 1975), 47–50Google Scholar, and Popov, I. V., “Preddekabristskaia publitsisticheskaia kritika o patriotizme,” in Popov, I. V., ed., PisateV i kritika XIX vek: Mezhvuzovskii sbornik nauchnykh trudov (Kuibyshev, 1987), 5–9Google Scholar. Apparently, however, the only scholar who has made Glinka's ideas the object of systematic study is Liubov' N. Kiseleva, whose insightful and thought-provoking articles will be referred to at various points in this essay. Her most comprehensive discussion of the topic is “Sistema vzgliadov S. N. Glinki (1807–1812 gg.),” Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1981, no. 513: 52–72.

3. According to the Julian calendar, this date is 5 July 1776. See Zapiski Sergeia Nikolaevicha Glinhi (henceforth cited as Glinka, , Zapiski) (St. Petersburg, 1895), 1.Google Scholar

4. The dilemma of post-Petrine traditionalist conservatives, who felt torn between their loyalty to the autocracy and their opposition to its effort to transform the social order, is discussed by G. I. Musikhin in “Traditsionalizm i reformy: Sravnitel'nyi analiz vzgliadov M. Shcherbatova i Iu. Mesera,” in Issledovaniia po konservatizmu, no. 4, Reformy: politicheskie, sotsial'no-ekonomicheskie i pravovye aspekty (Materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchnoi konferentsii, Perm.', 21–22 maia 1996 goda) (Perm', 1997), 16–20. The topic of conservative Russian nationalism in this period is also discussed in my book Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries: Russian Conservative Thought and Politics in the Reign of Alexander I (DeKalb, 1997).

5. Glinka, Zapiski, 2–3.

6. Ibid., 30–126. L. N., Kiseleva, “S. N. Glinka i kadetskii korpus (iz istorii ‘sentimental'nogo vospitaniia’ v Rossii),” Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1982, no. 604: 48–63Google Scholar. N. N. Aurova, “Idei Prosveshcheniia v 1-m kadetskom korpuse (konets XVIII-pervaia polovina XIX v.),” Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, 8th ser., Istoriia, 1996, no. 1: 34–42. On Betskoi, see also Alia N., Eroshkina, “Deiatel’ epokhi prosveshchennogo absoliutizma I. I. Betskoi,” Voprosy istorii, 1993, no. 9: 165–70Google Scholar; Lotman, Iurii M., Besedy o russkoi kul'ture: Byt i traditsii russkogo dvorianstva (XVIII-nachalo XIX veka) (St. Petersburg, 1994), 79 Google Scholar; and Black, J. Laurence, Citizens for the Fatherland: Education, Educators, and Pedagogical Ideals in Eighteenth Century Russia (Boulder, Colo., 1979), 77–83.Google Scholar

7. Komarnitskaia, Zh. O., “Rol' frantsuzskoi knigi v formirovanii mirovozzreniia dekabristov,” in Barenbaum, I. E., ed., Istoriia russkogo chitatelia: Sbornik statei, no. 2, Trudy Leningradskogo gosudarstvennogo instituta kul'tury imeni N. K. Krupskoi, vol. 32 (Leningrad, 1976), 8, 11.Google Scholar

8. Glinka, Zapiski, 132.

9. Ibid., 146–87. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv, f. 777, op. 1, d. 876 (“Posluzhnye spiski predsedatelei i tsenzorov Moskovskogo i Derptskogo tsenzurnykh komitetov “), 11. 35ob.-36.

10. This discussion of “republicanism” is based on Wood, Radicalism, 95–109.

11. Glinka, Zapiski, 166, 175, 182, 194. On the anti-Napoleonic attitude of the Russian nobility in general during this period, see N. I. Kazakov, “Napoleon glazami ego russkikh sovremennikov,” Novaia i noveishaia istoriia, 1970, no. 3: 31–47 and no. 4: 42–55.

12. He apparently wrote nine of these in 1807–10 and 1817. For a list, see “Glinka, Sergei Nikolaevich,” Russkii biograficheskii slovar', 291, and Franklin A., Walker, “Reaction and Radicalism in the Russia of Tsar Alexander I: The Case of the Brothers Glinka,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 21, no 4 (December 1979): 489–502.Google Scholar

13. Ruskoi vestnik, January 1808, 3–10 (emphasis in the original).

14. Simon, Schama, Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (New York, 1989)Google Scholar, chap. 4. See also Jean, Starobinski, 1789, Les Emblemes de la raison (Paris, 1979)Google Scholar.

15. On the Francophobic mood and the government's response to it, see, for example, Bulich, Ocherki po istorii Russkoi literatury, 174–77; Nikolai F. Dubrovin, “Russkaia zhizn' v nachale XIX veka,” pt. 1 (of 23), Russkaia starina 96 (December 1898): 481–516, esp. 493–94; and Jean, Bonamour, A. S. Griboedov et la vie litleraire de son temps (Paris, 1965), 67, 88Google Scholar. On the relations between writers and censors in this period, see Ruud, Charles A., Fighting Words: Imperial Censorship and the Russian Press, 1804–1906 (Toronto, 1982), 24–28.Google Scholar

16. The episode is mentioned in Bulich, Ocherki po istorii Russkoi literatury, 212. The article in question is probably the rather innocuous-sounding “Nekotoryia zamechaniia na nekotoryia stat'i politicheskago sochineniia g. Shletsera, pod nazvaniem: Vzor na proshedshee nastoiashchee i budushchee,” which appeared (under the guise of an anonymous letter) in Ruskoi vestnik, March 1808, 398–407.

17. In some cases, Glinka's “patriotic” views on foreign books about Russia resembled those of the future Decembrists. See Zh. O. Komarnitskaia, “Frantsuzskaia kniga o Rossii v otsenke dekabristov,” in Istoriia russkogo chitatelia, no. 3 (Leningrad, 1979), esp. 5–9.

18. This point is also made by Kiseleva in “S. N. Glinka i kadetskii korpus,” 59.

19. On this subject, see Michael Confino, “Le paysan russe jugé par la noblesse au XVIIIc siécle,” Revue des Études slaves 38 (1961): 51–63, and Jean-Louis van Regemorter, “Deux images ideales de la paysannerie russe a la fin du XVIIIc siécle,” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 9, no. 1 (1968): 1, 5–19.

20. “Zamechanie grafa F. V. Rastopchina na knigu g-na Stroinovskago,” Chteniia v lmperatorskom Obshchestve Istorii i Drevnostei Rossiskikh pri Moskovskom Universitete, bk. 2 (1860): 203–17. The quotations are from 209 and 212.

21. See, for example, Ruskoi vestnik, June 1810, 12–14 and 28–36; January 1811, 128–30; February 1811, 28–34; January 1813, 106–11; February 1813, 12–33; March1813, 26–35. On the selling of serfs, see Ruskoi vestnik, June 1811, 315, and Glinka, Zapiski, 10, 15. On the serf musician, see Glinka, Zapiski, 177–78.

22. Ruskoi vestnik, July 1811, 25–26.

23. Ibid., January 1810, 130.

24. Ibid., August 1808, 218.

25. Ibid., February 1809, 208.

26. Ibid., August 1811, 75–87. The quotation is from 80.

27. See, for example, ibid., January 1808, 6, 53–67; May 1808, 186, 218–19; September 1808, 331–60; February 1809, 279–98; June 1809, 350–78. The topic appears with similar frequency in subsequent years.

28. See Starobinski, 1789, 12–15, 54.

29. Ruskoi vestnik, January 1809, 198 (emphasis in the original).

30. Ibid., June 1811, 76–86. The quotations are from 79 and 80.

31. Ibid., May 1808, 218–19.

32. Schama, Citizens, 145–47. For Glinka's views on The Marriage of Figaro, see his Zerkalo novago Parizha, ot 1789 do 1809 goda, 2 vols, in 1 (Moscow, 1809), 1: 32–33. The book only goes up to the Reign of Terror, not 1809. On revolutionary views of aristocratic physical debility, see Baecque, Antoine de, “Pamphlets: Libel and Political Mythology,” in Darnton, Robert and Roche, Daniel, eds., Revolution in Print: The Press in France, 1775–1800 (Berkeley, 1989), 165–76Google Scholar, and Robert, Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, Mass., 1982), 29–Google Scholar. Of course, Glinka did not use the pornographic satire that dominates the pamphlets examined by de Baecque and Darnton.

33. See, for example, Ruskoi vestnik, February 1811, 91–107, 117; May 1811, 53–54, 133–37; July 1811, 29; August 1811, 60, 72–74.

34. Ibid., May 1811, 55–56; April 1811, 12; August 1811, 40–41.

35. Hunt, The Family Romance, 118–23.

36. Glinka, Zerkalo, passim; see, for example, 1: 120–31, 2: 6, 14–27.

37. On the Sten'ka Razin revolt, see Rushoi vestnik, August 1811, 25. On the strel'tsy, see ibid., October 1809, 3–29; January 1811, 41; February 1811, 119–21. On the civil war aspect of the Time of Troubles, see ibid., March 1809, 443–51.

38. On Peter I, see, for example, ibid., January 1808, 11–22; September 1808, 299–331; October 1808, 3–18, 39–49; May 1809, 223–29; June 1809, 288–350; August 1809, 152–55; January 1810, 23–30.

39. Ibid., May 1811, 116.

40. Liubov’ N. Kiseleva, “Zhurnal ‘Zritel'’ i dve kontseptsii patriotizma v russkoi literature 1800-kh gg.,” Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1985, no. 645: 3–20. The passage from Glinka's manuscript is quoted on 18.

41. See, for example, Ruskoi vestnik, February 1811, 35–52; July 1811, 52–92; August 1811, 87–103. Shishkov had argued this point in his influential 1803 polemic Razsuxhdenie o starom i navom sloge Rossiiskago iazyka (reprinted in Sobranie sochinenii i perevodov Admirala Shishkova, 16 vols. [St. Petersburg, 1818–34], 2: 1–356). On Glinka's view of the matter, see also Liubov' N. Kiseleva, “K iazykovoi pozitsii ‘starshikh arkhaistov’ (S. N. Glinka, E. I. Stanevich),” Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1983, no. 620: 18–30. An excellent discussion of the linguistic debate and its origins and significance can be found in Iurii M. Lotman and Boris A. Uspenskii, “Spory o iazyke v nachale XIX v. kak fakt russkoi kul'tury ('Proisshestvie v tsarstve tenei, ili Sud'bina rossiiskogo iazyka'—neizvestnoe sochinenie Semena Bobrova),” Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1975, no. 358: 168–254.

42. Ruskoi vestnik, July 1811, 58 (emphasis in the original).

43. Ibid., January 1808, 53–67.

44. For example, in 1808–09 alone, at least eight articles in the Russian Messenger were devoted principally to Suvorov's glory, virtues, and genius.

45. Glinka, Zapiski, 168.

46. See, for example, Ruskoi vestnik, January 1808, 36–43.

47. Ibid., March 1813, 40–63.

48. Ibid., 9.

49. Ibid., 16 (emphasis in the original).

50. For a description of these events, see his Zapiski o 1812 gode Sergeia Glinki, pervago ratnika Moskovskago Opolcheniia (St. Petersburg, 1836), 6–21.

51. Ruskoi vestnik, 1812, no. 9: 91–93, 121–25. As Glinka explains in ibid., 1812, no. 12: 102–8, the chaos in Moscow during the fall of 1812 disrupted the orderly publication of the Messenger. As a result, nos. 9–10 were issued in August, while nos. 11–12 appeared only in early 1813.

52. Ibid., 1812, no. 10: 71–72.

53. Glinka, Zapiski and Zapiski o 1812 gode; see also his Zapiski o Moskve i o zagranichnykh proisshestviiakh ot iskhoda 1812 do poloviny 1815 goda (St. Petersburg, 1837).

54. Glinka, Zapiski o 1812 gode, 91–92.

55. Glinka is quoted in Sidney, Monas, “Ŝiŝkov, Bulgarin, and the Russian Censorship,” in McLean, Hugh, Malia, Martin, and Fischer, George, eds., Russian Thought and Politics, Harvard Slavic Studies 4 (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), 133 Google Scholar. On the new censorship statute, see also Ruud, Fighting Words, 52–63.

56. Ruud, Fighting Words, 24.

57. “Glinka, Sergei Nikolaevich,” Russkii biograficheskii slovar'.

58. Zapadov, Istoriia russkoi zhurnalistiki, 100–101, 119–20. Ruud, Fighting Words, 29.

59. I.e., holders of the honorific title siiatel'stvo. The lists were published in the March, June, November, and December 1813 issues. The social status of 75 subscribers was not indicated. The 1811 subscriber list was published at the end of the November 1811 and the February 1812 issues.

60. Not counting the office of the ecclesiastical censor.

61. In some cases, they themselves left written evidence of their relationship with the Russian Messenger, but in others we have only the subscriber lists to work with, and it is conceivable (though unlikely) that more than one individual might have had the same first name, patronymic, surname, social rank, and place of residence. Thus, we can be certain that the subscriber named Shishkov was the Admiral Shishkov. The same is true of Rostopchin and Pogodin. It is conceivable, however, that the subscribers named Venevitinov, Khomiakov, et al. were merely neighbors and namesakes of the well-known historical personages.

62. Anthony J. La Vopa, “Conceiving a Public: Ideas and Society in Eighteenth-Century Europe,” Journal of Modern History 64 (March 1992): 79–116. The quotations are from 110. See also Douglas Smith, “Freemasonry and the Public in Eighteenth-Century Russia,” Eighteenth-Century Studies 29, no. 1 (1995): 25–44.

63. See Blium, A. V., “Massovoe chtenie v russkoi provintsii kontsa XVIII-pervoi chetverti XIX v.,” in Barenbaum, I. E., ed., Istoriia russkogo chitatelia, no. 1 (Leningrad, 1973), 37–57.Google Scholar

64. Nurit Schleifman, “A Russian Daily Newspaper and Its New Readership: Severnaia pchela 1825–1840,” Cahiers du Monde russe et sovietique 28, no. 2 (April-June 1987): 127–44. On Novikov, see, for example, Andre Monnier, “La naissance d'une idéologic nationaliste en Russie au siécle des Lumiéres,” Revue des Ètudes slaves 52, no. 3 (1979): 265–72. On Karamzin, see Cross, A. G., N. M. Karamzin: A Study of His Literary Career(1783–1803) (Carbondale, 1971), 35–66, 193–217Google Scholar. On the Russian press in this period, see Louise, McReynolds, The News under Russia's Old Regime: The Development of a Mass-Circulation Press (Princeton, 1991), 18–22, 24–25.Google Scholar

65. Christoph, Schmidt, “Aufstieg und Fall der Fortschrittsidee in RuBland,” in Historische Zeitschrift 263, no. 1 (August 1996): 1–30.Google Scholar

66. See Walker, “Reaction and Radicalism. “