Politics and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Russia This page intentionally left blank Politics and Culture in Eighteenth-Century Russia Collected Essays by Isabel de Madariaga ~ 1 Routledge ! ~ Taylor & Francis Group LONDON AND NEW YORK First published 1998 by Addison Wesley Longman Limited Published 2014 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY, 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © Addison Wesley Longman Limited 1998 The right of Isabel de Madariaga to be identifIed as author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved; no part of the publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without either the prior written permission of the Publishers or a licence permitting restricted copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency Ltd., 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WIP 9HE. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available trom the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress ISBN 13: 978-0-582-32255-4 (pbk) Set by 35 in 10/12 pt Bembo Produced by Addison Wesley Longman Singapore (Pte) Ltd., Contents Acknowledgements VI Introduction 1 PART ONE: Russian Government and Society 13 1. Tsar into emperor: the title of Peter the Great 15 2. Autocracy and sovereignty 40 3. Portrait of an eighteenth-century Russian statesman: Prince Dmitry Mikhaylovich Golitsyn 57 4. The eighteenth-century origin of Russian civil rights 78 PART TWO: Social and Administrative Problems 95 5. Penal policy in the age of Catherine II 97 6. Catherine II and the serfs: a reconsideration of some problems 124 7. Freemasonry in eighteenth-century Russian society 150 8. Catherine II and the foundation of the Russian educational system 168 PART THREE: Catherine II, Russian Society, and the World ofIdeas 193 9. Catherine II and enlightened absolutism 195 10. Catherine II and the philosophes 215 11. Catherine II and Montesquieu between Prince M.M. Shcherbatov and Denis Diderot 235 12. Russia and the Enlightenment 262 13. The role of Catherine II in the literary and cultural life of Russia 284 Index 297 v Acknowledgements The publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce copyright material: 'Tsar into emperor: the title of Peter the Great' was originally published in Royal and Republican Sovereignty in Early Modern Europe. Essays in Honour of Ragnhild Hatton, ed. R. Oresko, G.c. Gibbs and H.M. Scott (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 351-81. Used by permission. 'Autocracy and sovereignty' was originally published in Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 16, Nos 3-4. Fall-Winter 1982, pp. 369-87. Used by permis sion of Charles J. Schlacks]r. 'Portrait of an eighteenth-century Russian statesman: Prince Dmitry Mikhaylovich Golitsyn' was originally published in Slavonic and East European Review, 62, No.1, 1984, pp. 36-60. Used by permission of the editors. 'The eighteenth-century origin of Russian civil rights' will also be published in Katharina II., Russland und Europa. Beitriige zur Internationalen Forschung, ed. Claus Scharf (Mainz: VerOffentlichungen des Instituts fur Europaische Geschichte, 1998). 'Penal policy in the age of Catherine II' was originally published in La Leopoldina, 11, 1990 (Milan, Giuffre), pp. 497-535. Used by permission of Professor Luigi Berlinguer. 'Catherine II and the serfs: a reconsideration of some problems' was originally published in Slavonic and East European Review, 52, No.1, 1974, pp. 34-62. Used by permission of the editors. 'Freemasonry in eighteenth-century Russia' was originally published in II Vieusseux, December 1994, pp. 80-102. Used by permission of Professor P. Bagnoli of the Gabinetto Vieusseux. VI Acknowledgements 'Catherine II and the foundation of the Russian educational system' was ori ginally published as 'The foundation of the Russian educational system by Catherine II' in Slavonic and East European Review, 57, No.3, 1979, pp. 369- 95. Used by permission of the editors. 'Catherine II and enlightened absolutism' was originally published as 'Catherine the Great' in Enlightened Absolutism: Reform and Reformers in Later Eighteenth Century Europe, ed. H.M. Scott (London and Michigan: Macmillan and Uni versity of Michigan Press, 1990), pp. 289-312. Used by permission. 'Catherine II and the philosophes' was originally published in Russia and the West in the Eighteenth Century. Proceedings of the Second International Conference of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia, 17-22July 1981, pp. 30-52. Used by permission of Professor A.G. Cross. 'Catherine II and Montesquieu between Prince M.M. Shcherbatov and Denis Diderot' was originally published in Studi storici sull settecento europeo in onore di Franco Venturi, II (Naples, 1985), pp. 611-50. Used by permission of cas a edittrice Jovene. 'Catherine II and the literary and cultural life of Russia' was originally published as 'Catherine II et la litterature' in Histoire de la litterature russe, I, ed. I. Serman et al. (Paris: Maison Artheme Fayard, 1992). Used by permission. vii This page intentionally left blank Introduction The essays presented here have been written over some twenty-five years and therefore represent an evolution in my conception of Russian history. (I would not, for instance, today use the word 'bureaucrat' to describe Russian offtcials in the eighteenth century.) But they are not reproduced here in chronological order of publication. Indeed, the fITst essay was the last but one to be published and only appeared in January 1997. Some are carefully thought out scholarly papers, such as the essay on 'Catherine II and the Serfs' (1974), which was a by product of the research for my book, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great, (1981). Other essays are more in the nature ofa lecture given at a seminar and subsequently worked up into a full-scale paper, such as for instance 'Russia and the Enlightenment', which was originally given as a talk to students in St Andrews, but has been subsequently developed. The order in which the essays have been presented here is the result of an attempt to group them according to the inner logic of their subject matter. The flrst four deal with the nature of the Russian government and its relation to society. The second group is composed of essays concerned with the way in which the government dealt with social and administrative problems, and the third deals with the relationship between Catherine II, Russian society, and the philosophes and their world of ideas. The subject of 'Tsar into emperor' first struck me some years ago while meditating on the reasons why Peter I chose to abandon the perfectly good title of 'tsar', which he and his advisers knew quite well meant 'emperor', in favour of the foreign sounding title of 'imperator'. Where did he get the very idea of changing his title from? And why did it take the form he gave it? Usually dealt with in general or particular histories as a sudden change which historians need not bother to explain, it seemed to me that it must have roots in the past of Russian relations with European and non-European powers. The subject took me right back to Russian medieval history. My conclusion, which I hope is clear from the article included here, is that Peter was anxious to take up a position in the European states system, to which Russia had only marginally belonged until then, by sharing in the heritage of the Roman 1