Abstract
In October, 1771, the three Russian students remaining of the twelve who had begun the almost five years’ university program in Leipzig left for St. Petersburg.1 The return trip, without Bokum, took one month instead of four. The three students were Radishchev, Ruba-novskii — whose niece Radishchev would marry four years later — and Radishchev’s closest friend, Aleksei Mikhailovich Kutuzov. The others had not finished the courses, except for Ianov, who remained in Saxony at the Russian Ministry in Dresden. Three had died: Rimskii-Korsakov en route to Leipzig, Prince Nesvitskii after returning to Russia without finishing the program, and Theodore Ushakov in 1770 in Leipzig. Mikhail Ushakov, who we have seen was unhappy in academic work, had left for army service after finding the subjects necessary for political and civil service too difficult.2 Chelishchev and Prince Trubetskoi had been sent back in 1770, and Nasakin early in 1771. Young Zinov’ev was to remain two more years in Leipzig.
When a man returns from traveling about the world, he is what he will be all his life.
Rousseau, Emile.
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References
Sb. I. R. I. O., X, 123. They arrived November 20. Russkii Arkhiv (1870), 946.
Sb. I. R.I. O., X, 115, 116.
“Zhitie Ushakova,” Kallash, I, 116.
Ibid.
See Roy Pascal, The German Sturm und Drang (London, 1951).
The Free Economic was provided with statutes permitting autonomous organization but it repeatedly sought the government’s aid and was incapable of taking any independent action. See M. Confino, “Les enqủêtes économiques de la ‘Société libre d’économie de Saint-Peterbourg’ (1765–1820),” Revue Historique, 86e année t. CCXXVII (Janv.-mars. 1962), 155–180.
Sb. I. R. I. O., X, 33–36. The 1768 English translation of the Nakaz Komissii dlia sochineniia novago ulozheniia, together with notes and correspondence with Voltaire, is given in W. F. Reddaway, ed. Documents of Catherine the Great (Cambridge, 1931).
The Russian text is given in N. D. Chechulin, ed. Nakaz Imperatritsy Ekateriny II, dannyi komissii po sochineniiu proekta novago ulozheniia (SPb., 1907).
Letters of Voltaire to Catherine, 22 December, 1766 and 26 February, 1769 in Reddaway, op. cit., 13, 25.
Cited in Reddaway, op. cit., xxvii.
Chechulin, op. cit., introduction, p. xvi. For a discussion of Catherine’s Nakaz, Commission and politics, see my “The Empress and her Pupil,” in Journal of Modem History vol. XXXVI, no. 1 (March, 1964), 14–27.
The following account of Radishchev’s Senate duties and experiences is largely drawn on that given by G. P. Makogonenko in his Radishchev i ego vremia (Moscow, 1956), 130–149. His is the first full and accurate picture of what Radishchev did in his first years after his return from Leipzig.
See also A. Startsev, Radishchev v gody ‘Puteshestviia’ (Moscow, 1960), esp. “Sluzhebnye gody v Peterburge,” 35–132.
Makogonenko, 135.
Ts. G. A. D. A., f. 259, kn. 3916, cited in Makogonenko, 133.
Makogonenko, 134–9.
“Dnevnik odnoi nedeli,” Kallash ed., I, 80.
The title of the second edition was slightly more elaborate: Observations sur l’histoire de la Grèce: ou des causes de la prospérité et des malheurs des Grecs. Radishchev used the title of the first edition in his translation. The account of how the “Society for Striving to Publish Books” publicized its need for translators who could choose from newspaper listings is given in Startsev, Radishchev, 20–22.
Collection complète des oeuvres de l’Abbé de Mably, t. 1 (Paris, An III), no.
“Razmyshleniia o grecheskoi istorii ili o prichinakh blagodenstviia i neschastiia grekov,” P.S.S. II (1941), 235.
Helvétius, De l’Esprit, Discours, II, ch. xxii.
“Pesn’ Istoricheskaia”, Kallash, I, 410, 411, 412.
A Dictionary of Classical Antiquities... by Oskar Seyffert, revised and edited by Henry Nettleship and J. E. Sandys, (New York, 1891), 215–6.
P.S. S., II, 235. Montesquieu, in his De L’Esprit des Lois, which Radishchev had already-read, referred to the “tyrannical magistracy of the Ephori.” (Tome I, livre I, ch. III, sec. vi).
P. S. S., II, 282 footnote. While the term “samoderzhavie” meant despotism or power unlimited by law to Radishchev, it had meant in earlier times simply power independent of external control, particularly of Tatar Khans. A concise discussion of the changing meanings of the term is given in Richard Pipes, “Karamzin’s Conception of the Monarchy,” in Hugh McLean, Martin E. Malia, George Fischer, eds. Russian Thought and Politics; Harvard Slavic Studies Vol. IV. (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), 35–58.
See Leonid Ignatieff, “Rights and Obligations in Russia and the West,” Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. II, (Toronto, 1957), 26–37.
Sobranie Sochinenii, XII (SPb., 1907), 615. Cited in Leontowitsch, Geschichte des Liberalismus in Russland (Munich, 1957), 34.
P. S. S. II, 238, 255.
Copious references to earlier studies and a summary of the main arguments for and against Radishchev’s authorship is given in the notes to the text in P. S. S. II, 414–20; see also V. P. Semennikov, Radishchev. Ocherki i issledovaniia (M.-P., 1923), 319–364; G. P. Makogonenko, op. cit., 164–179; L. V. Krestova, “Iz istorii zhurnal’noi deiatel’nosti N. I. Novikova. (Kto byl avtorom ‘Otryvka puteshestviia v I. T i ‘Pisem k Falaleiu’?)” in Ist. Zap. t. 44 (1953), 253–287); Witkowski, “Radishchev oder Novikov? Stilkritischer Beitrag...” in Z.f. Slawistik Bd. III, Heft 2–4 (1958), 384–394.
“Dnevnik odnoi nedeli,” in Kallash, I, 79–86.
The most detailed presentation of this theory is given by L. I. Kulakova in her article “O datirovke ‘Dnevnika odnoi nedeli’,” in Leningradskii Gosudarstvennyi Universitet. Filologicheskii institut. Radishchev. Staf i i materialy. (1950), 148–157. See also P. N. Berkov’s “Grazhdanin budushchikh vremen,” in Izvestiia Akademii nauk SSSR. Otd. lit. iaz., t. VIII (M.-L., 1949), vyp. 5.
Thus Gukovskii, “Radishchev kak pisatel’,” in Radishchev. Materialy (M., 1936), 161. Also the editors of P. S. S. I, 460.
Makogonenko, op. cit., 159.
Makogonenko has corrected an error in dating which has been passed on for generations, simply because no one bothered to check an obvious source. It had long been held that the Gamester, called Beverlei in the Russian translation, was played May 11, 1773, and the source given, the Dramaticheskii slovar’ of 1787. But this work notes that Beverlei was first played May 11, 1772 and published for the first time in 1773. Makogonenko, op. cit., 154n. 3.
Kulakova, op. cit., 151–4.
Kutuzov mistakenly puts it at fourteen years. See Ia. L. Barskov, Perepiska Moskovskikh masonov, 65.
Makogonenko, op. cit., 157–8. Makogonenko argues that the Diary was written in the summer of 1773 and gives an effective review and criticism of prior research, including a refutation of P. N. Berkov’s contention that the Diary was written in 1791 as an imitation of Karamzin’s Pis’ma russkago puteshestvennika. Makogonenko is convincing on the dating and the autobiographical character of the work, but on shaky ground in attributing it to Radishchev’s intention to carry on a polemic against Rousseau’s alleged anti-social views. Makogonenko, op. cit., 149–164.
Although he influence of Rousseau is very marked in this and other of Radishchev’s writings, scholarship on it has until recently been confined to generalities. See the article by Witkowski, “Rousseau und Radiščev,” in Studien zur Geschichte der russischen Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts, Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Slawistik, No. 28 (Berlin, Akademie der Wissenschaften) 121–139, and my article, “Rousseau and Radishchev,” in Slavic and East European Journal (Sept., 1964)
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© 1964 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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McConnell, A. (1964). Return to Russia. In: A Russian Philosophe Alexander Radishchev 1749–1802. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-3375-1_4
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