Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Politics and Enlightenment in Russia

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Palgrave Handbook of Russian Thought

  • 973 Accesses

Abstract

This chapter will consider domestic and non-Russian roots of enlightenment thinking before 1760. It will focus, in particular, on (1) enlightened attitudes toward good government and the law (Catherine’s Nakaz, the projects of Panin and Fonvizin, Desnitskii’s legal ideas); enlightened attitudes toward questions of Church and state (Prokopovich and Orthodox “modernism,” Platon (Levshin) and the Catherinian Church); enlightened attitudes toward social justice (Fonvizin, Shcherbatov, Radishchev); the phenomenon of “enlightened conservatism” (Derzhavin and Karamzin); and differences between the Russian, French, Scottish, and German Enlightenments.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 149.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 199.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Bibliography

  • Andreev, Igor’ L. 2003. Alexei Mikhailovich. Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Anonymous. 1784. Novoe nachertanie istinnoi teologii. Moscow: V tipografii I. Lopukhina.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barran, Thomas Paul. 2002. Russia Reads Rousseau, 1762–1825. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Berelowitch, Wladimir. 2015. Francophonie in Russia under Catherine II: General Reflections and Individual Cases. Russian Review 74 (1): 41–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Betskoi, Ivan I. 1789–1791. Sobranie uchrezhdenii i predpisanii, kasatel’no vospitaniia, v Rossii, oboego pola blagoradnago i meschchanskago iunoshestva, s prochimi v pol’zu obshchestva ustanovleniiami. St. Petersburg: pechatano v tipografii I. K. Shnora.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bil’basov, Vasily A. 1884. Didro v Peterburge. St. Petersburg: I. N. Skorokhodov.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bil’basov, Vasily A., and Antony Lentin. 1972. A Philosopher at the Court of Catherine the Great: Didro v Peterburge. Cambridge, UK: Oriental Research Partners.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bogdanov, Andrei P. 1986. K polemike kontsa 60-kh—nachala 80-kh godov XVII v. ob organizatsii vyshego uchebnogo zavedeniia. In Issledovaniia po istochnikovedeniiu istorii SSSR XIII–XVIII vekov, ed. Viktor Ivanovich Buganov, 117–223. Moscow: Institut istorii AN SSSR.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1995. Ot letopisaniia k issledovaniiu. Russkie istoriki poslednei chetverti XVII veka. Moscow: RISC.

    Google Scholar 

  • Borozdin, Alexander K., Ivan I. Lapshin, and Pavel E. Shchegolev. 1907. Protsess Radishcheva. Offitsial’nye materialy i svidetel’stva sovremennikov (Iz dela Gosudarstvennago Arkhiva i pechatnykh istochnikov). In Polnoe sobranie sochinenii A. N. Radishcheva v 2-kh tomakh, vol. 2, 298–353. Moscow: Izdanie M. I. Akinfieva.

    Google Scholar 

  • Catherine II. 1878. Pis’ma Imperatritsy Ekateriny II baronu Mel’khioru Grimmu (gody s 1774 po 1796). Edited by Iakov Grot. In Sbornik Imperatorskago Russkago Istoricheskago Obshchestva. XXIII (2): 1–695.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1971. Documents of Catherine the Great. The Correspondence with Voltaire and the Instruction of 1767 in the English Text of 1768. New York, NY: Russell & Russell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Catherine II, and Friedrich Melchior Grimm. 2016. Chastnaia khudozhestvennaia i politicheskaia korrespondentsiia epokhi Prosveshcheniia. Vol. 1. 1764–1778. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnyi Tsentr po izucheniiu XVIII veka Fernei-Vol’ter.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chrissidis, Nikolaos A. 2016. An Academy at the Court of the Tsars: Greek Scholars and Jesuit Education in Early Modern Russia. DeKalb, IL: NIU Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Collis, Robert. 2012. The Petrine Instauration. Religion, Esotericism and Science at the Court of Peter the Great, 1689–1725. Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cracraft, James. 1988. The Petrine Revolution in Russian Architecture. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1997. The Petrine Revolution in Russian Imagery. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2003. The Revolution of Peter the Great. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2004. The Petrine Revolution in Russian Culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Diderot, Denis. 1875. Essai sur les études en Russie. In Oeuvres Complètes de Diderot. Tome Troisième, 415–428. Paris: Garnier Frères.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1963. Observations sur l’Instruction de l’Impératrice de Russie aux deputés pour la confection des lois. In Oeuvres politiques. Textes établis avec introductions, bibliographies, notes et relevé de variantes, ed. Paul Vernière, 329–458. Paris: Garnier Frères.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1966. Mémoires pour Catherine II. Edited and with an Introduction by Paul Vernière. Paris: Éditions Garnier Frères.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dubrovin, Nikolai F. 1884. Pugachev i ego soobshchiki. Epizod iz istorii tsarstvovaniia Imperatritsy Ekateriny II. 1773–1774 gg. Vol. 2. St. Petersburg: Tipografiia I. N. Skorokhodova.

    Google Scholar 

  • Faggionato, Raffaella. 2005. A Rosicrucian Utopia in Eighteenth-Century Russia: The Masonic Circle of N. I. Novikov. Dordrecht: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Felbiger, Johann von. 1777. Anleitung der Rechtsschaffenheit oder das für die in den Trivialschulen lernende slavonisch-servische nicht unirte Jugend bestimmte Lesebuch. Wien: Wien Kurzböck.

    Google Scholar 

  • Florovskii, George. 1937. Puti russkogo bogosloviia. Paris: YMCA Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fontenelle, Bernard. 1727. Éloge du Czar Pierre I. In Histoire de l’Académie Royale des sciences. Année MDCCXXV, 105–128. Paris: l’Académie Royale des sciences.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gamburger, Andrei F. 1867. Pis’ma Imperatritsy Ekaterine II k g-zhe Zheffren. In Sbornik Imperatorskago Russkago Istoricheskago Obshchestva. Vol. 1, 253–290. St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Transhelia.

    Google Scholar 

  • General’noe uchrezhdenie o vospitanii oboego pola iunoshestva. 1764. In Polnoe sobranie zakonov imperii rossiiskoi, XVII, 12 (12 marta 1764 goda), 103. [publisher anonymous].

    Google Scholar 

  • Ger’e, Vladimir I. 1871. Otnosheniia Leibnitsa k Rossii i Petru Velikomu po neizdannym bumag Leibnitsa v Ganoverskoi biblioteke. St. Petersburg: Pechatnia V. I. Golovina.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goodman, Dena. 1994. The Republic of Letters: A Cultural History of the French Enlightenment. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grechanaia, Elena P. 2010. Kogda Rossiia govorila po-frantsuzski: Russkaia literatura na frantsuzskom iazyke (XVIII—pervaia polovina XIX veka). Moscow: IMLI RAN.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hamburg, Gary M. 2016. Russia’s Path toward Enlightenment. Faith, Politics, and Reason, 1500–1801. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Helvétius, Claude-Adrien. 1773. De l’homme; de ses facultés, et de son éducation, ouvrage posthume (publié par le prince Galitzin). À Londres (La Haye): Chez la Société Typographique.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hildermeier, Manfred. 2004. Traditionen der Aufklärung in der russischen Geschichte. In Interdisziplinarität und Internationalität. Wege und Formen der Rezeption der französischen und der britischen Aufklärung in Deutschland und Russland in 18. Jahrhundert, ed. Heinz Duchhardt and Claus Scharf, 1–15. Mainz: von Zabern.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hughes, Lindsey. 1990. Sophia. Regent of Russia 1657–1704. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Hunt, Lynn. 2008. Inventing Human Rights: A History. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hunt, Lynn, and Margaret Jacobs. 2005. Enlightenment Studies. In Encyclopedia of the Enlightenment, 4 vols., ed. Alan Charles Kors et al. New York: Oxford University Press. http://www.oxfordreference.com.ccl.idm.oclc.org.

  • Ilizarov, Simon S. 1999. Moskovskaia intelligentsiia XVIII veka. Moscow: Janus-K.

    Google Scholar 

  • Israel, Jonathan. 2006. Enlightenment: Which Enlightenment? Journal of the History of Ideas 67 (3): 523–545.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jones, W. Gareth. 1984. Nikolai Novikov: Enlightener of Russia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Kamenskii, Andrei B. 1999. Ot Petra I do Pavla I. Reformy v Rossii XVIII veka. Opyt tselostnogo analiza. Moscow: RGGU.

    Google Scholar 

  • Kopelevich, Iudif Kh. 1977. Osnovaniia Peterburgskoi Akademii nauk. Leningrad: Nauka.

    Google Scholar 

  • Levitt, Marcus C. 2009. The Theological Context of Lomonosov’s ‘Evening’ and ‘Morning’ Meditations on God’s Majesty. In Early Modern Russian Letters: Texts and Contexts Selected Essays, ed. Marcus C. Levitt, 305–319. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Lomonosov, Mikhail V. 1748. Kratkoe rukovodstvo k krasnorechiiu. St. Petersburg: Akademiia Nauk.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1766. Drevniaia rossiiskaia istoriia. St. Petersburg: Akademiia Nauk.

    Google Scholar 

  • Madariaga, Isabel de. 1981. Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great. New Haven, CT and London: Yale University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Makogonenko, Grigorii P. 1951. Nikolai Novikov i russkoe prosveshchenie XVIII veka. Moscow: Khudozhestvennaia literatura.

    Google Scholar 

  • Marker, Gary. 1985. Publishing, Printing and the Origins of Intellectual Life in Russia, 1700–1800. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Nakaz imperatritsy Ekateriny II, dannyi kommissii o sochinenii proekta novago ulozheniia. 1907. St. Petersburg: Imperatorskaia Akademiia Nauk.

    Google Scholar 

  • Necker, Susanne Curchod. 1801. Nouveaux mélanges extraits des manuscrits de Mme. Necker. Tome I. Paris: C. Pougens [et] Genets.

    Google Scholar 

  • Platon, Archbishop of Moscow (Levshin). 1766. Uveshchanie k raskol’nikam s chinopolozheniem, kak prinimat’ obrazuiushchikhsia iz nikh k Pravoslavnoi vere. St. Petersburg: V Sinodal’noi Tipografii.

    Google Scholar 

  • Radishchev, Alexander N. 1949. Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu. In Izbrannye filosofskie sochineniia, ed. I. Ia Shchipanov, 37–199. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury.

    Google Scholar 

  • Raeff, Marc. 1970. Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia: The Eighteenth Century. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rjéoutski, Vladislav, Gesine Argent, and Derek Offord, eds. 2014. European Francophonie: The Social, Political and Cultural History of an International Prestige Language. Oxford: Peter Lang.

    Google Scholar 

  • Robertson, John. 2015. The Enlightenment. A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Samarin, Yurii F. 1880. Stefan Iavorskii i Feofan Prokopovich in Sochineniia. 5. Moscow: Tipografiia A. I. Mamontova.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schippan, Michael. 2012. Die Aufklärung in Russland im 18.Jahrhundert. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Schönle, Andreas, Andrei Zorin, and Alexei Evstratov, eds. 2016. The Europeanized Elite in Russia, 1762–1825. DeKalb: NIU Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ségur, Louis-Philippe. 1827. Mémoires ou souvenirs et anecdotes. Tome III. Paris, London: Chez Henri Colburn.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ségur, Pierre de. 1897. Le royaume de La Rue Saint-Honoré. Paris: Calmann Lévy, Éditeurs.

    Google Scholar 

  • Serman, Ilya Z. 1988. Mikhail Lomonosov: Life and Poetry. Jerusalem: Center of Slavic and Russian Studies, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shcherbatov, Mikhail M. Prince. 1860. Razmotrenie o porokhakh i samovlastii Petra Velikogo. In Raznye sochineniia Kniazia M. M. Shcherbatova, 1–20. Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1897. Puteshestvie v zemliu ofirskuiu g-na S…. In Sochineniia. 1, 749–1060. St. Petersburg: Tiopografiia M. Akinfieva i I. Leont’eva.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1901–1904. Istoriia rossiiskaia. Vol. 7: Chast’ 2. St. Petersburg: Izdatel’stvo kniazia B. S. Shcherbatova.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shtrange, Mikhail M. 1965. Demokraticheskaia intelligentsiia Rossii v XVIII veka. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo “Nauka”.

    Google Scholar 

  • Snegirev, Ivan M. 1890. Zhizn’ Moskovskago metropolita Platona. Chast’ 2. Moscow: Tipo-Litografiia I. Efimova.

    Google Scholar 

  • Städtke, Klaus, Franziska Thun, and Dirk Uffelmann, eds. 1999. Kultur als Übersetzung. Klaus Städtke zum 65. Geburtstag. Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann.

    Google Scholar 

  • Staniukovich, Tat’iana V. 1953. Kunstkamera Peterburgskoi Akademii nauk. Moscow: Idatel’stvo Akademii nauk SSSR.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stefan Iavorskii. 2010. Kamen’ very Pravoslavnoi-kafolicheskoi Vostochnoi tserkvi. St. Petersburg: Obshchestvo pamiati igumenii Taisii.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stennik, Yurii V. 2006. A. P. Sumarokov—kritik ‘Nakaza’ Ekateriny II. In XVIII vek. Sbornik 24, 124–143. St. Petersburg: Nauka.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tatishchev, Vasily N. 1962–1968. Istoriia Rossiiskaia v semi tomakh. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo AN SSSR.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1979. Razgovor dvu[kh] priiatelei o pol’ze nauki i uchilishch. In Izbrannye proizvedeniia, 51–132. Moscow: Nauka.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tourneux, Maurice. 1899. Diderot et Catherine II. Paris: Calmann Lévy University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ustrialov, Nikolai G. 1858. Istoriia tsarstvovaniia Petra Velikago. Vol. 3. St. Petersburg: Tipografiia II Otdeleniia Sobstvennoi Imperatorskago Velichestva Kantseliarii.

    Google Scholar 

  • Voltaire and Catherine II, Empress of Russia. 2006. Correspondance, 1763–1778. Edited by Alexandr Stroev. Paris: Non lieu.

    Google Scholar 

  • Vucinich, Alexander. 1963. Science in Russian Culture. A History to 1860. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Walicki, Andrzej. 2005. Zarys mysli rosyjskiej od oswiecenia do renesansu religijno-filozoficznego. Kraków: Wydawnistwo Uniwersitetu Jagiellonskiego.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wilson, Arthur M. 1972. Diderot. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winter, Eduard. 1953. Halle als Ausgangspunkt der deutschen Russlandskunde im 18. Jahrhundert. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1966. Frühaufklärung. Der Kampf gegen den Konfessionalismus in Mittel- und Osteuropa und die deutsch-slavische Begegnung. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wirtschafter, Elise Kimerling. 2011. Christian Rulership in Enlightenment Russia: Father Platon at the Court of Catherine II. In The Book of Royal Degrees and the Genesis of Russian Historical Consciousness, ed. Gail Lenhoff and Ann Kleimola, 334–340. Bloomington, IN: Slavica.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2013. Religion and Enlightenment in Catherinian Russia: The Teachings of Metropolitan Platon. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, Claremont McKenna College, Claremont, CA, USA

    Gary M. Hamburg

Authors
  1. Gary M. Hamburg
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Gary M. Hamburg .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA

    Marina F. Bykova

  2. University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany

    Michael N. Forster  & Lina Steiner  & 

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Hamburg, G.M. (2021). Politics and Enlightenment in Russia. In: Bykova, M.F., Forster, M.N., Steiner, L. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Russian Thought. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62982-3_2

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation