Abstract
Of all the revolutionary changes in Russian life introduced in the reign of Peter the Great, the two most pregnant with consequences were the destruction of the traditional union between the religious and the political principle in the body politic, and the rapprochement with Western Europe. Both proved lasting but, as already pointed out, their most important effects were not immediately apparent. It obviously required more than one generation for such cultural innovations as the institutions of learning, the presence of foreign specialists in Russia and the despatch of young Russians to study abroad, to produce visible results in the realm of intellectual concepts and social attitudes. Thus, for most of the first half of the century, the attitude towards freedom in the newly created Russian Empire did not differ much from that in old Muscovy.
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References
Quoted by D. A. Rovinsky, Russkiye narodnyye kartinki (Russian Popular Illustrations), V, St. Petersburg, 1893, pp. 263–4.
Polnoye sobraniye zakonov Rossiyskoy Imperii — henceforth P.S.Z. (Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire), St. P., 1830, IV, item No. 1,834.
Ibid., VI, no. 4,022.
Ibid., VII, No. 4,146.
Ibid., V, No. 3,223.
Jan Tessing (Thessing), owner of an Amsterdam printing shop, was granted a charter by Peter I, in 1700, for the printing of “drawings and books” in Slavonic, Latin, and Dutch, “for the greater glory of the Great Sovereign amongst the European Monarchs and for the general benefit and profit to the Nation, but nothing that detracts from the Supreme Honour of Our Majesty or the glory of Our Realm must occur in such drawings and books.” (P.S.Z., IV, No. 1,751). Tessing died in the following year and, after some time, his master-printer decided to move the enterprise to Russia, with this unfortunate result. (For details see P. P. Pekarsky, Nauka i literatura v Rossii pri Petre Velikom (Learning and Literature in Russia at the Time of Peter the Great), St. P., 1862, I, p. 10ff, and II, p. 177. Also V. S. Sopikov, Opyt rossiyskoy bibliografii (Tentative Russian bibliography), Part I, St. P., 1904, pp. XLIf; Part V, St. P., 1905, pp. 133ff).
P.S.Z., IV, No. 2,188.
lbid., IV, No. 2,212.
Ibid., V, No. 2,877. Also cf. VI, No. 3,479.
Ibid., VII, No. 4,838.
Ibid., VII, No. 6,150 (Anna); XII, No. 9,105 (Elizabeth); XIX, No. 14,100 Catherine II).
Cf. for example, V. A. Gol’tsev, ZakonodateVstvo i nravy v Rossii XVIII veka, (Legislation and Customs in 18th Century Russia), St. P., 1896, passim.
For details see B. B. Kafengauz, I. T. Pososhkov-zhizn’ i deyatel‘nost’, (The Life and Activities of I. T. Pososhkov), Moscow-Leningrad, 1950.
The following passage taken from the “Regulations or Statute of the Committee for Church Affairs” of 1721 (P.S.Z., VI, No. 3,718) may serve to illustrate this point: “… the common people are not capable of telling right from wrong, but cling firmly and stubbornly to what they see written in a book.”
Cf. P. E. Mel’gunova et al., Russkiy byt po vospominaniyam sovremennikov (Russian Life in the Recollections of Contemporaries), I., M., 1914, p. 74; Gol’tsev, op. cit., pp. 40ff.; M. I. Semevsky, Slovo i delo! 1700–1725, St. P., 1884, passim.
P.S.Z., VII, No. 5,004 (Catherine I); VIII, Nos. 5,528; 5,535 (Anna).
Ibid., XV, No. 11,445: “This hateful expression, to wit: slovo i delo is henceforth to have no meaning whatsoever and We forbid its use to one and all.”
Ibid., XVI, No. 11,687.
Ibid., IV, No. 1,921.
The emphasis in Vedomosti (News) was on military matters. The items selected for publication were not tampered with, so that even unfriendly foreign reports of events involving Russia were published in toto, without any comment.
P.S.Z., VII, No. 5,175.
By a decree of 17 March 1743 (not listed in P.S.Z.), cf. M. I. Sukhomlinov, Materi-yaly dlya istorii Imperatorskoy Akademii Nauk (Source materials for the History of the Imperial Academy of Sciences), VII, p. 341.
Advertisements appearing between 1745 and 1748 in the St. Petersburg News show the following titles as published, in Russian, and on sale at the Academy bookshop during these years: The book of Marcus Aurelius, The True Politics with Poems by Cato, The Honest Mirror of Youth, The History of Troy, Geography: Russian and German, Essential Remarks on the Manifesto by the King of Prussia Against the Court of the Kurfuerst of Saxony, Travels of Telemachus the Son of Ulysses, Apophegmata. (S. M. Solov’yov, Isto riya Rossii s drevneyshikh vremyon, (History of Russia from the Earliest Times), XXII, M., 1963, p. 578.
Sukhomlinov, Loc. cit.
P. P. Pekarsky, Istoriya Imperatorskoy Akademii Nauk v Peterburge, (The History of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Petersburg), II, St. P., 1873, p. LH.
V. N. Tatishchev, Razgovor o poPze nauk i uchilishch, (A Discourse on the Usefulness of Learning and of Educational Institutions), M., 1887, p. 157.
Pekarsky, lstoriya …, p. XIII.
Ibid., p. 122.
P.S.Z., XIII, No. 9,794.
Ibid., XII, No. 9,805. Cf. also A. M. Skabichevsky, Ocherki istorii russkoy tsenzury (1700–1863 gg. ) — (An Outline of the History of Russian Censorship 1700–1863), St. P., 1892, pp. 11-12; and D. D. Shamray, “K istorii tsenzurnogo rezhima Yekateriny II” (To the History of Catherine II’s Censorial Methods), in XVIII vek (18th Century), Sb. 3., M.-L., 1958, pp. 187ff.
Sukhomlinov, Istoriya Rossiyskoy Akademii (History of the Russian Academy), I, St. P., 1874, pp. 63f. Also Skabichevsky, p. 12.
D. A. Rovinsky, op. cit., V, p. 157.
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© 1971 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Papmehl, K.A. (1971). The First Half of the Century. In: Freedom of Expression in Eighteenth Century Russia. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9101-2_1
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