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Abstract

In the course of Elizabeth’s reign two hitherto non-existing factors begin to play an ever-increasing part: the softening of repressive measures resulting from the milder character of the regime, and increased Western-European, notably French, cultural influences. Although, as we have noted earlier, the intercourse with Europe did not cease after Peter’s death, it was, especially in the reign of Anna, largely restricted to its Germanspeaking part. With the tide of revulsion from the rule of the German clique of Biron which had brought Elizabeth to the throne, came also the interest in France and things French, aided and abetted by the new empress herself and her immediate entourage.1 Another important difference was that the carriers of Western-European influences were themselves, no longer, as in the early part of the century, predominantly “technicians” — carpenters, shipwrights, navigators, engineers, etc. — but often leading intellectuals, men of letters or creative artists. (Such were the foreign, mostly German, professors at the Academy of Sciences and, later, Moscow University; the organisers of and some participants in court theatricals, painters, sculptors, architects; the Russians sent to study at the universities abroad, of whom Tredyakovsky and Lomonosov are the most prominent examples). Their impact was consequently making itself felt in the realm of ideas rather than that of material things, and although it was confined to a very small group of people, these were the people whose influence was far in excess of their number. It was fortunate, if possibly fortuitous, coincidence that the type of the court favourite in Elizabeth’s reign was considerably superior in most respects, not least intellectually, to that in the regimes immediately preceding.

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References

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  9. In 1755 the Academy of Sciences began to publish the first Russian semi-popular scientific and literary magazine Yezhemesyachnye sochineniya (Monthly Essays); from 1756 Moskovskiye Vedomosti (Moscow News) began to be published at the newly established University of Moscow press; in 1759 Prazdnoye vremya v pol’zu upotreblyonnoye (Leisure Usefully Employed), published at the Army Cadet Corps and Trudolyubivaya pchela (The Industrious Bee) edited by Sumarokov and printed at the Academy of Sciences, appeared at St. Petersburg.

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  31. Pekarsky, Redaktor, sotrudniki, etc., (The Editor of the Contributors to, etc.), p. 4. 33 Ibid., p. 5.

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  32. Ibid., p. 42.

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  33. Ibid., p. 44. This refers to Bernard de Fontenelle’s work Entretiens sur la Pluralité des Mondes.

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  34. Ibid., p. 47. Cf. also USSR Academy of Sciences, M.V. Lomonosov — Polnoye sobraniye sochineniy (Complete Collection of Works), X., M.-L., 1957, pp. 141ff.

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  35. Pekarsky, op. cit., pp. 51–52. For an account in English of the “historical” controversies within the Academy at the time see H. Rogger, National Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Russia, Harvard U.P., 1960, chapter “The Uses of History”.

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  36. Ya. Grot, Pis’ma Lomonosova i Sumarokova k I. I. Shuvalovu, (Letters by Lomono-sov and Sumarokov to I. I. Shuvalov), (Supp. to Vol. I of Zapiski Imp. Akademii Nauk, (Records of the Imp. Academy of Sciences), No. 1), St. P., 1862, p. 18.

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  37. Letter from Taubert to Popov dated 7 January 1759, Arkhiv Akademii Nauk SSSR, (Archives of the USSR Academy of Sciences), No. 239, Fol. 33, quoted by D. D. Shamray and P. N. Berkov in “K tsenzurnoy istorii “ “Trudolyubivoy pchely” ” A. P. Sumarokova” (A Contribution to the History of Censorship of A. P. Sumarokov’s The Industrious Bee), XVIII Vek, Sb. 5, M.-L., 1962, p. 400. The authors of this article use the quoted instruction to Popov as a premise for the assertion that the “censorship” exercised by the Academy was intended to deal with both the “ideological” and “formal” aspects of a written work. In this they overlook Sumarokov’s letter applying for the use of the Academy’s printing facilities from which I have just quoted. Since the distinction between the contents and the form of items to be published was first made by Sumarokov himself, Taubert’s letter clearly amounts simply to an acceptance of his terms and cannot serve as a basis for a theory of principles of censorship as conceived by the Academy authorities. Berkov and Shamray also maintain a discreet silence around the rather unsavoury part played by Lomonosov in the “censorship” of the Bee and in its demise, producing instead the hypothesis that it may have been suppressed as a result of Sumarokov’s article in praise of Peter the Great (see below).

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  41. Anton Alexeyevich Barsov (1730–1791) studied at the Academy of Sciences under Lomonosov and Tredyakovsky. Transferred to Moscow University upon its opening in 1755, appointed Ordinary Professor of Rhetorics in 1761 in which post he remained until his death.

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  42. Cf. Dokumenty i materialy …, (Documents and Source Materials …), N. A. Penchko, ed. I, passim.

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  43. For example, an announcement which appeared in St. Petersburg Vedomosti in 1761 offered financial inducement to those who had in their possession books already translated and invited them to bring such books to the Academy for publication; it also offered a choice of books in foreign languages available at the Academy bookshop free of charge to potential translators. (Solov’yov, XXVI, p. 574).

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  47. By the Manifesto of 21 February 1762. (P.S.Z., XV, No. 11, 445). It prescribed corporal punishment, without investigation, for those invoking slovo i delo.

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  50. The Council of State established at the outbreak of the first Turkish war, in November 1768, was, for the remaining part of Catherine’s reign, concerned almost exclusively with foreign affais, but it can be considered covered by this definition since its members were recruited from precisely this circle of immediate advisors.

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  51. The following quotation taken from the draft of her letter to Voltaire, written in 1765, may serve as an illustration: “Je dois rendre justice a la nation; c’est un excellent terrain, sur lequel unne bonne graine prend bien vite; mais aussi il nous faut des axiomes incontestablement reconnus pour vrais.” (Sbornik Russkogo (later Imperatorskogo Russ kogo) Istoricheskogo Obschestva (The Collection of the Imperial Russian Historical Society), henceforth Sb. R.I.O., X, p. 35).

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  52. This offer was made on Catherine’s behalf to Didérot by I. I. Shuvalov, via Voltaire. The latter wrote in this connection (to Didérot, on 25 September N.S., 1762): “… in what times do we live? France persecutes philosophers while the Scythians offer them protection.” (M. F. Shugurov, “Didro i ego othosheniya k Yekaterine II” (Didérot and his Relations with Catherine II), in Osmnadtsatyi Vek, (The Eighteenth Century), ed. by P. Bartenev, M., 1868, p. 261). The Encyclopaedia was to be published at Riga.

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  53. Among those was Sheshkovsky, later to acquire renown as the investigator of Ra dishchev and Novikov.

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  57. Letter dated at St. Petersburg, 29 June/10 July 1766. (Sb. R.I.O., X, St. P., 1872, p. 94).

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  58. It was suppressed in Paris and the author confined to the Bastille, albeit for a short period.

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  64. For example, in 1757, during the Seven Years War, Elizabeth issued an edict ordering the immediate cessation of “discussions and arguments on various political matters”. (P.S.Z., XIV, No. 10,733).

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  66. It was reproduced by Bartenev in Vosmnadtsatyi Vek, (The Eighteenth Century), Book 3, p. 392.

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  70. This advice was not to be followed until 1796.

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  73. Cf. D. Shamray, “Iz istorii tsenzurnogo rezhima Yekateriny II” (From the History of Catherine II’s Censorship), XVIII vek, Sb. 3, M.-L., 1958, p. 188.

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  75. E.g. Shamray, op. cit., p. 191. For the actual wording of the original and the correction see Sb. R.I.O., X, p. 274.

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  76. Cf. S.R.I.O., XIII, p. 13 for Catherine’s note to I. P. Yelagin who, between 1766 and 1779 held the Post of the Director of Public Spectacles — assuring him that there are no objections to the performance of the comedy, and Semennikov, op. cit., pp. 96ff. for other details of this incident.

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  77. Sb. R.I.O., VII, pp. 292-3. Saltykov’s report which is dated 17 November 1764, contains the following characteristic sentence: “The licence amongst these young men has now reached the point where, if allowed to go unpunished, they may well start writing about other things [as well].”

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  78. Saltykov then headed the Department V of the Senate in Moscow. (From 1763 the Senate was divided into six Departments, four of which were located in St. Petersburg and two in Moscow).

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  79. P.S.Z., XVII, No. 12,313. That the authors of the Catalogue had no fear of any serious consequences, despite Saltykov’s attitude, is evident from the fact that, as we learn from Poroshin’s diary, Count Alexander Stroganov openly admitted its authorship a few months later, in the presence of the young Crown Prince Paul and several members of the latter’s entourage. (Poroshin, p. 146).

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  80. Its text was published by T. A. Martemyanov in “Iz istorii tsenzury russkoy narodnoy pesni” (To the history of the Censorship of Russian folk song), Istoricheskiy Vestnik, (The Historical Messenger), XCVIII, St. P., 1904, p. 685.

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  81. G. Macartney, An Account of Russia 1767, London, 1768, p. 90.

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  82. Ibid., p. 35.

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  83. Ibid., p. 228.

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  84. Sb. R.I.O., CXLI, p. 84.

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  85. August Ludwig Schloezer’s öffentliches und privat-Leben von ihm selbst beschrieben, Erstes Fragment, Goettingen, 1802, pp. 300f.

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  86. A. I. Khodnev, Istoriya Imperatorskogo Vol’nogo Ekonomicheskogo Obschestva s 1765 do 1865 goda, (History of the Imperial Free Economic Society from 1765 to 1865), St. P., 1865, p. 4.

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  87. Ibid., p. 34.

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  88. This was originally published three times a year in 1200 copies. From the following year (1766) the number of copies published was doubled. The rate of three issues a year was maintained until 1775, thirty volumes having appeared in all. The publication then ceased for some years. It was resumed in 1779 under the title Continuation of the Works, etc. and was published until 1794, inclusive, at the rate of one to two issues a year. In 1795 the title was changed to New Continuation … of which only three issues appeared: in 1795, 1796, and 1798.

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  89. Macartney is writing about this competition in his Account of Russia 1767 refers to the Free Economic Society as the “Society of Free Inquiry”.

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  90. For the full text of this essay see Chteniya v Imp. Obshchestve Istorii i Drevnostey Rossiyskikh, (Lectures at the Imp. Society of Russian History and Antiquities), M., 1862, Book 2. Five other essays were awarded secondary prizes, among them one by a Russian, Polenov. (Cf. also Istoriya Akademii Nauk SSSR, I, p. 405).

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  91. By twelve votes to three, the latter being those of the German members of the Academy of Sciences (The Eulers — father and son, and, probably, Taubert) who obviously had no personal involvement in the matter.

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  92. Such as Roman Vorontsov, Sivers, brothers Chernyshov, Mellisino, and Teplov who voted in favour of translation.

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  93. Khodnev, pp. 23ff. Cf. also USSR Academy of Sciences, Istorlya russkoy literatury, (History of Russian Literature), IV, Part 2, M.-L., 1947, p. 17.

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  94. 105 titles per year as opposed to 30. (Russkaya kniga ot nachala pis’mennosti do 1800 goda, (Books in Russia from the Earliest Writings to 1800), ed. by V. Adaryukov and A. Sidorov, M., 1924, table on p. 346). P. Milyukov in Ocherki po istorii russkoy kul’tury (Studies in the History of Russian Culture), III, Paris, 1930, p. 396, quotes the figures: 105 titles per year for 1761–1770 and 23 per year for 1751–1760.

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  95. Zhizn’ i priklyucheniya Andreya Bolotova, Russkaya Starina, (The Life and Adventures of Andrey Bolotov, The Russian Past), III, St. P., 1871, p. 298.

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  96. Vorontsov Archives, XVI, M., 1880, p. 96.

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  97. These were: Svobodnyye chasy, (Leisure Hours) — 1763, Sobraniye luchshikh sochi neniy, (Collection of the Best Works), — 1762, Nevinnoye uprazhneniye, (Innocent Pastime), — 1763, and Dobroye namereniye, (Good Intention), — 1764. All were published in Moscow.

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© 1971 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands

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Papmehl, K.A. (1971). Erosion of Old Attitudes. In: Freedom of Expression in Eighteenth Century Russia. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9101-2_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9101-2_2

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-011-8397-0

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