12 - Martyrdom and meditation (1791–1818)

Summary

Forgive me this my virtue

For in the fatness of these pursy times

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,

Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good …

quoted by Aleksey Kutuzov

Arrest and imprisonment

In the November number of Moscow Journal, in 1791, Novikov's protégé Karamzin noted that his periodical would have had fewer failings ‘if the year 1791 for me had not been so gloomy’. Apart from the unexpected coolness of his masonic brothers to his literary enterprise, there would have been other reasons for his personal despondency. One must have been the disintegration of the Typographical Company, the commercial alter ego of the Moscow freemasons, to whom Karamzin owed so much: in the November in which the latter noted his gloom, the company was formally wound up. Earlier in the year the brotherhood was affected by personal sorrow: Alexandra Yegorovna, the Trubetskoys' niece and Novikov's wife, lay dying of consumption, and Novikov was widowed in April. Personal grief, the possible distraction from business affairs, the growing interference from the Moscow authorities might all have contributed to the failure of the Typographical Company. Also, as we have seen, Novikov's energy was already committed in another direction. Once more he had translated the ideas of enlightenment promulgated in his publications into practice: this time into practical philanthropy on a large scale at his estate.