4 - Imperial patronage (1770–3)

Summary

The greatest modern Criticks have laid it down as a Rule, That an heroick Poem should be founded upon some important Precept of Morality, adapted to the Constitution of the Country in which the Poet writes.

The Spectator

A new posting: the College of Foreign Affairs

With the end of the Tattler, the trifling had, for the meantime, to stop; Novikov re-entered state service as a translator in the College of Foreign Affairs. This did not mean, however, that he had abandoned literary life, for in November 1770 he applied to the Academy of Sciences for permission to print a translation of Voltaire's Sur la guerre des Russes contre les Turcs which appeared in the following year. Although the translation was anonymous, it is possible that Novikov himself was the translator. That he did translate from the French at this time seems to be proven by a recently discovered document noting the receipt for publication in 1772 of his abridged translation of Variétés d'un philosophe provincial, par mr. Ch … le jeun. While dispelling the legend of his ignorance of foreign languages, this choice of an anti-Voltairean work for translation also corrects the view of Novikov as a constant, resolute supporter of the radical Enlightenment. But his work in the College of Foreign Affairs was no doubt only nominally that of translator. During the next two years he was to set about collecting the material which was eventually published as his Ancient Russian Library and Essay at an Historical Dictionary of Russian Writers.