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The Reforming Tsar: The Redefinition of Autocratic Duty in Eighteenth-Century Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Cynthia H. Whittaker
Cynthia H. Whittaker*
Affiliation:
Baruch College and the Graduate School of the City University of New York
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Extract

Don't lead the people to expect miracles. It is necessary to expunge from people's minds a belief in the "good tsar," in the assumption that someone at the top will impose order and organize change

–Mikhail Gorbachev, 1988

The idea of the "good tsar" originated in Muscovite times and obviously has since become a commonplace of Russian political culture. However, Gorbachev's statement does not really define a "good tsar" but what should instead be called a "reforming tsar," a term that more aptly characterizes the changed expectations of a ruler in the Imperial period of Russian history

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Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 51 , Issue 1 , Spring 1992 , pp. 77 - 98
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1992

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References

1. Gorbachev's impromptu remark was made while addressing a meeting of Soviet editors; he is quoted in Philip Taubman, “A Soviet Paradox,” The New York Times, 3 October 1988. The opportunity to examine primary sources for this article and for a forthcoming book on the autocratic principle in eighteenth-century Russia was afforded by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Fulbright-Hays Program, the City University of New York and the Rockefeller Foundation's Bellagio Study Center.

2. The term “negative” government is used in Raeff, Marc, The Well-Ordered Police State: Social and Institutional Change through Law in the Germanies and Russia, 1600-1800 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1983), 187.Google Scholar

3. But see: Cracraft, James, “Empire Versus Nation: Russian Political Theory under Peter I,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 10, no. 3-4 (1986): 524–41Google Scholar; and E.V. Anisimov's comments, “Russia in Search of New National Ethos,” Meeting Report: Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies 8, no. 16 (lecture of 14 May 1991, as reported by P. McInerny).

4. Richard Wortman made this point at a conference on monarchies at Columbia University (27 October 1990) in a paper, “The Romanovs: A Post-Glasnost Perspective. “

5. Consult W. Bruce Lincoln, The Great Reforms: Autocracy, Bureaucracy, and the Politics of Change in Imperial Russia (De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1990): 3-35.

6. For a cogent discussion, see Klaus Epstein, The Genesis of German Conservatism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1966), 3-25.

7. Consult, for instance: Nicholas Riasanovsky, V., The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985 Google Scholar; or the classic by Shmurlo, E. F., Petr Velikii v otsenke sovremennihov i potomstva (St. Petersburg, 1912)Google Scholar.

8. Karen Rasmussen, “Catherine II and the Image of Peter I,” Slavic Review 37, no. 1 (1978): 57-69.

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11. This paper will not discuss the English monarchical tradition as it differs somarkedly from the development of the monarchical idea in continental Europe. Amongthe many monographs that analyze continental monarchy, one may cite: Figgis, John N., Studies of Political Thought from Gerson to Grotius: 1414-1625 (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1907 Google Scholar; Sabine, George H., A History of Political Theory (New York: HenryHolt, 1937 Google Scholar; Nicolson, Harold, Monarchy (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962 Google Scholar; Parker, David, The Making of French Absolutism (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983)Google Scholar; and Simon, Patrick, Le Mythe royal (Lille: Atelier national, Réproduction des thèses, Uni versite Lille III, 1987)Google Scholar.

12. The phrase is from Leonard Krieger, Kings and Philosophers, 1689-1789 (New York: W.W. Norton, 1970), 1.

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15. Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne, Politique tirée des propres paroles de I'ecriture sainte (1678; reprint, Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1967), 65 Google Scholar; Figgis, , The Divine Right of Kings (1896;Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965) remains a standard work on the concept.Google Scholar

16. Consult, for example: Ogg, David, Louis XIV (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1967 Google Scholar; Wolf, John B., Louis XIV (New York: Norton, 1968 Google Scholar; Rule, John C., ed., Louis XIV and the Craft of Kingship (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1969 Google Scholar; Krieger, Leonard, The Politics of Discretion: Pufendorf and the Acceptance of Natural Law (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965 Google Scholar; Clark, George N., The Seventeenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1929), 124ff.Google Scholar

17. Gooch, G. P., “The Legacy of Louis XIV,” in Louis XIV, ed. Wolf, John B. (New York: Norton, 1972), 169–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fénelon, F., Les Avantures de Télémaque (Amsterdam, 1725)Google Scholar. Also see the study by Rothkrug, Lionel, Opposition to Louis XIV: The Political and Social Origins of the French Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. This concept also affected historiography: Venturi, Franco, “History and Reform in the Middle of the Eighteenth Century,” in The Diversity of History: Essays in Honor of Sir Herbert Butterfield, ed. Elliott, John H. and Koenigsberger, Helmut G., (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1970), 223–44.Google Scholar

18. On the Muscovite image of the tsar: Daniel B. Rowland, “Did Muscovite Literary Ideology Place Limits on the Power of the Tsar (1540s-1660s)?” The Russian Review 49, no. 2 (1990): 125-55; Douglas J. Bennetjr., “The Idea of Kingship in 17th Century Russia” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 1967).

19. Polnoe sobranie zakonov, II, 905 (12 January 1682), 368-79, hereafter PSZ. Ashort introduction to the concept of autocracy in the seventeenth century may be found in the first chapters of A. Liutsh's “Russkii absoliutizm XVIII veka,” in Itogi XVIII veka v Rossii (Moscow, 1910) and in M.M. Bogoslovskii, Iz istorii verhhovnoi vlasti v Rossii (N.-Novgorod, 1905), 35pp. Marc RaefF describes Muscovite readiness for reform in Understanding Imperial Russia, trans. A. Goldhammer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), 1-33.

20. “Privilegii na Akademiiu,” Drevniaia rossiiskaia vivliofika 6 (Moscow, 1788): 390-420; this also includes similar attitudes found in a speech in honor of Sofiia Alekseevna (regent, 1682-1689) in 1685 by the scholar Sylvester Medvedev. The last phrase is used in Michael Cherniavskii, Tsar and People: Studies in Russian Myths (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1961), 63.

21. Frederick II: “An Essay on Forms of Government,” Posthumous Works 5 (London, 1789), 5-33; The Refutation of Machiavelli's Prince or Anti-Machiavel, trans. Paul J Sonnino (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1981), 34. ;

22. For Peter's ideas on monarchy: V.O. Kliuchevskii, Peter the Great, trans. Liliana j Archibald (New York: Vintage Books, 1961); B.I. Syromiatnikov, “Reguliarnoe “gosudar- I stvo Petra Pervogo i ego ideologiia (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1943); N.I. Pavlenko, “Petr I (K izucheniiu sotsial'no-politicheskikh vzgliadov),” in Rossiia v period reform Petra I, ed. N.I. Pavlenko (Moscow: Nauka, 1973), 40-102. Also pertinent: Ernst i Winter, “Josefinismus und Petrinismus. Zur vergleichenden Geschichte der osterreischen und russischen Aufklarung,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 16, no. 3-4 (1982): 357-68.

23. Voltaire, Russia Under Peter the Great, trans. M.F.O. Jenkins (Rutherford: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1983), 65 and 251.

24. On this reign, consult Lindsey Hughes: Russia and the West: The Life of a Seventeenth-Century Westernizer Prince Vasily Vasil'evich Golitsyn (1643-1714) (Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners, 1984); Sophia, Regent of Russia, 1657-1704 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990).

25. On this topic, consult: Marc Szeftel, “La Monarchic absolue dans l'etat moscovite et l'empire russe,” Russian Institutions and Culture up to Peter the Great (London: Variorum Reprints, 1975), 726-57.

26. PSZ: vol. 3, no. 1611 (22 December 1697), 413; vol. 6, no. 3893 (5 February 1722), 496.

27. L.N. Maikov, Rasskazy Nartova o Petre Velikom (St. Petersburg, 1891), 53 (c. 1701). Earlier, Feodor decreed that petitioners should cease asking him for mercy in words that were similar to prayers, as though he were God: PSZ, vol. 2 (8 June 1680).

28. F. Prokopovich, Slova i rechi (St. Petersburg, 1760), 1: 7-8.

29. “Manifest o vyzove inostrantsev v Rossii,” Pis'ma i bumagi Imperatora Petra Velikogo (St. Petersburg, 1887-1912), vol. 2, no. 421 (16 April 1702), 41; F.B. Berkgol'ts, Dnevnik vedennyi s 1721-1725 g. (Moscow, 1858), 2: 83-85 (6 February 1722); and Maikov, Rasskazy, 101-3 (c. 1718); S.M. Solov'ev, Istoriia Rossii, IX (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo sotsial'no-ekonomicheskoi literatury, 1963), 141-42.

30. Pis'ma i bumagi, vol. 9, no. 3251 (27 June 1709).

31. PSZ, vol. 6, no. 3893 (5 February 1722), 496; N.A. Voskresenskii, Zakonodatel'nye akty Petra I (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1945), 164-69, reprints Peter's manifesto (3 February 1718) denying his son Aleksei the throne because of his hostility to his father's reforms.

32. Indeed, two of the most popular books in the century emphasized dynastic legitimacy: Mankiev, A. I., Iadro rossiiskoi istorii (Moscow, 1770)Google Scholar; Lomonosov, M. V., “Kratkii rossiiskii letopisets s rodosloviem,” in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1952), 6: 291–358 Google Scholar. On edenic qualities, see Stephen L. Baehr's second chapter of his The Paradise Myth in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press, forthcoming); on sacral qualities, consult Zhivov, V. M. and Uspenskii, B. A., “Tsar’ i bog. Semioticheskie aspekty sakralizatsii monarkha v Rossii,” in Iazyki kul'tury i problemy perevodimosti, ed. B.A. Uspenskii (Moscow: Nauka, 1987), 47–153.Google Scholar

33. Here, I disagree with one of Cherniavsky's conclusions, namely that Peter's secularization resulted in a vision of a sovereign emperor where only “power sanctified power” since Peter provided reform as sanctification: Tsar, 89, 99 passim. For the bestexposition of Peter's views: F. Prokopovich, “Pravda voli monarshei,” as reprinted in PSZ, vol. 7, no. 4870 (21 April 1726).

34. Nevertheless, M.A. Reisner, in his “Obshchestvennoe blago i absoliutnoe gosudarstvo,” Vestnik prava (1902): 1-128, sees the notion of the common good alone as justifying the autocracy.

35. PSZ: vol. 6, no. 3718 (25 January 1721), 314; no. 3534 (28 February 1720), 111; no. 3708 (16January 1721); I. Golikov, DeianiiaPetra Vęlikago, mudrago preobrazitelia Rossii 8 (Moscow, 1796): 10.

36. As quoted in N. Pavlov-Sil'vanskii, Proekty reform v zapiskakh sovremennikov Petra Velikago (St. Petersburg, 1897), 84–87 Google Scholar; also see Pososhkov, Ivan, The Book of Poverty and Wealth, ed. and trans. A.P. Vlasto and L.R. Lewitter (London: Athlone Press, 1987 Google Scholar.

37. Kliuchevskii, V. O., “Petr Velikii sredi svoikh sotrudnikov,” Ocherki i rechi (Moscow, n.d.), 471–514 Google Scholar, quotations, 506-9; la. Shtelin, , Liubopytnyia i dostopamiatnyia skazaniia ob Imp. Petre Velikom (St. Petersburg, 1786), 121, 368Google Scholar; Golikova, N. B., Politidteskie protsessy pri Petre I (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1957)Google Scholar; Cracraft, James, “Opposition to Peter the Great,” in Imperial Russia, 1700-1917, ed. Ezra Mendelsohn and Marshall S. Shatz (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1988), 29–36.Google Scholar

38. On this issue, consult the classic, Filippov, A. N., htoriia senata v pravlenii verkhovnago tainago soveta i kabineta (Iur'ev, 1895)Google Scholar and its rebuttal by Alekseev, A. S., “Legenda ob oligarkhicheskykh tendentsiiakh verkhovnago tainago soveta v tsarstvovanii Ekateriny I,” Russkoe obozrenie, no. 1 (1896): 76-129; no. 2 (1896): 755–75Google Scholar; also see William Slany, “Russian Central Governmental Institutions, 1725-1741,” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1958), vol. 1, 37-55.

39. PSZ, vol. 8, no. 5070 (7 May 1727), 788.

40. PSZ, vol. 7, no. 5004 (30 January 1727), 731.

41. On the Council's negative attitude toward Peter's reforms and Catherine's respect for them, see: N.P. Pavlov-Sil'vanskii, “Mneniia verkhovnikov reformakh Petra Velikogo,” in Sochineniia, vol. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1910): 373-401.

42. “Ukaz Ekateriny I,” in Istoricheskie bumagi sobrannyia K.I. Arsen'evym, Sbornik otdeleniia russkago iazyka i slovesnosti Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk, ed. P. Pekarskii, vol. 9 (St. Petersburg, 1872): 85-86, 98.

43. As quoted in Detstvo, vospitanie i leta iunosti russkikh imperatorov (St. Petersburg, 1914), 24-25.

44. The “Events of 1730” have spawned a large literature, and interpretations are raucously divided; one might sample: Korsakov, D. A., Votsarenie imperatritsy Anny loannovny (Kazan, 1880)Google Scholar; Miliukov, P. N., “Verkhovniki i shliakhetstvo” in h istorii russkoi intelligentsii(St. Petersburg, 1903), 1–51 Google Scholar; Recke, Walter, “Die Verfassungsplane der russischen oligarchen im Jahre 1730 und die Thronbesteigung der Kaiserin Anna Ivanovna,” Zeitschrift für Osteuropaische Geschichte (1911): 11-203Google Scholar; Protasov, G. A., “Dvorianskie proekty 1730 goda,” htochnikovedcheskie raboty 2 (1971): 61–102 Google Scholar; Ransel, David L., “The Government Crisis of 1730,” in Reform in Russia and the U.S.S.R., ed. Robert O. Crummey (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 45–71 Google Scholar; Yanov, Alexander, “The Drama of the Time of Troubles, 1725-1730,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 12, no. 1 (1978): 1–5Google Scholar9; Madariaga, Isabel de, “Portrait of an Eighteenth-Century Russian Statesman: Prince Dmitry Mikhaylovich Golitsyn,” Slavonic and East European Review 62, no. 1 (1984): 36–60.Google Scholar

45. For this legislation see: Korsakov, Votsarenie, 298-303; S.M. Soloviev, History of Russia, vol. 34, trans. Walter J. Gleasonjr. (Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press, 1984), 28-54; and vol. 8 of the PSZ, passim.

46. Riasanovsky, Image, 25.

47. N.V. Golitsyn, “Feofan Prokopovich i votsarenie Imp. Anny Ioannovny,” Vestnik Evropy 4 (1907): 519-43.

48. F. Prokopovich, “Slovo v den’ vospominaniia koronatsii Anny Ioannovny (28 April 1734),” Slova i rechi (St. Petersburg, 1760), 211-12.

49. Chistovich, LA, “Uchenyi kruzhok Feofana Prokopovicha,” in A.D. Kantemir, ego zhizn1 i sochineniia, ed. V. Pokrovskii (Moscow, 1910), 17–49 Google Scholar; P.P. Epifanov, ‘ “Uchenaia druzhina’ i prosvetitel'stvo XVIII veka,” Voprosy istorii 3 (1963): 37–53 Google Scholar; Tatishchev, V. N., Razgovor o pol'ze nauk i uchilishch (1733), (Moscow, 1887), 138.Google Scholar

50. For interpretations of this phenomenon: Cherniavsky, Tsar, passim; Chistov, K. V., Russkie narodnye sotsial'no-utopicheskie legendy XVIIXIX w. (Moscow: Nauka, 1967 Google Scholar; Field, Daniel, Rebels in the Name of the Tsar (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 1–26 Google Scholar; Perrie, Maureen, The Image of Ivan the Terrible in Russian Folklore (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987 Google Scholar; Sokolova, V. K., Russkie istoricheskie predaniia (Moscow: Nauka, 1970 Google Scholar.

51. Firsov, N., Pugachevshchina (St. Petersburg, 1909), 50-67, 113–30Google Scholar; Raeff, Marc, “Pugachev's Rebellion,” in Preconditions of Revolution in Early Modern Europe, ed. Robert Forster and Jack P. Greene, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1970), 161–202.Google Scholar

52. The quotations are from: Petr Velikii v anekdotakh (St. Petersburg, 1901), 192-246; Alefirenko, P. K., Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie i krest'ianskii vopros v Rossii v 30-50kh godakh XVIII veka (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1958), 292–325 Google Scholar; and Luzhin, N. P., “Dva pamfleta vremen Anny Ioannovny,” hvestiia Imperatorskoi Akademii nauk po otd. russkago iazyka i slovesnosti 8, no. 1 (1858): 49–64.Google Scholar

53. Christoph H. von Manstein, Contemporary Memoirs of Russia from the Year 1727 to 1744 (London: F.Cass, 1968), 327Google Scholar; “Proekt grafa I.A. [sic] Ostermana o privedenii v blagosostoianie Rossii,” Arkhiv kniazia Vorontsova, vol. 24 (Moscow, 1880): 10-11; PSZ, vol. 11, no. 8262 (23 October 1740), 277.

54. This is one of many interesting themes in Rasmussen, “Catherine II and Peter I: The Idea of a Just Monarch. The Evolution of an Attitude in Catherinian Russia” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1973).

55. Weber, Theory, 328.

56. For a point by point analysis of Elizabeth's continuation of her father's policies, see: E.V. Anisimov, Rossiia v seredine XVIII veka: Bor'ba za nasledie Petra (Moscow: Mysl', 1986).

57. Trediakovskii, V. K., Panegirik … Anne Ioannmme (St. Petersburg, 1732)Google Scholar; Lomonosov, M. V., Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. 8 (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 1959): 55 (1742)Google Scholar; Sumarokov, A. P., Polnoe sobranie vsekh sochinenii, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1781): 29 (1761) and 40 (1762)Google Scholar; Maikov, V. I., Izbrannye proizvedeniia (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1966), 198 (1767)Google Scholar.

58. V.K. Trediakovskii, Stikhotvoreniia (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1935), 135-40 (1742)Google Scholar; G. Kuz'menskii, Pokhval'naia rech’ Petru Velikomu (St. Petersburg, 1744), 33 (22 August 1744).Google Scholar

59. The various problems connected with the Russian Enlightenment, for instance the differentiation between German and French influence, are outside the scope of this essay; the reader is referred to David M. Griffiths’ overview, “In Search of Enlightenment: Recent Soviet Interpretations of Eighteenth-Century Russian Intellectual History,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 16, no. 3-4 (1982): 317-356.

60. A.D. Kantemir, “Elizavete pervoi,” Satiry i drugiia stikhotvorcheskiia sochineniia (St. Petersburg, 1762), stanzas 65-73; A.P. Sumarokov, “Slovo (22 September 1763),” PSS, vol. 9: 229-38.

61. Lomonosov wrote twenty jubilee odes and speeches to monarchs from 1739 to 1764 on the occasion of the birth of an heir, accession to the throne, coronations and namedays; they are reproduced in Ody i pokhval'nyia slova Lomonosova (Moscow, 1837). The best expressions of his overall attitude were his hymns of praise to Elizabeth (1749) and Peter the Great (1755).

62. Lomonosov, op. civ. “Slovo (1749),” 200, 217; “Oda (1747),” 93-102; “Oda (J762),” 164-173. “Ukaz ob uchrezhdenii v Moskve universiteta i dvukh gimnazii,” Ezhemesiachnyia sochineniia 1 (February 1755): 98-104.

63. As quoted in A.A. Kizevetter, “Portrait of an Enlightened Autocrat,” in Catherine the Great, ed. Marc Raeff (New York: Hill and Wang, 1972), 16.

64. On Catherine, in general, consult the encyclopedic Isabel de Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981), where the phrase “reforming zeal” is often used.

65. Lomonosov, “Oda (28 June 1762),” Ody: 180; Lomonosov, though, rarely addressed legal aspects of monarchical rule: Gleason, “The Two Faces of the Monarch: Legal and Mythical Fictions in Lomonosov's Ruler Imagery,” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 16 (1982): 388-409.

66. Leonard Krieger provides a brilliant overview of the topic in An Essay on the Theory of Enlightened Despotism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975).

67. Catherine's manifesto may be found in V.A. Bil'basov, Istoriia Ekateriny II, vol. 2 (Berlin, 1900): 83-87.

68. Consult Rasmussen, “Catherine II,” 54; Ransel, The Politics of Catherinian Russia: The Panin Party (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975) also provides a description of Catherine's and her advisors’ complex attitudes toward Peter I.

69. Velikii, Petr, Tetradi zapisnyia … 1704-1706 (St. Petersburg, 1774), 1–4 Google Scholar; Kostrov, E. I., “Oda (1780),” Poety XVIII veka, vol. 2 (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1972): 139Google Scholar; “Razmyshlenie uedinennago potekhontsa,” Ezhemesiachnoe sochinenie (1786): 3-6.

70. V.K. Trediakovskii, “Tilemakhida,” Sochineniia, vol. 2 (St. Petersburg, 1849): 133.

71. S.E. Desnitskii, “Predstavlenie ob uchrezhdenii zakonodatel'noi, suditel'noi inakazatel'noi vlasti v Rossiiskoi imperii (1768),” Zapiski Imp. Akademii nauk 7, no. 4(1905): 22.

72. M.M. Kheraskov: Numa Pompilii (Moscow, 1768), passim; Rossiada: Istoricheskaia poema(Moscow, 1779), 172-73.

73. A.P. Sumarokov: “Oda (1762),” PSS, vol. 6 (Moscow, 1787): 37-38, 43; “Slova (1762),” PSS, vol. 6 (Moscow, 1787-): 229-38; “Dmitrii Samozvanets (1771),” PSS, vol. 4 (Moscow, 1787): 73.

74. D. Fonvizin: “A Discourse on Permanent Laws of State,” in Russian Intellectual History: An Anthology, ed. Marc Raeff (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1988), 96–104 Google Scholar; “Slovo pokhval'noe Marku Avreliiu,” Sobranie sochinenii (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1959), 212-13; Kulakova, L. I., Denis Ivanovich Fonvizin (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1966), 105–6Google Scholar; on the Panins, see Ransel, Politics, 266-74.

75. Kapnist, V. V., “Ody,” Sobranie sochinenii, vol. 1 (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1960): 89, 101Google Scholar; la. Kniazhnin, B, “Vadim Novgorodskii,” Izbrannye proizvedeniia (Leningrad: Sovetskii pisatel', 1961), 298.Google Scholar

76. Opinions remain divided on the reign of Paul I. A.G. Brikner, Kaiser Pauls I Ende, 1801 (Stuttgart, 1897)Google Scholar, considers him a deranged despot while Shumigorskii, E. S., Imperator Pavel I: Zhizn’ i tsarstvovanie (St. Petersburg, 1907)Google Scholar considers him a progressive reformer with character defects that wrecked his policies.

77. Radishchev, A. N., “Pis'mo k drugu,” Izbrannye filosofskie i obshchestvenno-politicheskieproizvedeniia (Moscow: Goslitizdat, 1952), 218–19Google Scholar; McConnell, “The Autocrat and the Open Critic,” in Raeff, Catherine, 177. On the turn of the century: Minaeva, N. V., Pravitel'stvennyi konstitutsionalizm i peredovoe obshchestvennoe mnenie Rossii v nachale XIX veka(Saratov: Izdatel'stvo Saratovskogo universiteta), 34–41 Google Scholar; Safonov, M. M., Problema reform v pravitel'stvennoi politike Rossii na rubezhe XVIII i XIX w. (Leningrad: Nauka, 1988.Google Scholar

78. On the nobility as a constraining force on the autocracy, please see: Mironenko, S. V., Samoderzhavie i reformy: Politicheshaia bor'ba v Rossii v nachale XIX v. (Moscow: Nauka, 1989 Google Scholar; LeDonne, John P., Absolutism and Ruling Class: The Formation of the Russian Political Order, 1700-1825 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991 Google Scholar.

79. Riasanovsky, Nicholas V., A Parting of Ways: Government and the Educated Public in Russia, 1801-1825 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976 Google Scholar; Raeff, , Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia: The Eighteenth-Century Nobility (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1966)Google Scholar.

80. Cherniavsky, Tsar, 95.

81. As quoted from M.N. Pokrovskii's Tsarizm i revoliutsiia (Moscow, 1918), 46 in Field, Rebels, 13. An article by D.K. Shipler in The New Yorker (25 June 1990) is relevant. He reported on the March 1990 meeting of the Congress of People's Deputies and observed the various deputies addressing President Gorbachev: “Their arguments were curious. Each one seemed to see what he wished to see in the leader. There were the Westernizers, the economic reformers, the military men, the nationalists from various republics, and the tough-minded law-and-order advocates, each with his own agenda, which he somehow imagined Gorbachev pursuing as President. “

82. Robert C. Tucker: Political Culture and Leadership in Soviet Russia (New York: Norton, 1987), 19-26; and Stalin as Revolutionary: 1879-1929 (New York: Norton, 1973), 1-17.

83. Karaulov is quoted by David Remnick in “Changes in Moscow,” The Washington Post (20 February 1990). The play, “Pavel I,” while written in 1908 by D.S. Merezhkovskii, projects two themes prominent at the end of the eighteenth century, the fear of tyranny in the person of Paul I and the hope for a constitutional monarch in the person of his successor, Alexander I; the drama was staged in 1989-1990 at the Red Army Theatre in Moscow.