by Riazanovsky
three schools: law, medicine, and philosophy. The school of philosophy included both the humanities and sciences, much as reflected in the range of the present-day degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The University of Moscow started with ten professors and some assistants to the professors; of the ten, two were Russians, a mathematician and a rhetorician. In a decade the number of professors about doubled, with Russians constituting approximately half of the total. Originally instruction took place in Latin; but in 1767 Russian began to be used in the university. In 1756 the university started to publish a newspaper, the Moskovskie Vedomosti or Moscow News. Higher education in Russia, both at the Academy and in the University of Moscow, had a slow and hard beginning, with few qualified students and in general little interest or support. Indeed at one time professors attended one another's lectures! Still, in this field, as in so many others, the eighteenth century bequeathed to its successor the indispensable foundations for further development.
Catherine the Great's reign, or roughly the last third of the century, witnessed a remarkable growth and intensification of Russian cultural life. For instance, we know of 600 different books published in Russia in the reign of Peter the Great, of 2,000 produced between 1725 and 1775, and of 7,500 which came out in the period from 1775 to 1800. Catherine the Great's edict of 1783, licensing private publishing houses, contributed to the trend. The rise of the periodical press proved to be even more striking. Although here too the origins went back to Peter the Great, there was little development until the accession of Catherine II. It was the empress's personal interest in the propagation of her views, together with the interests and needs of the growing layer of educated Russians, that led to the sudden first flowering of Russian journalism. By 1770 some eight periodicals entered the field to comment on the Russian and European scene, criticize the foibles of Russian society, and engage in lively debate with one another, a debate in which Catherine the Great herself took an active part. Societies for the development and promotion of different kinds of knowledge, such as the well-known Free Economic Society, multiplied in Catherine II's reign.
In the sphere of education proper, as in so many other fields, the empress had vast ambitions and plans. Adapting the views of Locke, the Encyclopedists, and Rousseau, Catherine the Great at first hoped to create through education a new, morally superior, and fully civilized breed of people. Education, in this sanguine opinion, could "bestow new existence, and create a new kind of subjects." The empress relied on her close associate and fellow enthusiast of the Enlightenment, Ivan Betsky, to formulate and carry out her educational policy. To be truly transformed, pupils had to be separated from their corrupting environment and educated morally as well as intellectually. Therefore, Catherine the Great and Betsky relied
on select boarding schools, including the new Smolny school for girls, the first and the most famous state school for girls in the history of the Russian empire.
Catherine the Great, however, was too intelligent and realistic not to see eventually the glaring weaknesses of her original scheme: boarding schools were very expensive and took care of very few people; moreover, those few, it would seem, could not escape the all-pervasive environment and failed to become paragons of virtue and enlightenment. Therefore, other approaches, broader in scope but more limited in purpose, had to be tried. The empress became especially interested in the system of popular education instituted in the Austrian Empire in 1774 and explained to her by Emperor Joseph II himself. In 1782, following the Austrian monarch's advice, she invited the Serbian educator Theodore Iankovich de Mirievo from Austria and formed a Commission for the Establishment of Popular Schools. The Commission approved Iankovich de Mirievo's plan of a network of schools on three levels and of the programs for the schools. The Serbian educator then concentrated on translating and adapting Austrian textbooks for Russian schools, and also on supervising the training of Russian teachers. A teachers' college was founded in St. Petersburg in 1783. Its first hundred students came from Church schools and were graduated in 1786. In that year a special teachers' seminary began instruction. It was to produce 425 teachers in the course of its fifteen years of existence. Relying on its new teachers, the government opened twenty-six more advanced popular schools in the autumn of 1786 and fourteen more in 1788, all of them in provincial centers. It also proceeded to put popular elementary schools into operation in district towns: 169 such schools, with a total of 11,000 pupils began to function in 1787; at the end of the century the numbers rose to 315 schools and 20,000 students.
Everything considered, Catherine the Great deserves substantial credit in the field of education. Her valuable measures ranged from pioneering in providing education for girls to the institution of the first significant teacher training program in Russia and the spreading of schools to many provincial and district towns. The empress and her advisers, it should be noted, wanted to extend enlightenment to the middle class and hoped to see an educated Third Estate arise in their homeland. Furthermore, as we know, the government's limited efforts did not represent all of Russian education. Church schools continued, and education of the gentry advanced in the last third of the eighteenth century. When not attending exclusive military schools of one kind or another, sons of the nobility received instruction at home by private teachers, augmented, with increasing frequency, by travel abroad. The French Revolution, while it led to the exclusion of France from Russian itineraries, brought a large number of French emigres to serve as tutors in Russia. But in education, perhaps
even more than in other fields, the division of Russian society was glaringly evident. Although the eighteenth century witnessed the rise of modern Russian schools and modern Russian culture, virtually none of this affected the peasants, that is, the great bulk of the people.
Language
The adaptation of the Russian language to new needs in the eighteenth century constituted a major problem for Russian education, literature, and culture in general. It will be remembered that on the eve of Peter the Great's reforms Russian linguistic usage was in a state of transition as everyday Russian began to assert itself in literature at the expense of the archaic, bookish, Slavonicized forms. This basic process continued in the eighteenth century, but it was complicated further by a mass intrusion of foreign words and expressions which came with Westernization and which had to be dealt with somehow. The language used by Peter the Great and his associates was in a chaotic state, and at one time apparently the first emperor wanted to solve the problem by having the educated Russians adopt Dutch as their tongue!
In the course of the century the basic linguistic issues were resolved, and modern literary Russian emerged. The battle of styles, although not entirely over by 1800, resulted in a definitive victory for the contemporary Russian over the Slavonicized, for the fluent over the formal, for the practical and the natural over the stilted and the artificial. Nicholas Karamzin, who wrote in the last decades of the eighteenth and the first of the nineteenth century, contributed heavily to the final decision by effectively using the new style in his own highly popular works. As to foreign words and expressions, they were either rejected or gradually absorbed into the Russian language, leading to a great increase in its vocabulary. The Russian language of 1800 could handle many series of terms and concepts unheard of in Muscovy. That the Russian linguistic evolution of the eighteenth century was remarkably successful can best be seen from the fact that the golden age of Russian literature, still the standard of linguistic and literary excellence in modern Russian, followed shortly after. Indeed Pushkin was born in the last year of the eighteenth century.
The linguistic evolution was linked to a conscious preoccupation with language, to the first Russian grammars, dictionaries, and philological and literary treatises. These efforts, which were an aspect of Westernization, contributed to the establishment of modern Russian literary culture. Lo-monosov deserves special praise for the first effective Russian grammar, published in 1755, which proved highly influential. A rich dict
ionary composed by some fifty authors including almost every writer of note appeared in six volumes in 1789-94. Theoretical discussion and experimentation
by Basil Trediakovsky, Lomonosov, and others led to the creation of the now established system of modern Russian versification.
Literature
Modern Russian literature must be dated from Peter the Great's reforms. While, to be sure, the Russian literary tradition goes back to the Kievan age in the Lay of the Host of Igor and other works, and even to the prehistoric past in popular song and tale, the reign of the first emperor marked a sharp division. Once Russia turned to the West, it joined the intellectual and literary world of Europe which had little in common with that of Muscovy. In fact, it became the pressing task of educated eighteenth-century Russians to introduce and develop in their homeland such major forms of Western literary expression as poetry, drama, and the novel. Naturally, the emergence of an original and highly creative Russian literature took time, and the slowness of this development was emphasized by the linguistic evolution. The century had to be primarily imitative and in a sense experimental, with only the last decades considerably richer in creative talent. Nevertheless, the pioneer work of eighteenth-century writers made an important contribution to the establishment and development of modern Russian literature.
Antioch Kantemir, 1709-44, a Moldavian prince educated in Russia and employed in Russian diplomatic service, has been called "the originator of modern Russian belles lettres." Kantemir produced original works as well as translations, poetry and prose, satires, songs, lyrical pieces, fables, and essays. Michael Lomonosov, 1711-65, had a greater poetic talent than Kantemir. In literature he is remembered especially for his odes, some of which are still considered classics of their kind, in particular when they touch upon the vastness and glory of the universe. Alexander Sumarokov, 1718-77, a prolific and influential writer, has been honored as the father of Russian drama. In addition to writing tragedies and comedies as well as satires and poetry and publishing a periodical, Sumarokov was the first director of a permanent Russian theater. Sumarokov wrote his plays in the pseudo-classical manner characteristic of the age, and he often treated historical subjects.
The reign of Catherine the Great witnessed not only a remarkable increase in the quantity of Russian literature, but also considerable improvement in its quality. Two writers of the period, not to mention Nicholas Karamzin who belongs to the nineteenth century as well as to the eighteenth, won permanent reputations in Russian letters. The two were Gabriel Derzhavin and Denis Fonvizin. Derzhavin, 1743-1816, can in fairness be called Catherine the Great's official bard: he constantly eulogized the vain empress and such prominent Russians of her reign as Potemkin and
Suvorov. Like most court poets, he wrote too much; yet at his best Derzhavin produced superb poetry, both in his resounding odes, exemplified by the celebrated "God," and in some less-known lyrical pieces. The poet belonged to the courtly world that inspired him and even served as Minister of Justice in the government of Alexander I.
Fonvizin, 1745-92, has received wide acclaim as the first major Russian dramatist, a writer of comedies to be more exact. Fonvizin's lasting fame rests principally on a single work, the comedy whose title has been translated as The Minor, or The Adolescent - in Russian Nedorosl. Pseudo-classical in form and containing a number of artificial characters and contrived situations, the play, nevertheless, achieves a great richness and realism in its depiction of the manners of provincial Russian gentry. The hero of the comedy, the lazy and unresponsive son who, despite his reluctance, in the changing conditions of Russian life has to submit to an elementary education, and his doting, domineering, and obscurantist mother are apparently destined for immortality. In addition to The Minor, Fonvizin translated, adapted, or wrote some other plays, including the able comedy The Brigadier in which he ridiculed the excessive admiration of France in Russia; he also produced a series of satirical articles and a noteworthy sequence of critical letters dealing with his impressions of foreign countries.
While classicism, or neo-classicism, represented the dominant trend in the European literature of the eighteenth century, other currents also came to the fore toward the end of that period. Again, the Russians eagerly translated, adapted, and assimilated Western originals. Nicholas Karamzin, 1766-1826, can be called the founder of sentimentalism in Russian literature. His sensitive and lacrimose Letters of a Russian Traveler and his sensational although now hopelessly dated story Poor Liza, both of which appeared at the beginning of the last decade of the century, marked the triumph of the new sensibility in Russia. Karamzin, it might be added, succeeded also as a publisher, and generally helped to raise the stature of the professional writer in Russian life. Other pre-romantic trends in the writings of many authors - rather prominent as Rogger's study indicates - included a new interest in folklore, a concern with the history of the country, and an emphasis on things Russian as opposed to Western.
Social Criticism
The history of ideas cannot be separated from literary history, least of all in the Russian setting. Social criticism constituted the dominant content of both in eighteenth-century Russia. This didactic tendency, highly characteristic of the Age of Reason, found special application in Russia, where so much had toi be learned so fast. Kantemir, "the originator of modern
Russian literature," wrote satires by preference, while his translations included Montesquieu's Persian Letters. Satire remained a favorite genre among Russian writers of the eighteenth century, ranging from the brilliant comedies of Fonvizin to the pedestrian efforts of Catherine the Great and numerous other aspiring authors. The same satire, the same social criticism inspired journalism; in fact, no clear line divided the two fields. Russian writers and publicists inveighed against the backwardness, boor-ishness, and corruption of their countrymen, and they neglected no opportunity to turn them toward civilization and light. At the same time they noticed that on occasion "the ungainly beasts" began to admire the West, in particular France, too much and to despise their own country, and that in turn was satirized and denounced throughout the century.
The spirit of criticism developed especially in the reign of Catherine the Great and was aided by the sponsorship and example of the empress herself. Indeed, she gave, so to speak, official endorsement to the far-reaching critiques and views of the philosophes. The Free Economic Society even awarded its first prize to a work advocating the abolition of serfdom. A certain kind of Russian Voltairianism emerged, combining admiration for the sage of Ferney with a skeptical attitude toward many aspects of Russian life. Although some historians dismiss this Voltairianism as a superficial fashion, it no doubt served for some Russians as a school of criticism, all the more so because it fitted extremely well the general orientation of the Enlightenment.
Freemasonry became another school of criticism and thought for the Russians, and a more complicated one, for it combined disparate doctrines and trends. It came to Russia, of course, again from the West, from Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, and France. Although the first fraternal lodges appeared at the time of Empress Elizabeth, the movement became prominent only in the reign of Catherine the Great. At that time it consisted of about one hundred lodges located in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and some provincial towns and of approximately 2,500 members, almost entirely from the gentry. In addition to the contribution made by Freemasonry to the life of polite society, which constituted probably its principal attraction to most members, specialists distinguish two main trends within that movement in eighteenth-century Russia: the mystical, and the ethical and social. The first concentrated on such commendable but elusive and essentially individual goals as contemplation and self-perfection. The second reached out to the world and thus constituted the active wing of the movement. Socially oriented Freemasons centered around the University of Moscow. They engaged in education and publishing, establishing a private school and the first large-scale program of publication in Russia outside of the government. They contribute
d heavily to the periodical literature and its social criticism. Nicholas Novikov, 1744-1818, perhaps the most
active publicist of Catherine the Great's reign, led the group which included several other outstanding people.
Of the many things to be criticized in Russia, serfdom loomed largest. Yet that institution was both so well accepted and so fundamental to Russian life that few in the eighteenth century dared challenge it. Catherine the Great herself, after some vague preliminary wavering, came out entirely on the side of the gentry and its power over the peasants. Numerous writers criticized certain individual excesses of serfdom, such as the cruelty of one master or the wastefulness of another, but they did not assail the system itself. Novikov and a very few others went further: their image of serf relations could not be ascribed to individual aberrations, and it cried for reform. Still, it remained to Alexander Radishchev to make the condemnation of serfdom total and unmistakably clear. It was Radishchev's attack on serfdom that broke through the veneer of cultural progressivism and well-being, typical of the reign of Catherine the Great, and served as the occasion for a sharp break between the government and the radical or even just liberal intellectuals.
Radishchev, 1749-1802, was educated at the University of Leipzig as well as in Russia and acquired a wide knowledge of eighteenth-century thought. In particular, he experienced the impact of Rousseau, Mably, and the entire egalitarian, and generally more radical, tendency of the later Enlightenment. A member of the gentry, an official, and a writer of some distinction, Radishchev left his mark on Russian history with the publication in 1790 of his stunning Journey from Petersburg to Moscow. Following the first section called "the departure," twenty-odd chapters of that work, named after wayside stations, depicted specific and varied horrors of serfdom. The panorama included such scenes as serfs working on a Sunday, because they could till their own land only on that day, the rest of the week being devoted to the barshchina; the sale at an auction of members of a single family to different buyers; and the forced arrangement of marriages by an overly zealous master. Moreover, Radishchev combined his explicit denunciation of serfdom with a comprehensive philosophical, social, political, and economic outlook, reflected in the Journey and in other writings. He assailed Russian despotism and administrative corruption and suggested instead a republic with full liberties for the individual. And he actually drew up a plan for serf emancipation and an accompanying land settlement.