ABSTRACT
The Russian debate about Europe in the first third of the nineteenth century was dominated by the Napoleonic Wars and their aftermath, the Decembrist uprising. That uprising, which erupted in 1825, sprung out of the debate about Europe, and was to prove of key importance to its further course: once it had folded, the reactions to it would constitute the next stage of the discussion. Three main positions regarding Europe can be discerned in this period. First,
there was the state’s position, which was legitimist in the tradition of the ancien régime. This position, which I will call ‘conservative nationalist’, saw the ongoing European developments away from enlightened despotism as a betrayal of ideals once commonly held by all the monarchs of Europe, and by their dependants. For Russia, the answer to this betrayal should be to carry on as before. Second, there emerged a romantic nationalist position, which was formed under the influence of German romanticism and shared most of its ideals and pursuits. However, since most of its proponents saw Europe in an Orthodox Christian framework, this position was soon to take on an autochthonous flavour. The romantic nationalists were anti-modern, and were against what they saw as the etatisation and bureaucratisation of the tsar’s rule. Finally, there was a constitutionalist position, which held that political and economic models should be adopted from Europe and adapted to Russian conditions. The Decembrists were the most visible of the constitutionalists. Another, however,
was the tsar’s key adviser, Speranskiy, who already in 1809 had endeavoured to draw up a constitution for Russia. To Speranskiy, this seemed the eminently reasonable response to the pressure exerted by European developments. However, not everybody saw the question in these terms. The tsar’s sister, the Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna, was among those who held such an adaptation to the political ways of Europe to be the greatest of perils. In response to Speranskiy’s move, she prevailed upon one of the regular visitors at her salon, the historian Karamzin, to
write a response. Karamzin’s reply, subsequently published as Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia, is a good starting point for an inquiry into Russian post-Napoleonic discourse on Europe, because it formulates the previously mentioned official theme of the Russian state as the extension of the person of the tsar. ‘An old nation has no need of new laws’, Karamzin states. ‘In Russia, the sovereign is the living law. He favours the good, and punishes the bad […] In the Russian monarch concentrate all the powers: our government is fatherly, patriarchal.’ If Russia was given a constitution and the monarch refused to follow it, he continued, the situation would become intolerable: ‘Two political authorities in one state are like two dreadful lions in one cage’ (Karamzin, 1969: 187, 197, 139). According to Karamzin, the idea of adopting a European-style code of law, foreign to Russia, is symptomatic of the misguided attitude of modern Russia. Karamzin regrets that
Imitation became for Russians a matter of honor and pride […] it must be admitted that what we gained in social virtues we lost in civic virtues. Does the name of a Russian carry for us today the same inscrutable force which it had in the past? No wonder. In the reigns of Michael and his son, our ancestors, while assimilating many advantages which were to be found in foreign customs, never lost the conviction that an Orthodox Russian was the most perfect citizen and Holy Rus’ the foremost state in the world. Let this be called a delusion. Yet how much it did to strengthen patriotism and the moral fibre of the country! Would we have today the audacity, after having spent over a century in the school of foreigners, to boast of a civic pride? Once upon a time we used to call all other Europeans infidels; now we call them brothers. For whom was it easier to conquer Russia – for infidels or for brothers? That is, whom was she likely to resist better? […] We became citizens of the world but ceased in certain respects to be citizens of Russia. The fault is Peter’s.
