ABSTRACT
The letters of eighteenth-century serfs feature introductions and closures of verbal self-abasement, demonstratively “bowed in the dust,” but the section between these two passages of humility often contains surprising displays of pride and a coherent system of expectations. Speaking of the testimonials we have already mentioned, such flashes of pride and complacency usually appeared in similar “slips of the tongue” in the letters. The last known letter of his life in which he addressed the worldly overlord of his life, Emperor Joseph II, in his own name but no longer in his own handwriting, is also the most demonstrative example of his writing gaining distance from the nature of the ego-document. Collecting and preserving testimonials was perhaps the most important line of defence in view of the possible attacks. In fact, his personal archive was little less than an arsenal which he could activate at the appropriate moment.
