ABSTRACT
Radishchev’s work in the Senate, combined with his status as a former member of the Imperial Corps of Pages, opened to him the doors of the best St Petersburg society. ‘His manners,’ Radishchev’s son later recalled, ‘were simple and agreeable, his conversation engaging, his countenance handsome and expressive.’ Among the houses which Radishchev frequented at this period of his life was that of General-in-Chief Yakov (James) Aleksandrovich Bruce, an officer of Scottish descent in the Russian service. Bruce required a trained lawyer on his staff to deal with administrative and court-martial work; Radishchev for his part was tired of slaving away among the bureaucrats in the Senate, and imagined that army life might prove more congenial and provide better hopes for promotion.
