ABSTRACT
The systematic introduction of works published in the West began with Peter I, though in his time it was still a trickle. Fewer than 500 titles were published in Russia in the whole of the seventeenth century, and 95 per cent of these were devotional. Many Western commentators have adopted the practice of Soviet historians of using two concepts in dealing with the Enlightenment in Russia: these are 'enlighteners' and 'enlightening' on the one hand and Enlightenment on the other. Probably the most effective introduction to the thought of the French Enlightenment was the Encyclopedie of Diderot and d'Alembert, which Catherine offered to publish in Russia when the editors got into difficulties in France. Leibniz had urged the preparation of surveys and studies of Russian geography, the soil, agriculture, and climate. It must be recognised that this part of the Enlightenment programme was extensively carried out. Russians began to know their country.
