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The Traditional and the Modern in the Writings of Ivan Pnin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Samuel C. Ramer
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Studies of political reform in the Russian Empire during the first decade of Alexander I's rule have focused largely on the emperor and his most prominent advisers: the unofficial committee of four close friends who counseled him in secret during the first two years of his reign; powerful court factions, particularly those nobles who sought to augment the status and political power of the Senate; and, finally, high state officials such as Michael Speransky. The nature of reformist thought emanating from sources less directly involved in the actual preparation of legislation has been unduly neglected. There were, for instance, a number of minor writers who sought to influence state policy by submitting their ideas to Alexander. A study of the kind of society they hoped to create and the ways in which they thought social change achievable can enhance our appreciation of the variety of reformist thought in Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Type
Articles
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , September 1975 , pp. 539 - 559
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1975

References

1. For the political atmosphere at the beginning of Alexander's reign I have relied primarily on the following studies: M. A. Korf, “Aleksandr I i ego priblizhennye do epokhi Speranskogo. Neizdannaia glava iz ‘Zhizny grafa Speranskogo, '” Russkaia starina, 113 (January 1903): 5-36; (February 1903): 211-34; Narkiewicz, Olga, “Alexander I and the Senate Reform,” The Slavonic and East European Review, 47, no. 108 (January 1969): 115–36Google Scholar; Mikhailovich, Nikolai, Kniaz', Velikii, Graf Pavel Aleksandrovich Stroganov (1774-1817), 3 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1903)Google Scholar; Predtechenskii, A. V., Ocherki obshchestvenno- politicheskoi istorii Rossii pervoi chetverti XIX veka (Moscow and Leningrad, 1957)Google Scholar; Raeff, Marc, “Le climat politique et les projets de réforme dans les premiéres années du régne d'Alexandre Ier,” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, 2 (October- December 1961): 415–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Raeff, , Michael Speransky: Statesman of Imperial Russia, 1772-1839, 2nd rev. ed. (The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1969)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Semevskii, V. I., “Liberal'nye plany v pravitel'stvennykh sferakh v pervoi polovine tsarstvovaniia imperatora Aleksandra I,” Otechestvennaia voina i russkoe obshchestvo, vol. 2 (Moscow, 1912), pp. 152—94Google Scholar; Semevskii, “Vopros o preobrazovanii gosudarstvennogo stroia v Rossii v XVIII i pervoi chetverti XIX v.,” Byloe, January 1906, pp. 1-53; February 1906, pp. 69-117; March 1906, pp. 150-98; and Tel'berg, G. G., “Senat i pravo predstavleniia na vysochaishie ukazy,” Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniia, 25 (January 1910): 1–56 Google Scholar. For the problems facing Alexander immediately following his accession see Allen Mc- Connell's excellent article “Alexander I's Hundred Days: The Politics of a Paternalistic Reformer,” Slavic Review, 28 (September 1969): 373-93.

2. Pnin's works have been reprinted in a number of places. The most complete collection is Ivan Pnin, Sochineniia, ed. and with an introductory article by I. K. Luppol, commentary by V. N. Orlov (Moscow, 1934), hereafter referred to simply as Pnin. Several poems and essays have appeared more recently in Shchipanov, I. la., ed., Russkie prosvetiteli (Ot Radishcheva do dekabristov): Sobranie proizvedenii v dvukh tomakh (Moscow, 1966), vol. 1 Google Scholar. Pnin's most important single essay, An Essay on Enlightenment with Reference to Russia (Opyt o prosveshchenii otnositel'no k Rossii), has been translated by Marc Raeff and reprinted in his Russian Intellectual History: An Anthology, intro. by Isaiah Berlin (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966), pp. 125-58. Quotations from Pnin's Essay are taken from Raeff's translation, with minor variations. Pnin's poetry has been reprinted in two important collections edited by Vladimir Orlov. See V. N. Orlov, ed., Poety-radishchevtsy: Vol'noe obshchestvo liubitelei slovesnosti, nauk i khudozhestv, introductions by V. A. Desnitskii and V. N. Orlov (Leningrad: “Biblioteka poeta,” 1935) and Orlov, V. N., ed. and annot., Poety-radishchevtsy ﹛Ivan Pnin, Vasilii Popugaev, Ivan Born, Aleksandr Vostokov) (Leningrad: “Biblioteka poeta, malaia seriia,” 1961)Google Scholar.

3. For most of the biographical information in this article I am indebted to the exhaustive study of Pnin's life and work contained in Orlov, Vladimir, Russkie prosvetiteli 1790-1800-kh godov, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1953), pp. 91–207 Google Scholar. The most thorough prerevolutionary biography of Pnin is Dadenkov, N., “Ivan Petrovich Pnin: Opyt ego biografii i obzor literaturnoi deiatel'nosti,” Izvestiia istoriko-filologicheskogo ins H tut a kniazia Bezborodko v Nezhine, 27 (1912 Google Scholar). For an analysis of Pnin's thought differing from Orlov's interpretation see my unpublished doctoral dissertation “Ivan Pnin and Vasily Popugaev: A Study in Russian Political Thought” (Columbia University, 1971).

4. Although Pnin was the only editor listed on the masthead, it is clear that the journal was a collaborative enterprise. Bestuzhev's sons have implied unfairly that Pnin's role was only that of a front for their father. The amount of writing in the journal which is clearly Pnin's attests to his own active participation. See Orlov, , Russkie prosvetiteli, pp. 110–12Google Scholar. For a discussion of the historiographical issues surrounding the journal see Berkov, P. N., Istoriia russkoi zhurnalistiki XVIII veka (Moscow and Leningrad, 1952), pp. 377–87 Google Scholar, as well as Anthony Cross's more illuminating recent article “Pnin and the Sankt-Peterburgskii zhurnal (1798),” Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 7 (Spring 1973): 78-84. For the difficulties of publishing during Paul's reign see the same author's “The Russian Literary Scene in the Reign of Paul I,” ibid., pp. 39—51.

5. Orlov contends that Alexander no longer wished to subsidize a journal which went beyond his own moderate liberalism. There are, in fact, no documents that state why Alexander cut off his support. See Orlov, , Russkie prosvetiteli, p. 120 Google Scholar.

6. For a more detailed discussion of the Sankt-Peterburgskii zhurnal's contents see Ramer, “Ivan Pnin,” pp. 53-59, and Orlov, , Russkie prosvetiteli, pp. 107–44Google Scholar.

7. Pnin, pp. 105-17. Alexander rewarded Pnin with a signet ring for having written this essay. (At that time such token awards were quite commonplace.) Although the essay was never published, its contents were known at least to the intellectual circles of St. Petersburg through the manuscript copies that circulated and the inevitable wordof- mouth summaries of those manuscripts. See Orlov, , Russkie prosvetiteli, pp. 153—55Google Scholar. The work was first published in Istoricheskii vestnik, 37 (July-September 1889): 147-60.

8. Pnin urged that obligatory recognition apply only to future births. For those who already suffered the stigma of illegitimacy, he recommended that their fathers be required only to allot them part of their estates in order to “guarantee their economic position and protect their innocence.” Pnin, pp. 109-10.

9. Here Pnin used the word sostoianie, “status,” or “condition,” but clearly meant legal estate. Ibid., p. 110.

10. Radishchev, Pavel Aleksandrovich, “Aleksandr Nikolaevich Radishchev,” Russkii vestnik, 18 (December 1858): 426–27Google Scholar. Relying on our knowledge of Radishchev's movements during this period, Orlov calculates that their first meeting most probably occurred after December 1801, only nine months before Radishchev's death. Orlov, , Russkie prosvetiteli, pp. 145–46Google Scholar.

11. Pnin, p. 62.

12. The most thorough study of the Free Society's early history is Orlov, Russkie prosvetiteli, passim. For the society's later history see Bazanov, V., Uchenaia respublika (Moscow and Leningrad, 1964)Google Scholar, a revised edition of the same author's earlier Vol'noe obshchestvo liubitelei rossiiskoi slovesnosti (Petrozavodsk, 1949). For some suggestions about the society's character and purpose see Ramer, “Ivan Pnin,” pp. 165-98. A recent survey of the historiography on the Free Society and of the kinds of writers who were members is contained in Raeff, Marc, “Filling the Gap between Radishchev and the Decembrists,” Slavic Review, 26 (September 1967): 395–413.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13. Orlov, , Russkie prosvetiteli, p. 158 Google Scholar.

14. See the poems by K. Batiushkov, N. Ostolopov, N. Radishchev, S. Glinka, A. Izmailov, A. Varentsov and A. Pisarev in Pnin, pp. 225-32. See also N. Brusilov's eulogy, ibid., pp. 233-36.

15. Ibid., pp. 111-12.

16. Ibid., p. 111.

17. Trans., with an intro. and notes, by A. Lentin (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969).

18. For Pnin's analysis of French events see Pnin, pp. 124-28; Shchipanov, 1: 183-88; or Raeff, , Anthology, pp. 128–31Google Scholar. References to Pnin's Essay on Enlightenment will direct the reader to these three volumes.

19. Pnin, p. 149; Shchipanov, 1: 215; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 149 Google Scholar.

20. It is difficult to estimate the extent to which a conscious desire for upward social mobility existed among the different estates. It is easily understandable that such a desire existed on some scale, and what is important here is Pnin's conviction that it was prevalent everywhere, his reasons for thinking it pernicious, and his plans for its eradication.

21. Pnin, pp. 144-45; Shchipanov, 1: 210; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 145 Google Scholar.

22. Pnin, p. 145; Shchipanov, 1: 210; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 145 Google Scholar.

23. Pnin, p. 145; Shchipanov, 1: 210; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 145 Google Scholar.

24. Pnin, pp. 131-32; Shchipanov, 1: 192-93; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 134 Google Scholar

25. Pnin, pp. 123-24; Shchipanov, 1: 182-83; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 128 Google Scholar.

26. Pnin, p. 148; Shchipanov, 1: 213; Raeff, , Anthology, pp. 147–48Google Scholar.

27. For Pnin's actual curriculum proposals see Pnin, pp. 147-59; Shchipanov, 1: 213- 28; Raeff, , Anthology, pp. 147–56Google Scholar. In developing his own ideas about the need to establish a socially stratified educational system with a correspondingly differentiated curriculum, Pnin seems to have relied heavily on the work of J. A. Chaptal (whom he quotes in an epigraph to the essay itself). Excerpts from Chaptal's Rapport et Projet de Lot sur I'Instruction Publique were included in nos. 11 and 12 of the Ministry of Internal Affairs' Sankt-Peterburgskii zhurnal for 1805. Orlov thinks it likely that Pnin himself translated Chaptal for the journal. See Orlov, , Russkie prosvetiteli, pp. 191 and 520, nGoogle Scholar.

28. Pnin, pp. 148-49; Shchipanov, 1: 214-15; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 148 Google Scholar. Emphasis Pnin's. The questions have been selected from a slightly longer list.

29. See his poem On the Question: What is God? (Na vopros: chto esf Bog?), first printed in the Sankt-P'eterburgskii zhurnal in 1798 and later reprinted in Pnin, p. 99, and Shchipanov, 1: 168: This essence we cannot define But we will contemplate it in silence All minds are powerless to penetrate its mystery. One would have to be a god oneself to say what it is. See also Pnin's longer poem God (Bog), published posthumously, in which he espoused common deistic beliefs about an impersonal creator who, having made an initially perfect world, does not subsequently intervene in it. Pnin, pp. 75-78.

30. Pnin, p. 149; Shchipanov, 1: 215; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 149 Google Scholar.

31. Pnin, p. 161; Shchipanov, 1: 231; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 158 Google Scholar.

32. See Miliukov, P. N., Ocherki po istorii russkoi kul'tury, vol. 3, 4th ed. (St. Petersburg, 1901), pp. 232–38Google Scholar.

33. Pnin, p. 160; Shchipanov, 1: 230; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 157 Google Scholar.

34. Pnin, p. 180. The attention scholars have focused on the similarity between Pnin's criticism of censorship and that of Radishchev is much exaggerated. The most obvious reason to oppose it at any time is that it limits the development of the human spirit. It is interesting, however, that Pnin viewed it as a violation of his property rights as well.

35. Pnin, p. 143; Shchipanov, 1: 207; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 144 Google Scholar.

36. Pnin, p. 142; Shchipanov, 1: 206; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 143 Google Scholar.

37. Rogger, Hans, National Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38. The following discussion is based primarily upon Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia, trans., with an intro. by Richard Pipes (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 19S9), a document written six years after Pnin's death. There is no evidence that the two men knew one another, although Pnin was undoubtedly acquainted with Karamzin's published writings. I am indebted to Professor Pipes's excellent analysis of Karamzin's ideas.

39. Berlin, Isaiah, Four Essays on Liberty (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 25 Google Scholar.

40. Orlov, , Russkie prosvetiteli, p. 189 Google Scholar.

41. Pnin, p. 128; Shchipanov, 1: 188-89; Raeff, , Anthology, p. 132 Google Scholar.

42. N. Prytkov, “I. P. Pnin i ego literaturnaia deiatel'nost',” Drevniaia » novaia Rossiia, 3 (September-December 1878): 19.

43. P. A. Radishchev, p. 426.

44. Kizevetter, A. A., “Iz istorii russkogo liberalizma (I. P. Pnin),” Istorxcheskie ocherki (Moscow, 1912), p. 59 Google Scholar.

45. Luppol, I. K., “Russkii gol'bakhianets kontsa XVIII v.,” Pod znamenem marksizma, March 1925, pp. 75–102 Google Scholar.

46. Orlov, , Russkie prosvetiteli, p. 86 Google Scholar.