Russian culture in the eighteenth century

doi:10.1017/CHOL9780521815291.006

4 - Russian culture in the eighteenth century

from Part II - Culture, Ideas, Identities

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008

Lindsey Hughes

Edited by

Dominic Lieven

Show author details

Dominic Lieven: Affiliation:
London School of Economics and Political Science

Book contents

Get access

Summary

Russia and the West: ‘catching up’

Two edicts issued within a few weeks of each other offer a foretaste of the trajectory of Russian culture in the eighteenth century. At the end of December 1699 Peter I replaced the Byzantine practice of counting years from the creation of mankind with numbering from the birth of Christ, ‘in the manner of European Christian nations’. Henceforth the year would begin in January, not September. On 4 January 1700 townsmen were ordered to adopt Western dress, a decree that was extended later in the year to women. In both cases, Peter’s potentially recalcitrant subjects were provided with visual aids: examples of New Year festive greenery and mannequins wearing ‘French and Hungarian’ dress were displayed in public places to prevent anyone ‘feigning ignorance’ about what was required. Both these measures presupposed ‘Christian Europe’ as Russia’s model. Both offended Orthodox sensibilities. Traditionalists protested that Peter was tampering with Divine time and that the ‘German’ dress and the clean-shaven faces imposed on men a few years earlier were ungodly. Elite Russians in Western fashions entered a Western time scale, while the mass of the traditionally clad population, who had little need to know what year it was, continued to live by the cyclical calendar of feasts and saint’s days. Historians agree that these and subsequent reforms widened the gap between high and low culture: the elite ‘caught up’ with the West, while the lower classes ‘lagged behind’.

Keywords

neoclassical architecture Imperial Theatre Catherine II Russian Enlightenment Russian culture St Petersburg Peter I

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Russia , pp. 65 - 91

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521815291.006 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2006

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Ageeva, O., Velichaishii i slavneishii bolee vsekh gradov v svete: grad Sviatogo Petra (St Petersburg: Blits, 1999).

Alekseeva, S. N., Aleksei Fedorovich Zubov. Katalog vystavki (Leningrad: Gos. Russkii muzei, 1988).

Alekseeva, M. A., Graviura Petrovskogo vremeni (Leningrad: Iskusstvo, 1990).

Androsov, S. O., ‘Painting and Sculpture in the Petrine Era’, Ital’ianskaia skul’ptura v sobranii Petra Velikogo (St Petersburg: Ermitazh, 1999).

Androsov, S. O., ‘Painting and Sculpture in the Petrine Era’, in Cross, A. G. (ed.), Russia in the Reign of Peter the Great: Old and New Perspectives (Cambridge: SGECR, 1998).

Anisimov, S. N., ‘Anna Ivanovna’, , and Naumov, V. P., ‘Elizaveta Petrovna’, in Russian Studies in History 32, 4 (1994).Google Scholar

Anisimov, E. V., Empress Elizabeth: Her Reign and Her Russia, trans. Alexander, J. T. (Gulf Breeze: Academic International Press, 1995).

Artem’eva, Iu V., and Prokhvatikova, S. A. (eds.), Zodchie Sankt-Peterburga: XVIII vek (St Petersburg: Lenizdat, 1997).

Baron, and Kollmann, N. S. (eds.), Religion and Culture in Early Modern Russia and Ukraine (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1997).

Bartlett, R. (ed.), Anton Chekhov: A Life in Letters, trans. Bartlett, Rosamund and Phillips, Anthony (London: Penguin, 2004).

Bird, Alan, A History of Russian Painting (Oxford: Phaidon, 1987).

Brown, W. E., A History of Eighteenth-Century Russian Literature (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1980).

Brumfield, W. C., A History of Russian Architecture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

Coxe, W., Travels in Poland,Russia, Sweden, and Denmark, 2 vols. (London: J. Nichols, 1784), vol. II.

Cracraft, J., The Petrine Revolution in Russian Imagery (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

Cracraft, J., The Petrine Revolution in Russian Architecture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).

Cross, A. G., N. M. Karamzin: A Study of his Literary Career, 1783–1803 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1971).

Derzhavina, O. A. (ed.), Russkaia dramaturgiia poslednei chetverti XVII–nachala XVIIIv. (Moscow: Nauka, 1972).

Dixon, S., Catherine the Great (London: Longman, 2001).

Dolskaya-Ackerly, Olga, ‘Choral Music in the Petrine Era’, in Cross, A. G. (ed.), Russia in the Reign of Peter the Great: Old and New Perspectives (Cambridge: SGECR, 1998).Google Scholar

Drage, Charles, Russian Literature in the Eighteenth Century (London: published by author, 1978).

Eleonskaia, A. S. (ed.), P’esy stolichnykh i provintsial’nykh teatrov pervoi poloviny XVIII v. (Moscow: Nauka, 1975).

Ely, Christopher, This Meager Nature: Landscape and National Identity in Imperial Russia (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002).

Evangulova, S. N., ‘Portret petrovskogo vremeni i problemy skhodstva’, Vestnik MGU. Seriia 8. Istoriia, no. 5 (1979)

Evangulova, S. N., K probleme stilia v iskusstve petrovskogo vremeni’, ibid., no. 4 (1974).

Figes, Orlando, Natasha’s Dance (London: Penguin, 2002).

Florovsky, George, ‘The Problem of Old Russian Culture’, Slavic Review 21 (1962).Google Scholar

Gasperetti, David, The Rise of the Russian Novel: Carnival, Stylization and the Mockery of the West (DeKalb: North Illinois University Press, 1998).

Gerasimova, Julia, ‘Western Prints and the Panels of the Peter and Paul Cathedral Iconostasis in St Petersburg’, in Klein, J. and Dixon, S. (eds.), Reflections on Russia in the Eighteenth Century (Cologne, Weimar and Vienna: Böhlau, 2001).

Gray, Rosalind P., Russian Genre Painting in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000).

Hughes, L., Sophia, , Regent of Russia (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1990).

Hughes, L., (ed.), Peter the Great and the West: New Perspectives (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2000).

Hughes, L., Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998).

Hughes, L., and Salvo, M. (eds.), A Window on Russia: Papers from the Fifth International Conference of SGECR (Rome: La Fenice edizioni, 1996).

Hughes, L., ‘From Caftans into Corsets: The Sartorial Transformation of Women during the Reign of Peter the Great’, in Barta, P. (ed.), Gender and Sexuality in Russian Civilization (London: Routledge, 2001).Google Scholar

Hughes, L., ‘Women and the Arts at the Russian Court from the Sixteenth to the Eighteenth Century’, in Pomeroy, J. and Gray, R. (eds.), An Imperial Collection: Women Artists from the State Hermitage (Washington DC: National Museum of Women in the Arts, 2003).Google Scholar

Hughes, L., ‘German Specialists in Petrine Russia: Architects, Painters and Thespians’, in Bartlett, R. and Schönwälder, K. (eds.), The German Lands and Eastern Europe (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1999).Google Scholar

Hughes, L., ‘Peter the Great’s Two Weddings: Changing Images of Women in a Transitional Age’, in Marsh, R. (ed.), Women in Russia and Ukraine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).Google Scholar

Hughes, , Russia in the Age, and ‘The Moscow Armoury and Innovations in 17th-century Muscovite Art’, CASS 13 (1979).

Jones, Gareth, ‘Literature in the Eighteenth Century’, in Cornwell, Neil (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Russian Literature (London: Routledge, 2000).Google Scholar

Jones, W.G., Nikolay Novikov: Enlightener of Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984).

Kahn, Andrew, ‘Sense and Sensibility in Radishchev’s Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu: Dialogism and the moral spectator’, Oxford Slavonic Papers, ns, 30 (1997).

Kahn, Andrew (ed.), Nikolai Karamzin: Letters of a Russian Traveller: A Translation, with an Essay on Karamzin’s Discourses of Enlightenment (Oxford: Voltaire Foundation, 2003).

Kaliazina, S. N., and Saverkina, I. V., ‘Zhivopisnoe sobranie A.D. Menshikova’, in Russkaia kul’tura pervoi chetverti XVIII veka. Dvorets Menshikova (St Petersburg: Ermitazh, 1992).Google Scholar

Kaliazina, N. V., and Komelova, G. N., Russkoe iskusstvo Petrovskoi epokhi (Leningrad: Khudozhnik, 1990).

Karlinsky, Simon, Russian Drama from its Beginnings to the Age of Pushkin (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).

Kelly, C. (ed. and tr.), An Anthology of Russian Women’s Writing, 1777–1992 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994).

Koshelev, A. (ed.), Iz istorii russkoi kul’tury. Tom III (XVII&3x2013;nachalo XVIII veka) (Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul’tury, 1996).

Krasnobaev, B. I. (ed.), Ocherki russkoi kul’tury XVIII veka (Moscow: Izd. MGU, 1985).

Krasnobaev, B. I. (ed.), Ocherki istorii russkoi kul’tury vosemnadtsatogo veka (Moscow: Izd. MGU, 1972).

Kuznetsov, S., Neizvestnyi Levitskii: portretnoe iskusstvo zhivopistsa vkontekste peterburgskogo mifa (St Petersburg: Logo SPb, 1996).

Leach, R., and Borovsky, V. (eds.), A History of Russian Theatre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Lebedeva, S. N., Ivan Nikitin (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1975).

Levitt, M., et al. (eds.), Eros and Pornography in Russian Culture, Eros i pornografiia v russkoi kul’ture (Moscow: Ladomir, 1999).

Lotman, Iu. M., Besedy o russkoi kul’ture: byt i traditsii russkogo dvorianstva (XVIII-nachalo XIX veka) (St Petersburg: Iskusstvo-SPb, 1994).

Lotman, Iu. M., and Uspenskii, B. A., ‘Binary Models in the Dynamic of Russian Culture to the End of the Eighteenth Century’, in Nakhimovsky, A. D. and Nakhimovsky, A. S. (eds.), The Semiotics of Russian Cultural History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

Lucas, R., ‘Dutch and Polish Influences in Russian Architecture 1660–1725’, Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia Newsletter (hereafter, SGECRN) 8 (1980).

Luppov, S. P., Kniga v Rossii v pervoi chetverti XVIII v. (Leningrad: Nauka, 1973).

Marker, Gary, ‘The Petrine “Civil Primer” reconsidered’, Solanus, 1989.

Marker, Gary, Publishing, Printing, and the Origins of Intellectual Life in Russia, 1700–1800 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985).

McConnell, A., ‘Catherine the Great and the Fine Arts’, in Mendelsohn, E. (ed.), Imperial Russia 1700–1917: Essays in Honour of Marc Raeff (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1990).Google Scholar

Mishina, E. A., Russkaia graviura na dereve XVII–XVIII (St Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 2000).

Moiseeva, G. (ed.), Russkie povesti pervoi treti XVIII veka (Leningrad: Nauka, 1965).

Montefiore, S., Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2000).

Morozov, S. N., ‘Russkii teatr pri Petre Velikom’, Ezhegodnik imperatorskikh teatrov. 1893–1894 (St Petersburg, 1894), book 1;

Morris, Marcia A., The Literature of Roguery in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Russia (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2000).

Norman, Geraldine, The Hermitage: The Biography of a Great Museum (London: Jonathan Cape, 1997).

Okenfuss, Max, ‘The Jesuit Origins of Petrine Education’, The Rise and Fall of Latin Humanism in Early Modern Russia (Leiden: Brill, 1995).

Okenfuss, Max, ‘The Jesuit Origins of Petrine Education’, The Discovery of Childhood in Russia: The Evidence of the Slavic Primer (Newtonville: Academic International Press, 1980).

Okenfuss, Max, ‘The Jesuit Origins of Petrine Education’, in Garrard, J. (ed.), The Eighteenth Century in Russia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973).

O’Malley, Lurana, Two Comedies by Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia: Oh, These Times! and The Siberian Shaman (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic, 1998).

O’Malley, Lurana, ‘How Great Was Catherine? Checkpoints at the Border of Russian Theater’, Slavonic and East European Journal, 43 (1999).Google Scholar

Piotrovskii, M. V. (ed.), Osnovateliu Peterburga. Katalog vystavki (St Petersburg: Ermitazh, 2003).

Pipes, R. (ed.), Karamzin’s Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia (New York: Atheneum, 1966).

Pogosian, E., Petr I–arkhitektor rossiiskoi istorii (St Petersburg: Iskusstvo-SPb, 2001).

Roosevelt, P., Life on the Russian Country Estate: A Social and Cultural History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).

Rovinskii, D. A., Russkie narodnye kartinki, 5 vols. (St Petersburg, 1881), vol. IV.

Ruane, C., Gender, Class and the Professionalization of Russian City Teachers, 1860–1914 (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1994).

Saverkina, I.V. and Semenov, Iu. N., ‘Orkestr i khor A.D. Menshikova’, Pamiatniki kul’tury. Novye Otkrytiia, 1989 (1990).Google Scholar

Savinov, A. Ivan Nikitin 1688–1741 (Moscow: Iskusstvo, 1945).

Seaman, G., AHistory ofRussian Music, vol. I. From itsOrigins toDargomyzhsky (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967).

Segal, H. B. (ed.), The Literature of Eighteenth-Century Russia, 2 vols. (New York: E. P. Dixon, 1967).

Shcherbatov, M. M., On the Corruption of Morals in Russia, ed. and trans. Antony Lentin (London: Cambridge University Press, 1969).

Shitsgal, A. G. (ed.), Grazhdanskii shrift pervoi chetverti XVIII veka 1708–1725 (Moscow: Kniga, 1981).

Shvidkovskii, D. O., The Empress and the Architect: British Gardens and Follies in St Petersburg, 1750–1830 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1996).

Wigzell, Faith, Reading Russian Fortunes: Print Culture, Magic and Divination in Russia from 1765 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).

Wirtschafter, E. K., The Play of Ideas: Russian Enlightenment Theater (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2003).

Wortman, Richard, Scenarios of Power. Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), vol. I.

Zhivov, S. N., ‘Azbuchnaia reforma Petra I kak semioticheskoe preobrazovanie’, Uchenye zapiski Tartuskogo gos. universiteta 720 (1986): 56.

Zozulina, N., ‘Vremia peterburgskoi tantsemaniiy’, Peterburgskii teatral’nyi zhurnal (2003), no. 7.

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Why this information is here

This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

Accessibility Information

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this chapter is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.