Did Nikolay Novikov foster the Enlightenment or support the anti-Enlightenment in Russia? That question has had no unanimous answer. He was an enlightener, it is claimed, because he criticised his society and upheld the basic truths of the Enlightenment: tolerance, the conviction that an improvement of social organisation would ameliorate human life, that an enlightened group – a natural aristocracy of the intelligent – should develop an influential public opinion. However, it is objected that in his enthusiasm for the past, for religion and especially for historical and ecclesiastic ritual, he seemed to react against progressive ideas. Particularly reactionary was his orthodox Christian view that man was burdened with original sin, and his conviction as a committed freemason that man must seek to perfect his own corrupt state, that social salvation was attained primarily by personal regeneration.

In all these judgements, Novikov is measured by the standards and behaviour of the French philosophes. It is a deceptive measure in his case. His background was very different from that which in France had thrown up a distinct Enlightenment party. In mid-century Russia there was no strong bourgeoisie struggling for economic and political freedom. Among the articulate intellectuals there were no major grievances against the structure of the state. Social grievances were to be largely disarmed by the emancipation of the nobles. The church in Russia formed no oppressive power centre.