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12 - The Russian Enlightenment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 September 2009

By
Paul Dukes
Edited by
Roy S. Porter  and
Mikuláš Teich
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Summary

SOME CONTEMPORARY VIEWS

‘Russia is as yet but little or indistinctly known’, wrote Lord Macartney in his An Account of Russia, 1767. ‘She has no writers of her own growth, and foreigners have been either incurious or unsolicitous about the subject. It appeared like the view of an immense waste, the prospect seemed lost in its vastness, and wearied the eye with its gloomy distance.’ As ‘our man’ in St Petersburg, Macartney had been if anything more dismissive a year or so before, writing to Grafton in February 1766:

Our error with regard to them is in looking upon this nation as a civilized one and treating them as such. It by no means merits that title, and notwithstanding the opinion that persons unacquainted with it may have conceived, I will venture to say that the Kingdom of Thibet, or the Dominions of Prester John, might as justly be honoured with the same appellation. There is not one of the Ministry here that even understands Latin, and few that can be said to possess the common roots of literature. Pride is the offspring of ignorance and of consequence Your Grace will not be surprised if the proceedings of this Court sometimes appear tinctured with hautiness and vanity. I might as well talk of Clark and Tillotson, to the Divan of Constantinople, as quote Grotius and Puffendorff to the Ministers of Petersburg. This really is no exaggeration.

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The Enlightenment in National Context , pp. 176 - 191
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1981

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