Russian Enlightenment
The Russian Age of Enlightenment was a period in the 18th century in which the government began to actively encourage the proliferation of arts and sciences, which had a profound impact on Russian culture. During this time, the first Russian university was founded, a library, a theatre, a public museum, as well as relatively independent press. Like other enlightened despots, Catherine the Great played a key role in fostering the arts, sciences, and education. The national Enlightenment in the Russian Empire differed from its Western European counterpart in that it promoted further modernization of all aspects of Russian life and was concerned with abolishing the institution of serfdom in Russia. Russian Enlightenment didn't promote any changes for separation of church and state. Pugachev's Rebellion and the French Revolution may have shattered the illusions of rapid political change, but the intellectual climate in Russia was altered irrevocably. Russia's place in the world was debated by Denis Fonvizin, Mikhail Shcherbatov, Andrey Bolotov, Alexander Radishchev, and Ivan Boltin; these discussions precipitated the divide between the radical, western, conservative and Slavophile traditions of Russian thought. Intellectuals often used the term prosveshchenie, promoting piety, erudition, and commitment to the spread of learning.
Catherine the Great personally wrote the words for her ambassadors and consuls in order to compile a Comparative dictionary.
Early developments[edit]
The ideas of the Russian Enlightenment were first espoused by the "learned druzhina" of Peter the Great. It is the spirit which animates the sermons of Feofan Prokopovich, the satires of Antiokh Kantemir, and the historiography of Vasily Tatishchev.[1]
During the reign of Peter's daughter Elizaveta Petrovna the ideas of the Enlightened Absolutism found their way into Russia. Elizaveta's favourite, Ivan Shuvalov, was an ideal enlightened courtier: he was instrumental in the establishment of the Moscow University and the Imperial Academy of Arts, which would start the careers of most intellectuals active during the last quarter of the 18th century.[2]
Shuvalov was also the patron of the greatest Russian polymath– Mikhail Lomonosov– who left his mark in various branches of science, religious philosophy, poetry, and fine arts.[1]
By 1796, when Emperor Paul succeeded his mother on the Russian throne, the Russian Enlightenment was very much on the wane. Although the new monarch was fiercely opposed to the French libertarian influences, he set free the radical writers imprisoned by his mother, including Novikov and Radishchev. Paul's family enjoyed recitals of didactic fables by Ivan Krylov, a fabulist whose journalistic activity had been denounced by his mother.
The Informal Committee, instituted by Alexander I of Russia in 1801, may be viewed as the last attempt to implement the ideals of the Enlightenment in the Russian Empire. Mikhail Speransky proceeded to outline an ambitious program of political reform, but his chief propositions were not put into execution until the great reforms of Alexander II half a century later.