Russia under the Old regime

252

in the far north.* Khvorostinin was a typical dissident of the pre-intelligentsia era, an isolated individual doomed to die without having exerted the slightest influence on the course of events. Such early intellectuals constituted no force or movement. Under the service regime of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries discontent was prima facie evidence of mutiny and had to be confined to private forms of expression.

Before Russia could have a public opinion it was necessary for the government to acknowledge public activity independent of its volition as legitimate and proper. This occurred only with the loosening of the conditions of state service after the death of Peter i. In the 1730s, and even more so in the 1740s and 1750s, it became progressively easier for dvoriane to pursue their private interests while nominally on active service. It was now quite easy to obtain prolonged leaves of absence and even to retire in early middle age. Thus, without any formal legislation, a leisure class began to form. But even for dvoriane in the armed forces time became available for other than military obligations. For instance, the training schedule at the Noble Cadet Corps, founded in 1731 (p. 132) was so undemanding that its young gentlemen had a great deal of free time left to amuse themselves with dramatic productions and poetry. The founders of the Russian theatre, A.P.Sumarokov and M.M. Kheraskov, began their literary careers while cadets and produced some of their most important writings at this ostensibly military institution. In the middle of the eighteenth century, literature emerged as a form of free activity, the earliest of its kind ever to be tolerated by a Russian government. The level of the writing was not high, and most of what was published imitated western models. But the significance of this literature was political, not aesthetic: 'What is important is that literature wrested itself free of the state, that the articulation of the artistic word ceased to be an official act. The carriers of literature began to distinguish themselves, their consciousness and the aims of their activity from the consciousness, activity and aims of state authority.'6 A fissure thus appeared in the once solid patrimonial structure; literature became the first endeavour permitted to members of the tsarist service class that had nothing to do with promoting the sovereign's own interests. It never lost this unique status. From then on and to this day, literature has been a private realm, subject to different sovereigns and different laws.

The fate of this tendency depended on a further relaxation of service requirements. The Manifesto of 1762 by freeing dvoriane from compulsory service opened wide the flood-gates of intellectual activity. It both made possible the pursuit of literature as a profession, and created for the professional writer an audience. Proportionately, few of the retired dvoriane read books, and most of those who did were satisfied with French novels which it was customary to buy by the pound. But at least the habit of reading for pleasure began to form. The flowering of Russian literature in the nineteenth century could not have occurred but for the law of 1762 and the security which the upper stratum of dvoriane enjoyed under Catherine's benevolent reign. The more thoughtful in this group now began to acquire a taste for political ideas. There was special interest in western writings concerned with the role and rights of the noble estate with which the dvoriane of this reign tended to identify themselves. Montesquieu's Spirit of Laws, translated into Russian within a few years of its appearance, became for a whole generation of Russians a manual of statesmanship because of the stress it placed on the necessity of close cooperation between the crown and the nobility.

Catherine 11 actively encouraged this interest in political ideas. She was appalled by the prevailing ignorance and apathy among the upper class in Russia, and set out to create a body of public-minded citizens, as if to disprove Montesquieu's contention that Russia had only lords and slaves but nothing resembling a tiers etat. She accomplished much more in this direction than she is usually given credit for. It is true that her Instruction, with its precepts cribbed from Montesquieu and Beccaria had no practical issue, and that the commission which she convened in 1767 to give Russia a new code of laws in place of the Ulozhenie of 1649 produced no code. Yet the experience was far from wasted. Printed in large numbers and widely disseminated, the Instruction familiarized the Russian elite with commonplace western political and social ideas. It may be said to have marked the beginning in Russia of discussion of government as an institution subject to moral norms. The abortive Legislative Commission provided the first opportunity in Russian history for representatives of the several estates frankly, publicly, and without fear of retribution to speak out about what troubled their constituencies. This was no longer a 'consultation of the government with its own agents', as the Muscovite Assemblies had been, but a national forum of a kind that would not convene again until the First Duma 138 years later. It was a school of politics as well, some of whose alumni played a major role in the development of public opinion in the latter part of Catherine's reign. The intellectual stimulus which the Instruction and the Legislative Commission gave Russian public life was of greater consequence for the future course of Russian history than any code could ever have been.

Catherine continued to encourage the ferment which she had generated after dissolving the Commission. The following year (1769), she launched Russia's first periodical, Vsiakaia Vsiachina {A Bit of Everything), a satirical journal to which she made pseudonymous contributions. She had emulators, and soon the small reading public was flooded with