«Никакие сих развратных умов намерения нималейше успеть не могут»: российские власти и французские учителя в 1795 г.

Abstract

The article investigates an archival file concerning a project submitted by French teachers to the Director of Elementary Schools in Moscow Guberniia in 1795. The project’s authors aimed at creating a trade union and a platform for legally authorized socializing and mutual aid. Fourteen individuals signed the project, about whom the archival file contains brief dossiers from the Secret Investigation Office (the administrative body in charge of domestic intelligence). The teachers’ initiative gave rise to correspondence between the Governor of Moscow and the Prosecutor General, as well as a direct personal appeal of the latter to the empress. All in all, the documents show the circumspect attitude of the Russian authorities toward the French community in Russia in the time of the French Revolution. The authors analyze this particular episode in the context of the history of the French community, and especially of French teachers, in eighteenth century Russia. The text of the Project for the Union of Teachers is published in the appendix.