A New Perspective in Russian Intellectual History: Russian Political Thought in Early Modern Times

Derek Offord

doi:10.21900/j.vivliofika.v7.530

Abstract

G. M. Hamburg, Russia’s Path Toward Enlightenment: Faith, Politics, and Reason, 1500–1801. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2016, 912 p. ISBN: 9780300113136

Highlights

Gary Hamburg’s erudite and thoughtful survey of early modern Russian thought began its life as part of a more general study of Russian thought up until the revolutions of 1917
The resulting 900-page product of his reflection on the prehistory of modern Russian thought enables him to straddle what are generally perceived as two great divides: First, the supposed divide between Muscovite and Imperial Russia and, second, that between the traditional religious and the secular enlightened forms of Russian culture
In Part 3, “Straining toward Light, 1762–1801,” he focuses on the Russian contribution to the European Enlightenment, treating numerous figures of this era as important in their own right rather than as minor actors in a process that culminated in the nineteenth-century golden age of Russian culture

Summary

Introduction

Gary Hamburg’s erudite and thoughtful survey of early modern Russian thought began its life as part of a more general study of Russian thought up until the revolutions of 1917.

Results

Conclusion