Aleksandr I by Aleksandr Arkhangel'skii (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 753 recent decades: Mezin builds on the works of such as Lortholary and Mohrenschildt, and numerousRussian commentators. But the topic retainsa perennial fascination, and not just for France: hard on the heels of Mezin comes A. G. Cross's British counterpart, PetertheGreatThrough BritishEyes (Cambridge, 2000). Peter was particularlyimportant for eighteenth-century European debates on the natureof civilized society:togetherwith Henri IV of France, he became for many an icon of enlightened law-giving and government . With the FrenchRevolution, the rise of new values and a new military hero (Bonaparte),Peter's 'cult of personality' began to fade (the comparison with Stalin is one cited by Mezin, too, n. 107, p. 98) and in the nineteenth century Peter became if anything a symbol of Russian despotism. Mezin's book, a welcome addition to the production of Russian provincial presses which are becoming increasinglyimportant and accessible, divides his topic into six chapters. The story begins with Peter's I717 visit to France (chapter one) and the emergence of the Petrine theme in French public discourse (chapter two); chapters three and four deal with Voltaire'sdepictions of the tsar and the controversieswhich swirled around them. Chapters five and six treat the later eighteenth century and the 'Testament of Peter I' (the latter's entire text is presented, in Russian, pp. I57-62), and contemporary French historiesof Russia,principallythatof P.-Ch. Levesque.A two-page conclusion addresses briefly the significance for both French and Russian society of Frenchfascinationwith the Petrinetheme. Overall,Mezin adoptsan approach of hard-nosed empiricism;he places his charactersand theirworksin context and gives a measured summary and shrewd critical evaluation of their contents. He is well-read in the Western as well as the Russian literature, though not fully up to date with the former, and not afraid to contradict established authorities or to passjudgement on his principal characters, the philosophes their belief in progress, he remarkson p. 104, was like a naive religion, with saints (PeterI) and miracles (the creation of the 'new' Russia). He addressesboth familiarmajorfiguresand unexpected minor ones, though in the space available exhaustive coverage is not to be expected. Mezin's approach is somewhat old-fashioned, in some of the values espoused '[Levesque] sees the deep historical rightness of Peter I's foreign policy' (P. 194) and in its determined eschewing of theory. The preface offers a footnote reference to Lev Kopelev's recent discussionsof 'otherness',and the conclusion a gesture towards Iurii Lotman on the dialogue of cultures, but otherwise issues of national identity, culturaltransferor historicalperception are kept strictlyfactual.Altogether, nevertheless,this is a very usefuladdition to the literatureon a perenniallytopical and absorbingtheme. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies ROGER BARTLETT University College London Arkhangel'skii,Aleksandr. Aleksandr I. Izdatel'stvo Vagrius, Moscow, 2000. 508 pp. Notes. Illustrations.Bibliography.Index. I05 Roubles. THIs book is interesting as the first full-length biography to have been published in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet regime, indeed since the 754 SEER, 79, 4, 200I works of Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich in the first decade of the last century. The author has consulted all the major studies of Alexandr I in Russian, and has carefully and objectively examined all the evidence he could find. However, his bibliography lists only three works published outside Russia (Gruinwald, Olivierand Paleologue)and no Englishsources.This isregrettable and representsan obvious weakness. Another is the author's somewhat turgid style. The book does not make entirely easy reading, but he has conscientiously attempted to deal as thoroughly as possible with the most enigmatic of all the tsars. His text is punctuated throughout by relevant quotations from official records dating from December 1777 to September I825 and these undoubtedly add to the value of this studyas a whole. More valuable still are the author'sanalysesof Alexandr'sreligiosity,his interestin the Bible Societies, and his relationswith leading dignitaries of the Church, particularly Mitropolit Serafim and Archbishop(then)Fotii.There is nothing startlinglynew here, but the author's detailed documentation is commendable. The role of Prince Golitsyn is investigatedwith equal care. The same can be said of the author'sexamination of all the other notables of the reign ranging from La Harpe to Speransky and Arakcheyev. His account...