CHEVALIER DE MAINVILLIERS AND HIS EPIC POEM PÉTRÉADE: FROM THE HISTORY OF POETIC ORDERS OF THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT IN THE 18THCENTURY

Abstract

I.I. Shuvalov, after reading the poem Man-Godby Genu-Soalhat de Mainvilliers, decided to commission its author to write an epic poem about Peter the Great; he invited the potential author to Moscow and gave him the post of a teacher in the gymnasium of the Imperial Moscow University, which he fulfilled for a very short time. He carries out the commission to completion; but the epic becomes obsolete at the time of publication, incurring (both the content and one of the engravings in the edition) the wrath of Empress Catherine II. This poetic work meets with an unkind reception. It differs in character from most epic poems, being less ‘poetic’ and more down-to-earth than other representatives of the genre, and containing few elements of the genre’s obligatory or nearly obligatory features or the epic poem’s characteristic topoi. There are few touching or horrific scenes; there is only one duel. The epic consists of ten books. It has been seen as a subjugation to Voltaire’s Henriade. This is only partly true. Such a number among the authoritative repre-sentatives of the genre, apart from Voltaire, is contained in Lucan’s Farsaliaand Camoens’ Lusiades. Menvillier’s structuring ‘prophetic’ part is contained in Book VI (Voltaire’s in Book VIII, Lucan’s in Book VI, Camoens’ at the end). Assuming that the original idea envisaged 12 books (which is hinted at by the uneven distribution of material: five books before the ‘prophetic’ contain the prehistory, while four are devoted to almost the entire Northern War), one would expect the structure to reproduce the Aeneid. It would be interesting to consider its ideological conception in the context of the use of the figure of Peter in Russian propaganda addressed to Western European countries.