German Popular Enlightenment in the Russian Empire: Peter Ernst Wilde and Catherine II

Abstract

SEER, Vol.84, No. 2, April2006 German Popular Enlightenment in the Russian Empire: Peter Ernst Wilde and Catherine II ROGER BARTLETT THEproblem of the nature and definition of 'the Enlightenment'has engendereda wide range of responsesamong historians.Some scholars approached it essentially as a movement of ideas, the manifestation of changing consciousness,concepts and values among the eighteenthcentury European intellectual elite ideas particularly leading towardsfreedom in all its varied meanings.' The locusclassicus for such views was France, from where allegedly lesLumieres spread out further acrossthe Continent. The focuswas on big names, big ideas, big books perhaps the most famous of all being the Encyclopedie.2 Other scholars have laid different emphases. British historians, especially Roy Porter, have brought Britain to the fore as a primary centre of the phenomenon, and some researchershave laid greaterstresson national variationsand individuality,speakingabout European Enlightenments in the plural.3More attention has been drawn, too, to the social and Roger Bartlett is Professor Emeritus of Russian History at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London and Special Professor in the School of Modern Languages, University of Nottingham. An earlier version of this article was read to the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia at its meeting inJanuary 2005. I am most grateful for comments received there, and to Simon Dixon, Isabel de Madariaga, Gary Marker and Claus Scharf for further generous comment and advice. 1 For instance, Paul Hazard, La Orise dela conscience europkenne (I680-I7I5), Paris, I935; Peter Gay, TheEnlightenment: An Interpretation, 2 vols, London, I967-70. 2 Following Chambers' Cyclopaedia. The eighteenth century was the first great age of modern encyclopaedias, also the time when the term itself became established. Besides the first major German encyclopaedia,J. H. Zedler's great Grof,e vollstandige Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschaften undKunste ... (64 + 4 vols, Halle-Leipzig, I732-54), Diderot's and d'Alembert's Encyclopedie oudictionnaire raisonne dessciences, desartset desmetiers (35 vols, Paris,I75I-80), and the Encyclopaedia Britannica(initially 3 vols, Edinburgh, I768-7I, but succeeding editions expanded rapidly), the first printed Chinese encyclopaedia appeared, the enormous Gujin tushujicheng ('Complete Collection of Illustrations and Writings from the Earliest to Present Times'), Beijing, 1726. It covers some 8oo,ooo pages and uses more than ioo million characters. 3 R. Porter and M. Teich (eds), The Enlightenment in National Context,Cambridge, io8i; S. Juttner and J. Schlobach (eds), Europaische Aujklarung(en). Einheit und nationaleVieyfalt, Hamburg, I992 (hereafter, Europdische Aujklddrung(en)); Roy Porter, Enlightenment: Britainandthe Makingof theModernWorld,London, 2000 (hereafter, Enlightenment). ROGER BARTLETT 257 economicunderpinnings of the spreadof newideas,whetherin classbasedanalysessuchasJurgenHabermas 's thesisof the 'publicsphere' or in investigations of the book-trade andpublishing industry. Anotherpartof thismorerecenttrendemphasizes whathasbeen called the popularEnlightenment attemptsto relate the great abstract ideasto realeveryday life,or to usethemin practical waysto improvesociety.Alreadyat the beginningof the eighteenthcentury, thinkers wereanticipating KarlMarxinwantingnotjustto understand the world,but also to changeit.4As the centurywore on, a major development in European societieswastheeffortby benevolent membersoftheeducatedclasses privatepeopleindividually orin groups, or throughofficialagencies to spreadtheir light more widely throughsociety,to reachdownto the commonpeopleandhelpraise them out of ignorance,superstition and the commonills and vices of theirdailyexistence.Such socialactivistsactedfroma varietyof motives rationalcalculation,socialengineering,philanthropic or religious altruism. Therewasoftena strongelementofdutyandobligation ,moralor religious or both.The ethicalmodelof the 'enlightened patriot'couldoffera wayof life and approachto socialactionwhich constituted effectively a secularalternative to religious vocation.5 PopularEnlightenment alsoaccordedperfectly withthe leadingcameralist andphysiocratic theoriesof statecraft of the latereighteenthcentury; nordiditconflictwiththeideasofAdamSmithwhichbecameinfluentialaroundthe turnof the century.It combinedcameralist raison d'etat andbeliefin rationalordering of societywithpatriotic zealforcountry andfatherland, andwithChristian charitytowardsthe lessfortunate. Holger Boning,a recenthistorianof this phenomenonin the Germanies ,dieVolksaujkldrung, hastracedthe evolutionof sucheighteenthcenturyEnlightenedtheoryand practicein severalstages:from the abstractintellectualEnlightenmentto the 'economicand publicly useful' (gemeinniitzig-dkonomischen) phase, concernedparticularlywith agrarianand medical improvement,and throughto the 'popular Enlightenment' andits growingconcernforpopulareducation.6 This practical andactivistapproach to thespreadof Enlightenment became 4 Porter, Enlightenment, esp. chap. 3. 5 Discussed in the context of our area by Annelies Grasshof, 'Zur Mentalitat livlandischer Aufldarungsschriftsteller. Der Patriotismus August Wilhelm Hupels', in H. Ischreyt (ed.), ZentrenderAujkldrung, 2: KICnigsberg und Riga, Tubingen, 1995, pp. 2I7-35 (hereafter, 'Zur Mentalitat livlandischer'). 6 Holger Boning, 'Gemeinnutzig-okonomische Aufkldarung und Volksaufklarung. Bemerkungen zum Selbstverstandnis und zur Wirkung der praktisch-popularen Aufkldarungim deutschsprachigen Raum' (hereafter, 'Gemeinntitzig-okonomische Aufkldarung'), injJuttner, Schlobach, Europaische Aujklarung(en), pp. 2I8-48; see also, Das Volkim...