Abstract
Always effective as a vehicle for social criticism, the satiric journey becomes with Radishchev the means for a powerful expose of the domestic situation. Unlike the Fonvizin trips A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow is fictitious.1 Both authors, however, set themselves similar objectives: to penetrate beneath conventional views on society. Radishchev finished work on the Journey in 1788, the year after Catherine’s official trip to Southern Russia and the Crimea. His book was very likely timed as a reply to the glowing reports — on the morale and living conditions of the peasantry — inspired by the Empress’ trip.2 (The whole affair had been expertly stage-managed by Potemkin to impress not only Catherine but also members of the foreign diplomatic corps.)
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