Socio-cultural and Didactic Aspects of M. M. Speransky’s Personal Correspondence with his Daughter and British Relatives of his Wife

Abstract

This article explores the connections that M. M. Speransky had with the relatives of his prematurely deceased wife, Elizabeth Jane Stephens. Her mother came from the Swiss family of Planta, who had moved to England in 1752. Methodologically, this research is based on the “new biographical history” or “new biography”, the methods of microhistory and the gender principle in biographical research. The author reconstructs the nature of Speransky’s interaction with the Planta family on the basis of correspondence preserved in his collection in the Department of Manuscripts of the Russian National Library with Joseph Planta the Elder (1744–1827), Director of the British Museum, and with his son, Joseph Planta the Younger (1787–1847), who held a post in the Foreign Office. Joseph Planta the Elder was a prominent intellectual of his time, and his son was directly connected with the British Foreign Office during one of the most turbulent periods in European history, and such connections could not but leave their mark on Speransky’s own life. The author concludes that the maintenance of long-term links with his wife’s family, with whom Speransky was not personally acquainted, testifies to the importance of these family ties, both for Speransky himself and for his daughter. Speransky actively encouraged and supported his daughter’s correspondence with Barbara Planta, her grandmother’s sister, and sought to provide his daughter with a European education, with an emphasis on the study of foreign languages, including English. It is concluded that the correspondence with the Planta family allowed Speransky himself to feel involved in both British and European culture, and to raise his daughter in this paradigm, instilling in her a European identity.