The Concept of "Freedom" in Political Texts by Russian Authors of the 18th Century

Abstract

The concept of "freedom" is one of the pillars for identifying ideas about the social ideal and one of the guidelines in attempts at social construction of the modern era. The object of this study is the political thought of Russia in the 18th century. The subject of the research is the formation and evolution of the concept of “freedom” in the socio-political texts of Russian authors of the 18th century. The purpose of this article was to identify the specifics of the concept of "freedom", presented in the texts of statesmen and politicians of the 18th century, in relation to the texts created in the pre-Petrine tradition and the texts of the European Enlightenment. The basic research method is the textual analysis of the works of Russian political authors of the 18th century, in its various versions: semantic (including hermeneutics), genetic, comparative. The main conclusion is that the reception of the concept of "freedom" from the texts of the European Enlightenment and the formation, on this basis, of the political concept of "freedom", began in the second third of the 18th century, as evidenced by the texts of V.N. Tatishcheva. This reception ended in the 1780s in the form of three basic interpretations of the concept of "freedom" – liberal (texts by N.I. Panin and his associates), conservative (texts by M.M. Shcherbatov) and democratic (texts by A.N. Radishchev).