The Decembrist Pavel Pestel: Russia's First Republican by Patrick s> O'Meara (review)

Abstract

534 SEER, 83, 3, 2005 island are the plentifulblack-and-whitephotographswhich enhance this well producedvolume. Robson's book provides a multi-facetedhistory of the islands, dealing not only with the spirituallife of the monastery, but also with monastic politics (whichin the late nineteenth centuryappearto have beenjust aspersonalized, petty and vindictiveas those of most secularinstitutions).The authordoes not avoidthesensitiveissuesofmonastichomosexualityandpaedophilia,although he deals with them somewhat euphemistically (the relevant passages are indexed as 'Boys at Solovki'). The monastery's economic enterprises are vividly described, especially the all-importantactivities of salt production in the earlymodern period, and pilgrimage-tourismin the nineteenth century. The book'ssub-titleimpliesthat the authorintendsto presentthe historyof Solovkias a microcosm of the historyof Russiaas a whole, but thisadmittedly ambitious aim is only partiallyachieved. Forthe most part, Robson provides only sufficient background information to explain, for example, why the Britishbombarded Solovki in I854, or why the monasterywas disbanded in 192I. The curious exception is chapter four, which provides a lurid general account of the reign of Ivan the Terrible material which is included, it seems, only because Filipp Kolychev had been Father Superior of Solovki beforebeing appointedMetropolitanof Moscow by Ivan. Robson statesin his Prefacethatthe book is aimed primarilyat the 'general reader' and only secondarily at 'scholars of Russian history' (p. xi). The author'sclear and straightforwardnarrativeapproachwill certainlymake the volume accessible to non-specialists,but professionalhistorians,too, will find much of interestin thisattractivework. Centrefor Russian andEastEuropean Studies MAUREEN PERRIE University ofBirmingham O'Meara, Patrick. TheDecembrist PavelPestel:Russia'sFirstRepublican. Palgrave Macmillian, Basingstoke and New York, 2003. xi + 234 pp. Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?50?00? PAVEL IVANOVICH PESTEL was the pre-eminent and most radical thinker among theRussiannobleswho stagedtheimportantbutabortive'Decembrist' revolt against the Russian autocracy in December I825; with four other leading conspiratorshe was hanged, at the age of thirty-three.There is no full or biographical study in English. Using some new archivalmaterial, and the plethora of primary and secondary Decembrist materials available in print, the British Isles' leading Decembrist specialist Patrick O'Meara provides a clear, well-focused and tautly-writtenaccount of Pestel'slife and thought: a fine distillation of his background, changing ideas, and the strengths, flaws and contradictionsof his character.Pestelemergesas a difficultcharacterand an exceptionallypowerful and wide-rangingmind, who wove the ideas of his European sourcesinto Russianvisions of unprecedentedboldness, radicalism and republican authoritarianism,including regicide. These, however, he was then unable to impose upon his fellow-conspirators,many of whom werewary REVIEWS 535 of his extremism and his too obvious will to power. In i825 this persistent failure contributed to an intellectual and personal crisis, a cooling towards revolutionarycommitment and a return to his childhood Lutheranreligion, which neverthelesscame too late to preventhis arrestor the botched uprising. During the ensuing official investigations he soon gave the authorities full cooperation, and expressed endless remorse. O'Meara suggests that Pestel had never fully grasped the controversialimpact or the practicalenormity of his ideas, and concludes, perhaps somewhat surprisingly,that 'the balance of probability must be that Pestel was guilty more of rhetorical bravado than actualintent' (p. I89). A very positive feature of the book is the elucidation of Pestel's family relationships,both with his parents and his siblings -one brother,Vladimir Ivanovich, was very close to Nicholas I and was promoted on the day after Pavel's execution: unlike the Bolshevikswho so celebrated the Decembrists, Nicholas I did not criminalize whole families. Despite the work'sclarity and largely elegant presentation, it provokes some reservations. O'Meara addresses the historiographyof the Decembrists and Pestel only in passing: their beatification by nineteenth-century radicals and twentieth-century Soviet historians,and its effect on the canon, are not evaluated. He is surely right to argue that Pestel's authoritarian republican vision crucially went beyond what was acceptable to a majorityof the conspirators,but the closing discussion of regicide (pp. I89-94), besides overlooking the execution (and quartering)of Pugachev in 1775, seems problematic. Overthrow and killing of princes was not uncommon in early-modern Russia Catherine II was implicatedin two regicides,and AlexanderI (ifinvoluntarily,and as O'Meara indeed notes) in another. Was it killingan emperor, or deep structuralsocial and regime change, which was 'beyond the comprehensionof most of Pestel's confederates'(p. I93)? It was...