The Karamzin-Lelewel Controversy

Abstract

The intellectual debate which was taking place in Russia during the reign of Alexander I included a polemic which, although little known today, involved the most important Russian and Polish historians of the time, Karamzin and Lelewel, as well as other historians, writers, and journalists. Among the latter, the transplanted Pole, Tadeusz Bulharyn (Faddei V. Bulgarin), played a crucial part. The polemic developed into a controversy touching on the leading issues of the day, and it produced a sensation commanding the interest of the highest official and intellectual circles, including, reportedly, Alexander I himself. The polemic was largely provoked by the political views of Karamzin.According to Marc Raeff, the political ideas of Nikolai M. Karamzin (1766-1826) are a subject by themselves—still needs investigation. A writer of immensely popular sentimental stories, an innovator in the area of the Russian language, and a member of the progressive literary circle “Arzamas,” Karamzin nevertheless had become the spokesman of the old-fashioned, conservative, serf-owning nobility. It seems that Karamzin's first conservative leanings were a reaction to the later, more radical, phase of the French Revolution. They were voiced, subsequently, in his historical novels. Later, the Napoleonic Wars on the one hand and Alexander's liberal aspirations on the other further strengthened Karamzin's conservative feelings, which were finally provoked, under the influence of the Grand Duchess Catherine, Alexander's ambitious sister, by current projects for the reorganization of Russia.