The secret of Troppau: Chaadaev and Alexander I

Abstract

In 1820 Peter Chaadaev's position in society and his prospects in the military service were brilliant. A decorated veteran of the Napoleonic wars who was now aide-de-camp to General Illarion Vasil'chikov, the commander of the imperial Guard, Chaadaev was widely expected to become an adjutant to the Tsar himself. Yet in December of that year, after completing a highly confidential and highly prestigious mission, Chaadaev resigned. Early in 1821 his resignation was accepted, and he virtually disappeared from the view of society for 10 years. Ever since, rumour and conjecture have surrounded the event. Contemporaries were baffled and even alarmed by this sudden step: "The event . . . put the whole city in fear" (Dmitrii Sverbeev).1 In that age of normative behaviour, when even the "aberrations" and "excep tions" conformed to a type2, Chaadaev's decision seemed inexplicable and sinister not only to society in general but to his friends as well. This was a time of public "gestures", and it was as a "gesture" that many observers ? and, later, historians ? chose to see Chaadaev's resignation. The explanations offered by contemporaries, however, were often banal or malicious and could not be reconciled with Chaadaev's known sense of honour; nevertheless, the stories of his detractors found their way into the biographies. It is a historical commonplace that the years after the fall of Napoleon were for Russia a period of political oppression and internal