This study is an expanded and revised version of a thesis accepted for the Ph. D. Degree by the University of London in 1965. My sincere thanks go to Dr. Bertha Malnick, formerly of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, for her valuable advice, criticism, and encourage ment. Some of the material used in Chapters Three and Four has been published earlier in The Slavonic & East European Review, and I am grateful to the Editors of that journal for their kind permission to draw on it for the present purpose. Most of my research was carried out in the libraries of the British Museum and of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, and I wish to thank the many members of the staff of both these institutions who facilitated my labours. My thanks also go to the ladies of York University Secretarial Services involved in preparing the manuscript for the press. Finally, I must acknowledge the immense debt of gratitude lowe to my wife, without whose co-operation the whole project could never have materialised. The responsibility for all opinions expressed in this book and for all its shortcomings is entirely my own. Toronto, Canada December 1970 INTRODUCTION The eighteenth century for Russia marks the transition from the medieval (i. e. religious) to the modern European (i. e.

This is a collection of thirteen major essays on eighteenth-century Russia by one of the most distinguished Western historians. They illustrate and explore three major themes: the development of the Russian state and Russian society, in the years when Russia was changing from a minor power on the European periphery to a major actor on the continental stage; the influence of western ideas and western thought on Russian politics and culture; and the impact of the Enlightenment on Russia. This is a substantial contribution not just to the history of Russia, but to early modern Europe generally.

The essays in this volume portrays the public debates concerning freedom of speech in the 18th century in France and Britain as well as Austria, Denmark, Russia, and Spain and its American territories. The economic integration of Europe and its offshoots over the past three centuries into a distinctive cultural product, 'the West,' has given rise to a triumphant universalist narrative that masks these disparate national contributions to freedom of speech and other liberal rights.

This is the first investigation of the history of Russian Freemasonry, based on the premise that the facts of the Russian Enlightenment preclude application of the interpretative framework commonly used for the history of western thought. Coverage includes the development of early Russian masonry, the formation of the Novikov circle in Moscow, the ‘programme’ of Rosicrucianism and its Russian variant and, finally, the clash between the Rosicrucians and the State.

There is no shortage of biographies of Catherine the Great, of varying quality and degrees of sensationalism. But there exists no brief account of her reign that incorporates the extensive research findings of the last twenty years and presents them accessibly, accurately, and concisely to the student and the general reader. Following her magisterial Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great, Isabel de Madariaga has written the most informative, balanced and up-to-date short study of this spectacular period in Russian history. De Madariaga establishes an authoritative account of the events of Catherine's life, disentangling the myth from the verifiable reality. But her principal aim is to provide an account of the achievements of the thirty-four-year reign. Well-read and intelligent, Catherine presided over a fundamental reorganization of central and local government, of financial administration, of law, and of literary and cultural life. De Madariaga tracks the changes and explains the reforms, placing them in the context of eighteenth-century Europe and the ideas of the Enlightenment and of the French Revolution. Chapters on the wars against the Turkish empire, the annexation of the Crimea in 1783, and the partition of Poland demonstrate Catherine's part in building Russia into a formidable European power. The text is distinguished throughout by the attention paid to historical controversies over the interpretation of Catherine's policies and to teh historiography on the period in general. Praised by French writers of her day and attacked by later historians for her neglect of the welfare of the serfs, Catherine's achievements are now measured against the difficulties she met. The book points to the problems Catherine faced, the human and material resources on which she could draw, and the intellectual climate in which she operated. De Madariaga considers past and present assessments of Catherine and consolidates balanced judgments, profound understanding, and exhaustive reserach into a highly assimilable form.

Revised and expanded, the second edition of this fascinating study surveys the first two centuries of Romanov rule from the foundation of the dynasty by Michael Romanov in 1613 to the accession of Alexander I in 1801. The central theme of the book is the growth of absolutism in Russia throughout these years, and it traces in detail how the Russian variety of what was a contemporary European phenomenon came fully into being.

Gary Marker describes the pursuit of an effective public voice by political, Church, and literary elites in Russia as synonymous with the struggle to control the printed media, showing that Russian publishing and printing evolved in a way that sharply diverged from Western experiences but that proved to be highly significant for Russian society. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.