At the beginning of the 1780s, the Russian authorities undertook one of the most visible invasions into the literary field in order to consolidate the most appropriate tendencies. Catherine strove to institutionalize culture as well as to incorporate it into the civil service and, therefore, to control it. Quite incidentally, Princess Dashkova, who returned in 1782 from her life abroad in quasi-exile, was invited to reprise her role as Catherine’s cultural emissary.
Twenty years prior, both had, side by side, taking command of the army in order to take political control of Russia. Now, the empress mobilized Dashkova, with her enormous energy, to initiate cultural institutions and, at the same time, to maintain the necessary control over them.
On October 30, 1783, the empress issued an order which established the Russian Academy, with Dashkova as president.
Even earlier, at the beginning of 1783, the Saint Petersburg
20 Ilia Serman, “Derzhavin v krugu druzei-poetov,” in Gavrila Derzhavin. Simposium devoted to his 250th Anniversary (Norwich, 1995), 321.
Academy of Science, founded by Peter I in 1724, had been entrusted to Dashkova’s leadership. While the latter dealt with science, the former was devoted to the humanities. As a result, they published the first Complete Works by Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov in six parts (1784–1787) and began intensive work on the Academic Dictionary of the Russian Language.
The Russian Academy was based on the assumption that language and literature — the letters — could unify, consolidate, form and eventually, represent the nation as well as its political or economic forces. Dashkova’s appointment was not temporary and politically neutral. It acknowledged the central role of the empress in shaping and patronizing culture: the empress simply delegated her power to her cultural emissary. The newly founded magazine the Interlocutor was meant to be a laboratory and, at the same time, an exhibition of a new cultural trend.
In terms of her cultural strategy, Catherine relied upon the model of the French Academy, which was founded in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister of France. Attempting to replace the decreasing role of the king’s sacred image with a more rational system of incorporating gents de letters into the state’s service, the French authorities organized cultural institutions in order to formulate new ways of ensuring the king’s power. While the king claimed to be equal to the state or nation, his cultural ambassadors tried to unite all of them by regulating the French language.
The Académie française was devoted to letters and was, first and foremost, responsible for the codification of French grammar and spelling as well as the development of French literature.
The so-called “small Academy” of language and literature — in contradistinction to the Academy of science — played a central role in organizing and patronizing culture. It was also significant that initially, the French Academy grew out of literary circles and salons.
Later, in the time of Louis XIV, royal minister Jean-Batiste Colbert successfully carried out the reorganization of academic and cultural life.21
21 Jean-Marie Apostolidès, Le roi-machine. Spectacle et politique au temps de Louis XIV (Paris, 1981), 29.
193 T h e B i r t h o f F e l i t s a
Catherine’s imitation of the French Academy was clear to her contemporaries. The French diplomat Chevalier de Corberon noticed that “a new Russian Academy was established after the model of the French Academy.”22 The poetess Maria Sushkova, in her epistle written under the mask of a Chinese man, published in the Interlocutor and addressed to the famous Murza-Derzhavin, declares:
Befriending the Muses and producing exhilaration, France ascended to the sky in recent times
Not by the power of the sword, but through her enlightenment;
She provides models in taste and science, The language, renowned with excellent authors, Developed into a universal tongue in all of Europe.
Therefore, the age of Louis, praised by the Muses, Afterward is shining in immortal glory.
This is, Russian Muses, your great destiny!
You should seek to rise up similar honors!
How can you be silent? Catherine herself Gives you protection and revives your voices.
Oh what a beautiful field is opened for you!
You ought not to mix any fables into your songs.
You should only sing wisdom on the throne,
Describing simply the Russian Golden Age as well.23
The poem advocates several positions at once. First, it indicates the paradigm to imitate (France) and pays tribute to the efforts of the French Academy in strengthening the country by supporting her excellent writers. Second, it underscores the advantages of enlightenment over force. It also outlines the themes to be elaborated upon (Catherine II and the Golden Age in Russia under her rule.) Finally, it stresses that the empress herself supports the poets; therefore, they should not refrain from praising her — in a new, “simple” way. In addition, the poem written to Murza from a humble Chinese man apparently pretended to be a programmatic
22 Un diplomate français à la court de Catherine II. 1775–1780. Journal intime du chevalier de Corberon, I (Paris, 1901), 119.
23 Sobesednik, 9 (1783), 21.
declaration, a claim to express a new cultural situation and a new style as well.
Despite an obvious orientation toward France, the Russian situation proved to be different. Salon culture did not exist in Russia in the eighteenth century, and the court remained an almost unique initiator and architect of cultural renovation. As a result of Richelieu’s and Colbert’s reforms, France developed a very productive cultural paradigm. While the French Academy cultivated the state-oriented, serious art which corresponded to the masculine community, the salons were the kingdom of women who promoted a playful style of conversation, gallant ridicule, and the central role of a witty woman.24
In Russia, Catherine did not want to promote salons outside her palace walls. Salons stand for a measure of equality among members. The Russian empress wanted to be the center of a salon-like culture developed and propagated by her courtiers and sponsored writers. Despite the fact that she accepted some elements of salon culture (witty conversation, light style, new genres), she refused to establish equality. Catherine promoted an amusing style and a new trend in culture — in an authoritarian way. She had to be entertained, not the other way around.