JOSEPH DE MAISTRE ON THE ENLIGHTENMENT IN RUSSIA (TOWARDS THE FORMATION OF THE PUBLIC SPHERE IN THE EARLY 19TH CENTURY)

Joseph de Maistre, who lived in Russia fourteen years (1803–1817) as an envoy of the King of Sardinia, did not leave a coherent text dedicated to Russia, however, his statements on various aspects of Russian life were numerous and varied. Some of them are contained in diplomatic correspondence. It was not intended for the Russian reader. The other part, which forms the object of this article, was distributed in Russian society and had the nature of expert assessments. As a diplomat, Maistre played a rather modest role as a petitioner for subsidies for the maintenance of the Sardinian court. As a public figure and thinker, celebrated by the public of St. Petersburg in the early 19th century. Maistre, who had endured and deeply comprehended the French Revolution, saw his mission as preventing a revolution in Russia, on which he had high hopes in the future. In Russia, according to Maistre, the center of the collision of two hostile world forces was moved: the European Enlightenment, and Catholicism, the faithful defenders of which were the Jesuits. The expulsion of the Jesuits from France predetermined the victory of the revolution in this country. The restoration of the Order of Jesus in Russia gave hope that the forces of revolution, penetrating into Russia in the form of various “sects,” would be defeated. Maistre did not have deep knowledge of Russia, but he saw the enormous and unspent energy of the Russian people, deprived of proper use. The Russian nobility, infected with gallomania, cut off from their people and from the faith, was leading the country to disaster. Only the Jesuits, if they are entrusted with the education of Russian youth, were able to prevent this catastrophe.