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La nouvelle Russie de Pierre le Grand. Un fantasme russe des premières Lumières françaises

Marek Mosakowski

Cahiers ERTA, Numéro 39, 2024, pp. 11-26

https://doi.org/10.4467/23538953CE.24.009.20184

In this article, we focus on the image of Russia under Peter the Great in France during the early Enlightenment. We discuss Fontenelle's text Éloge du tsar Pierre Ier, written shortly after the death of this Tsar and commissioned by the French Academy. Our hypothesis is that this text formed the foundation in France of the myth of Peter the Great as the outstanding moderniser, leading the absolute majority of French philosophers after Fontenelle to actually recognise Peter the Great as a true hero of the Enlightenment. Our method is to analyse in detail the rhetorical devices contained in Fontenelle's text and to compare the laudatory image of Peter the Great created by them with the equally laudatory position of other French philosophers, including Voltaire. Our conclusion is that Fontenelle's juxtaposition of Russia before Peter the Great with the new Russia during his reign fits perfectly with the Manichean metaphor of light, typical of the Enlightenment, which must of necessity prevail over darkness.

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The Muscovian Letters of Francesco Locatelli (1735), or the illusory modernisation of Russia’s legal and political system during the reign of Peter the Great and his successors

Marek Mosakowski

Romanica Cracoviensia, Volume 15, Issue 3, Volume 15 (2015), pp. 216-223

https://doi.org/10.4467/20843917RC.15.015.4282

In the 18th century thinkers of the French Enlightenment discover Russia, whose institutional reforms replace their traditional utopian topics. The myths of Peter the Great and of Catherine II as Minerva of the North are created. Russia also becomes a peculiar laboratory of Enlightenment incarnate. Francesco Locatelli, the author of the Muscovian Letters, who between 1733 and 1735 spent two years in Russian prisons, attempts to deconstruct these myths. His book, which enjoyed an immense popularity in Europe, is an accusation of arbitrariness and inhumanity of the Russian regime.

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University of Gdańsk

ul. Bażyńskiego 1a 80-952 Gdańsk

Poland

ROR ID:

Research Organization Registry icon 011dv8m48

ISNI ID: 0000 0001 2370 4076

GRID ID: grid.8585.0

Marek Mosakowski

University of Gdańsk (Poland)