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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

Publication date: 15.12.2015

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

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

Authors

,
Marek Mosakowski
University of Gdańsk
ul. Bażyńskiego 1a 80-952 Gdańsk, Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5154-7650 Orcid
All publications →
Jarosław Ślęzak
Gdańsk University of Technology
, Poland
All publications →

Titles

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

Abstract

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.

References

GALLIZIOLI Giovanni Battista, 1982, Memorie per servire alla vita del conte Francesco Locatelli Lanzi, Milano: Cisalpino-Goliardica.

HAZARD Paul, 1961, La crise de la conscience européenne, Paris: Fayard.

LENTIN Anthony, 1973, Russia in the Eighteenth Century, New York: Barnes and Noble.

LOCATELLI Francesco, 1736, Lettres Moscovites, or Muscovian Letters, Trans. William Musgrave. London: Edmund Curll.

LORTHOLARY Albert, 1951, Le mirage russe en France au XVIIIe siècle, Paris: Boivin.

MOHRENSCHILDT Dimitri S. von, 1936, Russia in the Intellectual Life of Eighteenth-Century France, New York: Columbia University Press.

ROUSSEAU Jean-Jacques, 1973, Œuvres complètes de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, tome 3, Paris: Gallimard.

WOLFF Larry, 1994 Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
 

Information

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

Article type: Original article

Titles:

Polish:

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

English:

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

Authors

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5154-7650

Marek Mosakowski
University of Gdańsk
ul. Bażyńskiego 1a 80-952 Gdańsk, Poland
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5154-7650 Orcid
All publications →

University of Gdańsk
ul. Bażyńskiego 1a 80-952 Gdańsk, Poland

Gdańsk University of Technology
Poland

Published at: 15.12.2015

Article status: Open

Licence: None

Percentage share of authors:

Marek Mosakowski (Author) - 50%
Jarosław Ślęzak (Author) - 50%

Article corrections:

-

Publication languages:

English