(1794-1856), Muscovite philospher and social critic.
Peter Yakovlevich Chaadayev is most famous for the publication of his “First Philosophical Letter” in 1836 in the journal Telescope, which shockingly provoked the subsequent debate between Slavophiles and Westernizers. The Russian intellectual Alexander Herzen declared Chaadayev’s letter to be “a shot that rang out in the dark night” that “shook all thinking Russians.” Count Benkendorf, chief of the Third Section (the secret police) under Tsar Nicholas I, considered Chaadayev’s work to be that of a madman, and so Nicholas I had Chaa-dayev officially declared insane and ordered that all copies of the Telescope journal be confiscated. Chaa-dayev was placed under house arrest for about a year. The government ordered him to never publish anything again.
Chaadayev had written his “First Philosophical Letter Addressed to a Lady” as part of a series of eight “Philosophical Letters” not in Russian but in French, which he considered to be “the language of Europe.” However, the editors of the journal Telescope published only the first letter in a comparatively weak Russian translation. Chaadayev designed his “Philosophical Letters” as a criticism of the history of Russian culture in general, and the effects of religious institutions in his country. He idealized the history and influence of the Roman Catholic Church, in order to point up the shortcomings of the Russian Orthodox Church. In particular, he lashed out at Russian serfdom and autocracy. He declared that Russians had made no impact upon world culture. Russia had no important past or present; it belonged neither to the East nor the West. He worried about the malignant growth of contemporary Russian nationalistic propaganda, which might lead Russians to construct some foolish past “golden age” or “retrospective utopia.” In such a case, Russians would not take advantage of their unique cultural situation, and their cultural history might only serve as an example to others of what not to do.
Most Russians know Chaadayev simply as “a friend of Alexander Pushkin,” or as a pro-Catholic ideologue. In fact, he did remain Pushkin’s friend until the poet’s death in 1837, but he never became a Roman Catholic. Chaadayev remained Russian Orthodox all of his life. In 1837 Chaadayev wrote his “Apologia of a Madman,” an ironic claim that
CHAGALL, MARC
Russia did indeed have a genuine history but only since the time of Peter the Great. Despite the fact that Russians had no “golden age” to fall back on, they should retain the ability to submit to outside cultural forces and thus have a potentially great future.
After 1836 Chaadayev continued to write articles on cultural and political issues “for the desk drawer.” Chaadayev defies categorization; he was not a typical Russian Westernizer due to his idiosyncratic interest in religion; nor was he a Slavophile, even though he offered a possible messianic role for Russia in the future. He had no direct followers, aside from his “nephew” and amanuensis, Mikhail Zhikharev, who scrupulously preserved Chaadayev’s manuscripts and tried to get some of them published after Chaadayev’s death. Chaa-dayev’s lasting heritage was to remind Russian intellectuals to evaluate any of Russia’s supposed cultural achievements in comparison with those of the West. See also: PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER SERGEYEVICH; SLAVOPHILES; WESTERNIZERS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Chaadayev, Peter. (1969). The Major Works of Peter Chaa-dayev: A Translation and Commentary by Raymond T. McNally. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. Chaadayev, Peter. (1991). Philosophical Works of Peter Chaadayev. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers. McNally, Raymond Ted. (1966). “Chaadayev’s Philosophical Letters Written to a Lady and His Apologia of a Madman.” Forschungen zur osteuropaischen Geschichte XI (Berlin 1966):24-128. McNally, Raymond Ted. (1971). Chaadaev and his Friends: An Intellectual History of Peter Chaadaev and His Russian Contemporaries. Tallahassee, FL: Diplomatic Press. the next year. Over the next three years, he attended art classes at Nikolai Roerich’s Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and at Savely Zei-denberg’s private art academy. He also studied under Mstislav Dobuzhinsky at Elizaveta Zvantseva’s art school. In 1910 Chagall left for Paris and settled in the Russian artist colony, La Ruche, in Mont-martre. After the opening of his first personal exhibition at the gallery Der Sturm in Berlin in 1914, Chagall made a trip to Russia; the outbreak of World War I made a return to Paris impossible.
Chagall was an enthusiastic supporter of the Russian Revolution and was made the first Commissar for Fine Arts in Vitebsk in 1917. He formed the Vitebsk Popular Art School in 1919 and invited Dobuzhinsky, El Lissitzky, Pen, and Ivan Puni (Jean Pougny) to join the faculty. At the same time, Vera Yermolayeva, also teaching at the school, invited Kazimir Malevich to become a member of the staff. Malevich and his followers formed the Unovis (Affirmers of the New Art) group, devoted to Suprematism and essentially hostile to Chagall’s leadership. In 1920, after a power struggle, Chagall resigned his directorship and moved to Moscow, where he worked in the Moscow State Yiddish Theater and the Habimah Theater as a set designer and muralist.
Growing increasingly disenchanted with the turmoil of the new communist state, he left Russia in 1922, immigrating to Berlin. After a year, he returned to Paris to find that many of the paintings he had left there were missing. However, he was still able in 1924 to mount his first major retrospective at the Galerie Barbazanges- Hoderbart. He moved to the United States in 1941, fleeing Nazi occupation, returning in 1948. See also: KANDINSKY, VASSILY VASSILIEVICH; MALEVICH, KAZIMIR SEVERINOVICH
RAYMOND T. MCNALLY
(1887-1985), (Mark Zakharovich Shagal), artist.
Marc Chagall was born in Vitebsk, Russia (now in Belarus), a major center of Jewish culture. In 1906 he attended Yehuda Pen’s School of Drawing and Painting in Vitebsk, moving to St. Petersburg
Bessonova, Marina. (1988). Chagall Discovered: From Russian and Private Collections. New York: H. L. Levin. Compton, Susan. (1990). Marc Chagall: My Life, My Dream, Berlin and Paris, 1922-1940. New York: Prestel. Harshav, Benjamin. (1992). Marc Chagall and the Jewish Theater. New York: The Guggenheim Museum.
From the 1470s, new demands (Novgorod’s annexation, service and land registration, diplomacy) impinged upon the Muscovite court; its few literate officials multiplied and specialized. Embryonic offices between the 1530s and 1550s evolved into departments, “chancelleries” (izby, later prikazy), generating their own desiderata, becoming a significant (even dominating) element in Muscovite government-shaping the court and autocracy. From the 1530s to 1700, the “chancellery system” (prikaznaia sistema) became a full-fledged early modern state bureaucracy, in some ways more developed than its European counterparts, with differentiated offices and a professional administrative staff. It did not contend with estates, incorporated towns, ecclesiastical institutions, or parliamentary organs.
Warfare was the primary impetus to the chancellery system; its personnel and documentary language were nonecclesiastical, unlike those of medieval Europe. Chancellery parlance (prikaznoi yazyk) was basically standard Middle Russian, with some Mongol-Tatar fiscal and diplomatic terminology and very few Latinate words.
The chancelleries’ primary interests were military affairs, diplomacy, taxation, and justice; education and social welfare virtually were absent. Seventy-six percent (117) of the chancelleries handled civil administration, 12 percent (18) royal court affairs, 8 percent (12) the tsar’s personal matters; and 4 percent (6) the Patriarchate. Tsars and their cliques fashioned new bureaus at the start of a reign, and became acculturated to bureaucratic norms.
The authorities furbished chancelleries as needed. One hundred thirty-six (90%) of the 153 chancelleries operated during the 1600s. While Ivan IV’s military administrative, tax, provincial administrative, and justice reforms caused the chancelleries to flourish, his Oprichnina temporarily inflicted harm. Its separate chancelleries suffered a fate similar to that of the regular state (Zemshchina) bureaus; in 1570 he murdered the state secretaries and clerks of both after 1572, new military, financial, and judicial chancelleries appeared; the chancellery system broadened its control over the countryside. The Time of Troubles bludgeoned this system as rival throne claimants divided administrators. Moscow lost countryside control; the Poles shut down the chancelleries. Mikhail Fyodorovich’s first years witnessed many new court chancelleries, temporary military chancelleries, and ad hoc social grievance bodies (e.g., against dominance by unduly powerful individuals [“strong people”] and tax exemptions for magnates, well-
