has already been made of new Russian scholarship in connection with language and literature. Modern Russian study of economics dates from Peter the Great. Ivan Pososhkov, a wealthy peasant, an extraordinary critic and admirer of the first emperor, and the author of a remarkable treatise,
Architecture flourished in eighteenth-century Russia because of the interest and liberality of Peter the Great and his successors. Catherine the Great proved to be a passionate builder, and the same was true of Paul, as well as of Alexander I and Nicholas I in the nineteenth century. St. Petersburg, which rose from the swamps to become one of the truly beautiful and
impressive cities of the world, remains the best monument of this imperial devotion to architecture. Baroque at the beginning of the century and the neoclassical style toward the end of the century dominated European and Russian architecture. The builders in the empire of the Romanovs included a number of gifted foreigners, notably Count Bartolomeo Rastrelli, who came as a boy from Italy to Russia, when his sculptor father was invited by Peter the Great, and who erected the Winter Palace and the Smolny Institute in St. Petersburg and the great palace in Tsarskoe Selo - now Pushkin - together with many other buildings. Some excellent Russian architects, such as Basil Bazhenov and Matthew Kazakov, emerged in the second half of the century.
Other arts also grew and developed. In the 1750's the art section of the Academy of Sciences became an independent Academy of Arts. In the field of painting, portrait painting fared best, as exemplified by the work of Dmitrii Levitsky, 1735-1822 - the son, incidentally, of a priest who painted icons. Fedot Shubin, 1740-1805, like Lomonosov a peasant from the extreme north, was the first important Russian sculptor. Having received his initial training in his family of bone carvers, he went on to obtain the best artistic education available in St. Petersburg, Italy, and France, and to win high recognition abroad as well as at home. Shubin's sculptures are characterized by expressiveness and realism.
The eighteenth century also witnessed the appearance in Russia of modern music, notably the opera, as well as ballet and the theater. All of these arts came from the West and gradually, in the course of the century, entrenched themselves in their new locale. All were to be greatly enriched in the future by Russian genius. As to theater, while Peter the Great invited German actors and later sovereigns sponsored French and Italian troupes, a native Russian theater became established only in the 1750's. Its creator was a merchant's son, Theodore Volkov, who organized a successful theater in Iaroslavl on the Volga and was then requested to do the same in the capital. Catherine the Great herself contributed to the new repertoire of Russian plays. By the end of the century Russia possessed several public theaters, a theatrical school, and a periodical,
Russian culture of 1800 bore little resemblance to that of 1700. In brief, Russia - that is, upper-class, educated Russia - had become Westernized. The huge effort to learn that dominated Russian culture in the eighteenth century was to bear rich fruit. Many Russians, however, from the time of Peter the Great to the present, have worried about this wholesale borrowing from the West. From Pososhkov and Lomonosov to Soviet specialists they have tried to minimize the role of the West and to emphasize native Russian
achievements. Unusual among the better pre-revolutionary scholars, this view eventually received a heavy official endorsement in the Soviet Union. As a result, many Soviet discussions of Russia and the West in the eighteenth century became ridiculous. Although common, wounded national pride is an unfortunate and usually unjustified sentiment. To be sure, the Russians not only borrowed from the West, but also assimilated Western culture. For that matter, only two major European countries, England and France, can claim a full continuity of intellectual, literary, and cultural development, and even they, of course, experienced any number of foreign influences. Besides - and to conclude - while the origin of a heritage is important to the historian, its use may well be considered still more significant. We have seen something of that use in this chapter, and shall see much more of it in our subsequent discussions of Russian culture.
XXV
The book of a brilliant, magnanimous reign opened! Victory is inscribed in it: the conquest of Finland, Bessarabia, Persian territories, the defeat of Napoleon and of the armies of twenty nations, the liberation of Moscow, the capture of Paris twice, the annexation to Russia of the Kingdom of Poland. Magnanimity is inscribed in it: the liberation of Europe, the placing of the Bourbons on the thrones of France, Spain, and the Two Sicilies, the Holy Alliance, the sparing of Paris. There love of learning pointed to the creation of six universities, an academy, a lyceum. There mercy wrote actions worthy of it: rescue of the unfortunate ones, generous pardon of criminals and even of those who insulted His Majesty. There justice marked the affirmation of the rights of the gentry and the law giving the accused full freedom to defend themselves. All the virtues which ennoble man and adorn a tsar mark in this book the reign of Alexander. How many sovereigns of this earth stood impressive in their power and glory, but were there many who, like him, combined humility with power and goodness to enemies with the victories? Alexander of Greece! Caesar of Rome! your laurels are spattered with blood, ambition unsheathed your sword. Our Alexander triumphed virtuously: he wanted to establish in the world the peace of his own soul.
If, during the two centuries which divide the Russia of Peter the Great from the Bolshevik revolution, there was any period in which the spell of the authoritarian past might have been overcome, the forms of the state liberalized in a constitution, and the course of Russian development merged with the historic currents of the west, it is the earlier part of the reign of Alexander I. Or so, for a moment, one is tempted to think.
Alexander I was twenty-three years old when, following the deposition and assassination of his father, Emperor Paul, he ascended the Russian throne. The new monarch's personality and manner of dealing with other men had thus already been formed, and it is the psychology of the emperor that has fascinated those who became acquainted with him, both his contemporaries and later scholars. Moreover, there seems to be little agreement about Alexander I beyond the assertion that he was 'the most complex and most elusive figure among the emperors of Russia.' This unusual sovereign has been called 'the enigmatic tsar,' a sphinx, and 'crowned Hamlet,' not to mention other similarly mystifying appellations. Strik-
ing contradictions or alleged contradictions appear in the autocrat's character and activities. Thus Alexander I was hailed as a liberal by many men, Thomas Jefferson among them, and denounced as a reactionary by numerous others, including Byron. He was glorified as a pacifist, the originator of the Holy Alliance, and in general a man who did the utmost to establish peace and a Christian brotherhood on earth. Yet this 'angel' - an epithet frequently applied to Alexander I, especially within the imperial family and in court circles - was also a drill sergeant and a parade-ground enthusiast. Some students of Alexander I's foreign policy have concluded that the tsar was a
