February 28, 1765.—His Highness arose at eight o’clock. After having dressed himself, he sat down to his customary studies. After his lesson he looked with me carefully at the road map to Moscow, and recollected where and how we passed the time on our last journey thither. I read to his Highness Vertot’s History of the Order of Maltese Knights. Then he amused himself with his toys, and, attaching to his cavalry the flag of the admiralty, imagined himself a Maltese Knight. At ten o’clock we sat down to breakfast. We spoke of Moscow and dramatic performances. We were about to rise from table, when someone, I do not remember who, asked for butter and cheese. The Grand Duke became angry at the butler and said: “Why did you not put it on the table before?” and then turning to us: “They simply steal the things for themselves!” We all armed ourselves against the Grand Duke and told him in French how bad it was to insult in this way a man of whom he could not know whether he was guilty or not.
When we left the table, this sermon was continued. Mr. Osterwald and I told his Highness in strong terms how bad his action was, and how easily he could cause those people to hate him. Then our conversation turned to the labours that an Emperor must undertake. His Highness remarked among other things: “But an Emperor cannot work all the time! He needs also some rest, and his amusements.” To this I retorted to the Grand Duke: “No one demands that an Emperor should never have any rest, for that is above human strength, and an Emperor is just such a man as anybody else; only he has been exalted to his position by God for his nation, and not for himself; that, consequently, he must use all his endeavour in the welfare and advancement of his nation; that his amusements and pleasures ought to consist in his knowledge and vivid representation of the great mass of his subjects who through his labours and cares enjoy well-being and numberless advantages, and of the flourishing condition of his country as the result of his work, and how his name will in just glory redound to the future generations.” These are the exact words which I spoke to his Highness. He listened to them very attentively.
September 20, 1765.—The birthday of his Imperial Highness; he is eleven years old. His Highness arose a little after seven.... I was not yet all dressed, when he appeared in my room, took me by my hand and began to walk around with me. I congratulated the Tsarévich upon his birthday, and explained to him my wishes in regard to him, which were similar to those of all the faithful sons of the country. Having dressed himself, he went into the yellow room. His Reverence, Father Platón, addressed to the Tsarévich a short congratulation, in which he presented very strongly and wittily our wishes and hopes in the progress of his Highness’s studies. Then his Highness went into the interior apartments to the Empress, and from there with her Highness to church. At the end of the liturgy, Father Platón spoke a sermon on the theme: “Settle it therefore in your hearts, not to meditate before what ye shall answer” (Luke xxi. 14). The whole sermon was beautiful. But especially the final address to her Highness and the Grand Duke visibly moved the hearts of all. Many eyes were seen in tears.... The Empress went from church to her inner apartments, and his Highness followed her. As we were there admitted to kiss her hand, she said among other things: “Father Platón does with us what he wants. If he wants us to weep, we weep; if he wants us to laugh, we laugh.”
The Satirical Journals (1769-1774), and Nikoláy Ivánovich Nóvikov. (1744-1818.)
The first attempt at a periodical was made as early as the year 1728, when literary essays were regularly added to the news of the day in the St. Petersburg Gazette, but the first literary journal was established in 1759 by Sumarókov under the name of The Industrious Bee. The example of Russia’s first littérateur was at once imitated by a number of private individuals, and magazines became common, though their life was nearly always very short. In 1769 there was issued by Grigóri Kozítski, under Catherine’s supervision, the first satirical journal, under the name of All Kinds of Things. During the time of reforms, satire appears as a natural weapon of attack against the old order of things, and there was, therefore, nothing unusual in the popularity which this and the following satirical journals attained. There is, however, also another reason for their appearance. The English Spectator, Tatler and Rambler were at that time well known in Russia, and the literary part of the St. Petersburg Gazette brought out a large number of translations from these English journals. All Kinds of Things shows plainly the influence of Addison in the tone of playful censure which was to Catherine’s liking and which it cultivated.
Of the several satirical periodicals that followed, the Hell’s Post; or, Correspondence between the Lame and the Halt Devils, by F. Émin, and the famous Drone, by N. I. Nóvikov, may be mentioned. The name of the latter is evidently chosen in contradistinction to Sumarókov’s Industrious Bee, and its editor, of whose imposing personality we shall speak later, belonged to that enlightened class of men who were in sympathy with the most advanced reforms, but had no love for the flimsy Voltairism which pervaded Russian society, and, like the Slavophile Shcherbátov (see p. 287), thought he discerned some stern virtues in the generations preceding the reforms of Peter the Great. He therefore set out to scourge vice wherever he found it. The satirical journals were divided into two camps: some clung to the mild and harmless satire of All Kinds of Things, the others took the Drone for their model. When the collaboration of Catherine in the first became known, Nóvikov found it necessary to desist from his attacks, to avoid the displeasure of the Empress, and soon his journal stopped entirely. He later edited for a short time the Painter and the Purse, but in 1774 all satirical journals ceased to exist. The most important of these journals has been the Painter, from which a generation of writers drew subjects for their satire or comedy.
Nóvikov’s early education was received at the Gymnasium connected with the Moscow University; he was excluded from it in 1760 for laziness and insufficient progress. He soon drifted into literature, and directed his attention to the dissemination of useful knowledge among the people. He developed a prodigious activity from 1772 to 1778, publishing a large number of chronicles and documents dealing with Russian antiquity. In 1779 he rented the University press for ten years, published in three years more books than had been issued by that institution in the preceding twenty-four years of its existence, opened bookstores all over Russia and encouraged and protected a whole generation of young writers. He was a zealous Mason, and in that capacity practised a most generous philanthropy by using the very great income from his venture for the establishment of charities and schools. Catherine was never favourable to the Masons and other mystics who had got a firm foothold in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and when the French Revolution had broken out, she suspected such men as Radíshchev (see p. 361) and Nóvikov of belonging to a secret society whose object was the overturning of the existing order of things. At first she ordered the metropolitan Platón to examine into the soundness of Nóvikov’s religious views, but the enlightened prelate reported: “I implore the all-merciful God that not only in the flock which has been entrusted by God and you to me, but in the whole world there should be such good Christians as Nóvikov.” Nevertheless, Catherine later found an excuse for seizing Nóvikov and imprisoning him in the fortress of Schlüsselburg, from which he was released by Emperor Paul, who is said with tears in his eyes and upon his knees to have begged Nóvikov’s forgiveness for his mother’s cruelty to him. He passed the rest of his days in his estate of Tikhvín.
FROM “ALL KINDS OF THINGS”
I lately went to dine in a Moscow suburb with a friend of mine. To my great displeasure I found the house in great sorrow because his wife had had a bad dream which threatened some danger to him, her and their children. We seated ourselves at the table. Their youngest boy, who was sitting at the end of the table, began to cry: “Mamma, I shall begin my problems on Monday.” “On Monday!” exclaimed his mother: “The Lord preserve us! Nobody begins anything new on Monday. Tell the deacon to begin on Tuesday.” The lady of the house asked me to pass her the salt. I hastened to do her the favour, but, being timid and overzealous, I dropped the salt-cellar in passing it. She trembled when she saw the mishap, and immediately remarked that the salt was spilled in her direction. Collecting herself again, she sighed and said to her husband: “My darling, misfortune never comes single. You will remember that the dove-cot broke down the same day our servant girl spilled the salt on the table.” “Yes, I remember,” said her husband, “and next day we received the news of the battle of Zorndorf.” I managed to finish my dinner, though with a heavy heart. The dinner being over, I accidentally placed my knife and fork crosswise on my plate. The hostess asked me to put them together. I soon learned from the lady’s behaviour that she looked upon me as an odd fellow and foreboder of misfortunes.
Gentlemen:—He who writes All Kinds of Things ought not to disdain anything. In this hope I, though a common labourer, take up the pen without hesitation, thinking that you might find something of interest in what I write. I have no intricate style, but write simply, just as I think.