victims” of the Revolution; Karamzin in an original essay On the Light Dress of
Fashionable Beauties (O lyogkoy odezhde modnykh krasavits XIX veka), pub-
lished three months later in April 1802, attacked Russian women for imitating the
shameless French women, “who danced contredanses on the graves of their par-
ents, husbands and lovers!”[113]
Karamzin sighed for the civilization of pre-revolutionary days; he was anxious to
record all that suggested the return of gentle morals and amiability. Translated
articles such as On Habit (O privychke) and On Politeness and Bon Ton (Ob
uchtivosti i khoroshem tone)[114], together with remarks about the “bad taste of
the nouveaux riches” and the wish to see “social subtleties” reintroduced[115],
recall Karamzin’s aphorism from 1793 that “politeness, affability, is the flower of
society”[116] and stress his constant desire to encourage such qualities among the
Russian gentry.
VII.
Articles about French personalities and life in Paris, as well as more general works
from French sources, fill a considerable part of the “Literature and Miscellany” sec-
tion of the Messenger. Not unexpectedly, the political fortunes of France occupy a
prominent place in the journal’s “Politics” section. It is this section which truly jus-
tifies the journal’s title by informing the Russian public of the internal affairs of
European countries.
It was not, however, merely a process of translating interesting articles from the
foreign press; Karamzin was involved in European events but was equally intent
on using foreign material to comment on Russia’s internal problems. To this aim
Karamzin often re-edited or freely translated foreign originals. So that external
authority seemingly supported opinions he had expressed elsewhere or felt unable
to voice openly. This technique has been convincingly demonstrated by Yury
Lotman with reference to translated articles on widely differing topics[117], but
Lotman’s article apart, little attention has been paid to Karamzin’a political trans-
lations and especially his original political surveys.
Karamzin began his political commentaries with a detailed survey of a decade of
upheaval in Europe, in which he stressed the desire of all countries for prolonged
peace and stable government. His attention was directed above all to France, and
particularly to Napoleon. It is Napoleon who dominated the Messenger both as a
personality and as the key to European peace. In this opening essay Karamzin
characterized his as a “new Caesar, a new Clovis”[118] and observed that:
“the dangerous and foolish Jacobin principles, which brought the rest of Europe to
arms against the Republic, have disappeared in their own homeland, and France,
despite the name and a few republican forms of government, is now in fact noth-
ing other than a true monarchy”[119].
herald of europe • September 2004
17
It was, among other things, the realisation of Napoleon’s autocratic designs that led
to a change in Paul’s attitude to France; Alexander, although carefully wooed by the
English government, was also well disposed towards Napoleon. Karamzin was
therefore reflecting the official line, and indeed Karamzin’s attitudes to Napoleon
reflect the numerous changes in Russian opinion towards him in the years
1800–12. Nevertheless, Napoleon’s restitution of the monarchy in all but name
seemed to support Karamzin’s thesis of the one, and one only, historically justified
form of government for a country. Every issue of the Messenger contained refer-
ences to Napoleon and during the two years of Karamzin’s editorship over thirty
articles dealt directly with him and his actions. Napoleon met Karamzin’s demands
on a Great Man, such as he had set out in his Historical Panegyric to Catherine II:
“They decide the fate of mankind, determine its path; with inexplicable force they
draw millions of people to some aim designed by Providence; they create and
destroy kingdoms; they form epochs, of which all others are but the consequence;
in a sense, they form a chain in the immensity of centuries, stretching their hands
one to another, and their life is the history of peoples”[120].
Napoleon possessed what Montaigne had called “un peu de folie”[121], without
which nothing great was achieved in life, for “fundamental rationalism was never
a merit in heroes of ambition”[122]. Although Karamzin saw Napoleon as a great
general and leader of men, he also detected certain human weaknesses in him
which denied him the accolade of great and virtuous:
“By killing the monster of the Revolution, he had earned the eternal gratitude of
France and even of Europe. In this respect we shall always thank him willingly as
a great doctor, who has cured heads of a dangerous giddiness. We shall regret that
he has not the legislative wisdom of Solon and the pure virtue of Licurgus, who
having formed Sparta, banished himself forever from his homeland! That is an
heroic action before which all the Lodis and Marengos of the world disappear!
After two thousand seven hundred years it still fires the mind and a good youth
reading the life of Licurgus weeps in rapture.
… Evidently it is far easier to be a skilful general and a cunning politician than to
be a great, that is to say, heroically virtuous man”[123].
Despite the blemishes, Karamzin was ready to acclaim Napoleon, especially when
he re-established the authority of the church or helped the advancement of
enlightenment[124].
Karamzin followed closely French legislative decrees as well as France’s sponsor-
ing of the constitution mania which affected in particular Switzerland and Italy. In
1802 he expressed the wish that independence be restored to the Swiss for “repub-
lican freedom and independence belong to Switzerland as much as her granite and
snow-covered mountains: man does not destroy the works of nature”[125].
Therefore, when the Landammann Alois Reding organized a secessionist move-
ment among the small Swiss cantons, Karamzin was enraged by this rejection of
history:
herald of europe • September 2004
18