How "Enlightened" Was Late-Eighteenth-Century Russia?

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel assesses the impact of Enlightened ideals in the late-eighteenth-century empire by unpacking the observations of three figures: the writer Nikolai Karamzin, the Ukrainian noble Grigory Vinsky, and the British physician Matthew Guthrie. These participants in Europe’s “republic of letters” drew upon their lives and experiences in the Russian Empire to offer insights into the nature of rationalism and superstition, despotism and empire, and education and morality.

Sub Unit

• Early Slavic Studies

Chair

• Kevin Gledhill, Sacred Heart U

Papers

• Disenchanted Magic: Rationality and Cultural Topography in the World of Nikolai Karamzin - William Forrest Holden, U of Michigan

• Despotism and Enlightenment under Catherine the Great: Late 18th Century Russia According to 'My Time' by Grigory Vinsky - Alexander M. Martin, U of Notre Dame

• Dr. Matthew Guthrie’s 'Letter on the Education of the Female Nobility in Russia,' 1781 - Matthew P. Romaniello, Weber State U

Discussant

• John Randolph, U of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign