Breaking Ground: Travel and National Culture in Russia from Peter I to the Era of Pushkin (Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics 45) (Studies in Slavic Literature & Poetics)

BREAKING GROUND TRAVEL AND NATIONAL CULTURE IN RUSSIA FROM PETER I TO THE ERA OF PUSHKIN

STUDIES IN SLAVIC LITERATURE AND POETICS VOLUME XLV

Edited by

J.J. van Baak R. Grübel A.G.F. van Holk W.G. Weststeijn

BREAKING GROUND TRAVEL AND NATIONAL CULTURE IN RUSSIA FROM PETER I TO THE ERA OF PUSHKIN

Sara Dickinson

Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006

Cover design: Aart Jan Bergshoeff The paper on which this book is printed meets the requirements of “ISO 9706:1994, Information and documentation - Paper for documents Requirements for permanence”. ISBN-10: 90-420-1949-2 ISBN-13: 978-90-420-1949-2 ©Editions Rodopi B.V., Amsterdam - New York, NY 2006 Printed in the Netherlands

For Camillo and Iolanda

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Contents Acknowledgments

9

Note on Transliteration and Citations

11

Introduction The Literary Mode of Travel Writing Travel Writing and National Consciousness Travel Writing and Imaginary Geography

13

1.

Fonvizin and the Russian Tour of Western Europe (16891789) 27 1. Petrine Tourism: The Diary of Boris Kurakin 2. Educational Travel: The Voyage of Aleksandr Kurakin 3. The Literary Style of Ekaterina Dashkova 4. Fonvizin and France 5. Alternative Routes: Fonvizin’s Later Letters and Spa Diaries 6. The Trajectory of a Freemason: Vasily Zinoviev

2.

Radishchev and Domestic Description (1767-97) 1. Science and State in the Conception of Internal Travel Writing 2. Sentiment and Social Criticism 3. Radishchev and the Poetics of the National Landscape 4. Radishchev in Siberia: Letters and Diaries, 1790-97

3.

Karamzin and the Internal Account (1791-1812)

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105

1. Karamzin’s Traveler and Text 2. Sentimentalist Imitation and Parody in the Wake of Karamzin 3. Ambivalent Idylls: Time and Space in Accounts of Domestic Travel

4.

Returning to Europe (1812-25) 143 1. Fyodor Glinka’s Grandest Tour: Paris, 1814 2. Movement and Authority: Batiushkov in Wartime France 3. Reaffirming the Grand Tour

5.

Reimagining Foreign and Domestic Space (1810-50) 177 1. Vilgelm Kiukhelbeker’s Revision of the Grand Tour 2. Gogol’s Europe: Supplanting Western Tradition 3. Fyodor Glinka’s Internal Tour, 1810-11 4. Pushkin’s Provincial Tours: In the Tracks of Pugachov and Radishchev 5. Zhukovsky and Aleksandr Nikolaevich in Provincial Russia

6. In Conclusion: On Firm Ground

231

Notes

239

Works Cited

273

Index of Names and Texts

285

Acknowledgments Earlier versions of two parts of this book have appeared in article form. The discussion in chapter 1 of Boris Kurakin, Aleksandr Kurakin, and Ekaterina Dashkova is based on “The Russian Tour of Europe Before Fonvizin: Travel Writing as Literary Endeavor in Eighteenth-Century Russia,” Slavic and East European Journal 45, no. 1 (2001): 1-29; and the discussion of Zhukovsky and Karamzin in chapter 4 on “Four Writers and a Waterfall: Questions of Genre in Russian Travel Writing about Western Europe, 17911825,” Germano-Slavica 11 (1999): 3-26. This book has been long in the making and has benefited from the critiques, advice, and encouragements of numerous colleagues and friends. I am particularly grateful to Anna Lisa Crone, Caryl Emerson, Gitta Hammarberg, and Bill Todd for their sustained support and multiple perceptive readings. I am also thankful for the helpful suggestions and assistance at various stages of Mark Altshuller, Stephen Baehr, Angela Brintlinger, Daniel Collins, Trisha Craig, Maria Luisa Dodero, Donald Fanger, Mike Finke, Lisa Florman, Janis Martinson Herbert, Nick Howe, Andrew Kahn, Sally Kux, Joachim Klein, Ronald Le Blanc, Alexander Levitsky, Marcus Levitt, Terese Lyons, Alexander Martin, Thomas Newlin, Marshall Poe, Irina Reyfman, Galya Rylkova, Linda Spalding, Steve Summerhill, and many others. My ideas on travel and travel writing have further profited from discussions with colleagues at the Summer Research Lab at the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign and the erstwhile Ohio Russian Literary Seminar. For help in finding rare texts, I would like to thank Anthony Cross, Jeff Eagen, Paola Feretti, Vladimir Gitin, Carol Hart, Jared Ingersoll, and Irina Pronina. Some of the research for this book was funded by grants from the UIUC Summer Research Lab. The generous support of the Italian Ministry of Education (MIUR) and the hospitality of the Dipartimento di Scienze della Comunicazione Linguistica e Culturale and the Facoltà di Lingue e Letterature Straniere at the University of Genoa enabled me to complete the project. On the domestic front, I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to my family for continued encouragement and infinite patience. I am especially beholden to my husband Camillo, who, far from

objecting to sharing his life with Fonvizin, Radishchev, and Karamzin, offered countless insights on them. In addition, his passion for resolving technological crises in the wee hours of the night has saved the contents of this book more than once. I dedicate this book to him and to my daughter Iolanda, who has made it all worthwhile.

Note on Transliteration and Citations The transliteration of Russian in this book follows the Library of Congress system with a series of modifications aimed at rendering Russian personal and geographical names more palatable to the non-specialist reader. To begin with, I have used English translations for the names of sovereigns (Catherine, for example, rather than Ekaterina), common American English spellings for well-known writers (Gogol instead of Gogol’; Dostoevsky rather than Dostoevskii; Tolstoy, not Tolstoi; Herzen for Gerzen). I have also eliminated soft signs (Kiukhelbeker, rather than Kiukhel’beker), have spelled “soft sign plus e” as “ie” (Zinoviev, Grigorievich rather than Zinov’ev, Grigor’evich) and “ë” as “ y o ” (Fyodor, not Fedor, but Pugachov, rather than Pugachev or Pugachyov), and have replaced “-ii” with “-y” and “-iia” with “-ia” at the ends of words (Vasily Zhukovsky; Feodosia, rather than Feodosiia). Place names have been similarly altered, with the additional change that “ia” (not “-iia”) has been rendered as “ya” (Vyatka, Yaik, rather than Viatka, Iaik; but Malorossia, instead of Malorossiia). These alterations appear in the text, content notes, and index; in the bibliographical reference notes and list of works cited, I have retained the unadulterated transliteration. Unless specified, all translations in this book are my own. Ellipses and italics that appear in primary source citations are taken from original texts unless enclosed in square brackets or otherwise indicated.

Svet mal, a Rossiia velika. —Ivan Goncharov

Introduction This book examines the evolution of literary travel writing in Russia from its emergence during the reign of Peter I (the Great, 1689-1725), through its apotheosis in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, to its decline in the 1830s and 1840s. The style or mode of travel writing referred to here as “literary” was originally conceived in Western Europe as a vehicle for the record of leisured touring, a type of private elite travel that became fashionable in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Literary travel writing became prominent in Russia during the last third of the eighteenth century, its popularity catalyzed by the rise in leisured travel that followed Peter III’s 1762 decision to relieve the gentry of obligatory state service and permit travel abroad.1 His wife Catherine II (the Great) has also been credited with having granted her subjects “the freedom to gallop off into foreign regions”:2 while quick to depose her spouse (who reigned for only six months), she confirmed his liberal travel policies. An unprecedented number of important cultural and public figures tried their hand at travel writing during Catherine’s reign (1762-96), including not only the well-known authors Denis Fonvizin, Aleksandr Radishchev, and Nikolai Karamzin, but also leading members of the aristocracy, among them the Empress herself, the princess Ekaterina Dashkova, and the prince Aleksandr Kurakin. By the time of Catherine’s death in 1796, epistolary accounts of journeys and carefully maintained travel diaries had become familiar literary forms. Literary travel writing remained a fashionable and productive cultural phenomenon in the first third of the nineteenth century and the list of practitioners continued to grow, extending from the era’s foremost literary talents—such as Konstantin Batiushkov, Fyodor Glinka, Aleksandr Pushkin, and Vasily Zhukovsky—to numerous others whose once well-known names (e.g. Pyotr Shalikov, Ivan Lazhechnikov) are familiar primarily to specialists today. After the first few decades of the nineteenth century, however, the once popular and ubiquitous travelogue gradually

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Breaking Ground

succumbed to the rise of prose fiction and literary travel writing became the “minor” form that it remains today. Leisured accounts nonetheless left an indelible trace in subsequent Russian letters and many of the great prose writers of the nineteenth century built their works upon a foundation of ideas that had been laid in the pages of earlier travelogues. In particular, the expression of a national identity, the discovery of a national culture, and conceptions of place—both Russian and Western European—were among the primary achievements of the travel genre and constituted its chief legacy to prose fiction. The Literary Mode of Travel Writing One focus of this book is to define literary travel writing and describe its evolution amidst other competing and complementary approaches to travel description. Given that literary travel writing originated in the West, it is not surprising that Russian examples of this mode first emerged in descriptions of touring abroad. Several Russians visited Western Europe in the Petrine era, many sent by the tsar himself in order to acquire technical training or to perform military or diplomatic tasks. If not quite leisured tourists, these new travelers clearly differed from more traditional itinerants, such as pilgrims, clerics, merchants, and adventurers. In particular, they demonstrated a clear reverence for Western behavioral and literary models in both their routes and written records. Such inclinations increased as the century wore on and eventually became a hallmark of the literary account. In fact, the “literariness” of Russian texts—a topic to be explored in more detail—derives primarily from their evident link with the West and marked orientation towards Western European tradition.3 This book will also examine several other varieties of travel writing that developed in close relationship with the literary account, such as the descriptive accounts of journeying scientists and official records of trips undertaken by touring sovereigns. Of these, it was ultimately the literary account that had a greater and more direct influence on nineteenth-century prose fiction. Foreign texts and touristic practices helped to establish the very concept of leisured travel in Russia. In conjunction with descriptive scientific texts and guidebooks, Western accounts codified routes and standardized travel activities, recommending tourist sites,

Introduction

15

hotels, and even valets. They also guided Russians in techniques of literary stylization: writers adopted specific formal and thematic elements from foreign prototypes, including turns of phrase, types of subject matter, and a host of formal structures and stylemes t o be described in the chapters that follow. The travelogues of Sterne, Dupaty, and De Maistre are but a few of the many that inspired translation and imitation from Catherine’s reign until well into the nineteenth century.4 Like most other forms of travel writing, the literary account has its basis in documentary record. Constituted by letters, diaries, and narrative reports, it ordinarily describes (or presents itself as describing) not only an actual trip taken by the author, but also a relatively prompt relation of his or her experience, rather than the later recollection (memoir) of it.5 Literary travelers frequently emphasize this quality of immediacy still further by claiming t o describe events almost as they happen and focusing on the concrete writing of the text as an event in its own right. Thus, while some of the texts analyzed in this study were published only years after the trip itself, all follow literary fashion in presenting themselves as immediate records of genuine journeys. Another key index of the travelogue’s “literariness” has been seen as its special attention to the narratorial persona.6 Defining this mode of travel writing according to the presence of a narrator has certain practical advantages. To begin with, it serves to reduce the huge corpus of eighteenth-century travel writing to those examples that—precisely because of their focus on the figure of the traveler—make the most interesting reading; the texts of Fonvizin (chapter 1), Radishchev (chapter 2), and Karamzin (chapter 3) are obvious cases in point. Such a definition also relates the evolution of literary travel writing to that of other eighteenth-century literary genres in which the emergence of a distinct narrator is a generally occurring phenomenon.7 Indeed, several standard features of the literary travelogue were designed precisely to amplify the narratorial voice, such as the first-person perspective and the form of the familiar letter or private diary.8 Russian travel writers also ascribed specific “literary” characteristics to their traveling personae by assigning them well-established poses and points of view. Self-presentation tended to emphasize qualities such as spontaneity, humor, light-heartedness, and an interest in literary and cultural fashions. By depicting themselves as writing by choice or even whim rather than necessity, literarily inclined tourists

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Breaking Ground

underlined both their elite (since leisured) status and a casual, offhand approach to the text. The trumpeting of one’s national identity eventually became a customary element of the literary account as well. Absent or only sporadically present in Petrine era travelogues, these features became more prominent in Russia towards the end of the century when the literary mode of travel writing had become better established. In the last few decades of the eighteenth century, Russian travelers mimed yet another foreign behavior in turning their attention increasingly towards domestic itineraries. Not surprisingly, they often considered internal spaces in light of their experiences abroad, measuring their encounters with provincial Russia against standards for touring in Europe and attempting t o imitate Western practices on native turf. Such endeavors met with a series of difficulties, however: the Russian Empire contained vast expanses of space, but much of it was topographically dissimilar t o the fashionable landscapes of Western Europe that had become integral components of the foreign tour. Travelers were hard pressed to find local equivalents for the Bay of Naples, the banks of the Rhine, or the mountains and waterfalls of Switzerland. As Christopher Ely has argued for the later nineteenth century, full appreciation of the Russian environment required manipulating and partially rejecting European ideas to establish an alternative aesthetic code;9 the travel writing examined here illustrates the earlier unfolding of a similar process. If some felt that Russian territory compared unfavorably with the West, others responded t o the challenge by arguing that domestic travel was equivalent or superior to the foreign tour. More nuanced and synthetic approaches became possible in the first few decades of the nineteenth century as the contemplation of native territory coupled with successive visits to the West convinced many Russians that their own national culture needed new models. Ultimately, the experience and record of internal travel helped to free the Russian travelogue from its dependence on Western tradition. Travel Writing and National Consciousness Another task of this book is to examine travel writing’s evolving response to topical and “accursed questions” about the nature of Russia’s relationship with Western Europe. The widespread

Introduction

17

enthusiasm for travel writing ensured that its development would reflect many of the broad changes occurring in Russian culture and letters during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This was a lively transitional period in which courtly models of literary production began to give way to more comprehensive publishing strategies and neoclassical aesthetics were replaced by sentimentalist and romantic tendencies. The heyday of travel writing also coincided with the era in which Russian letters began a dedicated process of defining itself against Western European tradition. Since eighteenth-century Europe was deeply affected by the rise of national consciousness—“a striving for a common identity, character, and culture by the articulate members of a given community”10—the concepts of nation and national identity became important in Russia as well. Orientation towards the West meant that Russia “had in fact no choice but to become [a nation]” and that its cultural endeavors were necessarily conceived in terms of “Russianness,” a unique and particular entity.11 The importance of Western European culture grew enormously in Russia over the course of the eighteenth century and the Russian literary environment was increasingly shaped by its relationship t o cultural developments abroad. Discussions of foreign cultural influence were common in this era: even commentaries accompanying literary translations offered views on Russia’s status and position with respect to the West. Literary travel writing provided writers yet another opportunity to consider the appropriate relation between foreign and Russian cultural traditions as they adapted Western forms to their own purposes through imitation, translation, and parody.12 Moreover, the fact that travel writing invariably dealt with cultural description and contrast meant that it was ideally suited for discussions of national culture and identity.13 While virtually unknown in accounts from the reign of Peter I, generalizations about “national character” became standard topoi during Catherine’s era. Elite tourists of the late eighteenth century frequently scoured foreign cultures for evidence of distinctions between, for example, “the” French and “the” Russian, and overlaid their descriptions of travel with observations on this theme. In fact, the growing interest in national definition so clearly documented in Russian travel writing was crucial not only for the future development of Russian letters, but also for the very idea of a national tradition—that concept which allows us to speak of “Russian literature” at all.

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Like their Western counterparts, Russian tourists were leisured gentlemen or, less frequently, ladies who belonged to “a network of literate Northern Europeans” and often to its uppermost social rungs. Indeed, if Western exemplars in this era were “mainly men from the lower levels of the aristocracy and the middle and upper levels of the bourgeoisie,”14 eighteenth-century Russian travelers were likely to be aristocrats, that is, members of the titled nobility. Not surprisingly, the interests and characteristics of this elite group shaped the development of the literary account. In particular, “national” consciousness was often indistinguishable in this era from the class-consciousness of the nobility—the group by, for, and about whom concepts of national identity were articulated. In deriding the French, for example, Russian travelers might take aim at either nobility or peasantry, but they never lost sight of the enormous distinction between them. Frequently, the accounts of these elite tourists simply excluded the lower orders of society from consideration: aside from occasional complaints on the quality of service, elite tourists generally employed their accounts to describe interactions with peers and superiors.15 In fact, the evidence provided in these texts of Russian travelers’ casual interactions with foreign aristocracy and royalty offers a useful corrective t o widespread notions of a supposed Russian tendency to anxiously prostrate itself before the West. On domestic itineraries as well, travelers sometimes turned their attention to the Russian narod or common folk, but their main interest remained the upper classes. If writers in provincial settings did occasionally construe rural laborers as exemplary of crucial national values, they tended to follow the emphases of Western bourgeois literary fashions in preferring the figure of the rural landowner to that of the peasant—at least in the period under study here. Even romantic and Napoleonic era celebrations of the narod were unable to alter leisured travel writing’s primary focus on the elite. As members of an international elite, Russian leisured travelers belonged by education, volition, and habit to a social layer that was permeated with the influence of foreign—particularly French and German—culture. After roughly the first third of the eighteenth century, the Russian nobility followed its Western peers in adopting French for use at court, in school, while traveling, and frequently at home. Latin, the lingua franca of the previous era, was reserved increasingly for scholars, while texts in French (which included

Introduction

19

translations from other European languages such as English) were prominently featured in educational curricula and found in private libraries. Russia’s intense engagement with French culture fostered widespread discussions of Enlightenment philosophy and political events, Francophilia, Francophobia, and travel to Paris, “the eighteenth-century Russian Mecca.”16 The education of the young nobleman often required familiarity with German thought and letters as well, a fact sometimes obscured by the more visible link between Russian and French culture. Germans comprised a large proportion of the faculty in eighteenth-century Russian educational institutions and academic curricula often followed the models they had imported. Translations from German were among the first literary products of both Fonvizin and Karamzin and several noteworthy Russians studied in Germany, including them the travel writers Vladimir Orlov, Vasily Zinoviev, and Aleksandr Radishchev.17 Although eighteenth-century Russian elites tended t o be less well-versed in English, Dutch, Italian and other European languages, the influences of these cultures were felt as well. The rise of Western culture in Russia was thus a complex phenomenon that involved foreign and Russian writers working in a variety of languages and often writing for an audience that knew other languages, such as Polish, French, or German as well, if not better, than Russian itself. Indeed, many literary texts that contributed to the developing Russian tradition were written in French or by non-Russian authors, most notably by the German princess who became Catherine the Great, but also by Ukrainians, Baltic Germans, and members of numerous other groups found within the Empire. In this book, the terms “Russian writer” and “Russian traveler” refer to those of various ethnic backgrounds who participated in a common, and hence “Russian,” cultural arena. Exposure to Western education and cultural tools meant that Russian writers were conscious of the gap between a Western European view of the world and their own experience of it. In particular, Russia had long had an ambivalent relationship with Western European travel writing and its descriptive texts: foreign accounts had elaborated unflattering portraits of “the” Russian since the sixteenth-century reign of Ivan IV (the Terrible)—well before the rise of leisured travel. Understandably, Russian responses to these preemptive reports were often heated and polemical. The characterization of Russia published in 1768 by the French astronomer abbé Chappe d’Auteroche, for example, provoked a

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monograph-length rejoinder from Catherine II herself. A representative of the French Royal Academy of Sciences, Chappe had traveled to the Siberian city of Tobolsk in 1762 to observe the transit of Venus across the sun and had then written an account of the experience that presented Russia as a land of barbaric savages. Catherine’s aptly titled Antidote challenged his text virtually line by line.18 Since Western travelers had construed Russia as a marginal entity, and literary travel writing was clearly a Western form, the subsequent use of this mode by Russian writers necessitated a certain literary “empowerment,” or the transformation of the literary account into a medium capable of describing the experience of a Russian. The task was hardly a simple one. In fact, Russia’s peripheral or subaltern status in the arena of European culture guaranteed inherent difficulties with the formulation of a Russian point of view. The situation became increasingly problematic with the rise of national consciousness: if a national identity was required to gain international (Western) recognition as a modern state, the very concepts of nation and national difference had already been defined to Western European advantage. This book explores a series of solutions proposed in Russian travel writing as it struggles to achieve a more independent position within the European cultural system. Travel Writing and Imaginary Geography A third focus of this book is to explore how Russian travel writing reflects and elaborates conceptions of place, attaching ideas of space or “imaginary geographies” to actual territories.19 In doing so, we compare Russian accounts of travel in Western Europe with records of touring the Empire’s provinces, especially in Russia and Ukraine. The knowledge that texts addressing the same or similar locales share figurative conceptions of geography has long been familiar to literary study. Like the exotic southern landscapes of romanticism or the enigmatic cityscapes of Petersburg, the spaces of Western Europe and of the domestic Russian provinces were metaphorical constructions that expressed and perpetuated specific (and sometimes tendentious) ideas of geography and culture. They were, like Said’s “Orient” or Suleri’s “English India,” “both literal and figurative at the same time.”20 If literary travel writing’s

Introduction

21

explicit focus on the description of space makes it an obvious vehicle for the elaboration of imaginary geographies, its characteristic emphasis on the narratorial persona means that ideas of the self are explored as well: literary protocol required that the authors of these accounts articulate conceptions of themselves while describing foreign others and alien geographical settings. Bakhtin’s theory of the chronotope helps to clarify this link between geographical context and the figure of the traveler.21 In fact, the chronotope itself, which combines specific understandings of time (chronos) and space (topos) with particular ideas of the literary hero, is quite similar to what we have been alluding to as “imaginary geography.” In Bakhtin’s view, chronotopes serve as the basis for defining and distinguishing literary genres: a given genre consists of particular assumptions about time and space and a corresponding type of literary hero—i.e., a specific form of the human image (obraz cheloveka) conceivable within these temporal and spatial parameters; the same three variables also provide the defining framework for possible developments of plot. As will become apparent, literary travel writing features a similarly organic connection between geographical context, thematic content, and literary personage. The spatial parameters of the travelogue’s chronotope, for example, are explicitly defined by its itinerary. Conceptions of time vary with route as well. While Russians traveling abroad often construed their native land as lagging behind a more advanced Western Europe, for instance, writers on domestic itineraries felt encouraged to contemplate the past—often in personal terms—or to describe time as circular or static. Leisured travel writing’s predilection for first-person narration meant that the role of “hero” was assumed by the traveling narrator, who (as in other apparently autobiographical texts) presents him or herself as a transparent textual representative of the author. In short, the attributes of a given travel narrator—like the themes and preoccupations of the travelogue itself—were closely related to the geographical setting of the journey in question and developed in response to the particular literary and cultural influences invoked by that itinerary: the Russian traveler in Paris was not equivalent t o his or her counterpart in Poltava. When concepts of place and travelers’ personae became charged with issues of national identity, the figure of the traveler began t o take on specifically Russian attributes and to function as a representative or embodiment of his or her compatriots—first in

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foreign lands and then, by extension, in the Empire’s own provinces. By “grounding” the traveler in two different types of environments—the foreign and the native—Russian travel writing offered its practitioners the possibility of experimenting with diverse subject positions. In these different geographical contexts, Russian writers assumed a wide range of stances with respect t o Western European culture, attempting variously to integrate themselves into it and/or to distinguish themselves from it. Ultimately, the experience of foreign touring and domestic travel—and the evolving protocols for describing them—created two distinct subtraditions whose dialectical relationship helped t o stimulate Russian literature’s growing independence from Western culture.22 As a result, literary travel writing played a crucial role in the development of Russian ideas of geography, identity, and cultural tradition. Indeed, the literary account’s interest in addressing precisely such issues was fundamental to its rise and widespread popularity. The chapters in this book track the chronological development of literary travel writing in the work of Russian tourists as they move—in successive and overlapping waves—from Russia t o Western Europe and within the Empire itself. The first three chapters describe how the literary travelogue emerged in Russia amid various other types of travel writing, including reports of the grand tour, records of study abroad, descriptions of taking the cure, Masonic diaries, state and scientific travel accounts, and sentimentalist renditions of brief country excursions. These chapters also sequentially address the work of Russia’s eighteenthcentury travel writing triumvirate, Fonvizin, Radishchev, and Karamzin. By analyzing the texts of these men against the background of other contemporary travel accounts, this study sheds new light on their peculiar achievements. Chapters 4 and 5 investigate the emergence of new, more independent perspectives in both foreign and domestic travel writing, tracking the consequences of the Napoleonic Wars (1805-15) and the Decembrist Uprising (1825) on Russian travel writing and its imaginary geographies as the literary mode flourishes and then declines. Despite the numerous political and cultural difficulties that beset its authors, the Russian travelogue came into its own during the first few decades of the nineteenth century. In this period, the concern

Introduction

23

with European models that had characterized eighteenth-century accounts gradually ceded ground to the influence of a burgeoning national tradition and Russian writers more frequently made use of paradigms taken from the works of their compatriot forebears. Moreover, travel writers increasingly sought alternatives to the simplistic choice of either rejecting or embracing Western tradition. Fonvizin had succinctly expressed the dilemma presented by these two contrasting views in 1783 when he posed to Catherine the question of Russia’s appropriate relationship with the West. “How can we exterminate two opposing and most harmful prejudices,” he asked, “first, that in Russia everything is awful, but in foreign lands all is well; second, that in foreign lands everything is awful, but in Russia all is well?”23 If her reply—“With time and knowledge”—was elusive and non-committal in terms of official policy, it did describe the general direction of travel writing’s future evolution: in the years that followed, numerous writers found ways either to transcend the bald opposition between Russia and the West or to synthesize its contradictory elements. By the 1830s, Russian travelers had broken new ground in designing their own tours and texts. Aleksandr Pushkin, prevented from contemplating the landscapes of Western Europe by his clashes with imperial authority, responded by politicizing domestic itineraries. He made a brief trip to southeast Russia to research the history of the popular rebel leader Emelian Pugachov and, in the form of a critical review, dared to rework Radishchev’s Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, a political tract banned since its publication in 1790 for its apparently seditious intent. Nikolai Gogol was traveling abroad in the 1830s, where he wrote his novel Dead Souls, formulating its renowned descriptions of rural Russia against the contrasting backdrops of Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy. His friend Vasily Zhukovsky, another experienced European traveler, also authored a series of travel letters that reimagined the traditional relationship between the Russian writer and the West before turning his attention to domestic geography. Shortly after Pushkin’s death in 1837, Zhukovsky toured the Russian provinces and revitalized the link between native territory and social protest by taking his pupil and travel companion, the future Alexander II, to visit the homes of exiled Decembrists. What then caused literary travel writing’s decline and prevented its comeback? A partial answer may be found in the same examples of

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Gogol, Pushkin, and Zhukovsky, all of whose careers illustrate how constraints on written expression shaped literary production during the repressive, post-Decembrist reign of Nicholas I (1825-55). I t was in this era that imaginings of Russian geography were more often taken up in other forms and genres. Prose fiction, in particular, developed precisely on the ground staked out by travel writing. The focus on domestic landscapes featured in internal accounts especially furthered the growth of realist fiction by encouraging a sense of attachment to national spaces. Somewhat paradoxically, the golden age of travel writing seems to have promoted a preference for geographical fixity as well. By the 1850s, only a few black sheep remained as the literary progeny of Catherinian tourists and Romantic wanderers: Dostoevsky’s Prince Myshkin sojourning in Switzerland stands out, as does the voluble narrator of Leskov’s semi-fantastic “Enchanted Wanderer.” We might also cite various characters (in Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Leskov, Tolstoy and so on) whose past lives or future plans include extended tours abroad. Dostoevsky himself developed the legacy of previous grand tourists—particularly Fonvizin—to categorically reject Western Europe. Like other realist writers and despite his own long experience of living abroad, Dostoevsky favored narratives featuring Russian subjects whose lives unwind in primarily Russian settings; the unusual Western backdrop in The Gambler (1866) serves to illustrate how the unnatural foreign environment can lead Russians into moral turpitude, vice, and, ultimately, to their own destruction. Turgenev, who also lived in Western Europe for prolonged periods, frequently uses foreign travel in his novels to suggest a literary character’s alienation from the rightful (native) environment—an indication of something “not quite Russian” in his or her soul. Turgenev, too, associated moral virtue and positive character development primarily with domestic, and especially rural, climes. Goncharov’s Oblomov (1849-59) even construes staying at home as a positive virtue: not only does the eponymous hero of the novel fail to mature (as he obsessive fantasizes about an everlasting country childhood), but his sloth and indolence are seen as traits that represent an inner, spiritual purity. Closed, pastoral realms abound in the work of Aksakov, Tolstoy, and other realist writers as well; even those more critical of domestic realities—such as Saltykov-Shchedrin and Chekhov—concentrate on describing the lives of people deeply ensconced in provincial Russia.

Introduction

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In short, nineteenth-century realist prose continued the trajectory mapped by earlier examples of the literary travelogue in turning progressively inward, away from Western Europe, t o concentrate on domestic reality and on the national essence that permeated native landscapes, characters, and their life stories. As this book demonstrates, the very concept of a national essence was developed in the travel writing of an earlier period as it documented and personalized the confrontation between Russian culture and Western tradition. The rural environments later detailed by Gogol, Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Goncharov, Tolstoy, Aksakov, Leskov, and others—together with their notions of life abroad—issue from a tradition of travel writing that begins with the eighteenth-century Russian account of the Western European tour.

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Chapter 1 Fonvizin and the Russian Tour of Western Europe (1689-1789) Throughout the eighteenth century, Russians sought to imitate the Western practice of leisured touring together with the literary forms to describe it. The best-known version of elite travel was the “grand tour,” designed to endorse and confirm the cultural significance of Western Europe. In its British prototype, the grand tour was a ritualized procedure that intended to familiarize young members of the nobility (and later of the bourgeoisie) with modern languages, contemporary society, and monuments of Western culture. It was hoped that completing the tour would allow travelers to maintain or improve their social position, often by granting greater access to important political and professional roles. Ideally, British tourists were to cross the channel and make a lap of the continent; routes were usually planned according to seasons (avoiding snow in traversing the Alps, for example, or reaching Rome in time to see the festivities of Holy Week) and the direction of river flow (south along the Rhone, north on the Rhine). The ultimate destination was typically Rome or Naples, where travelers would examine the ruins of Greek and Roman antiquity together with monuments of Renaissance and baroque architecture. The Russian version of the grand tour resembled the classic Western paradigm in many respects. For Russians as well, the European tour was a prerogative of the social elite that often led t o career advancement or solidified existing opportunities. Records of such trips attempted to demonstrate that the desired social and cultural education had indeed been acquired by furnishing quantities of social, cultural, and historical data about visited territories.1 A central focus of the grand tour account was “civic description,” or informational commentary on local architecture (e.g., churches, historic buildings, suggestive ruins), entertainments (especially the theater), parks and gardens, promenades, menageries, museums,

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galleries, libraries, and public institutions (such as prisons, hospitals, orphanages, and universities).2 Other popular subjects included systems of governance and taxation, local customs and mores, important personages, and practical details on lodging, meals, transportation, banking, and guides. By addressing these topics, Russian travel writers indicated their familiarity with elite Western activities and literary fashions. As for their itineraries, eighteenthcentury travelers abroad followed various routes from their home on Europe’s periphery to the continent’s many centers of interest. Russia’s distant geographical position dictated that extensive travel was required to even reach Western Europe. Accounts from Catherine’s era often describe journeys through Poland and Prussia to arrive at destinations in Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Holland, and England. Only very few Russians could actually afford to participate in the arduous, lengthy, and expensive cultural phenomenon of the grand tour, which in Russia as in Western Europe required enormous sums of money and months or even years of leisure time. While statistics on Russian travel abroad are hard to find, it has been estimated that only five percent of the late eighteenth-century nobility were financially capable of hiring tutors to educate their children; a much smaller proportion would have been able to afford foreign travel.3 Not surprisingly, the eighteenth-century Russians who toured Europe were generally among the wealthiest and most highly placed members of the nobility. The typical grand tourist of the 1770s or 1780s was an aristocrat or prominent nobleman, often previously acquainted with life abroad through the experience of foreign study, and accustomed to circulating among the highest ranks of society there. Indeed, the first three writers examined in this chapter were not only titled members of the nobility, but also high-ranking public officials with direct ties to the sovereign: Boris Kurakin was closely linked to Peter I, Ekaterina Dashkova was an associate of Catherine II, and Aleksandr Kurakin was an intimate friend of Catherine’s son and heir, Pavel Petrovich. This chapter traces the arc of literary travel writing’s development in eighteenth-century Russia from the Petrine era t o the 1780s. While the relative absence of extant travel writing from the reigns of Catherine I (1725-27), Peter II (1727-30), Anne (1730-40) and Elizabeth (1741-62) makes it difficult to speak of the genre’s evolution as continuous, a clear cultural link does extend from Boris Kurakin’s record of traveling abroad in 1705-08

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to the more “literary” texts of subsequent Russian tourists, such as his great-grandson Aleksandr, who studied and toured in Western Europe sixty-five years later (1771-72), and Ekaterina Dashkova, who authored two travel accounts (1775, 1777) on the eve of Denis Fonvizin’s departure for France. With the possible exception of Dashkova’s second travelogue, none of these texts exhibits the saturation of literary features seen in the better-known travelogues that followed. Boris Kurakin’s diary does illustrate that an interest in elite Western touristic and literary practices existed at the beginning of the century, but the text itself is largely impersonal and only hints at a narratorial presence.4 Subsequent writers such as Aleksandr Kurakin and Ekaterina Dashkova adopted more standardized techniques of literary stylization that helped t o advance the ill-defined and indistinct narratorial figures of Petrine texts towards the vibrant traveling personae of Fonvizin, Radishchev, and Karamzin. Full-fledged examples of literary travel writing emerged only in the last third of the eighteenth century. The second half of this chapter examines both Fonvizin’s polemical letters from France with their premeditated challenge to Russian adulation of the West (1777-78) and his later letters and spa diaries, texts that recast the relationship between the traveler and his surroundings by focusing on his physical decline and resulting anxieties (1786-89). Yet another alternative Russian approach to the imaginary geography of Western Europe appears in the travel diary of the Freemason Vasily Zinoviev (1784-88). 1. Petrine Tourism: The Diary of Boris Kurakin Like Catherine II, Peter I encouraged travel abroad, visiting Western Europe himself on more than one occasion and frequently sending others in search of skills and technical information that would be of use to his growing empire. The tsar’s interest in foreign culture encouraged his subjects to develop conceptions of Western Europe that were intertwined with the experience of traveling abroad and to shape their accounts according to Western examples. The urgent project of constructing a Russian navy meant that the primary destinations of these men were Italy and Holland; several extant travel accounts also describe secondary territories that were traversed en route (e.g., Poland, Prussia, Germany, Austria) and

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various side trips, such as naval excursions from Italy to Croatia, Malta, and Spain. Although Petrine travelers were by and large students or professionals (diplomats, merchants, etc.) rather than leisured tourists, many kept records that may be seen in retrospect to contain embryonic elements of the later literary travelogue. Boris Kurakin, for instance, who made numerous trips to Western Europe as student, military officer, and diplomat, demonstrates in his diary a clear desire to engage with elite Western culture and society as both writer and tourist and to learn about its behavioral forms and aesthetic fashions. While Kurakin’s literary models are vague, his narration is self-conscious, shaped, and part of a Western-oriented discursive tradition. Prince Boris Ivanovich Kurakin first visited Western Europe in 1697, when Peter I sent him to Italy for the study of “nautical sciences” (dlia nauk navtichnykh).5 His second trip abroad began in 1705 with participation in a military campaign against Sweden. He got as far as Wilno (Vilnius) before being excused for reasons of health and allowed to travel further west. Journeying via Königsberg, Berlin, and Dresden to Carlsbad, he took the waters in hopes of relief from “hiccups” (bolezn’ tsyngotnaia, from Italian singhiozzo), then headed north to Amsterdam for a second extended cure.6 After a brief return to Russia, Kurakin set off again in 1707, sent by Peter I on diplomatic business to Rome; additional assignments prolonged his stay abroad, leading him to Vienna, Hamburg, Amsterdam and Brussels. Kurakin’s ambassadorial activities eventually developed into a career that resulted in his residing in Western Europe from late 1709 until his death in Paris in 1727. Although no immediate record of Kurakin’s first trip abroad survives, he did maintain a travel diary during his journeys in 17051706 and 1707-1708.7 Written before the era of literary travel writing, the text nonetheless shares several features with later examples, including a consciousness of the traveler’s own social standing and a desire to communicate this through a record of personal travel. While the unusual experience of traveling abroad in the Petrine era might have itself warranted the keeping of a journal, Boris Ivanovich clearly felt that the record of his travels was primarily justified by his elite status.8 Like many other eighteenth-century Russian tourists, he was a member of the highest echelons of society. Scion of an important family that enjoyed close contacts with the throne, Kurakin was godson of

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Tsar Fyodor Alekseevich (reigned 1676-82) and Fyodor’s sister, Ekaterina; he was also linked to Peter I through marriage (their first wives were sisters). Kurakin’s interest in travel writing—like his foreign education—was a privilege of his social position and he envisioned an audience of social peers for his account: “I write not for the entire public, [but] for those who belong to such [groups] as princes, counts, and each [type of the] gentry” (130). If not exactly a literary audience, this was more or less a literate one, and thus arguably the contemporary practical equivalent. Undaunted by his poor command of grammar, Kurakin wrote his diary largely in Russian with the frequent interpolation of foreign words. The resulting macaronic composition, not unusual in its day, reflects both a need for new terms to describe the unfamiliar sights encountered while abroad and a desire to emphasize his knowledge of Western Europe.9 Like later leisured travelers, Kurakin felt that familiarity with foreign regions enhanced his already considerable social prominence as well as the importance of his text. As a result of having earlier studied abroad, he was able to contextualize both his diary and other works within elite Western tradition. He uses the Italian term vita in the title of his 1709 autobiography, for example, noting that while other nations are “accustomed to such writings,” his text will likely provoke the “censure” (zazrenie) of Russian readers with their “ignorance of the external world (obstoiatel’stva sveta).”10 Kurakin conceived the project of keeping a travel diary in terms of his acquaintance with Western culture as well, evident in his choice to begin that text with a brief announcement in broken Italian: “Giornal che io il primo volte scomencavo scriver del tuti cosi in mio vito, quanto cosa sara è ancora tutto mio viagge per mundo” [sic], an obscure phrase meaning roughly “Journal that I for the first time began to write of all the things in my life, how many things will happen and also all my voyages about the world” (101). Kurakin’s diary may also be considered a nascent version of the literary account in that he selects events for record according t o principles that continued in later literary travelogues, neglecting the monsters and miracles typical of premodern travel writing in order to document his own participation in the activities of high society and to provide information for subsequent travelers.11 Moreover, Boris Ivanovich is conscious of belonging to a growing trend of international travel. As he puts it in Amsterdam, “the

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custom of modern times is that everyone wants to see the world” and, as a result: I’m not going to write much since many have already been here and are here now and have seen for themselves, or will see for themselves in the future, or not seeing, will hear from others (130).

As the literary mode of travel writing began to assume a more definite shape, it increasingly featured authorial commentary that would both elucidate and frame the journey as a qualitatively distinct experience. The texts of Fonvizin, Radishchev and Karamzin, for example, were all pointed excursuses on the elite activity of “traveling”—and, in Radishchev’s case, the parody of it. Such developments were foreshadowed in the diary of Boris Kurakin, which reveals a heightened awareness of participating in exceptional and prestigious activities both when touring abroad and when writing about the experience. By describing his “travels” with the foreign term viagge rather than the Russian khozhdenie (khozhenie) or stranstvovanie, Kurakin indicates his perception of leisured travel as a novel and distinct behavior. Puteshestvie, the modern Russian term for journey, became common in the later part of the eighteenth century precisely in order to describe the type of self-conscious travel associated with the ever more familiar practice of leisured touring. It should be noted that travel motivated by health concerns was essentially a form of leisured travel as well: in addition to being a privilege of the elite, it was accompanied by sightseeing, socializing, and other trappings of tourism—all of which are reflected in Kurakin’s account. His diary describes towns, commercial activities, and touristic sights ranging from gardens, t o prisons, to lecture-demonstrations on human anatomy. Alongside sections devoted to military details (during the Polish campaign) and diplomatic etiquette (in Rome), the diary provides material on the organization of high society in Western Europe and other useful details for the gentleman traveler: rosters of important persons and families, their ranks and titles, properties held and political powers enjoyed, as well as data on expenses, transportational rates and fares, money changing procedures, and the presence or absence of entertainments for the kavaler. If born too early to articulate his appreciation of the English garden, Kurakin does note the engineering principles that drive the fountains and waterfalls on lavish private estates. His interest in

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such topics prefigures their appearance in the texts of subsequent Russian tourists such as Aleksandr Kurakin and Ekaterina Dashkova. Boris Ivanovich’s diary also includes a variety of details that became superfluous for the more worldly travelers of Catherine’s reign. He notes in Berlin, for example, that “the King’s name is Frederick”; in Dresden, that “gallery” means “ a collection of objects”; and at the spa in Carlsbad, that “they use ‘Baths’ of hot waters—to sit and drink and convalesce from various illnesses” (116, 118, 120). Kurakin’s selection of topics may have been designed in part for Peter I, who was interested in accounts of foreign travel and even required them of the students he sent abroad.12 If so, the diary would have served both to indicate Boris Ivanovich’s support for Peter’s program of Westernization and to demonstrate the observational skills and other talents that argued Kurakin’s fitness for high-ranking state posts.13 In any case, the text was far from being a private diary and might even be considered a form of state history: not only was Kurakin’s social identity inseparable from his role as an agent of Peter I, but his career and his entire life illustrate the profound dependence of elite society on the tsar that was characteristic of Peter’s reign. Certainly, both Kurakin’s diary and his autobiography reflect a sense of their own official importance. Moreover, despite Kurakin’s apparent enthusiasm for self-documentation, his diary offers little more than a hint of that attention to the narratorial figure that became typical of the later literary account. He refers to himself only rarely, making no attempt at self-characterization or portrayal and avoiding explicit indications of personal opinion. His dry narrative style and muted narratorial voice resemble those of the perfunctory diplomatic account (stateinyi spisok) or the later scientific travelogue.14 Events are recorded without explanation or analysis, their importance indicated only by the fact of their inclusion in the text. Nonetheless, even while the promise of self-description that begins Kurakin’s diary remains unfulfilled, it does mark the beginnings of a growing sense that the individual traveler’s experience is valuable and deserving of proper documentation and thus points towards the central role of the narrator in the later literary travelogue. Differently stated, the text’s emphasis on Kurakin’s social position was a historical precondition for the later development of the literary narrator, underlining as it did precisely that factor that both enabled travel abroad and made possible the idea of leisure.

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The subsequent emergence of literary travel writing in Russia thus depended not only upon the use of narratorial techniques and textual features taken from Western models, but also upon the social status of Russia’s first tourists abroad. What other features of Kurakin’s account link it to the later literary travelogue? If attention to issues of national identity and definition was important for travel accounts in the last third of the eighteenth century, a review of texts from the Petrine era indicates that such topics were not an explicit concern in earlier periods. Indeed, Boris Kurakin largely ignores issues of national provenance or character. Although he does occasionally describe his surroundings according to national styles—noting architecture in “the Italian style” on the way to Poland, for example, or “Dutch customs” in Königsberg (107, 114)—he rarely indicates the nationality of persons encountered or mentions his own. Kurakin describes the social, economic, and political structures of specific nations, but not distinctions between peoples: the traveler differs from his peers in the countries that he visits no more than other “foreigners” (inozemtsy) or “outsiders” (forestery, from Italian forestieri). Also absent are more general arguments about the possible benefits or dangers of Western influence, topics that were already part of Russian cultural discourse in Kurakin’s day, but not explored in the pages of Petrine travel writing.15 The lack of more extensive contemplations on national identity may tell us less about Boris Kurakin’s actual views on the subject, than his artistic limitations or understandings of genre. While he may simply have been uninterested in expressing such ideas, it is also likely that Kurakin found the travel diary an inappropriate or uninspiring forum for doing so. It is also possible that his account was meant t o underline membership in an international social layer that unproblematically embraced various nationalities. As the account of his great-grandson indicates, this was an important task for elite Russian travel writing in the 1770s. Boris Kurakin’s text raises another important question as well, namely, how influential could this unpublished text have been on the emerging literary mode? In point of fact, only one of the texts considered in this chapter (Dashkova’s first) was actually printed during the eighteenth-century. Generally speaking, of course, publication was hardly a defining feature of the literary in eighteenth-century Russia and elite travelers often recorded their experiences in diaries or letters that were to be shared informally

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with friends and family.16 Even Fonvizin’s well-known letters from France circulated only in manuscript form until after his death. Indeed, in Russia as in Western Europe, a venerable tradition of unpublished travel accounts lay behind the literary mode. Boris Kurakin’s diary illustrates that Russians were encoding the foreign tour with cultural significance long before literary travel writing became a standardized “public” form. Both his descendant Aleksandr Kurakin and Ekaterina Dashkova were members of welltraveled diplomatic families and thus belonged to a cultural environment in which unpublished accounts were common; it is likely that both were familiar with the manuscript records of extended sojourns abroad that had been written by their own relatives: Kurakin may have perused the diary of his greatgrandfather Boris, which was published together with the family archives only in the 1890s, and Dashkova perhaps read descriptions of life in France written by her elder brother, Aleksandr Vorontsov.17 The experience of foreign travel was infrequent in the years that elapsed between Peter I’s death and Catherine II’s accession to the throne, although some members of the Russian elite did venture abroad and even lived in Western Europe for extended periods. These travelers typically combined touristic activities with the obligations of the diplomat or student; the lack of extant records describing such experiences suggests that they were seldom inclined to record their peregrinations in the form of a travelogue. The few texts from this period that do survive—such as Mikhail Lomonosov’s official letters from Marburg (1737-41) or Fyodor Karzhavin’s letters to his parents from Paris (1754-65)—provide some interesting details on life abroad, but fail to describe the experience in terms of leisured elite travel.18 It can be argued that as the sons, respectively, of a peasant and a merchant, neither of these men had a social rank or worldview appropriate to the authorship of such an elite literary form. Certainly, the fact that they were students rather than tourists need not have prevented them from producing stylized accounts of their trips: as Boris Kurakin’s diary demonstrates, travel did not need to be wholly leisured in order for the travel writer to present it as if it were. Moreover, elective travel abroad for the purposes of study—like travel for reasons of health—was no less leisured than “pure” tourism: it, too, constituted a type of behavior that was restricted

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to members of the elite, requiring not only extensive funds and the legal right to travel, but also leisure from obligatory service and other practical responsibilities at home. During the reign of Catherine II, the Russian elite firmly adopted the practice of travel abroad as a means of acquiring social polish and familiarity with foreign culture. In this period, the tour of Western Europe came to be seen as equivalent to a finishing school or the final stage of formal education and travelers who could afford to indulge in this pedagogical ideal set off on lengthy journeys. Some traveled specifically as students, frequently accompanied by tutor-chaperones and enrolling in courses of study at foreign institutions; colonies of elite Russian students emerged in both Leipzig (1766-75) and Leiden (1770-76).19 Other travelers shared this educational orientation: even the most casual and pointedly leisured Russian tourists often took informal lessons or otherwise engaged in programs of self-improvement while abroad. Their journeys, too, were based upon the widespread conviction that Western European travel was edifying and beneficial. 2. Educational Travel: The Voyage of Aleksandr Kurakin The young prince Aleksandr Borisovich Kurakin left Petersburg in the early summer of 1770 for a three-year journey that was t o include a year of study in Leiden, a visit to England, and a lengthy stay in Paris. He was accompanied by a tutor, who met with the university rector in Leiden and arranged an introduction to one of the professors before classes had begun. By his own account, Aleksandr Borisovich studied philosophy, natural law, history, Latin, French, Italian, riding, dancing, and fencing (faire les armes).20 He rounded out his program of study with instructive tours, making excursions in Holland and the Low Countries, as had his great-grandfather, as well as in England and France; he returned to Russia only in 1773. Although Aleksandr was only seventeen or eighteen years of age at the time of his departure, this was not his first experience with foreign study. He had earlier attended a school in SchleswigHolstein and traveled in Denmark and Germany. This extensive foreign education was a more modern version of that acquired by his great-grandfather in Italy and similarly intended to prepare its recipient for a future in service to the state. Indeed, Aleksandr’s

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case illustrates how the freedom to travel actually encouraged the Russian nobility not to abandon state service, but to adopt the practice of foreign touring as a preparatory rite for a government post: his correspondence makes clear that he hoped to obtain an important position upon his return. As had been the case for Boris Ivanovich, Aleksandr’s foreign education and close ties to the throne paved the way to subsequent journeys abroad and, during the reign of his friend Paul (1796-1801), a diplomatic career. While only a single letter survives from Aleksandr’s first trip abroad, he recorded his second trip in both ample correspondence and the more formal Journal de mon voyage.21 The latter text, an account describing his stay in Leiden and travels through the Low Countries and England, indicates the extent to which the business of writing a proper travelogue encouraged Kurakin’s adherence t o the emerging canonical structures of literary travel writing. T o begin with, the account is written entirely in French, a linguistic choice that by the 1770s indicated the writer’s elite status much as Russian interlaced with foreign words and phrases had some sixtyfive years earlier. Aleksandr’s French is rather elementary, but not incorrect. The narrative organization and level of detail found in the text suggest that it was based on a diary or other notes drafted while traveling; cast in the historical past tense, it was clearly edited after the trip’s completion, probably in connection with its publication by Kurakin himself in a limited edition of 1815. It is probable that Mon voyage was an assignment for the young traveler designed to develop his observational and literary skills while reinforcing his growing knowledge of Western Europe, standard tasks for those who went abroad with the explicit goal of receiving a conventional education. The text’s audience was likely to have included his tutor, members of his family, and other close acquaintances. Aleksandr’s account resembles the diary of his great-grandfather in noting the basic features of various towns and the property holdings of local elites. In accordance with the now better-defined contours of the literary travelogue, however, he elaborates upon these at greater length. The young prince dutifully visits legislative assemblies and describes the workings of state and court; he also points out selected venues of interest to the tourist—museums, art collections, menageries, private estates, gardens, promenades, churches, charity institutions, factories, and canals. Like Boris Ivanovich, he provides general information for the would-be

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traveler: “If a foreigner intends to go to Bath,” for example, “he must before all else equip himself with letters of recommendation” (406). Both Kurakins record the names of prominent local residents together with their ranks, positions, and possessions; Aleksandr concludes his account with a twenty-five-page catalogue of British social titles and their bearers. Mon voyage offers a synthesis of varied data absorbed from reading, mentors, coursework, and Aleksandr’s own direct experience abroad. The careful presentation of information reflects the educational function of his tour and indicates that the young student was adequately prepared to notice features of primary importance. The Amsterdam stock exchange (bourse), for example, is “a very old building: it has existed since the beginning of the last century; the architecture is entirely in the gothic style (goût)” (352). The account also displays specific literary (and ideological) formulations that by the 1770s had become standard in the accounts of elite travelers. Aleksandr’s exposure to a wide range of Western travelogues and literary works may be inferred from the tastes of his younger brother, who, during his own study tour abroad in 1775 sent home a list of purchased books for Aleksandr’s approval. The titles include not only Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (apparently in French), but also the complete works of Rousseau, poetry by Haller, Fénelon’s Les aventures de Télémaque (The Adventures of Telemachus, 1699) and travel writing by the explorers Tavernier and Bougainville.22 In keeping with literary fashions, Voyage renders persons met in the verbal portrait or brief character sketch, a mini-genre in which individuals are measured against certain abstract ideals that enjoyed currency at the time such as the honnête homme or esprit fort. Among the “excellent qualities” that Kurakin particularly admires are courtesy and decorum, or “that fine style (bon ton) and social grace (usage) that one finds only in elegant society” (387). From London, the young traveler sets off on the customary tour of the provinces where, like many other fashionable tourists of the era, he makes the round of grand homes and gardens, participating in the ritualized viewing of rural affluence that contributed to the widespread association of English country life with pastoral bliss. He, too, notes that in this bucolic setting “the type of life and dissipation of the capitals is unknown” (404). Such comments were typical of Western literary travel writing, especially during the era

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of sentimentalism, and demonstrate Kurakin’s familiarity with contemporary Western turns of phrase and systems of taste. In fact, he deliberately uses his travelogue to illustrate such knowledge—to the extent that Mon voyage might even be described as a compendium of travel writing clichés. The text’s expressive limitations are symptomatic of Aleksandr’s desire t o write within the boundaries of existing Western tradition. Concepts that were absent in Boris Kurakin’s text already have a hackneyed ring here, where aesthetic evaluations rely heavily on a restricted and repetitive vocabulary, e.g. “beautiful,” “charming,” “ornate,” “varied,” “agreeable,” “ravishing,” “magnificent,” “enchanted,” and “delightful.” Its emphasis on views, scenes, perspectives, and other ocular effects was standard literary fare as well: virtually all Russian literary accounts from the last third of the eighteenth century contain comments similar to Kurakin’s remark that “the sight (coup d’oeil)” of a Haarlem garden was “so beautiful that it is impossible to depict. Without having seen it, one cannot form a just idea” (341). That said, Kurakin sometimes uses standard literary formulae in an unconventional manner. While clearly capable of rendering a garden cascade in common fashion, for example—i.e., “one notes [...] chutes of water, the soft murmur of which invites one to dream” (386)—he uses the same language t o describe the bustling stock exchange in Amsterdam, where “one is struck by a confused noise that can only be compared to the murmur of the sea” (352). Journal de mon voyage also illustrates changes undergone by leisured travel writing since the Petrine era in its greater sense of foreign travel’s cultural significance. Among the conventional and conventionally phrased opinions found in the text are views on the philosophy and methodology of travel itself. Aleksandr notes that careful observation is a necessary skill for traveling well and praises such behavior, as in the description of a foreign acquaintance who “has traveled much, not like the majority do it, but with the practiced eye of an observer” (340). Insofar as Mon voyage is the work of a touring student, its expository remarks on travel might well be seen to repeat lessons that were required of the young prince himself. His comments on “the phlegm that forms the basis of the Dutch character” and “that good humor which distinguishes the French” (356) show that presumed distinctions between various national identities had already begun to form part of the nobleman’s education.

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In stressing informational record at the expense of literary stylization, Mon voyage may be related to the documentary modes of travel writing that were used by diplomats and scientific explorers and profoundly influenced the shape of elite leisured tour description. Since the text was written by a student, it is perhaps not surprising that so little space is ceded to self-description or t o the expression of personalized opinion. Nonetheless, Aleksandr does place greater emphasis on the narratorial voice than had Boris Kurakin, using it as structuring principle in his account. Descriptions of surveying the surroundings, for example, explicitly organize Mon voyage around the viewing subject. A sense of individual agency also stands behind his value-laden vocabulary and aesthetic judgments. Formulaic though they may be, these passages underline the traveler’s personalized, emotive response to his environment, affirming his presence as witness and judge. As noted, literarily attuned travelers often presented themselves as writing by choice, rather than necessity, emphasizing their leisured state and favoring a casual, offhand approach to the act of writing. While Aleksandr does not completely obey this particular literary convention, he does indicate awareness of it. In a rare instance of self-portraiture, for instance, he relaxes for a moment from the role of student recorder to assume the modish pose of the carefree, frivolous scribbler: “But I’ll stop here: what good are all these reflections? They come from the pen of a young man nineteen years old: that says it all” (387). 3. The Literary Style of Ekaterina Dashkova Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova (née Vorontsova) spent most of the 1770s in Western Europe. Such lengthy sojourns abroad were not uncommon for members of the powerful Vorontsov clan whose international experience, like that of the Kurakins, extended back into pre-Catherinian times. Dashkova’s first trip abroad (1769-73) followed a negative turn in her close relationship with Catherine, a circumstance that augmented foreign interest in her person and insured that her tour would leave its trace in local records.23 She undertook a second journey (1775-82) in order to oversee her son’s education at the University of Edinburgh. In addition to the general review of her travels included in her 1805 Memoirs, Dashkova wrote two brief travel accounts

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while en route. The first, written in Russian and styled as a personal letter, describes a tour of southern England in 1770. One of the earliest travelogues to be published in Russia, it appeared in the journal of the Free Russian Assembly as “The Journey of a Distinguished Russian Lady through Several English Provinces” (1775). Dashkova’s second text, written in French and entitled “Le Petit tour dans les Highlands,” outlines a two-week tour of Scotland in 1777. This account was also shaped as a private letter and addressed to Dashkova’s friend Elizabeth Morgan; it was published only in 1995.24 Dashkova’s travel writing illustrates the further evolution of literary travel writing in Russia, particularly in its penchant for literary stylization and its more fully developed narratorial persona. While both of her accounts acknowledge the informational tasks required of the literary travelogue, a “generic blending of factual information and literary art,”25 their attention to scientific, technical, and economic topics sometimes conflicts with the emerging literary norms that interest Dashkova as a travel writer. In “Journey of a Distinguished Russian Lady,” for example, Dashkova comments on topics such as prizes awarded for industrial design, the size and health of cattle, and the chalk content in the soils from Dover to Bristol, although the more substantive of these passages appear only at the text’s beginning and end, as if to tailor the piece in accordance with the scholarly concerns of the journal in which it was published. Elsewhere the text focuses on societal and cultural subjects—the description of English country estates, social customs at the resorts of Bath and Bristol, and the organization of the university at Oxford. The more personalized “Le Petit tour” seems to have required a scientific gesture t o conclude as well: it ends with a brief appendix entitled “General Ideas on a Part of Scotland” that summarizes Dashkova’s judgments on Highland character, soil quality, road building, cattle (“small, poorly fed”), peasant homesteads (“frightful”), and manor houses (“made without the least taste, nor any sort of genre or order of architecture,” 252-3). This addendum ensured that Dashkova’s literary propensities did not ultimately prevent her travel account from being instructive. Like Aleksandr Kurakin, Dashkova demonstrates an awareness of the specific features required for travel writing’s literary stylization. She, too, sought to incorporate the character portrait and other current trends into her work. Although she does not

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produce a narratorial persona as fully elaborated as those of Fonvizin, Radishchev, or Karamzin, Dashkova does pepper her travel writing with rhetorical flourishes that indicate a narratorial presence. These tendencies are particularly marked in “Le Petit tour,” where an emphasis on personal qualities such as impulsiveness, ebullience, and sensibility defines new textual priorities that move away from the methodical, practical orientation of Aleksandr Kurakin’s text and towards a stylization that is more personalized, literary, and explicitly non-scientific. Here, Dashkova presents herself as spontaneous and carefree: “I’ve finished with Inverary,” she breaks off at one point, “because I don’t like cold and inanimate descriptions” (249). At times, she even adopts an attitude of intellectual heedlessness—an interesting contradiction to the informational tendencies in her work. At Carron’s smelting works, for example, she avoids discussing technical procedures at length by professing herself unable t o understand them: “Since I’m not a mineralogist and what I tell you—coming only from the creation (du cru) of my own head—ought not to be read by anyone but you, I’ll keep quiet” (241). Given her later gift of a “rich” collection of minerals t o Moscow University,26 Dashkova would seem to have been considerably more interested in the topic at hand than her protestations indicate. More generally, she was extremely well educated for her time and certainly could have used her travel letters to show or at least imply a more profound knowledge of technical procedures and cultural artifacts. She chose instead t o neglect such aspects of her actual life and travel experiences in order to embellish the fashionable literary traits of her narratorial persona. Also like Aleksandr Kurakin, Dashkova presents herself as an artless amateur in the field of letters. Her first account opens with a typical sentimentalist disclaimer arguing it was “not ambition (ambitsiia) to be a writer” that inspired her, but the request of friends (106). She cites friendship as one of her motivations for authoring “Le Petit tour” as well. Writing alternately allows her t o express her intimacy with the addressee (“my incomparable friend, who is accustomed to reading in my heart and knows the impressions within it,” 240) and to experience creative enjoyment in doing so: “for myself, I find pleasure in the writing of this and my friend will have it in the reading” (241). While Dashkova playfully deprecates her own travel writing as “scrawling”

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(barbouillage) and “scribbling” (griffonage), her insistence on literary amateurism must also be taken with a grain of salt. By 1777, she had written several verses and published both original and translated articles in addition to her earlier “Journey”; in later years, Dashkova wrote two plays and actively edited a number of journals. She was also a member of the Free Russian Society, an organization dedicated to the development of the Russian language, and founder of the Russian Academy, an institution with similar goals that she had established upon her return from Western Europe; moreover, she served as director of both the Russian Academy and the Imperial Academy of Sciences. Dashkova’s selfdisparagement is also striking in light of her illustrious social rank—which she advertises in the title of her first account, written by “a Distinguished Russian Lady,” but chooses to downplay in the later, more literary “Le Petit tour.” The discreet pose assumed in the latter accentuates the ostensibly private and personal nature of her travel writing and thus, in accordance with contemporary fashions, its literary value. While modest self-presentation may have been encouraged to some degree by Dashkova’s gender, it was also—as Aleksandr Kurakin knew—the latest in literary fashion and widely adopted by male writers of the era.27 Dashkova also resembles Aleksandr Kurakin in using the travelogue to showcase her sense of taste. A familiarity with current aesthetic trends allows her to properly appreciate achievements in gardening, interior design, architecture, and painting. Esteem for both contemporary Western European travel writing and visual art is demonstrated by her admiration of a painting of Maria and her dog—a “subject taken from the sentimental voyage” of Sterne and “executed by the brush, also sentimental, of Angelique” (i.e. Angelica Kauffman) (252). She praises cultivated fields with their reflection of rural prosperity as well as the gothic or Ossianic corners within private parks. In her anti-Rousseauian view, nature itself has no shape until acted upon by man: uncultivated and untamed landscapes range from “terrible and arid” to “the most desolate (traiste [sic]) and most disagreeable Country that I’ve ever seen” (243, 250).28 Similar to Aleksandr Kurakin, Dashkova conceives national identity in terms of generic categories. If “Journey of a Distinguished Russian Lady” divulges little interest in questions of nationality apart from its title, “Le Petit tour” includes several comments on national stereotypes. Remaining faithful to her

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generally lighthearted tone, Dashkova presents these as humorous remarks, rather than ponderous judgments. She describes a Scottish hotel, for example, as “an inn that an Englishman would find execrable, a Frenchman would find passable, and a Scot would say t o be ‘clean and comfortable’.” As for herself, “not having the good fortune to be English and not being from the other two nations either,” she finds the inn “to be beneath either my critique or my approbation” (240). Despite these remarks, Dashkova refrains from explicitly characterizing herself as a Russian or ontologically differentiating “the” Russian from “the” Western European. Like both Kurakins, she uses the travel account as a testament to her own cosmopolitanism. Her offhand manner, which further underlines a casual and confident relationship to Western Europe and its culture, became a common feature in later literary accounts. Towards the end of the eighteenth-century, the practice of leisured travel became possible for less highly born members of the nobility. Certainly, Fonvizin, Radishchev, and Karamzin were not the social peers of the illustrious Dashkova or the Kurakins with their princely titles. Indeed, perhaps the somewhat lesser social rank of these men encouraged them to more fully elaborate the literary travelogue, thereby laying claim not only to the prestige associated with leisured travel abroad, but also to that of the aristocratic traveler’s textual voice. That said, it would be wrong to assume that any of these writers necessarily felt his own social status to be especially problematic or to interfere with his production of literary travel writing. Certainly, neither leisured travel nor the authorship of literary accounts was strictly limited to members of the aristocracy. Moreover, as Fonvizin’s example shows, interactions between different layers of the Russian elite brought more modest noblemen into direct contact with the cultural norms and practices of the aristocracy; their conceptions of leisured touring and its written record were in part the fruit of these exchanges. More generally, it was precisely the embourgoisement of leisured travel in eighteenth-century Western Europe that led t o the rising popularity of the literary travelogue—first abroad and subsequently in Russia. This is not surprising: in Russia, where the bourgeoisie was comparatively small and less often involved with the generation of literary texts, the social and literary function held by this class in Western Europe was frequently taken on by

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various non-aristocratic strata of the nobility.29 Despite changes in travelers’ social backgrounds, however, leisured touring retained its prior social eminence. In fact, the emerging literary account helped to preserve the prestige of elite touring by gradually transforming the social position and other attributes of upper class travelers like Boris Kurakin and Ekaterina Dashkova into literary stylemes. Stress on the traveler’s ostensibly elite characteristics became one of the literary account’s most important features. Writers pointedly underlined their leisured status and, as the writings of both Fonvizin and Karamzin attest, sought ever more actively t o demonstrate their cultural sophistication. A continued emphasis on recognizably “aristocratic” aspects of the travel experience underlay the leisured account’s “literariness” throughout the century and led to the “authoritative, ‘sophisticated’ image of the author” that enabled the travelogue, like the emerging Russian novel,30 to command respect as a literary form. 4. Fonvizin and France Denis Fonvizin set off for his first extended tour of Western Europe in September 1777, just three weeks after Dashkova completed her excursion in the Scottish Highlands. Fonvizin had earlier made a brief trip to Germany (1762-63) in order to present the Duchess of Schwerin with an award from Catherine II.31 On this second and longer journey, he traveled with his wife through Poland and Germany to France, where she sought a cure for tapeworms at the renowned spa of Montpellier; after her successful recovery, the couple sojourned in Paris for six months before returning home. Fonvizin was on leave from his post as secretary to Count Nikita Ivanovich Panin, who served as Catherine’s de-facto minister of Foreign Affairs and tutor to her son and heir, Pavel Petrovich. The connection to Panin afforded Fonvizin the comforts and social advantages of a touring dignitary; he also traveled as a well-known man of letters, author of the very successful play “Brigadier” (1769). As a report of life abroad from the pen of a celebrated writer, Fonvizin’s travel letters were guaranteed an eager audience. The letters were addressed primarily to his sister Feodosia Argamakova and to Nikita Panin’s brother Pyotr, although they were intended be read by other family members and associates as well—a fact occasionally noted within the letters and more

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generally suggested by their rhetorical aims and literary polish.32 Fonvizin had long been in the habit of writing regularly to both Argamakova and Pyotr Panin from his home in Petersburg; as Nikita Panin’s secretary, he had maintained a correspondence with Pyotr that kept the retired general abreast of political developments in the capital. From Warsaw, Fonvizin dispatched the first in a series of polemical letters that was to immortalize his journey. His letters from this trip are renowned for their attack on French culture and, in point of fact, constitute what is arguably the most explicit and extreme treatment of national themes found in Russian travel writing. Certainly, their nationalistic biases stand out sharply against the background of earlier texts, such as those written by Dashkova and the Kurakins. At the same time, readers and critics have frequently misconstrued both the design and effect of Fonvizin’s letters. Before exploring his approach to France, however, we turn to his narratorial persona, a topic that has received virtually no critical attention, and to the literary context in which this figure was ensconced. Fonvizin’s letters from France exhibit many familiar hallmarks of the literary account, including passages of civic description and attention to high society and culture. While he did not belong t o the highest rungs of the Russian nobility, the link to Panin permitted him to move in such circles abroad. His letters describe the gracious reception offered by foreign notables in some detail. In Warsaw, for example, Fonvizin was presented to the king, who “having come up to me, said with an exceedingly affectionate mien that he has long known me by reputation and that he is exceedingly glad to see me in his land.”33 He was pleased at the warm welcome of the Elector in Mannheim as well, writing to Pyotr Panin that the conversations with which he and his spouse favored me demonstrate their enlightened good sense and assiduity towards our court and great respect for the person of your dear brother (455).

In Montpellier, Fonvizin met “all the foremost members of society” and happily described their attentions: Everyone received me very affectionately and returned my visit on the next day. My wife was presented to their wives, who returned her visit as well, and since then we have been invited daily into their society. [… I]t would be impossible [for them] to be more affectionate, courteous, and gracious. All the women here have indulged my wife in the extreme and we

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are so fortunate that they all send their people [servants] by each morning to ask about her health (422).

The playwright records an enthusiastic welcome from the French literary establishment as well: “God knows someone told them I’m some sort of un homme des lettres,” he wrote home from Paris (449). At the invitation of a literary society, he gave an apparently well-received talk on the properties of the Russian language and sent his sister a local newspaper article mentioning his name together with a second invitation to speak so that she “might see with what a deferential tone the learned folk turn to me” (451). Fonvizin’s narratorial pose thus reflects his status as an established writer—a decided change from the modish aura of amateurism hinted at in Aleksandr Kurakin’s text, underlined by Dashkova, and later found in both Radishchev and Karamzin. As both secretary and playwright, of course, Fonvizin had a more professional link t o his pen than his aristocratic predecessors; more importantly, however, he chose not to undercut the seriousness of his rhetorical arguments by framing them as the views of a dilettante. At the center of Fonvizin’s letters from France stands a welldeveloped narratorial persona, a figure more detailed and concrete than the sketchy outlines that appear in the accounts of his contemporaries and one that looks and even leaps forward to the more complex literary characters of nineteenth-century Russian fiction. Fonvizin’s techniques for elaborating his narrator go far beyond Dashkova’s use of subjective or personalized language and her stylized self-descriptions. Demonstrating a playwright’s ear for dialogue and eye for posture, he presents his traveling persona in a variety of humorous mise en scènes that illustrate rather than merely suggest his relationship to the surrounding environment. Situational details, dramatic gestures, and descriptions of movement lend this figure extraordinary vividness and plasticity. He further adds to the three-dimensionality of the traveler’s textual image by emphasizing the physicality of his laughter—an endemic response to the unfamiliar foreign surroundings. Fonvizin and his wife continually burst into exuberant guffaws or struggle to restrain them as they “die,” “collapse,” “crack,” and “roll.” Of his theater experiences in Warsaw, for example, he writes that “the Polish language seems so ridiculous in our ears that we die laughing through the entire play” (416), while a memorial service in Strasbourg seems “so ridiculous that you have to crack” (418).34

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Like the figures that made a name for Fonvizin’s stage dramas, his traveler often engages in conversational exchanges that humorously pit the voice of reason (embodied in the traveler) against the personifications of stupidity represented by his foreign interlocutors. In these epistolary scenarios, the foreigners reveal startling depths of ignorance, failing, for example, to understand the most basic facts about Russian culture: “Many are hearing for the first time that there is a Russia in the world and that we speak in Russia a particular language distinct from theirs” (423). Fonvizin’s approach, like that of Karamzin in the later Letters of a Russian Traveler (1791-1801), demonstrates that both the traveler and his readers boast a level of cultural sophistication far superior to that of the average foreigner. Also like Karamzin, he often casts his interlocutors in the role of astonished admirers whose esteem for the traveler’s person or behavior serves to further amplify his triumphs: It’s amusing to think what thoughts they have of me here simply because the fire in my fireplace never goes out: Il a une fortune immense! C’est u n sénateur de Russie! Quel grand seigneur! [He has an immense fortune! He’s a senator from Russia! What a grand lord!] Such are the comments of which they find me worthy, especially seeing me in the sable frock coat o n which I put golden buttonholes and tassels. Every Frenchman approaches me and, stroking the cuff, is beside himself with delight: Quelle finesse! Dieu! quelle beauté! [What refinement! God! What beauty!] My gemstone ring, which you know and the better of which are often found among our non-commissioned officers of the guard, is in great renown here. Here jewels are worn only by women, although children wear little gemstone rings. Mine seems to them to be of limitless magnitude and of the first water. The proverb that “the hunk in another’s hands seems bigger” i s just. In the judgment of furs, it’s true that those that I brought with me are the best here and even [Count] Périgord has no sable frock coat. My ermine muff has added great consideration to me. “Beau blanc!” [Beautiful white] all shout in unison. All stroke and stroke it very carefully so as not to reverse the hair. Each asks about the price. I say 300 rubles. “Parbleu! je crois bien,” each responds, “il n’y a rien de si beau que ça.” [But of course! I believe it. There’s nothing as beautiful as that]. In a word, every day is a comedy (432-3).

It might be argued that it was Fonvizin rather than Karamzin who first proposed an image of the “Russian Traveler” that later became Karamzin’s famous protagonist. Indeed, Fonvizin’s traveler is perhaps the more nationally charged of the two. While both narrators represent the Russian abroad and assert the legitimacy of Russian culture, Karamzin’s strategy is to underline the

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cosmopolitan “Europeanness” of his traveler (and thus the commensurability of Russian and Western culture). Fonvizin exploits the experience of foreign travel to make quite a different point, namely that Western Europe was not, in fact, “normal.” In particular, his letters aim to debunk the widespread myth of French cultural superiority.35 Fonvizin’s letters from France were typical of his literary oeuvre in that they, like virtually every text he wrote, had a didactic focus. Intended largely to discredit Russian Gallomania, they examine and thoroughly critique various aspects of French social and political life—ranging from systems of taxation t o educational institutions to moral standards. Actual familiarity with France lent strength to Fonvizin’s analysis of its problems and he takes full advantage of the occasion by assuming the authoritative mantle of the traveler and exaggerating rather than moderating his views in order to make his points. Like Karamzin, Fonvizin does not base his letters strictly upon what he himself had seen or experienced, but incorporates material drawn from other sources as well. Several of his generalizing comments on French character repeat notions found in Duclos’s Considérations sur les moeurs de ce siècle (Reflections on the Morals of the Age, 1751); he also borrows from the French press.36 The polemical bent of Fonvizin’s letters from France also illustrates certain of his personal qualities, namely the acerbic wit and able mimicry for which he was renowned. He describes these talents as a source of great popularity abroad, noting in Montpellier that “My talent for teasing people finds universal approbation (aprobatsiia) here; the women have especially taken to me for my teasing” (433).37 Moreover, a mocking tone was common in both eighteenth-century satire and journalism as well as standard in Russian cultural polemics with the West: Catherine had adopted a similar narratorial voice in her Antidote (1768) and Novikov in the sketch “An English Stroll” (1772), which combined elements of travel writing with social criticism to make fun of Russian Anglomania.38 Sometimes favored by Western travel writers as well, the satirical mode made its most celebrated appearance in Smollett’s “splenetic” Travels through France and Italy (1766), the product, in Sterne’s view, of “Dr. Smelfungus,” or “the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and cry, ‘Tis all barren—’.”39

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Despite such illustrious precedents, Fonvizin’s criticisms of France have helped to widely establish his reputation with critics and readers as a “chauvinist and xenophobe”; his letters from France have been described as “a primary document in the continuing love-hate relationship between Russian intellectuals and the West” and ranked among texts that “inaugurate the vast chipon-the-shoulder tradition of Russian literary travelers.”40 It should be noted that Fonvizin has choice words for other cultures and populations as well, including Poles, Germans, Jews, and on a second extended tour, Italians. “The floors are of stone and filthy,” he writes to his sister from Florence, “the linens are abominable; the bread of the sort eaten in Russia by the poor; their clean water is slops (pomoi) for us” (519). Nonetheless, Fonvizin is not wholly negative in his commentary on foreign cultures, but remarks positive elements as well. “It’s necessary to do justice,” he writes, for example, from Aachen, “notwithstanding unspeakable moral corruption, there does exist in the French a kindness of heart” (480). His letters also contain several criticisms of Russia and he alternately describes the shortcomings of France as worse than Russia’s, similar to Russia’s, or common to humankind in general. “People are everywhere people,” he concludes in Paris, “the really clever and worthy man is everywhere rare” (467). More to the point, if Fonvizin’s critique of France has troubled later readers, it was unlikely to have raised the eyebrows of his contemporary audience. Criticisms of Gallomania and arguments about the pernicious influence of various foreign cultures (especially French and English) were popular themes of eighteenthcentury social thought both in Russia and abroad. Even Peter I is said to have commented that “it’s good to import arts and sciences from the French—and I would like to see that at home—but, in other respects, Paris stinks.”41 Fonvizin himself had advanced similar ideas in his play “Brigadier,” a work that Nikita Panin had deemed suitable didactic material for Catherine’s heir, the fourteenyear-old Pavel Petrovich. In fact, that drama had given Panin the idea to hire Fonvizin as his secretary: after hearing Fonvizin read “Brigadier” before the Empress, Panin invited him to present it t o the “young court” that gathered around her son (overseen by Panin in his role as the tsarevich’s tutor) and offered him a job.42 The popularity of anti-French rhetoric in court circles may be further adduced from their appearance in the travel correspondence of Aleksandr Kurakin, who was not only acquainted with Fonvizin,

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but generated his travel writing in virtually the same social environment. The young prince, it will be recalled, wrote a number of letters while traveling in addition to Journal de mon voyage. His addressees included both Pavel Petrovich and Nikita Panin—the latter was probably the primary addressee of Mon voyage as well: Panin was Kurakin’s great-uncle and legal guardian; it was he who had sent Kurakin abroad.43 Panin had also introduced Kurakin t o the imperial heir, initiating their close friendship, and when Fonvizin first encountered the young court in the summer of 1769, he would have met Kurakin, seven years his junior, who had not yet departed for study in Leiden. Moreover, since Fonvizin was in Panin’s employ for the duration of Kurakin’s journey, he was unlikely to have missed the voluminous correspondence that the young prince sent to Panin and Pavel Petrovich and may well have been privy to some of its contents. Many of Kurakin’s epistles from abroad were lengthy, informational treatises whose detail and formality marks them as texts designed for wider circulation.44 In particular, his letters to Pavel Petrovich are not casual sketches, but documents that carefully describe and evaluate the political systems and cultures of various foreign countries. Kurakin’s letters from France show that interest in critically examining the merits of French culture, far from being peculiar t o Fonvizin, was widespread in Panin’s circle. In fact, many of Kurakin’s views on France bear a striking resemblance to the opinions later expressed by Fonvizin: if Fonvizin was a “chauvinistic xenophobe,” he was in good company. Even prior t o arriving in France, for example, the young prince emphasizes his intention to resist the potentially negative influences so often thought to beset young travelers abroad. He vows to stand firm against the sure-to-be-seductive appeal of Parisian life and to return home equipped with a renewed sense of patriotic duty, strengthened in his love for Russia by the exposure to alien culture, and ready t o devote himself entirely to a career in government service.45 Thus, Kurakin’s travel writing also demonstrates a thorough familiarity with the anti-French rhetoric of the day and, like Fonvizin’s letters, contributed to the generation and circulation of such arguments in the Panin party and the closely linked young court. Kurakin’s correspondence may even have influenced Fonvizin’s later letters from France or perhaps Fonvizin’s still earlier “Brigadier” helped to inspire Kurakin. Certainly, Kurakin’s stated views indicate a wish to distinguish his own development

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from that of Ivanushka, the foolish character in Fonvizin’s drama whose “body was born in Russia” while his soul “belonged to the crown of France” (act 3, scene 1). Similar opinions later appeared in the travel writing of Pavel Petrovich himself46 and were also endorsed, as we have seen, by Nikita Panin. In fact, the letters of both Fonvizin and Kurakin reflect the combination of elite attitudes that was Panin’s own, e.g. the idea that some familiarity with Western Europe was necessary for a proper education and a skeptical wariness of how adulation for the foreign might interfere with Russian cultural and political integrity. Both approaches were available to the Russian elite in the 1770s and—at least in the Panin circle—not mutually exclusive. It is also likely that Fonvizin and Kurakin both designed their correspondence specifically t o accord with the opinions of Panin, who served as an authoritative paternal figure for each, and equally unthinkable that either would have used this semi-public forum to voice opinions that conflicted with the views of his mentor.47 This is especially evident in the case of Kurakin, who sometimes used his letters to profess opinions that he did not necessarily hold, deferentially formulating his ideas in order to meet with the approval of his addressees. In particular, certain passages in Kurakin’s correspondence raise doubts about the sincerity of his programmatic attack on French culture. Vociferously advocating the role of proud patriot in his letters t o Panin and Pavel Petrovich, for example, Kurakin nonetheless has difficulty in consistently sticking to his part. After the unadvised purchase of expensive embroidered clothing in France, for example, he asks Uncle Nikita to help him move these contraband items through Russian customs. When Panin responds with anger, Kurakin writes him a series of apologetic and repentant letters, although he continues to solicit assistance in the matter from other acquaintances. In a furtive exchange with Panin’s banker in Amsterdam, Kurakin plots to hire a Parisian hairdresser and bring him back to Russia without the knowledge of either his uncle or the tutor that travels with him.48 While Fonvizin’s social rank may have prevented him from fully participating in the young court, he was an important member of the Panin party and served as its literary spokesman. Both Nikita and Pyotr Panin belonged to a generation of Russian elites whose influence and position were the result of years in government service and who saw themselves as embodying Petrine values of hard work, personal sacrifice, and morality in a

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Catherinian era of favoritism and instant rewards. Despite Fonvizin’s relative youth (he was born in 1745 and Nikita Panin in 1721), he shared these values and championed them in his literary work.49 Fonvizin also assisted the Panins in the drafting and formulation of various political tracts, including the “Discourse on Permanent State Laws,” a document that supposedly caused Catherine to exclaim, “Dear me! Now even Monsieur Fonvizin wants to teach me how to govern.”50 In fact, the playwright’s own difficult relationship with Catherine stemmed from his close association with the Panins, who greatly antagonized the Empress by supporting her son’s claim to the throne.51 By the 1780s, Catherine had come to regard Fonvizin as a political adversary, a development that made his subsequent literary career extremely trying and encouraged the censors to block publication of his collected works in 1788 and again in 1792.52 If not immediate, the mark that Fonvizin’s letters from France left on Russian literature was indelible. Elements of his arguments about Russia’s relationship with the West reappear in various texts well into the nineteenth century. The scoffing narratorial pose resurfaced with other of his rhetorical strategies in the patriotically minded travelogues of Russian military officers during the Napoleonic era (chapter 4) and Dostoevsky later acknowledged Fonvizin’s eloquence in his own chauvinistic Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1863). To paraphrase Dostoevsky, “it’s really quite pleasant for a Russian to say nasty things about foreigners. It makes him feel good.”53 More generally, Fonvizin’s attention to issues of national identity and culture made his letters from France a touchstone for those concerned about the development of a national literary tradition. Thus, while Fonvizin’s criticisms of the West have irritated some readers, they also constitute an enduring source of his travel writing’s appeal and have led to the codification of his letters as classics of Russian literature. In the 1840s, the influential critic Vissarion Belinsky described Fonvizin’s importance precisely in terms of his uniquely Russian spirit: in his view, Fonvizin stood out against the background of other eighteenth-century writers such as Lomonosov and Karamzin, as the one “who can be read with true satisfaction.”54

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5. Alternative Routes: Fonvizin’s Later Letters and Spa Diaries Fonvizin made three more journeys abroad before his death in 1792; sporadic accounts of these may be found in his correspondence from an extended trip to Italy in 1784-85 and in a handful of letters and diary entries from trips to Austria in 1786-87 and to the Baltic in 1789.55 Fonvizin’s Italian epistles are often considered together with his letters from France since they, too, feature a “splenetic” narratorial persona and offer scathing criticisms of visited peoples and places. At the same time, both Fonvizin and his readers had different expectations of Italy and his investigation of it lacks the same tendentious zeal that he had applied to the unmasking of France. Since Italy was relatively peripheral to the world of Enlightenment culture dominated by France and England, and Italophilia was not generally considered t o be a Russian social problem, Fonvizin was less interested in definitive characterizations of the country and its residents. Moreover, since he could neither write nor speak Italian, he was less prepared to analyze what he saw. His critique of Italy is thus less thorough and his arguments lack the rehearsed polish seen in his letters from France. Fonvizin traveled to Italy primarily to purchase works of art on behalf of the antique dealership that he had recently established with a merchant (Klosterman) in Petersburg. Not surprisingly, social and cultural topics, especially art and architecture, predominate over political subject matter in his account. Over and above his own entrepreneurial interests, Fonvizin was guided by a larger tradition: if England was generally regarded to be the land of economic and industrial development, Italy was synonymous with art and culture. Fonvizin appears to have devoted a separate notebook to artistic topics during this trip and may also have begun compiling his unfinished encyclopedia of artists.56 The bulk of Fonvizin’s Italian letters are addressed to his sister Feodosia. Nikita Panin had died in 1783, and although Fonvizin continued the epistolary relationship with Pyotr Panin, he wrote more rarely. Another cause for the drop in correspondence was Fonvizin’s declining health. He had traveled to Italy in part because of illness, but travel did little to ameliorate his condition. In Rome, he suffered the first in a series of debilitating strokes that resulted in a numb left arm and leg. This unhappy event limited Fonvizin’s

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ability to correspond both physically (many of the letters from this period are written in his wife’s hand) and in terms of the amount of literary effort that went into the shaping of his texts. A striking decrease in energy expended particularly affects the outline of his narratorial persona. While Fonvizin does to some extent continue postures and arguments familiar from his French epistles in his letters from Italy, he gradually relinquishes many of the techniques previously employed to elaborate a traveling persona and reveals a new obsession with the state of his health. If his earlier letters had underlined the traveler’s confidence and autonomy in foreign society, these later texts show an increased dependence on relationships with others. Fonvizin reproaches his family for not writing often enough, for example, and notes after a disappointing search for mail that: Not having any news of you for three months, our impatience was unspeakable. It is impossible to be angrier than I was when, having looked through all the packages, I did not find a single one for myself. This affliction together with the sleeplessness and torture of last night caused me a headache. Returning from the post station, I was obliged t o lie in bed (528).

He characterizes his surroundings and touristic experiences more rarely; the foreign environment often fails to inspire him as it had previously: “I am writing from here only so as not to leave you without news about our journey,” he remarks in Venice, “but there is truly nothing to say” (548). The remaining eight years of Fonvizin’s life were marked by increasing debilitation. Shortly after his return to Russia from Italy (via Vienna and Carlsbad where he consulted doctors and took the waters), he suffered another stroke that completely paralyzed his right side and affected his tongue; his last two journeys abroad were to spas in Austria and Kurland in search of an effective therapy. Material considerations prevented Fonvizin from undertaking longer foreign tours during his final years, but he was adamant about the need to leave Russia, even if just over the border to Kurland. Returning to Carlsbad in 1787, he “praised God” at leaving the confines of the Empire (568), apparently an opportunity to put distance between himself and the personal, professional, and legal setbacks that augmented his decline.57

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Extant letters from these last two trips are few; the primary source of information about them is Fonvizin’s diary, a text that largely abandons discussions of cultural topics, geography, and national character (aside from occasional attacks on local Jews) t o focus with palpable anxiety on problems of personal health. Fonvizin continues to characterize himself in the context of local society, but that world now features a cast of invalids, cripples, and others with disfiguring afflictions—persons, in short, of whom Fonvizin has recently become acutely aware. Together with a host of doctors and sympathetic friends, these unfortunates replace the representatives of various nations found in his letters from France and Italy. Confrontational encounters with others continue, but are more often wont to conclude in expressions of sympathetic feeling. Recording his interaction with a man sporting a “fist-sized lump” on his eye, for example, Fonvizin writes: Seeing me without an arm, without a leg, and almost without a tongue, he regretted that I had an illness that makes me so ugly. “True,” I answered, “but I wouldn’t exchange my condition for yours. It seems that having a growth on the eye as you do is uglier than my crippledness and all my other misfortunes.” I won’t describe further my conversation with him, but from it I conclude that he bears his growth quite magnificently and that every man wants, as much as possible, to excuse his own shortcomings (565).

Upon meeting a young girl also suffering from paralysis, Fonvizin regrets that her childhood malady has no hope of cure; otherwise, he would take her with him to Carlsbad (569). As in earlier letters, Fonvizin dedicates considerable space t o describing how others react to him. He places great significance on external observers who might be able to interpret the changes in his physical appearance and thus shed light on the true state of his health. From Austria, he sends home four “portraits” of wax and plaster so that family and friends might “have an idea of what I am like now” (560) and anxiously awaits the arrival of Klosterman in whose judgment he hopes to learn more about his situation: I thank God that I have great hope of improvement. My arm, leg, and tongue are much better and I have become fatter. I am waiting for Klosterman; he saw me in Moscow and will see me here, accordingly, he can compare better than anything my state then with the present one. I expect that he will find a very great difference (559).

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Fonvizin’s “dreadful condition” (566) grotesquely transforms his previous social triumphs. If he had dazzled local society with his apparent wealth in Montpellier, he provokes interest in Mitau (Jelgava) as the invalid subject of various elaborate therapies: [T]hree ladies, my neighbors, knowing that I am ill, came to visit me out of compassion alone, for I had never seen the face of a single one of them. Mrs. Giuliani was here; then Dr. Herz took me to the “droplet bath” which I endured without the least cry or grumbling. Some of my guests had the curiosity to come visit me in the shed and see how I would tolerate the droplet bath (579).

Illness also affects Fonvizin’s approach to the passage of time. When writing from France years before, he had added a new twist to the common view that Russia was less advanced than Western Europe by suggesting that although the West was technically ahead, it was also old and growing weak: “We are beginning,” he wrote from Montpellier, “and they are drawing to a close” (Nous commençons et ils finissent) (493). As Fonvizin himself moves towards the grave, however, discussions of time lose this abstract, historical quality and begin to reflect a closer affiliation with the writer’s own mortality. At spas and in medical consultations, he seeks anxiously for a means to slow the clock’s inevitable forward march. Near Riga, Fonvizin fires one medic at the insistence of another, swayed by the argument that he had “completely lost four years because doctors have been treating me carelessly (kavalerski)” (575). Longing for a temporal reprieve, he searches for signs of improvement or even stasis in his condition. In an attempt t o obtain some measure of control over his bodily decline, Fonvizin catalogues and quantifies: his diary records numbers of baths taken and glasses of mineral water drunk; he also collects testaments of others either healed by the waters in Carlsbad or by his new doctor in Mitau. Increased sensitivity to the calendar leads him to observe the anniversaries of the stroke he had suffered in Moscow. He notes this event in August of 1787 and again in 1789: Wednesday, 29 August. Having slept through the night very calmly, I thanked God for preserving my life these four years after the paralytic stroke that happened to me on this day in Moscow. I went to mass. […] Doctor Herz was there and took me to the butcher for an animal bath where I held my arm inside a steer. […] The memory of my unhappiness disturbed my soul all day. Doctor Herz and the surgeon V. let blood from under my tongue (580).58

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As Fonvizin’s concern with his physical condition grows, the distinction between the author (describing self) and his textual image (described self) begins to collapse. The image of the traveler that emerges from these records is less a constructed persona or voice than the textual reflection of an actual—and ailing—human body. While this reduction in narratorial shaping might be seen as characteristic of the private diary, it was also typical of Fonvizin’s entire late oeuvre, in which a diminished persona repeatedly appears together with an increased interest in the moral lessons proffered by life narratives. Over the course of his roughly twentyfive-year career, Fonvizin’s literary work moved from enlightened polemics to personal introspection, an evolution that parallels more general literary developments in Russia from civic-minded rationalism to individually oriented sentimentalism. A series of texts written in his final years illustrates the quest for an overarching logic of cause and effect that might shed light on the meaning of his own life and decline. In these, he examines how mistakes and successes have molded his own life, that of two illustrious acquaintances (Nikita Panin, Grigory Potyomkin), and that of a fictional uncle on his deathbed. In “Reflection on the Vanity of Human Life,” for example, Fonvizin surmises that God has visited him with illness rather than outright death as punishment for his arrogance and vanity: [A]t the very time when I had returned from foreign lands sated with the dream of my learning, when my fanatical reliance on my own reason exceeded the bounds, and when, it seemed, an opportunity to rise into the vanity of renown had presented itself—then, the All-Seeing, knowing that my talents might be more harmful than useful, removed from me the very ability to express myself in speech and writing and enlightened me i n reflection upon my own self.59

Despite the road’s archetypal significance as a metaphor for personal change—seen in texts ranging from Gilgamesh t o Huckleberry Finn—it is the rare travelogue that portrays the traveler’s growth or development.60 Travel writers generally prefer to describe their journeys in terms of physical movement, rather than to explore dynamics of personal evolution. Most of the texts analyzed in this book follow this general proscription as well, although there are a few exceptions. In its focus on personal transformations—both physical and psychological—Fonvizin’s later travel writing (like his prose) departs from this expected pattern. These later letters and spa diaries might thus be said t o

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propose an alternative geography of Western Europe—unlike that found either in the more standard literary travelogue represented by Dashkova’s “Petit tour” or in Fonvizin’s own polemical letters from France. Here, the traveler no longer moves confidently through the landscape of Western Europe expounding upon his socio-political views. Discussions of national difference or of the conflict between self and foreign environment that had permeated Fonvizin’s letters from France give way to distinctions between states of health and illness, even life and death. In short, infirmity alters both Fonvizin’s experience of travel abroad and his mode of describing it. The external world becomes a backdrop for the traveler’s own afflicted body, his health a symbol of his liminal position, and the journey a realized metaphor for the “road of life” that all too rapidly advances towards its end. 6. The Trajectory of a Freemason: Vasily Zinoviev The idea that one’s life could follow a progressive trajectory towards increased enlightenment was found in the teachings of Freemasonry and illustrated in the Masonic journey, a type of fictional literature that used the popular motif of the journey t o present, in the words of one practitioner, “the wanderings of an attentive man along the path of truth, on which he meets with worldly enticements, is subjected to many temptations, falls into the darkness of doubt, and fights with his inner passions; he finally gains control over himself, finds the path of truth, and after attaining enlightenment, is reborn.”61 Such metaphoric voyages dramatized the personal development that Freemasons hoped t o accomplish in their own lives as they moved steadily towards increased self-knowledge. In these accounts, the traveler’s physical movement was isomorphic to his progressive spiritual enlightenment, a pattern shared with a range of popular eighteenth-century didactic novels that were structured around the motif of travel, such as Fénelon’s Les aventures de Télémaque.62 Many of Russia’s elite eighteenth-century travelers were themselves Freemasons, including Aleksandr Kurakin and Karamzin; numerous others, like Fonvizin and Radishchev, were closely linked to members of the secret society. The records of actual Masonic travelers resemble fictional models in their efforts to track the hero’s Gnostic development. If

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fictional accounts were often formulated as descriptions of journeys to a generic “East,” however, flesh and blood Masons generally preferred Western Europe where they sought guidance from key mystic texts and spiritual mentors. Centers of Freemasonry important for Russian culture were found in Sweden, Germany, and France. The Masonic search for self-improvement through travel recalls the familiar educational program of the grand tour, although Masonic texts focus more explicitly on personal transformation. Indeed, these texts were specifically designed to describe the traveler’s spiritual development as he moved from one European mentor to another. They thus experiment with ways of emplotting the travelogue (where “plot” normally exists only as the mechanical record of the traveler’s forward movement through space and time) by overlaying its rudimentary narrative structure with accounts of development or growth. An example may be found in the travel writing of Vasily Zinoviev. Vasily Nikolaevich Zinoviev first crossed the border in 1766 t o study at the University of Leipzig, where he was a junior (elevenyear-old!) schoolmate of Radishchev’s. In 1774, he was sent abroad again—this time as an official courier to Italy with news of the Kuchuk-Kainarji peace between Russia and Turkey. He remained in Europe for four years, often touring about with his sister Ekaterina and her new sweetheart, Grigory Orlov. While the details of this trip are somewhat obscure, it is known that young Zinoviev circulated among the highest ranks of the social elite.63 Ten years later at the age of twenty-nine—and after the deaths of both Orlov and his sister—he set off for Western Europe once again on a trip that was to last six years (1783-88); most of his time was spent in Italy, England, and France. In later memoirs, he cites grief as the catalyst for his this journey; it was in part a quest for comprehension and self-improvement as well, interests that led him into the fold of Freemasonry: he became a member of the order during this tour. Zinoviev’s record of his tour comprises a mélange of intertwining letters and diaries (zhurnaly) in both Russian and French.64 These texts include many features that were standard in accounts of Western European travel, such as the description and analysis of towns, art works, and human character. Zinoviev encounters various important personages, ranging from Frederick II (the Great) to other members of the Russian nobility traveling

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abroad. In Italy, he socializes with Fonvizin, who has recovered somewhat from his first stroke and resumed purchasing works of art (405). Zinoviev’s comments on art, music, and architecture show greater cultural sophistication than those of the other writers discussed in this chapter and the more frequent formulation of independent aesthetic judgments. The traveler reads Winckelmann, visits Angelica Kauffman—whose paintings he characterizes as “pleasant, but when you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all”—and discusses with Canova the possibility of commissioning a sculpture (400, 406). His cultural interests would have been even more pronounced had his text not suffered abridgment a century later at the hands of an editor who excised passages lacking “historical significance,” including much of his extensive commentary on art in Italy. What remains is a record of personal thoughts and revelations, striking for its intimate tone and lack of literary polish—features that would have been unremarkable had the diaries not been specifically designed for the perusal of two principal readers. Zinoviev mailed his texts serially first to Semen Vorontsov and later to Varvara Koshelyova, friends and mentors whom he aimed to implicate directly in his process of critical self-introspection. Both addressees were in Europe at the time where they not only received Zinoviev’s correspondence, but also hosted him and sometimes even traveled with him. Thus, they would have been able both to read about his psychic turmoil and to observe it firsthand. Vorontsov (the brother of Ekaterina Dashkova) was a close personal friend who served as the Russian ambassador to Venice and then England during Zinoviev’s trip. He was also married t o Zinoviev’s cousin, who died unexpectedly in 1784. Already abroad when he heard the sad news, Zinoviev hastened to Pisa where he joined Vorontsov for a protracted visit. He also reorganized his diurnal travel account into a series of letters in order to more frequently distract his grieving friend with news of himself. While Zinoviev’s tone of reflective sincerity marks a definite change from Fonvizin’s critical pose, his narratorial figure is not without its own tendentious implications. In lieu of the “external” dramatic techniques used by Fonvizin, he employs strategies found in confessional literature and Masonic fiction to reveal the narratorial persona from an “internal” point of view. Characteristic of this account are passages in which he ponders his own behavior with critical relentlessness, registering mistakes, and

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outlining plans for future betterment. More often than not, he hopes to achieve progress through increased self-control. As Fonvizin’s later prose indicates, such concerns were not limited t o the Freemasons. In Douglas Smith’s words, “notions of selfcontrol, of moral improvement were part of the broader discourse of civility in which all of educated society took part.”65 What is unusual is the candid discussion of such matters in an account of Western European travel. Repeatedly describing himself as passionate, Zinoviev notes particular difficulty with restraining his sexual desires, his interest in gambling, and a tendency to argue. The diaries include several references to a struggle with the flesh and its ensuing distempers, while their detailed first-person account of gaming—the feverish passion that overtakes him, the conviction that his luck must turn, the high sums of money won and then lost, as well as reflections on the mechanisms of luck and chance—foreshadow the tone, tempo, and geographical setting of Dostoevsky’s The Gambler (1866).66 A series of reproaches found in the diaries suggest that Vorontsov fell short of Zinoviev’s expectations for benevolent involvement in his efforts towards personal improvement. Accusing Vorontsov of not adequately reciprocating his friendship, for example, Zinoviev deplores the lack of faith that so glaringly contrasts with his own convictions and makes Vorontsov a “ship without a rudder.” Increasing discord seems to have provoked Zinoviev to break off the correspondence altogether. In mid-1787, he began to address his travel diary to Koshelyova, a new friend with whom he shared religious interests. Zinoviev spent time with Koshelyova and her husband in Paris and Touraine; the three later met in Switzerland and returned to Russia together in 1788. In this latter part of his journey, Masonic interests begin to determine Zinoviev’s itinerary and activities. He visits Duke Ferdinand of Braunschweig, a prominent Masonic leader, and makes several trips to a lodge in Lyon that the Duke had recommended—initially t o seek admission into the order and later to pursue further his own enlightenment and advancement within it. Zinoviev finds Freemasons and opportunities to discuss Masonic principles in other cities as well. His diaries from this period focus enthusiastically on topics such as his friendship with Koshelyova, his Masonic brethren in Lyon, and God’s benevolence and grace. Zinoviev’s travel diary does go further than the standard literary account in rendering travel metaphorically, recording, as it does,

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both an actual trip through Europe and a developmental progression along the road of moral and spiritual enlightenment. Despite this explicit interest in tracking the course of his selfimprovement, however, it would be an overstatement to describe the zhurnaly as texts in which Zinoviev clearly achieves the desired personal development. His record of actual travel thus differs from the fictional Masonic journey in its inability to meaningfully conclude the (ongoing) narrative of the traveler’s progress. It also lacks the overarching organization of Fonvizin’s letters from France, where a priori knowledge of the traveler’s ultimate conclusions had enabled the writer to organize his arguments clearly. Indeed, the function of giving purpose and coherence t o the quest recorded in Zinoviev’s diary resides in his later Memoirs, a confessional excursus that he wrote in 1806 for his mother-inlaw, evidently a new audience for tales of his inner life. By this point, Zinoviev had achieved sufficient temporal distance on his earlier tour to impose teleological forms upon its narration; he describes the trip as a search for answers about faith and personal behavior: I wanted to be convinced of beneficent faith, through the help of which I wished to quit this place of grief and sin [Russia] and become a Christian at heart and not only in name. I imagined that in foreign lands I would meet people who would obliterate my doubts on that important subject, because, my friend, despite my animal instincts, I could not quell my conscience, which reproached me for them (614).

Underlining the journey’s crucial role in his moral and spiritual development, Zinoviev renders it in his Memoirs as the most important event in his life to the present, the highlight of his first thirty-three years. Impelled and enabled by their missions for health and selfimprovement, both Fonvizin and Zinoviev overlay the map of Europe with accounts of private, metaphysical journeys. Like Fonvizin’s records of spa travel, Zinoviev’s text, too, strays from the conventional balance between discussion of the self and description of the surroundings that was common to literary accounts of the grand tour: the environs more often serve as a backdrop for the traveler’s self-examination than as the focus of textual interest in their own right. Nonetheless, both the questing Zinoviev and the ailing Fonvizin are far from indifferent to the foreign context in which they write. For all of their apparent self-

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involvement, both men actively sought opportunities to spend time abroad, where they hoped not only to find relief from daily life in Russia, but also to profit from advancements in medicine and spiritual philosophy. In fact, the elaboration of self that appears in their texts required this foreign setting to unfold and to assume significant relief—much as was the case in later travel accounts by Karamzin, Batiushkov, Kiukhelbeker, and Gogol. Nonetheless, their tours, too, constitute yet another example of the educational or developmental journey and, despite a falling away from specific literary norms, exemplify the further development of a Russian subject by staking out an autonomous (since personal) territory for the traveler within the Western European landscape.

Chapter 2 Radishchev and Domestic Description (1767-97) In the last third of the eighteenth century, internal Russian travel began to provide another context in which writers could pursue their literary aims. The practice of domestic tourism, like the grand tour, derived largely from Western European fashion and was especially well developed in England, where many Russian travelers had participated in it. As Aleksandr Kurakin noted upon arriving in London, for example, “the season was already advanced and everyone advised us to take advantage of the month of November to make our tour of the provinces.”1 Dashkova and Zinoviev also made internal excursions in Britain; like their British counterparts (and sometimes travel companions), they admired the art, architecture, and gardens of country estates, together with wellbuilt towns and natural landscapes. Eventually, Russians conceived a desire to perform such rituals at home.2 As noted earlier, applying Western conceptions of domestic travel to the Russian Empire was often difficult. Before it was possible for Russians to champion internal travel as a possible setting for aesthetic, cultural, and “sentimental” experiences, it was necessary to develop concrete ideas of domestic Russian space—to establish appropriate travel destinations, to come to terms with the Empire’s particular geographical features, economic conditions, ethnic populations, and class relationships, and to articulate compelling perceptions of territory. This process was complicated by inescapable comparisons between the prospect of internal travel and the tour of Western Europe. In fact, pointedly literary descriptions of domestic Russian travel (the subject of the next chapter) were generally written only later—during the reign of Paul (1796-1801) and in the early nineteenth century. In part the emulation of Western models, these texts also issued from the fertile mixture of diverse internal travel writing traditions that already existed in Russia, namely, scholarly, informational, and official travel accounts, records of the sovereign’s tours, and texts

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blending social criticism with literary sentimentalism. While the texts considered here vary in the degree of explicitness with which they contemplate the comparability of Russian and foreign culture, they all fill the Russian landscape with descriptive detail, thus helping to create a literary image of their empire rich enough t o rival that of Western Europe. Accounts of exploring domestic territory particularly helped to lay the foundation for later imaginary geographies by taking stock of the vast Empire and its contents. These descriptive scientific and informational texts also illustrate the rudiments of a network of links by which the Russian writer became ensconced in the Russian landscape—through relationships with the inhabitants (especially peasants), the state, and, ultimately, Russian cultural tradition. 1. Science and State in the Conception of Internal Travel Writing Russians had begun in earnest to describe the lands of their empire in the late seventeenth century under Peter I. At the tsar’s urging, they wrote practically oriented accounts that provided useful information for traders, merchants, and government authorities. In 1703, for example—before the founding of Petersburg and the construction of its port—Afanasy Kholmogorsky mapped three different routes that connected Moscow with Northern waterways.3 Later in the century, the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences launched a series of domestic explorations that dwarfed these earlier ventures in geographical reconnaissance. The reign of Empress Anna inaugurated the decade-long Great Northern Expedition led by G. F. Müller and S. P. Krasheninnikov (173343), while Catherine’s era gave new impetus to the exploration and description of domestic territory with the combined expeditions of I. I. Lepyokhin and P. S. Pallas (1768-74). Such undertakings led t o a boom in scientific travel writing, resulting in a veritable flood of descriptive texts authored by Russian academics and their foreign colleagues in Russian employ. The written records of these academic explorers were typically designed on the same enormous scale as the expeditions which they documented: the title of Johann Georgi’s three-volume Description of All Peoples Inhabiting the Russian State, Including Their Worldly Ceremonies, Beliefs, Habits,

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Clothing, Dwellings, and Other Memorabilia (1776-77) suggests the comprehensive scope at which they aimed. The significance of this growing body of scientific travel writing for the internal literary account can hardly be overstated. Both Müller’s Description of the Siberian Empire (1750) and Krasheninnikov’s Description of the Land of Kamchatka (vol. 1, 1755) became classic reading for the Russian elite. Krasheninnikov was even translated into French by the Russophobic abbé Chappe d’Auteroche himself.4 Lepyokhin’s later four-volume Daily Record of a Journey through Various Provinces of the Russian State (1771-1805) and the three-volume Journey through Various Provinces of the Russian Empire (1773-88) by Professor Pallas enjoyed wide circulation as well. Moreover, both the approach and content of academic travel records often overlapped and intertwined with the records of educated and observant private travelers. As the titles of Müller and Krasheninnikov suggest, scientific travel writing often assumed the form of “description” (opisanie). Such accounts were not narratives of journeys per se, but compilations of information relating to local inhabitants, plants, animals, minerals, topography, climate, and so forth, gathered while traveling through a particular area. The data was frequently organized by category and presented under topical headings. This “scientific” approach was also popular in more narrative accounts where large blocks of informational text were frequently incorporated into the record or attached as appendices. In fact, the mid-eighteenth-century proliferation of scientific travel writing helped to popularize the scholarly, documentary tendencies already present in the literary account. Such emphases were especially marked in the description of domestic itineraries, where they became normative features. In their attention t o economic and ethnographic data, even the more literary internal accounts followed their scientific and official counterparts. State-sponsored scientific travel was not simply a quest for knowledge itself: the intelligence to be gathered had to be strictly useful. Traveling scientists described their surroundings with an eye towards the empire’s future development, noting natural resources (raw materials) in addition to existing agricultural and commercial activities. Even accounts of local inhabitants and their lifeways took into consideration the attitudes of these peoples towards the imperial administration and other factors that might affect their suitability as a source of labor. When Pallas found a supply of coal

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in 1768, he wrote of his satisfaction to Vladimir Orlov, Director of the Imperial Academy of Sciences: I really congratulated myself with this discovery seeing as how it’s the first I’ve made that’s of immediate and evident utility and that I’m burning with desire to render myself useful to the nation (la patrie).5

Orlov’s instructions to the travelers had asked that they conduct investigations of the attributes of soils and waters, of the means of cultivation of the steppes, of the state of agriculture, of the most common illnesses and epizootics, of the means of their cure and prevention, of beekeeping, breeding silkworms and breeding livestock, i n particular breeding sheep, of minerals and mineral waters, of the arts and crafts of each locality, of mountains and all other subjects of the physical study of the fatherland (165).

The resulting texts, as a later reader said of Pallas’s account, contained “all that could interest a natural scientist and even a government man” (164). Orlov played an influential role in the development of internal travel writing during his years at the helm of the Academy of Sciences, organizing scientific expeditions and encouraging participants to record their observations. As Pallas put it, “Count Orlov is admonishing us to publish our travel journals quickly in order to satisfy the impatient curiosity of the Empire and the scholars of Europe” (165-6); the accounts of Lepyokhin and Pallas began to appear before their expeditions had even been completed.6 Both scientists employ a relatively narrative approach to the record of scientific travel that follows the structure of the actual journey and the movement of the individual traveler as he makes observations and collects data. The appeal of this more literary format was acknowledged even at the highest levels of the scholarly administration: Orlov specifically requested that Pallas keep his account in a narrative, diary style (169). The popularity of scientific accounts with elite readers is attested in the diary of Aleksei Bobrinsky, the illegitimate son of Catherine II and Vladimir Orlov’s brother Grigory. On the eve of departure for his own internal tour in 1782, Bobrinsky was asked “whether I’d heard of the journeys within Russia of the professors of our Academy and whether I’d read the descriptions of their trip.” In response, he “answered that not only had I heard of them, but that I own these descriptions.”7 Bobrinsky’s trip through Russia

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capped his formal education and Catherine tried to insure that his experience would be educationally fruitful. In fact, he was accompanied on his domestic tour by Professor Nikolai Ozeretskovsky, a veteran explorer who had traveled with Lepyokhin. Bobrinsky’s enthusiasm for scientific travel writing does not appear to have extended to his traveling companion, however, who is barely mentioned in the diary apart from one occasion when, in Bobrinsky’s words, he “hasn’t gone to bed for three days and for the fourth day in a row is overeating and drinking too much” (396). After completing his travels in Russia, Bobrinsky went abroad, where he remained for several years (1783-88). His sketchy diary from this part of the trip focuses primarily on social activities and his often difficult relationships with other persons, including the companions coerced to travel with him. Bobrinsky’s behavior in Western Europe, particularly his continual gambling, caused a series of crises in the travel budget that severely tried Catherine’s patience and resulted in a prolonged stay abroad and permanent alienation between mother and son. Upon returning to the Russian Empire, Bobrinsky was forced to live in semi-exile in Reval (Tallinn) until the Empress’s death.8 The very conception of Bobrinsky’s internal trip indicates that domestic travel could already be framed as a useful educational experience in the 1780s—both a parallel and complement to the grand tour of Western Europe. As Catherine reportedly explained to her son, “one should first get to know his own land and only then visit those of others” (374). Such tours quickly became an established ritual for imperial scions, since they provided direct knowledge of the land that these young men were destined either t o govern or to help administer. In Bobrinsky’s case, domestic travel seems to have served primarily as a means to distract and occupy him while removing him from the capital in order to contemplate what social or civic role he might eventually be allowed to play. For those intended to ascend the throne, however, these trips also offered an important opportunity to establish a rapport with future subjects—the reason, perhaps, that Catherine did not send her own heir Pavel Petrovich on a similar trip, even while undertaking several herself.9 Catherine II was not the first tsar to engage in domestic travel, although the variety of well-publicized tours which she undertook

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far surpassed those of her predecessor, Elizabeth; Peter I had traveled extensively as well, both in Russia and abroad, but mostly with concrete technical or military goals. It was Catherine who conclusively transformed the practice of the internal tour into a political and cultural event. Within the first five years after dethroning her husband Peter III, she made a series of domestic excursions, each designed to encourage provincial and popular support for the German princess become Russian Empress, to better acquaint her with the Empire, and to arrest the attention of foreign and especially Western European observers. She visited Kronstadt, Rostov Veliky and Yaroslavl in 1763, toured the Empire’s Germanspeaking Baltic territories in 1764, inspected improvements made to the Ladoga canal in 1765, and sailed down the Volga river in 1767.10 A more celebrated journey through Ukraine and the Crimea—the extended trip that produced the concept of “the Potyomkin village”—occurred only much later in 1787.11 Extremely interested in the impression that her travels would make, Catherine saw that they were well recorded and widely reported. Her secretaries forwarded official accounts to the newspapers in Moscow and Petersburg while en route; Catherine’s trips were also remarked in the foreign press, described in the private accounts and official records of persons who accompanied her, and duly noted in a host of official documents. She was fond of using her own correspondence to discuss her travels as well. Catherine’s Baltic journey may have been conceived in part t o demonstrate her support for the new Duke of Kurland to Poland and Western Europe. She also took the opportunity to assess Russian naval strength throughout the Baltic, visiting Narva, Reval, and Riga, before accepting the Duke’s invitation to make a brief excursion beyond Russia’s borders to Mitau.12 An official account of her one-month journey was printed in the newspapers of Moscow and Petersburg in 1764 and republished a few years later in a separate volume entitled Journal of Her Imperial Highness’s Journey to Estonia and Livonia.13 Written in third person and probably by a state secretary, this text illustrates the prevailing tenor of official travel reporting. It focuses almost exclusively on the activities of the Empress; descriptions of her surroundings or other additional commentary appear only in support of this primary task. Journal of Her Highness’s Journey records Catherine’s visits t o various towns and private estates as she presumably bestows honor

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upon the region and its residents with her presence. She responds with satisfaction to local sites of interest and military installations. The text also documents the warm welcome extended by both commoners and local magnates, including her generous hosts who “spared neither expense, nor diligence, nor fervor” (35). Public manifestations of devotion to the Empress find expression in speeches (often in German), fireworks displays, the presentation of triumphal arches and commemorative statues, masked balls, mock naval battles, and so on. After a 303-cannon salute in Narva, sailors cry “Vivat!” to the Empress from atop the masts of foreign merchant ships (5). In Riga, “fountains of wine” are provided for the “merry-making folk” who shout “vivat” and play trumpets and drums (litavry) throughout the night (35). Journey to Estonia and Livonia regretfully notes its own brevity, which prohibits a lengthier account of the “innumerable” throng’s “indescribable joy” (22) at encountering the tsaritsa in person.14 In 1767, Catherine made a more extensive journey down the Volga river from Tver to Simbirsk, or, as she styled it in a letter t o Voltaire, “in Asia.”15 Attended by a retinue that included “about 2000” people distributed over twenty-five boats, Catherine embarked in late April and reached Simbirsk in June. She shared her own specially designed galley with her favorite Grigory Orlov (he had traveled with her to the Baltic as well) and his younger brother Vladimir. The trip was intended to advertise the progressive spirit of her rule and to rally support for the much publicized Legislative Commission that was soon to convene in Moscow. Catherine appeared before Russian subjects who had previously had only vague notions of either Petersburg or their sovereign and she demonstratively underlined active concern for their welfare by accepting petitions detailing various grievances.16 As was her custom, Catherine had accounts of this trip published in the newspapers of Moscow and Petersburg. Another record of the trip may be found in the diary kept by Vladimir Orlov. Orlov was the youngest of five brothers awarded a noble title for assisting Catherine to the throne in 1762; his brother Aleksei was responsible for the death of Catherine’s husband, Peter III, while his brother Grigory had long been known as the Empress’s lover.17 Vladimir was also the most highly educated of the group, having been selected by Catherine to join a group of Russian students sent to the University of Leipzig in 1763. He was appointed Director of

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the Academy of Sciences shortly after his return to Russia in 1766. This career leap, like Dashkova’s later accession to the same post, illustrates both the Catherinian favoritism that benefited his entire family and the prestige that foreign travel had in elite administrative circles. Orlov took the task of describing the Volga trip quite seriously, often employing the format and formulae used in official records of imperial travel. His text resembles the published account of Catherine’s Baltic tour in that it notes various ceremonies and events associated with the Empress’s arrival and sojourn at towns along her route: ritual greetings, formal inspections and military reviews, fireworks displays, and so on. Numerous passages glorify the sovereign by recording the flattering commentary of her admiring subjects: “Well, now I’ve really given the Dear Mother a good looking over,” one peasant woman exclaims upon seeing the Empress.18 As Catherine walked past the crowd in another town, “Someone called Her ‘a little berry,’ another peasant woman ‘sunshine,’ another ‘our benefactress’” (38). In Yaroslavl, Many people gathered during the fireworks, the first in this town; the people so greedily watched the Sovereign, that they only looked at the fireworks when something loudly exploded, but if anything sparked, their faces turned immediately to the Sovereign (33).

Orlov’s account of floating down the Volga with Catherine describes towns and events at various stages of the tour; relatively little attention is given to the characterization of peoples or descriptions of landscape. He writes in an abbreviated style that occasionally omits grammatical subjects, although without falling short of a literary norm. While the text is not exclusively dedicated to describing the Empress’s trip, it does focus more on her travel experience than on Orlov’s own. He rarely isolates or even refers to himself, preferring the narratorial viewpoint of first-person plural or third-person singular (the Empress) and switching constantly between them. Grammatical subjects—we, she, and more rarely I—are often only implicit in verbal forms; it is frequently unclear whether or not Orlov even participates in what he describes: Since this date was Mid-Pentecost Day, [we] went on foot with crosses about a verst to the water and, returning from there, with the crosses into the church and not having stayed there long, [she] was pleased to go t o the bishop’s house; not waiting long, [we] sat down to eat and at 2,

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having permitted the women there and several residents and temporary visitors to kiss her hand, [she] was pleased to board the boats (26).

Orlov probably intended his account for an audience that included both Catherine and his elder brother Grigory, another subject of considerable textual attention. In addition to maintaining his own diary, Orlov arranged at various junctures during the trip for local chroniclers (letopistsy) to be sent to Petersburg where part of their task would be to describe the Empress’s journey since “it bears recording” (33). Vladimir Orlov held the court rank of kammerjunker during the Volga trip and had recently concluded a term as President of the Free Economic Society, a position that had been occupied during the previous year by his brother Grigory.19 Sponsored by Catherine and founded in 1765, the Free Economic Society was conceived on the model of similar organizations throughout Western Europe with the aim of developing the Russian economy through attention to problems of agriculture, industry, and trade. Questions of economic development had become more pressing with Peter III’s edict of 1763 when, given the right to refuse state service, greater numbers of the Russian nobility became more closely involved with the management of their own estates.20 Catherine’s initiative was thus of direct relevance for her elite subjects—a group whose financial interests were closely linked with the growth of the state and even with the goals of the Academy of Sciences. In fact, the interests of the Free Economic Society largely coincided with those reflected in the Academy of Sciences’ efforts at geographical reconnaissance, i.e., its attempts to gather information regarding “populations, regional products, grain prices, the state of agriculture, commerce and industry and routes of communication.”21 The close relationship between state interests, science, and private property was particularly apparent in families such as the Orlovs. Catherine had awarded extensive properties to the Orlov brothers in exchange for their political support and deigned during her Volga tour to visit the new lands of the eldest brother Ivan near Simbirsk. In a letter to Nikita Panin, she reported having been greatly pleased with what she saw: Grain of any type is better here than ever seen before; cherries and wild roses are everywhere in the forests—but there are no other trees besides oak and poplar; the earth is blacker [here] than one sees elsewhere i n

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by God. I haven’t eaten everything is in such know what they could all inexpensive.22

As suggested earlier, the Empress was well aware that her reports would circulate widely and habitually presented her realm in the best possible light, insisting upon the contentment of her subjects (here, both the Orlovs and their serfs) and the success of her various interactions with them; the fashionably offhand literary style was one that she cultivated in her letters. From Simbirsk, Catherine and Grigory Orlov headed back t o Moscow overland, while Vladimir Orlov continued on to Astrakhan as the head of a smaller traveling party. Before going their separate ways, however, the two Orlov brothers made another brief side trip in the area to inspect other family properties with their “roughly 2000 or 3000 souls.” Orlov’s account records the satisfaction of “Brother Grigory,” who “arrived by boat and rode about the fields to inspect the country, which pleased him very much” (47-8). The precise motivations for Orlov’s trip to Astrakhan are unclear, although they appear to have included economic research. In passages whose topics resemble those that he later requested from the Academy scientists, he gives figures for crop yields and prices, evaluates soil quality, and gathers information about Astrakhan’s trade with other countries. The landscape described in his text teems with minerals, fish, squirrel skins, medicinal plants, and various demographic groups, including retired soldiers, Cossacks, and non-Russian populations. Moreover, in the absence of Catherine and Grigory, Vladimir Orlov is free to take up the first-person point of view and to recount his own activities and social interactions: When I entered the city, large numbers of various peoples met me there and then—Armenian, Tatar, and Russian merchantry and the officers serving here came to congratulate me upon my arrival; I dined that day with the Chief Commandant Major-General Rosenberg; after lunch I was visited by [...] four rich merchants, with whom [I] was not able to speak at length about trade due to lack of time, then [I] went to view the town with the Governor (61-2).

Both Catherine’s trip along the Volga and Orlov’s own continued journey on to Astrakhan were in their own right government-sponsored quests for information on Russia’s

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territories and resources. At the same time, Orlov’s connection t o the throne ensured that the official data gathered were of immediate and personal significance for him and his family. Like Boris Kurakin, he makes no distinction between his public and private roles: in 1767, the interests of the Orlov clan were thoroughly entangled and often identical with those of the state. If scientific accounts acknowledged the authority and leadership of the Empress, they also yielded before Orlov, both in his role as Director of the Academy and as a virtual if not official representative of the throne. Pallas himself examined the Orlov family’s Volga properties during his own long Siberian expedition and wrote to Vladimir Grigorievich with recommendations for sites on which he might opportunely build a house (207 n). As Orlov’s text illustrates, travel writers often played the role of intermediary in bringing the vast territories of the empire under the firm control of the state. Their constructions of imaginary geography, intertwined with both scientific and official prerogatives, formed the context in which literary accounts first appeared. Catherine’s interest in an accurate accounting of her vast empire was made evident again in the Provincial Reform of 1775, when she officially requested territorial descriptions from her provincial governors. This initiative directly involved the poet Gavrila Derzhavin, then governor of Petrozavodsk and Tambov, and stimulated a tradition that was to involve numerous other writers as well.23 Aleksandr Radishchev, for example, authored both geographical description and more literary travel accounts; a close affiliation between descriptive and narrative approaches t o characterizing the Russian landscape continued well into the nineteenth century.24 Although only leisured travel writing was perceived as companion and eventually heir to the products of courtly and neoclassicist artistic practice, informational travel writing coexisted with its literary cousin throughout the eighteenth century as a complementary and sometimes indistinguishable genre. Thematically, the leisured account borrowed heavily from these descriptive, informational genres. Even the early diary of Boris Kurakin demonstrates a familiarity with paradigms of informational writing in its range and treatment of varied subject matter. The later growth of national awareness and the attendant drive to increase the national specificity of Russian literature—developments that may be described in general terms as the evolution from romanticism to realism—required information

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about the particulars of the landscape and its inhabitants. Travel writing helped to organize such information and make it available to the reading public. 2. Sentiment and Social Criticism The growing concern with economic data and rural lifeways assisted in the genesis of another type of internal travelogue as well: the tendentious, journalistic account—“publicistic” in Russian parlance—which marshaled quantities of information in support of particular social arguments. If scientific writing is intimately connected with the non-narrative genre of “description,” publicistic accounts come very close in form to political essays or satire. The combination of travelogue and satire was not unknown in Western European literature, having appeared, for example, in Gulliver’s Travels (1726), Swift’s portrait of British political life in the guise of an imaginary land peopled by Lilliputians. That text was translated into Russian in 1772, the same year that the first Russian example of the internal publicistic travelogue appeared in print. Admittedly, the texts falling under the rubric of the internal publicistic account are few: Radishchev’s Journey from Petersburg to Moscow (1790), the anonymous “Fragment of a Journey t o ***” (1772), often credited to Radishchev as well, and Fonvizin’s “Narrative of One Passing for a Deaf-Mute” (1783), a work partly based upon the description of a journey. At the same time, these accounts share a variety of features that argue for considering them related phenomena. Moreover, the analysis of them enables a richer understanding of Radishchev’s Journey and lays the groundwork for the examination of later developments in Russian internal travel writing and imaginary geography. While some internal travel writers (like Catherine herself) dedicated their literary efforts to elaborating a positive image of Russia, publicistic texts preferred a negative approach. Addressing topics found in other varieties of informational travel writing, they dwell on their most problematic aspects, transforming notes on agricultural production, for example, into commentary on the unhappy existence of the peasant. Despite a domestic focus, internal publicistic accounts also respond to the general challenge of measuring Russian culture according to a Western standard.

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Their implicit contrast of provincial Russian travel with the concept of a Western European grand tour may even be seen t o parody the new fashion for domestic touring and its literary record. Eschewing the description of important cultural sites, the haut monde, and grand homes, these texts underline the starkness of life in rural Russian climes. The traveler’s elite status is cast in sharp relief against a contrasting background of social inferiors, while monuments of touristic interest are substituted by accounts of brutality and corruption. Abstract and often allegorical, the internal publicistic account cannot be described as the transparent record of an actual journey, although it, too, depended upon contemporary expectations of travel writing in both structure and content. Influenced by scientific, educational, and sentimentalist discourse, publicistic texts blended these elements in a fictionalized and didactic rendering of the travel experience. Like Fonvizin’s letters from France, these accounts take advantage of the travelogue format to imply that the stated views result directly from the traveler’s own experience and observation. Journeys through domestic territory naturally provided an opportunity to examine the social and political fabric of Russia, while the descriptive scientific approach with its attention to detail both enabled the publicistic account’s revelation of peasant misery and ensured that the presented landscape, however metaphorical, would be precisely and pointedly Russian.25 Internal publicistic accounts began to circumscribe the broad picture of the Empire that had been made available in scientific travel writing, distilling its diverse images into a series of essential ideas that came to define the concept of Russia. While domestic travelers certainly encountered “exotic,” non-Russian populations during their journeys, publicistic texts tended to ignore these groups to concentrate on the Empire’s Russian inhabitants. They began t o outline an idea of Russia’s typical native—“the” Russian—and t o ground that figure firmly in the particularized domestic environment. The internal travel writer was also forced to consider his or her own relationship to Russian space, a development in selfdefinition that was fundamental for the growth of a national cultural tradition. As Yuri Slezkine has put it, the Russian “‘we’ did not exist before a certain people became attached to a certain territory.”26 Another characteristic feature of the internal publicistic travelogue was its use of sentimentalism, a literary current

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emanating from Western Europe that became popular in Russia during the 1770s. Sentimentalism is most clearly seen in the displays of “sensibility” or emotion that overwhelmed late eighteenth-century narrators and literary heroes. It tended to stress not only sensory affect itself, but also the manifestation of such in emotional display—tears, sighs, raptures, and other signs of acute feeling. More generally, sentimentalism’s attention to the description of sentience exalted the individual, whose interior feelings became an almost infinitely engrossing topic. Prominent among these was sympathy for the sufferings of others, an emotion that formed a bridge between the introspective world of the individual and the experiences of those nearby. Although Sterne’s Sentimental Journey (1768) was a prime inspiration for those who wished to apply sentimentalist techniques to travel writing,27 Russia’s first “sentimental travelers” appeared in texts of quite another breed that combined demonstrations of sentiment with social criticism. For the authors of publicistic accounts, sentimentalism was a rhetorical mode of persuasion and the traveler’s expressions of feeling assisted in advancing particular arguments. Obvious differences between the sentimentalist approach and scientific tradition—i.e., sentimentalism’s drawing attention to the narratorial figure that informational travel writing tended to minimize—did not prevent them from complementing and enhancing one another in the publicistic account. Detailed attention to topographical realia provided data for the text’s rhetorical points, while sentimentalist subjectivism underscored their validity. Publicistic accounts frequently emphasized the adverse effect of environmental conditions upon individual human beings, especially representatives of the peasantry and the sentimentalist traveler himself. The polemical “Fragment of a Journey to ***” pioneered the use of emotional responsiveness t o surrounding reality as a rhetorical tool; this technique reached its apotheosis in Radishchev’s Journey from Petersburg to Moscow. More generally, publicistic accounts began the association of sentimentalist paradigms with the domestic landscape that became standard in later conceptions of internal travel writing. “Fragment of a Journey to ***” appeared in Novikov’s journal The Painter in 1772 under the cryptic signature “I. T.”28 Critics have long disputed the piece’s authorship, most frequently attributing the piece to either Novikov or Radishchev and agreeing that it

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would be a feather in either’s cap. As editor of The Painter, Novikov surely had some role in shaping the piece for presentation; at the very least, he probably wrote the accompanying editorial commentary and the separate “English Stroll” that defended the continuation of “Fragment” and preceded the second of its two installments. Claims for Radishchev’s authorship cite the striking similarities in subject matter and tone between “Fragment” and Journey from Petersburg to Moscow: if Radishchev did not write it, he was certainly familiar with it. The short (nine-page) “Fragment” is styled as an excerpt of a longer travel diary. It begins with an ellipsis in the midst of “Chapter XIV” as the unnamed traveler approaches a village known as “Razorennaia” (Ruined) and concludes when his carriage leaves that village and heads for “Blagopoluchnoe” (Prosperous); the rest of the narrative consists of interactions between the traveler and local peasants and his musings upon them. The text provides no information that might serve to individualize the traveler, although his general outline corresponds to that of the continental tourist: he is a member of the social elite, “European, male, secular, and lettered.”29 He is also a city-dweller and his visit to Razorennaia affects to be part of a larger excursion (only hinted at) that begins and ends in “this city”—presumably Moscow, where The Painter was published. His trajectory thus reproduces the administrative and social hierarchy that existed between town and country and, like the accounts of Academy expeditions, reflects the precedence of city and provincial town over the rural environment. Here again, the countryside plays host to the gentlemen traveler that issues forth from the city, submitting to this enlightened figure’s attempts to understand and describe his new surroundings. With a nod to scientific tradition, the traveler in “Fragment of a Journey to ***” notes his intention to thoroughly examine the surrounding environment: “After my departure from this city, I stopped in almost every settlement and village: for all of them equally attracted my curiosity” (295). His endeavors meet with disappointment, however, because the provincial landscape—unlike Western Europe—offers neither cultural monuments nor historic sights of interest: In three days’ travel, I found nothing worthy of praise. Poverty and slavery met me everywhere in the image of the peasant. The unplowed fields, the lean harvest of grain proclaimed to me what type of care the landowners of those places applied to working the soil. The small straw-

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Remaining true to his investigative purpose, the traveler decides t o probe the sources of this shocking indigence: “I did not let a single settlement pass without inquiring as to the causes of peasant poverty.” Pausing in Razorennaia for respite from the dust of the road, he enters a peasant hut to find three wailing infants whose parents are off at work in the fields; each is dirty and miserable, one on the verge of suffocation. As the traveler attends to their grievances, he betrays the personal qualities that were standard for sentimentalist literary heroes of the time—a rational mind, a sensitive heart, and a highly functioning nervous system. His physical senses are assaulted by the hut’s squalor: fetid smells and piercing shrieks fill his nose and ears, inadequate light prevents him from seeing clearly as he attempts to remove the infants’ damp and soiled swaddling clothes, he finds only stagnant water to slake his thirst. The traveler’s own discomfort amplifies his compassion for the three infants: Look what these babes are demanding! The arms and legs of one are bound: does he lodge a complaint about that? No, he gazes calmly upon his fetters. What than is he demanding? He needs only sufficient food. The second began to wail only that his life not be taken. The third cried out t o humanity that he not be tortured. “Scream poor creatures,” I said, shedding tears, “voice your complaints, enjoy this last pleasure in your infancy: when you reach manhood, then this consolation, too, will be denied” (296).

Like scientific and literary travelogues, publicistic accounts conceived travel as an educational activity that stimulated the intellect. They also showed cognition to result directly from sensory input: travelers gathered information about the environment through sentient perception; this data then shaped their emotions and thoughts. In “Fragment,” the traveler’s sympathetic judgments are underlined by his empathetic physiology. Sensations of sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch force him to first swoon and then cogitate as he reflects on the miserable lives of Razorennaia’s peasants well into the night:

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Having rendered a service to humanity, I hurried to give aid to myself: the heavy stench in the hut was for me so harmful that I was hardly able to get out. Having arrived at my carriage, I fell into it without senses (296-7).

By describing the violent impact of the situation upon the traveler—his fainting spell even renders him literally “without senses” (bez chuvstva)—the text both emphasizes the abominable conditions of rural peasant life and hints at the traveler’s own basic innocence.30 Although his social position implicates him in the inequitable structures of the serf economy, the traveling gentleman nonetheless retains enough “heart” to be profoundly affected by the sufferings of his social inferiors. In order to achieve its didactic purpose, “Fragment of a Journey” encourages the reader to identify with the traveler, with his response to the surrounding environment, and with his rejection of the mistreatment of serfs by unenlightened landowners. As in Fonvizin’s letters from France, dramatic scenarios and reports of others’ opinions bolster the travelers’ arguments by presenting external and presumably objective evidence in support of his views and general character. In particular, the corroboration of the local peasantry helps to establish his credibility: “This isn’t our master; this master is nice; he gives out money and doesn’t beat us!” exclaim the children of Razorennaia in a testament of the traveler’s good will and benevolence (297). Their parents, upon returning from the fields, immediately respond to him with deference and trust; the village elder speaks openly of their landlord’s cruel policies. This rhetorical use of peasant opinion recalls official accounts of Catherine’s internal tours in which popular approbation similarly imputed positive qualities to the traveling Empress. Despite their different aims, both official and publicistic travel writers use the narod to serve their own purposes and style the common folk as a moral gauge that is capable of judging the true character of sovereign and noble.31 Accounts of Catherine’s travels stop short of construing the Russian peasant as a repository of ethical wisdom, however: the Russian people simply applaud the judicious sovereign and her well-run state. In “Journey of a Fragment to ***” (and Journey from Petersburg to Moscow), popular opinion supports the text’s own critique of Russian social conditions. More generally, the authors of publicistic accounts link the writer and peasant together in an alliance against the status quo and the state policies that support it. By describing both the

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peasantry’s alienation from the state and the writer’s opposition t o it, these accounts symbolically wrest the rhetorical function of the Russian folk away from the crown. In comparison with Radishchev’s later Journey, the social criticisms advanced in “Fragment of a Journey to ***” are relatively circumspect. I t alludes to peasant complaints without elaborating them in detail: “ I did not include the traveler’s conversation with the peasant in this leaflet for several reasons,” notes an editorial comment, “the sensible reader may guess them himself” (332 n). Such precautionary measures undoubtedly assisted Novikov in avoiding his own collision with Catherine for several years. While his experiments in satirical journalism ended in 1774, Novikov’s endeavors in writing and publishing were not halted until 1789; he spent the last four years of Catherine’s reign (1792-96) in prison. Sensitivity to Catherine’s possible reaction affected the shaping of Fonvizin’s “Narrative of One Passing for a Deaf-Mute” as well. Published anonymously in the journal Interlocutor of Lovers of the Russian Word in 1783, this brief moralistic tale contains an allegorical account of internal travel subtitled “Notes of My First Journey Before 1762.”32 The text addresses a variety of social abuses found in provincial Russia, including the mistreatment of serfs and governmental corruption; the prudent specification that the described travels occur “before 1762” suggests that the text’s criticisms pertain to the era preceding Catherine’s reign. Given the sovereign’s general animosity towards Fonvizin in the 1780s, it is unlikely that this caveat had any mollifying effect. Considered within Fonvizin’s own oeuvre, “Narrative of One Passing” provides yet another example of the author’s predilection for didactic accounts of Bildung. Here he uses the description of a provincial excursion to illustrate the progress of moral development. Under the advice and guidance of his father, the young narrator feigns an illness that apparently deprives him of the powers of hearing and speech. He then begins the practice of habitually posing as a deaf-mute so that others will ignore his presence and unsuspectingly reveal their real thoughts before him. In this way, the narrator avoids various snares that society sets for the innocent; he is even able to ascertain the loyalty of his fiancée, who remains unaware that his disabilities are mere pretense until after their marriage.33 Somewhat paradoxically, this pose of sentient disability ultimately accentuates the importance of direct

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experience—a principle underlying conceptions of leisured, scientific, and publicistic travel. Seemingly unable to either grasp or communicate much of what occurs around him, Fonvizin’s traveler actually observes and listens carefully in order to gather accurate knowledge of his environment. True to sentimentalist form, these external investigations are interconnected with the traveler’s internal reaction to them and with his feelings in general—widely proclaimed by the text’s effusive language. “Notes of My First Journey” is presented as the memoir of a trip undertaken by the narrator in his youth and contextualizes that journey in the Russian environment. This is not the data-filled geography of the traveling scientist, however, but an extended illustration of lessons about human nature. “You will find nothing, or extremely little concerning political, historical, didactic, and other information,” claims the traveler—rather disingenuously given the work’s attention to ethical instruction (12). Even while the traveler characterizes his account as following the random associations of “my heart’s feeling,” his road takes him through a landscape that is specifically Russian. Departing from his home in the country, he proceeds “through various provinces of our spacious fatherland” to Moscow (11). As Gogol was later to do in Dead Souls, Fonvizin constructs moralistic scenarios by overlaying rural geography with caricatured portraits of provincial landowners such as the drunken Mr. Whack (Shchelchkov), the vitriolic Mr. Ulcer (Iazvin), and a fellow dubbed “Slapped-Face” (Opleushin) after being struck by a displeased superior. The final section of the text is dedicated to the sojourn in Moscow. Although Fonvizin’s brief text does not focus on the mistreatment of serfs, it does characterize the Russian countryside in terms of the peasant’s presence and thus helps to isolate a tendency that emerges clearly in later internal accounts as rural landscapes became more central to ideas of Russian identity. As part of this process, the Russian folk and Russian land were increasingly called in the service of elite self-description. “If you want to see Russian mores,” an acquaintance of Bobrinsky’s commented, “you don’t need to look at them in the capital city, but in the provinces.”34 At the same time, “Narrative of One Passing for a Deaf-Mute” foreshadows later internal accounts by characterizing the traveler’s relationship to the countryside in terms of his emotional response to it, in particular, as an experience connected with his boyhood. More immediately, the

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allegorical road featured in both “Fragment of a Journey to ***” and “Narrative of One Passing for a Deaf-Mute” helped to forge a link between the Russian highway and domestic socio-political criticism that reached its apotheosis in Radishchev. If the apolitical accounts of Karamzin’s epigones (chapter 3) later found in the Russian landscape a “mirror of their soul,” publicistic and informational accounts found in it the reflection of their senses and thus an extension of their own worldview and critical arguments. 3. Radishchev and the Poetics of the National Landscape At first glance, Radishchev’s Journey from Petersburg to Moscow (1790) appears to be the whole journey from which “Fragment” was taken as an excerpt.35 In lieu of allegorically named villages, however, the text proposes a precise and explicit route: all but the introductory and closing chapters are named for post stations along the Petersburg-Moscow highway. Radishchev’s use of the travelogue format has often been seen as evidence of his debt t o Sterne. It both serves as a device for stringing together the component chapters and justifies sudden changes of topic through the traveler’s encounters with other characters, found documents, and mental associations. In Sentimental Journey, the relationship between travelogue form and content is parodic: the traveler’s experiences and the titles of the chapters into which they are organized flout generic expectations with their pointed irrelevance to geographical context. In Radishchev, too, the implication that the content of a given chapter relates to a specified village in a fundamental way is simultaneously encouraged and frustrated by the text. Despite its insistence upon topographical reality, Journey from Petersburg to Moscow describes a primarily allegorical road. Nonetheless, the selected itinerary ensures that the text’s rhetorical message is continually brought to bear upon contemporary Russia. Radishchev himself cited Sterne as an important literary model, albeit during his inquest when under great pressure to emphasize the innocuous character of his own account.36 The two texts share a variety of other features as well, including the figure of a “sentimental traveler.” As noted, both writers surprise generic expectations, although Sterne’s model assumes the manner of lighthearted parody, while Radishchev’s often caustic irony sounds a

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harsher note. Sentimental Journey had poked fun at the tradition of literary travel writing by focusing more on the traveler’s emotional responses to his environment than on the environment itself. Radishchev’s combination of form and content also tests established boundaries. In addition to the irony implicit in his very choice of route—in the contrast between the miserable domestic landscape and the fabled terrain of Western Europe—his text may be seen as a sardonic response to Sternean sentimentalism: Radishchev places the sentimental traveler in an environment that offers a series of brutal jolts to his sympathetic and tender feelings, pushing the capacities of the sentimental traveler to the limit.37 In 1790, the title and format of Radishchev’s text would have suggested a simple travel account or some sort of geographical description. The censor assigned to the manuscript probably made the same assumption when he approved the text for publication without reading it. His mistake was quite reasonable. A book entitled “Journey from Petersburg to Moscow” might well have included demographic and production statistics, descriptions of river traffic, information on commercial fairs, and so forth; the first volume of Pallas’s Journey through Various Provinces of the Russian Empire (1773) illustrates the type of environmental description that would have been more customary for this route. Moreover, as Assistant Director of the Petersburg Customs Office, Radishchev belonged to the professional circles for whom the generation and study of provincial description was an explicit task. Two informational pieces on the area of Petersburg had already demonstrated his own profound interest in rural economics and commercial and economic reform; while working on these projects, Radishchev had supplemented his research with tours of the countryside.38 In point of fact, however, most of Journey from Petersburg to Moscow comprises a series of often very radical essays on various aspects of governmental corruption and social injustice; topics considered include the debased legal system, the tyranny of public officials, and the evils of serfdom. The appearance of the text—completed in 1789 and published in 1790—unfortunately coincided with the French Revolution and Catherine’s own growing conservatism: “He’s worse than Pugachov,” she commented while reading the account.39 The censor was reprimanded, while Radishchev was imprisoned, interrogated, and sentenced t o death—then sent instead to a ten-year exile in the remote Siberian

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town of Ilimsk, near Lake Baikal. The briefest glance at his text suffices to explain the reasons for Catherine’s wrath. It not only details various hardships and injustices suffered by peasants and civil servants, but also directly attacks the sovereign, making abstract suggestions for how she might rule in a more enlightened manner, and pointedly criticizing her blindness and susceptibility to the influence of scheming courtiers. Radishchev’s account also debunks the official reports of Catherine’s own internal travels, especially those of her recently completed tour through Ukraine and the Crimea (1787). Like the record of her earlier tours, these reports had emphasized Catherine’s popularity, the power and prosperity of the Empire, and the felicity of its subjects. They, too, describe the sovereign being greeted by happy peasants throughout her trip, an image that Radishchev counters in his Journey with the comment that “Only an insatiable bloodsucker will say that the peasant is blissful, for he has no conception of a better state of affairs.”40 Radishchev wrote Journey from Petersburg to Moscow in a curious blend of Lomonosovian high style (complete with Church Slavonicisms and biblical syntax), sentimentalist rhetoric, and more conversational language. While the oratorical intonation and pathetic style help to underline the importance that he accorded t o his subject matter, Radishchev’s bombastic diction often contrasts sharply with the rude scenarios that he describes. As such, it furnishes a linguistic echo of the emotional shocks that beset his traveler—often with a rhetorical force that make the text’s arguments uncomfortably acute. The traveler’s own naiveté—Reuel Wilson compares him to Don Quixote41—and his cavalier shifts in tone and topic diverge sharply from the text’s very serious themes as well, often giving a general impression that Radishchev wrote with a certain degree of humor. Shortly after the departure from Petersburg, for example, the traveler falls asleep and dreams that he is moving through a barren desert: I beheld myself in an expansive valley that from the sun’s intense heat had lost all of greenery’s pleasure and variegation; here was no source of refreshment, nor branch of shade to mitigate the heat. Alone, a hermit abandoned in the midst of nature! I began to tremble. “Unhappy one,” I cried out, “where are you?”

Suddenly, the wheel of the traveler’s carriage wheel strikes a rut that jolts him awake and breaks off the lofty tone of his

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philosophical musings. Disoriented, he finds himself in a post station yard: “What’s this?” he asks the driver, “Where are we?” “In Sofia,” responds the driver, equating the parched desert of the narrator’s dream to the first stop on the Russian highway (7/41-2). In allegorical terms, Radishchev’s route might be roughly described as a descent from Petersburg, the imperial capital, into the horrors of rural life. The traveler’s final destination, however, is Moscow, a city that the text implicitly opposes to Petersburg, exploiting Russian culture’s well-worn opposition between the “two capitals.” If Petersburg, as seat of the government, was the main organizer and primary benefactor of the abusive systems detailed in the text, Moscow offered a respite from its moral abyss. The “ancient capital” was home in the 1780s to various members of the intellectual opposition, including Freemasons, university academics, and radically inclined men of letters such as Novikov and Fonvizin, both of whom Radishchev knew well.42 This preference was not unique: “Fragment of a Journey to ***” and “Narrative of One Passing as a Deaf-Mute” also posit Moscow as the traveler’s ultimate objective. As Radishchev’s extensive use of visual metaphors pointedly demonstrates, making the journey from Petersburg to Moscow is equivalent to learning to see in a new way. Like other examples of the publicistic travelogue, his text describes a process of education or enlightenment, in particular a quest for a true understanding of man’s condition and how it might be bettered.43 Radishchev introduces this concept in the text’s opening dedication: I looked about me—my soul was wounded by the sufferings of mankind. I turned my glance inward—and saw that man’s woes arise from man himself and often only because he does not look directly at the objects surrounding him. “Can it be,” I uttered to myself, “that nature has been so miserly towards her children, that she has hidden the truth forever from those who innocently stray? Can it be that this dread stepmother [nature] produced us to feel woe, but not the least felicity?” My mind began to tremble at this thought and my heart thrust it far away. I found solace for man within himself: “Remove the veil from the eyes of natural feeling—and I shall be felicitous.” This voice of nature resounded loudly within my body. I rallied from the despair into which sensitivity and compassion had plunged me; I sensed in myself sufficient strength t o oppose delusion; and—ineffable joy!—I felt that it was possible for anyone to take part in bettering the lives of his fellows (6/40).44

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The text of Journey itself, as the dedication goes on to suggest, is the expression of that natural voice to which the traveler is now so attuned, the fruit of his newly awakened desire to help mankind. More specifically, the text results from the traveler’s “removing the veil from the eyes of natural feeling”: his travels are the process by which his former blindness is healed. The insistence on metaphors of sight recalls the important role of vision for educative travel in general. Radishchev concurs with both Academy scientists and grand tourists that travel is an opportunity to directly observe reality that, properly executed, leads to genuine knowledge and understanding. The central problem faced by his traveler is that of learning to see and to judge correctly. In “Spasskaya polest,” one of the most important chapters in Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, Radishchev extends his discussion of blindness and insight to reflections on the sovereign’s own visual impairment and the means for its cure. This chapter describes a dream in which the traveler imagines himself t o be the ruler of a large empire quite similar to Russia. Among the numerous parallels drawn between his government and Catherine’s own are the state’s size and renown, the multi-ethnic character of its population, and the ruler’s absolute power: I imagined that I was tsar, shah, khan, king, bey, nabob, sultan, or some like-named something, seated in power on the throne. […] At a certain distance from my throne thronged an innumerable multitude of people, of whom various clothing, facial features, bearing, appearance, and physique proclaimed the differences of their tribes. Their trembling silence assured me that they were all subject to my will (22/66-7).

As sovereign, the dreaming traveler finds himself at the center of a powerful, glorious, and well-run state surrounded by ardent supporters. He then notices a woman who keeps her distance from the crowd encircling his throne. Dressed simply and appearing to be rather angry, she turns out to be a pilgrim (strannitsa) who doubles as an “eye doctor” and is known either as “Direct Gaze” (Priamovzora) or simply “Truth” (Istina). When summoned to the curious sovereign, she informs him that he suffers from leucoma (bel’ma) and proceeds to remedy his “blindness” by literally removing the scales from his eyes: “You have white spots on both eyes,” said the pilgrim, “and yet you were so decisively passing judgment on everything.” Then she touched both of my eyes and removed a thick film from them, similar to corneous

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fluid. “You see,” she said to me, “that you were blind, absolutely blind” (25/71).

Suddenly, the dream sovereign realizes that he is encircled by a sycophantic mob and that his empire is based upon bloodshed, injustice, and poverty. Radishchev’s traveler undergoes a second cure for blindness by traversing the road to Moscow: looking inward and “removing the veil from the eyes of natural feeling,” he finds that his outward vision improves as well. As the traveler becomes acquainted with the true conditions upon which Russia’s supposed glory depends, the once-glittering Empire begins to lose its allure. The collapse of its deceitful facade begins with his realization that the physical state of the highway itself falls far short of its impeccable reputation. Here again, the traveler touches on the widely publicized but evanescent improvements associated with Catherine’s trip to the Crimea: Having set out from Petersburg, I fancied that the road was the very best. It was considered to be so by all who had traveled it after the sovereign. And so it really had been, but only for a short time (9/44).

Before the traveler has gone very far, he realizes that “a stroll on the highway is not very pleasant for a Petersburger, for it is not like a promenade in the Summer Garden or Baba,” the popular country estate of A. A. Naryshkin. “It soon tired me,” he notes, “and I had to sit down” (44/104). As he continues his journey, a growing awareness of Petersburg’s moral shortcomings takes shape in a comparison between the presumed grandeur of Catherinian Russia and the expansive and impoverished rural landscape. In “Spasskaya polest,” Radishchev proposes an imaginary geography that equates clear vision or true understanding with distance from the court and capital. Direct Gaze herself prefers the Empire’s periphery to the imperial palace: “I sojourn not in the halls of tsars,” she states, although she does plan to remain “within the boundaries of the realm” and in case of need may be summoned forth from its remote areas (25/71-2). This same outlying territory, she warns the dream sovereign, may also give rise t o other voices of Truth, who will be recognizable by the harsh timbre of their criticisms. Admonishing the sovereign to undertake the difficult task of trying to rule according to the precepts of justice,

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Direct Gaze urges that such apparently menacing individuals be invited to the capital and hospitably received: If from the people’s midst, there arises a man who censures your acts, know that he is your sincere friend. Alien to the hope of recompense, alien to servile trembling, he will proclaim me [Truth] to you with a firm voice. Guard over him and dare not punish him as a common rebel. Summon him and welcome him as a pilgrim (strannik). For any man who censures the tsar in his absolute power is a pilgrim in the land where all trembles before him (25/72).45

Radishchev’s contrast between the mores of Petersburg and those of the empire’s periphery indicate the extent to which Catherine’s policies have strayed from those essential for the well being of her subjects. Clearly, the new pilgrim that “arises from the people’s midst” is a proxy for Radishchev himself and his proclamation of truth a reference to the text of Journey from Petersburg to Moscow. Another figure to whom the dream sovereign turns for moral guidance is the peasant hermit. He, too, must be called to the capital from the Empire’s furthest reaches. Inspired with new zeal, the dream sovereign invites this hermit to pass judgment on the courtiers and officials encircling his throne. “Stand now before your judge,” the sovereign threatens them, “Behold him, I will call him from his hut of humiliation.” The sovereign then addresses the peasant: ‘Come,’ I said onto the elder, whom I observed on the edge of my vast realm, concealed under a hut grown over with moss, ‘come lighten my burden, come and restore peace to my tormented heart and troubled mind’ (28/76).

Like earlier examples of publicistic travel writing, Radishchev’s text also depicts the Russian peasant as having an innate feeling for the underlying truth. The physical distance between peasant and sovereign’s court echoes the social and moral gap that separates the folk and the courtiers, throwing into relief the former’s wisdom and sincerity, qualities antithetical to those reigning in Petersburg. By inviting the peasant elder to his court, the dream sovereign charges this subaltern provincial—a marginal figure in the literal, geographical sense of the term—with leading a project of civic renewal and reform. This proposal for a dynamic interaction between center and periphery resembles Lotman’s vision of the

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mechanism that propels cultural evolution: according to his paradigm, a given culture is comprised of a center—which over time becomes petrified and unproductive—and a periphery in which creative activity is continually fostered. Development occurs only when the cultural hub eventually shifts away from the inert core t o one of the livelier, outlying regions, which then becomes a new center.46 Journey from Petersburg to Moscow similarly suggests that Petersburg, as Russia’s ossified nucleus, revitalize itself by embracing new truths associated with more distant areas, including both Moscow and the Russian provinces. The dreaming traveler himself must leave the tsar’s hearth in his own quest for truth and set out to explore the cultural wealth found in the Empire’s rural areas and ancient capital. The preoccupation of many Soviet critics to establish Radishchev’s credentials as a progenitor of the Russian revolution has led to the frequent exaggeration of his allegedly revolutionary tendencies. Despite his sometimes violent rhetoric, Radishchev was interested primarily in enlightened reform—a fact corroborated by the record of his activities as a progressive government official. Like many other elite eighteenth-century social critics, he aimed not to overturn the state, but to challenge the efficacy of the methods by which it was managed. In Journey, he suggests that the morally decayed center of the highly centralized Russian state can somehow be rejuvenated by the innate qualities of the Russian narod. More generally, his text argues for the legitimacy and importance of alternative, marginalized voices—the voices of both peasants and enlightened thinkers. The connection between thought and feeling typical of internal publicistic travel writing has a curiously physiological quality in Journey From Petersburg to Moscow. Radishchev’s reading of materialist philosophy in the works of Helvetius, Locke, d’Holbach and others fueled his exploration of the relationship between sensory input and the genesis of intellectual activity. In detailing the traveler’s emotive responses to his environment (seen in tears, sighing, and lofty, pathetic language), he also explores the biological and chemical processes that determine them. Here the palpitating heart so typical of sentimentalism comes with valves and veins attached; the workings of the traveler’s brain depend upon nerve impulses and the circulation of fluids. His dream of

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becoming sovereign, for example, explicitly arises from bodily sources: While I slept, the juices perturbed by cogitation coursed to my head and disturbing the delicate structure of my brain, aroused the imagination within it. Innumerable pictures rose before me in my slumber, but would disappear like light breaths of steam in the air. Finally, as often happens, a certain cerebral fiber, moved by the exhalations forcefully rising from the internal vessels of my body, vibrated somewhat longer than the others, and this is what I dreamt (22/66).

As in “Fragment of a Journey to ***,” the traveler’s extremely negative response to the horrors of serfdom (as well as to other legal and administrative abuses) emphasizes the text’s argument against these practices. At the same time, Radishchev’s use of sentiment dramatizes the traveler’s involvement or even collusion in the problematic world that he describes. In places, Journey from Petersburg to Moscow reads less like a publicistic tract than a public confession. In a discourse on venereal disease in the chapter “Yazhelbitsy,” for example, the traveler admits to having contracted it himself as a careless youth and then having transmitted it to his beloved wife, thus causing both her death and the congenital infirmity of his son The intimate nature of the subject matter and the serious narrative tone contribute to a strong impression of what has been called the text’s “autobiographical illusion”: despite the obviously fictional and allegorical elements in Journey, Radishchev never clearly distinguishes between author and narrator, but even encourages their identification.47 The difficulty of interpreting this passage as fictional is compounded by the fact that its author had indeed recently lost a wife, the mother of his first four children.48 More generally, Radishchev’s physiological emphases dramatize the central philosophical issues of his text. Information on bodily processes experienced by the traveler serve the publicistic function of making the general case concrete and thus persuasive. In other words, Journey from Petersburg to Moscow argues that specific physical stimuli produce certain emotions and thoughts according to natural laws and, in doing so, connect all human beings: natural law, after all, is a consequence of the fact that blood courses equally through the veins of author, reader, sovereign, and peasant. Despite their disparate social roles, human beings are theoretically interchangeable and human nature, i.e. biology, mandates that each is capable of suffering and of sympathy. Humanitarian and even

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civic feelings proceed from physical sensations that prompt activity in the human heart. Radishchev’s version of sentimentalism thus shows that the traveler’s sentiment—that is, his sympathy, or ability to suffer on behalf of others—leads t o social obligation. At the same time, Radishchev is also wary of sentimentalist affect in which the description of emotional response is a substitute for committed action. In this, his own sentimental traveler provides a more effective model for benevolent social behavior than Sterne’s Yorick. Radishchev argues that emotional responsiveness to others’ distress is not an adequate solution; positive action is required to resolve problems such as those proposed by serfdom and government corruption. In fact, the text of Journey from Petersburg to Moscow itself exemplifies exactly such an initiative. After the dedication explains how the traveler’s acute despair led to the birth of the account, what the traveler narrates is a journey towards increasing enlightenment. When he “removes the veil from the eyes of natural feeling,” what the traveler really strips away is the traditional sentimentalist view of serious social problems. The journey cures him of “blind” sentimentalism insofar as he comes to understand that the gesture of looking inward becomes nothing more than ineffective cringing if not followed by the gesture of looking outward and taking stock of the surrounding environment. The very existence of his text stands as proof that he, eye doctor unto himself, has learned t o gaze directly at the external world and to see it clearly. Journey from Petersburg to Moscow first hints at the theme of learning to see properly in the text’s epigraph: “A monster fat, sly, huge, hundred-mawed and barking” (5). On one level, this brief phrase characterizes the nature of various issues raised by the text: serfdom itself, some critics have argued, perhaps together with Catherinian absolutism, the Empress, or other problematic features of the diseased Russian polity.49 The line is a slight misquotation of Trediakovsky’s The Telemachiade (1766)—itself a translation of Fénelon’s Les aventures de Télémaque (1699)—which combines the description of two horrible creatures, the hydra and Cerberus, guardian of Hades, into a single beast.50 In The Telemachiade, these creatures appear during a scene in which villainous rulers find themselves in hell and are forced to regard their own reflections in the “mirror of Truth”: what they see reflected exceeds even the dreadful aspect of these two monsters. Radishchev’s opening

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epigraph thus suggests that Journey will teach the Russian sovereign herself to see in a new way. The traveler and reader are unmistakably involved in this process as well, implicated in the hideous forms of social and administrative abuse that are reflected in the same mirror. By underlining the traveler’s lifelike physiology, Radishchev connects these terrible monsters to the interior world of the similar (since also human) reader. Radishchev’s text suggests various connections between the traveler’s introspective reflections and the external world. “Looking inward,” he finds not only “solace for man in himself,” but also the Russian countryside and the road extending through it towards Moscow described in the ensuing account. If the writer does not yet directly identify himself with rural space and its peasant inhabitants, he does suggest a link to them in the tribute t o Lomonosov that concludes his Journey. A peasant who became an illustrious academic, Lomonosov was another figure that “arose from the people’s midst.” Reviewing the intellectual development of this famous writer and scientist, Radishchev’s traveler recounts an episode from Lomonosov’s years in Marburg, when, as a student of mineralogy, he had descended into a mine and encountered geological strata rich with fossils. Marveling at this impressive spectacle of natural beauty, Lomonosov became convinced that mining is a destructive and violent activity, ruinous to nature, t o natural history, and thus to culture itself; this visit to the mine sharpened his awareness both of nature’s bounty and man’s contrasting greed and depravity, revealing as much about the world below as about the systems that govern the world outside. Radishchev’s discussion of Lomonosov and analysis of his cultural significance indicate a desire to link his own work with that of his famous predecessor. “I would have liked to follow him on his underground trip,” notes the traveler (118/228). Indeed, his comments that Lomonosov “laid the road towards the shrine of glory” and was “first upon the path of Russian letters” (123/236-7) describe paths along which Radishchev did follow and often as an “underground” traveler. Radishchev’s literary experiment in many ways marked the end of an era in internal travel writing. After the publication of Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, the sentimentalist narrator temporarily disappeared from the domestic travelogue, returning only in the early nineteenth century, profoundly altered both by

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the intervening appearance of Karamzin’s Russian Traveler and by the memory of ordeals undergone by Novikov, Fonvizin, and especially Radishchev himself. Later domestic travel writers used sentimentalist techniques to explore nostalgia, memory, and feeling, relegating social criticism to the desk drawer. Nonetheless—and despite the virtually underground status of his text (Journey became widely available only in 1905)51—Radishchev’s legacy did bear fruit. Among the strange assortment of texts that demonstrate his influence are I. F. Glushkov’s Pocket Guide to the Petersburg-Moscow road (1800), published in conjunction with the Alexander I’s 1801 coronation in Moscow and basing some of its information about that road’s highlights on Radishchev’s forbidden work; S. Fereltst’s publicistic, but innocuous Journey of a Critic, or Letters of a Traveler Describing to His Friend Various Vices of Which for the Most Part He Himself Was an Eye-Witness (1818), a nineteenth-century example of the publicistic travelogue; and Pushkin’s 1834 response to Radishchev, the Journey from Moscow to Petersburg, considered in chapter 5.52 More generally, the indictment of Russian society found in later literary works such as Gogol’s Dead Souls and Turgenev’s Notes of a Hunter issues from the tradition of internal publicistic travel writing advanced by Radishchev. 4. Radishchev in Siberia: Letters and Diaries, 1790-97 In one episode of Radishchev’s Journey (in the chapter “Chudovo”), the surprised traveler is overtaken on the road t o Moscow by an old friend named “Ch—.” In order to explain his unexpected departure from Petersburg, “Ch—” relates the horrific story of a shipwreck in which he and others barely survive only t o nearly perish again as a result of an abusive government official’s indifference to their plight. Distraught by this experience, “Ch—” is fleeing from the venal atmosphere of the capital, that “den of tigers,” to the limits of human civilization, “where people do not venture, where they don’t know that man exists, where his name is unknown” (17). “Ch—” was later linked to Pyotr Chelishchev, a friend of Radishchev’s from his Leipzig days, who was first suspected by Catherine of writing the anonymous Journey from Petersburg to Moscow himself.53 Chelishchev did leave the capital in 1790, prudently removing himself from Catherine’s vicinity in

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the wake of Radishchev’s publication. He traveled in the Russian North, recording visits to churches, monasteries, and other religious and cultural sites in a detailed journal, which reveals the region’s cultural and ecclesiastical riches.54 It was Radishchev himself who traveled to the limits of civilization. In September of 1790, Radishchev began the overland journey from Petersburg to Ilimsk, his designated place of exile. He arrived in January 1792—accompanied by Elizaveta Rubanovskaia, two of his four children, and eight servants—and left five years later, in January 1797, when Catherine’s son and successor Paul allowed him to return to European Russia and continue the term of his sentence on his own estate near Moscow.55 Radishchev recorded the experience of traveling to, within, and from Siberia in both a diary and a series of personal letters, texts that in many respects form a continuation of his earlier Journey from Petersburg to Moscow: having been provoked by that publication, they further elaborate many of Journey’s travel metaphors and spatial conceptions. With their conscious framing and characterization of the trip and of his own role as a leisurely (if involuntary) traveler, Radishchev’s letters are particularly good examples of literary travel writing. The diaries—brief, impersonal, and sometimes obscure—make an interesting counterpoint to his letters: differences in format, tone, and diction help to illustrate Radishchev’s stylistic range.56 Radishchev’s diaries log distances covered and towns passed through, offering commentary on the surrounding environment with great verbal economy. Not surprisingly for the text of a writer who might expect to be carefully observed, references to either the self or individual thoughts and personal feelings are scarce. Nonetheless, the choice of topics and transitions between them betrays the author’s preoccupations—much as Fonvizin’s spa diaries bore witness to his health concerns. Radishchev remarks sights suggestive of his political travails and of the state’s penal authority, including souvenirs of the Pugachov Rebellion (1773-75) and groups of convicts encountered while traveling. In the town of Kungur, he inspects a collection of torture instruments that he lists in the diary. He also visits the former chancellery of the provincial governor, a scene of trials and convictions, and sketches its basic outline in his diary: The old voevoda [governor’s] chancellery: in the middle a large room with tables and benches for scribes; in the middle [of that] two tree trunks, one

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with a chain; in the entranceway, a grated partition, dark, for putting convicts into stocks (257).

While his account of the return trip begins with an expression of ecstasy—“O, how our heart delighted” (267)—the journey that follows is decidedly bleak. The travel party passes through areas that “smell like rotten eggs” and Radishchev’s companion Elizaveta becomes increasingly ill, dying shortly after their arrival in Tobolsk. Radishchev addressed his letters to Aleksandr Vorontsov, President of the Collegium of Commerce and his own former supervisor.57 He was greatly indebted to Vorontsov for the constant assistance and intercession that did much to make his experience in Siberia more bearable. Radishchev communicated with his wellwisher via private couriers and personal connections, writing in both Russian and French. These letters are much more frank and open than his diary, illuminating not only the journeys to and from Ilimsk, but the lonely sojourn there. Although the rhetorical diction employed in Journey from Petersburg to Moscow has given some readers the false impression that this was Radishchev’s preferred or only literary style, he was actually a fairly versatile writer. His letters to Vorontsov do not combine Slavonic vocabulary with Germanic and Latin syntax, but—like the epistles of the young Karamzin—are couched in an idiom redolent with “the pleasant expression of sensibility.”58 Unlike his diaries, these letters are written in an assertive first-person voice that describes Radishchev’s activities, desires, sorrows, and gratitude towards Vorontsov in some detail. He speaks often of weariness, frustration, and depression, characterizing his journey as the kind that Sterne characterized as compulsory: But why do I not imagine myself a traveler who, satisfying two favorite passions at once—curiosity and love of glory—steps on to unknown paths with a firm step, plunges into impenetrable forests, leaps across precipices, climbs glaciers and, having arrived at the conclusion of his enterprises, contemplates his toil and labor with a satisfied eye? Why can I not own to a similar feeling? Relegated to the class that Sterne calls “travelers by necessity,” utility is not the aim of my journey, and this idea removes all of the stimulus that curiosity might have been able to awaken in me (385-6).

Radishchev’s correspondence makes several references to the fantastic optimism of Candide’s Pangloss, who in the face of

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terrible misadventures continued to claim that “we live in the best of all possible worlds.” He also notes an earlier desire for exotic travel, nourished by reading eyewitness accounts of Italian volcanoes, and a previous aspiration to visit Siberia—a wish that now seems to have been granted by “some complacent, but malevolent divinity […] pleased to satisfy these perhaps indiscreet wishes […] in a very severe way” (460). At the same time, Radishchev’s letters speak plainly of wanting to transform his punishment into an educative journey and, like his diary, convey a strong sense of his intellectual activity. Reintroducing the visual metaphors found in Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, he writes that exile provides him an opportunity to see first hand: “without spectacles, microscope or spyglass” (356). “Endeavoring to usefully apply myself to the acquisition of unbiased information” (355-6), he voraciously reads the Siberian travel accounts of various scientists and explorers; he cites the texts of Pallas, Georgi, Lepyokhin and numerous others in his correspondence. Indeed, Radishchev’s writing from exile reflects the approach and themes of both scientific travel writing and provincial description. Like the official texts that he had authored during his government career, his letters and diaries collocate extensive and varied data about the surrounding countryside, describing, for example, Russian settlements and farming techniques, as well as non-Russian peoples, their cultural practices, and their particular economic circumstances. His diary notes, for instance, that Tatars, Cheremis, Chuvash settle on steep slopes and in valleys, Russians on the hills. The Chuvash and Cheremis huts are black, but with healthier air than in Russian huts since it comes right from the dooryard. They like the cold. No cockroaches, but many fleas. Tatar huts are white with a little fireplace in front. In the forest Tatars hunt bears, wolves, foxes, hares, squirrels and a few martens. Ferry across the Vyatka to where the Russian village of Mr. Iushkov stands: the peasants are poor and the huts shoddy. The Vyatka river, forest on both sides, for the most part fir and various deciduous trees, but where it floods over only deciduous forest. The river is wide as the Neva, about 80 or 100 sazhen [170-215 meters]. On the other side of the river, there are also tall pines in places, though sparsely (253-4).

Enthusiastically acknowledging Siberia’s economic potential, Radishchev’s letters and diaries investigate questions of economic development, industry, transport, and commerce. He devotes

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considerable attention to the discussion of trade with China, a topic of particular interest to Vorontsov, and to his own personal endeavors in the study of the Ilimsk area’s geology, flora, and fauna. Not being examples of publicistic travel writing, Radishchev’s letters and diaries differ from his published Journey in their approach to educational travel. If Radishchev intended that travel provide a moral education for his fictional narrator, the scope of what he himself undertakes to learn is strictly scientific. In fact, he resists any alteration in his moral or ethical views, insisting repeatedly that he has been unchanged by all that has befallen him and holds fast to his seditiously ethical ideals: “I am exactly what I was,” he writes in two poems from the time of his exile.59 He makes the point eloquently in his “Letter on Chinese Trade” as well, a more formal epistolary essay also addressed to Vorontsov that discusses the possibility of improving economic relations between Russian and China: If my speech carries contagion, if I breathe poison and my glance sows rebellion as it wanders through deserts and thickets, traversing forests, cliffs, and precipices, who can perceive the action as one of a malevolent being? Allow that my voice has not changed, that my neck has not been worn down and bears itself proudly: my voice will strike against stones, its report will issue from a cave and resound in an uninhabited grove. The witnesses of my thoughts will be the sky and the earth. But he, who sees into the heart and penetrates our interior curtain, knows what I am, what I could have been, and what I will be.60

In narrating this actual trip, Radishchev uses many of the travel metaphors that had appeared in his Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, including ideas of descent, eremitism, and marginality. He equates Tobolsk with the gateway of Dante’s inferno: this city on the threshold of Siberia, the last outpost of civilization, and one of the main centers for transporting prisoners eastward, brings to his mind the inscription “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here” (374).61 Using language familiar from Journey, he repeatedly characterizes the experience of exile as a journey into barren and inhospitable territory, a blend of “deserted wastes” (vastes solitudes) and “impenetrable forests” into which he must “plunge” (je vais m’enfoncer, 385-6). Struck by Siberia’s dearth of population, he contemplates the negative effect of this desolate environment on man—a social animal “living in isolation, in the wilderness (v pustyne)” (409):

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Living in the vast forests of Siberia, among wild beasts and peoples, who often differ from these only in the articulations of a language whose value they don’t even know how to appreciate, I will end, I believe, b y becoming the happy man of Rousseau and walking on four legs (425).

Citing the contrast between center and periphery that underlies his Journey, Radishchev uses it to emphasize his geographical and moral isolation: Just as in the physical world, movement becomes weaker the further away it gets from its source, so do men, as they become more distant from the center of the state, feel less the energy that moves them. In certain cases, they even lose their capacity for feeling (sensibilité) (411).

As in Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, distance from the capital symbolizes (unchanging) opposition to the policies of the state. New here is a sense that such political convictions also guaranteed utter and painful solitude. Elements of literary stylization appear frequently in Radishchev’s letters. One of the best-educated intellectuals in Russia, he had wide ranging interests that included economics, law, philosophy, natural science, and both foreign and Russian belleslettres. He kept up with Western literary fashions during his exile by reading journals that Vorontsov had sent; this awareness is amply demonstrated by his letters, which display touches of sentimentality and have occasional recourse to the tone of offhand modesty used by both Dashkova and Catherine. Radishchev frequently mentions the possibility of boring his addressee, for instance, as in: “Anyway, if you feel the slightest desire to yawn while reading, skip over the page—and forgive the author” (449). He had hinted at a familiarity with preromantic landscape aesthetics in Journey’s “Spasskaya polest” where the detail of the peasant elder’s moss-covered hut would seem to echo Dashkova’s description of a Scottish garden hermitage.62 His letters from Siberia indicate that he attempted to apply such aesthetic principles to Asian landscapes as well. A lengthy description of one “quite attractive view” compares its “illusory” quality to those found “in certain parks or English gardens” (450). In general, however, Radishchev is unable to satisfy his aesthetic tastes in the Siberia and complains frequently of dissatisfaction with the landscape’s bleakness and monotony. The environs of Ilimsk offer none of the dramatic topographies reputed to inspire sublime feelings:

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The walks here offer little variety. There are no meadows, apart from a very narrow stretch along the riverbank. The woods are uncleared and somber. All the trees are coniferous: pines, firs, larch, etc.; nothing that could be dreadful or that, hiding what could seem frightful beneath an aspect of grandeur, could still be pleasing. In order to find several spots where the memory of ancient natural catastrophes has been imprinted, I had to scale perpendicular mountains that were half a verst high and plunge into the thick of the woods, but even then what I saw didn’t compensate at all for the effort that it had required. Nothing even distantly approaching what they write about the Alps or the Pyrenees (442).

The difficulty of aesthetically appreciating an uncultivated and sparsely populated landscape was widely shared by Radishchev’s peers. As noted, the peculiarities of the Russian landscape made such admiration difficult: the glaring lack of geographical features that Western preromantic and romantic aesthetics had equated with natural beauty—such as towering mountains and transparent mountain streams—left Russians without obvious means to describe their surroundings as beautiful, a situation which eventually forced them to develop other aesthetic standards and concepts. Internal travel writing abounds with evidence of this problem. The travel diary of Bobrinsky, for example, records an exchange on the topic with Grigory Potyomkin when the two met near Kherson in 1783: [Potemkin] asked us whether or not I had suffered many inconveniences during my travels. I responded that not especially, although most of the road runs through desolate wastes (pustynia). “Here, too,” he said, “there are only desolate wastes and water—and nothing else to be seen.”63

Similar evaluations of landscape were quite typical in domestic travel accounts, particularly in descriptions of sparsely populated Siberia and Southern Ukraine. In Radishchev’s case, the cultivation of a scientific approach t o the landscape offered an alternative to aesthetic (and moral) despair. Despite the lack of impressive mountain scenery, he manages to distract himself with botanizing, a hobby widespread among the European elite of the time: “But I must admit that I stopped for several hours to examine some plants. This pleasure is completely new for me; I hardly know yet how to classify them and already think myself almost a Linnaeus” (442). The shift from aesthetic topics to natural sciences is as characteristic of his letters from exile as was the progression from natural science to ethics in his Journey from Petersburg to Moscow. In point of fact, the

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scientific approach assists him in appreciating his surroundings. Through the study of nature, Radishchev is sometimes able t o perceive the surrounding environment as a source of strength rather than a barren void: Anyway, when fate, in laying its heavy hand upon us, deprives us the society of cultivated men, it leaves us still the beneficial resource of being able to study nature, to examine beings deprived not only of reason, but even of feeling and seemingly of life: stones and rocks. They do respond to you, yes, they do respond and more sincerely than men often do (466).

Radishchev’s attitude towards the surrounding environment changes sharply when he leaves Siberia and returns to European Russia. Here, the scientifically rendered vistas of Siberia give way t o changes in both content and emotional coloring: the geographical setting that Radishchev had so bleakly portrayed in Journey from Petersburg to Moscow receives quite different treatment after the sojourn in Ilimsk. In European Russia, Radishchev finds himself in the embrace of a landscape that he now perceives as newly enhanced through its connection to Western culture. He takes pleasure in the setting’s fullness—in its boats, farmers, towns, and other evidence of man and his works. Even the laconic travel diary opens up to describe the joy afforded by his reunion with civilization, characterizing the surroundings as rich, verdant, colorful, and productive: Around evening, having gone out on the bank, all both young and old went up the hill above the town, which is covered with a thick nut grove. A steep ascent going up. Neither the thickness of the forest, nor the mosquitoes and gnats impeded our enjoyment. Having climbed to its very peak, a marvelous spectacle opens up. The hill begins to slope down behind and in the valley lies a large village. Worked fields are visible all around; and they present the widest carpet, extending in slopes, hills, and valleys upon varied surfaces, whose velvet green was so vast that the wind produced upon it a rippling as if upon the waters (293).

When traveling to Leipzig in his youth, Radishchev had been elated to cross the Russian border into Western Europe. As he later recalled, he and his fellow students experienced “rapture when we saw the boundary separating Russia from Kurland.”64 A similar transport of delight visits him again in 1797 at the return t o European Russia from Siberia. In his letters to Vorontsov, Radishchev recounts the process of settling in at his country estate

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near Moscow. This description of a former city dweller’s encounter with rural life returns to several of the themes found in Journey as well, although it presents them in yet another light. As Radishchev becomes familiar with this new environment, he gradually learns t o appreciate its beauty. In order to describe this populated, cultivated, and even idyllic setting, he employs very different literary models than those that had served him in either Siberia or Petersburg. In his happier moments, for instance, he exults in gathering mushrooms and reading Horace: I often recited Horace’s beautiful ode, “Beatus ille,” of which I know only the beginning, and at times it seemed to me that one can enjoy life i n many ways. On arrival, my sight was struck by fields of gray and yellow, towards autumn the gray changed into green. At my arrival I saw the fields covered with beautiful grain that the wind shook in gilded waves. The ears fell under the reaper’s scythe, dry straw covers the fields over which one sees herds of cattle and sheep wander, but the green hope of the farmer i s already coming up nearby. I repeat: I was alone, I was savoring it (503).

It is not surprising that Radishchev felt compelled to emphasize the positive in reflections committed to paper during his years of estate exile. Of interest here are the particular patterns that his thoughts assume and the images that they—however cautiously—reflect. His letters written after the return to Europe offer a conception of the surroundings significantly enriched with respect to the Siberian landscape of his data-filled, scientifically inclined descriptions: raw materials are now cheerfully rendered into industrial products, agriculture flourishes, human culture everywhere leaves an attractive and benevolent touch on the land. In addition, European Russia distinguishes itself from lands further east by inspiring an outpouring of positive emotion and feelings of satiety, comfort, and relief. In short, moving between Siberia and European Russia allows Radishchev to reconstruct the opposition between East and West that so preoccupied Russian culture within the confines of the Empire itself, incorporating the dynamics of boundary crossing, differentiation, and homecoming into domestic (non-Western European) experience. To the extent that other ideas remain unexpressed in these letters, we may also take Radishchev’s case to illustrate the beginnings of a conflictive and bifurcated approach to the Russian landscape as writers were compelled to choose between praise or silence, a topic that will be further examined in chapter 5. More immediately, a host of sentimentalist authors inspired by Karamzin “rewrote” domestic

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space in the next phase of internal travel writing. Exploring Russia’s relationship with the West, rather than with the East, they investigate the possibility of a cultural and historical pedigree that would permit Russia to claim comparability with Western Europe and probe the interior riches of the self.

Chapter 3 Karamzin and the Internal Account (1791-1812) In the last decade of the eighteenth century, internal or domestic travel became increasingly popular in Russia, its growth spurred by the fashion for domestic travel that had arisen in Western Europe. There were numerous practical reasons for this development as well, such as the ban on foreign travel imposed during the reign of Emperor Paul (1796-1801)—in part a response to fears engendered by the French Revolution—and the ongoing Napoleonic Wars (1801-15), which impeded tourism in Europe for most of the following fifteen years. Often the only alternative, domestic travel was also simpler and less expensive. As the prince Ivan Dolgoruky explained in his account of 1810: I would have set off for Paris, because I love noise, clamor, the theater, luxuriousness, and so on, and so on; and where is there more of all that than in France? But one who has neither property nor money lives as God wills. I took a fancy to the idea of an excursion: being at home, always at home bores even the sage. Popular opinion, the journals, and the newspapers stirred my imagination. I made my decision and set off with my wife and four domestic companions for Odessa.1

Insofar as internal travel provided a respite from direct confrontations with Western Europe, it offered, at least potentially, fertile ground for the development of a more “Russian” or independent strain of travel writing. As Dolgoruky’s example suggests, however, the rise of domestic travel did not eliminate Russian interest in Western culture and literary models. If readers continued to appreciate descriptive scientific accounts of internal travel, they also felt the appeal of the literary and especially sentimentalist paradigms that were popular abroad. Attempting to incorporate these into their rendering of domestic geographies, writers ensured that Western standards would lurk behind the presentation of Russian space—measured, judged, and defined according to foreign norms. In fact, Russian texts

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frequently construed internal touring as a patriotic alternative t o travel abroad and promoted it in conscious reaction to the admiration for foreign cultures that underlay Western travel—often in defensive and even nationalistic terms. Dolgoruky challenged the presumption of Western superiority in the title of his account, “Distant Tambourines Have a Glorious Sound” (Slavny bubny za gorami), a popular Russian saying that comments on the illusory appeal of far-off places, while the first guidebook to St. Petersburg (1790) speaks of the Russian capital as deserving such a descriptive text “at the very least no less than any similarly important city of Europe.”2 Travel writers such as Vladimir Izmailov and Pyotr Shalikov applied themselves to uncovering indigenous sites of historical and cultural value in an attempt t o demonstrate that domestic travel might be favorably compared with touring abroad.3 Russia’s preoccupation with its international standing was hardly unique: the spread of national consciousness encouraged sensitivity to such issues throughout Europe and internal touring was widely seen as a means to shore up national dignity and strengthen the claims of national cultural autonomy. Defoe’s A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain had recommended domestic travel in precisely these terms as early as 1724: any traveler from abroad, who would desire to see how the English gentry live, and what pleasures they enjoy, should come into Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, and take but a light circuit among the country seats of the gentlemen […] and they would be soon convinced, that not France, n o not Italy itself, can out-do them.4

Travel abroad rankled both national pride and pocketbook by suggesting, as it did, not only that the English were paying homage to foreign culture, but also that they were systematically transferring funds across the channel to do so. Russians adopted similar arguments in order to advertise the merits of internal routes. The anonymous Journey to the Lipetsk Mineral Springs in 1803, for example, urged that Russians seeking mineral cures should patronize domestic spas rather than spend their money abroad.5 As internal travel became more popular, English accounts were less likely to mention continental touring at all, much less to suggest that it could possibly be conceived as superior to the domestic experience. A similar development gradually occurred in Russian travel writing. The rage for domestic travel arrived via France as

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well. In a sketch that Vasily Zhukovsky translated for a Russian journal in 1803, a French traveler notes that “To us Parisians, the possessions of the Great Mogul are much more familiar than those of France”; as a result, internal routes offered surprising novelty: “different peoples, completely different customs and practices—in a word, a new nation.”6 Caught between two cultural frameworks, Russian travel writers struggled with the dilemma of how to represent domestic space as essentially equivalent to that found abroad and also specifically Russian, that is, connected to a particular history, national identity, and literary tradition. Radishchev’s idiosyncratic solution to this problem, i.e. his application of Western paradigms (Sterne, literary travel writing itself) to an unequivocally Russian environment was of limited use for writers who did not have publicistic goals in mind. After Radishchev’s arrest and exile, his text was clearly an exemplar to be avoided. A more usable and appealing prototype appeared in Nikolai Karamzin’s Letters of a Russian Traveler, the first installments of which were published in 1791. In contrast t o Radishchev, whose influence on the subsequent generation of writers was largely indirect or covert, Karamzin had an impact that was obvious, even epidemic. His legacy flourished in the accounts of numerous successors and imitators: from the mid-1790s until well into the nineteenth century, most Russian literary accounts of travel, both domestic and foreign, developed under the aegis of Karamzin. This chapter examines Karamzin’s text together with the domestic accounts of his sentimentalist successors.7 It perhaps seems somewhat paradoxical that Letters of a Russian Traveler, itself an account of travel abroad, so dramatically influenced the shape of internal travel narratives. As will become apparent, however, Karamzin’s treatment of Western Europe emphasized the importance of domestic landscapes for both literary fashion and the conceptualization of national culture. Moreover, his creation of the figure of “the Russian Traveler” and his presentation of the European grand tour from the perspective of this sophisticated and self-reliant Russian subject helped to boost the confidence of a growing national literary tradition, while his popularization of sentimentalist paradigms (in Letters and elsewhere) helped to foster the idyllic vision of Russia that was subsequently cultivated in the domestic travelogue. Inspired by Karamzin, internal travel writers in the first decade of the nineteenth century developed ideas of

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Russia and its inhabitants that pointed in the direction of increasing cultural independence even before the eruption of open conflict with the West in 1812. 1. Karamzin’s Traveler and Text Letters of a Russian Traveler (1791-1801) describes an extended trip through Germany, Switzerland, France, and England based roughly on that undertaken by the author himself in 1789-90. There is no evidence that the twenty-year-old Karamzin actually kept a travel diary during his trip and the few extant copies of letters that he wrote en route bear little relation to the chapters of his published text. In point of fact, a good deal of authorial research underlies the narratorial pose of the self-described “simplehearted observer.” Letters of a Russian Traveler was drafted in Karamzin’s Moscow study with frequent recourse to pertinent reference works and literary texts. Emphasis on the traveler’s spontaneity, the immediacy of his writing (suggested in part by the epistolary format itself), and the personal tone of his voice are all conceits of the literary travelogue that Karamzin saw fit to include in his account. As Gitta Hammarberg has noted, Letters advertises a more consistent affinity to sentimentalist norms than it actually practices: although the traveler concludes his text by describing it as “the mirror of my soul over the course of eighteen months,” this claim does little justice to the wide range of cultural, geographical, political, historical, and other topics included within it.8 In the compact Academic edition of 1984, Karamzin’s purportedly light and intimate travelogue with its 157 “letters” and numerous footnotes runs to 384 pages. That said, Letters of a Russian Traveler distinguishes itself from the traditional informational travelogue by its pronounced narratorial voice—a feature that transforms this dense compilation into an organic, readable whole, “trivializing” it into the type of minor literary form—here the familiar epistle—demanded by sentimentalist fashion.9 This heterogeneous or “hybrid” combination of informational and sentimentalist travel writing was Karamzin’s trademark.10 The fact that many of his successors used Letters as a model for strictly sentimentalist travel writing testifies to his enormous success in reducing the work’s encyclopedic scope to the accessible scale of a personal document.

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Karamzin’s text began to appear serially in 1791—the year that Radishchev arrived in Ilimsk—and was continually expanded and reshaped in further editions over the course of the next ten years.11 While there is no explicit evidence that the two writers were personally acquainted, the overlap of their social circles—before Karamzin’s departure and Radishchev’s trial—suggests that it would have been more unlikely for them not to have met than otherwise. Both men had been involved in the Moscow publishing circles and Masonic organizations associated with Novikov and both were close friends of Aleksei Kutuzov. Nonetheless, their travelogues could hardly be more different. Even though both employ many of the sentimentalist tropes and techniques that were popular in Western Europe, the idyllic, bourgeois strain of sentimentalism cultivated in Letters of a Russian Traveler (and elsewhere in Karamzin’s oeuvre) has little in common with Radishchev’s hardhitting publicistic variety. Indeed, Karamzin was careful to obscure a possible connection with Radishchev. Certainly no trace of radicalism appears in the politically circumspect Letters, which makes only glancing allusions to Radishchev—as “R*,” when Karamzin’s traveler meets his predecessor’s former professor in Leipzig—and to Kutuzov (“K*”), who was in Western Europe at the same time. Karamzin’s habitual caution may also be seen in the fact that he waited until 1801, after the deaths of both Catherine and Paul, to publish both his account of visiting France in 1789 and his letters on England with their enthusiastic report of democratic assemblies. Another prior model was Fonvizin’s account of touring France. Whether or not Karamzin actually read these letters is unclear, although his general interest in Fonvizin and a shared link t o Moscow’s Masonic circles suggest that he was likely to have been familiar with their general tone and content.12 As noted, Karamzin was similarly interested in questions of Russian cultural status abroad and also used the grand tour travelogue to argue for Russian cultural parity. His traveler, too, functioned as a cultural envoy for those who stayed at home, demonstrating the triumphs of a Russian in the midst of foreign society and duly recording the response of Western Europe as it showers hospitality, approval, and even affection upon his person. At the same time, Karamzin’s style and narratorial persona differ sharply from those of Fonvizin. Karamzin’s traveler never raises his voice in interactions with foreign interlocutors, nor inflects it with overtones of ridicule. The

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scenes in Letters of a Russian Traveler are tailored to demonstrate the protagonist’s cosmopolitan ease in the foreign environment and he advances the case for Russian culture by displaying erudition, personability, and occasional cavalier nonchalance in his interactions abroad. Cool, cultivated, and everywhere “at home,” he is careful never to show himself or his constituency at a disadvantage. Karamzin’s dissimilarity from Fonvizin might be seen as another prudent attempt to distance his travel writing from that of a predecessor who was persona non grata in the eyes of the state. More generally, he was fond of distinguishing his own literary productions from indigenous Russian tradition. Obviously not the first Russian travel writer to describe touring abroad, he nonetheless widely encouraged such a perception of his work. Publishing excerpts of his Letters in the Hamburg Spectateur du Nord in 1797, Karamzin accompanied them with a note explaining that the text “owes its success in part to the novelty of the topic for Russian readers.” Admitting that “our [Russian] compatriots have been traveling in foreign countries for a very long time,” he nonetheless claimed that “none of them until now has thought to do so with pen in hand.”13 In a similar vein, the outline of Russian literary history found in Karamzin’s Pantheon of Russian Authors (1802) omits mention of all the well-known Russian writers who were either Karamzin’s contemporaries or immediate antecedents, including Fonvizin.14 Such efforts helped to encourage interpretations of Karamzin’s own work as the unprecedented launching of a new literary era. The fact that critics so often take his Letters of a Russian Traveler as the first bona fide example of the literary travelogue in Russia indicates the victory of his selfpromotion.15 Karamzin’s travel writing may also be linked to the accounts of elite Russian tourists who preceded Fonvizin, such as Ekaterina Dashkova. While Dashkova had only implicitly suggested the tourist’s sophistication and independence, however, Karamzin elaborately demonstrates such qualities for his literary audience. Indeed, the Russian Traveler personifies the ideal features of the literary tourist envisioned by the previous generation. A paragon of savoir-faire, he combines emotional sensitivity with intellectual enthusiasm, cultural knowledgeability, and a light, but keen sense of humor. He is at ease in Western Europe, but not beholden to it, consistently courteous, but never timid about expressing his own

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views or challenging those of others. Perhaps most important among his traits is the ability to hold his own in private conversation with the enlightened minds he meets abroad. Letters describes visits to and conversations with such notables as Kant, the German writer Wieland, Leipzig University’s famed Dr. Platner, the Swiss physiognomist Lavater, and the French novelist Barthélemy. The Russian Traveler himself suggests that his relationship to these personages resembles that of an acolyte or student who seeks out Western Europe’s well-known intellectuals and men of letters in order to learn from them. Indeed, this informative account itself is an eloquent testament to his eagerness for enlightenment. In comparing himself to the “young Anacharsis in Athens” (261), however, the hero of Barthélemy’s recently published novel about a Scythian youth who journeys eastward from his homeland on the shores of the Black Sea to the cradle of Western civilization, Karamzin’s traveler suggests a more reverential attitude towards European cultural luminaries than he actually displays.16 Indeed, he prefers to interact with Europe’s learned elite as an intellectual peer and even teacher. He especially enjoys educating his interlocutors about facets of Russian culture of which they are not aware. Karamzin’s association of the traveler with the humble novitiate typifies the narratorial tact characteristic of his account, allowing him to avoid the importunate tenor of Fonvizin’s letters from France and to offset a possible impression of arrogance or didacticism that might annoy readers—even while he guides their views and opinions. The traveler reveals a similar delicacy in his described interactions with others. He betrays no strong personal interest in either reeducating those he meets or reshaping Russia’s reputation abroad. Even on topics such as the state of contemporary Russian literature, he speaks only when solicited. At a dinner given by Dr. Platner, for example, the traveler’s edifying commentary arises gracefully in the context of pleasant conversation: invited to enlighten his companions on the history of Russian letters, he obliges them by remarking with characteristic ease on the cadence and melody of Russian verse, the state of translation in Russia, and various original Russian works (66). By setting forth these observations and combining them with his assessments of writers and works from Western Europe, Karamzin gently tutors his Russian audience as well. Such excurses helped him to reorient his audience’s literary tastes towards recent cultural

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developments both abroad and at home. Teaching his readers t o articulate and justify their new preferences, he also paved the way for their appreciation of his own work. In addition, Karamzin’s travelogue provides practical instruction in cosmopolitan bearing and behavior, demonstrating in the person of the Russian Traveler not only how to discuss poetry with German writers, but how t o wistfully contemplate a sunset or respond appropriately t o waterfalls, views from mountain tops, or artistic masterpieces such as Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna.” Despite his national sobriquet, Karamzin’s protagonist is more taken with demonstrating his European identity than any appreciably Russian quality. Apart from an interest in and knowledge of domestic literature, neither his views nor behavior mark him as specifically “Russian” in any sense. Indeed, the text shows its audience how one might transcend the provincialism of a national identity and impress foreign interlocutors as a European.17 One of the traveler’s most reliable methods for securing respect abroad is to display independence and even indifference in his meetings with others, as illustrated in his exchanges with the crusty Wieland in Weimar. Reluctant to waste time on further acquaintances with passing travelers, the famous German writer initially reacts to the Russian Traveler with suspicion, commenting that: In Germany today it has become fashionable to travel and to describe travels. Many pass from town to town and try to speak with famous people only so that they can later print everything they heard from them. What was said between two people is given out to the public. I don’t trust myself: sometimes I may be too open (74).

The Russian Traveler surprises Wieland by countering: “Recall that I am not German and cannot write for the German Public. Moreover, you might bind me by the word of an honnête homme”; he offers to stay in Weimar for ten days in order to get to know the illustrious writer “as a father amidst his family, and as a friend amidst friends.” In this conversation and that of the next day, Wieland and the Russian Traveler continue to characterize themselves and one another in flattering and fashionable terms. If the Russian Traveler’s ability to speak in such vogue phrases increases Wieland’s respect for him, that approbation in turn indicates to Karamzin’s readers the appropriateness of the sentimentalist mode for a contemporary European sensibility.

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“You are very sincere,” responds Wieland, gradually coaxed into revising his opinion, “I like your sincerity” (74-5). Although the traveler affects modesty in his interaction with Wieland, his behavior is not untouched by pride and even coquetry. As the German writer becomes more interested in his new acquaintance, the Russian Traveler’s thoughts turn to departure. Such equanimity conquers Wieland completely, altering his ideas of Russian character: “I’m seeing a Russian like you for the first time. […] Usually, your fellow countrymen try to imitate the French, but you—” (75). Here Wieland pauses, unable to adequately express his amazement. “I thank you,” inserts the traveler with dignified restraint, his victory for Russia complete. It should be noted that the traveler’s grace and confidence result in part from the dynamism inherent in the travelogue’s very structure with its guarantee of an “exit” from each social interaction. Karamzin makes the most of these opportunities. At times, the traveler even appears frivolous in his commitment t o fashionably restless movement. Nonetheless, he simultaneously manages to profess dedication to the sentimentalist ideals of static tranquility. When Wieland asks about his future plans, for example, the traveler explains that his tour of Western Europe is merely a preparatory rite for a “quiet life” at home: Upon finishing my trip, which I have undertaken only to collect a few pleasant impressions and to enrich my own imagination with new ideas, I will live in peace with Nature and with people who are kind, I will love the beautiful and will enjoy it (76).

Given the important role that Letters literary career, his rejection here of paradigm in which travelers return professional and social success at disingenuous ring.

played in Karamzin’s own the traditional grand tour from abroad to pursue home has a somewhat

Karamzin’s Letters far surpasses the accounts of earlier Russian tourists abroad in illustrating the traveler’s cultural erudition. A reader and translator of German, French, and English, Karamzin was well acquainted with contemporary Western European literature in original versions, Russian translations, adaptations, and imitations. He copiously cites other works throughout his text, thus connecting his product to trends abroad as had Boris Kurakin many years before. Direct references to William Coxe’s Letters on

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Switzerland (1779) and Dupaty’s popular Lettres sur l’Italie en 1785 (1790) suggest that these were particularly important models for Karamzin’s own heterogeneous combination of information and sentiment. More generally, Letters of a Russian Traveler belonged to a strain of travel writing that endeavored to describe the mores, customs, and collective characters of particular nations. It was also one of several travelogues from the era that claimed t o express a particular national point of view, following texts such as Martin Sherlock’s Letters from an English Traveler (1779) and New Letters from an English Traveler (1780), John Moore’s Letters of an English Traveler (1782) and the anonymous Letters of a Saxon from Switzerland (1785).18 Karamzin also makes evident an extensive familiarity with sentimentalist travel writing, citing both Sterne’s Sentimental Journey and attempts to emulate that paradigmatic text made by contemporary authors such as Karl Phillip Moritz and François Vernes (“the French Sterne”), both of whom he managed to visit during his tour abroad.19 Sentimentalist fashion further encouraged the citation of other texts. Intertextual references were legion in sentimentalist tales and travel accounts. As playfully expressed by a traveler in 1820: “ I incessantly encounter authors or editors or translators!... My journey could be called a sentimental promenade through writers’ studies.”20 Karamzin’s protagonist follows this sentimentalist vogue by characterizing himself as an avid reader and frequently posing with a favorite book in hand. Touring Western Europe also allowed him to see important literary venues firsthand. In addition t o calling upon living writers, he stops by sites associated with those deceased (graves, monuments, the estates of Rousseau and Pope) and, like many other culturally inclined tourists of the era, visits several locations that are sacred for their role in the literary texts he reveres. He traces the footsteps of Sterne’s Yorick at Calais and from Lausanne makes the obligatory side trip to Clarens, the setting for Rousseau’s novel Julie, or the New Heloise (1761): I left Lausanne at five o’clock in the morning with joy in my heart—and with Rousseau’s Héloïse in my hands. […] I wanted to see with my own eyes those wonderful places in which the immortal Rousseau had settled his romantic lovers (149).21

It has been remarked that Karamzin’s “systematic orientation towards literary models ... imparts to his Letters the distinctive character of a literary encyclopedia.”22 In particular, the text

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underscores the traveler’s admiration for preromantic writers such as Sterne, Rousseau, Richardson, Goldsmith, Young, Klopstock, Wieland, Goethe, and Gessner by incorporating their idyllic and sentimentalist paradigms into its narrative. In addition to citing texts that the traveler reads or remembers or describing his meetings with famous writers, Karamzin draws on relevant established literary traditions for his descriptions of place. As the Russian Traveler traipses through Western Europe, he presents his experiences in terms of established clichés: in idyllic Switzerland savors the fresh cream and cheese provided by pastoral shepherds and shepherdesses and in bourgeois England, he enjoys the rituals of the suburban middle class. Karamzin’s 150th letter, which sports the title “Family Life,” provides a good illustration of how he rendered his surroundings according to established models. Each of the letter’s lines advances themes of bourgeois sentimentalist literature that were later seized upon by Karamzin’s successors: family happiness, conjugal fidelity, piety, moderation, the celebration of rural life, and the attainment and maintenance of personal property.23 On Sundays, we are told, Karamzin’s traveler sets off from his lodgings in London for countryside and a respite from city life. Once there, he visits “any country church” in order to listen to “a clear, moral sermon” while admiring “the calm faces of parents and spouses” and “mothers surrounded with children” (364-5). He observes that country churchgoers “ask, it seems, only for the preservation of what they have” and after the service, Each family goes to its own garden, which seems to impassioned imagination a corner of Milton’s Eden at the very least; fortunately, however, there is no serpent-tempter here: the pretty proprietress strolls arm in arm with her husband and not with a charmer or Cicisbeo…(364-5).

In typical sentimentalist fashion, Karamzin makes explicit his modeling of English country life after literary texts: “Eden” is Milton’s, the sermons admired by the traveler are “in Yorick’s taste” (Sterne) and the rosy-cheeked children are copies from Rousseau—“all little Émiles, all little Sophies.” Unlike Russian grand tourists of the previous era or the exponents of publicistic sentimentalism, Karamzin’s traveler largely ignores society’s upper and lower strata to focus on the middle class (srednoe sostoianie liudei). When he does refer to rural laborers, he idealizes them in accordance with idyllic protocol,

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generally preferring the poetic term “swain” (poselianin) to the more standard “peasant” (krest’ianin). In bucolic Germany, for example: Each swain walking about the meadow seemed to me a happy mortal, having more than enough of everything that man needs. “He is healthy through labor,” I thought, “and merry and happy in his hour of rest, being encircled by a peaceful family, sitting beside his own faithful wife, and looking at his playing children” (57).

Similar visions of Arcadia appear throughout Karamzin’s Letters as if to document the cheerful industriousness that enabled (obviously idealized) peasants to serve as models for bourgeois literature. Indeed, while the main characters in Karamzin’s English pastorale are representatives of the middle class, they exude similar satisfaction with their life of pious moderation and its daily round of events. As the traveler notes, a number of “well-to-do citizens of London” take to rural villages for part of the year, “becoming swains for the summer,” and he himself mimics this fashionable practice on weekends by strolling in the rural outskirts of London. It might be argued that Karamzin was less interested in faithfully describing reality than in recreating it as a literary text. In the words of Lotman and Uspensky, All of Europe spreads out before him like a thick compendium of quotations and he delights in it, recognizing the already familiar and pointing out to the uninitiated reader the sources of these quotations as reified in cities, castles and historical monuments.24

In point of fact, the traveler’s citation of other texts serves not only to acknowledge sentimentalist protocol or to illustrate his familiarity with Western literature, art, theater, philosophy, history, politics, and so on, but also to demonstrate his interpretive powers over foreign textual and imaginary worlds. In presenting his literary pastiche as a travelogue, Karamzin weaves themes and scenarios familiar from the textual world into his reportage of life abroad, transforming them into actual events and images and literally putting them on the map. With the characteristic precision of the scientific or informational travel writer, he places fashionable set pieces such as encounters with bucolic Swiss peasants in specific locales—on the slopes of Vengernalp above the town of Lauterbrunnen, for example, or on Kleine Scheidegg above Grindelwald—and even at precise times: the dateline of one Swiss

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letter reads “Shepherds’ huts in the Alpine mountains at 9 o’clock in the morning” (133). As a result, Letters not only underscores the traveler’s familiarity with his surroundings, but also claims the fundamental components of Western tradition for Russian experience. Through Karamzin’s efforts, the clichés of Western literature become topoi of Russian travel writing. Karamzin also suggests the relevance of his Letters as a model for domestic travel writing by emphasizing—through Rousseau’s example—the importance of an intimate connection between geographical setting and the perceiving subject. The affective power of landscape is clearly demonstrated both by the characters in Rousseau’s novel Julie and by the Russian Traveler’s response t o their story. In Clarens, he writes from “the same spot” that Rousseau’s protagonist St.-Preux had penned a letter to his beloved Julie. Here St.-Preux had found his emotions preromantically mirrored in the landscape; according to his words, which the Russian Traveler quotes, “In all objects, I see the same horror which reigns inside me” (150). St.-Preux returned repeatedly to this site in order to relive his romantic agony, thus ensuring that the surroundings would be forever encoded with lasting reminders of his experiences and feelings. Karamzin’s traveler later reveres the spot precisely for its having borne witness to St.-Preux’s existential drama and reads the memory of his suffering in the surrounding landscape. His admiration for the natural beauty of the cliffs is mixed with recollections of the distraught lover and feelings of empathy for his anguish. As evidenced in the work of Karamzin’s epigones, such emphasis on the significance of landscape perceived through memory, and especially through the reiterative contemplation of earlier painful feelings, became a popular paradigm. The sheer beauty or impressiveness of a given setting was frequently considered to be less important than its effect on the traveler. As Karamzin demonstrates in the environs of Dresden, a given locale can both inspire and overwhelm: I gazed and took pleasure; gazed, rejoiced and—even cried, which usually happens when my heart is very, very happy!—I took out a sheet of paper, a pencil; I wrote: dear Nature! and not a word more!! (56).

Karamzin also quotes Rousseau on the importance for the writer of a literary setting’s affective power—as expressed in Rousseau’s

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justification for situating the novel Julie near Lausanne, in a site interwoven with his own personal history: In order to settle my lovers in a seemly country, I reviewed in my memory all the best places that I had seen in my travels, but I could not find even one that was absolutely right. The Thessalonian valleys might have satisfied me had I seen them, but my imagination, wearied by fabrications, wanted some kind of actual place that could serve as its foundation. Finally I chose the shores of that lake around which my heart had never ceased to wander (152 n).

Karamzin hopes to inscribe himself into the same Western landscape: “My friends!” he declaims as he sets off for Clarens, “when Fate commands you to be in Lausanne, go up onto the terrace of the cathedral church, and remember that a few hours of my life passed here in pleasure and in quiet joy!” (148). While many later tourists did exactly as Karamzin bid, numerous others demonstrated their allegiance to his model in accounts of domestic travel. The approach to imaginary geography endorsed by both Karamzin and Rousseau—with its idyllic, sentimentalist, and preromantic overtones—was readily imitated by Russian writers on home turf. Moving through areas of personal significance, Karamzin’s domestic epigones amply illustrate how Russian territory could provoke introspective and emotional ruminations. Their preference for familiar backdrops reflected broader trends in Western European prose as well. As eighteenth-century systems of publishing and distribution became increasingly impersonal, literature compensated by attempting to reduce the gap between narrated worlds and the reader’s own experience. New techniques were developed to underline a closer relationship between author and reader; the rise of the literary narrator, in fact, was one result of efforts to overcome this distance. Literature’s spatial and temporal parameters also underwent reorientation in this period as travel writers, like novelists, moved from the “exotic and far away” to the here and now of the reader.25 Such new literary priorities further stimulated the development of internal travel by suggesting that tourist itineraries could be judged according to their impact on the traveler’s sensibilities rather than for their supply of cultural monuments. Letters of a Russian Traveler has been called “a whole encyclopedia of Western European life, culture, and art adapted for the Russian noble reader.”26 More accurately, it ushered into Russia

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the styles, tastes, and values of Western European bourgeois literature in the guise of a grand tour travelogue, thus communicating the experiences and attitudes that had earlier been reserved for elite travelers and their interlocutors to a wider readership.27 In this travelogue, Karamzin provided his audience with an entire catalogue of sentimentalist themes, scenes, and vocabulary; he not only responded to emerging contemporary tastes and fashions, but also anticipated and even shaped them. If previous travel authors had generally written for small circles of family and friends or for the sovereign and his or her influential associates, Karamzin intended his account—together with the various journals in which he printed it—for a broader group. In fact, Letters was designed in part to encourage an interest in Karamzin’s other literary endeavors, including the Moscow Journal in which he published the first installments. His literary efforts were instrumental in effecting the transition in Russian letters from an aristocratic cultural norm to a more bourgeois orientation. By 1801, he had, in the words of literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, “created … both literature and public.”28 It was Karamzin’s genius to resolve the dilemma of whether t o describe travel abroad in terms dictated by Western European fashion or in assertions of Russianness and national autonomy by doing both at the same time. With his extensive examples of Western texts and the figure of an independent traveler who knew what to do with them, Karamzin offered subsequent generations a model of cultural authority and independence that helped to direct them away from a reliance on foreign models. His “Russification” of the grand tour provided an intellectual and literary model for a dignified relationship towards Western European culture, while his importation of foreign literary styles helped Russian literature t o “internalize” Western tradition, by offering readers (and writers) an alternative, domestic source for the literary patterns and modalities that were so popular abroad.29 The phenomenal influence of his Letters upon the subsequent generation represents the first widespread instance of Russian travel writing building upon itself.

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2. Sentimentalist Imitation and Parody in the Wake of Karamzin It would be difficult to exaggerate Karamzin’s importance for the subsequent generation of Russian travel writers. While not all of those who wrote in Karamzin’s wake were adulatory imitators, none wholly escaped his influence. Letters of a Russian Traveler quickly joined established Western European texts in a canon of travel writing classics: “Children!” admonished a traveler in 1796, “Do not forget Sterne, Sterne—and Karamzin….”30 Several accounts of travel abroad signaled their link to Karamzin by adopting a pointedly Russian persona, such as Vasily Malinovsky’s “A Russian in England” (1796), Pyotr Makarov’s “A Russian in London” (1803-04), and D. Gorikhvostov’s Letters of a Russian Who Traveled through Europe (1808).31 Vasily Pushkin, uncle of the famous poet, mailed Karamzin a pair of travel letters that were published in the European Herald of 1803 as “Letter of a Russian Traveler from Berlin” and “from Paris.” In a later verse epistle, Pushkin declared that his illustrious foreign acquaintances—SaintPierre, Delille, and Fontaine—had served as “witnesses that in a foreign land/ I was proud to be Russian/ and a real Russian I was.”32 Karamzin’s example was especially popular in descriptions of internal travel, however, where the pose of a markedly Russian narrator was less meaningful. Some writers simply copied entire scenes from his Letters into their accounts. The fifteen-year old M. Gladkova, for example, imitated Karamzin’s idealization of peasant life in her record of travels along the Moscow-Petersburg highway. Apparently unfamiliar with Radishchev’s precedent for describing this route, she finds the surroundings idyllic and addresses the “two young beautiful daughters” of a stationmaster with the same words that the Russian Traveler had used to greet a pair of shepherdesses in Switzerland. With the announcement “that I like very much their simple and quiet life,” she proposes to “remain at their home and milk the cows together with them.” Like Karamzin’s alpine interlocutors, the girls laugh at this preposterous notion: “no, Miss,” they explain, “our life is harder than yours, your fancy is mistaken.”33 As Gladkova’s example suggests, the sentimentalist idyll did not always spring naturally from the Russian environment. Despite an obvious desire to emulate Karamzin’s travel writing, most of his immediate successors experienced appreciable difficulty in doing so. Karamzin’s balanced combination of informational and

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sentimentalist modes, his light and fluent literary style, and the poise of his narratorial persona generally proved beyond their reach.34 The occasional sentimentalist sallies of Pavel Sumarokov, for example, do little to enliven the otherwise dry accounts of internal travel that he published at the turn of the nineteenth century, while his tedious report of touring Western Europe in the 1820s provoked a critic to exclaim “May God grant health to the readers!”35 This reaction would have been equally appropriate t o Sumarokov’s earlier ventures in travel writing as well, together with numerous other domestic travelogues of the hybrid variety. Karamzin’s most infamous admirers emphasized the emotional, sentimentalist aspects of his model at the expense of informational content, substituting the range of sensibility and intellect displayed in the Russian Traveler with hypertrophied emotive faculties.36 His followers often missed Karamzin’s inherent dynamism as well, thus exposing the intrinsic conflict in sentimentalist travel writing between its idyllic tendencies and the concept of movement required for the performance of a journey. Karamzin had managed the contradiction by balancing idyllic interludes against the protagonist’s forward progress: the Russian Traveler’s momentum continually transports him out of various pastoral scenarios, liberating him from situations of potential claustrophobia and stasis.37 Lacking both his literary talent and the culturally rich itineraries of Western Europe that might have served as context and ballast for their emotive effusions, Karamzin’s internal epigones often floundered in their attempts to recreate his vigor and confidence. That said, the sentimentalist emphases of his followers did contribute to evolving conceptions of Russia as an idyllic or pastoral space saturated with personal experiences and emotions, as a setting for the Russian traveler’s childhood, and occasionally as the site of an endearing backwardness. As critics and parodists were quick to point out, Karamzin’s followers were apt not only to wallow in feeling, but also to neglect the surrounding environment, even to the point of making the very concept of travel irrelevant. In fact, the sentimentalist aspects of Karamzin’s own text—let alone their exaggeration in the works of his many epigones—were easy targets for parody. Caricatures of sentimentalist travel writing had been an integral part of Western tradition since Sterne’s archetypal Sentimental Journey had poked fun at the informational tradition of the grand tour by describing trivial events and the traveler’s (often extreme)

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emotional reaction to them rather than serious geographical or cultural topics. Sentimental Journey may also be described as “selfparody”: despite the fact that many of Sterne’s readers saw only earnestness in the narrator’s sensitive effusions, Yorick himself laughs not only at generic expectations, but also at his own attempts to fulfill them.38 Later sentimentalist travel writers often found in Sterne a model for the whimsical irrelevance and irreverence that allowed them to merrily describe a traveler’s mental fancies and emotional ups and downs, rather than more conventional geographical routes. The principles of such an approach were neatly summarized in a translated French piece that was published in Russia’s Northern Messenger in 1803: One need only sit down to work, to write what comes into his head and a book in Sternean taste will be ready. The arrangement is even more convenient than the contents: it needs neither order, nor form, nor connection between thoughts; you can go from a cemetery to a tavern without the slightest pause: the wit lies precisely in this.39

Numerous Russian travelogues featured narratives that were arranged according to Sternean random logic, ranging from humorous texts like the anonymous “The Lost Suitcase: Fragment of a Sentimental Journey” (1791) or “The Journey of My Friend” (1798) to more serious sentimentalist endeavors such as Pyotr Shalikov’s Journey to Malorossia (1803). Shalikov, for instance, similarly addresses whatever topics come into the traveler’s head after announcing them in the titles of his chapters: Meeting, A Friend, Storm, Coffee, Poems, and so forth. Several of his readers took issue with the scarce relation between Shalikov’s chapters and his supposed itinerary: “This is nothing but a collection of fragments,” complained travel writer and publisher Makarov, “which a man of talent could write without leaving Moscow.”40 Vasily Zhukovsky agreed that one need not visit Malorossia t o experience the wonderful summer evenings that Shalikov describes: “such beautiful evenings!” he mocks, “[…] they are beautiful also here, in Moscow.”41 If Zhukovsky shared Shalikov’s sentimentalist concern for reflection and reverie, he also felt that the physical setting for indulging in these activities, while not unimportant, was neither so specific nor unique. He concludes his review with a virtuosic description of sunset alongside the Novodevichy convent on the Moscow River, where “you’ll forget about Malorossia.”

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The lack of movement that sometimes characterized sentimentalist travelogues was a popular object for parody as well. A Western text that proved influential in this regard was Xavier De Maistre’s Voyage autour de ma chambre (1794) with its absurdly limited itinerary and emphasis on the traveler’s mental or imaginary wanderings. Translated into Russian in 1802, De Maistre’s text helped to inspire a series of works featuring similarly ridiculous routes, including its own anonymous “free translation” as My Cousin’s Journey into His Pockets (1803) in which the narrator exclaims, “today it has become fashionable to voyage anywhere! I myself am living proof of it!”42 Other parodists aimed to debunk sentimentalist idyllicism. Some approached this task with the pitiless eye of a political satirist, recalling the vein of internal travel writing that had produced Radishchev’s Journey from Petersburg to Moscow. Indeed, as noted earlier, Radishchev’s text itself might be seen as parodic in that it underlines the impossibility of applying sentimentalist and idyllic constructs to the description of Russian realia. Other satiric travel accounts employed fantastic itineraries in order to illuminate Russia’s shortcomings in a comparison with imaginary lands. Even these texts sometimes fell prey to the rhetoric of sentimentalism. In Vasily Lyovshin’s “The Newest Journey” (1784), for example, the account of a lunar resident’s visit to earth bogs down when the author, describing “the ideal life of utopian society on the moon, stumbles fatally on the pastoral.”43 The line between straight imitation and parody can be difficult to draw in the case of sentimentalism. To begin with, it might be argued that sentimentalism defied being imitated “well” due to its very nature—the highly repetitive quality and obviously hackneyed language that, as Gukovsky has said of sentimentalist poetry, is “an organic part of the style itself.”44 Little troubled by the specter of originality, writers laced their work with clichéd themes, scenes, and commentary from writers whom they admired. Indeed, sentimentalism’s penchant for emulating previous texts guaranteed that similar rhetoric would grace the pages of both straightforward and parodic accounts: the obvious use of clichéd language and paradigms could indicate either mockery or the reverential emulation of generic precedents. Moreover, straight sentimentalism itself frequently sounds like caricature—at least t o the modern reader, while parodies of it rely on little more than the exaggeration of features that were dear to the epoch’s most earnest

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writers.45 If sentimentalist parody often highlighted the potential meaninglessness of journeys that were either wholly imaginary or limited to a single street or room, for example, serious sentimentalists enjoyed such paradoxes as well and elaborated them in the concept of traveling “in thought” while remaining in one spot. In fact, Zhukovsky’s criticism of Shalikov’s sunsets makes exactly this point: metaphysically transported by their own fantasies and emotions, travelers had little need for actual physical displacement. Sentimentalist humor further complicates the determination of travel writing parody. Sentimentalism was not without levity, after all, and even its most sincere examples contained mirthful narratorial asides. Even where not the obvious object of parody, the previous tradition of sentimental travel writing often serves as a source of gentle amusement for the narrator. Karamzin himself often makes fun of sentimentalist expectations, aiming not at the concept of sensitivity per se, but at its most extreme manifestations.46 Lastly, determining the boundaries of parody is made still more difficult in the case of Karamzin’s epigones by the frequent scarcity of authorial talent that prevents writers from establishing a clear or coherent distance between their own texts and possible targets. In short, a certain amount of literary skill is helpful in making parody evident. One of the best Russian examples of sentimentalist travel parody was published in 1796, even before Karamzin’s Letters of a Russian Traveler had appeared in its completed form. Entitled “Filon” (Philo), the piece was printed anonymously in Ivan Martynov’s journal The Muse and is generally attributed to his authorship.47 This text recounts the progress of the twelve-year-old Filon and his companion Olymp from Poltava, Ukraine, where they have just graduated from the seminary, to Moscow, where they hope t o continue their studies. Young, provincial, indigent, and Ukrainian, Filon is an unusual protagonist for the Russian literary account. While he resembles Martynov, who was also born in a Ukrainian village and then educated at a seminary in Poltava on a fellowship for destitute orphans, the text itself suggests no intrinsic link between narrator and author.48 Indeed, a distinction between them helps to clarify its parodic function: Martynov’s laughable account of Filon’s thoughts, conversations, and interactions contrasts sharply with the character’s own unawareness of the many levels of humor that his words and actions produce.

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“Filon” is written in a humorously ambiguous language that exposes the vapidity of many sentimentalist and travel writing clichés. The account consists largely of narratorial digressions and nonsensical encounters along the road, often with other figures that bear similarly preposterous names (e.g. Levant, Melania), in imitation of the pastoral Greek-styled appellations characteristic of the idyll. Many of the described scenes are parodies of sentimentalist classics aimed at Sterne, Karamzin, and even Radishchev. Like Sterne’s Yorick, Filon and Olymp meet a peasant girl with a pet lamb (here, too, named “Maria” and “Silvio”), a dead ass, and so on. Indeed, “Filon” is probably Russian travel writing’s closest approximation to the parodic humor and tone of Sterne. I t similarly uses sexual double entendres to reveal the innuendo lurking beneath sentimentalist literary conventions: before meeting the innocent Maria and her little lamb, for example, Filon falls ill with fever and is wrapped in a wolf skin by the ever thoughtful Olymp. Other scenes target Karamzin’s Letters of a Russian Traveler and its naive celebrations of rural life. Filon finds evidence of peasant love not in the amorous raptures of idyllic peasant swains, for instance, but in the swollen belly of a young house serf (1:86); in lieu of the Swiss peasant’s exemplary hospitality, we have Filon’s report of how a truculent child is beaten for refusing to offer the travelers refreshment (2:235). In a parody of sentimentalism’s penchant for finely tuned responsiveness t o problems proposed by the surrounding environment, Filon describes how “ticklish sensitivity” subjected him to sensations that are entirely physical and palpable enough to be perceptible even to the most thick-skinned traveler: “Leaving the town of B**, my sensitivity told me that the road was the worst, that pouring rain had soaked through my outer garment...” (1:146). This passage can also be seen as a more general parody of materialist philosophy and, perhaps, of its influence on accounts such as Radishchev’s. Indeed, several passages in “Filon” echo Radishchev’s forbidden Journey from Petersburg to Moscow. The tearful opening scene of Filon’s departure from Poltava, for example, in which a former schoolmate waxes eloquently about friendship and the harmonious beating of hearts (1:77) recalls Radishchev’s dedicatory preface t o Kutuzov. In a story resembling an episode from Radishchev’s chapter “Chudovo,” a sentry prefers to incommode the travelers rather than risk waking and angering a slumbering superior (2:54). A discussion of luxury items and exploitative labor practices brings

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to mind Radishchev’s description of American exports in the chapter “Vyshny Volochok”: the “sugar, coffee, dyes, and so on—not yet dry from the sweat, tears, and blood that laved them in their cultivation.”49 In Martynov’s version, similarly radical views are more cautiously credited to a book by Saint-Pierre in which the traveler reads: “I, of course, owe my tobacco, sugar, and coffee to the poor African Negroes who plant these in America under the whips of Europeans” (4:158). More generally, Martynov shares with Radishchev and other publicistic travel writers an interest in destroying idyllic and bourgeois myths about the countryside. Far from a setting of bucolic bliss, the rural landscape in “Filon” illustrates only provincial brutishness, squalor, and isolation. Martynov construes these features as a source of hilarity rather than social outrage, however, by presenting them—with a dose of absurdity and often ambiguity—as if they were positive. Consider, for example, the text’s reflections on the joys of rural solitude: The more easily one distances himself from [the noisy amusements of society], the sooner he will feel true happiness, for the more limited his prospects, the more satisfied he becomes. Often, the most enviable fate belongs to him who sets disgraceful scribbles to paper or flicks off flies in his isolated room, rather than to him who in conversation with numerous others drowns them all out with his loud laughter (2:240).

While Filon’s itinerary juxtaposes provincial misery with life in Moscow rather than Petersburg, he joins Radishchev in defending the peasant against the prejudices of elite urban readers, those “nurslings of luxury and leisure.” Filon, too, prefers the rural “children of Nature” (4:167), although his portrait of the typical peasant is less akin to the sentimentalist swain than to the bogatyr’, Russian culture’s folkloric strongman: He is either tall or of medium height with a firm breast, wide shoulders, the terrible aspect of the North, a chin which nourishes a thick and cruel beard, meaty arms with prominent veins, gigantic legs in which the linkage of his elastic and lithe muscles can be seen at each step. […] as active as he is strong, he withstands hunger and thirst, hard frost and death; he is ready to drag a plow, to dig up the earth, to wrestle with the roots of a tree, and to play with thunderbolts (4:166-7).

In comparing this epic figure with the degenerate image of the city dweller, Filon adds unnatural effeminacy to sentimentalism’s usual roster of urban shortcomings:

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What a picture! It seems that the Graces have pampered you: how fragrance floats around you, what a pleasant little smile, what quick, lively eyes! pretty, delicate and light legs!; your little hands created in order to visit the treasury of love and tear away its envious coverlet; your chin just barely protrudes and you even become annoyed at this exposure of a feature that distinguishes you from the gentle sex; you grow angry even at the breeze disordering the structure of your hairstyle; like a manycolored butterfly, you would like to flit from bush to little bush or suck the scent from a flower’s calyx (4:167-8).

This rejection of the feminine element in urban culture may also be read as an indictment of the era’s social trends and literary fashions, including the sentimentalist mode itself. Like other internal accounts, “Filon” is highly conscious of a difference between the travel experiences available at home and abroad. Its own approach to such issues consists of poking fun at the defensive and nationalistic tone that was often adopted by other Russian texts in cultural polemics with Western Europe. In raising issues of domestic travel’s comparability with the grand tour, for example, Olymp suggests that the reputation of the Russian Empire’s cities has suffered “only from the dearth of good travelers to make them known” (2:241-2). At the same time, the text’s efforts to apply standard touristic criteria to the provincial landscape generally result either in a negative appraisal of local merit or leave it suspiciously undefined. In pontifications on the town of “S*,” for example, Filon notes that if you look at this city with the eyes of an Architect: the construction in i t is antiquated, the arrangement of houses and streets lacks the slightest artistry, and good buildings comprise an exception to the main rule. If you look at it with the eyes of a Christian […]: there are neither more nor fewer churches in it than there were before we left […]. If you look at i t with the eyes of a Physician or Surgeon, it is built in a swampy spot; the air is probably [more] often damp than dry (2:221-2).

His tongue-in-cheek evaluation of “Ser—v” (Serpukhov), concludes in ambiguity as well: If they ask you, what is the city Ser—v, then you say that it’s located on the river Nara, which flows into the Oka, at a distance of eighty-eight versts from Moscow and if, in addition, they ask you “what it is like?” you answer, “Oh! oh! what antiquity,” sticking out your lips and adding that its streets are so narrow and its buildings so ancient that they compel you to be afraid (4:165-6).

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The hyperbolic description of the peasant quoted above is similarly rendered ambiguous by the nonsensical remark which introduces it: “If you want to ask me about the good things that I noticed,” quips Filon, “I’ll tell you that the Russian is everywhere a Russian” (Ruskoi est’ vezde Ruskoi, 4:166). Why—or whether—we should consider this an advantageous state of affairs is left unexplained. The final scene of arrival in Moscow concludes the text on a similarly uncertain note. In lieu of the simple “Moscow! Moscow!” with which Radishchev’s traveler had eagerly greeted the ancient capital, Filon and Olymp offer a string of inflated epithets, ultimately undermining their claims of the city’s importance through exaggeration ad absurdum: “Moscow! Moscow! The Capital of the Sovereigns of the Russian Empire! The Capital of the cities of the Russian Empire!” I said. “The Capital of the minds of the Empire!” said Olymp. “The Capital of enlightenment!” I said. “The Capital of strength!” cried Olymp. “The Capital of greatness!” “The Capital of wealth and abundance!” “The Capital of glory!” (4:170-1)

Ukraine, Filon’s starting point, was also a popular destination for internal tourists, providing as it did a handy compromise between foreign and domestic travel: part of the Empire, but not of Russia itself, Ukraine could be described as essentially distinct and even foreign.50 Pavel Sumarokov enthusiastically noted Ukraine’s exotic character on his way to the Crimea in 1803: I am in a tidy and merry hut, different faces, different habits, different clothing on the hosts, a different organization and I hear a different language. Can it be that the border of the Empire lies here? Have I not entered a different state?—No! The Empire still continues; but here begins the region named Malorossia.51

Ukraine’s difference from a Russian norm was also important if domestic touring were to compete effectively with the prestige of travel abroad in that accounts of Ukrainian travel might be used t o illustrate the rich variety of experiences found within the Empire itself. Shalikov’s traveler remains conscious of potential alternative routes in Western Europe throughout his journey in Malorossia, taking a stroll “in our local Alps,” he is afterwards

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“received in Swiss style: milk, cheese, and butter sated our thirst and appetite”; he also discovers that “our Malorossia is another Italy.” Sumarokov had suggested in his own account a phonetic resemblance between the Ukrainian and Italian languages.52 Cultural comparability with Western Europe also required the formulation of a historical and cultural pedigree. Accordingly, internal accounts often addressed sites worthy of national and even international attention. In Ukraine, such efforts typically led t o descriptions of medieval Kiev as the cradle of Russian Orthodoxy and Empire, celebrations of Peter I’s 1709 victory over the Swedes at Poltava, and praise for cities that Catherine had either founded or visited during her 1787 trip to the Crimea. As Shalikov expounded in a later account: “what need have I of Italy, Switzerland, the Crimea, of happy France, the upper Rhine, the Swabian plains… Let them be infuriated at their rival if they like—that’s not my affair … he who knows Poltava won’t call me a liar.”53 In its own treatment of Ukrainian themes, “Filon” for the most part follows the practice of blurring distinctions between Russian and Ukrainian identity that was common in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. “Russian” and “Ukrainian” were not necessarily mutually exclusive categories at the time and “Russian” could easily refer to non-Russians who were either subjects of the Empire or who participated in its dominant cultural tradition.54 Vladimir Izmailov, for example, presented his Journey to Southern Russia (1802) as the first literary account of “travel by a Russian through Russia,” despite the fact that much of it describes touring the non-Russian territories of the empire: Kiev, Odessa, the Crimea, and the Northern Caucasus.55 In “Filon,” differences in national membership come to the fore when the travelers are forced to dine with a chauvinistic Russian native, i.e., “not one of those who forgive birth in a Nation other than their own” (3:2278). When their conversation touches upon Poltava, Olymp irritates the grouchy nationalist by describing the Ukrainian city’s merits with enthusiasm, noting that it was the site of Peter’s landmark victory. The scene makes an interesting comparison with Karamzin’s description of dining with Dr. Platner: while Letters of a Russian Traveler had explored issues of possible Russian inadequacy abroad, the farcical “Filon” points to an internal conflict between a marginalized Ukraine and a culturally dominant Russia.

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Elsewhere in “Filon,” the natives of Russia proper and those of the empire’s other Slavic territories are generally lumped together under the umbrella term Rossiiane, or “of the Russian Empire.” At the same time, the text occasionally plays with distinctions between various contemporary terms for “Russian”: in the 1790s, the terms Rossiianin (plural Rossiiane), Rossiiskii, and Ross were both imperial political designations and formal literary or rhetorical variants of the more colloquial ruskoi or even rusak, and could therefore also be used to refer to ethnic Russians in distinction from Ukrainians or Malorossiiane.56 “Filon” delights in toying with this double sense by placing the bombastic Rossiiskii in unexpected contexts. In a lengthy mock paean to cabbage soup, for example, the term links this dubious national dish to the political rhetoric of the Empire: To one who has traveled on the Moscow highway, it will not seem surprising that Russian cabbage soup [Ruskie shchi] of the sort they put on the table here clothes the imagination of the traveler in melancholy vapors. […] I would like it to command respect. The most trivial items are passed down to us from ancient ages: why shouldn’t we pass Russian cabbage soup [shchi Rossiiskie] down to our descendants? (4:71-2).

Parodic travelogues stimulated the growing autonomy and confidence of Russian letters. In showing both familiarity with and distance from expected generic paradigms, they demonstrated Russian strength and vitality with respect to the established literary traditions of Western Europe. Moreover, if the humor of travel parody often depended upon the implicit contradiction between Russian claims for cultural adequacy and its traditionally marginal position, unfavorable evaluations of provincial routes could also boost national pride. After all, negative perceptions of Russia were just a stone’s throw away from the proud recognition of apparent deficiencies as specific national virtues. In fact, the affectionate appreciation of Russian shortcomings became a favorite tactic in rhetorical struggles with Western European culture. Variants of the popular saying “Even the smoke of the fatherland is sweet and pleasant to me” (I dym otechestva mne sladok i priiaten) recur in numerous sentimentalist travelogues.57 As suggested above, sentimentalism’s focus on the traveler’s response to his or her environment meant that the journey’s geographical context was often relatively unimportant or at least less specifically defined. Despite Shalikov’s assertions of Ukraine’s comparability with the

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West, he, too, profited from domestic travel writing’s relative indifference to the choice of itinerary. Focusing on their own emotional reactions allowed travelers to transcend the geographical limitations of their routes. As Karamzin states at the conclusion of his Letters, “You know, it’s hard to find a city worse than Kronstadt, but to me, it’s very dear” (388). 3. Ambivalent Idylls: Time and Space in Accounts Domestic Travel

of

Soviet critics have argued that the inward focus of Karamzinian sentimentalism was an attempt to exclude problematic social and political realities from the realm of literature and to focus instead on moral and aesthetic themes. More generally, Letters of a Russian Traveler reflects the introverted perspective of the literary idyll, whose legacy permeated the sentimentalist approach. The text’s popularity rests in part on the enormous appeal of the idyllic mode for contemporary readers and Karamzin’s domestic followers eagerly absorbed the variety of idyllic paradigms offered in his sentimentalist set pieces and rhetorical flourishes. One of the idyll’s fundamental precepts was the assumption that a landscape’s significance derives from the subject’s experience of it. If the idyll took as its setting the locus amoenus or “an extension of the poet’s harmonious, beautiful soul, …the externalization of an inner world, an artistic vision, rather than actual outward reality,”58 sentimentalist travel writing similarly characterized the traveler’s environment in terms of its capacity to mirror, refract, or affect the human subject. The spatial and temporal constructs characteristic of the idyll found reflection in internal travel writing’s personalized concerns and limited itineraries. Idyllic space is typically small, bounded, and imbued with domesticity; it provides a forum for specific pastimes that range from the contemplation of gentle sentiments (love, tenderness, etc.) to the performance of agricultural and household chores characteristic of the daily round (planting, harvesting, spinning, milking, and so on). Events from the outside world play no role in this restricted universe. Karamzin’s Letters often present circumscribed spaces in a similarly positive manner—evocative of security, rather than confinement. An enraptured description of a German peasant, for example, reports that “All of his wishes, all of

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his hopes are bounded by the breadth of his fields” (57). While appreciative of preromantic topography (cliffs, waterfalls, impenetrable forests) and of his own sublime experiences in these settings, the Russian Traveler finds in his quieter moments that cultivated fields epitomize the aesthetic he seeks: “at almost every step, I would stop and admire beautiful Nature and the fruits of human activity” (56). In his sentimentalist passages, Karamzin’s protagonist thus resembles official and scientific travel writers, as well as Radishchev on his return to European Russia: he, too, considers open spaces attractive when they evince the productive labors of homo faber. Idyllic time moves at a leisured pace, providing its personages “ample time to contemplate the beauty of the setting and [to] cultivate love and friendship in an intimate circle of loved ones.”59 In the world of the idyll, there is neither possibility nor need of formulating historical concepts. Time tends to follow a circular rather than linear trajectory, with particular emphasis on the present moment. The lack of eventfulness is taken as a symptom of nature’s beneficence. That the traveler’s thoughts, feelings, and activities were also harmoniously attuned to the environment is illustrated by the ubiquitous sentimentalist practice of walking, strolling, and promenading through it, all while experiencing delight at the attractive natural setting. Many of Karamzin’s followers attempted to construct closed worlds that approximated idyllic archetypes. Certainly, internal routes provided a perfect opportunity to emphasize domestic rituals and the quiet contemplation of nature. They also offered escape from the outside world, the challenges of Western European culture, and the bellicose Napoleonic climate. Despite the attraction of pastoral isolationism, however, the sentimentalist travelogue was unable to entirely separate itself from the demands of the external world or propose a wholly satisfactory alternative. Comments on the purported advantages of internal travel often serve only to emphasize the perception of a gap between the Russian Empire and Western Europe. Discussions of space in these texts suggest confusion between idyllic notions of cozy security and a sense of geographical imprisonment, while an obsession with time’s inevitable forward movement causes domestic travel writing to focus on its negative manifestations—sadness, loss, and death. These texts frequently resemble elegies more than idylls.

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Another source for the nostalgic flavor of sentimental travel writing was its connection to the domestic landscapes of the traveler’s past. If publicistic accounts had linked Russian territory with the figure of the peasant, Karamzin’s followers more frequently associated them with the elite traveler and especially with his or her childhood. The connection between countryside and childhood had some basis in historical fact, since travel writers—like other scions of the nobility in this period—often spent their earliest years in the provinces before moving to the city in pursuit of more advanced schooling and/or government careers. Radishchev moved from the Saratov province to Moscow at age twelve, for example, and Karamzin left Simbirsk for Moscow at eleven. While many Russian writers were, of course, born in the city, the pattern of movement from rural to urban areas—specifically as a maturational rite of passage—was common enough to become paradigmatic in Russian culture.60 Such relocation structured the plot of numerous literary texts, including several fictionalized versions of the travelogue. Although Fonvizin himself was born in Moscow, for example, the protagonist of his “Narrative of One Passing for a Deaf Mute,” like Filon, headed t o that city as a part of an ongoing process of personal development.61 The notion that one’s rural upbringing constituted a key biographical phase eventually became standard in the elite Russian subject’s self-conception. An association between domestic landscapes and childhood experience fueled the nostalgic tendencies already present in the sentimentalist approach. As internal routes often led travelers through provincial territories that had once been home, ruminations on bygone days became a common feature. Indeed, the traveler in Nikolai Brusilov’s My Journey, or The Adventures of One Day (1803) visits the countryside in memory alone while remaining physically in Petersburg; he thus joins contemporaries in construing rural life as a remembered phenomenon. A tender attitude towards rural areas also resulted from the sharp distinction—underlined in sentimentalist travel writing—between that relatively innocent world of youth and the urban one shaping the traveler’s current (adult) perspective. A roughly parallel situation existed in early eighteenth-century English literature when the growing importance of London forced writers t o renounce their country homes in order to pursue careers in the capital. As a result, “when the country surfaces for this generation,

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it is a matter of alternatives, flight, or nostalgia, a green place of the mind, memory, or imagination.”62 Characterizations of country life in early nineteenth-century Russian letters were often imbued with a similarly idealized quality. Thus, the countryside came to represent a rural childhood that had been cut off by both time and space, i.e. by the writing subject’s maturation and move to the city. The ensuing sense of separation or alienation became an important emotional focus for domestic travel writers and their accounts frequently dwell on the sense of loss produced by the impossibility of recovering the golden age of childhood. Since their described journeys characteristically begin and end in the city, an emphasis on the fact that one “can never go home again” is built into the very conception of the trip. At the same time, the earlier journey that first took the traveler from rural climes to the city is implicit in these accounts as well. In later describing the return to childhood regions, the sentimentalist traveler traces his or her steps backwards through time and space—against the grain and direction of age, history, and experience. The trip back to urban abode is thus the final leg of a tripartite journey and not simply the conclusion of a round trip: indeed, it repeats that first journey made in childhood away from an idyllic past towards maturity and, ultimately, death. In reacting against the pressures of time, sentimentalist travelers contemplated various possibilities for ignoring or halting it. Karamzin’s protagonist, following Rousseau, had found that time could be eluded in moments of sublime experience: on a Swiss mountain, for example, he finds that “the mortal […] forgets time and his thoughts plunge into eternity” (134). The Russian Traveler’s dynamism might also be seen as an escapist technique: as Shalikov put it (quoting Regnard), “We move from place to place in order to evade time.”63 The literary proclivities of sentimentalism also offered a convenient distraction from the march of history insofar as the activity of reading gave wing to the imagination and allowed it to triumph over both temporal and geographical constraints. Forcing time into an idyllic circle was another technique for controlling its flow. A cyclical notion of time finds reflection in the structure of the round trip, an important paradigm for travel writing in general and particularly emphasized in sentimentalist texts. In its most minimal and basic form, travel (like narrative itself) begins with the introduction of disequilibrium into a stable

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situation. The departure is defined against a preexisting state of immobility and the journey itself (the “plot” of the travel narrative) may be seen as a quest that seeks to reestablish a new situation of similar equanimity. This is particularly apparent in the sentimentalist travelogue, which tends to follow an explicitly circular trajectory: the trip is a provisional or temporary excursion that emphasizes not only the traveler’s venturing out, but also his or her safe return. The preferred round trip itinerary might also be seen as a symptom of internal travel’s limited means to describe Bildung or growth. Trapped in an idyllic circuit, the traveler was cut off from the progress of developmental time. As Zhukovsky envisioned it, having collected a treasury of new and various ideas and feelings, he will return to hearth and home, place his walking stick in the corner of his own hut, and gazing at it, delight in recollections.64

Reestablishing the desired stable norm was sometimes difficult, however, since return did not necessarily solve the issues that travel had raised. In fact, sentimentalist travelogues sometimes struggle t o disregard or even purge foreign elements incompatible with their harmonious and closed worlds. In order to combat their mistrust of uncontrollable time and open space, writers impose limits: temporal and spatial parameters are “miniaturized” and made literary to keep their real counterparts at bay. If in the idyll “conflicts depicted usually have a happy outcome,” or, should they remain unresolved, “ultimately serve to set the inside happiness into sharper relief,”65 conflicts in sentimentalist travel writing are often largely unarticulated or even unconscious. Their presence in the text thus contaminates the perfect happiness of the idyllic world, which becomes manqué. The sentimentalist predisposition towards spatial and temporal restriction reaches extreme forms in A New Sentimental Traveler, or My Excursion to A***, the record of a two-day excursion that takes the narrator and a companion from their home in Petersburg to the suburban estate of a third friend in “A***.” Published in 1802 under the cryptic signature “K. G.,” this account furnishes a full range of sentimentalist clichés: oppositions between urban vanity and rural virtue (or between wealth and poverty), illustrations of the protagonist’s charity toward have-nots, examples of prosperous peasants and of good family men; the day

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in the countryside unwinds smoothly, punctuated by the quiet pleasures of conversing, strolling, and sampling tasty rustic fare. Despite this idyllic frame, A New Sentimental Traveler focuses its attention largely on the observation of suffering, an activity for which, it seems, a visit to the country is ideally suited. The text’s explicit aim is to illustrate the mechanisms of fate or, as the traveler puts it, an important lesson that he learned during his trip, namely “that man can never arrange, nor foresee his own actions.” The vehicle for arriving at this realization would appear to be a series of experiences that encourage him to meditate on the distinction between his own blessings and the misfortunes of others. An outsider to country life, the traveler is generally content with his own lot: “I cannot complain about the ferocity of fortune, I suffer no lack in my necessities.”66 He encounters crueler destinies during his rural tour, however, particularly among the peasantry. While the text’s descriptions of rural misfortune lack the critical or political ramifications found in Radishchev, the sufferings of others here again offer themselves up as springboards for the traveler’s own sympathetic response—at least potentially. In point of fact, pronounced egocentrism repeatedly limits his ability to engage with the difficulties of those around him. While taking an admiring promenade about his friend’s country estate, the traveler finds “a woman lying on the riverbank, almost devoid of all senses, and a boy of about 6 years old standing next t o her, who was crying bitterly” (404). They soon discover that the woman had been severely beaten by her drunken husband and thrown out of the house; after three days’ wandering without food or drink, she collapsed beside the river. The solution to her dilemma appears so obvious to the traveler and his friends that it provokes no narratorial comment whatsoever. She and her son are simply to be taken to a nearby village and fed before being returned to the home from which they have fled. After disposing of the injured woman, the traveler returns abruptly to the description of his happy promenade: “Our trip had already continued for more than an hour, but it was so pleasant that we took no note of that, for the wondrous beauties of nature unceasingly occupied us” (404). The traveler’s professions of sympathy clash with his actual responses to peasant despair on other occasions as well. A New Sentimental Traveler contains three tragic tales of unhappy love beset by social inequality and while the narrator listens attentively to each, he remains largely unaffected. After hearing the tale of the

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first spurned lover (who died of grief), he and his friends continue their walk along the road where they “conversed about that unfortunate and felt very happy that we had pleasantly spent our day” (411). He later follows a miserable peasant lass named Lilla into the woods in order to secretly watch as she mourns the disappearance of the nobleman who ruined her—an obsessive ritual of grief that she repeats each night. Professing to have “pitied the unfortunate maiden with heartfelt sorrow,” the traveler nonetheless breaks off the scene in order to go to bed, where he is untroubled by this or other problems: “My comrade was snoring. I laid down in my own spot and, occupying myself with pleasant fancies, also began to doze” (420). Back in Petersburg, the traveler learns the tragic story of “Baroness S*,” forced by social prejudice to take her own life. Briefly mulling over this sad event, he reports that “They served dinner; I could not complain about my appetite and having eaten quite properly, laid down on the bed to rest” (427). These abrupt shifts in topic and tone might be read as ironic were there evidence of humor elsewhere in the text. As is, they indicate the traveler’s inability to describe emotional reactions that would be appropriate to the events he witnesses. His sentiments, unlike those of his counterparts in internal publicistic travel writing do not interfere with his digestion, sleeping patterns, or generally pleasurable existence. Indeed, it would appear that the contemplation of suffering even whets his appetite and sharpens his enjoyment of life. Certainly, a high level of self-involvement was typical of sentimentalism. “What is more absorbing for a man than himself?” asks the Russian Traveler at the conclusion of his Letters, or, in the words of Shalikov: “‘I’ […] is the letter of the alphabet dearer than the others.”67 In A New Sentimental Traveler, however, egocentrism is combined with anxiety. Despite an obvious interest in idyllic prototypes, the traveler cannot completely “pastoralize” country life; the ostensible celebration of rural existence that is implicit in his itinerary and explicit in his praise of the host and his country estate fails to rise above the mass of contradictory evidence accumulated during his tour. Sentimentalist rhetoric about the joys of country life notwithstanding, this text offers a highly ambivalent picture of rural territory. It presents poverty and despair as typical features of the countryside’s alarmingly wide open spaces. Ultimately, the experience of non-urban travel serves to reinforce the narrator’s desire to identify himself with the

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city—where he can admire rural terrain in the evocative replicas of it that he constructs in his own garden. Upon returning t o Petersburg, he and his travel companion design a miniature itinerary there in imitation of their brief tour. Selecting various spots in the garden at which to commemorate the tragic stories that have so impressed them, they walk along the path each evening and, stopping at the designated locations, recall touching episodes from their trip and experience acute feelings of sympathy. At the hillock devoted to Lilla, for example, A few linden trees, rather skillfully planted in an alley, formed a dark avenue at the end of which a pyramid of moderate size was erected on a small mound, surrounded by young birches and attracting the gaze. Together we dedicated this spot to the unhappy Lilla; nothing could better correspond to that gloomy isolation than her adventure. Upon arriving there, we would sit at the foot of this little peak and it seemed that the place inspired certain languid reflections. We mourned the lot of that sorrowful maiden and, shuddering, promised every evening to visit this spot, where it seemed her ashes were resting (427).

While elective rather than compulsory, their behavior clearly emulates Lilla’s own nightly pilgrimage into the woods and enacts the cyclical temporal pattern characteristic of the idyll, transforming time—or at least a portion of their day—into a ritualistic repetition of grief, demise, and destruction. As amply illustrated by the activities of Karamzin’s traveler, sentimental tourists frequently pause at locations that have hosted dramatic (often legendary) incidents, retell those (usually gloomy) narratives, and relive the profound emotions presumably felt by the participants, whether actual persons or literary characters. Prominent sites in sentimentalist accounts thus include not only home, church, and nearby field, but also graves and other tragic locales. Here travelers undergo intense emotion and even artistic inspiration as they momentarily construct links with the past. This paradigm resembles that described by Eliade in his account of “eternal returns,” the primitive religious rituals in which geographical locations are sanctified by ceremonially repeating the primordial act of creation at a designated sacred spot. In sentimentalism as well, the repeated visits of emotional pilgrims t o sites of legendary despair and their careful remembrance of previous affect also function to “transform profane space into transcendent space.”68 In other words, these visits tame and name previously unknown or unspecified areas of domestic territory,

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making them significant through personalization. In Eliade’s examples, however, ritualistic imitation of the original sacred act serves both to force the flow of time into a cyclical pattern and t o bring the system back to zero. In sentimentalist travel writing, a concern with the tragic sentiments of yesterday does not engender a fresh start, but compels a continued gaze towards the past, thus imbuing the Russian landscape with a permanent aura of nostalgia. A New Sentimentalist Traveler also illustrates other tendencies widespread in internal travel writing, such as the need to distance reality by contemplating it through a veil of nostalgic, even tragic emotion and a desire to aestheticize and manage the rural landscape. The traveler’s efforts in horticultural landscaping are symbolic of his attempts to exert power over the outside world. A popular feature of sentimentalist travel writing, the garden is both a metaphor for ambivalence about open space and a symbol of bourgeois property ownership. It offers the traveler reassuring evidence of his own supremacy over the unpredictability of fate by granting him narrative control: wresting each story from its original landscape, he repositions it in the “little garden” that “while not large” was “vast enough to contain an expanse of romantic (romanicheskie) ideas” (427). If the garden itinerary functions to both distill the traveler’s experiences into their most emotionally charged moments and t o convert them into manageable phenomena, it also excludes memories that are too troubling to be processed. It is interesting t o note that no memorial is dedicated to the unconscious woman at the riverbank. In fact, after their initial encounter, no further mention of the woman appears in the text. The fact that the title of the chapter in which she appears—“A Stroll” (Progulka)—echoes the subtitle of the book itself suggests that this irruption of disorder into the world of tranquil bourgeois complacency is the text’s central episode. Nonetheless, the garden wall protects the traveler from the intrusion of real space, real time, and real people—from unnamed peasants and non-literary, unaestheticized narrative—so that he can reflect on the misfortunes of peasant swains and their idealized lovers (“Lilla,” “Milon,” etc.). While Karamzin’s traveler had fearlessly embraced large portions of Europe, K.G.’s traveler ultimately repudiates even tours in Petersburg’s suburban outskirts, choosing instead to remain within the enclosure of his urban garden. That space helpfully offers boundaries that limit his movement, constrain him to follow

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prescribed forms, and allow him, like the bourgeoisie of London, t o act out the aesthetically gratifying life of the idyllicized swain, while ignoring that of the peasant. At first glance, there appears to be comparatively little of “Russia” in K.G.’s text. The countryside itself and the narrator’s particular link to it are described only in general terms and the characters in the text (with the exception of the unconscious peasant woman) conform to established sentimentalist outlines. The subtitle “A Russian Composition” thus suggests that the text is a domestic adaptation of Western literary models rather than an exemplar of any specifically national form. That said, the application of foreign models to domestic territory does little in this instance to elucidate any particularly national features. In fact, both the traveler’s encounter with the woman on the riverbank and his subsequent inability to synthesize that experience into the sentimentalist framework of his account demonstrate the inability of these paradigms to cope with some of the phenomena arising from internal Russian landscapes. The traveler is unable t o conceive the spot in which he finds the unconscious peasant woman as a poetic space: it is simply a place, neither particularly significant, nor intrinsically linked to her fate, nor an inspiration for the cult of memory and feeling. If Karamzin’s Letters had suggested that sentimentalist paradigms transcend national distinctions and, properly handled, even indicate cosmopolitan standards of etiquette and behavior, A New Sentimentalist Traveler shows how such cultural and literary sophistication falls short of being able to fully grapple with Russian reality. More generally, sentimentalist texts underline the wide gulf between city and country. They typically presented an urban traveler whose bucolic visions of agricultural life compel the rustic folk encountered en route to assume prescribed literary shapes; this reliance on clichéd sentimentalist scenarios dramatizes the traveler’s alienation from the rural environment and prevents him or her from exploring a more authentic (unique and personal) relationship with the Russian countryside. The contrast between rural reality and urban imaginings of it was captured in a later parody that described two friends meeting unexpectedly in the capital: “Wasn’t it you who cried that Petersburg was a boring, intolerable city?” asks the first, surprised to see his comrade back in the city. “I found out what the provinces are like!” responds his

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friend. “and cannot recall the time I spent outside Petersburg without horror.”69 A New Sentimentalist Traveler also reflects a vogue for travel sketches and descriptive accounts treating urban areas and their immediate surroundings and it was one of several texts to address travel in and around Petersburg. Some of these accounts patriotically glorified the capital and the court as much as their purported suburban destinations. Roughly one third of Shalikov’s “Journey to Kronstadt in 1805,” for example, is devoted to the bombastic praise of Russian rulers, lauding not only Peter I and Catherine II, but also the Empress Elizabeth, Paul’s widow Maria Fyodorovna, and even Catherine’s deposed husband Peter III, the “peaceful proprietor” of Oranienbaum, who as is “well known […] superlatively played the violin (39).70 Moscow held an extraordinary appeal for sentimentalist writers. Selected by Karamzin himself as the backdrop for a series of descriptive travel pieces and for the renowned short story “Poor Liza” (1792), it soon became the preferred location for all manner of sentimental tales and travel sketches. As the writer Pavel Iakovlev joked in 1820, “Young authors will search the outskirts of Moscow in vain for a spot to settle their lovers, little old ladies, hermits... Everything has already been taken!”71 Despite their numerous literary shortcomings, Karamzin’s sentimentalist epigones newly legitimized the domestic tour. As noted, this body of work helped to conceive and articulate provincial Russia as the locus of the elite subject’s childhood, fostering a connection between the rural landscape and the Russian writer that proved important for the development of Russian fiction. Internal sentimentalist travel writing also aided in shifting the center of national definition away from the elite Westernized culture of the nation’s two capitals and towards the Russian countryside. More generally, by interlacing rural territory and personal history, these texts demonstrate the growing importance of individual experience for national definition. Subsequent writers were to find still more evidence of themselves in the provincial countryside and to use these landscapes more directly in conceptualizing their own national and personal identities. The evolution of internal travel writing thus illustrates the direction taken by later Russian letters and realist fiction as they moved towards the task of more definitively “Russifying” the elite subject

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and integrating him or her into the rural landscape. Taken to an extreme, of course, the idyllic restriction of geographical space and the notion of time that is cyclical or cut-off from historical time (and hence “dead”) finds expression in negative portrayals of the Russian countryside and its stifling atmosphere that appear in later nineteenth-century fiction ranging from Gogol’s Mirgorod collection (as well as Dead Souls) to Saltykov-Shchedrin’s Golovlyov Family. On a more positive note, the limitation of time and space encouraged by idyllic models also helped to broaden the traveler’s introspective perceptual field. Before the enthusiasm for sentimentalist rhetoric had entirely faded, a more immediate literary mandate arose as the quiet sighs and gentle tears of sentimentalist travelers were drowned out by the drums of war.

Chapter 4 Returning to Europe (1812-25) As the Napoleonic Wars drew to a close, Russians once again took up the tour of Western Europe. The first wave of travelers was constituted by the military personnel who journeyed westward on the heels of the retreating French army. Several of the officers wrote travelogues about their experiences—immensely popular texts that represented a new version of the literary account.1 The most well known example was Fyodor Glinka’s Letters of a Russian Officer (1808-16), a work whose very title acknowledges both a link to existing literary tradition (Karamzin) and a new military perspective. His text opens with a discussion of Sterne and the typology of leisured travelers found in Sentimental Journey; here, Glinka’s traveler distinguishes himself from the standard tourist much as had Radishchev in Siberia: “For I traveled by necessity,” he explains, “and not out of idleness or empty curiosity.” In addition to traditional touristic themes, such as “a description of the mores and customs of people and of other curious things noted by me in passing,” Glinka aimed to provide “a depiction of all the military events and heroic deeds of the Russians.”2 The link between military and leisured travel writing is particularly apparent in Russian accounts of entering France and then Paris in 1814. These were “tours of duty” in which the martial context and the writers’ patriotic impulses complicated the description of interactions with French culture according t o traditional touristic paradigms. In the words of travel writer Ivan Lazhechnikov, the Russian forces approached Paris “not as timid travelers imploring hospitality with staff in hand, but as courageous victors.” “Note that we have an important advantage over previous tourists,” wrote the poet Konstantin Batiushkov: “we are armed.”3 One of the questions explored in this chapter is how these unusual historical circumstances affected Russian accounts of Western European travel. Did the pursuit of Napoleon’s armies

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across Europe and the occupation of Paris somehow enable or provide new opportunities for the Russian subject, perhaps liberating a latent independent subjectivity and offering a new sense of Russia’s place in Western culture? In point of fact, these accounts reveal profound ambivalence towards French culture as the officers’ palpable enthusiasm for Paris collides with their sentiments of national loyalty. Like numerous others, Glinka felt that his primary expository task was to describe the journey across Western Europe and into Paris in the ultra-nationalistic idiom of the day.4 Nonetheless, his account clearly illustrates the conflict that existed between the writer’s rhetorical duty and his cultural inclinations—the result of an elite education predicated largely upon Western European, and especially French, culture and texts. An implicit obstacle in Glinka’s Letters of a Russian Officer, this contradiction becomes an explicit theme for Batiushkov. Another question that this chapter attempts to answer is whether or not a changed perception of Russia’s place in Western European culture emerged in travel accounts written in the years that immediately follow the Napoleonic period. As it turns out, evidence of the recent war or of ongoing debates about national culture is surprisingly absent in tourist accounts from the subsequent decade (1815-25). Virtually ignoring the pressing cultural issues that so characterized wartime writing, postwar travelers such as Vasily Zhukovsky celebrated a return t o established touristic protocols. His work illustrates a continuing perception of Western European travel as an educational ritual requiring canonical forms and predetermined conclusions. If military victory did encourage the growing independence of Russia’s literary tradition, this new found “power” was often expressed in the elegant imitation and adoption of Western examples. 1. Fyodor Glinka’s Grandest Tour: Paris, 1814 Fyodor Nikolaevich Glinka began to publish Letters of a Russian Officer in 1808 with a two-volume description of his participation in Russia’s recent defeat in Austria (1805).5 At that time, no continuation of the text (or the war) was foreseen: during the illusory interval of peace that followed the Treaty of Tilsit, Lieutenant Glinka retired from military service and made a tour of

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the Russian provinces.6 When Napoleon invaded in 1812, however, Glinka rejoined the army and continued his military account as a serialized report from the front lines. These installments were printed in journals during the war and shortly afterwards appeared together with the earlier two volumes and Glinka’s domestic travel writing in a complete eight-volume edition (1815-16).7 Of these, it was the account of 1812-14 that made the greater impression and laid the foundation for Glinka’s subsequent literary career. Also a poet, he became the associate and friend of his generations’ most notable literati, including the travel writers Kondraty Ryleev, Aleksandr Bestuzhev, Vilgelm Kiukhelbeker, Vasily Zhukovsky, and Aleksandr Pushkin. Glinka was elected president of the prestigious Free Society of Amateurs of Russian Literature in 1819 and maintained the post until 1825, when he was arrested for his association with the Decembrists. For Glinka and his comrades, military victory did not immediately usher in a new age of self-confidence or provide a different orientation towards the West, but only increased already existing cultural tensions. Like other literary products born of the Napoleonic era’s social and political exigencies, Letters of a Russian Officer contains a mixture of conflicting voices. While its nationalistic effusions typify the era’s heightened patriotic sentiments, these are simultaneously complicated and even contradicted by an underlying respect for French culture. If propagandistic imperatives demanded that Russian writers actively condemn French influence in all its forms, the act of doing so was made more difficult by their profound entanglement with it. In particular, the very discussion of issues such as national identity and cultural autonomy required Russian officers to employ the language and concepts acquired during their own Eurocentric educations. As Letters of a Russian Officer shows, the result was often a sort of intellectual impasse in which the writer’s language falls short of being a workable tool for the description of a new cultural experience. If some of these men appear to write “badly,” it might be argued that the Napoleonic Wars forced them to do so. Like the newly independent colonial writers of the twentieth century, these men were “caught between the excessive novelty” of the post-Napoleonic era and “the excessive anachronism” of their literary and cultural training.8 Glinka’s description of visiting Paris in 1814 demonstrates the effect of this cultural bind.

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Fyodor Glinka’s general views on the relationship between French and Russian culture were also influenced by his older brother Sergei, a well-known cultural conservative and journalist to whom Fyodor dedicated Letters of a Russian Officer. Sergei Glinka joined figures such as Aleksandr Shishkov and Fyodor Rostopchin in vehemently arguing for the liberation of Russian culture from the domination of foreign influence so that it might follow a more original and specifically indigenous trajectory. Like Karamzin, he shared the epoch’s general interest in national history and wrote works romanticizing the national pedigree; he also founded the Russian Herald, a journal specifically intended to promote national pride with illustrations of Russian courage and bravery.9 Such emphases found a clear echo in the public-spirited goals of Fyodor’s own Letters of a Russian Officer as well as in other texts from the era.10 While Fyodor’s approach to French culture was more moderate than that of his brother, he was clearly sensitive t o the romantic appeal of Sergei’s less ambivalent position. A scene described in Letters of a Russian Officer immortalized Sergei’s dramatic rejection of the French cultural heritage as Napoleon’s troops were closing in on Moscow: Yesterday, my brother Sergei Nikolaevich escorted his wife and children out of the city. Today he burnt and tore up all the French books in his wonderful library, in their rich bindings, destroying all his objects of luxury and fashion. Reaching such an extreme degree of embitterment i n those minutes when the enemy already is nearing the heart of Russia i s forgivable in one who has been writing against the plagues of a French education for seven years [i.e., since the Russian defeat in 1805] (4:73-4).

In one of his own contributions to the Russian Herald, Fyodor condemned the pernicious influence of French culture and argued that “French teachers are no less dangerous that French conquerors.”11 At the same time, he was discomfited by what he felt to be the cultural insufficiencies of his own background, characterizing himself in his autobiography as lacking the “classical education and preparatory knowledge” required to make him a real “man of letters.”12 More generally, Glinka and his peers differed from their eighteenth-century forebears in that leisured Western European travel had not often been part of their upbringing: tours abroad were virtually off limits for young noblemen reaching maturity in the Napoleonic era. Nonetheless, their educations continued to emphasize the significance of French culture and Paris remained a principal point of reference. “Who doesn’t want to go

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to Paris?” joked Lazhechnikov’s protagonist as he ducked into an inn named for the French capital in the Polish town of Kalisz (99). However insufficient Glinka considered his background to be, it did enable him to speak of “recollections” or “memories” (vospominaniia) when seeing Paris for the first time: The knights of the Crusades […] felt no such pleasant trembling i n nearing the goal of their long campaigns and great labors as do the nurslings of a French education upon approaching the capital of France. Every step is a recollection!13

Glinka was on leave when the Russian army reached the French capital in March of 1814. After rejoining his comrades that June in Chalon, however, he was granted permission to make a brief trip t o Paris together with one of his brothers and a Frenchman from Langres who had been recommended to them by a mutual acquaintance. His description of the sojourn in Paris constitutes the final volume of Letters of a Russian Officer and differs from the rest of his military account in more consistently following the norms of grand tour travel writing. Loci comuni include details on tourist rituals, cultural institutions, and aspects of French character. His description of Paris under the allied occupation also contains a number of elements that were widely shared in the accounts of Russian officers, such as comments on the uniqueness of that historical moment, on the striking image of Russian soldiers in the French capital, on Tsar Alexander’s generosity towards the city in sparing it from the fate of Moscow (destruction by fire), and on Parisian manifestations of respect and admiration for the Russian tsar. Like many others, Glinka’s traveler sees both vanity and irony in the city’s numerous monuments to its fallen leader and understands the removal of Napoleon’s statue from atop the column at Place Vendôme to illustrate both the anger of a people betrayed and the fickleness of the French character. Letters of a Russian Officer ultimately finds the roots of the French defeat in such changeability—their support first of the Revolution and then of Napoleon—and presents the war’s outcome as demonstration of God’s moral judgment on the subject. Glinka’s text reveals a strong ambivalence towards Paris.14 Like Fonvizin and Aleksandr Kurakin, he prepares the ground for his visit by preemptively condemning the dangers of seductive French culture. At the same time, he and his fellow travelers carefully plan their sightseeing activities in advance so that they might make the

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most of their limited stay. Upon arrival in the French capital, the linear movement that had characterized Glinka’s description of the march across Europe gives way to touristic gyrations: A man in Paris is like a feather in the wind, involuntarily spinning. Here there is so much to talk about that I don’t know where to begin!.. I have forgotten both the days and the dates (8:35).

This change is echoed in the account’s structure as Glinka abandons the epistolary format of his earlier letters to offer a collection of brief essays and descriptive sketches with explanatory titles (“A View of Palais-Royal,” “The French Theater,” and so on). His traveling persona reveals new facets as well. During the war, Glinka had described himself clad in a tattered uniform left over from the campaign in Austria: “nothing but a navy blue jacket, made from a navy blue tail coat, the skirt of which had been burnt from nomadic life on the field under fire” (4:102). In Paris, however, he purchases new apparel to complement his touristic activities—countering his obvious delight with an explanation sufficient to remove any suspicion of unpatriotic Gallomania: We bought frock-coats, round hats, stockings, shoes, slender walking sticks and in a flash were decked out like citizens of Paris. That’s what all of our men do, for a Russian officer in uniform meets everywhere glances askance and a thousand unpleasantnesses (8:13-4).

In general, Glinka’s traveler handles moments of enthusiasm in Paris with great caution, systematically curbing and/or justifying his raptures. The mere thought of Paris had provoked “pleasant tremblings,” but his actual first view of the city meets with a less agreeable vision: although “many cities shine from afar […]: Paris stands dark in the thick of shadows”; apart from the domes and towers of Nôtre-Dame, the Pantheon, and the Hôtel des Invalides, “all the rest is gray and dark” (8:9). While perhaps an accurate assessment of the weather or the city’s architectural palette, these comments nonetheless refrain from sounding the note of exultation found elsewhere in Glinka’s text and in the accounts of his comrades. A similar drabness is noted in a letter of Batiushkov’s, for example, although it does not interfere with the traveler’s general response of delight: From the heights of Montreuil, I saw Paris, covered with a thick fog, an endless row of buildings above which lords Nôtre-Dame with its tall

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towers. I confess that my heart trembled with joy. So many recollections! (270)

The Russian Officer, however, struggles to excuse, deny, downplay, or contradict his own expressions of pleasure. Upon taking the initial step down from his coach onto the streets of Paris, he remarks coolly that his French companion “jumped for joy, seeing himself in Paris for the first time!” (8:10), but neglects to report his own sensations. Polemical interactions with French culture were standard fare in accounts from the Napoleonic period and Glinka joined other Russian writers in drawing heavily upon the rhetorical strategies of Fonvizin in order to elaborate them.15 Fonvizin’s scathing criticisms of France had first become available to Russian readers in 1798, when two letters to Panin were published in the St. Petersburg Journal; these were reprinted with four others in the European Herald of 1806.16 If Fonvizin’s model had earlier been shunned by cosmopolitan travelers such as Karamzin, his letters were seized upon during the war years as examples of forceful patriotic rhetoric that offered the conceptual framework and language necessary to articulate issues of national identity. Indeed, Fonvizin’s influence reached an apotheosis in this era. Glinka and his peers similarly mixed censure with admiration, alternating between scorning Parisian society and trying to integrate themselves into it. Even while these men take issue with the supposed excesses of French culture and character—modishness, frivolity, lasciviousness, and so forth—they clearly feel their appeal as well. The Russian Officer’s account of dining at the luxurious restaurant Beauvilliers illustrates some of the rhetorical maneuvering prompted by this multifaceted attitude towards the surrounding environment. He begins with expressions of delight at the restaurant’s lavish interior: I was just now in a Parisian restaurant and I confess that at first glance I was astonished, surprised, and enchanted. [...] I thought that I would find, as in Germany, an inn—spacious, light, and clean—and nothing more! I go in and stop, thinking that I've entered the wrong place; I daren’t go further. The floor is varnished, the walls mirrored, the ceiling chandeliered! Painting, carving, and gilding everywhere! I thought that I had entered some kind of a temple to taste and the arts! (8:14-5)

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The amazed traveler goes on to describe the captivating hostess, a “tsaritsa in her own restaurant.” His tone changes, however, when he confronts the elaborate menu: They immediately set us a special table for three; a servant appeared, proffered the menu and we had to choose dishes for ourselves. I cast a glance at the menu and came to a halt. Up to one hundred dishes were presented here under names the likes of which we Russians have never heard. Parisian innkeepers act in this case like experienced connoisseurs of people: they are sure that you always pay more for everything unfamiliar and unknown. A piece of simple beef—which in whatever alterations it appears, everyone calls “beef” in Russia—has here, on the contrary, twenty names. What inventive wit! What marvelous enlightenment! (8:16)

As the traveler begins to feel out of his league, he takes defensive measures and employs rhetorical strategies similar to Fonvizin’s in order to affirm his self-confidence and superiority amidst French society. Aided by a sarcastic tone, he justifies his own discomfort by equating it with the response of his French travel companion: I passed the menu to B. He couldn’t understand anything either because, he said, in provincial cities they don’t give any sort of magnificent and diverse names to meat, soup, and bread: this subtlety is peculiar only t o Paris (8:16-7).

This alliance with the French provincial relieves the traveler of any need to be embarrassed about his own difficulty with the menu. Even considerable familiarity with French culture proves insufficient preparation for navigating capricious Parisian society: both men are equally foreigners in Paris. Fonvizin had similarly suggested in his letters that The residents of Paris consider their city to be the capital of the world and the world to be their provinces. They consider Bourgogne, for example, a near province and Russia a far one. A Frenchman coming here from Bordeaux and a Russian from Petersburg are both called foreigners.17

Ultimately, Glinka’s traveler and his companions are rescued from their predicament by recalling Russian advice gleaned in Chalon from officers who were returning from Paris; they then manage t o order successfully and enjoy their meal. Strong echoes of Fonvizin also appear in Glinka’s subsequent tirade against Parisian narrow-mindedness, a passage that seems t o

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have been inspired by his anxiety at the menu. Here, as elsewhere in his account of Paris, Glinka is unable to sustain a consistent point of view. He describes his behavior then attempts to justify it as his narratorial tone swings abruptly from rapture to disdain t o self-defense: But why, you ask, did the choice of courses put us in such difficulty? Because it was necessary to select without fail those items that are eaten here at supper. Just try asking at supper for a luncheon dish which you happen to have a taste for and they’ll immediately call you something more than a barbarian, more than unenlightened: they will call you “ridiculous” (ridicule). Then you’ve fallen completely: The Parisian sooner agrees to be a rogue and a scoundrel than to be called ridiculous! (8:17)

Fonvizin’s words on the subject appear in a long and eloquent critique of Parisian society, in which he lambastes both French and foreign tourists for their fear of earning the ubiquitous epithet “ridicule.” He blames this state of affairs on the exaggerated importance given in France to social protocols; one might perish forever, he notes, by asking for a drink between lunch and dinner: Who would not agree sooner to die from thirst than, slaking it, drag into contempt the remainder of his life? These trifles comprise an entire science, occupying the time and wit of most travelers. They absorb themselves in it all the more zealously since they live among a nation, where ridicule is the most terrible thing of all. If they’re speaking about a person, there is no need to say that he has an evil heart or an unsuitable disposition, but if they say that he is ridicule, then he is really as good as lost, for everyone avoids his society (2:473-4).

Fonvizin’s rendition is arguably more successful: he both illustrates how ridiculous the French themselves are and, with his sharper tone, vanquishes the threat of finding oneself at their mercy. Glinka’s more hesitant account has the air of a cautionary tale about committing faux pas abroad. With the second-person singular, Glinka implies that his readers would have struggled with the menu as well, thus coercing the audience, like his French travel companion, to help alleviate his possible insecurities about cultural inadequacy. The Russian Officer relaxes somewhat in the Jardin des Plantes, the Paris zoo and botanical garden. Here, his eager description indicates a fascination with the representative samples of plant and animal life from around the world:

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On the most moderate space I saw, so to speak, all of nature in reduced dimensions. All the trees, shrubberies and plants from the four corners of the world are collected here; all the wild beasts of Europe, Asia, Africa and America live here in both captivity and freedom. […] I rested under the long branches of a thick and tall Lebanese cypress and upon passing b y glanced into the abode of a most enormous elephant. I was in a valley of wild beasts; I saw noble lions, shapely leopards, fierce tigers, crafty, ferocious hyenas, a whole society of monkeys, an entire flock of parrots and so on and so forth. […] Strolling here, you think you’ve crossed the seas and are wandering about in other parts of the world. […] I heard the roar of wild beasts from Africa, the roar of European creatures; I rested under the shade of Asian trees, and listened to the evening warbles of American birds, watching as the last rays of the dying day shone magnificently on the golden iridescent feathers of strolling flocks of peacocks. [...] It seemed to me that I stood at the focus of the universe and that I heard the communal song of creation, gently resounding into the unreachable boundaries of mountainous lands towards the Unknowable Creator!… (8:120-3).

Glinka’s enthusiasm for such collections was typical for the era. He had similarly exulted in Dresden’s collection of natural rarities, t o which “the seas of Europe, the deserts of Africa, and the forests of America have sent all of the rare things they possessed” (5:55), and noted with pleasure that the spoils of war had brought to the Louvre objects “for whose examination one formerly needed t o travel throughout Italy” (8:107-8). Nor was he the first Russian traveler to find in Paris entire worlds or universes: Fonvizin had declared in 1778, for example, that “Paris is not a city at all; it must in truth be called an entire world” (438).18 It is interesting t o note, however, that at both the Louvre and the botanical garden, Glinka defends his passion by identifying the offered pleasures as global, rather than particularly French. Frequently, the Russian Officer cites French texts or describes himself reading them; he particularly enjoys guidebooks and like publications that condense and characterize the surrounding environment. During his visit to the Jardin des Plantes, for example, he moves from exhibit to exhibit with a guide to the park in hand, modeling his behavior after that of the French tourists. As in Karamzin, the citation of foreign texts and voices often reinforces the traveler’s own views by demonstrating that they are widely shared by “inside” cultural authorities. The incorporation of foreign sources allows Glinka to describe the experience of visiting Paris without risking an idiosyncratic view. Expected themes and

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canonical aesthetic judgments also help to legitimize his interactions, responses, and activities by connecting them to a larger, Western tradition. Not surprisingly, the Russian Officer avoids presenting situations as being personally related to him or individually specific. The numerous parallels that he constructs between himself and other tourists, between quoted opinions, his own, and those of the reader or “reasonable person” guarantee that he is not alone. Like Fonvizin, he, too, borrows from French texts to condemn French culture. A locally published Guide to Paris, for example, fully supports Glinka’s own critique of the vice-ridden Palais-Royal (a standard travel writing topos): “Honor and virtue are banished from these places. Thirst for gold, card games, swindlers, deceivers and whole crowds of charming ladies, with all their snares and enticements, meet here the inexperienced youth!” […] That’s what the French themselves say about Palais-Royal in their books that are sold right at Palais-Royal (8:20-1).

The Officer’s most extended discussion of French-Russian relations may be found in his review of a satirical French newssheet that he purchases on the street. Entitled “The Russians Bid Farewell to the Parisians,” the text emphasizes the dejection of the Russians on the eve of their departure from Paris. “Read this,” says the traveler, “and you’ll see what the Frenchman says about the Russians and what he forces the Russian to say about the French” (8:168). In the piece that follows, caricatured Russians utter nothing but proclamations of their devotion to French culture in all of its aspects—ranging from opera to prostitutes. By ironically presenting Paris through Russian eyes, the French text suggests various negative stereotypes of the Russians that circulated widely in Western Europe at the time, including economic naiveté, professional irresponsibility, and, most importantly, intellectual, social, and cultural servility: Good-bye, Mssrs. Cook, Pastry-Chef, Tailor, Cobbler, Metalsmith, Saddler; it will be a long time before you forget the incredible generosity of the Russian. […] Good-bye, Mssrs. Booksellers! Mind don’t blame the military commotion that we hadn’t time to get to know you more intimately! The Opéra, Phaedon, Variété, Vaudeville, and Ambigu [Parisian theaters] swallowed up all of our leisure! But wait a bit, we’ll send you Russian money for French books from the far-away lands of our fatherland! French books in Russia are held in great regard! Your wonderful language thunders and is praised even in the very wildernesses of the North! Good-bye, shining societies of the best people, people of

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This newssheet also indicates that the French themselves were not indifferent to the cultural implications of the allied occupation and had to adjust their own bearings in the face of the Russian military presence in Paris. Glinka ends his account of Paris, as had Fonvizin, with a lengthy summary of French character, again borrowing from the French in order to denounce them; here his mentor is a Parisian resident who shuns high society and writes critiques of it. Like other military travel writers from the Napoleonic era, Glinka is unable to consciously elaborate the discomfort to which his work unwittingly gives evidence. It might be argued that the reasons for this situation are partly generic: after all, early nineteenth-century Russian travel writing on Western Europe was not generally a vehicle for thoughtful self-introspection and while the legacy of sentimentalism meant that writers could discuss certain emotions, the prescribed set of these rarely included feelings of embarrassment, unease, or insecurity. When Russian accounts of visiting Paris in 1814 did broach topics of cultural disorientation and discomfort, these generally triggered assertive and defensive responses. Such passages were designed to set up the narrator’s triumphs, rather than encourage philosophical reflection. Largely absent are Conscious statements of the writer’s own difficulties in coming to terms with French influence or other acknowledgments of the era’s peculiar literary and social pressures are largely absent. Another example of wartime travel writing is the diary of Aleksandr Chicherin, where linguistic and conceptual difficulties again generate the ambivalent and self-contradictory prose so characteristic of the era’s military accounts. Originally written in French, Chicherin’s diary illustrates that what had recently become the language of the enemy was the literary norm for many Russian writers; without it, some risked having only circumscribed and often insufficient linguistic means at their disposal. French was also, of course, the lingua franca throughout Europe, a fact that

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helped to justify its continued usage among members of the Russian elite during the war. Nonetheless, given the cultural polemics that raged during this period, it is curious that Chicherin—a generally clever and thoughtful writer—seems willfully oblivious to the contradictions of keeping his diary in French. The problem of language does come up briefly during his stay in Germany where he records difficulty in communicating with the local residents: “We were talking the other day about the utility of a world-wide language which would facilitate relations between countries,” he begins, opening a topic that in itself would seem superfluous for a Russian who kept his diary in French. In fact, he easily concludes that “such a language exists, and we are indebted for it again to the French.”19 His touch of irony hints at an awareness of issues that Chicherin nonetheless leaves unexplored. As with Glinka, the perspective that results resembles that of the colonial writer in that it “has no choice but to register its own bewilderment at the relation between education and empire, seduced as it was into the quaint belief that literature could somehow provide a respite from what it means to gain consciousness in a colonial world.”20 2. Movement and Authority: Batiushkov in Wartime France Konstantin Batiushkov described visiting France with Alexander I’s army in a series of familiar letters from Paris and a brief sketch entitled “Journey to Château Cirey” (1815). Like other writers of the era, Batiushkov was well aware of the historical significance of his testimony. Many of his letters were conscious literary works, examples of what he later called “my real genre (rod)” (2:433). Those addressed to his friend Nikolai Gnedich were the familiar epistles of one writer to another, while a letter on Paris to Dmitry Dashkov was designed for wide circulation and perhaps publication.21 Elaborate datelines help to historically contextualize the experiences which he recounts: his letter on crossing the Rhine was written in the “Département of the Upper Rhine or Old Alsace, at the fortress of Belfort, village of Fontaine, on the eve of the new year, December 31 old style” and that on entering Paris from “Juissi-sur-Seine, on the outskirts of Paris” (2:266, 269). Batiushkov’s travel writing indicates a desire to distinguish his own account of the war from those that preceded it. In particular, he wished to differentiate his perspective from that found in

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contemporary journalism—exemplified in the increasingly conservative European Herald (now edited by Mikhail Kachenovsky) and Nikolai Grech’s Son of the Fatherland. As Batiushkov puts it in the postscript to an earlier letter: I hope that you don’t publish my letter in The Herald or Son of the Fatherland after the example of friends who correspond with military men—those who in their spare time laud their generals, their great feats, and so on and so on and so on—or after the example of Pisarev, who dryly informs the public about his own affairs. But I forgive him for his exemplary fearlessness. Yet I cannot forgive our journalists for their lying, which has made me sick here in Weimar. Gagarin gave me a few issues of the Son of the Fatherland and the European Herald. Each outdoes the other! (2:264)

Batiushkov’s frustration with such inflated tales continued after the war: “Et voilà comme on écrit l’histoire!” [And that’s the way you write history!], he wrote sardonically in 1817: “A simple warrior, I saw the fall of Moscow, saw the wars of 1812, 13, and 14, saw and read the papers and contemporary histories. So many lies!”22 Batiushkov’s letters appear to respond in part to Glinka’s Letters of a Russian Officer as well. In 1815, he acknowledged that he knew and enjoyed Glinka’s account—despite its certain lack of taste and excessive criticism of the French: I read his Letters with unspeakable pleasure. Much wit, much imagination, lively and original diction. We wish him more taste and less desire to declaim against wealth and the French—a family sin! [i.e. shared with his brother Sergei] (2:346).

While Letters of a Russian Officer had claimed to focus primarily on military events, addressing cultural and other information only briefly, Batiushkov emphasizes a more subjective point of view: “On military and political miracles, I’ll speak in passing: for that there are newspapers; I will speak with you [instead] about myself until my hand grows tired” (2:269). On the whole, Batiushkov’s travel writing is shorter, crisper, less given to narratorial explanation or justification, and less ambivalent about the importance of French culture than Glinka’s Letters. His work also distinguishes itself from this and other earlier texts in its pointed use of movement and conversational exchange. One of Batiushkov’s principal letters is an eyewitness account of the taking of Paris addressed to Gnedich. Here he describes how cries of admiration greet the tsar and his troops upon their entry

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into the capital: “Ah, how handsome these Russians are! […] Long live Alexander, long live the Russians, the heroes from the North!” Onlookers note the Russians’ excellent knowledge of French with astonishment: “But, sir, one would take you for a Frenchmen [...] since you have no accent.” “That’s a great honor, my dear sir, I’m not in fact worthy of it,” sardonically responds the traveler t o himself in Russian (2:271). A similar retort appeared in Glinka’s commentary on the French newssheet: “Can we not avoid the promotion to northern Frenchmen? We’re not in fact worthy of it” (8:403). Such linguistic compliments had also been noted by Fonvizin: In their [the French] opinion, they have not only the very best customs i n the world, but also the very best type of countenance, bearing, and manners, so that the first and most respectful compliment to the foreigner consists in none other but these exact words: “Monsieur, vous n’avez point l’air étranger du tout, je vous en fais bien mon compliment!” [Sir, you haven’t the air of a foreigner at all; I’m making you a nice compliment!] (2:472).23

Batiushkov also uses local testimonials to illustrate a wide gap between the bilingual Russian and his uneducated French interlocutors. Other voices in the crowd supply further indication of ignorance about these unknown conquerors, noting with evident surprise both their normality and magnificence. The traveler is asked “why I have curly blond hair, why is it long?”; “Look, he has a ring on his hand,” exclaims another, “Evidently they wear rings in Russia, too. […] What long cannons they have, longer than ours” (2:272). “But, sir, are the Russians Christians like the rest of us?” asks a French provincial in another letter and Batiushkov again responds with ironic restraint: “That question could be put t o them, but I remained silent” (2:267). Here and elsewhere, French interlocutors naively equate the French-speaking Russian officers with Kalmyks, Cossacks, Siberians, and other exotic groups from the Russian Empire: “What haven’t I seen my fill of in life?” queries an aged Frenchman in “Journey to Château Cirey,” “I’ve seen the enemy in my homeland and now I’m talking with a Cossack officer. Marvels, truly marvels!”24 Like Glinka, Batiushkov notes among the French a national tendency towards fickleness of character and makes the point by describing a frenzied mob toppling the statue of Napoleon in Place Vendôme: “Oh, the marvelous people of Paris,” he intones, “ a people deserving pity and laughter” (2:273). He also offers brief

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commentary on touristic sites such as the Tuileries, the Arc du Triomphe, the Louvre, Nôtre-Dame, and Palais-Royal where the traveler feasts on oysters and champagne by day and remarks aggressive prostitutes at night. Batiushkov speaks more frankly than Glinka, however, on the excitement of being in France and in Paris. In a letter to Gnedich, he renders the thrill of crossing the Rhine by repeating “we’re in France” three times in the first paragraph. While he immediately links his enthusiasm to Russian national feeling, he does so without Glinka’s justificatory tone: “These words “we’re in France” arouse a thousand thoughts in my head, the result of which is that I am proud of my homeland here in this land of her foolhardy enemies” (2:266-7). Another letter captures the momentousness of entering the capital with similar brevity: “I’ll tell you simply: I’m in Paris! […] I’ll simply say: I’m in Paris” (2:275-6).25 Lazhechnikov had found the Russian arrival inexpressible (169); Batiushkov presents it as unreal, clouded in part by lack of sleep: I saw Paris through a dream or in a dream. For truly wasn’t it a dream that we had? And is it not in a dream we now hear that Napoleon has refused the crown, that he’s on the run, and so on and so on and so on? Living i n this world is strange, strange, dear friend! […] Often, like Doubting Thomas, I pinch my head and ask: “My God, is this me?” (2:273)

Unlike Glinka, Batiushkov avoids stumbling on the imposing monolith of Parisian culture in his letters. He notes that the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, the burning of Moscow, and destruction of Russia have permanently disenchanted him with “the fatherland of Henry IV, the great Racine, and Montaigne” (2:267). “La grande nation! Le grand homme! Le grand siècle!” he writes to Gnedich, “All empty words, my friend, with which our tutors frightened us” (2:274). Disingenuously complaining that the letter format prevents him from adequately detailing his experiences, Batiushkov refrains from the informational description that had burdened Glinka’s Letters of a Russian Officer and slowed their sense of narrative movement. Rather than “involuntarily spinning like a feather in the wind,” he keeps narratorial commentary or explanation to a minimum. Particularly in his letters to Gnedich, Batiushkov conveys information as much through the dynamic rendering of his interactions as through direct authorial speech, creating swiftly-moving epistles that fully exploit the travelogue’s potential for movement.

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To a certain extent, the description of narratorial movement is “built in” to the military travelogue. In their accounts, Russian officers tend to characterize themselves in constant motion, either advancing with the army or rushing between its different camps in the performance of various commissions. Like Glinka and Lazhechnikov, Batiushkov assumes the pose of the rapid scribbler.26 He speaks of himself as a “half-barbarian, covered with the dust of war,” who is unable to find the time to calmly describe his experiences—“I’ve begun to write to you several times, […] but always in vain, because we were in constant motion”—or reluctant to bore his reader with a detailed account of what must already have been familiar from the newspapers (in the case of military events) or from their reading of Parisian guidebooks (in the case of culture) (2:275, 264). Batiushkov had experimented with techniques for rendering movement in an earlier attempt at military travel writing, an account of the 1809 Russian campaign against Sweden entitled “ A Picture of Finland” (1810).27 Although vaguely shaped as a familiar letter, “A Picture of Finland” presents the narrator’s experience from an impersonal, even third-person point of view: “Every step of the traveler is heard in the snowy wasteland” (1:97). As “picture” would suggest, the text is largely visual description with little narrative movement; it nonetheless manages to evoke a restrained dynamism in its account of the Russian army imposing itself on the Finnish forest—not only in the suggestion of the army’s latent power, but also in the rendering of this scene in a manner that forces the reader’s mental eye to move around a verbal canvas: But what a subject for the painter’s brush: a martial camp, arranged over these cliffs, when the rays of the moon spill onto the wearied soldiers and slide along the gleaming metal of the guns stacked in pyramids! (1:98)28

In Batiushkov’s subsequent military travel writing—including both his letters and “Journey to Château Cirey”—this dynamic quality becomes more explicit. The traveler’s incessant movement shapes the description of his military and touristic affairs, as well as his personal interactions with the locals. If his ironic repartee sometimes echoes that of Fonvizin, Batiushkov’s traveler avoids the static positions assumed by the participants in his predecessor’s mise en scènes, following instead the example of the more restless Karamzin. “In the native

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land of Goethe, Wieland and other scholars,” he writes from Weimar, “I wander like a Scythian” (2:262). Like Karamzin, he uses narratorial dynamism as a conversational response to suggest his own independence. In his March 1814 letter to Gnedich, for example, the traveler rarely presents himself engaging in conversational give and take, but prefers to respond with sarcasm, ironic silence, or by simply moving away. Such detachment underlines both the locals’ ignorance and their admiration by leaving their words to reverberate in traveler’s wake. Batiushkov’s use of the narratorial exit also allows him t o transcend the rhetorical dilemmas that constrain Glinka’s work. As in Karamzin, movement enables the traveler to enter into and exit from a given situation without betraying any personal interest in or anxiety about the interaction. The refusal to engage in extended interactions also demonstrates the traveler’s superiority and nonchalance, indicating with as each such departure that foreign interlocutors have little power to slow or stay him. He thus asserts the exercise of personal autonomy much as had Karamzin’s traveler in drifting away from Dr. Platner. In Karamzin, the traveler’s dynamism had also provided a balance for the text’s sentimentalist tendencies and further enhanced the sense of savoirfaire demonstrated in his displays of cultural erudition. Evidence of a similar sophistication permeates Batiushkov’s letters as well, although he combines them with a more Romantic military ethos. As a result, mobility and nonchalance suggest not only the traveler’s confidence, but also his power. The dynamism of Batiushkov’s traveler both frames and enables the cultural triumphs that form the core of his “Journey t o Château Cirey.” This sketch describes a brief side trip to the estate where the Marquise du Châtelet had hosted Voltaire for many of his most productive years. “Journey to Cirey” was completed in 1815, although it presents itself, like Batiushkov’s letter on the taking of Paris, as an immediate rendition of the reported events, underlining this with the subtitle “a letter from France to D. V. Dashkov” and the date “February 26, 1814.”29 References to the traveler’s constant movement provide a sense of dynamic tension. The piece begins with his entrance à galop as he hurries to join waiting friends: “From the town of Bologne […] I galloped on horseback to Soncourt” (1:99). The pace of the narrative is further increased by the party’s growing anticipation as it draws near to the estate: “we took every château, every village for Cirey” (1:101). A

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similarly swift departure signals the approaching conclusion: “The beat of horses’ hooves resounded on the pavement of the spacious courtyard. We left the château behind…” (1:107). At the end of his journey, the traveler is called away from his account to rejoin the campaign: “The march is ordered; shots can be heard in the distance. Farewell!” (1:108).30 Voltaire’s previous haunts offer a provocative backdrop for discussions of Russian culture and Batiushkov addresses the relationship between the travel party and the cultural legacy of the Enlightenment in several places. In doing so, it omits certain details about the context of his visit, namely, as his correspondence reveals, that he visited the château as the guest of two comrades who were actually stationed there (2:269). A loquacious French resident of the château who serves as the travelers’ de facto guide suggests that the Russian presence at Cirey is a desecration of this cultural shrine: You come into Émilie’s [the Marquise du Châtelet’s] château with a weapon in your hands, with a crowd of people who dwell on the banks of the Volga and drink Siberian waters, and where the Marquise would water poppies, roses, and lilies with her lovely hand, in the very dovecote where she would feed barley to the doves, there at the entrance of “Zaire’s Alley,” where she loved to rest in the shade of the ancient cedars and where, at her feet, Voltaire ecstatically read the first verses of his immortal tragedy and sought praise and approbation in the blue eyes of his Urania, in her goddesslike smile—there, my dear sirs, you post sentries with terrible mustaches, grenadiers and Cossacks, who cause all of France t o tremble…? (1:103)

The travelers burst out laughing at such a description. Certainly their respect for the site surpasses that shown to it by the French during the Revolution: various traces of the damages sustained at that time are noted in Batiushkov’s sketch. In fact, Voltaire’s Cirey library had escaped destruction only because he had removed it from the premises after the death of Madame du Châtelet in 1749. “You need to go to Ferney,” offers the guide, “maybe those valuables can be found there.” The Russians gently correct his misperceptions: “You need to go to Petersburg,” one of them points out, alluding to Catherine’s purchase of Voltaire’s collection: “both the manuscripts and the Ferney library are in the Hermitage” (1:105). Like Karamzin’s Russian Traveler, Batiushkov triumphs over the West by outdoing its cultural sophistication. Upon finding an edition of Voltaire’s collected

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works later than night, the traveling party happily contemplates the eighteenth century and “great Catherine, its finest ornament” (1:105). In the dining hall, they declaim patriotic Russian verse: In those rooms where Voltaire wrote his finest verses, we, with a certain pride, forgivable in the warrior, rapturously recited the odes of the singer of Felitsa [Derzhavin’s ode to Catherine] and of the immortal Lomonosov, in which inspired lyrics glorify the wondrous greatness of Russia, the patriotic love of her sons, and the glory of the Russian sword. C’est du Nord à présent que nous vient la lumière. The light of science now shines from the North (1:104-5).31

In his March 1814 letter to Gnedich, Batiushkov renders the event with less bombastic pathos, but as much national feeling: “The banners of our grenadiers hung in the hall where we ate, and we greeted the phantoms of the Cirey nymph and of her lover in Russian fashion, i.e., with a large glass of wine” (2:269). For Batiushkov, it is not only the narrator’s status as an “armed traveler” that alters his relationship to Western Europe, but also his dynamism. Even in the case of leisured touring, mobility implies power: the prerogative of movement and often the privilege of travel itself define the traveler against the comparatively static environment through which he or she journeys. The march of the Russian army across Europe and its entry into Paris further exaggerated travel’s implicit linkage of movement and power; Batiushkov channels this power into the narratorial figure, using the backdrop of Western Europe, unlike Glinka, to demonstrate increased narratorial confidence and independence. The authority of his narratorial voice derives from this dynamic relationship with the surroundings. Like both Fonvizin and Karamzin, Batiushkov asserts himself against foreign prejudices and preconceptions, particularly the supposition that the Russian has been accurately or finally defined. As a result, his travel writing widens narrative possibilities for the Russian subject. To some extent, local surprise at the Russians’ unexpectedly “Western” behavior and linguistic facility illustrates simple ignorance of attributes that were quite the norm in Alexander’s empire. At the same time, the Russian occupying forces did exhibit various striking features that were unfamiliar to Western European viewers, ranging from their tight-fitting military uniforms t o detachments of Cossacks and Tatar uhlans. As noted, the Russian officers frequently remark French confusion about the precise identity of their army’s constituent parts. Russian comments on

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the subject—whether bemused or annoyed—indicate that they understood perfectly well the negative implications of being associated with or mistaken for these less “Western” and more “Oriental” groups. Indeed, they often used derogatory conceptions of Asians in their own political rhetoric, as in comparing Napoleon’s assault on Russia to a Tatar invasion and the French Emperor himself to warlord Batu. It is not surprising, then, that despite their ambivalence about Western culture, Russian officers in 1814 Paris were none too quick to identify themselves with the more exotic segments of their multinational army. More apparent in their texts is a desire to impress the French with their European qualities. Kondraty Ryleev suggests that the Russian troops differed from the other occupying forces in their disciplined comportment and thus remained external to the tensions that developed between these and the local residents. When a Parisian approaches him t o complain about the behavior of the allied troops, he responds with “I’m a Russian, you’re speaking to me without reason” and “Enough, enough, I beg you, we’re not guilty—we’re the Russians”; his interlocutor readily agrees with this distinction.32 Russian ties with Asia sometimes caused embarrassment as well. The memoirs of the hussar poet Denis Davydov, for example, based on his wartime diary, describe obvious discomfort with the presence of “savage” Kalmyks in the French capital.33 Some describe the spectacle of the Russian army’s non-Western troops encamped on the Champs Elysees with pride, however, pointedly underlining the contrast between them and the elegant Parisian backdrop. Consider the version offered by Lazhechnikov: Where the Parisian fop once gave his sweetheart a bunch of fresh flower buds and trembled from delight, reading his answer in her tender glances, now stands a Bashkir beside a smoky campfire, in an enormous, greasy hat with long earflaps, roasting his steak on the tip of an arrow. Garlands and veils of crepe have been replaced by saddles and shaggy felt capes. The nearby groves hearken not to the couplets of poets who were raised by the Graces themselves, tutored by Eros in person: they listen to the songs of troubadours from the Don—nurtured on the backs of wild steeds, raised on the tips of spears, and taught by simple Nature (205).

The force of such rhetoric was felt by Alexander I himself, whom Glinka quotes as declaring during the war that “I would sooner agree to move my capital to the banks of the Irtysh and walk around in a woolen kaftan than conclude a peace now with the destroyer of the Fatherland!” (4:144)

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Such remarks only hint at what might be called “reverse Orientalism”—the defensive assertion by Russian officers of features that had already been associated to them and which were defined as oriental and therefore negative.34 Other examples of this phenomenon in Russian travel writing include Karamzin’s pose as the Scythian Anacharsis and the literary account’s ubiquitous praise for “the smoke of the fatherland.” It is interesting that the Russian victory and occupation of Paris does not inspire more numerous and definitive claims of non-Western identity on the part of the Russians. If these writers sometimes exploited a perceived opposition between Europe and Asia to make rhetorical points, they did not often use it to define themselves. While Davydov himself later adopted an oriental persona and claimed Tatar blood, he does not employ this pose in his discussions of wartime France. Indeed, the 1814 texts of Russian officers indicate that they conceived themselves to be the most European subjects of the large, powerful, and multi-ethnic Russian Empire. In short, the experience of visiting Paris at the conclusion of the Napoleonic wars enhanced the Russian elite’s growing sense of being European. 3. Reaffirming the Grand Tour While Fyodor Glinka later described the Napoleonic War as a struggle in which “Russians fought for ‘the great privilege of being called Russian’,” a new sense of national pride seems to have altered but little Russia’s general cultural orientation towards the West.35 Indeed, much of Russian travel writing from the first decade after the war is a concerted attempt to renew and emphasize cultural ties with Western Europe. It may be that the French defeat allowed Russians to drop their antagonistic stance and embrace Western culture even more enthusiastically than before. Certainly, travel writers soon abandoned the patriotic rhetoric of Fonvizin and returned to the model of Karamzin. Reviving traditional itineraries and standard literary paradigms, they, too, suggested that the Russian traveler might achieve a more “independent” cultural perspective simply by assuming the identity of a Western European and adopting Western literary models as his or her birthright. Russian accounts of visiting Switzerland’s Rhine Falls—and particularly the travel writing of Vasily Zhukovsky—provide a clear example.

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In terms of literary style, several of the writers in this decade managed to rise above the level of Karamzin’s domestic epigones, approximating their mentor’s light narrative touch without his already passé sentimentalism; particularly fluent and elegant examples of the travel letter were produced in this decade by Zhukovsky and Vilgelm Kiukhelbeker.36 These accounts also resemble the travel writing of Batiushkov, albeit without his contentious or martial tones. Many of these texts assumed pareddown dimensions that further enhanced their new dynamic quality. While shorter texts had been known in Russia before the war and longer travel monographs continued to be published afterwards, the offhand letter and brief sketch were now more frequently used for the description of travel abroad. Well-adapted to journal publication, shorter forms also satisfied a growing fashion for the literary fragment and allowed writers to replace exhaustive excursus with a focus on particular moments of intense experience. This section also treats a more general philosophical problem found in literary travel writing, namely the striking conformity that is, in fact, a hallmark of the literary mode. The predictable and repetitive quality evident both in the sentimentalist travelogues of Karamzin’s epigones and in records of visiting Paris in 1814 also appears in the accounts of travel to Rhine Falls considered here. As such, it raises questions that any serious investigation of literary travel writing must address, namely why did travel writers choose to render their experiences according t o fixed paradigms? And why, if their accounts are so similar, did readers continue to read them? Another question that arises is whether or not—and if so, how—the growth of cultural autonomy can be described in a genre so bound by standardized forms. One source of travel writing’s conformity was the steadfast link between travel and education. When Aleksandr Bestuzhev wrote in 1821 that “they all say one must travel to learn; I think one must study to travel profitably,” he was stating two halves of an established truism.37 As outlined in earlier chapters, grand tourists regularly consulted relevant works by historians, diplomats, and previous travelers before venturing abroad; more often than not, they reiterated aspects of their preparatory reading in drafting their own accounts. This practice was widely endorsed. As the educator Grigory Glinka, a distant cousin of Fyodor and Sergei, put it in 1816:

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As far as Glinka was concerned, the travelogue’s ability t o reproduce procedures and conclusions found in earlier accounts was a sign of its quality. He did not envision that travelers would undertake expeditions into uncharted territory or develop idiosyncratic views: the tourist’s mission was to compare and verify, measuring reality against textual models and confirming—not challenging—the conclusions of earlier travelers. Glinka’s views reflect convictions that were widespread in Russian culture and endorsed at the highest level. A tutor in the imperial family, he addressed his remarks on travel to Alexander I’s mother, the Empress Maria Fyodorovna, who was planning t o send her two youngest sons abroad.39 While both Nikolai Pavlovich (the future Nicholas I) and Mikhail Pavlovich had followed the Russian army westward during Napoleon’s retreat and had spent some time in Paris, their mother saw benefit in further, more systematically organized travel. She proposed to conclude their educations with tours in Russia and abroad: after journeying through their native land, Nikolai Pavlovich was to visit England and Mikhail Pavlovich to see Switzerland. Their tutor agreed: “If any countries merit a visit, these are certainly England, Italy, and Switzerland.”40 Glinka proposed that the Swiss tour require one month, four days of which would be spent in and around Zurich. I t is not difficult to imagine what he intended Mikhail Pavlovich t o visit there: the main tourist attraction in the Zurich area had long been the Rhine waterfall near Schaffhausen. Glinka’s guidelines for travel writing provoke some question about the nature of the education that travel abroad actually provided. Not only were routes and destinations predictable and prescribed in advanced, but also the traveler’s responses to them and, more generally, his or her conclusions about the experience stuck to established protocols. Indeed, striking a balance between tourist rituals, canonical literary formulae, and the expression of individual perceptions was an acknowledged problem in European

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travel writing. Advice on the subject had been offered (posthumously) to Russian readers by Johann Kaspar Lavater, the renowned Swiss philosopher and physiognomist, in an 1814 issue of the European Herald.41 His counsel stressed the importance of describing the travel experience in a manner that was appreciably distinct from that of already existing texts: I expect, ask, and even demand that each [traveler] look upon things with his own eyes and note exactly the impressions made on him by any object. The traveler should show his own personal relationship to it, having first presented it as it should appear to the entire world. […] Distinguish the general from the personal; distinguish the impressions made by the remarkable object on any person having five senses from that which it specifically makes on you (86-7).

In order to achieve this individual view, the travel writer must attempt to disregard the opinions of others and the pressures of a potential audience: Ask yourself more often: how would I have begun to judge this object, how would I have begun to describe it, if I hadn’t previously read travelogues about it? [...] Would I look at a thing thusly if I were not describing it while traveling and if I firmly intended to show my journal to no one? (87-8)

Certainly, not even Lavater expected travel writers either to flout convention or to create elaborate individualized perspectives ex nihilo, but assumed that “personal” views would be responsibly presented against a background of established texts and itineraries. Nonetheless, he theoretically opens the way for travel accounts t o proceed beyond the limits of well-entrenched facts and clichés and, by underlining the tension between generic expectation and individual testimony, allows for the expression of a (comparatively) subjective perspective. It is worth noting that Lavater’s remarks were published in 1814 when a new generation of Russians that had been unable to travel abroad during the decades of war was hungry to reestablish ties with Western European culture. His advice for would-be travel writers articulates the paradigm followed earlier by Karamzin and later reiterated by Zhukovsky. Karamzin had inaugurated the Russian tradition of describing the visit to Rhine Falls with his account of stopping there in 1789,

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published in Letters of a Russian Traveler, and Vasily Zhukovsky, recounting his stopover in 1821, followed a similar outline. Given Zhukovsky’s close personal and literary connection with Karamzin, it is not surprising that he shared certain ideas about the best routes for Western European travel and the most appropriate paradigms for its description or that his account resembles Letters of a Russian Traveler, which he greatly admired. More generally, both writers follow the procedure described by Glinka, beginning their accounts of Rhine Falls with comments on their prior expectations and then illustrating how these are fulfilled by providing an “exact description” of the experience. That said, both Karamzin and Zhukovsky also suggest that their conclusions are not simply duplications of standardized clichés, but autonomous discoveries. Faced with the task of describing Rhine Falls, Karamzin’s narrator does not automatically endorse the customary appreciative response, but offers a slight twist to the expected paradigm by reporting disappointment at his first view: Don’t you think that at the sight of it we cried out, were astounded, went into raptures, and so on? No, my friends! we stood very quietly and humbly, didn’t say a word for about five minutes, and were afraid to look at one another. Finally, I dared to ask my companion what he thought about this scene? “I think,” answered B*, “that it is—too—too exalted b y travelers.” “We think the same,” said I, “a river tumbling from stones with foam and noise merits our taking a look at it, of course; but where is that thundering, terrifying waterfall which instills trembling into the heart? (112)

After a prolonged visit on the following day, however, he reverses his initial impression as premature and accepts the more standard opinion: “I delighted—and was ready to beg on my knees that the Rhine forgive me for having spoken of its falls yesterday with such disrespect” (113). Characteristically, Karamzin’s traveler refrains from overturning established wisdom or exceeding the limits of conventional thought and behavior. At the same time, he expresses a degree of personal originality in briefly contesting collective opinion. This feint was an established procedure in its own right: while generic tradition virtually guaranteed that travel writers would verify the accuracy of previous accounts, they were often wont to introduce a moment of suspense into the process.42 In a similar vein, Karamzin’s traveler suggests a certain autonomy from classic paradigms by avoiding the depiction of his

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activities as familiar tourist rituals. Although occasionally accompanied by a friend or guide, he tends to present his itineraries as if they had been selected by personal inspiration. He is loath t o admit that others might share his enthusiasm for particular sites or routes and makes little or no mention of other tourists in the renowned places that he visits. When he does point out (with evident satisfaction) that Montaigne had once visited Rhine Falls and slept at the same inn, there is little question of direct imitation: Montaigne had been at the spot two hundred years earlier (in 1580), and though his version of Rhine Falls was published not long before Karamzin’s (1774), the two accounts have little in common. The French philosopher’s stopover predated the age of tourism, and while he mentions “a fall about two pikes high where [the Rhine] makes a great drop, foaming and making an amazing noise,” he is more interested in the sights of Schaffhausen and especially a tree whose branches were painstakingly trained to enclose a cafe.43 The Russian Traveler’s competence on the subject of waterfalls is yet another sign of his up-to-date cultural awareness. With the late eighteenth-century rise in popularity of the English garden, cascades had become objects of aesthetic appreciation throughout Europe; waterfall description became a conventional mini-genre and often appeared in travel accounts as a marker of literary intent.44 Texts such as Princess Dashkova’s “Le Petit tour” (1777) attest to the fact that Russians recognized this horticultural and literary fashion even before it was reflected in Karamzin’s Letters of a Russian Traveler or, somewhat more abstractly, in Derzhavin’s famous ode on the death of Potyomkin (“The Waterfall,” 1791-94). Waterfall description was especially popular with romantic writers and their immediate predecessors since it provided an opportunity to describe not only natural beauty, but also one’s response to it. The first-hand experience of a powerful chute of water was assumed to provoke spontaneous reactions of awe and perhaps to enable contact with the sublime. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, waterfall scenes were as familiar to Russian readers as was Letters of a Russian Traveler itself. “Do you see how it foams?” Batiushkov wrote of a Finnish cascade in 1809: “Do you hear the protracted, indistinct noise of its beating against the immovable granite cliffs?”45 Karamzin had acknowledged this cultural vogue at Rhine Falls by describing at length the excitement of standing on a rickety

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platform next to the cascading water, the “forceful movements that occurred in my soul” as a result, and the subsequent physical exhaustion. The traveler concludes his sojourn at Rhine Falls by nonchalantly revealing a still wider expertise on the topic of waterfalls. As he and his companion drift downstream away from the cascade, “The boatman considered it necessary to tell us that there was a similar waterfall in America. He was not able to name it, but we understood that he was speaking of Niagara” (114). Literary history tends to link Niagara Falls with the name of Chateaubriand, whose popular representation of it at the conclusion of Atala (1801) became the classic model of waterfall description in European literature. Karamzin provided Russian letters with a still earlier model.46 Zhukovsky visited Rhine Falls during his first trip abroad in 1821. He had come to Western Europe in the role of imperial tutor t o the grand duchess Aleksandra Fyodorovna, the Prussian wife of Nikolai Pavlovich and future Empress of Russia, who had been advised to travel abroad for reasons of health. While she visited Ems and socialized with members of her family, her tutor toured Dresden, Switzerland, and Italy. From this side trip, Zhukovsky wrote several letters to his pupil, including one that served as the basis for the “Fragments from a Letter on Switzerland” later published by Ryleev and Bestuzhev in the Polar Star of 1825. Like Karamzin, Zhukovsky’s traveler initially expresses a certain reserve at Rhine Falls: “It struck, but did not captivate me, as have other much more picturesque Swiss waterfalls.” In elaborating his own judgment on the cascade, he notes that a striking, indescribable spectacle presents itself to your eyes when you look at the falls from close up, from the balcony, built on the bank right at the waterfall: here there is no more waterfall, no picture; you stand in the chaos of foam, thunder, and waves having no form whatsoever.47

As the reference to “picture” suggests, Zhukovsky finds the panoramic view of the falls (another classic topos in Rhine Falls accounts) to be banal. Like Karamzin, he appears to be less interested in Rhine Falls per se, than in its ability to produce an effect on him. In the same spot where the Russian Traveler had heard “unspoken prophecies,” Zhukovsky’s protagonist witnesses the dance of the phantoms: “sorts of immense specters fly past you, thundering, whistling and howling”; splashing water further

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increases his satisfaction. In sum, the mysterious, ineffable quality of the balcony experience permits him to conclude that “Rhine Falls deserves its glory” (567). Zhukovsky’s traveler is also careful to minimize the suggestion that touristic procedures might have had a determining effect on his encounter with the falls, emphasizing instead more personalized and metaphysical aspects of the travel experience. The fact that this was artistic choice can be seen in a comparison with Zhukovsky’s account of hiking in Saxony during the same European tour. Here he describes being led over mountain trails by a guide as one of a group; on this well-worn path, the travelers are regaled by itinerant musicians and, at a renowned cavern, purchase both refreshments and supplies for painting their names onto the cavern wall. Zhukovsky’s report of Saxony also reveals that the dramatic effects sought by the Romantic traveler are sometimes fanciful and even consciously produced.48 Despite the more independent posture that he strikes at Rhine Falls, his report of it is not markedly original: testaments of rapture at the cascade’s edge were themselves literary formula and tradition guaranteed that the experience of the sublime was available there for those who sought it. Accounts of Rhine Falls demonstrate with particular clarity the difficulty of formulating a personal response to Western European travel, while underlining the power and appeal of established formulae. In fact, the accounts of both Karamzin and Zhukovsky implicitly address the artistic problem of working within predictable generic structures. Perfectly cognizant that paying a visit to Rhine Falls was not an act of originality and that the accounts of such visits followed a largely predictable pattern, both men saw their task as writers to arrive at the genre’s required conclusions without losing the reader’s interest. As we have seen, both adopt a similar solution: Karamzin’s initial disappointment, like Zhukovsky’s reserve, provides a moment of suspense between the first encounter with the falls and a later acknowledgment of its importance. The “unexpected” moment of doubt not only permits the traveler to distinguish himself—at least briefly—from the average tourist, but also makes the inevitable conclusions about Rhine Falls seem less hackneyed, allowing him to reinvigorate standard literary formulae (i.e. the tradition of being enraptured by Rhine Falls) by “rediscovering” their satisfactory nature.

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Why did travel writers produce accounts that were so similar in form? Like sentimentalist records of domestic journeys, records of the grand tour illustrate that literary travel writing’s extensive reproduction of its own patterns was considered to be a satisfactory and even positive feature. In addition to the value that repetition and confirmation had in educational circles, travel writing, like all genres, required stable and identifiable characteristics in order to be recognized and appreciated as such. Kurakin and Dashkova aimed at producing the effect of “literariness” precisely through the reiteration of recognizable stylistic hallmarks, while the Parisian “recollections” of Fyodor Glinka and Batiushkov repeat and verify their previous expectations. Indeed, it is the very repetitiveness of the literary account that allows it to create and reflect coherent imaginings of geography. The travelogue’s well-defined form was likely even to have enhanced its popularity. In this respect, travel writing resembles highly codified genres such as the fairy tale, romance, detective novel, or Western in which the tension of prior expectations and the guarantee of relief are characteristic elements. After all, grand tour travelogues do contain an implicit assumption that foreign touring will ultimately satisfy the traveler’s expectations; such a denouement requires only the performance (or narration) of a journey. The predictable structure of these texts may well have encouraged readers to turn and return to them for exactly this guarantee of pleasurable repetition—the “romance” of travel. It should be noted that Russian writers had other options for shaping their accounts. Different approaches to the description of foreign travel were available to Zhukovsky and his contemporaries in well-known works by Rousseau, Sterne, and Goethe that more radically broke from established paradigms and the philosophy underlying them. Rousseau had argued in his didactic treatise-cumnovel Émile (1762), for example, that the texts of previous travelers should be completely ignored: It is too much, in order to arrive at the truth, to have to pierce through the prejudices of the authors as well as our own…. [I]n the matter of all kinds of observations, one must not read, one must see.49

Émile recommends that the individual subject construct a world independent of the surrounding environment; a suitable model for the young protagonist is found in Robinson Crusoe, the only book permitted in his library. Notwithstanding Rousseau’s significant

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influence on Russian letters (and on the shaping of Russian itineraries), this advice was disregarded by Zhukovsky and his contemporaries. Certainly, Rousseau’s approach was not very practicable for the Russian elite in this period, unlikely as it was either to refuse the privilege of education or to deny a correlation between book learning and travel.50 Not surprisingly, neither Zhukovsky nor the imperial family that employed him as tutor subscribed to the idea of abandoning cultural tradition in order t o make education more “genuine.” Although Zhukovsky owned three different editions of Émile and turned to it frequently for pedagogical guidance, he rejected the possibility of a meaningful existence in isolation from human culture and society and refers t o this concept as “egocentrism” in a marginal note on Rousseau’s text.51 Sterne’s model was evidently unsatisfactory as well. Sentimental Journey (1768) humorously demonstrated that cultural tradition need not determine the narration of travel experience by showing that Yorick’s random encounters on the road, however trifling, were adequate material for the construction of a literary account. Sentimental Journey may even be seen to parody Rousseau’s advice by illustrating what the travelogue would actually become if cultural information were disregarded in order to focus on the protagonist’s sensibility. Certainly, Sterne enjoyed a considerable influence on Karamzin, and (often through Karamzin) on Zhukovsky and Russian travel writing in general. Sterne’s sentimentalist emphases and attention to emotive detail, features that were popularized in the work of Rousseau and Goethe as well, helped inspire Karamzin’s decision to elaborate on the sensitivity of his own traveler at length.52 Even so, Letters of a Russian Traveler carefully balances the protagonist’s emotionalism with the demonstration of his cultural prowess, ensconcing the account of his feelings firmly within cultural tradition. Zhukovsky and others followed suit. A third alternative appeared in Goethe’s Italian Journey, a record of the German writer’s attempt to rejuvenate his creative work through a combination of study and travel. Italian Journey demonstrates that following a canonical itinerary did not necessarily require formulaically responding to it: individual experiences and idiosyncratic views play a determining role in shaping the narration. Goethe’s account had begun to appear only in 1816 and Zhukovsky, who had long admired Goethe and visited him in Weimar, was more than likely to have been familiar with it.

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Indeed, the fact that Zhukovsky was capable of writing in this vein is evident from his diary of the 1820-21 trip to Europe, in which his subjective musings come closer to the example of Italian Journey. Nonetheless, Goethe’s model also had limited applicability for the instructive and cultural emphases that characterized Zhukovsky’s travel writing and he chose not t o emulate Goethe’s approach in his published work. This reluctance to relinquish conventional literary priorities in favor of a more individualized method should not be seen as peculiar to the Russian travel writer abroad: the trouble that Goethe himself experienced in packaging his personal letters for publication is indicated by the 28 years that elapsed before he completed the project, an account of a trip taken in 1786-88. It would thus be inaccurate to suggest that Russian travel writers were simply incapable of emulating the innovative models proposed by Rousseau, Sterne, and Goethe. Zhukovsky, one of the era’s most illustrious talents, did not even attempt to imitate their alternative forms in his records of Western European travel: rather than abandoning the educational and cultural context of the traditional European travel account, he turned this legacy into the focus of his text. Like Karamzin, Zhukovsky and his contemporaries attempted to establish an authoritative position for the Russian writer in Western Europe precisely through strict adherence to the educational and cultural rituals of the grand tour. Literary travel writing was not a transparent, unmediated record of the travel experience, but one filtered through particular literary forms. By measuring surrounding reality against textual models, these writers not only affirmed the evaluations made by earlier voyagers, but also claimed a place for themselves in literary tradition. As their sketches of visiting the Rhine Falls attest, the fulfillment of expected forms and protocols was regarded as a cultural achievement. Completing the journey comme il faut lent added meaning and pleasure to the experience. How then can the growth of cultural autonomy be described in a genre so bound by standardized forms? In fact, travel writing’s conservatism makes it ideal for tracing the process by which a growing familiarity with Western norms and standards eventually led to the production of more specifically Russian works. While Karamzin’s inclination towards reworking generic formulae may seem an inadequate justification of his subsequent eminence, it did channel the legacy of sentimentalism drawn from Rousseau,

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Goethe, and Sterne into Russian literary travel writing even as the specific models of these authors—particularly their approaches t o Western European travel—were often rejected. Karamzin’s celebration of Western European literary tradition may thus be seen as a step towards the more independent development of Russian letters. The increasing competence of Russian writers in handling the Western mode of the literary travelogue was also an important move towards relative cultural autonomy. To paraphrase Freud, repetition is a form of mastery and mastery leads t o independence—if not always from generic structures, then at least, in this case, from imposed conceptions of imaginary geography and cultural identity. It should also be noted that Zhukovsky’s conservatism, i.e. his choice to eschew alternative foreign models and follow the more canonical literary approach epitomized by Karamzin, reasserts a specifically Russian rather than Western model. Often explicitly naming their illustrious predecessor, Zhukovsky and his contemporaries call attention to a newly mediated or “domesticated” link with the West. Their 1820s revival of Karamzinian paradigms also argues for a connection between the post-Napoleonic generation and eighteenth-century models of Russian cosmopolitan sophistication. Thus, even while these writers use the grand tour as a backdrop to demonstrate their “Europeanness,” their reliance on Karamzin paradoxically strengthens the confidence of Russian culture by demonstrating its “self-sufficiency.” Affirming Russian models and a Russian literary tradition, their accounts helped to lay the groundwork for the more independent texts that followed.

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Chapter 5 Reimagining Foreign and Domestic Space (1810-50) The general evolution of Russia’s cultural relationship with Western Europe may roughly be described as a process of learning, overturning, and ultimately detaching itself from Western standards. As discussed in the preceding chapters, an important first step in this direction was Russian writers’ growing proficiency in producing examples of literary travel writing. The respectful attitude towards Western culture implicit in this literary orientation was made particularly evident in Russian records of travel abroad, which often focused on the traveler’s acquisition of Western cultural values and emphasized his or her merits as a European rather than independent Russian subject. Another advance towards cultural independence took the form of challenges to the widespread assumption of Western Europe’s cultural superiority. Among those who objected to the idea that enlightenment must always come from the West were several travel writers who attempted to readjust the Eurocentric hierarchy by establishing alternative paradigms. Fonvizin’s critical wit; his and others’ attacks on Francophilia; the courtesy, erudition, and nonchalance of Karamzin’s traveler; Batiushkov’s ironic restraint, distance, and dynamism; even Shalikov’s exaggeration of the significance of internal landscapes were all strategies aimed at challenging the presumed supremacy of Western Europe. At the same time, each of these efforts reveals continued preoccupation with the Russian subject’s relationship to the West. Describing the experience of travel abroad from a perspective not primarily defined by Russia’s marginal position in Western European culture remained both an artistic problem and a philosophical, even ontological, quandary. A related moment or phase that might be isolated in Russia’s cultural development was the building of an indigenous literary tradition upon a Russian rather than Western European foundation. The texts examined in this chapter—by Vilgelm Kiukhelbeker,

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Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Glinka, Aleksandr Pushkin, and Vasily Zhukovsky—illustrate new options for understanding and extending native tradition. The growth of cultural independence did not mean that Russians were no longer aware of, interested in, or challenged by Western Europe, simply that it was no longer necessary to constantly address these issues in their work. In a series of travelogues written between 1811 and 1841, these writers achieve, on one hand, a certain detachment from Western Europe and its various cultural pressures and, on the other, a more purposeful and organic relationship to domestic territory and cultural tradition. In the accounts of foreign travel written by Kiukhelbeker and Gogol, for example, Western Europe no longer compels the Russian writer to genuflect before its cultural altars, but serves as a background for deliberations on Russian identity and national literary tradition. Internal itineraries presented somewhat different problems of relating to cultural tradition since the literary record of passage through domestic territory continued to require at least a cursory attempt at justification. Glinka’s account of provincial travel in 1810-11 helped to solve this problem by offering various illustrations of how Russian geography might be imagined on its own terms. In particular, he introduced a cast of personages who embodied various facets of “Russian character,” preparing the ground for developments found in later fictional texts. Other difficulties beset domestic travel as well. Internal travel description was decidedly less popular during the tumultuous Napoleonic period and its aftermath when the exigencies of the war, the ravaging of domestic territory, and the reopening of Western Europe turned writers’ thoughts in other directions. Interest in provincial space suffered yet another setback in the 1820s when literary, aesthetic, and tourist fashions succumbed to a rage for the romantic landscapes of the South. Still another order of problems emerged at the close of the Napoleonic Wars when the Russian officers who had been stationed abroad began to return home. The wave of patriotism that had carried the Russian army to the French capital brought them back in many cases newly inspired by Western concepts of social and political reform. As the future Decembrist Nikolai Turgenev noted in his diary, “many Russian have now learned that order exists without slavery.”1 Examined in this light, the Russian military victory can be seen to have engendered a shift in the perception of

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relations between Russia and the West, although a sense of national triumph was not the most obvious result. The growing conservatism of Alexander I further encouraged the more disaffected officers: abandoning their preoccupation with the French for conflict with the Russian state, some of these men began to organize themselves in underground societies. When Alexander unexpectedly died in late November of 1825, these conspirators took advantage of the confusion to rebel against the Russian autocracy. On December 14, they attempted to overthrow Alexander’s successor Nicholas I, in the hope of enthroning his brother Constantine (Konstantin Pavlovich), whom they naively imagined to be of a more liberal and republican mindset.2 Nicholas easily crushed the uprising and began his reign with a deep distrust of the educated elite. After a six-month investigation, five of the Decembrist insurgents were hanged (including the poet Ryleev) and many others internally exiled, among them both Glinka and Kiukhelbeker. The Decembrist era had far-reaching consequences for Russian travel writing and imaginary geography and was a watershed for the authors considered in this chapter. In the cases of Kiukhelbeker, Glinka, Pushkin, and Zhukovsky, their personal lives, ideas of noble culture, and relationship to the government were radically shaken; all but Zhukovsky had their livelihoods effectively destroyed. Only Gogol, born in 1809 and an adolescent in 1825, escaped this particular drama, although he, too, deeply felt the effects of living in Nicholaevan Russia. After the unsuccessful Decembrist Uprising—and during the reign of Nicholas I—travelers who attempted to shrug off the burden of Western European culture and contemplate domestic turf often found themselves recording (or repressing) clashes with the state. Examples of internal travel writing authored by Pushkin and Zhukovsky demonstrate the effects of this political climate. The exile of numerous Decembrists into provincial Russia helped to resurrect the relationship between landscape and rebellious intellectual that had been proposed by Radishchev in Journey from Petersburg to Moscow. Since explicit expression of such topics was impossible, it is not surprising that records of domestic travel were often elliptical and incomplete. In fact, it was during this period that the literary travelogue ceased to serve as a productive vehicle for the discussion of concerns raised by internal landscapes.

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1. Vilgelm Kiukhelbeker’s Revision of the Grand Tour It has been suggested that the most interesting travel writers “have managed to combine explorations in the world with selfexploration.”3 Examples of such phenomena are rare in any era and the early nineteenth century in Russia was no exception. As argued in the last chapter, literary travel writing’s tendency towards standardized forms meant that the introspective musings of sentimentalist travelers and sublime raptures of grand tourists generally followed established patterns. While travelers confronted new scenes and experiences, few dared to explore or to record the changes that occurred in their own internal realities. There were some exceptions, of course. The travel diaries of Fonvizin and Zinoviev presented Western Europe through a more subjective lens as they mapped accounts of personal evolution onto narratives of travel. The Journey of Vilgelm Kiukhelbeker similarly demonstrates a subjective approach to travel abroad and succeeds in transforming the significance of Western Europe for the Russian subject. In some respects, Kiukhelbeker’s combination of sentimentalist tropes with the Western European landscape resembles Karamzin’s Letters of a Russian Traveler: it, too, presents foreign landscapes as a mirror for the traveler’s emotions and even essence. If Karamzin had demonstrated what it meant for a Russian to be Western European, however, Kiukhelbeker illustrates how one can remain thoroughly Russian in the same foreign environment. He focuses less on Western culture during his trip, than on arriving at a new understanding of himself. While Karamzin had exploited neither the protagonist’s individual past nor his specific relationship t o Russia in designing his narratorial persona, Kiukhelbeker’s traveler undergoes an extended process of self-discovery during his trip. In a sense, he takes the sentimentalist approach that was so popular in the accounts of Karamzin’s domestic epigones and recasts it upon the Western European canvas. Rather than assuming, even rhetorically, the role of an enthused Anacharsis from the European periphery, Kiukhelbeker’s traveler transforms Western Europe into a space where he can fully experience his “Russianness.” Kiukhelbeker traveled to Western Europe in 1820-21 as secretary to A. L. Naryshkin, head chamberlain to the tsar. He was twenty-

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three years old and had been recommended for the post by his friend and lyceum schoolmate, Anton Delvig, who had been unable to accept it himself. Kiukhelbeker was suited for employment as Naryshkin’s secretary by his knowledge of languages, his literary talent (he had begun to publish poetry in 1815), and his general erudition: Aleksandr Pushkin, another schoolfellow, once described Kiukhelbeker as a “living encyclopedia.” The journey abroad also offered Kiukhelbeker a timely opportunity to leave Petersburg, where he had begun to fear the political repercussions of a poem honoring “sublime poets,” among them his friends Pushkin (recently exiled) and Evgeny Baratynsky (serving time with the Russian army in Finland). Kiukhelbeker and Naryshkin traveled through Russia’s Baltic territories, Prussia, Germany, and then south through France to the Mediterranean coast. After an extended sojourn in the environs of then Italian Nice, the travelers headed to Paris, where Kiukhelbeker found time to present a series of lectures on Russian literature to the antimonarchist Athénée society. While the topic itself was not unusual—Fonvizin and Karamzin had also spoken on Russian literature during their sojourns in Paris—the forum and the content of Kiukhelbeker’s remarks caused some alarm. He touched again upon contemporary writers who were officially suspect and spoke out against Russian serfdom, despotism, and the repressive policies of Paul I (17961801). The journalist Nikolai Grech, who knew Kiukhelbeker well and even lived with him during the summer of 1825, later recalled that during his visit to Paris, “Kiukhelbeker had made friends with some kind of liberal writers and thought to give a lecture in French at the Athénée on the literature and political state of Russia, full of the foolish ideas which were then fashionable.”4 As a result of such commentary, Naryshkin fired Kiukhelbeker and the Russian envoy in Paris ordered him to leave the capital. He returned to Petersburg after roughly a year abroad and soon began to read excerpts from his travel account at the Free Society of Amateurs of Russian Letters. Kiukhelbeker even prepared the text for a monograph, but was unable to find a publisher until 1824, when he and Vladimir Odoevsky founded the journal, Mnemosyne, in Moscow. That short-lived project closed the following year as a result of financial difficulties, but not before some of Kiukhelbeker’s travel writing had appeared on its pages. Excerpts of his text were published in other journals as well, loosely styled as a series of letters addressing various friends. The sum of these published fragments contains

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several gaps and breaks off in Nice, three weeks before Kiukhelbeker and Naryshkin arrive in Paris; the title “Journey” was later bestowed by Tynianov.5 Although Kiukhelbeker himself was of German parentage, he felt himself to be Russian, insisted that the Russian language was central to his cultural identity, and thought often of Russia while on the road.6 Meeting with old friends in Dresden, he reports that “We converse only and solely about Russia and can’t talk enough about her” (15). At the same time, he appears to have conceived the patria largely in terms of personal friendships, a fact that might be seen as a sign of (since alternative to) his difficult relations with political authority. It is also true that the experience of foreign travel may have encouraged Kiukhelbeker’s alienation from the Russian state, as was the case for many of the slightly older group that had visited Western Europe during the Napoleonic Wars, and led him into Decembrist circles. Kiukhelbeker participated in the 1825 revolt on Senate Square, then fled the country. Apprehended by Russian troops in Warsaw, he was exiled to Siberia where he lived until his death in 1846. Grech’s later memoirs state that Kiukhelbeker “aimed a pistol at Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich” before making his escape, pointedly indicating that Grech himself had been appalled at Kiukhelbeker’s antagonistic gesture towards the tsar’s younger brother.7 Grech’s evident opprobrium has its source not only in obvious political differences (and Grech’s painstaking use of his memoirs to dissociate himself from the Decembrism of former friends), but also in Kiukhelbeker’s flagrant disrespect for the imperial family, particularly striking in light of his intimate links to it. To begin with, Kiukhelbeker’s father had been a protégé of Tsar Paul as director of Pavlovsk, Paul’s preferred residence during the reign of his mother Catherine. In recognition of his efforts, Paul had awarded Kiukhelbeker’s father the Baltic estate where Kiukhelbeker-fils spent his early childhood. Thus, Kiukhelbeker’s later criticisms of the tsar at the Athénée Society—reviled by both Grech and Naryshkin—attacked not only Russian autocracy, but also the system of service and reward from which his own family had greatly benefited. In addition, Kiukhelbeker had a special connection to Mikhail Pavlovich through his tutor Grigory Glinka, who was also the husband of Kiukhelbeker’s older sister Varvara. When his father died in 1809, the eleven-year-old Kiukhelbeker moved to the home of his sister and Glinka, then professor of

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Russian language and literature at the University of Dorpat. Glinka oversaw Kiukhelbeker’s subsequent education, beginning with several years of boarding school in the Estonian town of Verro and concluding, after Glinka had become an imperial tutor, with graduation from the elite lyceum at Tsarskoe Selo. Even before taking up studies in the shadow of the court, Kiukhelbeker had profited from the generosity of Mikhail Pavlovich: the grand duke had regularly shipped his own used schoolbooks to the family of his tutor Glinka in their provincial home. Kiukhelbeker’s text demonstrates an active relationship t o established cultural tradition in its reworking of the grand tour’s educational paradigms. Like many of his compatriots, Kiukhelbeker was happy to enlighten foreign associates and Western men of letters about Russian literature. In addition t o lecturing in Paris, he agreed during a stop in Weimar to send the elderly Goethe a treatise on the characteristic features of Russian literature and the Russian language.8 Like Karamzin, Kiukhelbeker demonstrates that Russians are Europeans by exhibiting a cultural expertise that transcends national boundaries. A teacher by profession, however, Kiukhelbeker surpasses his predecessor in pedagogical versatility and educates his interlocutors in fields ranging from aesthetic theory to German letters. An ideal subject for his efforts appeared in Dresden when a young German painter joined Naryshkin’s travel party; Kiukhelbeker quickly took him under wing: Our painter has of yet read very little; I am trying to acquaint him a bit with his literary patrimony. Sometimes in the evening we read together the strong, passionate Bürger, or the divine dreamer—Schiller, or the sweet singer Hölty. Not infrequently, the book falls from my hands and imperceptibly a conversation about nature, poetry, and the human heart begins between us (50).9

One of the most striking features of Kiukhelbeker’s Journey is its novel approach to the commonplaces of literary travel writing. A marked sensitivity to the literary cliché was a hallmark of his critical work as well. In a famous attack on the tired language of the elegy, which he published in 1824 amidst excerpts from his travelogue, he argues that: The scenes are everywhere the same: the moon which is—of course—despondent and pale; cliffs and oak forests where they never existed; woods, behind which [poets] present one hundred times the

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The romantic verses of Zhukovsky epitomized the type of poetry that Kiukhelbeker targets here, although his critique of repetitive language and imagery could easily be applied to early nineteenthcentury travel writing as well—and to the descriptive vocabulary found both in Zhukovsky’s sketches and Kiukhelbeker’s own Journey. As he moves through Europe, for example, Kiukhelbeker sounds the notes of gothic, sentimentalist, and oriental literary fashions. He describes mountain hikes in the South of France with strategies familiar from the Alpine sketches of Karamzin and Zhukovsky: always “alone,” rambling up and down rocky slopes and forested hills, he partakes of cordial peasant hospitality and revels in his own appreciation of the surroundings. Coastal sunsets are presented from the perspective of an elegiac poet; in a lyrical rendering of evening in Marseilles, Kiukhelbeker’s traveler notes ships that seem “apparitions,” “the quiet stars and silver moon,” and a special feeling that “pours into the soul from the silent, beautiful sky” when one sits by the open window (48). The southern climate inspires him with more exotic paradigms as well: “For an entire day and night,” he writes from Nice, “I appeared t o myself a character in a magical fairy tale or romance” (60). In the wake of writers such as Ossian and Anne Radcliffe, travelers frequently indulged in descriptions employing gothic, romantic, and folkloric imagery. These were felt to be particularly appropriate when describing mountainous and/or forested terrain, especially in pointedly “northern” territories such as Finland, Sweden, and the mountain areas of Central Europe: texts of this period are dotted with crumbling castles, thick sunless forests that once witnessed the battles and sacred rites of half-wild peoples, huge, mossy boulders, ragged precipices, ravines, waterfalls, and so on.11 Kiukhelbeker clearly appreciated the resemblance of his surroundings to those prized by such aesthetic fashions and emphasized the strong appeal of their hackneyed images with his lightly ironic touch: “The clouds towered in the most Ossianic manner,” he writes from the Baltic coast, “The night was truly Scandinavian” (7-8). Somewhat paradoxically, Kiukhelbeker’s employment of clichéd imagery indicates not his artistic limitations, but, quite the

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contrary, the cultural authority that enables him to capture and define his surroundings. The repetition of predictable or expected content also allows him to reshape familiar ideas according t o individual, even idiosyncratic contours. Unlike Karamzin or Zhukovsky, he does not derive his mastery over the environment from the study or citation of relevant books, but seems instead t o be directly recording personal experience. In his travel writing as in his article on the elegy, Kiukhelbeker uses verbal and syntactic repetition as a technique that emphasizes the tedious predictability of what he describes. Consider, for example, his description of a fourteen-hour boat ride: In our passage from Memel to Koenigsberg the sea bored me extraordinarily. Sea and sand, sand and sea […] What sand! In the precise—the most precise sense of the word: a sea of sand! Not a blade of grass, neither shoot, nor bush, nor tree! Of course, I would have died of melancholy, if hunger had not pitied me and thought to vary my feelings: having drunk only a cup of coffee, I hungered from four in the morning until five in the afternoon (10).

Another example is his criticism of the hackneyed motifs of painter Philip Roos, who “in twenty pictures presents the same thing: dark blue air, some cows and mountains, mountains, some cows, and dark blue air” (23). In many cases, Kiukhelbeker’s use of literary clichés serves t o renew their force. Like Pushkin, he was simultaneously cognizant both of the cliché’s ironic potential and of its power and his employment of familiar components often leaves their original significance enhanced, rather than diminished. Even while drawing on travel writing commonplaces, in other words, he renews their capacity to express aesthetic pleasure. This interest in the literary cliché allows him to add a new element to the standard procedure of describing canonical sites through verifying previous expectations. In the description of a waterfall near Narva, for example, he suggests no conflict between touristic expectations and their ultimate satisfaction, though clearly aware of the potential for disappointment at this already famous locale. In fact, he incorporates the contrast between anticipated pleasure and actual experience into what the traveler expects: What can I tell you, my friends, about that magnificent sight? It didn’t surprise me, because I already expected something extraordinary. But I

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Denying the possibility of surprise, he uses the traveler’s preconceptions to underline the powerful impression that the falls actually do make. His account of viewing Raphael’s Sistine Madonna also assumes the gratification of previously held expectations. A well-known tourist attraction, this canvas in Dresden figured prominently in the accounts of numerous Russian travelers. Karamzin’s protagonist had “attentively examined” the Madonna and commented on Raphael’s artistic merits in a lengthy footnote, while Zhukovsky devoted an entire sketch to it.12 In Zhukovsky’s version, the difficulty of viewing the painting properly adds a note of suspense; despite being dirty, badly framed, and poorly hung, however, Raphael’s canvas ultimately reveals itself to be “not a picture, but a vision” (423). Zhukovsky’s traveler, like Karamzin’s at Rhine Falls, reports standing alone before the canvas for an hour, during which time he experiences varieties of rapturous transport. Kiukhelbeker’s still longer account—which he later considered publishing separately as well13—denudes these classic paradigms of viewing and describing: he argues instead that the first impression made by the Madonna is disappointing, but that such disappointment is foreseeable, normal, and even banal. Indeed, he suggests that preliminary doubt is an inherent feature of all responses to the work; anxiety about expectation and expectation itself thus become trivial issues: Now we are standing at the threshold of the holiest of holies: friends! you see the Sistine Madonna, the amazing creation of Raphael! You look, and on your faces is something like the grumble of unsatisfied expectation; only the fear of appearing to be tasteless prevents you from expressing displeasure. Take comfort: maybe it has been like this for everyone upon his first look at the painting, simple, yet for all its simplicity, divine! (33)

Closely attuned to processes of perception and the etiquette of response, Kiukhelbeker possesses an aesthetic sensibility capable of simultaneously defamiliarizing reality and heightening his perceptions of it. His confirmation of conventional expectations defies the suggestion found in Karamzin and Zhukovsky that the traveler’s experience ought to challenge preconceived ideas at all. After comically disparaging various elements of Raphael’s

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painting, Kiukhelbeker’s traveler offers personal testimony of how the painting began to influence him as “a secret trembling stole into my soul.” Similar techniques may be found in Batiushkov’s letters from France, where they underline both the traveler’s cultural sophistication (i.e. his thorough appreciation of classic tourist sites) and, somewhat paradoxically, his intellectual liberty. Writing on the Belvedere Apollo, for example, a statue whose importance had been canonized by the praise of Winckelmann and echoed in hundreds of travelogues, Batiushkov notes “It’s above Wincklemann’s description: this is not marble, but a god!”14 Journey’s simultaneous skirting and revitalization of generic commonplaces underlies its unprecedented description of personal development as well. By interpolating previous experiences into his account of travel abroad, Kiukhelbeker succeeds in positing a distinctly new relationship between the Russian subject and Western Europe. More specifically, the traveler’s progression through Western space inspires an exploration of his Russian childhood and affective relationships. The trip begins by crossing the Baltic regions that Kiukhelbeker had inhabited as a child; traversing land that had once belonged to his family, he notes that his own father is buried nearby. Such explicitly personal information recurs throughout the travelogue, forming a narrative layer that concretely individuates his experience. As he declares in the first letter from Narva, “Before my eyes flickered scenes from my future, from my past” (7). Kiukhelbeker resembles the sentimentalist traveler both in his contemplations of the past and his exploitation of a personal connection to the landscape in order to tease out the metaphysical aspects of his travel experience. Here, however, the adult traveler’s backward progress through childhood memories serves as a prelude to travel abroad, rather than the exploration of domestic territory; it thus grounds the text’s approach to Western Europe in the emotive context of the traveler’s formative years in Russia. Not surprisingly, Journey accords a diminished role to themes typically prominent in foreign travel accounts, such as high society and cultural institutions. Instead, the text continually juxtaposes Kiukhelbeker’s unfamiliar surroundings with memories of family and friends at home. Constant recollections of the past provide the material from which the traveler defines himself—both as an individual and a Russian—against Western Europe. An example may be found in his account of crossing the border:

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How can I describe to you, my friends, the feelings with which I left Russia? I cried like a child, and the tears, which I was in no condition t o restrain, sharply forced me to feel that I am a Russian and that outside Russia, no happiness for me exists. My heart, dear ones, is with you, my everything is with you (9).

Certainly, the crossing of political borders was traditionally acknowledged in travel writing as a liminal event; the importance of nation and national definition further enhanced its symbolic significance. Karamzin’s traveler had noted a vague, but powerful feeling upon entering Western Europe and leaving Russia behind: “We entered Kurland—and the thought that I was already outside the fatherland produced a surprising effect in my soul” (10). Fyodor Rostopchin offered an alternative perspective in 1815 when he described traveling through the Baltic as a progression through cultural gradations that rendered the border itself insignificant: “The further you go, the more you find Germany in Russia. […] There is nothing worth remarking upon entering Prussia.”15 Kiukhelbeker describes his own movement across the border in a sentimental, even elegiac tone that more closely resembles Karamzin’s. He returns to this event several times in later sections of his Journey. On one occasion, he links his departure from Russia with leaving for boarding school as a small boy, another rite of passage that was similarly both sad and charged with a vague feeling of excitement about new discoveries that lay ahead: The moment when I crossed the border will remain in my memory forever. It belongs to those few in my life when, in the words of Hamlet, we near the spirit of the universe and gain the right to question Providence.16 At this minute as well, I feel as if a quiet breeze were carrying to me images from the bygone past, from my childhood. It seems that I see myself o n the day of my departure from that peaceful town where I received my first education. Mama’s light winter carriage is already in the yard; the servant of my dear tutor is carrying my baggage from the porch. I stand alone and look into the garden covered with snow, and for the first time, I feel inspiration; for the first time, presentiment, longing, a striving for the unknown, misty distance, and a secret dread fill, tire, and refresh my soul. Tears that I hadn’t known before poured from my eyes; and I dared for the first time to question providence and the future! I remember several other moments like this, including the one when the fatherland vanished behind me (10-1).

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Kiukhelbeker’s text thus complements the sentimentalist obsession for a vanished past with a sense of the future’s potential and the ambivalent magnificence of possibility. The traveler recalls leaving Russia yet again when he traverses the Rhine into France. Here patriotic sentiments commingle with personal ties: his act both repeats the Russian army’s crossing of the river in 1814 and brings memories of his friends at home: As A. L. [Naryshkin] and I crossed on foot the bridge that unites and separates Germany and France, the memory of my parting with the fatherland was revived in my heart; the green waters of the Rhine thundered at our feet; the morning was clear, warm, and quiet; the lines of Batiushkov’s beautiful poem on the Russian crossing of the Rhine reverberated in the depths of my soul. Delvig bade me to remember him on the banks of the Rhine; with him, all my friends appeared in my imagination. I recalled our pleasant evening conversations at F. N. G[linka]’s, where in quiet conversations filled with feeling and dreams, our hearts would fly off from our Rhine wine and merge in expressions, comprehensible only within our circle, in the sweet family of friends and brethren (36).

Much of Kiukhelbeker’s oeuvre elaborates ideas on the exalted and agonizing vocation of the poet and his travel writing is no exception. Indeed, he uses his letters to emphasize the metaphoric importance of travel for the artistic temperament. As he explains in a letter from Marseilles, the poet wanders about the earth like an exile; he seeks and never finds solace. For him, the ties of familial life are dear, but burdensome; he understands quiet happiness, but is not capable of achieving it. Only in storms, i n struggles with implacable fate does his brow clear and his breast breathe more freely: life and action are his elements! (51-2)

Although Kiukhelbeker nowhere directly refers to himself in this discussion, his remarks hint both at his own collisions with authority and at the misadventures of Pushkin and Baratynsky. Clearly, he connects the labors and tortured quest of the poet with the idea of political rebellion and sees his own travels abroad as an emulation of exile. His comments also suggest that while the artist’s sufferings can never be wholly relieved, they can be partially alleviated by purposeful struggle—a view quite compatible with his later involvement in the Decembrist Uprising. Lessons on the significance of the artist’s role also figure into the study program of Kiukhelbeker’s German painter.

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There is a constant tension in Journey between distance and proximity or between actual, physical separation and imaginative, emotive intimacy. Most of Kiukhelbeker’s references to childhood or friends left behind emphasize the spatial and temporal gap between them and the feelings stirred within him by contemplation of this fact. His affective bonds acquire spatial properties on the shores of the Mediterranean, for example, where the traveler feels himself linked to friends in Petersburg by the connecting medium of the sea: Now I often look at this boundless plain of waters; I rejoice to see it again and imagine: it brings me nearer to you! You see it also, and gazing upon it, perhaps fall into that ineffable, sweet reverie which never fixes on a single object, but, bringing us nearer to everything, pours a great capacity to love, to pine, and to be happy into the soul (46).

Here as well, past memories provoke not only feelings of isolation or alienation from the foreign environment, but also poetic inspiration. Kiukhelbeker further elaborates upon the distance from home in an inserted verse, crediting Neptune and the local waves with connecting him to Petersburg’s Neva River, to the “native Russian sea,” and again to the “sweet family” of the poet’s “brethren.” Temporal issues arise during the New Year’s celebrations in Marseilles when the traveler finds that local festivities provide little gratification since a difference in calendar separates the French holiday from the event celebrated in Russia. As a result, he remains aloof from his immediate surroundings and transports himself mentally back in time in order to close the breach with those at home: Everyone was strolling, listening to charlatans and pilgrims, laughing and in festive merriment celebrating the end of the year: it was the 31st of December, new style. But I didn’t participate in their festivities: I enjoyed living through another 12 days in the old year with you—and being, if only by the calendar, in Russia (47).

For Kiukhelbeker, the twelve-day hiatus in the calendar does not suggest that Western Europe and Russia occupy distinct positions on a common axis of historical development. The traveler neither sees Western Europe as Russia’s “future” nor argues, like Fonvizin’s narrator, that “we are [only] beginning, while they are drawing to a close.” Here, the temporal gap between Russia and the

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West allows Kiukhelbeker to articulate his own identity in terms of past experience and to conceive time and space themselves in terms of his own links to Russia. In each of these instances, the traveler isolates a defining limit of Western Europe—a political border, the edge of the continent, the end of the Gregorian year—only to reverse the significance of that boundary by using it to describe Russia. In this way, not only do the repeated themes of distance, limits, and borders suggest the possibility of their opposites (intimacy, limitlessness, and passage), but the account of Western European travel becomes a framework for excursions into a personal Russian past. Throughout Kiukhelbeker’s text, confrontations with actual boundaries serendipitously create a sense of the traveler’s own potential and limitlessness. Ultimately, the traveler’s own memories lead him into contact with the sublime. He achieves the exalted state described by others at Rhine Falls not by drawing upon the resources of Western Europe, but by recalling his childhood and friends. It is interesting to note that temporal and spatial shifts figure prominently in a fictional travelogue entitled “European Letters” (1820) that Kiukhelbeker published before ever venturing abroad. This fantastic account describes the impressions of an imaginary American traveler in twenty-sixth-century Europe. Looking “back” to events occurring in the early nineteenth century and before, the traveler is inspired to write a series of letters on Europe’s “former glory, former greatness, and former enlightenment” and to explain where things began to go awry. As he points out, “In order to judge contemporary events, customs, and their probable consequences, one ought to be transported mentally to another time.”17 Journey similarly emphasizes the significance of perception across time and space, but replaces the retrospective American view of Western Europe with a Russian’s recollections of his own past. In both texts, Kiukhelbeker achieves an external viewpoint by making the narrator in some sense “foreign.” Crossing the border into Western Europe not only enhances the pointedly Russian narrator’s comprehension of his own culture, but also permits him to occupy new positions in space and time that enable and even generate fresh perceptions of his own past and (consequently) of his own present identity. Kiukhelbeker’s rendering of the Western European travel experience reformulates the established equation of travel and

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education as a more general relationship between distance and knowledge. 2. Gogol’s Europe: Supplanting Western Tradition Like Kiukhelbeker, Nikolai Gogol frequently constructed imaginary geographies from an external point of view, reaching across space and even time to create images of Petersburg, Ukraine, and provincial Russia that have remained fundamental to Russian culture’s conception of these places. While many of Gogol’s Ukrainian tales were written in Petersburg, the well-known rendering of provincial Russian life found in the novel Dead Souls was largely the fruit of extended stays abroad. Gogol spent a total of thirteen years in Western Europe; his first two sojourns (183639 and 1840-41) were dedicated primarily to the drafting of Dead Souls’s first volume.18 In his letters from these trips, Gogol, like Kiukhelbeker, uses the Western European environment to explore issues of Russian identity. Underlining both his emotive affiliation with Russia and his autonomy from the West, he demonstrates a still wider variety of independent postures for the Russian writer in the context of Western European culture. Gogol himself was well aware of the irony inherent in describing provincial Russia from the other side of the border. This topic appears as a constant theme in his letters, often together with complaints about the situation of “the writer” in contemporary Russia, where literary talent was too often misunderstood and persecuted. Prior to his departure, Gogol had suffered from a series of frustrating clashes with both censor and literary public. Such interactions encouraged his view that neither the state nor the Russian reader was able to understand his work and made the prospect of living abroad more attractive. As he put it in a personal letter, “the contemporary writer of morals ought to be further away from his native land.”19 Like many previous travelers, Gogol conceived travel abroad as a liminal event—“a great turning point, a great epoch in my life” (49). By his own account, he traveled for reasons of health, to rid himself of the depression that resulted from his literary conflicts, and in order to concentrate seriously on his writing. In Western Europe, he expected to find broad expanses of time and space that would be indispensable to his professional development. Certainly,

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the actual dimensions of Western European territory could not compete with “our immeasurable, our native Russian land” (92), but Gogol traveled to Western Europe in search of space understood figuratively, rather than literally. Distance from faraway Russia was a prerequisite for improving his literary work. “Long, long, as long as possible will I be in a foreign land,” he wrote to Zhukovsky from Hamburg, “And even if my thoughts, my name, my labors belong to Russia, I myself—my mortal structure—will be distanced from her” (49). Although of Ukrainian ethnicity, Gogol made little distinction between Russia and Ukraine when speaking of his homeland and generally referred to the object of his allegiance as either “Russia” or “Rus.”20 Like Kiukhelbeker, he, too, felt the full force of his Russian identity when in expatriation and his remarks on the necessity of travel sometimes recall Karamzin, whose protagonist had justified his excursion abroad in terms of patriotic sentiment: “In order to realize our attachment to the fatherland, we need to leave it.”21 Gogol’s link to Russia was more ambivalent, however: he also insisted on maintaining the separation from home by prolonging his experience abroad. Acknowledging the contradictory nature of his feelings for Russia, he agreed with “an important truth” voiced by Aleksandr Turgenev: “living abroad, you become homesick for Russia, but as soon as you reach Russia, you become sick from Russia” (108). Gogol’s letters to literary acquaintances suggest that he busied himself less with perfecting his cultural education while abroad than with establishing a definitive idea of himself as professional writer. In these epistles, he often aims to persuade his addressees—and perhaps himself—of the seriousness and profundity with which he felt and practiced his vocation. Gogol is probably the first author discussed herein who speaks of himself as a “writer” (pisatel’) in the sense of an ontological category worthy of special analysis. He also uses the more Romantic term “poet” (poeta) and, in many ways, the professional image that emerges from his travel letters recalls Kiukhelbeker’s conception of the tortured artist: Gogol, too, dons the mantle of romantic exile, far from his spiritual home. In addition, the choice to define himself as a poet reinforced a link between Gogol and his mentors, Pushkin and Zhukovsky.22 Much of his literary work as well as his conception of what it meant to be a writer were conditioned by close relationships with these men and by a reliance on their moral and financial support.

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Gogol’s peregrinations abroad particularly helped to develop his relationship with Zhukovsky, who was frequently in Western Europe himself. When writing to his mother and younger sisters, Gogol generally abstains from discussing professional topics and describes instead the foreign places that he has visited. What might at first seem a standard approach to the travel letter offers, in Gogol’s version, a series of unusual perspectives on Western Europe. While literary travel writing ordinarily tends to assume (or politely suggest) the reader’s cosmopolitan familiarity with the West and thus rarely allows the expression of surprise at the basic facts of foreign life, Gogol revels in Western Europe’s diversity from the experience and expectations of his provincial family. Through a literary technique that can loosely be described as “defamiliarization” or “making strange” (ostranenie), Gogol underlines the curious aspects of the surrounding world for his readers. He does not, as strictly defined ostranenie would suggest, reveal the familiar in a surprising, new light nor does he reinvigorate literary clichés to individualize his personal experiences as had Kiukhelbeker, but, in keeping with the interests of his unworldly addressees, pointedly celebrates the novelties of travel and life abroad.23 “Do you know what a steamship is?” he writes indulgently to his younger sisters: No, you don’t know what a steamship is, because, it seems, one has never sauntered about beneath your windows. It is a ship that smokes incessantly and is as dirty as a chimney sweep, but all the same goes much faster than the usual ship. I think it would seem quite strange t o you to sail on a ship. Imagine that all around you is only sea, the sea and nothing else. […] We sailed and sailed and finally after a week put in t o shore where everything we saw was new: the city was not built like ours are, the people do not speak Russian at all, in a word—we were in a foreign land (51, 53).

Gogol’s impulse to defamiliarize Western Europe is a far cry from the earnest civic description that typified earlier grand tour accounts. Moreover, any desire to demonstrate the traveler’s “European” qualities or to fulfill touristic rituals is as absent in his letters as in Dead Souls. In point of fact, the traveling Gogol delights in making himself “strange” as well. He speaks proudly of the social alienation that characterizes his life abroad, justifying it as a result of the introverted work habits required by his higher calling: “It’s not the business of the poet to insinuate himself into the earthly market. Like a silent monk, he lives in the world

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without belonging to it and his pure, unblemished soul knows only how to converse with God” (78). Gogol had been concerned with the spiritual aspects of his writerly activity even before his departure, noting on the eve of his trip that “There is no glory for the prophet in his fatherland” (41). Western European travel encouraged him to further elaborate this stance. Not only did residence abroad virtually guarantee Gogol’s alienation from the immediate surroundings, but it also provided an ennobling spiritual dimension for his creative activity. Indeed, the experience of being physically located in Western Europe and encircled by Western European culture was fundamental to his sense of being a Russian writer. Foreign climes offered psychological and physical freedom that he lacked in Russia and thus a background against which his asceticism—and his “Russianness”—made sense. His letters comment frequently on the motivational quality of his alienated state. In many respects, Gogol’s letters from abroad are comparatively emancipated from the tourist’s traditionally reverential attitude towards Western culture. Like Karamzin, he often responds to the pressure of foreign influence by insisting upon his coolness towards it. He frequently criticizes what he sees, for example, pointing out that the materialistic West offers little in the way of spiritual sustenance (at least for him) and describing Hamburg as “drowned in shops” whose products, though beautiful and inexpensive, are completely unnecessary (50). In general, the surroundings fail to significantly impress him; he finds only the Alps and ancient Gothic churches to be particularly striking (60, 61-2). One of Gogol’s favorite topics is the Western practice of overeating and the indigestion that this provokes for those accustomed to more prudent behavior (and suffering, as he often did, from gastric problems). One letter includes a parodic travel sketch that ostensibly aims to recount the road from Lausanne t o Vevey, but describes instead how a large meal consumed before the journey made it difficult to find a seat in the crowded conveyance (67-9). Such comments accord well with Gogol’s chosen role of monk: asceticism and spiritual dedication render him impervious t o the lures of Western materialism and gluttony. While Gogol admires several aspects of life abroad, he also often explains—and thus partly neutralizes—his positive impressions. “Europe strikes you your first time, when you drive through the first gates at the first city,” he remarks: “everything is good and

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pleasing and new because we don’t have it in all the space of our Rus, but then later, as you see the same things [again and again], you get used to them and forget that they’re good” (62). He similarly refuses to be taken in by Switzerland: Everywhere views and more views so that they’re finally making me ill, and if I ran into one of our vile and flat Russian places with a log hut and gray sky, I would be in condition to enjoy it as a new view (61).

Indeed, internal Russian landscapes in all their unpicturesque banality figure prominently in his letters as the object of affectionate sentiments and source of literary inspiration. After about a year abroad, he writes: I see [here] beautiful skies, the world rich with art and mankind. But has my pen really set out to describe subjects that could strike anyone? Not one line have I been able to dedicate to the foreign. I am bound to my own land with an unassailable chain and would prefer our poor, dim world, our smoky huts and naked spaces to the best skies gazing cordially upon me (92).

It should be noted that many of Gogol’s stated opinions are variable and inconsistent. While he initially foresees that travel abroad will allow him to “go off by myself and get to work” (41), he later declares that it is impossible for him to write in isolation and “when I have all the space of time, unbounded and immeasurable” (250). It’s also true that his patriotic displays become less pronounced when he grows enamored of Italy after a protracted stay there: “She’s mine!” he declares, “I was born here. Russia, Petersburg, the snow, the scoundrels, the department, the university, the theater—I dreamt all of that” (111). “After Italy,” he equates the landscapes of transalpine Europe with a newly bleak image of Russian geography: Switzerland and Germany become “low, tasteless, vile, gray and cold”; recalling his visits to these countries, Gogol now writes “it seemed to me as if I’d been in the Olonetsk gubernia and heard the wild breath of the Arctic Ocean” (112). Like Karamzin and other antecedents, Gogol was interested to find a position for himself abroad befitting the Russian man of letters. One such example is his attempt to create a niche for himself on the hallowed shores of Lake Léman. It might be expected that at this locale, Gogol would recall Karamzin, who had specifically

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asked future travelers to remember him, and Rousseau, so thoroughly admired by the previous generation of readers and tourists. Explaining the lakeshore’s importance in a letter t o Zhukovsky, however, he mentions neither Karamzin nor Rousseau, but professes to have been stirred by the more recent visit of Zhukovsky himself. While Gogol may have been exaggerating Zhukovsky’s role as a literary model in order to flatter or please him, it is also clear that the younger writer cherished the idea of operating in a shared cultural framework. Zhukovsky had spent time on Lake Léman in 1820 and again in 1832-33 when he had wintered near Vevey, an area known for its mild climate.24 Already during his first visit, Zhukovsky had begun to alter the significance of this environment for Russian tradition. Ignoring Karamzin’s behest and dismissing Rousseau, he found neither model as compelling as that of Byron, whose “Prisoner of Chillon” (1815), set on the nearby lakeshore, he undertook t o translate into Russian. Revisiting the area in 1833, Zhukovsky reiterated Byron’s importance and his own consequent attachment to the spot in a personal letter: My house is in a poetic spot on the very shore of Lake Geneva [Léman], t o the left is Montreux above and [the castle] Chillon on the water, to the right Clarens and Vevey. These names will recall to you Rousseau, and Julie, and Byron. For me, only the traces of the latter are eloquent: his name is carved in Chillon on Bonnivard’s pillar and in Clarens, right o n the road, is the simple peasant house where Byron spent a few days and from which he would go to Chillon. […T]here is nothing more boring than La Nouvelle Héloïse: I couldn’t finish it even in my youth […]. Byron is something else: many of his pages are eternal. […] I walk every day here along the same road where Byron probably strolled, either to the left from my house towards Chillon or to the right through Clarens towards Vevey. It’s three versts in either direction (6 versts there and back); I have measured out the distance in steps and every verst is marked with my name—scratched by me onto a stone.25

When Gogol visits the lake in 1836, he presents himself as literally following in Zhukovsky’s footsteps. This overlap of itineraries inspires Gogol to carve his own name into the landscape as well: […] I crossed into Switzerland for the autumn. […] The Genevan cold and winds chased me off to Vevey. […] At first, it was a little dull for me, then I grew used to it and became your absolute successor: I took possession of the places where you had strolled, I measured the distance in the versts that you had fixed, poking at the lizards running along the walls with my

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Lake Léman is important to Gogol primarily for having hosted Zhukovsky’s creative activity. Outlining a new version of the canonical Russian literary pilgrimage to this famous locale, he replaces Karamzin and Zhukovsky’s celebration of Western tradition with a reverence for Russian literary Penates. At the same time, Zhukovsky is less interested in the relationship between this actual environment and its translation into literary text than in how Chillon’s dungeon inspired Zhukovsky to practice the writer’s craft abroad. Gogol thus ignores the established priorities of the literary travel account, eschewing the tradition of writing about this site to focus on act of writing at it. In a sense, his reinterpretation of Lake Léman solves the same problem that travel writers had faced at Rhine Falls, i.e. how to add a personal flourish to an established topic in order to demonstrate, within given constraints, one’s own individual talent or literary muscle. By dissolving the direct connection between geography and textual content that so concerned his predecessors, Gogol is able to exploit this foreign context in new ways. He positions himself in a Russian rather than Western literary tradition and, despite the thematic irrelevance of Swiss geography for his novel, uses this venerated setting to concentrate energetically on Dead Souls (72). Gogol’s response to Lake Léman thus illustrates yet another step towards Russian cultural independence insofar as it demonstrates a “normalization” of the Western environment, i.e. a Russian writer using his time abroad to work on something other than a description of foreign travel. As he later wrote to Zhukovsky from Paris: The Dead flows in a lively fashion, more freshly and boldly than i n Vevey, and it absolutely seems to me that I am in Russia: everything before me is ours, our landowners, our clerks, our officers, our peasants, our huts, in a word all of orthodox Rus. It’s even funny to me when I think that I’m writing Dead Souls in Paris (74-5).

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As Dead Souls suggests, Gogol was interested in internal travel as well. When working on the book’s second volume (in circa 1849), for example, he studied Pallas’s Journey through Various Provinces of the Russian Empire, filling four notebooks with data taken from that text. He also claimed at one point that “One must travel through Russia. A Russian who has really seen his own country will not look for happiness abroad, nor willingly forsake his own land, nor be tempted by faraway countries.”27 Gogol’s original title for his novel, The Adventures of Chichikov or Dead Souls: A Narrative Poem (Pokhozhdeniia Chichikova ili Mertvye Dushi. Poema), underlines the metaphorical road that serves as the novel’s structuring principle.28 Although often translated as “adventures,” pokhozhdeniia etymologically emphasizes physical movement in space, as in “wandering” or “travel.” Thus, the “panegyric to the road” that concludes the first volume of Dead Souls and underlies much of the novel itself reflects certain key issues raised by Gogol’s experience abroad, including the importance of an external perspective for an enhanced understanding of Russian life and, more generally, of mobility, movement, and freedom for the Russian writer in Nicholaevan Russia.29 Gogol’s example also illustrates a further step in the development of Russian realist prose, based, as it was, on the tradition of travel writing and constituted by the act of leaving it behind. 3. Fyodor Glinka’s Internal Tour, 1810-11 As discussed in earlier chapters, the possibility of writing a literary account of domestic travel was often complicated by the apparent inappropriateness of this Western mode for the Russian landscape. If literary travel writing’s standard focus on elite culture, with its description of high society hobnobbing and visiting museums, was of limited use on provincial turf, domestic tourists also suffered from the ostensible shortcomings of Russian physical geography. The solution proposed by sentimentalism, i.e. careful attention t o the traveler’s emotions and personal history soon exhausted its novelty. In articulating the Russian subject’s individual ties to the domestic landscape, sentimentalism did help to prepare the ground for future conceptions of Russian space, but the languid emotive approach itself did not survive. National themes provided a more

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enduring strategy for imagining internal territory, and, in tandem with the civic concerns of the Napoleonic era, oriented domestic travel writing towards the discovery and documentation of native Russian historical and cultural riches. It was in this climate that Fyodor Glinka published his account of domestic travel, a report of a trip along the Volga and overland through the provinces of Moscow, Smolensk, Tver, and Kiev taken during his interwar retirement in 1810-11. When Glinka wrote the preface to his internal account in 1815, he was able to conceive it as forming “a single whole” with his military reportage: it appeared as volumes two and three in the eight-volume edition of Letters of a Russian Officer (1815-16), acknowledged in one of that text’s several descriptive subtitles as “the Addition of Notes, Thoughts, and Arguments from a Trip through Certain Gubernias.” Like the other seven volumes of Letters of Russian Officer, it celebrates national virtues while remaining acutely aware of foreign culture. Nonetheless, Glinka’s military travel writing thoroughly eclipsed his report of touring the provinces: although his wartime letters have been printed in dozens of editions since their first appearance, Glinka’s domestic travelogue was published in full for a second time only in 1990.30 The text unfolds in a series of short essays, some of which describe places and people, while others expound upon the traveler’s thoughts. The more reflective passages comment on human greed, vanity, and the decline of ancient virtues in the modern age. Perhaps the least successful among these are digressions on the relationship between love and the invention of the postal system or on the question of whether or not man will ever engage in winged flight and the possible moral implications of this prospect. The text also includes brief descriptions of various towns and villages, concluding with an eyewitness account of the destruction wrought by an 1811 fire in Kiev. Glinka’s low-profile narrator and attention to local detail demonstrate the priorities of informational travel writing that were common in internal accounts. The narrator makes little effort to present himself in the role of either traveler or writer—a sharp contrast from the emphatic pose of scribbler-on-the-run found in Glinka’s military reports. It may also be that the sketchy figure of the narrator lacks more elaborate literary stylization because Glinka’s internal account was not extensively reworked for publication, but printed,

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he claims, in response to the reader demand provoked by the previous volumes of his popular Letters. Several critics have worked hard to find echoes of Radishchev in Glinka’s Letters of a Russian Officer, particularly in his description of internal travel.31 While it is true that Glinka does sometimes address the harsh conditions under which the rural peasantry works and lives, he does not accuse the imperial administration of direct responsibility for this state of affairs. In a passage on the lack of rural doctors, for example, the traveler suggests that this deplorable situation is mitigated by the healing properties of native Russian herbs (53); in another section, he presents the heart-rending complaints of a peasant woman as testimony both to the innate eloquence of the Russian people and to the damage done in rural areas by foreign influence (54-5). Indeed, Glinka’s domestic account resembles his wartime writing in its patriotic rhetorical aims: one of its primary objectives is to demonstrate “indigenous virtues and alien vices” (27); in particular, it describes the remarkable activities of individual Russians encountered during Glinka’s tour. Not surprisingly, this romantic and nationalistic approach to the domestic landscape frames his discussion in a manner that was more palatable to state authorities than had been the case for Radishchev. Visiting “both palaces and huts” (27), Glinka’s traveler interacts with a variety of social classes. After the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars, Russian readers were especially voracious for literary tributes to their nation’s strength and writers commonly traced its source to the rural provinces and the narod.32 Like numerous other writers from the era, Glinka describes the Russian folk as a repository of native and non-Western tradition and—similarly to Dashkova, Radishchev, Martynov, Shalikov and others—connects the notion of absolute morality to the idealized image of a peasant abode: “In our day, true virtues have become treasures: they must be sought in the gloom of obscurity, removed from passion’s roar, beneath the roof of wretched huts” (34). At the same time, the provincial figures that Glinka depicts in greatest detail are not peasants at all, but entrepreneurial noblemen and inventive merchants. If his interest in economic and industrial development typifies that often found in informational accounts of domestic travel, his attention to the middle classes also recalls Karamzin’s account of rural prosperity in bourgeois England.

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In Smolensk, the retired traveler encounters the hardworking and pious Maslov, inventor of a type of cement that he uses t o produce “artificial stones” by the thousand. The process is explained in some detail: he begins by combining sand and water, then shapes the mixture by hand into blocks which are allowed t o dry and harden over a period of several months until ready for use in construction. The procedure, we are told, not only brings t o perfection a technique long used by Slavic peasants in the construction of their huts, but resembles the building practices of the ancient Greeks (30-1). In the area of Rzhev, much of the population demonstrates a remarkable inclination for the mechanical. The traveler’s host has even managed to construct a foreign invention which he has never seen, but only heard described, namely a mechanical device by which loaded boats power themselves upstream (59-60). Other talented individuals include a self-taught mechanic, a self-taught jack-of-all-trades, and the merchant Voloskov, who surpassed his watchmaker father in building an astronomical clock. The traveler praises their combination of native inventiveness and lack of pretension; with appropriate governmental support, he points out, such autodidacts would flourish and bring great benefit to the fatherland. In his view, Voloskov’s phenomenal successes derive from an education resembling that of Rousseau’s Émile in which creativity and excellence have their source in the surrounding natural environment itself, here rural Russia: Where did knowledge what trade globes and

the Rzhev merchant Terenty Voloskov acquire profound in mechanics, chemistry, and religion—at what university? at school? Not in any. He began his studies not with painted printed books, but with the huge book of Nature (61-3).33

The traveler favors naturalness in aesthetic spheres as well, preferring English gardens to Italian and the simple wooden summerhouse (besedka) to more elaborate wallpapered models (412). Issues of appreciation and taste are presented more literally in his praise of the Volga—superior to other European rivers, it seems, because of its delicious flavor: “I have drunk water in the Danube, Dnestr, Dnepr, Vistula, and Bug, but the waters of the Volga seemed tastier to me than all of those” (56). Glinka’s comments also illustrate a romantic tendency t o connect Russia’s positive features with a vague notion of the past in which superior moral values were supposedly nurtured. In his

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view, one of the virtues of provincial travel was precisely that it allowed direct contact with Russia’s historical roots and native customs. In the tidy and unassuming home of Voloskov, for example, the traveler finds evidence of “the way all homes in Russia were more than one or two hundred years ago” (71). Such historical inclinations offer a new method for the positive assessment of features found in rural Russia that might equally well have been approached with ambivalence. As discussed previously, many travel writers patriotically (and often sentimentally) extolled modest and even unattractive aspects of Russian life by asserting that the national and/or personal importance of these rendered irrelevant their evaluation according to other criteria. What might otherwise be taken as signs of the country’s backwardness, in other words, were actually cultural treasures. If Glinka saw provincial travel as a journey into time past, his trip differed from that of the sentimentalist in that it did not provoke sad memories of experiences forever lost, but inspired joy at the recognition that a valuable cultural legacy had been preserved into the present day. The fact that his route traversed several medieval towns further contributed to his delighted sense of moving through an anachronism: “Crossing the Volga, you find yourself right in Holy Rus! Here they speak pure Russian and dress in the Russian style” (57). The historical layers contained in Glinka’s native landscape and his references to “Rus” foreshadow the richly textured domestic provinces later elaborated by Gogol in Dead Souls. A concern for Russia’s position among other European nations colors Glinka’s account as well. Recourse to the national past, after all, was a means to find firmer ground upon which to base claims for Russia’s present-day significance. Further down the Volga, he abandons thoughts of medieval history to compare the rural landscape and culture with that of contemporary Western Europe: We arrived in Zubtsov at the time when they were busy with the cutting of the cabbage. […] In a word, the cutting of the cabbage in the Volga region is equivalent to the gathering of the grapes in Germany and the southern provinces of France (77).

In general, Glinka saw domestic travel writing as a means of affecting and correcting Russia’s reputation abroad—or at least he presented it that way to his readers. Since the text itself was written for a Russian-speaking audience, it was more an exercise in self-affirmation therapy than an actual communiqué to Western

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Europe. In order to truly appreciate internal touring, he insists in his preface, one must apply different criteria: Traveling in our fatherland, one cannot fill a diary’s pages with the description of pictures, marble sculptures and other artworks; but it i s possible to copy pictures from our nature, which is rich in them, and most importantly of all, it seems to me, to become familiar with and to describe the customs of our own folk (27).

The exemplary Russians that Glinka describes in his account are meant to inspire national pride and, “serving as the best refutation of foreigners’ aspersions,” to “convince them that we also have had, do have, and will have our own native talents and that Russians are indeed capable of everything” (28). Such affirmations not only prefigure the well-known claims of Dostoevsky (particularly as expressed in his Pushkin Speech of 1881), but also may be traced back to the poetry of Lomonosov, who in 1747 urged the Empress Elizabeth to “show that the Russian land can give birth to its own Platos and quick-minded Newtons.”34 Lomonosov’s words provided a starting point for much subsequent discussion on the topic of national character. They were later echoed, for example, in the published exchange between Fonvizin and Catherine II of 1783: asked by Fonvizin “In what does our national character consist?” the Empress responded that it lay “in the acute and quick understanding of everything.”35 “Filon” picked up the thread again in 1796 by arguing that According to an imitativeness peculiar to our people, we can in many of the Arts come quite close to foreigners, in many achieve comparability with them, and in a few even surpass them (2:242).

In the Napoleonic era, such assertions were fairly common. “How clearly the truth is demonstrated to us!” wrote the future Decembrist Nikolai Turgenev, “The more we shake off the foreign from ourselves, the greater the brilliance, the greater the glory in which our national (narodnye) attributes appear.” In Turgenev’s view, only the emergence of a definitive national culture would enable “Europeans to judge the Russian people for its external qualities and acquire the obligatory respect for it.”36 Glinka’s portraits of specific individuals and general interest in the Russian past enabled him to overcome the rhetorical limitations of sentimentalist literary models and make a concrete argument for Russian uniqueness and definition. As his subsequent

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description of visiting Paris makes clear, however, the discovery of Russia’s “native talents” was not sufficient to eliminate Glinka’s anxieties about Russia’s relationship to Western European culture. In fact, the publication of his domestic account in 1815 might even be seen as part of his attempt to recover from the experience of 1814 Paris, to correct his overweening enthusiasm for the French capital, and to reestablish his equilibrium by asserting Russia’s potential for independence from foreign cultural influence. Moreover, while Glinka’s record of domestic travel signals changing perceptions of the Russian provinces and of their inhabitants, it also indicates that internal travel writing was not yet ready to fully address the subject of the Russian folk. Despite the earlier attempt of Radishchev and the widespread celebration of peasant virtues in the rhetoric of the Napoleonic era, detailed portraits of this class appeared only years later and in works of realist fiction, such as Ivan Turgenev’s Notes of a Hunter (1852). During the intervening years, it was the elite subject’s relationship to the landscape that proved to be more urgent. In fact, Glinka’s internal account appeared at the beginning of the turbulent postwar decade, when conflicts between writer and state that had been stifled or obscured by the ongoing war came to the fore once again. Glinka’s own growing disenchantment with the Russian government materialized in Decembrist sympathies. After the Uprising of 1825, he was exiled to Petrozavodsk, where he avoided further clashes with the state—and explored popular social classes more fully—by dedicating himself to religious poetry and Karelian folklore.37 4. Pushkin’s Provincial Tours: In the Tracks of Pugachov and Radishchev Despite his numerous Decembrist acquaintances, the poet Aleksandr Pushkin was spared in 1825 from a direct clash with Nicholas’s new government by the fact that he was already living in exile for an indiscretion committed during the reign of Alexander I. As is well-known, Pushkin found rich inspiration in the exotic surroundings of the Black Sea during his compulsory sojourn on its shores (1821-24) and scholarly consideration of Pushkin as a travel writer has tended to focus either on the numerous letters, verses, and narrative poems generated by that

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experience or on the texts resulting from his second visit to the Caucasus in 1829, especially the travelogue Journey to Arzrum (1835). This study examines instead Pushkin’s approach to travel in the more mundane provincial districts of Russia—as illustrated in the fragmentary “Onegin’s Journey,” in letters from a trip that Pushkin undertook in 1833 to conduct research on the Pugachov Rebellion, and in the unfinished Journey from Moscow to Petersburg (1834), his response to Radishchev. While it may be argued that none of these examples is a “proper” literary travelogue, they do illuminate, when taken together, important features of Pushkin’s relationship to Russia’s imaginary geography in the late 1820s and early 1830s. Possible reasons for the absence of a more traditional account of domestic travel in the oeuvre of this titanic literary figure are worth contemplating as well. Pushkin gyrated incessantly within European Russia from the end of his internal exile in September 1826 to his death in January 1837. Repeatedly denied permission to venture abroad, he shuttled between the two capitals, family estates at Mikhailovskoe and Boldino, and the country homes of friends.38 Journeys into provincial Russia had offered varieties of escape for many earlier travelers: Radishchev’s protagonist headed through rural areas on his trip from the iniquitous capital to the antithetical Moscow, for example, his fictional acquaintance “Ch—” fled the capital for civilization’s edge, and sentimentalist tourists abandoned their urban homes to explore countryside realms of nostalgia and bourgeois pastoralism. In Pushkin’s case as well, domestic excursions provided a welcome alternative to life in Petersburg, removing him, if only temporarily, from the increasingly odious state of forced proximity to Nicholas I (he held the low-ranking court position of kammerjunker in the 1830s). At the same time, Pushkin’s domestic journeys continually brought him face to face with the contradiction between an apparent increase in his freedom (distance from the capital) and the actual fact that he could not escape the tsar’s surveillance and censorship. It is thus perhaps not surprising that in both his own and his narrative encounters with provincial Russia, Pushkin often points out the existence of various forms of opposition to the autocracy and its policies. In particular, the specters of Pugachov, Radishchev, and Decembrism appear repeatedly in his oeuvre, as do suggestions of links between them and himself. This subversive network of associations that

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structured his ideas of Russian space was stimulated and sustained by his experiences of internal travel. “Onegin’s Journey” comprises a series of episodes that Pushkin originally planned as a separate chapter of Eugene Onegin (182732), but then chose to remove from the final edition. Some of the more innocuous passages were published separately at the time, others were found among Pushkin’s unpublished manuscripts after his death, still other stanzas have been lost.39 The full text of “Onegin’s Journey” describes the activities of the protagonist during the three-year interval that separates his spurning of Tatiana from his later declaration of love to her. The final version of Eugene Onegin explains only that “A restlessness took hold of him / the urge towards a change of places” and that after three years of “travels without aim,” Onegin became bored with that activity, too—internal travel apparently offering no remedy for his characteristic spleen—and returned to Petersburg (1:287). “Onegin’s Journey” offers more detail on his trip and its motivations. On the provincial leg of his trip, he travels from Petersburg to Moscow, east to Nizhny Novgorod, and then south along the Volga to Astrakhan, before moving on to more exotic locales, namely the Caucasus, the Crimea, and finally Odessa, from which, after a prolonged stay, Onegin returns to the capital. His original inspiration appears to have been a surge of patriotic feeling, albeit of dubious sincerity. Brought on by dullness and inclement weather, this seems little more than the latest fashionable pose: Grown bored of either passing for a Melmoth or sporting any other mask, he once awoke a patriot during a rainy tedious spell. For Russia, gentlemen, he instantly felt a tremendous liking, and it [his journey] is settled.

As in many other internal travelogues, Onegin’s patriotic infatuation with Russia is accompanied by scorn for the West: “He is now in love, / he raves of nothing now but Rus, / he now hates Europe with its dry politics, / with its lewd bustle.” Like his friend Fyodor Glinka, Pushkin shades the experience of moving through domestic territory with romantic and medieval overtones: he will “see holy Rus: her fields, / wilds, towns, and seas” (3:261).

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In general, the valorization of domestic space was a recurring theme in Pushkin’s later literary work and one that he thoroughly explored in Eugene Onegin, an experiment with prosaic themes and settings. Most of Onegin unfolds in rural northwest Russia, an environment quite distinct from both the romantic landscapes of Pushkin’s Southern poems and the countryside typical of the sentimentalist idyll—the latter vision so hackneyed in the 1820s that only an ironic approach to it would be possible. If Pushkin sometimes pokes fun at the inhabitants of Russia’s backwaters, he also acknowledges the genuine appeal of their tranquil existence. Here, rural solitude and simplicity offer a concrete and realistic alternative to the life enjoyed by high society in the capitals. The strength and vigor of the countryside stand out clearly in the figure of Tatiana, its finest product, whose power, like Russia’s, lies not in her glamour, but in her compelling sincerity. That said, “Onegin’s Journey” does little to enhance the portrait of provincial Russia found elsewhere in the poem. Indeed, the lack of detail found in the description of Onegin’s internal tour raises some doubts about the relevance of this territory for his patriotic quest: certainly, the landscape gives little obvious indication of justifying sentiments of national pride. The single published stanza dedicated to the provincial segment of his journey states only that Onegin traveled from Moscow to Nizhny and, after describing the mercantile atmosphere of that city (“Ennui!”), notes that he traveled on to Astrakhan (1:335-6). He then turns with relief to Russia’s South, feeling truly “moved” by his surroundings “for the first time” before the spectacular mountain landscapes of the Caucasus (3:264). Pushkin himself would appear to have had similar geographical preferences: it is Onegin’s trip t o the Caucasus, his subsequent tour of the Crimea, and his sojourn in Odessa that constitute the bulk of his described travels (both published and non-) and bring the playful narratorial voice of the fore once again. Nonetheless, “Onegin’s Journey” attempts t o underline the sharp contrast between provincial Russian reality and literary expectations of a more exalted landscape. In fact, Pushkin’s acquaintance Pavel Katenin felt that he had chosen t o excise the account of Onegin’s travels from the poema’s final text “because the inferior quality of places and things had not allowed him to compete with the Byronian model,” i.e. Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.40 While Katenin seems to have missed the point, Pushkin himself spoke of “Onegin’s Journey” as a “playful

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parody” of Childe Harold in the draft of an introduction to the text, an orientation that sheds light on his initial decision t o describe Onegin’s trip as a “pilgrimage” (stranstvie). Indeed, the reliance on exoticism required to make explicit the contrast between these fashionably romantic landscapes and those offered by Russian provincial life may have encouraged Pushkin to remove such passages from the final text, thus ensuring that rural parochialism and banality stand on their own as central themes. A similar explanation might be given for Pushkin’s later choice t o drop “pilgrimage” from the title and describe the trip with what Nabokov describes as “the matter-of-fact and un-Byronic” term “journey” (puteshestvie).41 In keeping with the pointedly prosaic enthusiasms demonstrated elsewhere in Eugene Onegin, the narrator valiantly claims to have outgrown his own youthful attraction to such fashionable scenery: Needful to me are other pictures: I like a sandy hillside slope, before a small isba [peasant hut] two rowans, a wicket gate, a broken fence, up in the sky gray clouds, before the thrash barn heaps of straw, and in the shelter of dense willows a pond [...] now my ideal is a housewife, my wishes, peace and “pot of shchi” [cabbage soup] [...] the Flemish school’s variegated dross!” (3:338-9).

Like Gogol writing from abroad, Pushkin lauds Russia’s distance from a Western literary standard and its failure to be modishly romantic as unique to its essence. A richer vision of provincial imaginary geography emerges from the unpublished stanzas of “Onegin’s Journey,” in which the protagonist comes into contact with a Russian tradition of resistance to state authority (3:261-3). He begins, as had Radishchev, with a trip along the Petersburg-Moscow highway, passing through Novgorod, Valdai, Torzhok, and Tver. Pushkin’s comments on the “clinging peasant girls” of these towns, while not explicitly political, do indicate familiarity with Radishchev’s banned account, while the “bestilled rebellious bell” of Novgorod, a reference to the famous instrument that called public assemblies in the relatively independent and republican northern city before its

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sixteenth-century takeover by Moscow, hints at the aborted Decembrist revolt.42 If “Onegin’s Journey” does not explicitly address Decembrism, that Pushkin had it in mind is demonstrated by the extant fragments of “Chapter 10,” another projected section of Eugene Onegin that was ultimately excluded (and largely destroyed) as well as by the suggestion, recalled by Pushkin’s contemporaries, that Onegin himself was to have been a Decembrist.43 Pushkin’s obsession with the Uprising may also be seen in a pair of macabre sketches from 1826 that depict five men swinging from the gallows. In point of fact, the hanging of the Decembrists made a deep impression throughout contemporary Russia where the death sentence was invoked so rarely as to be considered a virtual impossibility.44 If Nicholas I’s decision to execute five of the rebels came as a shock, his selection of the gallows as the appropriate means to do so was widely felt to be especially horrible and humiliating. Moreover, in the case of the Decembrists, the event of the hanging itself was “a more than usually gruesome and tragic affair […] Because of the hangman’s inexperience and the poor condition of the ropes, only two of the Decembrists were hanged properly at the first attempt.”45 Radishchev had been sentenced t o death in 1790, of course, although his punishment was soon commuted to a ten-year internal exile and even that sentence surprised and impressed his contemporaries as extremely cruel for one of Radishchev’s social standing. In fact, the last state execution prior to 1826 had been that of the Cossack Emelian Pugachov in 1775, another particularly brutal incident in which the victim was beheaded and then dismembered. Ideas of Decembrism also surface in Pushkin’s writings from this period in numerous references (both direct and allusive) t o Radishchev, Pugachov, and other symbols of rebellion and punishment. When Onegin passes through the Lower Volga region, for example, Pushkin makes no direct reference to either Pugachov or the insurgents of 1825, although this area had once hosted the rebel leader and was now home to many exiled Decembrists. He does hints at these themes in a description of Onegin’s encounter with the Volga barge haulers, however, the central episode of his trip along the river. From these men, Onegin hears a song glorifying Stenka Razin, another Cossack outlaw and popular folk hero whose failed rebellion ended with his death (by dismemberment and then beheading) in 1671:

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The Volga swells. The haulers leaning against boat hooks of steel, in plangorous voices sing about that robbers’ den, about those daredevil incursions when in the old times Stenka Razin begored the Volga wave. They sing of those unbidden guests who burned and butchered.

The bloody imagery of this verse, easily associated to Pugachov and the Decembrists,46 suggests that provincial territory does, in fact, offer recompense for Onegin’s patriotic and romantic feelings—largely by providing reflection of his own rebellious spirit. While discussions of Decembrism were taboo in contemporary literature, Pushkin was curiously able to obtain explicit authorization from the tsar for his work on Pugachov. He first planned to write a novel on the Rebellion, but after a review of archival materials, laid that project aside and began the scholarly study that eventually became A History of Pugachov (1834).47 Pushkin’s active interest in the subject apparently began in 1832 with the gift of a book from Nicholas I that detailed the various sentences meted out to Pugachov’s supporters.48 In the summer of 1833, he obtained permission to visit the gubernias of Kazan and Orenburg, where he spent a month familiarizing himself with the geographical setting of the Rebellion, visiting battle sites, and conversing with persons who remembered that era. Pushkin’s trip to southeast European Russia was his most extensive provincial journey. A sketchy record of the experience appears in a series of letters that he wrote to his wife. While Pushkin refers to this account as “my detailed Odyssey,”49 it is far from a typical description of leisured travel, providing neither a thorough report of his surroundings nor a discussion of the traveler’s relationship to them. Pushkin’s letters address more practical and even banal topics: the well-known poet’s social encounters, his boredom (reminiscent of Onegin’s), and problems with horses and his manservant. In places, his letters might even be seen to parody literary travel writing by focusing on inappropriate (non-traditional) subjects:

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Breaking Ground The next day the weather cleared. Sobolevsky and I walked on foot for 1 5 versts, killing snakes on the road that were foolishly happy at the sun and had crawled out on to the sand. Yesterday we arrived safely in Torzhok, where Sobolevsky became furious about the uncleanliness of the bedding. Today I woke at 8, breakfasted gloriously, and now I’m making a side trip to Yaropolets and leaving Sobolevsky alone with the Swiss cheese. That, my angel, is a detailed account of our trip (72).50

Pushkin’s offhand technique playfully underlines the notion that there could possibly be anything noteworthy to report about this domestic route. In fact, his correspondence constitutes a refusal t o even attempt the drafting of a literary record. Pushkin’s own route resembles Onegin’s and here again the domestic landscape proves largely uninteresting. He travels from Petersburg to Moscow without suggesting Radishchev; Moscow is “dull,” “empty,” “poor,” while Nizhny provokes no comment except “the streets are wide and well-paved, the houses well-built” (75-6).51 He becomes more engaged upon reaching territories that played a direct role in the Pugachov Rebellion (the city of Kazan and the Lower Volga), but this change affects the composition of his literary work rather than the shape of his personal letters. “ I will tell you about Kazan in detail,” he writes to his wife, “I’ve no time now” (79). In Orenburg and Uralsk, Pushkin remains too busy to describe the activities that fill his brief stay. He meets old literary friends who facilitate his research and spends several days among the very Cossacks who had put Pugachov forward as a pretender to the throne.52 If not the first internal traveler to look for evidence of Russia’s historical pedigree, Pushkin may have been the first to find it in the events of an insurgent rebellion. As his oeuvre suggests, he was strongly motivated by the relevance of Pugachovian history to the present climate of Nicholas’s Russia. The landscapes that witnessed the Rebellion speak to Pushkin as eloquently as St.-Preux’s cliffs spoke to Karamzin or Zhukovsky’s lakeside mile markers to Gogol: in this setting, he begins “to write even in the carriage” (81). When Maksim Nevzorov traveled eastward towards the Orenburg area in 1803, he described it as the homeland of Tatars, i.e. a setting for the European Russian’s confrontation with the exotic other.53 In his own literary work, Pushkin chooses t o describe Orenburg largely in terms of its Russian population, particularly the more disaffected segments. This was the native turf of the disgruntled Cossack and Russian peasant followers of Pugachov, who while often operating in tandem with the area’s

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non-Russian inhabitants, were the primary political actors. He refers again to the ubiquity of Stenka Razin’s legacy in the manuscript version of A History of Pugachov in an anecdote about an old Cossack woman who, in the midst of the struggle, searches for her missing son along the Yaik [river...] every day, drawing the floating corpses to the bank with a crooked stick and saying, “Is that you, my child? Is it you, my Stepushka? Are these your black curls, washed by the waves?”

The woman’s surname (Razina) suggests that her boy is a direct descendant of Stenka, if not the immortal rebel himself (both “Stepushka” and “Stenka” are forms of “Stepan”). Nicholas I ordered that Razina’s name be removed from Pushkin’s text for its lack of relevance.54 In The Captain’s Daughter, a romantic novel treating the same events, Pushkin draws a parallel between the famous brutality of the Cossack leader and Nicholas I’s treatment of the Decembrists. Indeed, Pugachov’s revolt itself finds a clear echo in the events of 1825. The upset caused in Grinyov’s family by (false) allegations of his treason recall many familial dramas that were known t o Pushkin in the post-Decembrist period. “May the Lord save us,” as Grinyov himself puts it, “from another such senseless and ruthless Russian rebellion!” (347). Grinyov’s forced companionship to the ostensibly cruel, but, in fact, surprisingly benevolent Pugachov resembles Pushkin’s position with respect to the ostensibly benevolent, but, in fact, surprisingly cruel Nicholas I. Catherine II comes off as only slightly more humane, first sentencing Grinyov to death for his apparent treason and then, out of respect for his father, commuting the sentence (as she actually had for Radishchev) to exile—here in “a distant part of Siberia for life” (352). Nonetheless, her decision to execute Pugachov ultimately recalls Nicholas’s hanging of the Decembrists once again. The Captain’s Daughter also more fully elaborates the imaginary geography of southeast European Russia. When the young ensign Grinyov heads towards his first military assignment in Orenburg, he sees “a dreary wilderness,” further south, the Yaik’s “leaden waters formed a sad, dark contrast to its unvaried banks,” while from his room in the fictional fortress of Belogorsky, “ a melancholy steppe stretched out before me.”55 While Pushkin himself had also characterized this border region as bleakly unattractive, he was able to link it with the literary and cultural

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traditions of European Russia. As his letters point out, the areas that he visited were not only sites of political unrest, but had also hosted the boyhoods of Karamzin and the poet Nikolai Iazykov: Pushkin stops at the homes of both during his trip and even makes a sketch of Karamzin’s house. His meeting with old friends in Orenburg again reiterates the link between the literary culture of European Russia and this frontier outpost; in their company, Pushkin leaves behind the memory of his own visit for Zhukovsky to retrieve a few years later. The significant cultural position occupied by Pushkin and his associates in the 1810s, 1820s and 1830s was established in part through the efforts of this group to define itself by exalting common ties of friendship, parentage, and elite literary culture. By consciously celebrating shared literary experiences, their travel writing contributes to such associations as well. Indeed, Pushkin’s emphasis on the Russian population in these areas—rather than on the region’s exoticism or divergence from a national standard—represents a domestication of the Russian borderlands. Seen in this light, it can be argued that the texts generated by his experience of travel to the Orenburg area perform a gesture of creation that in Eliade’s terms transforms “desert regions inhabited by monsters, uncultivated lands, unknown seas on which no navigator has dared to venture” into the world that surrounds us, […] the world in which the presence and the work of man are felt—the mountains that he climbs, populated and cultivated regions, navigable rivers, cities, sanctuaries.56

A more political element is clear as well: Pushkin’s expression of a connection between Russian geography and political dissension places him firmly in the tradition of Radishchev. The experience of domestic travel evidenced in the A History of Pugachov, The Captain’s Daughter, and his brief travel letters resembles Radishchev’s Journey in emphasizing both the link between Russia’s cultural center and its periphery and the existence of simmering political hostilities; Pushkin, too, works to extend the notion of European Russia and with it the reach of political opposition. One of Pushkin’s last projects was to revive memories of Radishchev in a detailed review of his forbidden book. Pushkin had long been interested in Radishchev, his poetic innovations, and the

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political gesture of his Journey. After his trip to Orenburg and several productive months at Boldino, his country estate near Nizhny Novgorod, Pushkin returned to Petersburg, where, while working on Pugachov, he began to study Radishchev. He addresses Radishchev’s Journey in two pieces, the unfinished “Journey from Moscow to Petersburg” (1834) and an unpublished article entitled “Aleksandr Radishchev” (1836) that replicates many of the same topics, albeit in a more direct critical tone.57 In his article, for example, Pushkin speaks of Radishchev’s Journey as a “very mediocre work, not to mention its barbaric style,” describes his “complaining about the unhappy condition of the people, the violence of the powerful and so on” as “exaggerated and tasteless,” and calls his “bursts of sentiment affected and inflated, sometimes exceedingly funny” (194). Despite such disparagement, neither of these pieces is an earnest attempt to find fault with Radishchev. Indeed, both have been seen as pretexts for Pushkin t o simultaneously resurrect the account of his predecessor (in an ostensibly critical framework) and to quote it at length. “Aleksandr Radishchev,” for example, provides the full text of Radishchev’s chapter “Klin,” justifying the inclusion of this banned material as an example of his poor style. While it would have been impossible for Pushkin to publish an essay on Radishchev that openly praised him, these cautionary measures proved insufficient as well: publication of his article was forbidden precisely on the grounds that it was “superfluous to revive the memory of a writer and book completely forgotten and worthy of oblivion.”58 Pushkin’s elliptical “Journey from Moscow to Petersburg” was named by later editors to acknowledge the narrative structure that follows Radishchev’s Journey in reverse. His repetition of Radishchev’s route points again to a political, social, and cultural opposition between Moscow and Petersburg, suggesting both the inexorable pull of the imperial capital (where Pushkin was forced to live) and the opposing pull of the periphery.59 In Pushkin’s “Journey,” as in Radishchev’s, Moscow is the antithesis of Petersburg and hence representative of the provinces beyond, including territories that have been home to political exiles and popular uprisings. He also imitates Radishchev in various compositional elements, using Sternean shifts in topic and tone, for example, as well as the artifice of the found document t o motivate plot development. In Pushkin’s version, a copy of Radishchev’s Journey falls into the traveler’s lap as he prepares for

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departure; he hopes that this book will help to alleviate the boredom that anticipates on the long trip ahead. The traveler himself also resembles Radishchev’s protagonist: he, too, is “an average Russian nobleman pronouncing judgments appropriate t o his social background” whose point of view—blatantly distinct from the author’s—serves to obfuscate (or lighten) the text’s dangerous political content.60 In general, Pushkin enjoyed using narrators who were more naive and unsophisticated than himself and this traveler, like Grinyov in The Captain’s Daughter, is a well-meaning, but somewhat dull-witted figure, who fails to grasp the full implications of what he sees, experiences, or writes. In both cases, the narrator’s sensibilities strategically filter the underlying political implications of the text, distancing the author from the suggestion of a frontal attack on the tsarist regime.61 Pushkin’s account offers thematic links to Radishchev as well. As Journey begins, the narrator is planning to visit Petersburg, where he hasn’t been for “more than fifteen years” (243). His inspiration for this excursion is the opening of a new highway, an occasion that clearly recalls Radishchev’s comments on the shortlived “Potyomkin village” style renovations of the MoscowPetersburg road that had been prompted by Catherine’s plans for a tour.62 As in Radishchev, an investigation into the state of the road implies a look (albeit oblique) at contemporary Russian reality and the administrative policies that color and define available experience. Pushkin’s narrator travels by express coach to avoid the troubles that had plagued his last trip “on the old highway” when road conditions had necessitated constant repairs to his carriage. In a digression on road maintenance (which contradictorily undercuts his enthusiasm for the new thoroughfare), the narrator notes that “in general, Russian highways are good” and “would be still better if governors fussed over them less” since attempts to improve them only make them worse and provide a pretext for “oppression and bribery” (243). Intimations of Decembrism may be seen in the references t o hanging that appear in both of Pushkin’s texts. If Pushkin had presented the text of Radishchev’s “Klin” in his biographical article, he revisits the central episode from that chapter in Journey from Moscow to Petersburg, he revisits the touching story of a blind man who refuses the money offered by Radishchev’s charitable traveler and asks for a warm scarf instead; the traveler later learns that the man has died and was buried with this simple

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gift around his neck. Pushkin’s decidedly less sentimental version obliterates the cloying note found in Radishchev to represent this episode as a suicide: by proffering the desired scarf, Radishchev’s traveler had simply enabled the man to hang himself. Still more striking is the epigraph that Pushkin attaches to the article on Radishchev—“It is not obligatory that an honest man (honnête homme) be hanged” (188)—a line that recalls not only the alternative fate of Radishchev (exile), but also the execution of the Decembrists; Pushkin legitimizes this point of view by crediting it (falsely) to Karamzin. However veiled, Pushkin’s emulation of Radishchev resembles Zhukovsky’s use of Karamzin, or Gogol’s citation of Zhukovsky. Here again, the return to native literary tradition may be seen in Eliade’s terms as a civilizing gesture or the repetition of a creational act, although Pushkin’s remembrance of Radishchev has a distinctly negative coloring. This is not the happy celebration of a predecessor’s legacy, but—like his references to Pugachov, Stenka Razin, and the Decembrists—a demonstration of the existing antagonism between writer and state and the consequent difficulties of describing the domestic landscape in Nicholaevan Russia. Indeed, Pushkin ultimately fails to produce a literary record of internal travel—demonstrated by the largely unpublished “Onegin’s Journey,” his own terse travel letters, the “narrativized” and therefore distanced renderings of imaginary geography found in A History of Pugachov and The Captain’s Daughter, and by his unfinished “Journey from Moscow to Petersburg.” In the postDecembrist Russia, internal touring often provoked the contemplation of subjects that were better left untouched, obscured, or treated in other genres. Pushkin’s efforts illustrate the impossibility of responding to the native environment in a documentary idiom: his attempts to produce fictional (“Onegin’s Journey”) or journalistic (“Journey from Moscow to Petersburg”) travel accounts result in texts that are unfinished, unpublished, and/or printed only in fragments. Like Gogol, he demonstrates far less interest in literary travel writing than in fictional and historical narrative. While both writers were interested in domestic travel and read scientific accounts of it, they preferred in their own work t o select genres that more loosely connected imaginary geography with Russian reality.63 At the same time, Pushkin’s writings from this era return obsessively to the themes of rebellion and popular discontent, ideas suggested by the contemplation of provincial

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Russian territory. As Zhukovsky’s example corroborates, such topics are characteristic of what internal travel was able to produce in the 1830s—at least in examples that veered away from scientific-style encyclopedic record. If Pushkin’s texts offer little in terms of literary travel writing per se, they do suggest a new approach to the legitimization of domestic space by asserting that continued widespread disaffection for the central government serves as a key element in the nation’s imaginary geography. 5. Zhukovsky and Aleksandr Nikolaevich Russia

in Provincial

Unlike several of his friends and literary associates, Zhukovsky was not directly involved with the Decembrist Uprising, at least not as a revolutionary. December 14 found him literally on the opposite side of the conflict: when the Winter Palace was surrounded by rebellious troops, Zhukovsky was inside it together with members of the imperial family that employed him as tutor. In a famous letter describing this experience to his friend Aleksandr Turgenev, the horrified Zhukovsky makes clear that he did not share the revolutionary impulse of these “deluded rebels,” “traitors,” and “robber-insurgents.”64 As has been noted, however, Zhukovsky’s letter was written before he had a clear idea of who was involved in the conspiracy; he later discovered that the participants included many whom he knew well, such as Turgenev’s own brother Nikolai. In the months that followed, Zhukovsky’s position in the conflict gradually shifted towards that of intercessor.65 During the same period, he also became increasingly tied to the imperial family, receiving the appointment in 1826 of head tutor to the new tsar’s son and now heir, Aleksandr Nikolaevich (the future Alexander II). It is not difficult to understand why Nicholas selected Zhukovsky as chief pedagogue for his son: a well-known poet of reputable character, Zhukovsky had been instructing the imperial family since 1817 and enjoyed a cordial relationship with Nicholas’s wife, Aleksandra Fyodorovna, who had once been his pupil. How he managed to keep his position until 1840 is less evident, particularly in light of the numerous collisions with Nicholas that characterized his employment. Zhukovsky frequently used his proximity to the court to plead imperial benevolence and support for various persons who suffered hardship,

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many as a result of tsar’s own policies. With remarkable courage and persistence, he intervened on behalf of those who needed financial support, including Gogol, or who had provoked the tsar’s anger, such as Pushkin. The annoyed Nicholas once declared Zhukovsky’s reputation to be that of “the defender of everyone who has poor relations (kto khud) with the government.”66 Perhaps Zhukovsky’s lengthy tenure as imperial tutor is another example of the peculiar loyalty that characterized Nicholas’s personal and official relationships: not only did the tsar “not like new faces,” but once convinced of someone’s merit, he was unlikely to reverse his opinion, regardless of evidence suggesting that his judgment had been mistaken.67 It is also likely that Nicholas largely appreciated Zhukovsky’s didactic zeal and devotion to his son. Certainly, Zhukovsky performed his duties as tutor quite conscientiously. His letters from these years speak repeatedly of his wholehearted dedication to the important task of educating Russia’s future ruler.68 Shortly after receiving his new appointment, Zhukovsky left Russia for his second extended trip in Western Europe and remained abroad for over a year. He traveled in part for reasons of health, having become quite ill immediately after the Decembrist Uprising.69 Western Europe offered both therapeutic spas and escape from the gloomy aura that pervaded his elite social circle at home. Another purpose of his journey was to research educational models and Zhukovsky worked actively at collecting and developing materials that would be of use in instructing the heir. In Dresden, he drafted an extensive plan for the tsarevich’s studies that underscored the ontological link between travel and learning by describing the course of his future education as a three-stage journey. From ages eight to thirteen, Aleksandr Nikolaevich was t o “prepare” for his educational voyage. From thirteen to eighteen, he would engage in “the journey itself,” that is, work in a variety of subjects resembling those of interest to the average travel writer, including history, geography (“i.e., ethnography and statistics”), politics, philosophy, natural history, “technology,” and physics; like the dutiful tourist, the student would spend evenings recording his progress in a journal. Stage three, the trip’s two-year conclusion, was to be dedicated to “applied study” in which the tsarevich would review, organize, and synthesize the information that he had gathered earlier, contemplating his unique social role and consolidating “the rules necessary for virtuous activity.”70

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When Aleksandr Nikolaevich actually neared the end of his formal education, plans for the final stage had been fleshed out into concrete arrangements for an actual journey: like his father and uncle, Aleksandr Nikolaevich undertook an extended domestic tour and then traveled abroad; the head tutor accompanied him on what occupied the better part of three years (1837-40). Setting out from Petersburg in May, Zhukovsky, Aleksandr Nikolaevich and the rest of the retinue traveled in a caravan of eleven carriages for seven months along a convoluted route. From Tver, they headed eastward through Yaroslavl, Vyatka, and Perm, crossing the Urals and going as far as Tobolsk, before heading south to Kurgan. The travelers then returned to European Russia by skirting the southern end of the mountains and crossing the steppe westward to Orenburg; passing through Kazan and Voronezh, they reached Moscow, and then moved east once again (Vladimir, Nizhny Novgorod), before turning southwest to Ukraine (Kharkov, Odessa). After a second stopover in Moscow, the group returned t o Petersburg in December. According to Nicholas I, the young heir’s domestic trip had a “twofold goal: to get to know Russia as much as this is possible and to let oneself be seen by future subjects.”71 The travelers moved quickly, skipping both breakfast and lunch per the tsar’s instructions and limiting stops to points of particular interest: religious sites, gubernial capitals, public institutions, military structures, and industrial and commercial enterprises; information about these was afforded by a guidebook that had been printed for the travelers in anticipation of their trip.72 Zhukovsky’s correspondence from the trip frequently complains about not having enough time to properly observe or describe the surroundings. Like other touring members of the imperial family, the heir was fêted with illuminations, balls, and mass demonstrations of enthusiasm in the various towns through which he passed. In a series of letters to the Empress, Zhukovsky diplomatically comments on the impressive crowds encountered while traveling and their devotion to Aleksandr Nikolaevich and his family. His diary from the trip is more frank about these mandatory displays of patriotism: “so much unnecessary effort for a foolish directive.”73 Still another perspective appears in the travel letters of Colonel Semen Iurievich, the tsarevich’s aide-decamp, who complained to his wife about the “senseless requests” of “half-savage people” that constantly bombarded the travel party:

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in fact, Aleksandr Nikolaevich’s tour of thirty gubernias inspired his father’s subjects to draft circa sixteen thousand petitions.74 Publicistic, educational, and sentimentalist travel paradigms had long found native territory to be rich with catalysts for personal development and Zhukovsky embraced the educative possibilities of internal travel as well. Always interested in the moral aspects of Aleksandr Nikolaevich’s upbringing, he appears to have envisioned the domestic journey as a sort of Bildungsreise to stimulate the future tsar’s humanitarian potential. As he wrote to Aleksandra Fyodorovna: I don’t expect from him a large harvest of positive practical information about the state of Russia: we’re going too fast for that, we have too many things to inspect, and our trip is too well defined […]. We will, of course, gather many separate facts and this will be of benefit; but the main benefit is entirely moral—precisely that which the Grand Duke can acquire only now, the benefit of a deep, indelible impression.75

Certainly, the trip provided ample opportunity for both indelible impressions and virtuous activity. Not only was this the first imperial study tour to include Siberia in its itinerary, but the travelers passed through several areas where exiled Decembrists were living. By taking his pupil to visit the ostracized conspirators, Zhukovsky, like Pushkin and Radishchev, proposes a link between domestic space and social protest. It has been suggested that he planned the route himself in order to maximize its ethical utility and to some extent Zhukovsky’s project was successful. While the tsarevich appears to have been less interested in trying t o ameliorate the situation of these men than Zhukovsky would have liked,76 he did, in fact, write to his father and ask that Nicholas reconsider the sentences of several political exiles, including Aleksandr Herzen, whom he met in Vyatka, and the Decembrist exiles that he encountered in the Siberian towns of Tobolsk and Kurgan. Nicholas ordered all of the members of the retinue to “keep their own personal journals” and those of both Aleksandr Nikolaevich and Zhukovsky survive. The tsarevich’s unpublished text consists of little more than a list of distances traveled and places passed through, while Zhukovsky’s skeletal account, obviously not written for publication, provides only hints of what he saw and experienced.77 In particular, it offers no more than cryptic suggestions of his interventions on behalf of the

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Decembrist exiles (a topic that his official letters address only cautiously and in a very formal idiom). Nonetheless, Zhukovsky’s brief commentary suffices to indicate the development of conflicts within the travel party around the issue of the exiles. His deeply felt commitment to their cause provoked discord in the group and the diary notes heated exchanges with Aleksandr Nikolaevich on dates that found the travelers in the rebels’ vicinity. Zhukovsky quickly found himself at odds with the tsar as well: if his efforts t o intercede on behalf of others often irritated Nicholas I, the attempt to inculcate such behavior in Aleksandr Nikolaevich infuriated him. The tsar had not anticipated that his son’s growing familiarity with Russia would involve writing home with requests for clemency on behalf of traitors to the state. He responded by sending several of the exiles (irrespective of their age or health) t o active military duty in the Caucasus.78 Nicholas’s displeasure with Zhukovsky was made explicit when the travel party arrived in Voronezh. There many of the tutors received medals that had been sent from Petersburg in commemoration of the tsar’s wedding anniversary, but Zhukovsky did not: “for me a slap in the face,” he laconically noted in his diary (83). On the eve of his first tour abroad in 1820, Zhukovsky had worried that his experiences would not live up to the ideals of foreign travel that he had cherished in his youth due to the constraints that would be imposed upon him as a member of Aleksandra Fyodorovna’s retinue: “Life has changed, and now whatever you see appears limited by a tight circle.”79 He finds a similar optic at work during his domestic travels, particularly in Siberia where the landscape continually afforded depressing reminders of the state. Where Radishchev had noted instruments of torture and fora of penal sentencing, Zhukovsky sees repressed Old Believers, internal exiles, and popular indigence: “Siberia. The wind howls. […] The future (les avenirs) awakens a sad idea” (136).80 Zhukovsky’s Siberian diary resembles that of Radishchev both in its elliptical brevity and in the link between this style and the traveler’s relationship to the state. After all, Zhukovsky was under close observation during his trip as well, even if his travels were more or less voluntary and many of the observers relatively benevolent. A scarcity of literary models might also have contributed to the absence of more elaborate stylization in this text. Certainly, Siberia lacked both a tradition of touristic travel, and—to a much greater degree than was true of provincial

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European Russia—the density and type of cultural sites found in Western literary models. Moreover, it was difficult to achieve the appropriate “literary” focus on high society and elite diversions in a landscape where the most striking examples of noble society were internal exiles. Indeed, Zhukovsky applied himself more zealously to the project of sketching during his domestic tour. In his written attempts to come to terms with the difficulties presented by these surroundings, Zhukovsky had occasional recourse to scientific tradition. As discussed in earlier chapters, scientific themes and informational description not only constituted a popular domestic alternative to the more literary formulae found in Western examples of travel narration, but in certain situations offered a usefully impersonal descriptive technique. Radishchev had partly mitigated his bleak impressions of Siberia by studying natural sciences and undertaking excursions in the area of Ilimsk; these activities also enhanced his appreciation of the wide variety of resources found in Siberia’s variegated landscape. Zhukovsky’s notes reveal an interest in the details of local economies and lifestyles as well, topics that offered welcome distraction from the more delicate issues raised by his trip. As noted, literary travel writing’s documentary quality made it a genre of limited use for the description of internal travel in the reign of Nicholas I and when Russian writers turned “inward” to the description of domestic territory, they lacked the political freedom to fully pursue questions of Russian identity and tradition in that environment. Zhukovsky’s efforts at internal travel writing, like Pushkin’s, demonstrate this problematic link between the elite traveler and his or her imaginings of domestic geography. If Radishchev had described the discomfort felt by the elite traveler as he contemplated the distress of the peasantry, internal travel writing after 1825 further developed the sentiments of the troubled narrator, although along different lines. In the writings of both Pushkin and Zhukovsky, the touring nobleman suffers not from his sympathy with the peasantry, but from his clash with political authority—thus following the tradition suggested by Radishchev’s biography, rather than his Journey. Where Karamzin’s English bourgeoisie would “take to the countryside becoming swains,” these noblemen mimic the lives of the rural lower class in their more negative aspects: exposure to provincial life enhances a sense of being oppressed by state authority.

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Zhukovsky’s diary, like Radishchev’s, greets the return t o European Russia with a striking change in tone. While remaining concise in form, the text indicates deep and increased pleasure in the surrounding landscape when the travel party heads around the southern end of the Urals and leaves Siberia behind. This territory, located on the Empire’s southeastern border amidst non-Russian peoples and military outposts, was a far cry from the vision of European Russia celebrated by Radishchev with its bountiful agriculture and promising industry. Indeed, a Cossack escort had been employed to protect the travelers from possible encounters with hostile Kirghiz or Kalmyks. Despite the immediate environment’s exotic and dangerous features, however, Zhukovsky expresses profound satisfaction at returning to his native continent, evident in both the quantity and quality of proffered detail:81 June 11. Crossing from [the gubernia of] Tanalyk to [that of] Il’insk. The Grand Duke [Aleksandr Nikolaevich] on horseback. Nomadic camps of Kirghiz shepherds. [...] A party of Cossacks. Smart posture [belle tenue]. Road entirely in order. Quite remarkable view of mountains. Between [the gubernias of] Khararsk and Guberlinsk what seems to be a miniature view of large mountains in all their detail. But not a bush, not a drop of water. All is covered with feather grass and desolate (pusto). A rippled and petrified desert. — Wonderful view from high point that I sketched. Gradual descent between low winding rocky hills, forming a chain. Road at bottom of this valley. In one place, a stream ran across the road. Remarkable character of the Orenburg gubernia. Farming in the Cheliabinsk district. Wealth of ores and gold in the Zlatoust factories. (Stream winds around bends of mountains. Sprinklings of rock debris from spring thawing). Bashkir herding; [...] Kirghiz. Salt. Asia. [...] Bushes on the low banks. Valley wider [...]. Pyramids. Mountains like a lion or crocodile, lying crosswise, the road along their spine. Rocks like warts. Feather grass on the sand. Sand in the form of pyramids (138-9).

For Zhukovsky, as for Radishchev, the experience of Siberian travel permits a greater appreciation of the riches that European Russia has to offer. Like Pushkin, Zhukovsky is alert to the cultural ties between southeast European Russia and national literary tradition. He, too, consciously seeks out experiences that will connect him with literary friends and explicitly describes them in his travel record. On his outbound journey, Zhukovsky visits the birthplace near Syzran of his friend the poet Ivan Dmitriev and sketches the surroundings from the windows of a house that had been built by

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Dmitriev himself.82 On the return trip, his trajectory overlaps with that followed by Pushkin four years earlier. He does not mention Pushkin in his diary, but there is little need: when Zhukovsky arrives in Orenburg, he is met by the two mutual friends who had hosted Pushkin during his visit there; one of them, the writer Vladimir Dal, had recently stood beside Zhukovsky at the dying Pushkin’s bedside. As Zhukovsky moves further west, his personal letters become more intimate and communicative, corroborating the degree t o which he felt his identity to be ensconced in European Russia. His outlook nonetheless remains gloomy, colored not only by recent experiences in Siberia, but also by the temporal alienation that besets him upon return to familiar turf. While Zhukovsky’s sense of cultural isolation in Siberia was primarily geographical (as for Gogol abroad), it acquires a definitive temporal aspect in European Russia, where specific locales recollect departed friends and the irretrievable literary world of the past. As noted earlier, anxiety about the passage of time was characteristic of the sentimentalist idioms typically employed to describe internal travel; it was also a common feature in Zhukovsky’s literary work, which had its roots in elegiac verse and the poet’s often melancholy turn of mind—and prominent in his professional anxieties. As he wrote on his first trip abroad: “I could have been more than I am […]. I will never reach what I would have had I set out earlier on the road and not lost time.”83 In the province of Tver, Zhukovsky obtains permission t o leave the imperial retinue for ten days in order to visit friends in the area near Belev where he had grown up. Not surprisingly, he finds the landscape much altered and feels saddened by the changes. “Time is a great glutton,” he wrote to an old friend, It has eaten much that was mine and yours. I looked in at our Mishenskoe [Zhukovsky’s family estate]; everything in it has so changed, is s o upside-down, that I don’t even want to glance at it a second time.84

Describing the deleterious effects of time in a letter to Pyotr Viazemsky from Moscow, he combines a feeling of nostalgia for his own past with grief for the loss of two literary greats associated with the ancient capital, namely Karamzin, who had died ten years earlier in 1826, and Dmitriev, who had passed away only shortly before Zhukovsky’s arrival in the fall of 1837. In this context, his cheerless thoughts inevitably turn to the death of Pushkin. While

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Pushkin was not part of Zhukovsky’s specific literary associations with the Moscow-Tver area, his loss also contributed greatly t o Zhukovsky’s sense of an acute crisis in contemporary culture: Traveling through Tula, where I began to live, where I had my first lessons, and first love, and first verses, where I first heard and began t o love the name of Dmitriev together with that of Karamzin.... In our past, the two brightest figures for us were Karamzin and Dmitriev; around them are concentrated all of those days in which we ourselves were somehow better and everything around us was better. […] The emptiness that remains in our way of life after them can’t be filled. My first visit I paid i n Moscow was to a funeral—is this not some kind of prophecy? And will you have to bury me this year as well? It would be an opportune moment: the representative of the best of the old era in literature [Dmitriev] and the representative of the best of the new [Pushkin] have left the scene; I stand in the interval, as if leaning against thin air—like it or not, I’ll have t o fall.85

Zhukovsky’s sense of the profound connection between European Russia and native literary tradition was enhanced by his feeling of being irrevocably cut off in this environment. If sentimentalism had imbued the internal landscape with nostalgia for a lost past, it had not yet extended this emotional climate to the Russian writer’s self-definition. Zhukovsky’s letters do just that, however: the deaths of colleagues from both prior and successive generations have left him bereft of his customary literary context, obligating an emotional and professional orientation towards the past. While appropriate for describing sorrow at the passing of his literary friends, Zhukovsky’s elegiac perspective did not bode well for the prospect of Russian literature’s future development. This was not Fonvizin’s optimistic “we are beginning,” but the portrait of a Russia dying and already dead. Zhukovsky’s 1837 travel writing thus not only illustrates a conflict between the practices of internal travel and the possibility of Russian Bildung or growth, but also documents the demise of domestic literary culture. Zhukovsky’s subsequent tour of Western Europe represented a deepening break with his Russian past. After a stay of several months in Petersburg, he traveled with Aleksandr Nikolaevich t o the West, where they remained for over a year, visiting Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, and England.86 Like Pushkin, Zhukovsky appears to have been quite wearied by sustained proximity to the court of Nicholas I and continued friction with the tsarevich spurred him to become

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increasingly independent of his imperial charge. As Aleksandr Nikolaevich socialized with his royal peers, Zhukovsky complained that excessive courtly distractions were interfering with their productive travel and other educators began to follow the tsarevich more closely. When Aleksandr Nikolaevich finally encountered a suitable fiancée in Hesse-Darmstadt, thereby fulfilling one of the goals of his tour, the head tutor was absent from the party. This unhappy professional situation encouraged Zhukovsky to further develop personal connections that would root him even more firmly in European tradition and geography. He spent much of his time abroad with friends such as Gogol, with whom he overlapped in Rome, and the German painter Gerhardt Reitern, whose enamored daughter he was to marry in 1841. The relationship between Zhukovsky and his pupil seems t o have regained its previous cordial footing after their return t o Russia and, when the heir’s education was officially concluded, Zhukovsky remained at his post for at least another year as tutor to the tsarevich’s younger siblings. In the spring of 1841, he traveled again to Hesse-Darmstadt in order to impart Russian lessons to Aleksandr Nikolaevich’s fiancée, and then, after a brief excursion with the Russian imperial family, requested permission t o retire. Zhukovsky then soon married Elizabeth Reitern, forty years his junior, and moved to Germany, where he was forced by the poor health of his wife to remain (in Düsseldorf, Frankfort, and Baden-Baden) until his death in 1852. Travel writing had little relevance for Zhukovsky in the 1840s when he was no longer “touring,” but simply residing abroad. His creative work nonetheless continues the literary appropriation of Western cultural space found in the travel writing of Karamzin, Batiushkov, Kiukhelbeker, and Gogol. In his literary work, Zhukovsky chiefly produced translations: reworking specific Western texts for the Russian reader, he helped to make available the classic elements of an increasingly shared tradition. Like Karamzin, he also assisted in “normalizing” European culture in Russia through the suggestion that being European was quite compatible with being Russian. And, like his friend Gogol, Zhukovsky also “normalized” Western Europe by exploiting foreign settings to work on something other than the record of his travels. Indeed, if both Zhukovsky and Gogol largely ignored literary travel writing, it per se appears that the experience of years spent abroad did have a notable influence on the themes that

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structured their creative endeavors: in particular, each ends his career with a literary project based on a metaphorical conception of the road. Zhukovsky’s final masterpiece was a translation of Homer’s Odyssey, completed in 1848. It is likely that Zhukovsky found suggestions of his own trials and tribulations in the account of Odysseus’s struggles and peregrinations. The image of Skylla and Charybdis, applicable t o much of his biography, is an especially useful metaphor for his final decade on the cultural boundary between Western Europe and Nicholaevan Russia. These were difficult years for a Russian abroad, particularly one with Zhukovsky’s patriotic sentiments and intimate links to the imperial family, whose reputation in Europe, like Russia’s own, declined steadily under the reactionary leadership of Nicholas I. In 1839, the French Marquis de Custine visited Zhukovsky’s homeland and subjected it to contemptuous criticism in an infamous published account. While much of the Russian elite responded to Custine’s words with outrage, many found them regrettably relevant or even insufficiently harsh. As Viazemsky wrote to Zhukovsky in 1844, this critique had barely scratched the surface: “We’re even lucky that Europe and all of her Custines and newspapers lie and don’t know half of what’s happening here... The truth would be much worse than all of their fabrications.”87 Zhukovsky, however, remained closely tied to Russia in his final years and felt increasingly out of place in the West. Regret for his enforced distance from home was compounded by a perception of time’s continual incursions into his literary world and his letters continue to rue its disappearing representatives: the poet Ivan Kozlov died in 1840, Mikhail Lermontov in 1841, and Kiukhelbeker in 1846. In this decade, Zhukovsky developed an increasingly close relationship with Gogol, who was also living abroad, although in marked physical and psychological decline; Gogol died in 1852, two months before Zhukovsky himself. With the rise of revolutionary activity in the 1840s, Zhukovsky became an advocate of Orthodoxy and autocracy. Writing somewhat didactically to Aleksandr Nikolaevich in the spring of 1848, he “look[s] with encouraged hope to our East” and, in terms presaging the words of Dostoevsky, insists that Russia is a “separate, original (samobytnyi) world”: The way of Europe is not our way; what we’ve taken from her is ours, but we must rework it at home, for ourselves, in our own way, without being distracted by imitation, without following the movement of the West […].

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All of Russia’s strength lies in this separate originality. [...W]e can get along without Europe; we will not, as they scream, be thrown to Asia: we are Christians; we took our education from Europe and will use it in our own way and for ourselves; we can be other than a belonging of Europe’s. We will be neither Asia, nor Europe, we will be autonomous Russia, mighty Russia.88

Zhukovsky did not live to see Russia defeated in the Crimean War or his former pupil assume the throne (in 1855). When he died in 1852, several generations of his literary colleagues had been laid to earth and all but two of the travel writers described in this study were no longer among the living: only Nikolai Grech and Fyodor Glinka survived into the reign of Alexander II.89 The Golden Age of Russian literary travel writing had come to an end and its “Arcadia,” the national imaginary geography described by decades of domestic travelers, had become fertile territory for other genres.

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Chapter 6 In Conclusion: On Firm Ground This study itself comprises a Bildungsreise of Russian culture over the course of a century and a half from the era of Peter I to that of Pushkin, Gogol, and Zhukovsky. The experience and description of elite travel encouraged both the Europeanization of Russian culture and the process by which it began to pull away from Western European models in an attempt to define itself as a comparable and independent phenomenon. As set forth in the preceding chapters, Russians initially had difficulty establishing any kind of independent subjectivity within the markedly non-indigenous tradition of travel literature. Many early efforts were attempts at learning how to “be” Western European as travel writers described themselves and their tours according to expectations and paradigms that were hallmarks of the literary account abroad. Others employed this same imported form to argue against the pressures of Western culture and for the legitimacy of a more independent route. Thus, in travel writing as in other spheres, Russia’s emerging national culture found itself in a definitional bind between adherence to Western European practice and the rejection of it. Russians did eventually manage to extricate themselves from this paradoxical situation, however: as writers became more conversant with the various formal elements that characterized the literary travelogue, they modified these, readjusting them to fit Russian experience, and gradually transforming them into the building blocks of a national tradition. On both foreign and domestic itineraries, textual images of the traveler grew more complex and individuated, while the description of imaginary geographies furnished increasingly rich contexts for his or her worldview. Accounts of internal travel particularly contributed to Russia’s increasing detachment from Western influence. After having traveled abroad, having become familiar with Western imaginary geographies, and having emulated foreign literary models, Russian writers turned their attention to domestic

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territory. Here they elaborated conceptions of space and self that infused native tradition with new possibilities and permitted its development along lines that no longer took Western models as the norm. Staking out new and inviolable terrain for Russian letters, travel writers learned to describe the significance of domestic space on its own terms. By associating Russian subjects with personally relevant landscapes, internal accounts firmly grounded ideas of “Russianness” in native territory. They also shifted the locus of national definition away from the elite Westernized culture of the two capitals and towards provincial areas, facilitating the nascent concept of a “European Russia” that was capable of serving as the national cultural arena. Literary travel writing thus prepared the ground for the rise of prose fiction. By the 1820s, Russians had acquired a wide range of perspectives on possible relationships with Western European culture and by the 1830s and 1840s, as the literary mode’s period of formative importance drew to a close, it had already contributed to the fusion between belles-lettres and issues of national identity that was t o serve as the foundation for conceptions of “the” Russian and the Russian landscape found in subsequent realist prose. In its wane as in its rise, travel writing’s shifting fortunes continued to reflect Russian relations with the outside world. As outlined in the preceding chapters, Peter I’s enthusiasm for travel abroad had not been uniformly shared by his successors and periods of alienation from the West had followed both the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Nicholas I often regarded external influences with suspicion as well. In the wake of the Decembrist Uprising (insofar as it was an expression of Western ideas) and of revolutionary activity abroad in 1830-31, he issued a series of directives aimed at limiting Russian tenure on foreign soil. Explicit permission from the tsar became a requirement for travel abroad, for example, while Russians who forsook a domestic education for study in other countries jeopardized their right t o enter government service. In 1834, Nicholas restricted the allowable duration of sojourn outside Russia to five years for members of the nobility, a move that Pushkin described as “a clear violation of the right given […] by Peter III”; in the early 1840s it became increasingly difficult to acquire a passport for travel.1 Subsequent waves of disaffection for Western Europe followed the outbreaks of political unrest in 1848 and Russia’s humiliating defeat in the Crimean War (1853-56).

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Official policies colored views of internal landscapes as well. If troubled relations with Western Europe often encouraged would-be travel writers to focus on the description of native strengths and spaces, passage through domestic territory also brought them face to face with unpleasant aspects of internal administration. In fact, the repressive political climate that prevented Russians from openly discussing these problems in print seems to have encouraged many of them to head across the border. As a result, and despite his attempts to reduce foreign travel, Nicholas ultimately seems t o have encouraged ties between Russian writers and the West. A substantial group of literary expatriates became comfortably situated abroad during his reign, frequently—as the examples of Gogol and Zhukovsky suggest—living and working there, claiming the continent as their own, and otherwise behaving as fully legitimate Western Europeans themselves. Such familiarity with the West left its mark on literary travel writing: the enthusiastic exclamations over Western culture that had characterized Russian travel writing in the post-Napoleonic decade became rarer in this era, resulting not only from the “internal censorship” adopted by cautious writers in a xenophobic age, but also from the increased normality of foreign experience. Travel writing’s mid-century decline was much lamented by contemporaries. In 1857, the well-known critic Nikolai Chernyshevsky complained of the drop in Russian accounts of foreign travel, observing that the promise seen in texts such as Karamzin’s momentous Letters of a Russian Traveler (which Chernyshevsky considered the beginning of the modern era in Russian literature) had not been borne out by those that followed. In his view, the previous twenty years had produced only twelve examples worth mentioning—nine dating from 1836 to 1846 and a mere three from 1847 to 1857; equally striking is the fact that none of the authors he cites is a household name: while some will recognize the names of journalist and historian Mikhail Pogodin or the critic Vasily Botkin, most of the authors cited by Chernyshevsky have left little enduring trace in literary history.2 Domestic travel writing fared no better. In 1845, Vissarion Belinsky condemned the tradition in its entirety: We have absolutely no works of belles-lettres that would in the form of a journeys, trips (poezdki), sketches, stories, [or] descriptions acquaint u s with the different parts of boundless and diverse Russia. If there have been attempts at compositions of this type, all of them, from Prince

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Breaking Ground Shalikov’s sentimental Journey to Malorossia [1803] to [Bestuzhev-] Marlinsky’s A Trip to Reval [1821] can be considered immaterial.”3

Another factor that took its toll on the fashion for literary travel writing in Nicholaevan Russia was a burgeoning crisis in elite culture, which weakened the social layer that had traditionally authored literary accounts. Beginning in the late 1820s, the literati of the nobility lost ground to popularizing writers such as Faddei Bulgarin and Nikolai Grech in a struggle for middle-class readers and market share. It is true that travel writing remained a lasting favorite with readers and publishers: valued both for its useful informational content and as a model for how to properly write prose, it became a standard instructional tool. Nonetheless, changes in authorship and audience altered the genre’s cultural status. Certainly, while travel writers themselves, neither Bulgarin nor Grech was able to revive the literary mode; Chernyshevsky even makes a special point of discounting Grech’s attempts to do so.4 Travel writing’s declining prestige finds illustration in Tolstoy’s Childhood (1852) in the image of a dearly loved Histoire des Voyages, “two big volumes in red bindings” that graced the bookshelf shared by the narrator and his brother in what is presumably the 1830s, when Childhood’s autobiographical protagonist would have been the age of Tolstoy himself.5 Standing vertically on the shelf amidst a haphazard jumble of other texts whose titles have long been forgotten, these tomes represent both a lingering cultural esteem for travel writing and its effective demotion to the status of a children’s classic. That said, many of the major writers of realist prose tried their hand at literary travel writing. Tolstoy himself attempted a travelogue in 1857, when he began to draft an account of hiking in the mountains near Lake Léman.6 While never completed, this sketch illustrates his interest in rendering a personal version of the already classic Swiss alpine trek. In fact, Tolstoy’s ruthless honesty and innate observational skills produce an unusual report as he painstakingly details his complex and contradictory reactions t o the surroundings, recounting the evolving physical sensations of fatigue, heat, thirst, and an uncomfortable backpack, together with reflections on the often spontaneous behavior of his eleven-yearold traveling companion. Like his diaries, this sketch exemplifies the careful analysis of self and the surrounding world that typifies Tolstoy’s prose. Characteristically, he refuses to simply adopt the standard descriptive clichés, although he often discusses such

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formulae in light of his own actual perceptions and experiences. Ever appreciative of natural beauty, for example, he has little regard for traditionally prized panoramas or waterfall scenes. Similarly, while he sets off from Clarens (after a two-month stay there) and admires Chillon, the renowned literary context is ignored: neither his travel account nor diary mentions Karamzin, Rousseau, Byron, or Zhukovsky.7 Travel writing played a more central role in the oeuvre of Goncharov, who produced a lengthy account of a three-year voyage to Japan (The Frigate “Pallas”, 1855-57) in the midst of writing his novel Oblomov. Traveling in the capacity of diplomatic secretary, Goncharov departed from Petersburg, sailed around Europe and Africa to Asia, and eventually returned home overland, thus fulfilling a childhood dream “to set off from the right bank of the Volga, where I was born, and return from the left.”8 He suggests that precisely the allure of this strange route prodded him from his customary indolence (reminiscent of Oblomov’s own) and inspired him to exchange “the cozy room that I would leave only in the case of dire need” for “the unstable bosom of the seas” (7-8). The tired itineraries of Western Europe apparently held less appeal: “ I don’t want to go to Paris, nor to London, not even to Italy […],” he recalls professing, “I want to go to Brazil, to India, to where the sun summons life from stone and also transforms into stone everything that it touches with its fire” (10-1). In point of fact, Goncharov begins his travelogue with a detailed report of London and in later years proceeded to familiarize himself with the continent, completing Oblomov at the Austrian spa of Marienbad. Nonetheless, he, like Tolstoy, had little interest in using the travelogue format to rehash touristic commonplaces or to provide yet another version of well-known sites, but delighted in overturning and surprising the expectations of a more traditional approach. The Frigate “Pallas” thoughtfully examines conventions of travel writing and problems of describing impressions both truthfully and interestingly, raising issues that had preoccupied travel writers for the previous seventy-five years. Dostoevsky dabbled in travel writing as well, authoring Winter Notes on Summer Impressions (1863) after his first tour abroad in 1862. Ostensibly the straightforward account of a three-month excursion to several major European cities, the piece begins with a tongue-in-cheek discussion of the difficulties encountered in writing a travelogue comme il faut. Dostoevsky speaks frankly about the

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possibility of being mistaken in his judgments or of not seeing things well due to being in a hurry, his poor knowledge of foreign languages, and his idiosyncratic itinerary (the result of refusing t o blindly follow tourist guidebooks); he also comments on the peculiar reception met by Russian tourists abroad, ranging from encounters with police surveillance to condescension from local residents: “I met people who were terribly interested in the impression Paris had made on me, how much reverence I had for it, how amazed, overwhelmed, and annihilated I was.”9 More generally, Winter Notes resurrects the publicistic tradition of Fonvizin to assume the shape of a disparaging essay on the West as Dostoevsky attacks foreign ways in an implicit defense of native Russian culture’s integrity and difference. He briefly comments on Berlin and London before embarking on a more detailed critique of Paris, the French bourgeoisie, and the disturbing Western phenomena of socialism, capitalism, and individualism. Winter Notes thus expands upon themes articulated throughout his oeuvre, including both his essays and fiction. Despite these examples, literary travel writing played a relatively minor role in the professional activity of these men (with the exception of Goncharov) and their contemporaries. In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, it became increasingly peripheral to the emergent cultural developments that occupied the era’s foremost writers: issues of the relationship between Russia and the West, the expression of figurative conceptions of geography, and discussion of the elite author’s links to Russian space were taken up largely in other genres. In particular, writers turned primarily to fiction—and most often t o domestic landscapes—to further develop a sense of national identity and literary tradition that was uniquely their own. Here, as noted, they built upon a foundation laid in large measure by literary travel writing. Synthesizing the experience of foreign and domestic travel into fiction set in the Russian landscape, prose writers translated the traveling narrator into the Russian narrative hero. Many well-known literary texts either recall the travelogue in an overt structural fashion (such as Lermontov’s A Hero of Our Time, 1839-41, or Turgenev’s Notes of a Hunter, 1852) or incorporate metaphors of the road into their plots (Gogol’s Dead Souls, 1842). By rendering movement through provincial territory as an exploration of the connection between landscape and identity, such

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works demonstrated the dynamic interrelationships of protagonist and geography earlier developed in travel writing. It should be recalled that the literary account had been sought out by the foremost talents of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries precisely because it provided a forum for the discussion of identity and personal relationships to place, offering writers an opportunity both to define themselves and to describe the process of their education and development in terms of a specific geographical context. At the same time, however, literary travel writing afforded only a relatively mechanical way to treat such topics—a limitation that further contributed to its decline. In all but publicistic examples, the literary mode was poorly equipped to address issues of growth and maturation or describe developmental processes. Only by abandoning the restrictive travelogue format for the broader range of possibilities offered by fiction could writers satisfactorily consider problems of growth or change. Literary travel writing itself was incapable of either posing or answering questions such as the query about national destiny that concludes the first part of Dead Souls: “Rus, where are you racing?” This possibility existed solely for prose fiction, whose importance soared as that of the travelogue fell. Indeed, the road that lies before Gogol’s troika resembles the extraordinary trajectory of nineteenth-century Russian realism itself, coursing forward as “other peoples and empires step aside to let it fly past.”10 By recasting actual tour description in terms of progress along more metaphorical roads, writers were able both to respond to demands for character development and to draft emplotted narratives with particular outcomes. Fictional forms permitted them to illustrate the lessons accumulated from the experience of actual travel, to make rhetorical points about the importance of domestic landscapes, and to otherwise explain the significance of Russia and its native inhabitants. Following on the heels of literary travel writing, the fiction of Tolstoy, Goncharov, Dostoevsky and their contemporaries illustrates the continuing evolution of a native tradition in a process constituting the description and affirmation of the “national self.”

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Notes Introduction (pages 13-25) 1. Other factors also influenced the rise in travel. As Dimitri Von Mohrenschildt points out, for example, the Russian presence in France increased steadily after 1756 with the conclusion of an eight-year hiatus in Franco-Russian diplomatic relations (Russia in the Intellectual Life of Eighteenth-Century France [New York, 1972], 37). An English translation of Peter III’s decree may be found in Daniel H. Kaiser and Gary Marker, eds., Reinterpreting Russian History: Readings, 860-1860s (New York, 1994), 230-2; see also A. S. Pushkin, Dnevnik A. S. Pushkina, 1833-1835, ed. S. A. Nikitin (Moscow, 1997), 517. 2. Derzhavin speaks of the Empress in these terms in his panegyric ode “Felitsa” (1782). 3. In the words of Wladimir Berelowitch, “the travel account was an integral part of the Russians’ cultural apprenticeship: to keep a journal was to become European”; he also suggests that travel writing had an importance for the Russian nobility that it did not attain elsewhere (“La France dans le ‘grand tour’ des nobles russes au cours de la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle,” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 34, no. 1-2 [1993]: 199, 193). 4. Sterne’s A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy (1768) was translated into Russian in its entirety in 1793 (well after its contents were generally known), Dupaty’s Lettres sur l’Italie en 1785 (Letters on Italy in 1785, 1790) in 1801, and De Maistre’s Voyage autour de ma chambre (Journey around My Room, 1794) in 1802. The rage for European travel writing meant that “Russian readers assimilated two centuries of travel accounts in the interval of one or two generations” (Berelowitch, “La France dans le ‘grand tour,’” 200). 5. Thus, for all their discussion of travel, neither Avvakum’s recollections of earlier peregrinations, The Life of the Archpriest Avvakum Written By Himself (Zhitie protopopa Avvakuma, im samim napisannoe, 1675) nor the Memoirs of Princess Dashkova (1805) are examples of the literary account. 6. See, e.g., T. Roboli, “Literatura ‘puteshestviia,’” in Russkaia proza, ed. B. M. Eikhenbaum and Iu. M. Tynianov (Leningrad, 1926), 42-73; Reuel K. Wilson, The Literary Travelogue: A Comparative Study with Special Relevance t o Russian Literature from Fonvizin to Pushkin (The Hague, 1973); N. N. Petrunina, “Proza 1800—1810-x gg.,” in Istoriia russkoi literatury, 4 vols. (Leningrad, 1981), 2:51-9. A curious exception to this scholarly concord is Charles L. Batten’s claim that “a clearly defined convention of eighteenth-century travel literature” was the belief that “a travel writer must not talk about himself” (Pleasurable Instruction: Form and Convention in Eighteenth-Century Travel Literature [Berkeley, 1978], 13).

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7. Another feature of literary travel writing sometimes linked to the evolution of prose genres, particularly the novel, is its capacious structure or ability to subsume all manner of topics and even other genres within an expandable and elastic form (E. S. Ivashina, “O spetsifike zhanra ‘puteshestviia’ v russkoi literature pervoi treti XIX v.,” Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta, Seriia: Filologiia, no. 3 [1979]: 3; Percy Adams, Travel Literature and the Evolution o f the Novel [Lexington, Ky., 1983]; J. Paul Hunter, Before Novels: The Cultural Contexts of Eighteenth-Century English Fiction [New York, 1990], 351-4). Andreas Schönle defines the literary travelogue as one that is based upon “a literary antecedent” (Authenticity and Fiction in the Russian Literary Journey, 1790-1840 [Cambridge, Mass., 2000], 8). 8. Third-person stylizations of the travelogue occasionally appear i n accounts written by secretaries that describe the travels of important personages such as diplomats or tsars. See, for example, Vladimir Orlov’s account of traveling with Catherine along the Volga (chapter 2). 9. Christopher David Ely, This Meager Nature: Landscape and National Identity in Imperial Russia (DeKalb, Ill., 2002). 10. Hans Rogger, National Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Russia (Cambridge, Mass., 1960), 3. In Rogger’s view, national consciousness is an eighteenth-century Russian phenomenon that precedes the full-fledged nationalism of the nineteenth century. 11. The quoted passage is from Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads t o Modernity (Cambridge, Mass., 1992), 14. See also Marc Raeff, Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia: The Eighteenth-Century Nobility (New York, 1966), 143. 12. As V. M. Guminsky points out, the entire pressing question of Russia’s relationship with the West took shape in this very era on the background of both the nobility’s actual experiences with travel abroad and the flourishing literary account (Otkrytie mira, ili Pusteshestviia i stranniki [Moscow, 1987], 174). 13. Literary travel writing illustrates other broad changes in Russian culture as well. See, for example, Schönle’s discussion of the genre’s contribution t o epistemological definitions of the self and the legitimization of prose fiction (Authenticity and Fiction). 14. Mary Louise Pratt, Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London, 1992), 38. 15. As Michael Finke has aptly put it, “the marker of high social status is a cultivated blindness to one’s inferiors, on the one hand, and utter invulnerability to their gaze on the other” (Seeing Chekhov: Life and Art [Ithaca, N.Y., 2005], 59). 16. Von Mohrenschildt, Russia in Eighteenth-Century France, 37. 17. Fonvizin (von Wiesen) was of German origin himself, as were many prominent Russians, including the travel writers Vilgelm Kiukhelbeker (Wilhelm Küchelbecker) and Nikolai Grech. 18. A. N. Pypin persuasively argues that Catherine authored the anonymously published Antidote in his introduction to the text (“Kto byl avtorom Antidota?,” introduction to Antidote, ou Examen du mauvais livre superbement imprimé, intitulé: “Voyage en Sibérie fait par ordre du Roi en 1761.…” Par M. l’Abbé Chappe d’Auteroche.…” [Antidote, or Examination of the Poor Book, Beautifully Printed, Entitled “Journey to Siberia Made by Order of the King in 1761....” By the abbé Chappe d’Auteroche.…], vol. 7 of Sochineniia Imperatritsy Ekateriny II, 10 vols. [St.-Petersburg, 1901-07], i-lvi). 19. “Imaginary geography” is Edward Said’s term (Orientalism [New York,

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1978; New York, 1979]); Susan Layton uses “imaginative geography” (“The Creation of an Imaginative Caucasian Geography,” Slavic Review 45, no. 3 [1986]: 470-85), while “mental geography” is the coinage of Irena Grudzinska Gross (The Scar of Revolution: Custine, Tocqueville, and the Romantic Imagination [Berkeley, 1991]). 20. Sara Suleri, The Rhetoric of English India (Chicago, 1992), 2. 21. Although Bakhtin does not specifically address travel writing, he does consider at length fictional texts that feature the metaphoric chronotope of the road (“Forms of Time and Chronotope in the Novel,” in The Dialogic Imagination, trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist [Austin, 1981], 84-258). 22. As will become apparent, “independence” does not refer here to a state of absolute cultural self-sufficiency (impossible to achieve save in total isolation from other cultures), but to a situation of relative freedom from Western paradigms and expectations. 23. D. I. Fonvizin, “Neskol’ko voprosov, mogushchikh vozbudit’ v umnykh i chestnykh liudiakh osoblivoe vnimanie,” in Sobranie sochinenii (MoscowLeningrad, 1959), 2:275.

1. Fonvizin and the Russian Tour of Western Europe (1689-1789) (pages 27-64) 1. The idea that international travel should provide a social and cultural education was built on earlier practices such as the Kavalierstour and peregrinatio academica (Alberto Sorbini, “Il Grand Tour: I viaggi dell’aristocrazia in Europa tra riti convenzionali e curiosità erudite,” Prometeo 4 2 [1993]: 76). 2. “Civic description” is Pratt’s term (Imperial Eyes, 20). On the Russian grand tour, see also Berelowitch, “La France dans le ‘grand tour’”; Sergei A. Kozlov, Russkii puteshestvennik epokhi prosveshcheniia, vol. 1 (St. Petersburg, 2003), chapter 3. 3. David Ransel, The Politics of Catherinian Russia: The Panin Party (New Haven, 1975), 191-2. A. G. Cross has suggested that maybe one hundred Russian travelers visited London in the 1770s and 1780s (“By the Banks of the Thames”: Russians in Eighteenth-Century Britain [Newtonville, Mass., 1980], 231). The interpretation of such data is complicated by the fact that elite tourists rarely traveled alone, but were generally accompanied by servants, if not secretaries or tutors. An examination of the list of passports issued for foreign travel has allowed Berelowitch to estimate that several dozen members of the Russian nobility visited Paris each year. He reports that from 1763 into the 1780s roughly 600 of these obligatory documents were granted annually (leaping from 400 i n 1763 to 700 in 1764); the recipients belonged to various social classes and also included foreigners wishing to leave Russia (“La France dans le ‘grand tour,’” 194). 4. Some scholars have applied the term “literary” to earlier periods as well, primarily, it would seem, to legitimize scholarly and cultural interest i n understudied texts. See, for example, D. S. Likhachev, “Povesti russkikh poslov kak pamiatniki literatury,” in Puteshestviia russkikh poslov XVI—XVII veka: Stateinye spiski (Moscow-Leningrad: AN SSSR 1954), 319-46; N. I. Prokof’ev,

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“Literatura puteshestvii XVI—XVII vekov,” in Zapiski russkikh puteshestvennikov XVI—XVII vv. (Moscow, 1988), 5-20. On the medieval Russian journey and its link to subsequent conceptions of travel, see also Guminskii, Otkrytie mira, especially 124-207. 5. “Zhizn’ Kniazia Borisa Ivanovicha Kurakina im samim opisannaia,” i n Arkhiv kniazia F. A. Kurakina (St. Petersburg, 1890-1902), 1:254. 6. “Zhizn’ Kurakina,” 271. 7. “Dnevnik i putevye zametki kniazia B. I. Kurakina, 1705-1708,” in Arkhiv Kurakina, 1:101-240. Parenthetical page citations for Boris Kurakin’s writings refer to this text. 8. Greenfeld has argued that the Petrine nobility’s sense of class dignity resulted directly from its foreign experience (Five Roads to Nationalism, 210). 9. For similar reasons, Kurakin’s wife incorporated Italian and French words into her conversation, making it difficult for Russian contemporaries t o understand her; this behavior was described by a Dutch traveler to Russia in the 1730s (P. N. Miliukov, Natsionalizm i evropeizm, vol. 3 of Ocherki po istorii russkoi kul’tury [Paris, 1930], 361). As Mary Beth Campbell points out, “the traveler in foreign parts is faced with a world for which his language is not prepared: no matter how naive the writer’s understanding of language, the option of simple transparence, of verbal equivalences, is not open” (The Witness and the Other World: Exotic European Travel Writing [Ithaca, N.Y., 1988], 3). 10. “Zhizn’ Kurakina,” 244. The autobiography’s original title is “Vita del Principe Boris Koribut-Kourakin del familii de polionia et litoania” [sic] (Life of the Prince Boris Koribut-Kurakin from Families of Poland and Lithuania). In an interesting study of the development of Russian prose, M. Ia. Bilinkis has described Kurakin as Russia’s first memoirist and argues that he used the term “vita” to justify the combination of personal memoirs with a first-person subject since Russian tradition offered no appropriate precedents (Russkai proza XVIII veka: Dokumental’nye zhanry, povest’, roman [St. Petersburg, 1995], 13, 16). 11. On premodern travel accounts, “works,” as Campbell puts it, “often of great charm, written by the ignorant for the parochial” (The Witness and the Other World, 2), see her book, especially 47-86. The Russian version of this phenomenon is touched upon in N. I. Prokof’ev, “O traditsiiakh i novatorstve putevykh zapisok petrovskogo vremeni,” XVIII vek 9 (1974): 133; see also Guminskii, Otkrytie mira, especially 151-73. 12. L. A. Ol’shevskaia and S. N. Travnikov, “‘Umneishaia golova v Rossii….,’” in Puteshestvie stol’nika P. A. Tolstogo po Evrope 1697-1699 [Moscow, 1992], 252. 13. Similar intentions helped to shape the travel writing of Kurakin’s peer, Pyotr Tolstoy (Ol’shevskaia and Travnikov, “‘Umneishaia golova,’” 265). 14. Prokofiev’s claim that “the individual peculiarities of the narrator are expressed” in Petrine travel writing is thus overstated (“O traditsiiakh,” 135). On the stateinyi spisok, see D. S. Likhachev, “Povesti russkikh poslov”; N. I. Prokof’ev, “Literatura puteshestvii.” Scientific travel writing will be discussed i n chapter 2. 15. On Petrine era resistance to Western European culture, see Miliukov, Ocherki, 360-2; Rogger, National Consciousness, 8-14. 16. This phenomenon receives much deserved attention in Sherman (Telling Time: Clocks, Diaries, and English Diurnal Form, 1660-1785 [Chicago, 1996], 162-3), although his suggestion that a formal distinction between “travel

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journal” and “travel letter” corresponds to that between published and unpublished texts is misleading. Published travelogues were frequently styled as familiar letters (Dashkova’s “Journey of a Distinguished Russian Lady” bore the subtitle “Letter to a Friend”) and unpublished accounts (such as Boris Kurakin’s) often took the form of journals. 17. Vorontsov studied at a French military academy in 1758-59 and later incorporated his record of the experience into personal memoirs (“Zapiski grafa Aleksandra Romanovicha Vorontsova,” Russkii arkhiv 21, no. 1 [1883]: 223-90); see also K. V. Sivkov, comp., Puteshestviia russkikh liudei za granitsu v XVIII veke (St. Petersburg, 1914), 66-70. 18. Lomonosov’s letters are widely available; for Karzhavin’s, see G. P. Makogonenko, ed., Pis’ma russkikh pisatelei XVIII veka, (Leningrad, 1980): 22441. 19. On eighteenth-century Russian educational travel, see also Kozlov, Russkii puteshestvennik, chapter 2. 20. “Souvenirs de voyage en Hollande et en Angleterre par le Prince Alexandre Kourakin [sic] à sa sortie de l’Université de Leyde durant les années 1770-1772” (Recollections of a Journey to Holland and to England Made by the Prince Aleksandr Kurakin upon His Leaving the University of Leiden during the Years 1770-1772), in Arkhiv Kurakina, 5:334. 21. Kurakin’s Voyage has been published in Arkhiv Kurakina (5:333-425, 6:205-47) under the title “Souvenirs de voyage...” (see note 20). Parenthetical page citations in this section refer to this text, although I use here what appears t o have been the original title (5:425), i.e. Journal de mon voyage, in order t o emphasize that the account was not purely a memoir, but based upon a travel diary. Kurakin’s published archive also contains a draft fragment of his diary (“Otryvok iz chernovykh zapisok kn. Aleksandra Borisovicha Kurakina,” i n Arkhiv Kurakina 6:239-40) and the single extant letter from his first trip abroad (5:296-300). His correspondence from the second trip, written in both French and Russian will be considered later in this chapter. Aleksandr Kurakin (1752-1818) should not be confused with his grandfather of the same name (1697-1749), who was the son of Boris Kurakin, or with his brother Aleksei (1759-1829), an important statesman in his own right, who had the same initials. For more details on Aleksandr’s trip, see also Cross, “By the Banks of the Thames.” 22. “Catalogue des livres du prince Alexis de Kourakin [sic],” in Arkhiv Kurakina 8:133-4. 23. On Dashkova’s trip, see also Cross,“Banks of the Thames” and “Poezdki Kniagini E. R. Dashkovoi v Velikobritaniiu (1770 i 1776-1780 gg.) i ee ‘Nebol’shoe puteshestvie v gornuiu Shotlandiiu’ (1777),” XVIII vek 19 (1995): 223-68. 24. “Puteshestvie odnoi Rossiiskoi znatnoi Gospozhi, po nekotorym Aglinskim provintsiiam: Pis’mo k drugu,” Opyt trudov Vol’nogo rossiiskogo sobraniia 2 (1775): 105-44; “Le Petit tour dans les highlands,” in Cross, “Poezdki Dashkovoi,” 239-68). Parenthetical page citations for Dashkova refer t o these texts. Dashkova also kept a diary of a trip to Ireland, since lost (Cross, “Poezdki Dashkovoi,” 234). 25. Batten, Pleasurable Instruction, 5-6. 26. N. Chechulin, “Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova,” in Russkii biograficheskii slovar’ (1896-1918; reprint, New York, 1962), 6:128. 27. Judith Vowles, “The ‘Feminization’ of Russian Literature: Women,

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Language, and Literature in Eighteenth-Century Russia,” in Women Writers i n Russian Literature, ed. Toby W. Clyman and Diana Greene (Westport, Conn., 1994), 35-60; Gitta Hammarberg, “The Feminine Chronotope and Sentimentalist Canon Formation,” in Literature, Lives, and Legality in Catherine’s Russia, ed. A. G. Cross and G. S. Smith (Nottingham, 1994), 103-20. 28. The phrase “terrible and arid” appears in English in the original. Dashkova also visits a memorial for “Dr. Smollet” [sic] (250-1), author of Travels through France and Italy (1766); she may also have been familiar with the travel writing of Defoe (Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, 1724-26) and Johnson’s A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), whose itinerary sometimes overlaps with her own. 29. A rare example of eighteenth-century bourgeois travel writing is the wealthy industrialist N. A. Demidov’s Journal of a Journey…through Foreign States (Zhurnal puteshestviia ego vysokorodiia gospodina statskago sovetnika i Ordena Sviatago Stanislava kavalera Nikity Akinfievicha Demidova p o inostrannym gosudarstvam, s nachala vyezda ego iz Sankt-Peterburga 17 marta 1771 goda po vozvrashchenii v Rossiiu, noiabria 22 dnia 1773 goda [Moscow, 1786]). This text was actually written by a secretary, resulting in a third-person point of view that was typical in the accounts of traveling sovereigns and dignitaries, but quite unusual for the literarily inclined private traveler. Perhaps Demidov’s non-aristocratic educational background encouraged him to assign the project to a trained hand. 30. I. R. Titunik, “Mikhail Chulkov’s ‘Double-Talk’ Narrative (Skazka o rozhdenii taftianoi mushki) (The Tale of the Origin of the Taffeta Beauty Patch),” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 9, no. 1 (1975): 32. 31. Two official letters from Fonvizin’s first trip remain (“Pis’ma iz pervogo zagranichnogo puteshestviia [1762-1763]” [Letters from the First Journey Abroad], in Sobranie sochinenii, 2:317). 32. Numerous parallels between the two sets of letters indicate that a considerable amount of care went into their writing: repetitions are frequent and extensive; many passages are duplicated virtually word for word. These similarities may also reflect their common basis in a travel diary. On Fonvizin’s travel writing corpus, see especially G. P. Makogonenko, “Istoriia izdanii sochinenii D. I. Fonvizina i sud’ba ego literaturnogo nasledstva,” in Fonvizin, SS, 2:622-63; Piotr Zaborov, “Le texte des Lettres de France,” in Denis Fonvizine, Lettres de France (1777-1778), ed. Henri Grosse, Jacques Proust and Piotr Zaborov (Paris, 1995), 33-41. 33. “Pis’ma iz vtorogo zagranichnogo puteshestviia (1777-1778)” (Letters from the Second Journey Abroad), in Fonvizin, SS, 2:416. Unless otherwise noted, parenthetical page citations of Fonvizin’s work refer to this edition and volume. The texts are organized as follows: “Pis’ma iz vtorogo puteshestviia,” 2:412-95; “Pis’ma iz tret’ego zagranichnogo puteshestviia (1784-1785)” (Letters from the Third Journey Abroad), 2:500-58; “Pis’ma iz chetvertogo zagranichnogo puteshestviia (1787)” (Letters from the Fourth Journey Abroad), 2:559-62; “Otryvki iz dnevnika chetvertogo zagranichnogo puteshestviia [1787]” (Fragments from a Diary of the Fourth Journey Abroad), 2:563-71; “Iz zhurnala puteshestviia v Rigu, Bal’don i Mitavu [1789]” (From the Journal of a Journey t o Riga, Baldon and Mitau), 2:572-80. 34. Fonvizin’s often antagonistic stance towards Poland and Polish culture was common to Russian travel writing of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth

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centuries and reflects Russian political discourse in an era when Poland was under strong Russian influence. King Stanislaw II August Poniatowski (reigned 1764-95) was the last monarch of a state that was gradually carved up by the powerful empires surrounding it; the lion’s share went to Catherine’s Russia. 35. Of the many critics who have treated Fonvizin’s letters from France, K. V. Pigarev deserves special note for his balanced assessment and attention to the deliberate tendentiousness of these “satirically tinged travel notes” (Tvorchestvo Fonvizina [Moscow, 1954], 130). 36. A. Strycek, Denis Fonvizine (Paris, 1976), 359-63. 37. Fonvizin devoted much attention to his misgivings about this talent i n his later Confession (see note 59). 38. Novikov’s satiric “English Stroll” combines elements of travel writing with social criticism; its title pokes fun at the contemporary infatuation for things English (“Angliiskaia progulka,” Zhivopisets [1772]; reprint i n Satiricheskie zhurnaly N. I. Novikova: Truten’, 1769-1770; Pustomelia, 1770; Zhivopisets, 1772-1773; Koshelek, 1774, ed. P. N. Berkov [Moscow-Leningrad, 1951], 327-9). Fonvizin’s own letters, like Catherine’s Antidote, may also have responded, at least in part, to the abbé Chappe d’Auteroche’s Voyage en Sibérie (Journey to Siberia, 1768). 39. Laurence Sterne, A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy by Mr. Yorick (Oxford, 1968; Oxford, 1984), 28. Smollett’s text has been seen as the primary inspiration for Sterne’s text (1768) and he coined the term “splenetic” t o describe Smollett’s critical approach to touring abroad. It is perhaps unlikely that Fonvizin would have read either Smollett or allusions to him in Sterne before his trip to France; another Western European precedent for tendentious travel writing appeared in the Lettres philosophiques of Voltaire, a writer whom Fonvizin much admired. First published in 1733 as Letters Concerning the English Nation, Voltaire’s text exploits the technique of using an alien perspective to illuminate a country’s defects that had previously been employed by Montesquieu in the fictionalized travelogue Lettres persanes (Persian Letters, 1721). 40. Wilson, The Literary Travelogue, xi n. 4; Simon Karlinsky, Russian Drama from Its Beginnings to the Age of Pushkin (Berkeley, 1985), 158. 41. V. O. Kliuchevskii, “Petr Velikii sredi svoikh sotrudnikov,” in Ocherki i rechi: Vtoroi sbornik statei (Moscow, 1913), 499, quoted in Prokof’ev, “O traditsiiakh,” 137-8. 42. Criticisms of Gallomania remained an important topic in Russian culture in the years that followed. The first two of Fonvizin’s letters to appear in print (Paris, 14/25 June 1778 and Aachen, 18/29 September 1778) were published posthumously in the St. Petersburg Journal of 1798, quite probably allowed b y the censor precisely because their painstaking condemnations of French culture accorded well with the anti-French spirit that reigned in Russia in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Among Fonvizin’s most frequently republished letters, they have played an instrumental role in giving him the name of a Francophobe. 43. Aleksandr Kurakin had become the ward of Nikita and Pyotr Panin after the death of his father (Boris-Leonty Aleksandrovich Kurakin) in 1764. The Panins were related to him through their sister Aleksandra Ivanovna (1711-86), who had married Aleksandr’s grandfather (the son of Boris and father of BorisLeonty, also named Aleksandr). 44. On the whole, Kurakin’s travel letters incorporate a wider range of emotions, ideas, and opinions than his more formal Journal de mon voyage. They

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also address his travels in France, while Mon voyage breaks off at an earlier date during the sojourn in England. 45. Kurakin’s various correspondents widely appreciated his censure of French culture and character: both Professor Pestell of Leiden, with whom Kurakin exchanged letters after his studies, and Count Musin-Pushkin, the Russian consul in London, commend his well-articulated criticisms and confirm them with elaborations of their own (Arkhiv Kurakina, 6:335, 400-1). 46. S. B. Rassadin, “Satiry smelyi vlastelin”: kniga o D. I. Fonvizine (Moscow, 1985), 149. 47. Fonvizin’s filial devotion to Panin is well documented; it is interesting t o note that both he and Kurakin wrote biographical sketches of Panin after his death in 1783 (“Zhizn’ grafa Nikity Ivanovicha Panina,” in Fonvizin, Sobranie sochinenii [1959], 2:279-89, and A. B. Kurakin, Précis historique de la vie d u comte Nikita Iwanowitsch de Panin [London, 1784; Paris, 1788]). 48. Arkhiv Kurakina 6:359-60, 396, 398; 7:148-9. 49. Fonvizin’s most famous personification of such ideas was the figure of “Starodum” (Old-Thinking), the raisonneur of his second important stage drama, “The Minor” (Nedorosl’, 1782). That play’s success led Fonvizin to design a journal around his character. Starodum’s popularity may be gauged by the fact that in 1788 Fonvizin had 750 subscribers for his project, although he was forbidden by Catherine’s censors to proceed; Karamzin’s Moscow Journal began in 1791 with a comparatively modest 300 subscribers (G. P. Makogonenko, Denis Fonvizin: Tvorcheskii put’ [Moscow-Leningrad, 1961], 328-9). 50. Andrzej Walicki, A History of Russian Thought from the Enlightenment t o Marxism, trans. Hilda Andrews-Rusiecka (Stanford, 1979), 34. Walicki’s claim that “Fonvizin’s own views were closer to those of the provincial gentry” than t o the “cosmopolitan” perspective of the Panins would seem to be incorrect—particularly if the primary evidence is the “nationalistic note” found in his letters. On Fonvizin and the Panin circle, see also Ransel, Politics o f Catherinian Russia, especially chapter 10. 51. While Catherine began her reign by posing as temporary regent for her son, she later rejected his entitlement to the throne. When Pavel Petrovich came of age in 1782, Catherine forced Nikita Panin into retirement (thus ending Fonvizin’s secretarial career) and occupied her son with a wedding and tour abroad. Nikita Panin subsequently suffered a stroke and died in 1783. 52. The volume planned for 1788 was to have included some of Fonvizin’s travel letters. 53. F. M. Dostoevsky, Winter Notes on Summer Impressions, trans. David Patterson (Evanston, Ill., 1988), 7. 54. V. G. Belinsky, “Thoughts and Notes on Russian Literature,” in Belinsky, Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov: Essential Writings by the Founders of Russian Literary and Social Criticism, ed. Ralph E. Matlaw (Bloomington, Ind., 1962), 19. 55. See note 33. 56. Pigarev, Tvorchestvo Fonvizina, 249. 57. In addition to physical distress, Fonvizin suffered in his final years from Panin’s disfavor and death, from Catherine’s increasing repression (felt particularly in the censor’s rejection of his collected works), and from financial and legal difficulties relating to the management of his estate in Belorussia (a gift from Panin which had funded his travel abroad). Problems with this property required Fonvizin to return from Italy before his health had been restored

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(Pigarev, Tvorchestvo Fonvizina, 252). 58. The “animal bath” is one of the therapies that Fonvizin undergoes i n Mitau. It involved the slaughter of a sheep or steer in order to wrap the carcass around an afflicted limb or entire side of the body. 59. Fonvizin, “Rassuzhdenie o suetnoi zhizni chelovecheskoi (Na sluchai smerti kniazia Potemkina-Tavricheskogo),” in Sobranie sochinenii, 2:79-80. The other texts referred to here are Fonvizin’s unfinished Confession (“Chistoserdechnoe priznanie v delakh moikh i pomyshleniiakh,” SS, 2:81-105), his biography of Nikita Panin (“Zhizn’ grafa Nikity Ivanovicha Panina,” SS, 2:279-89), and the fictional “An Uncle’s Admonition to His Nephew” (“Nastavlenie diadi svoemu plemianniku,” SS, 2:74-78), part of the Starodum project. 60. See also my “Imagining Space and the Self: Russian Travel Writing and Its Narrators, 1762-1825” (Ph.D. diss., Harvard Univ., 1995). 61. Mikhail Kheraskov thus characterized his own verse epic, “Vladimir Reborn” (Vladimir vozrozhdennyi), in the preface to its third edition (1809) (Stephen L. Baehr, “Freemasonry in Russian Literature: Eighteenth Century,” i n The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet Literatures, ed. Harry B. Weber [Gulf Breeze, Fla., 1987], 31). See also Baehr’s discussion of Masonic literature i n The Paradise Myth in Eighteenth-Century Russia: Utopian Patterns in Early Secular Russian Literature and Culture (Stanford, 1991), chapter 5. 62. Fénelon’s text inspired several Russian works, including Fedor Emin’s novel The Adventures of Themistocles (Prikliucheniia Femistokla i raznye … s synom razgovory, 1763), also conceived as a pedagogical text for a young heir t o the throne (Pavel Petrovich), and Vasily Trediakovsky’s verse translation, The Telemachiade (Tilemakhida, 1766). Another such novel is Barthélemy’s Voyage du jeune Anacharsis (Journey of the Young Anacharsis, 7 vols., 1788), discussed in chapter 3. 63. Zinoviev met the couple in Italy and they traveled together to England where Orlov, notorious as Catherine’s former lover, left his mark both in the press and contemporary memoirs (A. G. Cross, “The High Road and the Low: Russian Students and Travellers in Eighteenth-Century England,” Coexistence 29 [1992]: 240-3). Orlov’s liaison with and marriage to Ekaterina Zinovieva had ended his role as the imperial favorite; she died in Lausanne in 1781 and Orlov on his estate in Russia two years later. The Orlov brothers reappear in chapter 2. 64. “Zhurnal puteshestviia V. N. Zinov’eva po Germanii, Italii, Frantsii, i Anglii v 1784-1788 gg,” Russkaia starina 23 (1878): 207-40, 399-440, 593-630. Parenthetical page citations for Zinoviev refer to this text. This publication also includes Zinoviev’s 1806 “Memoirs” (“Vospominaniia,” 613-27). 65. Douglas Smith, personal communication; see also his Working the Rough Stone: Freemasonry and Society in Eighteenth-Century Russia (DeKalb, Ill., 1999). 66. The connection between gambling and Germany reflects the common Russian practice of visiting German spas and their attendant casinos. Pushkin’s “Queen of Spades” (1833), whose obsessive protagonist is not only of Teutonic origin but even sports the given name “German” (the Russian form of “Herman”) transforms this link between gambling and geography into a stereotype of German (or Russianized German) character.

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2. Radishchev and Domestic Description (1767-97) (pages 65-104) 1. A. B. Kurakin, Arkhiv Kurakina, 5:380. 2. The exposure of this class to English country estates and gardens also influenced the design and organization of Russian estates. 3. I. P. Shaskol’skii, “‘Opisanie trekh putei’ Afanasiia Kholmogorskogo,” Trudy otdela drevnerusskoi literatury Instituta russkoi literatury (Akademiia Nauk, Institut russkoi literatury) 14 (1958): 457-60. On a few scattered efforts that preceded Peter’s reign, see M. I. Belov, ed. Puteshestviia i geograficheskie otkrytiia v XV-XIX vv. (Leningrad, 1965); on eighteenth-century scientific travel, see also Yuri Slezkine, “Naturalists Versus Nations: Eighteenth-Century Russian Scholars Confront Ethnic Diversity,” Representations 47 (summer 1994): 17095; Kozlov, Russkii puteshestvennik, ch. 1. 4. As Catherine notes in her Antidote: “Following his travels in Siberia, the abbé himself published the history of Kamchatka, poorly translated, that had been published in Russia by Professor Krasheninnikov—and nonetheless he says there is not a single Russian whose name he can cite in the history of the sciences and of the arts” (256). Chappe d’Auteroche published Krasheninnikov’s text i n the second volume of his own Voyage en Sibérie (1768). 5. V. Orlov-Davydov, Biograficheskii ocherk grafa Vladimira Grigor’evicha Orlova (St. Petersburg, 1878), 1:167. Unless otherwise noted, parenthetical page citations in this section refer to this edition and volume. 6. Michel Confino points out that information gathered from these scientific explorations would also often appear in the Academy of Sciences news (izvestiia) before the scientists’ accounts were published (Domaines et seigneurs en Russie vers la fin du XVIIIème siècle: étude de structures agraires et de mentalités économiques [Paris, 1963], 21 n. 2). In his correspondence, Orlov urges scientists to send him reports, descriptions, and maps of Russia; he also organized a series of domestic and foreign expeditions so that Russian and Western European scientists could jointly observe the 1768 transit of Venus across the sun. 7. A. G. Bobrinskii, “Dnevnik. 1779-1786,” in S. Kozlov, Russkii puteshestvennik, 371. Parenthetical page citations refer to this text. See also Petr Bartenev, ed., “Graf Aleksei Grigor’evich Bobrinskoi i ego bumagi,” Russkii arkhiv, kn. 3 (1876): 5-58, which includes some of Ozeretskovsky’s correspondence from the same trip, and “Dnevnik grafa Bobrinskogo vedennyi v kadetskom korpuse i vo vremia puteshestviia po Rossii i za granitseiu,” Russkii arkhiv, kn. 3 (1877): 116-65. 8. Bobrinsky’s half brother Pavel Petrovich (Tsar Paul) allowed him to return to Russia in 1796. 9. Pavel Petrovich did travel in Western Europe, however, accompanied b y his second wife and his friend Aleksandr Kurakin. Foreign touring was an older tradition for imperial heirs: Peter I’s son Aleksei Petrovich had traveled t o Dresden with a tutor in 1709 and taken the waters at Carlsbad in 1714 (Lindsey Hughes, Peter the Great [New Haven, 1999], 405). 10. V. A. Bil’basov, “Pokhody Ekateriny II po Volge i Dnepru (1767 i 1787 gg.),” in Istoricheskie monografii (St. Petersburg, 1901), 3:231-2. On Catherine’s trip to Rostov and Yaroslavl, see also the memoirs of fellow traveler Ia. P.

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Shakhovskoi (Ya. P. Shakhovskoy, Zapiski, 1709-1777 [St. Petersburg, 1872; reprint, Cambridge, Engl., 1974]); on her Baltic trip, see John T. Alexander, Catherine the Great: Life and Legend (New York, 1989), 87-97. 11. On Catherine’s trip to the Crimea, see my “Russia’s First ‘Orient’: Catherine in the Crimea, 1787,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 3, no. 1 (2002), 3-25. Another later journey of Catherine’s was a trip t o Belorussia in 1780, undertaken in part to inspect the regions acquired by Russia in the 1772 partition of Poland and commemorated by Derzhavin’s verse “On the Absence of Her Majesty in Belorussia” (Na otsutstvie ee velichestva v Belorussiiu). 12. Alexander, Catherine, 89. The technically independent Duchy of Kurland, whose capital was Mitau, had a close relationship with Russia and was absorbed into the Empire with the third partition of Poland in 1795. 13. [Catherine II], Zhurnal puteshestviia eia imperatorskogo velichestva v Estlandiiu i Liflandiiu, 1764 goda Iiunia 20 dnia (St. Petersburg, 1769). Parenthetical page citations refer to this text. 14. Despite this positive report, Catherine returned home from her Baltic tour more quickly than had originally been intended due to the eruption during her travels of a plot to enthrone the would-be Ivan VI and his consequent assassination (Alexander, Catherine, 90-1). Professions of widespread popular support remained a standard feature in official reports of the sovereign’s travels up until the Revolution; see, for example, [Nicholas II], Puteshestvie Ego Velichestva Imperatora Nikolaia II po Rossii s 19 noiabria 1914 goda (The Journey of His Majesty Emperor Nicholas II through Russia beginning 1 9 November 1914) (St. Petersburg, 1914). 15. Alexander, Catherine, 109. 16. Although her secretaries accumulated over 600 petitions during her tour, Catherine’s apparent magnanimity came to an end shortly after her return t o Moscow. In August 1767 she issued an ukase threatening corporal punishment and perpetual labor to peasants who submitted complaints (Makogonenko, Fonvizin, 94-6). The subsequent failure of the Legislative Commission to effect any real change—Catherine dismissed its representatives when they began t o discuss substantive issues—caused further disillusionment among her supporters in the progressive elite. 17. Aleksei Orlov was to have accompanied Catherine on her Volga journey as well, but was prevented by illness (Arkhiv Kurakina, 5:302). A. G. Orlov was later acclaimed for his leadership in the Russian naval victory against the Turks at Chesme (1770) and received the honorary title “Orlov-Chesmensky” as a result. 18. V. G. Orlov, “Puteshestvie po Volge v svite Imperatritsy” (Journey down the Volga in the Retinue of the Empress), Biograficheskii ocherk Orlova, 1:32. Parenthetical page citations of Orlov’s travel diaries refer to this edition and volume. The texts are organized as follows: “Puteshestvie po Volge v svite Imperatritsy,” in Biograficheskii ocherk Orlova, 1:21-47; “Prodolzhenie puteshestviia, otdel’no sovershennogo Grafom Vladimirom Grigor’evichem d o Astrakhani i obratno do Moskvy” (Continuation of the Journey Completed Separately by Count Vladimir Grigorievich to Astrakhan and back to Moscow) 1:47-76; the unfortunately abridged “Dnevnik puteshestviia, v 1770 g., v Kiev i v svoi votchiny” (Diary of a Journey in 1770 to Kiev and Familial Lands), 1:20113; and “Dnevnik puteshestviia za granitsu dlia popravleniia zdorov’ia” (Diary of a Journey Abroad for the Restoration of Health), 1:246-62.

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19. Confino, Domaines et seigneurs, 277-8. 20. A growing interest in economics might even have partially led to the nobility’s freedom to decline service rather than simply resulting from it: Confino notes that projects designed to gather economic information were frequently launched from 1760, thus before the reigns of both Peter III and Catherine II (Domaines et seigneurs, 20-1). 21. Confino, Domaines et seigneurs, 21. 22. Orlov-Davydov, Biograficheskii ocherk Orlova, 1:47 n. 23. A. L. Shapiro, commentary in A. N. Radishchev, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow-Leningrad, 1938-52), 3:591-2. See also Robert E. Jones, “Urban Planning and the Development of Provincial Towns in Russia, 17621796,” in The Eighteenth Century in Russia, ed. J. G. Garrard (Oxford, 1973), 32144. 24. Another example is N. P. Brusilov, who wrote a narrative account of internal travel in 1803 entitled My Journey, or the Adventures of One Day (Moe puteshestvie, ili Prikliucheniia odnogo dnia [St. Petersburg]) and later the formal Description of the Vologda Gubernia (Opyt opisaniia Vologodskoi gubernii, [St. Petersburg, 1833]). 25. As Bakhtin has argued, the use of a domestic route has a decisive effect upon textual thematics, for when “the road…passes through familiar territory, and not through some exotic alien world…it is the sociohistorical heterogeneity of one’s own country that is revealed and depicted (and for this reason, if one may speak at all about the exotic here, then it can only be the ‘social exotic’—‘slums,’ ‘dregs,’ the world of thieves) (“Forms of Time and Chronotope,” 245, emphasis i n original). In internal publicistic travel writing, a detailed rendering of Russia’s “slums and dregs” was precisely the point. Alternative geographies for eighteenth-century publicistic travel writing were fantastic or utopian spaces (chapter 3). 26. Slezkine, “Naturalists Versus Nations,” 173. 27. Pieces of Sterne’s Sentimental Journey had appeared in Russian journals before the 1793 translation of the entire work; it was also available to Russians who did not read English in German and French translation. Other sources for sentimentalist literary fashion included Richardson, Rousseau, and Goethe (chapter 3). 28. “Fragment of a Journey to ***” (Otryvok puteshestviia v ***) was published in the Painter (Zhivopisets) five times from 1773 to 1793; parenthetical page citations herein refer to the reprint of the third edition (1775) in Satiricheskie zhurnaly Novikova, ed. P. N. Berkov, 295-8, 327-9. Critics hoping to decipher “I. T.” have posited that it stands for either “Ivan Turgenev” or “Izdatel’stvo Trutnia,” i.e., “the publisher of Truten’” (The Drone), an earlier journal of Novikov’s. 29. Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 30. 30. This use of sentimentalism had been described by Pratt in her analysis of Western European accounts of Africa, where she demonstrates how the techniques of both scientific and sentimental writing complement one another in allowing the traveler to disassociate himself from the troubling structures of European imperialism that underlie his or her trip (Imperial Eyes, especially 15-107). 31. This employment of the peasant corresponds with the tendencies found i n Russian literature at large. See Donald Fanger, “The Peasant in Literature,” in The Peasant in Nineteenth-Century Russia, ed. Wayne S. Vucinich (Stanford, 1968),

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231-62. 32. D. I. Fonvizin, “Povestvovanie mnimogo nemogo i glukhogo: Zapiski moego pervogo puteshestviia po 1762 god”, SS, 2:7-23; parenthetical page citations refer to this edition. 33. Having later revealed the truth to his wife (during another trip “through Russia”), the traveler continues to practice this ruse in collaboration with her (“Narrative of One Passing for a Deaf-Mute,” 11-2). 34. Bobrinskii, “Dnevnik,” 390-1. 35. Radishchev’s son spoke of “Fragment” in these terms when he claimed its authorship for his father (P. A. Radishchev, “Zamechaniia na stat’iu Pushkina ‘Aleksandr Radishchev,’” in Biografiia A. N. Radishcheva, napisannaia ego synov’iami, ed. D. S. Babkin [Leningrad, 1959], 105 n). 36. Radishchev cited both Sterne and Mably as important influences on the conception of Journey from Petersburg to Moscow and testified to having read Sterne in its German translation (1769) while a student at Leipzig. 37. G. P. Makogonenko, “Aleksandr Radishchev and Laurence Sterne,” in A. G. Cross, ed., Great Britain and Russian in the Eighteenth Century: Contacts and Comparisons (Newtonville, Mass., 1979), 84-93. 38. “[Zapiska o podatiakh Peterburgskoi gubernii]” (Note on Taxes of the Petersburg Gubernia, 1786-88) and “[Opisanie Peterburgskoi gubernii]” (Description of the Petersburg Gubernia, 1789 or 1790), in Radishchev, PSS, 3:97-132. Evidence of Radishchev’s interest in provincial description and scientific travel writing may also be seen in the later “Description of the Tobolsk Region” (“Opisanie Tobol’skogo namestnichestva,” in PSS 3:133-42), his translation from French of an article written by S. Ianov, and numerous comments in his letters from Siberian exile. 39. This remark was recorded in the diary of her secretary, A. V. Khrapovitsky (Dnevnik s 18 ianvaria 1782 po 17 sentiabria 1793 goda, ed. N. Barsukov [Moscow, 1901]). 40. Radishchev, Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu. Vol’nost’, ed. V. A. Zapadov (St. Petersburg, 1992), 68; hereafter “PPM.” Since my translations of Radishchev are often based on those of Leo Weiner (Journey from Petersburg t o Moscow, ed. Roderick Page Thaler [Cambridge, Mass., 1958]), I have included relevant page numbers for this English version as well. Parenthetical page citations of Radishchev’s Journey thus consist of two numbers that refer to these Russian and English editions, respectively. This particular quote appears i n Weiner’s translation on page 147. 41. Wilson, The Literary Travelogue, 43. 42. Radishchev’s literary career began with translations undertaken for Novikov’s Society Striving for the Printing of Books; he was linked to Fonvizin, ten years his senior, through his mother’s family, the Argamakovs (Fonvizin’s sister Feodosia had married V. A. Argamakov in 1764). 43. P. N. Berkov argues quite the opposite, i.e., that Radishchev’s traveler already knows what he will find before leaving Petersburg; his trip thus does not provide new insight (prozrenie), but simply allows him the opportunity to reveal ideas that he already held (“Nekotorye spornye voprosy sovremennogo izucheniia zhizni i tvorchestva A. N. Radishcheva,” XVIII vek 4 [1959]: 183). This view would seem to confuse Radishchev’s own rhetorical aims with the experience of his fictional narrator. 44. Radishchev dedicated his text to Aleksei Kutuzov (“A. M. K.”), a close

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personal friend who was living abroad when the text was published. Kutuzov’s link to Radishchev and involvement with the Freemasons forced him to remain outside Russia where he died in 1797. On visual metaphors in Radishchev, see also Schönle, Authenticity and Fiction, chapter 1. 45. In another key chapter (“Kresttsy”), a model father asks that his sons regard him as “a pilgrim and visitor” (strannik i prishelets) rather than as an absolute ruler in household affairs (PPM, 47; Journey from Petersburg t o Moscow, 110). 46. Yuri M. Lotman, Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, trans. Ann Shukman (Bloomington, Ind., 1990), 131-142. In Lotman’s view, Peter I’s decision to move the capital from Moscow to Petersburg originally represented a similar shift: this move from cultural center “to the geographical frontier was at the same time the transfer of the frontier to the ideological and political center of the state” (141, emphasis in original). 47. I. Startsev, Radishchev: Gody ispytanii. Ocherki, 2nd ed., exp. (Moscow, 1990), 315. The quoted phrase is from G. A. Gukovskii, “Radishchev,” in Istoriia russkoi literatury (Moscow-Leningrad, 1947), 4:528. 48. Several fastidious editors have insisted that the episode described i n “Yazhelbitsy” is strictly fictional and does not refer to Radishchev. As Ia. L. Barskov carefully notes, “one ought not to think that the traveler ... is the biographical Radishchev and is accountable for all the points included in the text of the book” (Radishchev, PSS, 1:485); according to B. I. Krasnobaev, the scene “is not autobiographical. Radishchev selected the form of the confession in order to strengthen the condemnation of debauchery” (Radishchev, Izbrannoe [Moscow, 1976], 263); Makogonenko similarly insists on a sharp distinction between Radishchev and his protagonist (Radishchev i ego vremia [Moscow, 1956], 437). More recently, Startsev has reversed this tendency by arguing that the passage is, in fact, autobiographical, citing evidence of venereal disease among the Russian students at Leipzig (Radishchev: Gody ispytanii, 315-6). 49. See, e.g., V. A. Zapadov, commentary in Radishchev, PPM, 644. 50. The image of a hundred-headed hydra also appears in the chapter “Tver”, specifically in the ode to “Liberty” (Vol’nost’, stanza 7) ostensibly written by the “literary critic” whom the traveler meets en route. 51. Between the abortive 1790 edition and the scholarly edition of 1905, three attempts were made to publish Radishchev’s Journey in Russia: an 1872 edition was confiscated, an 1888 edition appeared in a print run of only 100 quite expensive copies, and a 1903 edition was blocked by the censor (R. P. Thaler, commentary in Radishchev, Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, 253). 52. On Glushkov’s Pocket Guide (Ruchnoi dorozhnik), see P. G. Liubomirov, “Blagonamerennoe Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu (Glushkov i Radishchev),” Uchenye zapiski Saratovskogo universiteta 6, vyp. 3 (1927): 31730. Fereltst’s Journey of a Critic (Puteshestvie kritiki, ili Pis’ma odnogo puteshestvennika, opisyvaiushchego drugu svoemu raznye poroki, kotorykh bol’sheiu shastiiu sam byl ochevidnym svidetelem [Moscow, 1818; reprint, Moscow, 1951]), published under the pseudonym “S. fon F.,” contains more general social criticisms than had Radishchev; on this text, see G. D. Ovchinnikov, “Savelii Ferel’tst—avtor Puteshestviia kritiki,” XVIII vek 1 6 (1989): 281-8. 53. During his inquest, Radishchev indicated that the event recounted b y “Ch—” actually occurred; his son later identified this figure as Pyotr

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Chelishchev (A. V. Zapadov, commentary in Radishchev, Puteshestvie i z Peterburga v Moskvu, 646). 54. Chelishchev’s text, Journey through the North of Russia in 1791 (Puteshestvie po severu Rossii v 1791 godu, ed. L. N. Maikov [St. Petersburg, 1886]) also considers the cultural legacies of Peter I and Lomonosov, figures associated with the territories in which he traveled and of great interest t o Radishchev as well; see my Imagining Space and the Self, 118-24. 55. Radishchev’s family and servants joined him on the outward journey i n Tobolsk. Elizaveta Rubanovskaia was the sister of Radishchev’s wife Anna, who had died shortly after the birth of their fourth child in 1783; she married him i n Siberia and added three children to the family before her death upon the return trip in 1797. In point of fact, Radishchev’s original ten-year term of exile was extended until Paul’s death in 1801; he resumed government service under Alexander I, but committed suicide in 1803. 56. Parenthetical page citations in this section refer to “Notes of the Journey to Siberia” (Zapiski puteshestviia v Sibir’) and “[Notes of the Journey from Siberia]” (Zapiski puteshestviia iz Sibiri), in Radishchev, PSS, 3:253-304 and t o his correspondence, PSS, 3:344-538. 57. A. R. Vorontsov was the brother of Ekaterina Dashkova and of Vasily Zinoviev’s friend, the diplomat Semyon Vorontsov. 58. William Mills Todd III, The Familiar Letter as a Literary Genre in the Age of Pushkin (Princeton, 1976), 194. 59. “[Ty khochesh’ znat’: kto ia? chto ia? kuda ia edu?]” (You Want to Know: Who Am I? What Am I? Where Am I Going?) and “[Pochto, moi drug, pochto sleza iz glaz katitsia?]” (Why, My Friend, Why Does a Tear Fall from Your Eye), i n Radishchev, PSS, 1:123-5. 60. “Pis’mo o Kitaiskom torge,” in Radishchev, PSS, 2:26. 61. Radishchev had personal connections in Tobolsk and spent several months there on his way to Ilimsk before an official reprimand for the delay urged him onward. 62. Dashkova, “Le Petit tour,” 246. 63. Bobrinskii, Dnevnik, 403. Pyotr Bartenev suggests that Potyomkin may have thought Bobrinsky a “spy” due to his close connections with the Orlovs; at the time of this encounter, Bobrinsky had just learned of the death of his father, Grigory Orlov, who had preceded Potyomkin as Catherine’s favorite (“Dnevnik Bobrinskogo,” 157). 64. Radishchev, “Zhitie Fedora Vasil’evicha Ushakova,” in PSS, 1:173.

3. Karamzin and the Internal Account (1791-1812) (pages 105-42) 1. I. M. Dolgorukii, Slavny bubny za gorami, ili puteshestvie moe koe-kuda v 1810 goda (Moscow, 1870), 1. 2. A. Blium and G. Dmitrin, Kniga i vremia. Rasskazy o redkikh izdaniiakh i bibliograficheskikh nakhodkakh (Cheliabinsk, 1962), 48. This guidebook, written by Johann Gottlieb Georgi, a professor at the Russian Academy of Sciences, first appeared in German (St. Petersburg, 1790), then French (1793), and then in a reworked and expanded Russian edition entitled Description of the

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Russian Imperial Capital City and of the Memorable Sights in Its Vicinity (Opisanie rossiisko-imperatorskogo stolichnogo goroda Sankt-Peterburga i dostopamiatnostei v okrestnostiakh onogo, 1794). 3. V. V. Izmailov, Journey to Southern Russia (Puteshestvie v poludennuiu Rossiiu, 4 vols. [1800-02], 2nd ed., rev. [Moscow, 1805]); P. I. Shalikov, Journey to Malorossia (Puteshestvie v Malorossiiu [1803], in V. I. Korovin, ed., Landshaft moikh voobrazhenii: Stranitsy prozy russkogo sentimentalizma [Moscow, 1990], 516-70); Shalikov, Second Journey to Malorossia (Drugoe puteshestvie v Malorossiiu [Moscow, 1804]). 4. Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain (London, 1971), 99-100. 5. [Bekhteev?], Puteshestvie k Lipetskim mineral’nym vodam v 1803 godu (Moscow, 1804), 48. Hints within the text suggest the author’s identity. 6. V. A. Zhukovskii, trans., “Pis’mo frantsuzskogo puteshestvennika,” Vestnik Evropy, ch. 12, nos. 23-4 (1803): 238. 7. Karamzin’s impact on Russian accounts of Western European travel i s discussed in chapter 4. 8. Gitta Hammarberg, “Karamzin after Karamzin: The Case of Prince Shalikov,” in A Window on Russia: Papers from the V International Conference of the Study Group on Eighteenth-Century Russia, Gargnano, 1994, ed. Maria Di Salvo and Lindsey Hughes (Rome, 1996), 276. 9. Gitta Hammarberg, From the Idyll to the Novel: Karamzin’s Sentimentalist Prose (Cambridge, Engl., 1991), 97. 10. “Hybrid” is V. V. Sipovsky’s term for (what Roboli later described as) travelogues “of the Dupaty type,” such as Karamzin’s, in which “ethnographic, historical, and geographic material is mixed with scenes, judgments, lyrical asides, and so on” (Sipovskii, N. M. Karamzin, avtor “Pisem russkogo puteshestvennika [St. Petersburg, 1899]; Roboli, “Literatura ‘puteshestviia,’” 48). 11. The first installments of Letters of a Russian Traveler appeared i n Karamzin’s Moscow Journal (1791-92) and in his almanac Aglaia (1794-95); i t was then published as a separate edition in six volumes (1797-1801). 12. Anthony Cross holds that Karamzin was unlikely to have known Fonvizin’s letters, although he was interested in their (unrealized) publication scheduled for 1788 (N. M. Karamzin: A Study of His Literary Career, 1783-1803 [Carbondale, Ill., 1971], 70). 13. N. M. Karamzin, Letter on Russian literature, Spectateur du Nord 4 (October 1797): 58, quoted in Cross, Karamzin, 69. This article and its translation into Russian have been reprinted in Karamzin, Pis’ma russkogo puteshestvennika, ed. Iu. M. Lotman, N. A. Marchenko, and B. A. Uspenskii (Leningrad, 1984), 449-63; parenthetical page citations of Karamzin’s Journey refer to this edition (“PRP”). 14. Cross, Karamzin, 168. 15. See, for example, Roboli, “Literatura ‘puteshestviia,’” 48. 16. Barthélemy’s Voyage du jeune Anacharsis (1788) was also popular with the Freemasons—a group to which Karamzin belonged at the time of his departure and it might be argued that Karamzin’s occasional framing of his travels as a series of calls upon well-known men of letters recalls the structure of the Masonic journey. 17. The argument of Lotman and Uspensky that Karamzin posed as the consummate Russian while abroad and adopted “the exaggerated role of a

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‘European’” only after his return is incomplete: the traveler poses as a European also while abroad, although he describes himself as a Russian (“‘Pis’ma russkogo puteshestvennika’ Karamzina i ikh mesto v razvitii russkoi kul’tury,” in PRP, 526). 18. Sherlock’s texts were originally written in French and later translated into English (Laura Rossi, “‘Malenkaia trilogiia’ Mikhaila Murav’eva,” Russica Romana 1 [1994], 77); the other two texts are cited by G. A. Gukovsky i n “Fonvizin,” Istoriia russkoi literatury (Moscow-Leningrad, 1947), 4:175. Moore’s account, originally entitled A View of Society and Manners in France, Switzerland and Germany (1778), became Letters of an English Traveler in its French translation. 19. Vernes authored Le Voyageur sentimental, ou Ma promenade à Yverdun, (The Sentimental Traveler, or My Stroll in Verdun, 1786) and Moritz Reisen eines Deutschen in England im Jahr 1782 (Journeys of a German in England in 1782, 1783) and the later Reisen eines Deutschen in Italien in den Jahren 1786 bis 1788 (Journeys of a German in Italy from 1786 to 1788, 1792-93). Karamzin probably knew the travel writing of “the German Sterne” Johann Georg Jacobi as well—Der Winterreise (The Winter Journey, 1769) and Der Sommerreise (The Summer Journey, 1770)—although he does not mention it in his account. 20. [P. L. Iakovlev], Chuvstvitel’noe puteshestvie po Nevskomu prospektu (A Sentimental Journey along Nevsky Avenue) (Moscow, 1828), 38 (ellipsis i n original); this anonymously published account first appeared in 1820 i n Iakovlev’s journal The Faithful. 21. On the later visits of Zhukovsky and Gogol to the same area, see chapter 5. 22. Roboli, “Literatura ‘puteshestviia,’” 51. 23. The term “gentry” or “noble (dvorianskii) sentimentalism” which Soviet critics sometimes use to distinguish Karamzin’s version of sentimentalism from Radishchev’s obscures the essentially bourgeois nature of these concerns. 24. Lotman and Uspenskii, “Pis’ma i ikh mesto,” 572. 25. Hunter, Before Novels, 23. See also Arnold Hauser, The Social History o f Art, 4 vols. (New York, 1985), 3:70-2; Hammarberg, From Idyll to Novel, 9-14. 26. G. A. Gukovskii, “The Roots of Russian Sentimentalism,” Soviet Studies in Literature 21, no. 1/2 (1984-85): 156. In keeping with my usage elsewhere i n this book, I have replaced the translator’s “gentry” (dvorianskii) with “noble.” 27. Karamzin’s linguistic innovations had a similar function: his preference for French syntax over Slavonic contributed to the codification in Russia of a literary norm suggestive of the French-speaking nobility and its connection t o Western European culture (V. V. Vinogradov, Ocherki po istorii russkogo literaturnogo iazyka XVII-XIX veka, 3rd ed., [Moscow, 1982], 174-7). 28. Belinsky, “Thoughts and Notes on Russian Literature,” 19. 29. A. Ia. Kucherov, “Sentimental’naia povest’ i literatura puteshestviia,” i n Istoriia russkoi literatury (Moscow-Leningrad, 1941), 5:112. 30. [I. I. Martynov], “Filon,” Muza, ch. 2 (1796): 59 (ellipsis in original). 31. [V. F. Malinovskii], “Rossiianin v Anglii: Otryvki iz pisem odnogo puteshestsvennika,” Priiatnoe i poleznoe preprovozhdenie vremeni (1796): nos. 9, 11-12; P. I. Makarov, “Rossianin v Londone, ili Pis’ma k druz’iam moim,” i n Korovin, ed., Landshaft, 500-15; D. Gorikhvostov, Pis’ma Rossiianina puteshestvovavshego po Evrope, s 1802 po 1806 god, 3 vols. (Moscow, 1808). Each of these successors chose to replace ruskoi, Karamzin’s term for “Russian,” with the more literary or rhetorical Rossiianin, a distinction discussed in this

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chapter. Malinovsky’s authorship of the anonymously published “A Russian i n England” has been most recently confirmed by Paola Feretti, “A ‘Rossiianin v Anglii’ in 1789-1791: V. F. Malinovskij,” Russica Romana, no. 2 (1995), 83-109. 32. V. L. Pushkin, “Poslanie,” quoted in N. N. Trubitsyn, “Iz poezdki Vasiliia L’vovicha Pushkina za-granitsu,” in Pushkin i ego sovremenniki. Materialy i issledovaniia, vyp. 19-20 (St. Petersburg, 1914), 249. V. L. Pushkin’s devotion t o Karamzin was well known in the literary circles that he frequented and the idea that his travel letters would be largely imitative was suggested even before his departure by the poet I. I. Dmitriev in a parodic verse (“Puteshestvie N. N. v Parizh i London” [1808], in V. L. Pushkin, Opasnyi sosed [Moscow, 1918], 31-9). His travel letters bear the original titles “Pis’mo Ruskogo puteshestvennika iz Berlina” and “Pis’mo Ruskogo puteshestvennika iz Parizha.” 33. “It is evident,” the young traveler sententiously concludes, “that every station in life has its own unpleasantnesses and worries” (M. Gladkova, 15-ti Dnevnoe puteshestvie, 15-ti letneiu pisannoe, v ugozhdenie roditeliu posviashchaemoe 15-ti letnemu drugu [A Fifteen-Day Journey Written by a Fifteen-Year-Old to Please Her Parent and Dedicated to a Fifteen-Year-Old Friend] [St. Petersburg, 1810], 69). The Russian Traveler has a similar interaction with his two young hostesses at a “shepherds’ hut in the Alpine mountains”: “I told them I liked their simple, carefree life and that I wanted to stay with them and water the cows. Their only response was laughter” (Karamzin, PRP, 133-4). 34. The more talented writers of a slightly later period—Konstantin Batiushkov, Vasily Zhukovsky, and Vilgelm Kiukhelbeker—did achieve a similarly graceful manner (chapters 4 and 5). 35. [P. L. Iakovlev?], Review of Progulka za granitsu (A Stroll Abroad), by P. I. Sumarokov, Blagonamerennyi (1821), ch. 16, 11-4. Sumarokov’s accounts of internal travel are Journey through All of the Crimea and Bessarabia in 1799 (Puteshestvie po vsemu Krymu i Bessarabii v 1799 godu [1800]; reprint i n Korovin, ed., Landshaft, 290-391) and The Leisure of a Crimean Judge or My Second Journey to Tauris (Dosugi Krymskogo sud’i ili vtoroe puteshestvie v Tavridu, 2 vols. [St. Petersburg, 1803-05]). Although N. K. Gudzy considers the latter two texts to be sentimentalist, scientific and Orientalist clichés predominate in both (“K Istorii russkogo sentimentalizma [Puteshestvie v Krym P. I. Sumarokova],” Izvestiia Tavricheskoi uchenoi arkhivnoi kommissii 32, no. 5 6 [1919]: 131-43). 36. Internal accounts do sometimes address national themes, as in contrasts between the ethnicity of the traveler and the peoples among whom he or she travels. As Radishchev’s Siberian diaries suggest, however, they are not inclined to organize and present these differences as constitutive of a Russian identity. Accounts of travel to the Crimea and Caucasus go further in this respect, but lie beyond the scope of this book. 37. Karamzin’s balance is linguistic as well: as Hammarberg points out, he rarely uses the idyllic, pastoral mode without dashes of a matter-of-fact or ironic tone (From Idyll to Novel). 38. On self-parody, see Hammarberg, From Idyll to Novel, 206. 39. “Izvestiia o Lavrentii Sterne i ego sochineniiakh,” trans. from Mercure de France, Severnyi vestnik no. 8 (1803), quoted in Roboli, “Literatura ‘puteshestviia,’” 49. 40. P. I. Makarov, Review of Puteshestvie v Malorossiiu, by P. I. Shalikov, Moskovskii Merkurii, no. 5 (May 1803), 120. The two anonymous texts

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mentioned here are “Poteriannoi chemodan. Otryvok chuvstvitel’nogo puteshestviia,” Chtenie dlia vkusa, razuma i chuvstvovaniia (1791): 26-39 and “Voiazh moego drug,” Priiatnoe i poleznoe preprovozhdenie vremeni (1798): ch. 17, no. 7, 97-121. 41. V. A. Zhukovskii, “O puteshestvii v Malorossiiu” [1803], in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v dvenadtsati tomakh, ed. A. S. Archangel’skii (St. Petersburg, 1902), 9:13. Zhukovsky’s own later travel writing is examined i n chapters 4 and 5. 42. Puteshestvie moego dvoiurodnogo brattsa v karmany. Vol’nyi perevod (Moscow, 1803), 11-2. 43. A. M. Kukulevich, “Masonskaia literatura,” in Istoriia russkoi literatury (Moscow-Leningrad, 1947), 4:81. Lyovshin’s text (“Noveishee puteshestvie”) may be found in V. Guminskii, ed., Vzgliad skvoz’ stoletiia: Russkaia fantastika XVIII i pervoi poloviny XIX veka [Moscow, 1977], 71-90. Other examples of Russian “utopian travel writing” include Mikhail Shcherbatov’s Journey to the Land of Ophir by the Swedish Nobleman, Mr. S... (Puteshestvie v zemliu ofirskuiu gospodina S… Shvetskogo dvorianina), written in 1783-84 and published only in 1891, and Vilgelm Kiukhelbeker’s “European Letters” (Evropeiskie pis’ma, 1820), briefly discussed in chapter 5. 44. Gukovskii, “Roots of Sentimentalism,” 77. 45. Marshall Brown makes a similar point in his observation that the era’s “sublime poets” and satirists “have more in common...than is generally acknowledged” since both “wrote on the basis of common stylistic presuppositions, ... employed similar kinds of verbal artifice, entertained similar conceptions of formal organization, and envisioned similar purposes with respect to much the same audience” (Preromanticism [Stanford, 1991], 23). 46. F. Z. Kanunova, “Karamzin i Stern,” XVIII vek 10 (1975): 258-64. 47. I. I. Martynov’s authorship of “Filon” is posited, for example, in Svodnyi katalog russkoi knigi grazhdanskoi pechati XVIII veka, 1725-1800 (Moscow, 1966), 4:152. The text itself appears in Muza (1796): Part 1, 74-88, 144-59; Part 2, 52-72, 219-43; Part 3, 130-52, 211-37; Part 4, 57-77, 144-73; parenthetical page citations refer to this edition. 48. Apart from such similarities, there does not appear to be much justification for claiming, as several critics have, that “Filon” is the autobiographical account of a trip made by Martynov when he left Poltava for Petersburg in order to pursue further study at the Aleksandr Nevsky Seminary and an eventual career: “Filon” concludes in Moscow, not Petersburg. 49. Radishchev, Puteshestvie, 74-5; Journey, 157. 50. Western examples of travel that was simultaneously domestic and foreign may be found in English accounts of touring the British Isles, such as Defoe’s Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724-26), Johnson’s A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775) and Boswell’s The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785), the first installment of his Life of Johnson. 51. Sumarokov, Dosugi Krymskogo sud’i, 1:45. Such perceptions of Ukrainian exoticism reflect both differences between Russian and Ukrainian culture and the social gap between the elite traveler and the local peasants. “Malorossia” was the name Ukraine’s northeastern sector (also known as RightBank Ukraine). Travels to southern Ukraine (“Novorossia”) and the Crimea (“Tauris”) were popular in this era as well, whereas Western or Left-Bank Ukraine, which had been under Polish rule until its forcible annexation by Russia in the

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1790s, was a less common destination. 52. Shalikov, Puteshestvie v Malorossiiu, 556, 562; Sumarokov, Puteshestvie po vsemu Krymu i Bessarabii, 4. 53. Shalikov, Drugoe puteshestvie v Malorossiiu, 69-70. 54. Several examples of Russian travel writing were written by Russianized authors who had spent their early childhoods in Ukraine and later moved t o Russia proper for educational and/or professional reasons (e.g., Ivan Martynov, Fedor Lubianovsky, and the Georgian Pyotr Shalikov). These trajectories illustrate what George Grabowicz had called the continuing “brain drain to the center of Imperial power and opportunity” that affected many elite Ukrainians of the era (“Ukrainian Elements in Russian Literature,” Handbook of Russian Literature, ed. Victor Terras [New Haven, 1985], 494). 55. Izmailov, Puteshestvie v poludennuiu Rossiiu, 1:3. 56. On the distinction between the variant spellings ruskoi and russkii (the latter incorrect in Karamzin’s day), see Lotman and Uspenskii, “Tekstologicheskie printsipy izdaniia,” in PRP, 517-8. 57. The origin of this popular quotation is uncertain; a Latin equivalent (Et fumus patriae dulcis) served as the epigraph for Tumansky’s journal Russian Museum (1792-94) (G. P. Makogonenko, G. N. Ionin, and E. N. Petrova, eds., Commentary in G. R. Derzhavin, Anakreonticheskie pesni [Moscow, 1987], 430 n. 28). 58. Hammarberg, From Idyll to Novel, 46. 59. Hammarberg, From Idyll to Novel, 47. 60. This educational paradigm was the provenance of the male elite. Women were unlikely to have experienced the same developmental pattern, although its ubiquity as a literary theme may well have led them to accept it and/or a general association with the countryside as relevant for their own self-conception as Russians. 61. In Tolstoy’s trilogy Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, for example, Childhood ends and Boyhood begins when the narrator leaves the family’s country estate. Such fictionalized accounts typically follow one-way trajectories, rather than the round trip itineraries that were typical of sentimentalist writing; these unidirectional routes allowed a metaphorical rendering of travel as a developmental process. 62. Hunter, Before Novels, 116-7. 63. Shalikov, Puteshestvie v Malorossiiu, 516. 64. Zhukovskii, “O ‘Puteshestvie v Malorossiiu,’” 12. 65. Hammarberg, From Idyll to Novel, 47-9. 66. Novyi chuvstvitel’nyi puteshestvennik, in Korovin, ed., Landshaft, 393-4; parenthetical page citations refer to this edition. 67. Karamzin, quoted in Cross, Karamzin, 71 (original text in PRP, 388); Shalikov, Drugoe puteshestvie v Malorossiiu, 181. 68. Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History: The Myth of the Eternal Return, trans. Willard R. Trask (New York, 1959), 21. 69. [Iakovlev], Chuvstvitel’noe puteshestvie, 47. 70. P. I. Shalikov, “Puteshestvie v Kronstadt 1805 goda” [1806]; reprint i n Korovin, ed., Landshaft, 581 n. Other examples of Petersburg area accounts include Brusilov’s description of strolling about the city (My Journey, or the Adventures of One Day, 1803); P. Iu. Lvov’s “Journey from Petersburg t o Beloozersk, 1804” (“Puteshestvie ot Peterburga do Beloozerska, 1804,” Severnyi

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vestnik [1804]: ch. 4, 183-98); the “Four-Day Journey (in 1806)” to Kronstadt written by “M. S-b-l-v” (“Cheyrekh-dnevnoe puteshestvie [V 1806-m godu],” Moskovskii telegraf [1828]: ch. 21, no. 10, 194-224); and P. L. Iakovlev’s Sentimental Journey along Nevsky Avenue (1820), a description of walking along the capital’s main street. 71. [P. L. Iakovlev], “Rasskazy luzhnitskogo startsa i moi vospominaniia o nem” (Stories of the Luzhniky Elder and My Recollections of Him), Blagonamerennyi (Feb. 1820), no. 4, 217-8 (ellipsis in original). Karamzin also wrote several other travel sketches focusing on the Moscow area, including “Journey around Moscow” (“Puteshestvie vokrug Moskvy,” 1803) and “Historical Recollections and Notes on the Road to Troitsa and Its Monastery” (“Istoricheskie vospominaniia i zamechaniia na puti k Troitse,” 1803); among other examples are Shalikov’s “Morning Stroll” (“Utrenniaia progulka,” Ippokrena, ili Utekhi liubosloviia [1799]: ch. 2, 321-8.) and K. N. Batiushkov’s later “Stroll through Moscow” (“Progulka po Moskve,” 1811).

4. Returning to Europe (1812-25) (pages 143-75) 1. Many of these accounts written by military officers appeared i n installments during the war or shortly after its conclusion; others were incorporated into later memoirs, frequently published in the 1830s in connection with the twenty-five-year anniversary of the Battle of Borodino. Another set of travel records from the Napoleonic era describes the life of the Russian court and its various members as they follow Alexander I towards Paris and/or circulate within the various social and political networks of Central Europe that were intertwined with the Russian throne, as in The Brief Notes of Admiral A. S. Shishkov Written during His Tenure with the Sovereign Emperor of Blessed Memory Alexander I in the War with the French of 1812 and Subsequent Years (Kratkiia zapiski Admirala A. S. Shishkova, vedennyia im vo vremia prebyvaniia ego pri blazhennogo pamiati Gosudare Imperatore Aleksandre Pervom v byvshuiu s Frantsyzami v 1812 i posleduiushchikh godakh voinu, [St. Petersburg, 1831]). The internal accounts of wartime evacuees constitute a third type of travel writing in this period; an example may be found in I. M. Muraviev-Apostol’s “Letters from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod” (“Pis’ma iz Moskvy v Nizhnii Novgorod,” Syn otechestva [1813-15]); see also my “Representing Moscow i n 1812: Sentimentalist Echoes in Accounts of the Napoleonic Occupation,” i n Moscow and Petersburg: The City in Russian Culture, ed. Ian K. Lilly (Nottingham, Engl., 2002), 7-30. 2. F. N. Glinka, Pis’ma ruskogo ofitsera o Pol’she, Avstriiskikh vladeniiakh, Prussii i Frantsii, s podrobnym opisaniem pokhoda rossiian protivu frantsuzov, v 1805 i 1806, takzhe otechestvennoi i zagranichnoi voiny s 1812 po 1815 god, 8 vols. (Moscow, 1815-16), 1:2. Unless otherwise noted, parenthetical page citations of Glinka’s Letters are taken from this edition. 3. I. I. Lazhechnikov, Pokhodnye zapiski russkogo ofitsera, 1812, 1813, 1814, i 1815 godov (Campaign Notes of a Russian Officer in 1812, 1813, 1814, and 1815) (Moscow, 1836), 194; K. N. Batiushkov to D. V. Dashkov, Paris, 2 5 April 1814, in Sochineniia v dvukh tomakh, ed. A. L. Zorin (Moscow, 1989),

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2:276. Unless otherwise noted, parenthetical page citations of Lazhechnikov and Batiushkov refer to these editions. 4. Galvanized first by Napoleon’s aggressive policies and then by his invasion of Russia, patriotic rhetoric shaped virtually all public and semi-public writing from the Napoleonic period, often including personal letters. The expression of such sentiments was also encouraged by the censorship (Franklin A. Walker, “Reaction and Radicalism in the Russia of Tsar Alexander I: The Case of the Brothers Glinka,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 21, no. 4 [1979], 499). 5. Glinka explains the Russian defeat in part by suggesting that Napoleon’s impressive military talent reflects lessons that he learned from the great Russian general, Suvorov. 6. Glinka’s account of this domestic tour is discussed in chapter 5. 7. Excerpts of Glinka’s Letters first appeared in the journals Son of the Fatherland and the Russian Herald. 8. Suleri, English India, 149. 9. Walker, “Reaction and Radicalism,” 494. See also Alexander Martin, Romantics, Reformers, Reactionaries: Russian Conservative Thought and Politics in the Reign of Alexander I (DeKalb, Ill., 1997). Sergei Glinka conceived his journal as a more patriotic version of the European Herald, a popular westernoriented periodical founded by Karamzin in 1802. His nationalistic literary work includes the drama “Mikhail, Prince of Chernigov,” written in 1808, the same year that his brother Fyodor wrote the long poem “Zinoby Bogdan Khmelnitsky, or Malorossia Liberated.” 10. Such aims were also reflected in the contemporary quest to formulate a Russian national history. Lazhechnikov aimed in his Campaign Notes of a Russian Officer, for example, to present portraits of heroic Russians “worthy of imitation.” 11. F. N. Glinka, “Pis’ma russkogo ofitsera,” Russkii vestnik, no. 6 (1814): 65, emphasis in original, quoted in Walker, “Reaction and Radicalism,” 496. 12. F. N. Glinka, “Avtobiografiia,” in Pisateli-dekabristy v vospominaniiakh sovremennikov (Moscow, 1980), 1:315, quoted in V. Zverev, introduction t o Glinka, Pis’ma k drugu (Moscow, 1990), 7-8. 13. F. N. Glinka, Pis’ma russkogo ofitsera, ed. G. A. Galin (Moscow, 1990), 346. 14. Glinka’s patriotic views also color his descriptions of intermediate landscapes and peoples. He reviles Poland, for example—where Napoleon was revered as a potential liberator from Russian domination. 15. Glinka’s text has been seen to display the influence of Karamzinian sentimentalism as well. See V. Bazanov, Ocherki dekabristskoi literatury: publitsistika, proza, kritika (Moscow, 1953), 78-80. 16. Fonvizin’s first two published letters were from Paris (14/25 June 1778) and Aachen (18/29 September 1778); the next four from Montpellier and Paris (22 November/3 December 1777, 24 December 1777/4 January 1778, 15/26 January 1778, 20/31 March 1778). 17. Fonvizin, SS, 2:472. Unless otherwise noted, parenthetical references t o Fonvizin in this chapter refer to the same edition and volume. 18. The fact that Fonvizin’s remark had not yet been published when Letters of a Russian Officer appeared indicates how popular this cliché was; its source, as Karamzin pointed out in his Letters, was France’s own Charles V (PRP, 221). Catherine attempted to turn the tables in her well-publicized correspondence with

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Voltaire by claiming that “Moscow is not a city, it is a world.” 19. A. Chicherin, Dnevnik Aleksandra Chicherina, 1812-1813 (The Diary o f Aleksandr Chicherin, 1812-1813) (Moscow, 1966), 190. 20. Suleri, English India, 150. 21. Zorin, commentary in Batiushkov, Sochineniia, 2:626. On the cultural significance of Batiushkov’s travel writing, see also Guminskii, Otkrytie mira, 179-80. 22. Quoted in N. V. Fridman, Proza Batiushkova (Moscow, 1965), 76. The French quotation is from Voltaire’s comedie “Charlot.” 23. See also Fonvizin’s earlier letter to his sister from Montpellier (31 December 1777/11 January 1778, SS, 433). 24. Batiushkov, “Puteshestvie v zamok Sirei,” in Sochineniia, 1:100. 25. Here Batiushkov echoes both the famous cry of Karamzin (“I’m in Paris! [...] I’m in Paris” [PRP, 217]) and Dmitriev’s well-known parody of his epigone V. L. Pushkin (see note 3.32): “Friends! Sisters! I’m in Paris! / I’ve begun to live, not just to breathe!” The appeal of this approach was felt by Aleksandr Pushkin as well and implicitly noted in his later remark that he would exchange “everything that has been written in Russia in imitation of Lord Byron” (i.e. a good deal of his own verse) for these “unmeditated and unceremonial verses” of Dmitriev’s (Polnoe sobranie sochinenii [Leningrad, 1937-59], 12:93). 26. In the words of Lazhechnikov: “I wrote [my notes] on the march, by the light of bivouac campfires, on drums and often on horseback, to the noise of the troops moving beside me” (Pokhodnye zapiski, 11). 27. The subtitle of Batiushkov’s piece—“Fragment from the Letters of a Russian Officer”—links it directly to Glinka’s publication of 1808. Later reworking this piece for publication in his Attempts at Prose (Opyty prozy, 1817), Batiushkov changed the title from “Picture of Finland” to “Fragment from the Letters of a Russian Officer on Finland” (Otryvok iz pisem russkogo ofitsera o Finlandii); page citations herein refer to the version found under the later title i n Sochineniia, 1:93-9. On Batiushkov’s “Fragment,” see also Schönle, Authenticity and Fiction, 122-8. 28. The dynamic quality of Batiushkov’s sketch has also been noted b y Fridman (Proza Batiushkova, 20). 29. “Journey to Château Cirey” was prepared for publication in the fall of 1815 and first printed in the European Herald (1816). 30. Batiushkov shares this dynamic technique with Karamzin, who, as Roboli noted, begins most of his travel letters with the traveler’s arrival or departure (“Literatura ‘puteshestviia,’” 53 n). The short syntactic units found in “Journey to Château Cirey” also function to convey the narrator’s hurried anxiety (Fridman, Proza Batiushkova, 137). 31. Batiushkov here paraphrases Voltaire’s comment from a 1771 letter t o Catherine: “It’s from the North today that Enlightenment comes to us” (C’est d u Nord aujourd’hui que nous vient la lumière). 32. K. F. Ryleev, “Pis’ma iz Parizha,” Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, ed. A. G. Tseitlin (Moscow-Leningrad, 1934; reprint, The Hague, 1967), 377. 33. D. V. Davydov, Voennye zapiski, ed. V. Orlov (Moscow, 1940), 164. 34. Maria Todorova has described this phenomenon as “Balkanism” in her study of Southeastern Europe, Imagining the Balkans (New York, 1997). 35. F. N. Glinka, “Kratkoe nachertanie Voennogo zhurnala” (St. Petersburg, 1817), 11, quoted in Walker, “Reaction and Radicalism,” 498.

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36. Kiukhelbeker’s account will be discussed in chapter 5. 37. A. A. Bestuzhev-Marlinskii, “Poezdka v Revel’” (A Trip to Reval), i n Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 12 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1838-39), 6:26. 38. G. A. Glinka, “Puteshestviia velikikh kniazei Nikolaia Pavlovicha i Mikhaila Pavlovicha” (The Journeys of the Grand Dukes Nikolai Pavlovich and Mikhail Pavlovich), Russkii arkhiv, kn. 2 (1877): 176. 39. G. A. Glinka had been employed previously at the University of Dorpat (now Tartu), a primarily German institution where he was the first professor of Russian origin (he taught Russian language and literature); Glinka was also the first Russian nobleman to be employed as a professor, a fact celebrated b y Karamzin in the European Herald of 1803. 40. Glinka, “Puteshestviia velikikh kniazei,” 174. The conspicuous absence of France among the recommended travel destinations is a sign of the recent war. Glinka himself traveled with Nikolai Pavlovich both in Russia (1816) and then abroad (1816-17); he died of an aneurysm during a second tour of Russia with Mikhail Pavlovich (1817-18). 41. J. K. Lavater, “O puteshestvennikakh,” Vestnik Evropy, no. 22 (1814): 868. In all likelihood, these views were familiar to both Karamzin (the journal’s founder) and Zhukovsky (a subsequent editor). Karamzin had been personally acquainted with Lavater, corresponding with him before traveling abroad and then meeting him in Zurich (as described in his Letters); Lavater had died i n 1801. 42. A more straightforward “naive” approach may be found in K. F. Ryleev’s appreciative description of this site (“[Reinskii vodopad]” [Rhine Falls] in PSS, 371-2), discussed in my “Four Writers and a Waterfall: Questions of Genre i n Russian Travel Writing about Western Europe, 1791-1825,” Germano-Slavica 1 1 (1999): 3-26. 43. Michel de Montaigne, Travel Journal (Journal de Voyage), trans. Donald M. Frame (San Francisco, 1983), 22. 44. Gross, The Scar of Revolution, 75. 45. Batiushkov, “Otryvok iz pisem russkogo ofitsera o Finliandii,” Sochineniia, 1:94. Later examples of waterfall description in Russian travel writing include Orest Somov’s account of visiting Finland’s Imatra Falls (“Four Days in Finland [Chetyre dni v Finliandii, 1829; Chetyre dnia v Finliandii, 1830]). In addition, Bestuzhev[-Marlinsky]’s A Trip to Reval (1821) contains two extended poems about the waterfall in Narva; poems entitled “Waterfall” were written by Evgeny Baratynsky (1821) and Nikolai Iazykov (1830) as well (Simon Karlinsky, “Two Pushkin Studies,” California Slavic Studies 2 [1962]: 121-3). 46. The Niagara Falls passage served as a model for the “tableau” in a French textbook on writing from 1812, for example, and Pushkin later gave Chateaubriand credit for having taught an entire generation of Russian writers with it (Gross, Scar of Revolution, 75; Karlinsky, “Two Pushkin Studies,” 101). Thomas Moore was another author of paradigmatic waterfall description. 47. V. A. Zhukovskii, “Otryvki iz pis’ma o Shveitsarii,” in Poliarnaia zvezda izdannaia A. Bestuzhevym i K. Ryleevym, ed. V. A. Arkhipov, V. G. Bazanov, Ia. L. Levkovich (Moscow-Leningrad, 1960), 567. Unless otherwise noted, page citations of Zhukovsky in this chapter refer to this text. As I argue in “Four Writers and a Waterfall,” Zhukovsky’s description of visiting Rhine Falls may be seen as a polemical response to Nikolai Grech’s 1823 account of the site in his “Letters on Switzerland” (“Pis’ma o Shveitsarii [K A. E. Izmailovu],” i n

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Poliarnaia zvezda, 78-104). 48. Zhukovskii, “Puteshestvie po Saksonskoi Shveitsarii (v 1821)” (Journey through Saxon Switzerland [in 1821]) [1824], in Poliarnaia zvezda, 332-42. 49. Rousseau, Èmile, quoted in Georges Van Den Abbeele, Travel a s Metaphor: From Montaigne to Rousseau (Minneapolis, 1992), 87. As Van Den Abbeele notes, Rousseau’s misgivings lead him “to dismiss the entire genre of travel literature.” 50. Zhukovsky’s letters and diaries abundantly manifest both his obsession with education and self-improvement and a link between these topics and travel. He designed his accounts of touring both Saxony and Switzerland for his pupil Aleksandra Fyodorovna, for example, and the other travel letters that he chose t o publish within his lifetime were didactic treatises written for her children (Letter to Aleksandr Nikolaevich, Vernet near Vevey, 1 January 1833; Letter to Maria Nikolaevna, “Ocherki Shvetsii [4 June 1838]” (Sketches of Sweden), in PSS, 12:24-30, 48-52). 51. F. Z. Kanunova, “Zhukovskii—chitatel’ pedagogicheskogo romanatraktata Russo Emil’, ili o vospitanii,” in Biblioteka V. A. Zhukovskogo v Tomske, 3 vols. (Tomsk, 1978), 3:130. 52. In fact, Karamzin helped to ensure that Sterne’s legacy in Russian culture would exaggerate emotionalism at the expense of humor: apparently prizing Sterne’s teary sentimentality more than his levity or idiosyncrasy, Karamzin selected passages for translation in his Moscow Journal (1791-92) according t o these emphases (Cross, Karamzin, 56).

5. Reimagining Foreign and Domestic Space (1810-50) (pages 177-229) 1. N. I. Turgenev, Dnevniki Nikolaia Ivanovicha Turgeneva za 1811-1816 gody, vyp. 3, vol. 2 of Arkhiv brat’ev Turgenevykh (St. Petersburg, 1913), 253. 2. The Decembrists were not aware either that Nicholas was Alexander’s official heir or that he, far from usurping the crown, had deferred first t o Constantine (who declined more than once) before accepting it (Nicholas Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855 [Berkeley, 1969], 30-3). 3. Dennis Porter, Haunted Journeys: Desire and Transgression in European Travel Writing (Princeton, 1991), 5. 4. N. I. Grech, “Vospominaniia starika,” in Zapiski o moei zhizni (Moscow, 1990), 271. 5. Pieces of Kiukhelbeker’s travelogue were printed in the journal of the Free Society of Amateurs of Russian Letters (Trudy, 1824) and The Northern Archive (1825). Parenthetical page citations herein refer to the text published i n Puteshestvie. Dnevnik. Stat’i, ed. N. V. Koroleva and V. D. Rak (Leningrad, 1979), 7-63. Additional fragments of Kiukhelbeker’s account that were taken from an 1823 manuscript of Journey (now lost) are quoted in Iu. N. Tynianov’s article “Frantsuzskie otnosheniia Kiukhel’bekera,” in Pushkin i ego sovremenniki [Moscow, 1969]), 295-329. 6. As Kiukhelbeker himself put it, “I am a German by my father and mother, but not by language […]. I didn’t know a word of German until the age of six, my

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native language is Russian” (Guminskii, ed., Vzgliad skvoz’ stoletiia, 100). Grech suggests that Kiukhelbeker’s Russian identity was a volitional construct: in his (generally hostile) recollection, Kiukhelbeker spoke with a German accent (“Vospominaniia starika,” 271). 7. Grech, “Vospominaniia starika,” 273. 8. Tynianov, “Frantsuzskie otnosheniia,” 302. 9. Kiukhelbeker shared with his acquaintance Grech an interest in the Lancasterian method of “mutual instruction” in which more advanced students would transmit the teacher’s lessons to junior schoolmates. The casual, fraternal style of teaching that Kiukhelbeker adopts for instructing the German painter would appear to reflect both the Lancasterian approach and the fraternal ambiance or “cult of friendship” that characterized relationships in Kiukhelbeker’s elite social circle, often shaping its literary output. 10. V. K. Kiukhel’beker, “O napravlenii nashei poezii, osobenno liricheskoi v poslednee desiatiletie,” Mnemozina, ch. 2 (1824): 56-7. 11. In a similar vein, Bestuzhev[-Marlinsky] links the Baltic landscape t o “Ossianic thoughts” in his 1821 Trip to Reval (“Poezdka v Revel’,” 51). Explicit references to Ossian appear in numerous other Russian travel accounts as well, including Glinka’s Letters of a Russian Officer … in 1805 (1808), Batiushkov’s “A Picture of Finland” (1810) and “Journey to Château Cirey” (1816), and Zhukovsky’s later “Sketches of Sweden” (1838). 12. Karamzin, PRP, 52; Zhukovskii, “Rafaeleva madonna (Iz pis’ma o Drezdenskoi galerei)” (Raphael’s Madonna [From a Letter on the Dresden Gallery]) [1824], in Poliarnaia zvezda, 422-6. On Karamzin, Zhukovsky, and the Sistine Madonna, see also Schönle, Authenticity and Fiction, 98-110. 13. Kiukhel’beker, Puteshestvie. Dnevnik. Stat’i, 650-1. 14. Batiushkov, Sochineniia, 2:279. 15. F. V. Rostopchin, “Iz putevykh zapisok 1815 goda” (From the Travel Notes of 1815), in Okh! Frantsuzi (Moscow, 1992), 231. 16. Koroleva and Rak point out that Hamlet made no such remark (Kiukhel’beker, Puteshestvie. Dnevnik. Stat’i, 10 n). 17. V. K. Kiukhel’beker, “Evropeiskie pis’ma,” in Sochineniia, ed. V. D. Rak and N. M. Romanov (Leningrad, 1989), 302. 18. The last decade of Gogol’s life (1842-52) was characterized by abortive attempts to finish Dead Souls Part 2. 19. N. V. Gogol’, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 14 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad, 1937-52), 11:41. Unless otherwise noted, parenthetical page citations of Gogol refer to this edition and volume. 20. “Rus” (Rus’) is the name for the territory (and/or the social-political organization) of the Eastern Slavs during the medieval period and before that group’s division into Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians. In the Romantic era of Gogol, “Rus” suggested a rich, semi-legendary historical pedigree for Russian and East Slavic culture. Indeed, landscapes in Dead Souls are arguably as Ukrainian as they are Russian: while writing his novel about “Russia,” Gogol wrote to his mother in Malorossia for information on rural lifeways in Ukraine. 21. Karamzin, PRP, 108. 22. Gogol’s self-characterization as a poet also helps to explain the subtitle of his novel Dead Souls: “a narrative poem” (poema). 23. Gogol’s approach functions more properly as ostranenie when read by an audience familiar with either travel writing conventions or the basic features of

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life in Western Europe. 24. Zhukovsky made his second trip abroad for primarily medical reasons, visiting Germany, Switzerland, France, and Italy. 25. Letter to I. I. Kozlov, Vernet near Vevey, 27 January/8 February 1833, in V. A. Zhukovskii—Kritik, ed. Iu. M. Prozorov (Moscow, 1985), 235-6. Bonnivard, legendary Swiss republican and protagonist of Byron’s tale, is the prisoner i n Chillon’s dungeon. Zhukovsky’s extremely successful translation of “The Prisoner of Chillon” (Shil’onskii uznik, 1822) was the first of Byron’s poems t o appear in Russian. 26. These were not isolated experiences with graffiti. Gogol also “scratched [his] name in Russian letters” at Voltaire’s estate in Ferney and carved a poetic epistle to a friend onto a monument to Rousseau in Geneva (PSS, 11:63, 72), while Zhukovsky had left his name at an acclaimed cavern in Saxony during his earlier European tour (chapter 4). Anna Fyodorovna was the ex-wife of Nicholas I’s brother Constantine. 27. N. V. Gogol’, “[Konspekt knigi P. S. Pallasa ‘Puteshestvie po raznym provintsiiam rossiiskogo gosudarstva v 1768-1773 gg.’ 3 ch. St. Petersburg 1773-78]” in PSS, 9:277-414. On this and similar reading that Gogol hoped would prepare him for eventual authorship of a “living geography of Russia,” see PSS, 9:641-4. Gogol’s words advocating internal travel are quoted in Vladimir Karpets, “I mne ravny i mig, i vek,” in F. N. Glinka, Sochineniia (Moscow, 1986), 313. He also read Gmelin (Guminskii, Otkrytie mira, 195). 28. A related example from Gogol’s oeuvre is his short story “The Carriage” (Koliaska, 1836) in which the conveyance itself represents “provincial space” and its inhabitants, or, in Gogol’s words, “the innards (vnutrennost’) of Russia” (Vladimir Gitin, “Towards a Poetics of the Gogolian Anecdote: ‘The Carriage,’” i n A. L. Crone and Catherine V. Chvany, eds., New Studies in Russian Language and Literature [Columbus, Ohio, 1986], 140). 29. The quoted phrase is from Donald Fanger, who also points out that “Gogol’s novel is organized and dominated by the road” and that its “earliest textual beginnings have been traced to the travel notes he made in the summer of 1835 when he journeyed from Petersburg to his Ukrainian family home” (The Creation of Nikolai Gogol [Cambridge, Mass., 1979], 169, 169 n). 30. Glinka’s internal account has been reprinted in Pis’ma k drugu, 27-153. Parenthetical page citations refer to this edition. Two sections of the text, i.e., his report on the fire in Kiev and a long poem celebrating the Volga, were originally published before 1815. 31. In Petrunina’s view, Letters of a Russian Officer shares Radishchev’s pathos and civic feeling (“Proza 1800—1810-x gg.,” 57); see also Bazanov, Ocherki dekabristskoi literatury, 29-50. 32. See my “Representing Moscow in 1812.” 33. A similar image appears in Feofan Prokopovich’s 1717 oration celebrating Peter I’s return from abroad, where it is traced to Saint Anthony of Egypt: “when asked by a pagan philosopher where were his books, [Saint Anthony] pointed to the entire world and said ‘This is my book.’” “For I say onto you,” continues Feofan in this paean to travel, “does he better read this book who thinks the entire world ends where he sees the horizon end or he who in traveling (stranstvuia) has seen rivers and seas and a diversity of lands and a variety of times and a multitude of wondrous beings?” (Sochineniia [Moscow-Leningrad, 1961], 64).

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34. Lomonosov, “Ode on the Day of the Accession of Her Sovereign Highness Empress Elisaveta Petrovna to the All-Russian Throne in 1747” (Oda na den’ vosshestviia na vserossiiskii prestol Ee Velichestva Gosudaryni Imperatritsy Elisavety Petrovny 1747 goda). 35. “Neskol’ko voprosov,” in Fonvizin, SS, 2:275. 36. N. I. Turgenev, Dnevniki Turgeneva za 1811-1816 gody, 2:206. 37. In 1830, Glinka was allowed to move to Tver where he continued his ethnographic work. He later spent several years in Moscow, hosting a weekly literary salon dedicated primarily to discussion of the Napoleonic War; in the 1850s, he returned to Tver where he lived until his death in 1880. 38. After three years in the South, Pushkin was allowed to return to European Russia, but confined to his estate at Mikhailovskoe (near Pskov), where he lived from August 1824 to September 1826. 39. “Onegin’s Journey” was written over the course of five years between 1825 and 1830. The verses relating to Odessa were published in 1827 in the Moscow Herald; a few other stanzas appeared in Pushkin’s journal The Literary Gazette in 1830; others were appended to the first full edition of Eugene Onegin in 1833 as “Fragments of Onegin’s Journey.” Parenthetical page citations of both Eugene Onegin and “Onegin’s Journey” herein are taken from Nabokov’s fourvolume translation (Eugene Onegin, rev. ed. [Princeton, 1975]), which includes both stanzas of the “Journey” published in 1833 and those expunged, together with extensive commentaries (1:335-45, 3:253-310). The Russian text of “Fragments of Onegin’s Journey” (“Otryvki iz puteshestviia Onegina”) may be found in Pushkin, PSS, 6:197-205. 40. P. A. Katenin, “Vospominaniia o Pushkine” [1852], in Literaturnoe nasledstvo 16-18 [1934], 617-56, quoted in Nabokov, “Commentary,” in Eugene Onegin, 3:254. 41. Nabokov, “Commentary,” 3:257, 258. 42. Pushkin also implicity alludes to Radishchev in a poetic epistle from 1826 that entreats his addressee (S. A. Sobolevsky) “not to miss certain delicacies in Valdai” when on the Moscow-Petersburg road (Thaler, introduction t o Radishchev, Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, 35). 43. In particular, M. V. Iuzefovich later recalled that Onegin’s ultimate fate was to have been either death in the Caucasus or Decembrism, two story lines that could also be combined should association with the Uprising have led to a frontline assignment (Pushkin, PSS, 6:503; Nabokov, “Commentary,” 3:312). “Chapter 10” describes experiences constituting the education of a generation slightly older than Pushkin’s own, including the events of 1812, the occupation of Paris, and the development of secret societies in Russia. While Decembrist membership might not have fully explained Onegin’s relationship to Tatiana, i t would have framed his adventures within a context defined by the oppressive state—as was the case for Pushkin’s other Eugene, protagonist of “The Bronze Horseman” (1833). It is also quite possible that the verses on life in Odessa found in “Onegin’s Journey” were in part inspired by Decembrism: Pushkin knew several future Decembrists during his southern exile and while he was apparently unaware of their secret organization at that time, he later came to associate his stay in Odessa with these social ties. 44. Patrick O’Meara, K. F. Ryleev: A Political Biography of the Decembrist Poet (Princeton, 1984), 289-311. 45. “Ryleev, along with [S. I.] Muraviev-Apostol and [P. G.] Kakhovsky,

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slipped from the nooses and crashed into the pit beneath the scaffold, injuring themselves in the process. ‘After this,’ Prince [P. A.] Viazemsky wrote, ‘they were led to a second death’” (O’Meara, Ryleev, 302, 304-5). 46. Nabokov suggests in addition that the line “memories of former days” found in Pushkin’s subsequent description of Astrakhan refers to a long and bloody rebellion against Peter I (“Commentary,” 3:280). 47. Paul Debreczeny, Notes to “A History of Pugachev,” in Alexander Pushkin: Complete Prose Fiction (Stanford, 1983), 532. 48. Among the participants in the Pugachov Rebellion was a nobleman who had sided with the peasant rebels and was subsequently condemned to exile. This unusual figure, whose sentence bore a clear resemblance to that of many Decembrists, was compelling enough to have served as the basis for Pushkin’s protagonist in early plans for the novel; he later evolved into Shvabrin, the protagonist’s nemesis (Debreczeny, Pushkin: Complete Prose, 526). 49. A. S. Pushkin, PSS, 15:71. Parenthetical page citations of Pushkin’s correspondence from this trip refer to this edition and volume. 50. Pushkin traveled together with his friend Sobolevsky as far as Moscow. 51. This characterization of Nizhny is written in French—perhaps an ironic reference to the elite standards of literary travel writing; the other passages are Russian. 52. The friends in question are Vladimir Dal and Governor-General Vasily Perovsky. 53. M. I. Nevzorov, Puteshestvie v Kazan’, Viatka i Orenburg v 1800 godu (Journey to Kazan, Vyatka and Orenburg in 1800) (Moscow, 1803). 54. A. S. Pushkin, “A History of Pugachev,” in Debreczeny (trans.), Pushkin: Complete Prose, 407, 535; see also P. Ovchinnikov, “Vstrecha v Orenburge,” i n Rifei: Ural’skii literaturno-kraevedcheskii sbornik (Cheliabinsk, 1981), 36-41. 55. A. S. Pushkin, “The Captain’s Daughter,” in Debreczeny, Pushkin: Complete Prose, 273, 281, 283. 56. Eliade, Cosmos and History, 9. 57. “Aleksandr Radishchev” was first published in 1857; parenthetical page citations herein refer to the text in Pushkin’s PSS, 12:188-98; the extant “Journey from Moscow to Petersburg” (Puteshestvie iz Moskvy v Peterburg) was first published with excisions in 1841 and in full in 1859; Pushkin left notes for incomplete versions of twelve chapters in all; parenthetical page citations herein refer to the text found in his PSS 11:243-67. 58. These are the words of S. S. Uvarov, Minister of Public Education (quoted in A. S. Pushkin, Sobranie sochinenii v desiati tomakh [Moscow, 1976], 6:441). Pushkin’s esteem for Radishchev may also be seen in his oft-quoted response t o Bestuzhev-Marlinsky’s overview of past and present Russian literature in the Polar Star of 1823: “How is it possible to forget Radishchev in an article o n Russian literature? Whom are we to remember?” (B. S. Meilakh, “‘Puteshestvie iz Moskvy v Peterburg’ Pushkina,” Izvestiia Akademiia Nauk SSSR [Otdelenie Literatury i Iazyka], 1949, vol. 8, vyp. 3 [May-June], 217). 59. In his initial plans for “Journey,” Pushkin even hoped to include a sketch by Gogol contrasting the character of the two capitals, “Moscow and Petersburg (From a Traveler’s Notes [Iz zapisok dorozhnogo]),” (Meilakh, “‘Puteshestvie iz Moskvy v Peterburg’ Pushkina,” 224). According to Gogol, Moscow differed from Petersburg in its simpler, more popular, and more Russian spirit. Refused publication in 1836, the sketch appeared the next year in Pushkin’s The

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Contemporary as the first part of Gogol’s “Petersburg Notes from 1836” (Petersburgskie zapiski 1836 goda). 60. The quoted phrase is Debreczeny’s rendering of Iu. N. Tynianov’s words describing another Pushkinian narrator, namely, the traveler in Journey to Arzrum (The Other Pushkin: A Study of Alexander Pushkin’s Prose Fiction [Stanford, 1983], 278). 61. It should be noted that the narration of Pushkin’s “Journey” i s particularly complex: multi-voiced, contradictory and ambiguous. As A. K. Bocharova points out, the narratorial voice is by and large (but not always) quite distinct from Pushkin’s own; it also contains echoes of Karamzin, Catherine II, and Aleksandr Benckendorff, head of Nicholas I’s Third Section (the secret police), who had the task of keeping Pushkin under surveillance and censoring his work (“Traditsii Radishcheva v ocherkakh Pushkina ‘Puteshestvie iz Moskvy v Peterburg,’” in A. N. Radishchev, V. G. Belinskii, M. Iu. Lermontov [zhanr i stil’ khudozhestvennogo proizvedeniia] [Riazan’, 1974], 3-21). See also Meilakh, “‘Puteshestvie iz Moskvy v Peterburg.’” 62. It is interesting to note that Pushkin began to write his “Journey from Moscow to Petersburg” on the same day that Nicholas I mysteriously absented himself from the capital to rush off to Moscow—an urgent, but unannounced trip that surprised the staff at his residence there and resulted in Nicholas’s not being properly greeted. This episode, recalled in Pushkin’s diary, also suggests the importance of altering roads and realities to suit the sovereign (Dnevnik A. S. Pushkina 1833-1835, 1, 3). 63. See, for example, Pushkin’s “Notes on Reading Krasheninnikov’s Description of the Land of Kamchatka” (“Zametki pri chtenii Opisanie zemli Kamchatki Krasheninnikova,” in PSS, vol. 10. 64. V. A. Zhukovskii, PSS, 12:104. 65. Iu. Kurochkin, Ural’skii voiazh poeta (Cheliabinsk, 1988), 78-8. It i s worth noting that Zhukovsky’s personal connections to the Decembrists were such that he had been invited to join one of their secret societies, the Union of Welfare, in 1818 (79-81). 66. Kurochkin, Ural’skii voiazh, 18. 67. Riasanovsky, Nicholas I, 42-3. 68. See, for example, Zhukovsky’s letter to P. A. Viazemsky, Dresden, 2 6 December 1826, in V. A. Zhukovskii—Kritik, 223-7. 69. Shortly before his departure, Zhukovsky even drafted notes that constitute a last will and testament (PSS, 12:106). He was abroad at the time of the Decembrists’ hanging, returning to Russia only in September 1827. 70. V. A. Zhukovskii, “Plan ucheniia ego imperatorskogo vysochestva, gosudaria velikogo kniazia naslednika tsesarevicha Aleksandra Nikolaevicha,” i n PSS, 9:136-7, 141. 71. Kurochkin, Ural’skii voiazh, 7. After his return from abroad in 1839, Aleksandr Nikolaevich made a tour of the Empire’s western provinces. 72. The 160-page guide An Indication of the Most Important Sights on the Journey of His Imperial Highness the Sovereign Heir Tsarevich (Ukazanie vazhneishikh primechatel’nostei na puti ego imperatorskogo Vyshoshestva Gosudaria Naslednika Tsesarevicha) appeared together with a 29-page booklet describing the route (Kurochkin, Ura’lskii voiazh, 7). 73. Quoted in Maia Bessarab, Zhukovskii, 2nd ed., exp. (Moscow, 1983), 201. 74. S. A. Iur’evich, “Dorozhnya pis’ma S. A. Iur’evicha vo vremia

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puteshestviia po Rossii Naslednika Tsesarevicha Aleksandra Nikolaevicha v 1837 godu,” Russkii arkhiv (1887), kn. 1-2, 454 n. 75. Zhukovskii, Letter to Aleksandra Fedorovna, Tver, 6 May [1837], i n Sochineniia, 8th ed. (St. Petersburg, 1885), 6:298. 76. Although Aleksandr Nikolaevich seems to have had limited interest in his tutor’s political leanings at the time, his emancipation of the serfs in 1863 i s sometimes credited to Zhukovsky’s influence. Perhaps, as Riasanovsky suggests, Aleksandr Nikolaevich felt freer to demonstrate whatever liberal inclinations he may have had only after the death of his father in 1855 (Nicholas I, 40). 77. Kurochkin, Ural’skii voiazh, 8. Useful assistance in deciphering these passages is provided by both I. A. Bychkov, who published Zhukovsky’s full diary in Russkaia starina (1902), and Kurochkin, whose Ural’skii voiazh includes a corrected reprint of the portions of the diary concerning travel in and around the Urals. Iurievich’s unpublished diary survives as well (Kurochkin, Ural’skii voiazh, 85 n). Unless otherwise noted, parenthetical page citations of Zhukovsky’s diary refer to Kurochkin’s edition. 78. Kurochkin, Ural’skii voiazh, 74-5; M. S. Lunin, Pis’ma iz Sibiri, ed. I. A. Zhelvakova and N. Ia. Eidel’man (Moscow, 1987), 298. 79. V. A. Zhukovskii, 1820 Letter to A. P. Elagina, quoted in “Vasilii Andreevich Zhukovskii,” Russkii biograficheskii slovar’, 7:98-99. 80. Zhukovsky wrote his diary largely in Russian, although the last phrase i n this quotation is French. 81. My reading of the diary differs here from Kurochkin’s. In his view, Zhukovsky’s variations in mood stem from his interactions with the Decembrist exiles: the tutor felt deep regret after not having been able to stop and visit exiles in Yalutorovsk and became considerably depressed after meeting with six exiles in Kurgan. With growing agitation, he then became convinced of the need to write to the tsar himself and, after carefully drafting and mailing an audacious letter, immediately felt much better (Ural’skii voiazh, 66). In point of fact, however, the entries in Zhukovsky’s diary indicate that his mood improved only several days later, i.e. when the travelers left Siberia. 82. V. A. Zhukovskii, Letter to P. A. Viazemskii, Moscow, 30 October [1837], in Sobranie sochinenii v chetyrekh tomakh (Moscow-Leningrad, 1960), 4:634. 83. Zhukovskii, 1821 Diary, in PSS, 12:157. On Zhukovsky’s early expectations for foreign travel, see his letter to A. I. Turgenev, [August 1805], i n SS v chetyrekh tomakh (Moscow, 1980), 4:451. 84. Zhukovskii, Letter to S. M. Sokovnin, [1837], in Sobranie sochinenii, 7th ed. (St. Petersburg, 1878), 6:547. 85. Zhukovskii, Letter to Viazemskii, 4:633. Karamzin was Viazemsky’s brother-in-law. 86. Zhukovsky was abroad from early May 1838 to late June 1839; during this trip, he also functioned as an appraiser of art and advisor to the Hermitage i n matters of purchasing art. 87. Bessarab, Zhukovskii, 250. Custine’s account also inspired a defiant response from Nikolai Grech published in French translation: Examen de l’ouvrage de M. le Marquis de Custine intitulé “La Russie en 1839” (An Examination of the Work of the Marquis de Custine entitled “Russia in 1839,” 1844). 88. V. A. Zhukovskii, Letter to Aleksandr Nikolaevich, 17/29 February [1848], PSS, 12:40-1, 43, 44-5. One of Zhukovsky’s main concerns in this letter is t o

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encourage Russia to follow a policy of non-intervention in the troubled affairs of the West. 89. Batiushkov died only in 1855, although he had been incapacitated b y mental illness in the 1820s (and thereafter generously supported by Zhukovsky). Grech, who remained active in conservative journalism until 1859, died in 1867, while Glinka lived until 1880, dedicating his last half-century largely t o religious poetry, family life, and remembrances of the Napoleonic Wars.

6. In Conclusion: On Firm Ground (pages 231-7) 1. Dnevnik Pushkina, 1833-1835, 16. Other social classes were allowed a maximum of three years abroad; violators were to be considered “missing” and their property put under the supervision of trustees. On this and other measures taken by Nicholas, see Dnevnik Pushkina, 516-8. See also V. B. Mikhailov and S. L. Turilova, eds., “Rossiiskie poddannye vo Frantsii v 1830 godu: Iz fondov Arkhiva Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Imperii,” in Rossiia i Frantsiia, XVIII-XX veka, vyp. 3 (Moscow, 2000), 166-79. 2. The first nine works that Chernyshevsky lists are I. M. Simonov, Notes and Memoirs of a Journey through England, France, Belgium, and Germany (Zapiski i vospominaniia o puteshestvii po Anglii, Frantsii, Bel’gii i Germaniia); M. S. Zhukova, Sketches of Southern France and Nice (Ocherki Iuzhnoi Frantsii i Nitstsi); A. D. Chertkov, Memoirs of Sicily (Vospominaniia o Sitsilii); N. S. Vsevolozhsky, A Journey to Malta, Sicily, Italy, Southern France and Paris (Puteshestvie v Mal’tu, Sitsiliiu, Italiiu, Iuzhnuiu Frantsiiu i Parizh); V. M. Stroev, Paris, Travel Notes (Parizh, putevye zametki), M. P. Pogodin, A Year i n Foreign Climes (God v chuzhikh kraiakh); F. P. Litke, Notes Abroad (Zametki z a granitseiu); A. I. Lyovshin, The Stroll of a Russian in Pompeii (Progulka russkogo v Pompei), and E. P. Kovalevsky, Four Months in Montenegro (Chetyre mesiatsa v Chernogorii). The later three texts are V. P. Botkin’s Letters on Spain (Pis’ma ob Ispanii), the primary topic of Chernyshevsky’s essay, N. A. Popov’s Journey to Montenegro (Puteshestvie v Chernogoriiu), and V. D. Iakovlev’s Italy (Italiia) (Review of “Pis’ma ob Ispanii,” in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii v shestnadtsati tomakh, [Moscow, 1948], 4:222-3). 3. V. G. Belinskii, introduction to Fiziologiia Peterburga, ed. V. I. Kushelov (Moscow, 1991), 7. 4. Chernyshevsky explicitly excludes Grech’s “various Travel Letters and so on” from his accounting of worthwhile contemporary travel writing (Review of “Pis’ma ob Ispanii,” 223). 5. L. N. Tolstoy, Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, trans. Rosemary Edmonds (London, 1964), 15. 6. L. N. Tolstoi, “Otryvok dnevnika 1857 goda (Putevye zapiski p o Shveitsarii)” (Fragment of a Diary from 1857 [Travel Notes on Switzerland]), i n Sobranie sochinenii v dvadtsati tomakh (Moscow, 1965), 19:203-26. 7. Tolstoy’s diary does repeatedly mention Karamzin’s daughter Elizaveta, however, who was in Clarens at the time and part of his social circle. 8. I. A. Goncharov, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii i pisem v dvadtsati tomakh (St. Petersburg, 1997), 2:9.

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9. Dostoevsky, Winter Notes, 57. 10. N. V. Gogol, Dead Souls, trans. Christopher English (Oxford, 1998), 255.

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Index of Names and Texts Adams, Percy, 240 n. 7 Afanasy Kholmogorsky, 66 Aksakov, S. T., 24-5 Aleksandr Nikolaevich, see Alexander II Aleksandra Fyodorovna, Empress, 170, 218, 220-2, 227 Aleksei Petrovich, Tsarevich, 248 n. 9 Alexander I, 95, 147, 155, 157, 1623, 166, 179, 205, 259 n. 1 Alexander II, 23, 218-22, 224, 226-9; travel diary, 221 Anna Fyodorovna, Grand Duchess, 198 Anthony, Saint, of Egypt, 265-6 n. 33 Argamakova, F. I., 45-6, 54 Avvakum, Life of Archpriest Avvakum Written By Himself, 239 n. 5 Bakhtin, M. M., 21, 250 n. 25 Baratynsky, E. A., 181, 188, 262 n. 45 Barskov, Ia. L., 252 n. 48 Barthélemy, 111; Voyage du jeune Anacharsis, 111, 247 n. 62, 254 n. 16 Batiushkov, K. N., 13, 64, 144, 165, 177, 189, 227, 256 n. 34; “Journey to Château Cirey,” 155, 157, 159-62, 264 n. 11; “Picture of Finland,” 159, 169, 264 n. 11; “Stroll through Moscow” 259 n. 71; 1814 travel letters, 143, 1489, 155-60, 162, 172, 187 Belinsky, V. G., 53, 119, 233-4

Benkendorf, A. Kh., 268 n. 61 Berelowitch, Wladimir, 241 n. 3 Berkov, P. N., 251 n. 43 Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, A. A., 145, 165, 170; Trip to Reval, 234, 262 n. 45, 264 n. 11 Bilinkis, M. Ia., 242 n. 10 Bobrinsky, A. G., 68, 83, 101; travel diary, 69 Bocharova, A. K., 268 n. 61 Boswell, James, Journal of a Tour t o the Hebrides, 257, n. 50 Botkin, V. P., Letters on Spain, 233, 270 n. 2 Brown, Marshall, 257 n. 45 Brusilov, N. P., Description of the Vologda Gubernia, 250 n. 24; My Journey, or the Adventures of One Day, 133, 258-9 n. 70 Bulgarin, F. V., 234 Byron, 235, 261 n. 25; “Prisoner of Chillon,” 197-8; Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, 208-9 Campbell, Mary Beth, 242 n. 9 Catherine II (the Great), 13, 19, 23, 28-9, 40, 45, 50, 53, 68-76, 81-2, 85-6, 88-90, 93, 95-6, 100, 109, 141, 161, 162, 182, 204, 213, 216, 268 n. 61; Antidote, 20, 49; Journey to Estonia and Livonia, 70-2 Cervantes, Don Quixote, 86 Chappe d’Auteroche, abbé, 67; Voyage en Sibérie, 19-20 Chateaubriand, Atala, 170

286 Chatelet, Marquise du, 160, 161 Chekhov, A. P., 24 Chelishchev, P. I., 95; Journey through the North of Russia, 96 Chernyshevsky, N. G., 233-4 Chertkov, A. D., Memoirs of Sicily, 270 n. 2 Chicherin, A., 154-5 Constantine, Grand Duke, 179 Coxe, William, Letters on Switzerland, 113-4 Cross, A. G., 241 n. 3 Custine, Marquis de, La Russie en 1839, 228, 269 n. 87 Dal, V. I., 225 Dashkov, D. V., 155, 160 Dashkova, E. R., 13, 28-9, 33, 35, 40, 45-7, 61, 65, 72, 100, 110, 172, 201; “Journey of a Distinguished Russian Lady,” 34, 40-4, 243 n. 16; Memoirs, 40, 239 n. 5; “Le Petit tour,” 40-4, 59, 169, 244 n. 28 Davydov, D. V., 163-4 De Maistre, Xavier, Voyage autour de ma chambre, 15, 123 Defoe, Daniel: Robinson Crusoe, 172; Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain, 106, 244 n. 28 Delvig, A. A., 181, 188 Demidov, N. A., Journal of a Journey … through Foreign States, 244 n. 29 Derzhavin, G. R., 75; “Felitsa,” 162; “Waterfall,” 169 Dmitriev, I. I., 224-6; “The Journey of Anonymous to Paris and London,” 256 n. 32, 261 n. 25 Dolgoruky, I. M., Distant Tambourines Have a Glorious Sound, 105-6 Dostoevsky, F. M., 24-5, 237; The Gambler, 24, 61; The Idiot, 24;

Breaking Ground Pushkin speech, 204, 228; Winter Notes, 53, 235-6 Duclos, Charles, Considérations sur les moeurs de ce siècle, 49 Dupaty, Charles, Lettres sur l’Italie, 15, 114 Eliade, Mircea, 138-9, 214, 217 Elizabeth, Empress, 70, 141, 204 Ely, Christopher, 16 Emin, F. A., The Adventures Themistocles, 247 n. 62

of

Fénelon, Aventures de Télémaque, 38, 59, 93, 247 n. 62 Feofan Prokopovich, 265-6 n. 33 Fereltst, S., Journey of a Critic, 95 Fonvizin, D. I., 13, 15, 19, 22-4, 29, 32, 42, 44-6, 50-4, 58-9, 61, 87, 95, 177; “Brigadier,” 45, 50-2; “Discourse on Permanent State Laws,” 53; letters from France, 15, 29, 35, 45-59, 61-3, 77, 81, 109, 110, 147, 149-53, 157, 159, 162, 164, 181, 190, 226, 245 n. 39; later letters and spa diaries, 29, 54-9, 63-4, 96, 180; “The Minor,” 246 n. 49; “Narrative of One Passing for a Deaf-Mute,” 76, 8284, 87, 133; other prose, 62; questions to Catherine 204; “Reflection on the Vanity of Human Life,” 58 “Fragment of a Journey to ***,” 76, 78-82, 84, 87, 92 Freud, Sigmund, 175 “G., K.,” New Sentimental Traveler, 135-41 Georgi, J. G., 98; Description of All Peoples, 66; guidebook to Petersburg, 106 Gilgamesh, 58 Gitin, Vladimir, 265 n. 28

Index of Names and Texts Gladkova, M., A Fifteen-Day Journey Written by a Fifteen-Year-Old, 120 Glinka, F. N., 13, 165, 179, 188, 229; Letters of a Russian Officer, 14360, 162-4, 172, 200, 264 n. 11; internal account, 145, 178, 199205, 207 Glinka, G. A., 165-6, 168, 182-3 Glinka, S. N., 146, 156, 165 Glushkov, I. F., Pocket Guide, 95 Gnedich, N. I., 155-6, 158, 160, 162 Goethe, 115, 160, 172, 173-5, 183; Italian Journey, 173-4 Gogol, N. V., 24, 64, 178-9, 217, 219, 225, 227-8, 231, 233; “The Carriage,” 265 n. 28; Dead Souls, 23, 83, 95, 142, 192, 194, 198-9, 203, 236-7; letters from abroad, 178, 192-8, 209, 212, 217, 227; Mirgorod, 142; “Moscow and Petersburg (From a Traveler’s Notes),” 267-8 n. 59; Ukrainian tales, 192 Goncharov, I. A., 25, 236-7; Frigate “Pallas,” 235; Oblomov, 24, 235 Gorikhvostov, D., Letters of a Russian, 120 Grabowicz, George, 258 n. 54 Grech, N. I., 156, 229, 234; Examen de l’ouvrage de Custine, 269 n. 87; “Letters on Switzerland” 262-3 n. 47; “Memoirs,” 181-2 Gukovsky, G. A., 123 Hammarberg, Gitta, 108 Herzen, A. I., 221 Horace, 103 Hughes, Lindsey, 248 n. 9 Hunter, J. Paul, 240 n. 7 Iakovlev, P. L., 121; Sentimental Journey along Nevsky Avenue, 140-1, 258-9 n. 70; “Stories of the Luzhniky Elder and My

287 Recollections of Him,” 141, 259 n. 71 Iakovlev, V. D., Italy 270 n. 2 Iazykov, N. M., 214, 262 n. 45 Iurievich, S. A., travel letters, 220-1 Izmailov, V. V., 106; Journey t o Southern Russia, 109 Iuzefovich, M. V., 266 n. 43 Ivashina, E. S., 240 n. 7 Jacobi, J. G.: Sommerreise, 255 n. 19; Winterreise, 255 n. 19 Johnson, Samuel, Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland, 244 n. 28 “The Journey of My Friend,” 122 Journey to Lipetsk Mineral Springs, 106 Kachenovsky, M. T., 156 Karamzin, N. M., 13, 19, 22, 44, 47, 49, 53, 59, 64, 97, 103, 133, 165, 173, 214, 217, 225-6, 235, 246 n. 49, 268 n. 61; Letters of a Russian Traveler, 15, 29, 32, 42, 45, 48, 95, 107-21, 124-5, 129, 131-2, 134, 137-9, 140, 143, 149, 152, 159-62, 164, 167-71, 174-5, 177, 180-1, 183-6, 188, 193, 1958, 201, 212, 223, 227, 233, 261 n. 25; Moscow area sketches, 141; Pantheon of Russian Authors, 110; “Poor Liza,” 141 Karlinsky, Simon, 262 n. 45 Karzhavin, F. V., 35 Katenin, P. A., 208-9 Kauffman, Angelica, 43, 61 Kiukhelbeker, V. K., 145, 165, 179, 192, 228, 256 n. 34; “On the Direction of Our Poetry,” 183-5; “European Letters,” 191-2, 257 n. 43; Journey, 64, 177-8, 180-94, 227 Konstantin Pavlovich, see Constantine, Grand Duke

288 Koshelyova, V., 61-2 Kovalevsky, E. P., Four Months i n Montenegro, 270 n. 2 Kozlov, I. I., 228 Krasheninnikov, S. P., 66; Description of Kamchatka, 67 Krasnobaev, B. I. , 252 n. 48 Kurakin, Aleksandr B., 13, 28-9, 33, 35, 38, 41-4, 46-7, 51-2, 59, 147, 172, 248 n. 9; Mon voyage, 34, 36-44, 47, 51, 65; travel letters 37, 50-2 Kurakin, Aleksei B., 38 Kurakin, B. I.: 28, 30-1, 36-40, 45-6, 75, 113, 242 n. 10; autobiography, 31; travel diary 28-35, 39, 44, 243 n. 16 Kutuzov, A. M., 109, 251-2 n. 44 Lavater, J. K., 111, 167 Lazhechnikov, I. I., 13; Campaign Notes of a Russian Officer, 143, 147, 158-9, 163 Lepyokhin, I. I., 66, 69, 98; Journey through Provinces of Russian State, 67-8 Lermontov, M. Iu., 228; Hero of Our Times, 236 Leskov, N. S., 24-5; “Enchanted Wanderer,” 24 Letters of a Saxon from Switzerland, 114 Litke, F. P., Notes Abroad, 270 n. 2 Lomonosov, M. V., 35, 53, 94, 162, 204 “The Lost Suitcase: Fragment of a Sentimental Journey,” 122 Lotman, Iu. M., 90-1, 116, 254-5 n. 17 Lubianovsky, F. P., 258 n. 54 Lvov, P. I., “Journey from Petersburg to Beloozersk,” 258-9 n. 70 Lyovshin, A. I., The Stroll of a Russian in Pompeii, 270 n. 2

Breaking Ground Lyovshin, V. A., Journey,” 123

“The

Newest

Makarov, P. I., 122; A Russian i n London, 120 Makogonenko, G. P., 246 n. 49, 252 n. 48 Malinovsky, V. F., A Russian i n England, 120 Maria Fyodorovna, Empress, 141, 166 Martynov, I. I., “Filon” 124-30, 133, 201, 204, 258 n. 54 Mikhail Pavlovich, Grand Duke, 166, 182-3, 220 Miliukov, P. N., 242 n. 9 Montaigne, 158; travel journal, 169 Montesquieu, Lettres persanes, 245 n. 39 Moore, John, Letters of an English Traveler, 114 Moore, Thomas, 262 n. 46 Moritz, Karl Phillip: Reisen eines Deutschen in England, 114; Reisen eines Deutschen in Italien, 114 Müller, G. F., 66; Description o f Siberian Empire, 67 Muraviev-Apostol, I. M., “Letters from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod,” 259 n. 1 My Cousin’s Journey into His Pockets, 123 Nabokov, Vladimir, 209, 266 n. 43 Napoleon, 143, 145-7, 157-8, 163, 166 Naryshkin, A. L. 180-3, 189 Nevzorov, M. I., Journey to Kazan, Vyatka and Orenburg, 212 Nicholas I, 24, 166, 170, 179, 206, 210-13, 218-23, 226-7, 232, 233 Nikolai Pavlovich, Grand Duke, see Nicholas I

289

Index of Names and Texts

Novikov, N. I., 78-9, 82, 87, 95, 109; “English Stroll,” 49, 79 Odoevsky, V. F., 181 Orlov, G. G., 60, 68, 71, 73-4 Orlov, V. G., 19, 68; Volga diary, 715 Orlov-Chesmensky, A. G., 71 Ossian, 184 Ozeretskovsky, N. Ia., 69 Pallas, P. S., 66-8, 75, 98; Journey through Provinces of Russian Empire, 67-8, 85, 199 Panin, N. I., 45-6, 50-4, 58, 73, 149, 246 n. 47 Panin, P. I., 45-6, 53-4 Paul, Tsar, 28, 37, 45, 50-3, 69-96, 105, 109, 181-2, 247 n. 62, 248 n. 9 Pavel Petrovich, see Paul, Tsar Peter I (the Great), 14, 28-31, 33, 50, 66, 70, 129, 141, 232, 248 n. 9, 265-6 n. 33 Peter III, 13, 70-1, 73, 141, 232 Platner, Dr. (Univ. of Leipzig), 111, 129, 160 Pogodin, M. P., 233; A Year i n Foreign Climes, 270 n. 2 Popov, N. A., Journey to Montenegro, 270 n. 2 Potyomkin, G. A., 58, 101, 169 Prokofiev, N. I., 242 n. 14 Pugachov, E. I., 23, 85, 96, 205-6, 210-1, 215, 217. See also Pushkin, A. S., History o f Pugachov Pushkin, A. S., 13, 23-4, 145, 178-9, 181, 185, 188, 193, 205-19, 221, 223-6, 231-2, 261 n. 25; “Aleksandr Radishchev,” 215, 217; “The Bronze Horseman,” 266 n. 43; Captain’s Daughter, 213-4, 216-7; Eugene Onegin, see “Onegin’s Journey”; History o f

Pugachov, 211, 214, 217; Journey from Moscow to Petersburg, 95, 206, 214-7; Journey to Arzrum, 206; “Onegin’s Journey” 206-12, 217; “Queen of Spades,” 247 n. 66; Southern poems, 205, 208; travel letters, 206, 211-2, 213-4, 217 Pushkin, V. L., travel letters, 120 Racine 158 Radcliffe, Anne, 184 Radishchev, A. N. , 13, 19, 22, 42, 44, 47-9, 59-60, 75, 109, 133, 205, 210, 221; Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, 15, 23, 29, 32, 42, 76, 78-9, 81-82, 84-103, 107, 120, 123, 125-6, 128, 136, 179, 201, 205-6, 209-10, 212, 214-7; “Letter on Chinese Trade,” 99; poems, 99; provincial description, 251 n. 38; Siberian letters and diaries, 96-103, 132, 143, 222-4, 256 n. 36. See also Pushkin, A. S., “Aleksandr Radishchev”; Journey from Moscow to Petersburg Raphael, Sistine Madonna, 112, 1867 Reitern, Elizabeth, 227 Reitern, Gerhardt, 227 Richardson, Samuel, 115 Roos, Philip, 185 Rostopchin, F. V., 146; “Travel Notes of 1815,” 188 Rousseau, J.-J., 38, 100, 114-5, 134, 172, 174, 197, 235; Émile 115, 172-3, 207; Julie, or the New Heloise, 114, 117-8, 197 Rubanovskaia, E. V. , 96-7 Ryleev, K. F., 145, 163, 170, 179 Said, Edward, 20 Saltykov-Shchedrin, M. Golovlyov Family, 142

E.,

24;

290 S-b-l-v, M., “Four-Day Journey (in 1806),” 258-9 n. 70 Schönle, Andreas, 240 n. 7 Shalikov, P. I., 13, 106, 130-1, 177, 201, 258 n. 54; Journey t o Kronstadt, 141; Journey t o Malorossia, 122, 124, 128-9, 134, 233-4; “Morning Stroll” 259 n. 71; Second Journey to Malorossia, 129, 137 Shcherbatov, M. M., Journey to the Land of Ophir, 257 n. 43 Sherlock, Martin, Letters from a n English Traveler, 114; New Letters, 114 Sherman, Stuart, 242-3 n. 16 Shishkov, A. S., 146; Brief Notes Written during His Tenure with Alexander I in 1812, 259 n. 1 Simonov, I. M., Notes and Memoirs of a Journey through England, France, Belgium, and Germany, 270 n. 2 Slezkine, Yuri, 77 Smith, Douglas, 61 Smollett, Tobias, Travels through France and Italy, 49, 244 n. 28, 245 n. 39 Sobolevsky, S. A., 212 Somov, O. M., “Four Days i n Finland,” 262 n. 45 Startsev, A. I., 252 n. 48 Stenka Razin, 210-11, 213, 217 Sterne, Laurence, Sentimental Journey through France and Italy, 15, 38, 43, 49, 78, 84-5, 93, 97, 107, 114-5, 120-2, 125, 143, 172-5, 215, 245 n. 39 Stroev, V. M., Paris, Travel Notes, 270 n. 2 Suleri, Sara, 20 Sumarokov, P. I., Journey through Crimea and Bessarabia, 121, 129; Leisure of a Crimean Judge,

Breaking Ground or My Second Journey to Tauris, 121, 128; A Stroll Abroad 121 Swift, Jonathan, Gulliver’s Travels, 76 Todorova, Maria, 261 n. 34 Tolstoy, L. N., 24-5, 237; Childhood 234, 258 n. 61; Swiss travel diary, 234-5 Trediakovsky, V. K., Telemachiade, 93, 247 n. 62 Turgenev A. I., 193, 218 Turgenev N. I., 178, 204, 218 Turgenev, I. S., 24-5; Notes of a Hunter, 95, 205, 236 Twain, Mark, Huckleberry Finn, 58 Tynianov, Iu. N., 182 Uspensky, B. A., 116, 254-5 n. 17 Vernes, François, Le Voyageur sentimental, 114 Viazemsky, P. A., 225, 228 Vinogradov, V. V., 255 n. 27 Voltaire, 71, 160-1; Candide, 97; Letters philosophiques, 245 n. 39 Vorontsov, A. R., 97, 99-100, 102; “Memoirs,” 35 Vorontsov, S. R., 61-2 Vsevolozhsky, N. S., A Journey t o Malta, Sicily, Italy, Southern France and Paris, 270 n. 2 Wieland, 111-13, 115, 160 Wilson, Reuel, 86 Winckelmann, J. J., 61, 187 Zhukova, M. S., Sketches of Southern France and Nice, 270 n. 2 Zhukovskii, V. A., 13, 23, 24, 107, 144-5, 165, 172, 178-9, 184-5, 193-4, 197-8, 212, 217, 218-23, 231, 233, 235, 256 n. 34; internal travel letters and diaries, 220-6; “Journey through Saxon

Index of Names and Texts

Switzerland,” 171; “Letter o n Switzerland,” 164, 167-8, 170-71; letters from abroad, 226-7; review of Shalikov, Journey to Malorossia, 122, 124, 135; “Raphael’s Madonna,” 186; “Sketches of Sweden,” 264 n. 11;

291 study plan for tsarevich, 219-20; translation of Odyssey, 228 Zinoviev, V. N., 19, 29, 65, 180; “Memoirs,” 63; travel letters and diaries, 29, 60-4