The Decembrists, Karamzin, and Their Literature

These days in St. Petersburg I have been trying to keep up with the burgeoning intellectual and political climate. The Kunstkammer definitely represents quite a bit of the Westernization of Russia as far as science is concerned, but noticed that certain journals resembling English journals circulated after Alexander opened the presses, so to speak (Massie 154). Obviously, political turmoil abroad and here because of the Napoleonic wars. With the recent Decembrist uprising, the literature regarding the national identity has definitely become a deeper matter, though the new tsar, Nicholas, has placed stricter censorship on publications (Terras 169).

A Painting of the Decembrist Revolt, December 14, 1825

The late Nikolai Karamzin’s work in particular seems to contrast with much of what the young Decembrists have to say (his more politically charged works, that is). Because of his recent death and the political turmoil right now, I think contrasting the different sides here would be helpful. The nuances to the different sides are, of course, many-layered, yet I will attempt to outline some of the differences between the Decembrists’ Romantic ideas and Karamzin’s more conservative western ideals.

Nikolai Karamzin

Nikolai Karamzin had quite the literary career even before he was commissioned by Tsar Alexander to write the History of the Russian State. From the writings I have read by him, he seems conservative and talented.  Though it was a fiction, he wrote a sort of travelogue like mine called Letters of a Russian Traveler (Terras 156). Reading his history, I noticed his support of the westernization the Russian’s have taken since Peter the Great first came to power (163). This could be because a monarch from Peter’s line commissioned him to write the book, but many of his previous writings have been in support of Westernization (163). For example, Karamzin wrote an essay called “On the Love of the Fatherland and National Pride,” which asserted that the language of the upper class, with its westernized vocabulary, was the language that should be spoken to express the highest of emotions (162). Later, a man name Shishkov argued with Karamzin’s assertion about language in an essay called “Discourse on the Old and New Style of the Russian Language” (164). Shishkov took the stance that the Russian language had become corrupted by the influence of western ideals (164).

Though Karamzin might have become increasingly sympathetic to those who are considered now to be conservative, his writings influenced people to become “Westernizers” (Terras 163). These Westernizers have ideas which are opposed to some of the ideas of the Decembrists, who Romanticize the Russian past and believe literature should have a civic and national duty (171).  The Decembrists, are primarily young aristocracy and upper class men who saw or heard about the progressive politics in the West and desired to implement the same in Russia, as demonstrated by their recent uprising (168-9). Even though they primarily sympathize as slavophiles, however, they often see Karamzin’s work as relevant to their cause. Many of them have read Karamzin’s History and appreciate history for the way it instills a nationalistic feeling, but they don’t agree with the way the Russian ruler or prince is glorified (Ziolkowski 29-30).

"Pole Star", a Decembrist journal.

After examining the Decembrists general ideas in some of their current works and in their works before their revolt in "The Polar Star", they seem to like Karamzin’s writings because of the opportunity the history gave them to learn from historical figures (Terras 173; Ziolkoski 31-32). They seem to see Slavophilic ideas that support a communal way of living to be quite similar to the constitutional and democratic countries to the west, but they oppose a certain version of Westernization at the same time that would allow the monarch to stay in power (Rabow-Edling 369-70).  

The Decembrist’s quick defeat about a year ago seems to have permanently alienated that group of intellectuals from the tsar and his government, yet in some of the literary works I have read recently, I can see their ideas showing up in a subtle way (Terras 169;  171).

Works Cited

Massie, Suzanne. Land of the Firebird: The Beauty of Old Russia. Heart Tree Press, 1996.

Rabow-Edling, Susanna. "The Decembrists and the Concept of a Civic Nation." Nationalities Papers, vol. 35, no. 2, May 2007, pp. 369-391. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00905990701254391.

Ziolkowski, Margaret. “Hagiography and History: The Saintly Prince in the Poetry of the Decembrists.” The Slavic and East European Journal, vol. 30, no. 1, 1986, pp. 29–44., www.jstor.org/stable/307276.

Terras, Victor. A History of Russian Literature. Yale University Press, 1991.