Category Archives: Despotism

The Rurikid Princes & the Tsardom of Russia

23 Monday May 2022

Posted by in Despotism, Russia, Ukraine

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Ivan the Terrible meditating at the deathbed of his son by Vyacheslav Schwarz (1861)

—ooo—

TIMELINE

POST

Ukraine: the Pereiaslav Agreement (1654)

Let us step back a little. What happened to Kievan Rus’? It fragmented into principalities before it fell to the Mongols (See Mongol invasion, Wikipedia). Later, it was ruled by the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. In 1648, Bodhan Khmelnytsky (c 1595-1657), Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host, Ukraine, led a successful insurgency that freed the Zaporozhian Host from the suzerainty of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. However, in 1654, Bodhan Khmelnytsky allied the independent Ukraine Zaporozhian Host with the Tsardom of Russia, which would benefit Muscovy. Under the last Rurikid Princes, the prospect of a Tsardom of all Russias dwarfed regionalism and such covenants as the Pereiaslav Agreement. In short, Alexander Nevsky‘s bequest to his son Daniel was not modest. Britannica dates the fall of Kievan Rus’ to the Mongol conquest, despite its brief rise as an independent Ukraine Cossack state and the Pereiaslav Agreement.

The title of grand prince of Kiev lost its importance, and the 13th-century Mongol conquest decisively ended Kiev’s power.

(See Kievan Rus’, Britannica.)

The Last Rurikid Princes

Ivan IV, the Terrible, was a self-declared Tsar of all Russias. A “Chosen Council” validated his claim to the tsardom. However, by killing his son in a fit of rage, he ended the Rurik Dynasty. His predecessors initiated:

  • the centralisation of Russia
  • its independence from Mongol suzerains, and
  • Rus’ independence from Roman Christianity

To a large extent, all of the above occurred under the rule of Ivan III, the Great, the son of Vasily II. Ivan the Great married a Byzantine Princess, Sophia, the former Zoë. It was a second marriage, and Sophia was a Catholic. This marriage did not prevent the growth of an Eastern Orthodox Tsardom. Ivan III took back land that had been part of Kievan Rus’, but he failed to reconquer Ukraine. Ivan the Great had two sons: Dmitry, by a first marriage, and Vasily, Sophia’s son. Dmitry was crowned, but Ivan III changed his mind. Vasily II, born to Sophia Palaiologina, would succeed him. Dmitry and his mother were jailed for life.

Vassals of the Golden Horde

Before ascending the throne of a principality, a prince needed a patent from the Khan of the Golden Horde. Dmitry (II) Donskoy won the Battle of Kulikovo (1380), which brought him stature. A century later, in 1480, Ivan III ended the Mongol suzerainty. (See The Great Stand on the Ugra River, Wikipedia.) We know from earlier posts that certain khanates remained: the Crimean Khanate, 1441-1783, and the Kazakh Khanate, 1465-1847 are the best examples, but these khanates did not date to the Mongol Invasion of Kievan Rus’. (See Mongol Invasion of Kievan Rus’ 1237-1242, Wikipedia.) Further annexations would occur, but as of Ivan III, the princes of Rus’ had ceased to be vassals of Mongol khans.

The Centralisation of Russia 

As the Duchy of Moscow grew into the Tsardom of Russia, the competition for the principality of Muscovy was fierce: uncles, brothers and impostors could contest the legitimacy of a claim, fiefs, or fiefdoms. The sorry fate of Vasili II (1415-1462), Ivan III’s father, is a testimonial to fratricidal conflicts. Vasily II’s uncle Yury (1434) and his cousins Vasily the Squint-Eyed and Dmitry Shemyaka (1446–47) laid claim to the throne. Vasily II was arrested and blinded by his cousin Dmitry Shemiyaka (1446). This was extreme cruelty. Despite blindness, Vasily II regained his rightful bequest, and his son, future Ivan III, provided the help blind Vasily II needed.

His son, Vasily III, annexed Pskov in 1510, the appanage of Volokolamsk in 1513, the principalities of Ryazan in 1521, and Novgorod-Seversky in 1522. He also took Smolensk away from Poland. (See Siege of Smolensk, Wikipedia.)

Territorial development between 1300 and 1547
(Grand Duchy of Moscow, Wikipedia)
The Turco-Mongol residual states and domains by the 15th century (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tsar Ivan IV admires his sixth wife, Vasilisa Melentyeva, by Grigory Sedov, 1875. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Fall of the Rurikid Dynasty

As the legend goes, Varangian Viking Prince Rurik was invited to rule an East Slavic territory, where he founded Kievan Rus’. Prince Oleg would rule Novgorod, and Kyiv would be the capital. Several princes of the Rurik dynasty conquered and annexed Rus’ land’s territory. However, the principal architect of a centralised Rus’ was Ivan IV, a self-declared Tsar of all Rus’, recognized by a “Chosen Council.” (See Ivan IV, Britannica and Ivan the Terrible, Wikipedia). However, Ivan IV killed Ivanovich, his son and heir, and a Rurikid prince. Besides, Ivan Ivanovich’s mother was a Romanov, Anastasia Romanovna. Feodor I, Ivan IV’s second son with Anastasia Romanovna, would reign. Still, he was “sickly and weak.” (See Feodor I, Tsar of Russia, Wikipedia.)

Ivan IV, or the Terrible, had a third presumptive heir, his son Dmitry, born to a sixth wife. Maria Nagaya was the sixth wife. (See Ivan the Terrible, Wikipedia.) Had the Eastern Orthodox Church and the people of Rus’ recognized Dmitry Ivanovich as the legitimate heir to the Tsardom of Russia, the Rurikid Dynasty may have survived. The Eastern Church did not recognize sons and daughters born to a third or later wife. It violated its canonical laws. (See Canon Law of the Eastern Orthodox Church and Dmitry of Uglich, Wikipedia.)

Conclusion

Ivan IV killed his son Ivan Ivanovich in a fit of anger. He was a Rurikid, and Boris Godunov (1557-1605) had witnessed the homicide of Tsarevich Ivan Ivanovich and Ivan IV’s profound grief. Ivan had a second son by Anastasia Romanova. Feodor was a prince of the Rurik Dynasty, but, as we have noted, Feodor was frail. Ivan IV appointed a regency council led by Boris Godunov, the witness. A third son Dmitry (1582-1591), born to Maria Nagaya, was sent to his appanage, Uglich, where he died mysteriously at 8 years old. Dmitry may have suffered an epileptic crisis. (See Dmitry of Uglich, Wikipedia.) However, one suspects that Boris Godunov had Dmitry killed so he could reign as Tsar. Dmitry was impersonated. A False Dmitry I reigned briefly. Maria Nagaya had “recognized” him for personal gains. She renounced him. Had the genuine Dmitry ascended the throne, he would have been a prince of the Rurik dynasty, but young Dmitri was sent to Uglich. This is how Boris Godunov cleared his way to the throne, ending the Rurikid dynasty. Boris Godunov was of East Slavic and Tatar descent.

Tsarevich Dmitry, by Mikhail Nesterov,
Boris Godunov Overseeing the Studies of his Son, painting by N. Nekrasov (19th century) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Boris Godunov is a legendary figure. He was portrayed in Aleksandr Pushkin‘s play Boris Godunov and in an opera by Modest Mussorgsky, also entitled Boris Godunov.

I have not discussed Ivan IV’s oprichnina, a police force that could act with impunity. Nor have I mentioned the Massacre of Novgorod. One pillaged mercilessly. But we have seen that one blinded opponents and killed the rightful heir to the throne in the quest for power. Moreover, we have travelled lightly. There were Tsaritas and interregnums. Ivan IV had two more heirs, but the death of Ivan Ivanovich doomed the Rurik dynasty. Fear of opponents led Ivan IV to surround himself with a force that eliminated accountability. Ivan the Terrible’s oprichnina was a deadly force. They terrorized Rus’. Oprichniki could rape, torture, and kill in the name of power. Another Rurik prince could not ascend the throne.

The entire episode of the oprichnina leaves a bloody imprint on Ivan’s reign, causing some doubts about his mental stability and leaving historians with the impression of a morbidly suspicious and vindictive ruler.

(See Ivan IV, Britannica)

We have another list, and more must be said about Ivan IV. This post will be continued.

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Daniel of Moscow‘s Descendants: Rurikid Princes

—ooo—

Love to everyone 💕

Boris Godunov – Coronation scene (Bryn Terfel; The Royal Opera)
Portrait of Ivan IV, by Viktor Vasnetsov, 1897 (Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow)

© Micheline Walker
22 May 2022
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The Emancipation Reform of 1861

23 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by in Despotism, Russia

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A 1907 painting by Boris Kustodiev depicting Russian serfs listening to the proclamation of the Emancipation Manifesto in 1861 (Wiki2.org.)

Much of Russia’s history has been a grim tale of the very wealthy and powerful few ruling over a great mass of their poor and powerless compatriots.[1]

According to the writers of the Encyclopædia Britannica, serfdom in Russia did not end when Emperor Alexander II of Russia (29 April 1818 – 13 March 1881) issued the Emancipation Manifesto of 3 March 1861:

Serfdom endured well into the modern era; the years of Soviet communist rule (1917–91), especially the long dictatorship of Joseph Stalin, saw subjugation of a different and more exacting sort.[2]

Serfdom & Slavery

For our purposes, the emancipation of serfdom in Russia occurred in 1861, and it was “the first and most important of liberal reforms passed during the reign (1855-1881) of Emperor Alexander II of Russia.”[3] 

Serfdom was a medieval institution and [t]he vast majority of serfs in medieval Europe obtained their subsistence by cultivating a plot of land that was owned by a lord. This was the essential feature differentiating serfs from slaves, who were bought and sold without reference to a plot of land. In theory, serfs were not slaves, but in practice, many were.[4]

Serfs & Private Estates

In Russia, serfdom dated back to 1649.  In 1861, there were two types of serfs:

  1. those living on the land of private landowners and their domestics
  2. those living on state lands, under control of the Ministry of State Property

However, only those who worked on the land of private landowners were called serfs. They constituted 38% of the population.

The Emancipation Reform of 1861 freed 23 million serfs working on private estates as well as domestic household serfs. (See The Emancipation reform of 1861, Wiki2.org.)

Peasants: Mir or Obshchina

Altogether, three-quarters of the Russian population were peasants, a total higher than serfs who worked on the land of private landowners.

There was, in fact, a third group of peasants living on communes. These peasants lived in village communities called a Mir or an Obschchina. These were communes and they predated serfdom. Mir peasants cultivated one or two strips of land. Holding more strips would have increased a peasant’s tax burden. They belonged to 100,000 landowners. They did not belong to members of a commune, or ‘Mir,’ or Obshchina. (See The Emancipation reform of 1861, Wiki2.org.)

The Mir & the Collectivization of the USSR

These communes were idealized by August von Haxthausen in a book he published in 1847. It was also praised by Karl Marx. (See Obschchina, Wiki2.org.) Mir and Obschchina were destroyed by the Stolypin agrarian reforms (1906–1914), “the implementation of which would lead to the Russian Revolution and subsequent collectivization of the USSR.” (See Obschchina, Wiki2.org.)

KorovinS_NaMiru

Obshchina Gathering, by Sergei Korovin (Wiki2.org.)

Comments

It appears Tsar Alexandre II abolished serfdom to keep up with western European countries. Western Europe remained the model.

“My intention is to abolish serfdom … you can yourself understand that the present order of owning souls cannot remain unchanged. It is better to abolish serfdom from above, than to wait for that time when it starts to abolish itself from below. I ask you to think about the best way to carry this out.”

— Alexander II’s speech to the Marshalls of the Nobility, 30 March 1856. (See The Emancipation reform of 1861, Wiki2.org.)

I should note that:

“[m]any bureaucrats believed that these reforms would bring about drastic changes which would only affect only the ‘lower stories’ of society, strengthening the autocracy. In reality, the reforms forced the monarch to coexist with an independent court, free press, and local governments which operated differently, and more freely, than they had in the past. This new form of local government involved in each area an assembly called a zemstvo.” (See The Emancipation reform of 1861, Wiki2.org.)

The Tsar and his advisors wondered whether freed serfs should hold the land they had tilled. Given that a large number of insurrections that had taken place in western Europe in 1848, it was decided that freed serfs could own land. (See Revolutions of 1848, Wiki2.org.) However, the land was not given to them. Some serfs had money and could buy land. But, by and large, they couldn’t. Some continued to work for a landowner to earn money. Others, if not most, borrowed from the government and made redemption payments, of which they were relieved in 1905, the year of the massacre of Bloody Sunday. 

“The peasants remained ‘temporarily bonded’ until they redeemed their allotments.”[5]

Ironically, redemption payments transformed former serfs into slaves. Debt bondage is a form of slavery. As for those serfs who found employment in factories, as we now, their wages were low and their working hours, very long: some 15 hours a day. Workers went on strikes, which led to Bloody Sunday.

We do not know how many people were killed on Bloody Sunday (1,000 – 4,000), but we know that the reprisals were gruesome:

“It is estimated that between October 1905 and April 1906, 15,000 peasants and workers were hanged or shot, 20,000 injured, and 45,000 sent into exile.” (See Bloody Sunday, Wiki2.org.) It was a peaceful demonstration. Workers were carrying a petition. As of Bloody Sunday, Russians ceased to see their Tsar as a father to the nation.

Conclusion

The abolition of serfdom was good in itself. As Tsar Alexander II stated ,“the present order of owning souls cannot remain unchanged.”  Serfs were emancipated in 1861. Landowners could no longer own serfs, domestic or farmers. Furthermore, Russia’s economy grew after the serfs were freed. Many former serfs were working in factories, domestic serfs especially. They could not own land.

“A significant measuring stick in the growth of the Russian economy post-reform was the huge growth in non-gentry private landownership. Although the gentry land-holdings fell from 80% to 50%, the peasant holdings grew from 5% all the way to 20%.”

Yet, there was social unrest (strikes, etc.) and, after Bloody Sunday (1905), confidence in the Tsar having waned, the Bolchevik party had an opportunity to take over. We then suffered through the Cold War.

But the greatness of Russia remains. As a child, the librarian could not let me borrow certain masterpieces of French literature. Several were on the Index of prohibited books. She directed me to the Russian literature shelves of the Public Library. I read Leo Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I wish I could thank that librarian. The first piece of music I was introduced to was Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain.

This post contains many quotations. I did not want to make errors. However, I have left out the Crimean War. Russia’s defeat is a factor in the emancipation of serfs and the role Tsar Alexandre II played in liberating Bulgaria. (See The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, Wiki2.org.) Tsar Alexander II was killed by a bomb in 1881. His legs were torn off and he was otherwise fatally injured.

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Sources and Resources

The Emancipation Reform: the full text.  ↩

 

Love to everyone 💕

____________________

[1] “Russia,” Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, Sergey Arsentyevich Vodovozov and Others (See All Contributors)  Encyclopædia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/place/Russia

[2] Op. cit.

[3] The Emancipation Reform of 1861, Wiki2.org.

[4] “Serfdom,” Encyclopædia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/serfdom/media/535485/121574

[5] “Russian Empire,” The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica,
https://www.britannica.com/place/Russian-Empire/Alexander-II

“The peasants remained ‘temporarily bonded’ until they redeemed their allotments. The redemption price was calculated on the basis of all payments received by the landlord from the peasants before the reform. If the peasant desired to redeem a plot, the government paid at once to the landowner the whole price (in 5 percent bonds), which the peasant had to repay to the exchequer in 49 years. Although the government bonds fell to 77 percent and purchase was made voluntary, the great majority of landowners—often in debt—preferred to get the money at once and to end relations which had become insupportable. By 1880, 15 percent of the peasants had not made use of the redemption scheme, and in 1881 it was declared obligatory. The landowners tried, but in vain, to keep their power in local administration. The liberated peasants were organized in village communities that held comprehensive powers over their members. Nominally governed by elected elders, they were actually administered by crown administrative and police officials.” (Britannica)

—ooo—

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975) wrote a Symphony based on Bloody Sunday, his Symphony No. 11, subtitled The Year 1905.

However, I have selected an excerpt from Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2, the Andante, or 2nd movement.

320px-Zar_Alexander_II.jpg_(cropped)

Tsar Alexander II (Wiki2.org.)

© Micheline Walker
23 November 2018
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Sweden’s Age of Liberty, Part Two

09 Friday Nov 2018

Posted by in democracy, Despotism, Sweden

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Gustav III, King of Sweden by Alexander Roslin, 1777

Sweden’s Age of Liberty

  • Charles XII’s death (1719)
  • Peter the Great’s victory (1721)

Between 1611 and 1721, Sweden was an Empire and between 1796 and 1718, it was ruled by absolutist King Charles XII (b. 17 June 1682 – 30 November 1718 [aged 36]). Charles XII was killed during the Siege of Fredriksten, in 1718. In 1731, Voltaire wrote a History of Charles XII (Histoire de Charles XII), the last ruler of the Swedish Empire. After his death, Sweden and its allies lost the Swedish Empire to the Tsardom of Russia, henceforth a Tsardom and an Empire. As we have seen in an earlier post, Peter the Great wanted access to seas, which, to the west, was the Baltic Sea and, by extension, the Baltic provinces and the Baltic states. Peter I was successful in his quest, but he ended Sweden’s age of “greatness.”

However, and ironically, Charles XII’s death and Sweden’s defeat provided a window of opportunity for the development of a rudimentary parliament in Europe. Sweden had lost its “greatness,” but it had entered its Age of Liberty, or Age of Freedom. Sweden’s Age of Liberty is:

a half-century-long period of parliamentary governance and increasing civil rights, beginning with Charles XII‘s death in 1718 and ending with Gustav III‘s self-coup in 1772.

(See Age of Liberty, Wiki2.org.)

In 1719, Count Arvid Horn (6 April 1664 – 17 April 1742), President of the Privy Council Chancellery of Sweden, transferred power from an absolute monarchy to a parliament, Sweden’s Riksdag of the Estates, a name used by the Estates when they assembled.

Charles XII was childless. He was succeeded by Ulrika Eleonora, his sister, who abdicated because power was in the hands of the Riksdag of the Estates. Her husband Landgrave Frederick I of Hesse-Kassel, a prince consort, would serve as King Frederick I of Sweden until 5 April 1751.

The Treaty of Nystad (10 September 1721)

Frederick I of Sweden signed the Treaty of Nystad (1721) which ended the Great Northern War (1700 – 1721). Sweden surrendered Swedish Estonia, Swedish Livonia  (which had capitulated in 1710) and Southeast Finland (Kexholmslän and Karelia), in exchange for two million silver thaler.

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Treaty effects: pre-war Sweden in yellow, Russia in green, Russian gains indicated. (Wiki2.org.)

The Riksdag of the Estates

  • the Riksdag of the Estates vs Britain’s Parliament
  • the Hats and the Caps (Nightcaps)
  • Arvid Horn

The Riksdag of the Estates differs from Britain’s Parliament. It may consist of two parties opposing one another. During the Age of Liberty, the Riksdag opposed the Hats (les Chapeaux) and the Caps (les Bonnets). I noted the role played by the Hats and the Caps in the short version of this post. But I should add that the “Horn Period” was a better Age of Liberty than the period during which the Hats ruled.

His strong hand kept the inevitable strife of the parliamentary factions within due limits, and it was entirely owing to his provident care that Sweden so rapidly recovered from the wretched condition in which the wars of Charles XII had plunged her.

(See Arvid Horn, Wiki2.org.)

Frederick I Martin van Meytens
Adolph Frederick by Gustaf Lundberg

The Two Kings

  • Frederick I and Adolph Frederick
  • The Hats: Wars and Greatness

As for the relationship between the Riksdag of the Estates and the kings who reigned during the Age of Liberty, it reflects to a large extent, the rule of the Hats and the Caps. I have mentioned the Russo-Swedish war of 1741-1743. Sweden, the former Swedish Empire, was defeated and, under the terms of the Treaty of Åbo, it had to cede territory east of the Kymi river to Russia. Elizabeth of Russia demanded that pro-absolutist Adolph Frederick from the House of Holstein-Gottorp be the future king of Sweden. As a result, members of the house of King Frederick I of Sweden, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel were eliminated from the line of succession.

Under pro-absolutist Adolp Frederick of the House of Holstein-Gottorp, the Riksdag of the Estates was attacked twice: the Coup of 1756 and the very serious December Crisis of 1768. (See Sweden’s Age of Liberty, 8 November 2018.)

The Hats also involved Sweden in the Pomeranian Theatre of the Seven Years’ War. Sweden lost 40,000 men in a war France did not win. Sweden suffered immense losses seeking the “greatness” it had lost.

The End of the Age of Liberty

According to the Encyclopædia Britannica, the reason for the transfer from absolutism to its Age of Freedom was “the complete failure of the policy of ‘greatness’ connected with the Carolingian [Charles XII] absolutism.” In 1772, Gustav III‘s self-coup re-introduced absolutism. Gustav III is described as a popular king. He was when he modelled his absolutism on his uncle, Frederick the Great of Prussia’s enlightened despotism. But what of the people’s will?

They [enlightened desposts] typically instituted administrative reform, religious toleration, and economic development but did not propose reforms that would undermine their sovereignty or disrupt the social order.

(See Enlightened Despotism, Britannica.)

They felt, as did Empress Catherine the Great of Russia, that aristocracy was their “profession.” Elizabeth of Russia used the Treaty of Åbo as a coup. She became an Empress of Russia and named her successor: Peter III of the House of Holstein-Gottorp. In Sweden, kings and queens were elected! When Gustav IV lost Finland, he was deposed by officers of his army and various notables. He had to abdicate and go into exile, never to return. A democracy is a “government of the people, by the people, for the people.” (See Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburgh Address, Wiki2.org.)

The Age of Liberty‘s early Riksdag of the Estates took all powers away from monarchs. This would change as Swedish democracy developed, a process usually marked by trials and errors. The Age of Liberty can be viewed as an experiment in democracy. Matters  change. Arvid Horn’s grew increasingly neutral, and his neutrality was opposed. Ulrika Eleonora, Charles XII’s sister, abdicated because she refused to be a figurehead. But, although King Charles XIII was prematurely senile, he was involved in the drafting of the Instrument of Government of 1809, Sweden’s constitution. It was not developed unilaterally and it remained unchanged until 1974.

In fact, to what extent was Charles XII an absolute monarch? Voltaire preferred Charles XII to Peter the Great.

The form of government instituted in Sweden under King Charles XI and passed on to his son, Charles XII is commonly referred to as absolute monarchy; however, the Swedish monarch was never absolute in the sense that he wielded arbitrary power.

(See Absolute Monarchy, Wiki2.org.)

It remains that, as an absolute monarch, Gustav III tried to abolish the Privy Council of Sweden and propably did so out of fear. Gustav III’s Union and Security Act of 1789, “swept away most of the powers exercised by the Swedish Riksdag.” He “severely curtailed” the Freedom of the Press Act of 1766. (See Gustav III, Wiki2.org.)

Yet, Sweden defeated Russia at the Battle of Svensksund, Gustav III demonstrating leadership and “greatness.” But such “greatness,” Sweden had probably outgrown in its Age of Liberty.

im524-640px-Desprez-Swedish_war_preparations_1788

Swedish warships fitted out in Stockholm in 1788; watercolor by Louis Jean Desprez

Love to everyone 💕

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Sources and Resources

Charles XIV John of Sweden(Wiki2.org.)

© Micheline Walker
9 November 2018
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Mostly Diderot & Catherine II ‘the Great’

25 Thursday Oct 2018

Posted by in Despotism, Enlightenment, Sharing

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Claude-Joseph Vernet, The Shipwreck, 1772, oil on canvas, Patrons’ Permanent Fund and Chester Dale Fund, 2000.22.1 (National Gallery of Art, UK)

vernet_horace

Horace Vernet Joseph Vernet Tied to a Mast in a Storm, c. 1822, Musée Calvet, Avignon, photograph by André Guerrand

This post isn’t about Claude-Joseph Vernet, Horace Vernet‘s grandfather, nor is it about Händel. It is about me, briefly, but my main characters are philosophe Denis Diderot  (1713 – 1784) and Catherine II the Great (1729 – 1796) of Russia, an enlightened despot. Denis Diderot was a co-editor, with Jean Le Rond d’Alembert, of the very ambitious Encyclopédie (1751 – 1766). He admired artist Claude-Joseph Vernet, whom he praised in his delightful Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre (Regrets on my Old Dressing Gown), a short text. I believe Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre (text) has been translated into English, but I could not find a translation. Catherine II the Great was a German princess, the daughter of Christian August, Prince of Anhalt-Zerbst, who became Empress of “all the Russias.”

Russian despots, Peter I the Great and Catherine II, the Great, enlarged Russia. Peter wanted access to various seas, the Baltic Sea, to begin with. He defeated the Swedish Empire shortly after Charles XII, a despot, was killed at the Siege of Fredriksten, in 1718. In 1703, Peter I the Great founded Saint Petersburg and, in 1721, Russia became an empire as Sweden entered its Age of Liberty.

Enlightened despotism is quite the topic. For instance, Russian despots, Peter I the Great  and Empress Catherine II the Great westernized Russia, which is not insignificant. Catherine befriended Denis Diderot. When Diderot tried to provide his daughter with a dowry, his only recourse was the sale of his library, a considerable collection. Catherine bought it and made him custodian of his collection. He did not have to part with his books. He travelled to Russia and spent several months at Catherine’s court. When he was dying, she rented a comfortable room for him.

In 1745, Catherine married Russian Tsar Peter III, who was assassinated. Catherine gave serfs to her lovers and a castle to at least one of her favourites, Grigory Potemkin, whom she may have married, but the ‘affair’ was over in 1776. Although I am certain Voltaire did not approve of serfdom, he entertained a long friendship, letters mainly, with Empress Catherine II the Great.

Madame Geoffrin’s salon in 1755, by Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier. Oil on canvas, Château de Malmaison, Rueil – Malmaison, France

Diderot did not enter a profession. He wanted to write. At one point, Madame Geoffrin, the famous salonnière, gave him furniture and a new dressing gown. He may have spent money. In Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre, Diderot writes that he should not have parted with his old dressing gown.

Mes amis, gardez vos vieux amis. Mes amis, craignez l’atteinte de la richesse. Que mon exemple vous instruise. La pauvreté a ses franchises ; l’opulence a sa gêne.

[My friends, keep your old friends. My friends, fear the infringement of riches. Let my example be a lesson to you. Poverty has its freedoms; opulence, its constraints.]

Diderot would gladly have discarded everything, so there would again be coherence and, therefore, beauty to his lodgings. But he would not let go of a painting by Claude-Joseph Vernet. Everything matched: a lovely ensemble.

Si vous voyiez le bel ensemble de ce morceau ; comme tout y est harmonieux ; comme les effets s’y enchaînent ; …

[If you saw…]

—ooo—

My little story is barely worth telling. I tried to make a doctor’s appointment for my friend who suffers from Ménière’s Disease. He’s nearly deaf. So, I wanted to talk to my doctor to see if he could help. My friend’s doctor is an intern and my doctor supervises interns. It’s the same office, but he can do things interns cannot do. This doctor always returns my calls, but this time, he didn’t. Last evening, I wrote to my friend to inform him that I doubted my doctor would phone. But, as I was about to press “send,” tears welled up in my eyes…

This morning, I turned to music, my refuge. I love this aria by Händel. The singer is Canada’s Karina Gauvin FR / Karina Gauvin EN.

Sources and Resources

Regrets sur ma vieille robe de chambre is a Wikisource publication FR

Love to everyone  💕

“V’adoro, pupille” from Händel’s Giulio Cesare

Händel by Balthasar Denner

© Micheline Walker
24 October 2018
WordPress