XClose

UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies (SSEES)

Home
Menu

Russia's Other Enlightenment?: Rakes, Petit-Maitres and Libertines in 18th Century St Petersburg

09 October 2017, 6:00 pm–8:00 pm

Prince Andrei Beloselskii

Event Information

Open to

All

Availability

Yes

Organiser

Russian Studies Seminar Series

Location

Room 433, UCL SSEES 16 Taviton Street London WC1H 0BW

Professor Igor Fedyukin (National Research University Higher School of Economics) will present on "Russia's Other Enlightenment?: Rakes, Petit-Maitres and Libertines in Eighteenth-Century St Petersburg" at this seminar organised by the UCL SSEES Russian Studies Seminar Series.

Prince M. M. Shcherbatov, an eighteenth-century historian and conservative social critic, famously decried the «corruption of morals » in post-Petrine Russia. Indeed, memoirs, including those of Catherine II, offer numerous anecdotes on the widespread practice of adultery and debauchery in court circles. Amazingly, though, there is still no book that would systematically explore these practices in their broader social and cultural context, so the stories of Peter I’s own relationship with women from Anna Mons to Catherine I, as well as the sexual habits of those at the courts of Elizabeth and Catherine II remain just that, the anecdotes. This presentation offers an early overview of a book project in progress that seeks to fill this gap by reconstructing the cultural and social dmensions of illicit sexual practices in eighteenth century Russia and uses the story of one particular aristocratic family, Princes Beloselskii, as a lens to do so. It follows the life trajectories of the Beloselskiis, as well as that of their immediate social circle, from the late 17th century and up to the French revolution. In that sense this "biography of a family" is also a story of the Russian elite in that era, as the book charts the Beloselskiis’ transformation from typical late-Muscovite servitors to sophisticated cosmopolitan diplomats, art connoseurs, and amateur writers in their own right. 

More broadly, this project seeks to offer an alternative perspective of Russia’s «Enlightenment» and «Westernization.» Traditionally, these are associated in our imagination with highbrow practices, with joining the ranks of the «reading public» and civic associations, reflecting on the public good, and, generally, becoming more civil and polite, all contributing to curbing base desires and passions. Yet, in many ways the social practices and discourses associated with illicit sex turn out to have been inextricably intertwined with the emergence of a new, «Enlightened» subject - and the sources related to illicit sex offer some of the best insights into the the actual «lived Enlightenment» in the classical Imperial era.

All Welcome! No registration required.

(facebook button)