The political ideals of constitutionalism, or at least of a restriction of absolutism, prevailed throughout society, and even flatteries of the good autocrat, Byzantine in their servility and couched in the style of Fénelon's Télémaque (first translated in 1747), furthered criticism and endeavours towards liberty, for the adulation of autocratic ideals and virtues challenged rejoinder. Among Fénelon's numerous imitators, Heraskov the novelist may be mentioned. Until Catherine II took to suppressing tendencies towards freedom, this writer had displayed liberal sentiments; but when reaction followed upon the French revolution, Heraskov, too, became an opponent of the republic and of French philosophy.
Condorcet tells us that "reason and tolerance" was the device of Voltaire. The spirit of Voltaire, the spirit of the encyclopædists and the philosophers of the enlightenment in general, had in Russia as in Europe been directed against the church and ecclesiasticism. Many translations from Voltaire were published during the decade 1760 to 1770. Four editions of Candide appeared between 1769 and 1793. In St. Petersburg. Moscow, and provincial towns, this author's writings were not read merely, but positively devoured. His criticism of superstition, priestly dominion, monasticism, the perversities of official morals and politics, set Russia ablaze. The Russian imitators of Voltaire and the French devoted most of their energies to invectives against the church, the priests, and the monks; they renounced belief in miracle; and mostly advocated natural religion in the sense of dcism and free thought.[1]
The Russian enlightenment was not exclusively rationalistic. As in the west, so here, there was a vigorous mystical movement, directed primarily against Voltairism, but also against official ecclesiasticism. This tendency dominated the freemasons (Martinism) and wide circles among the cultured. Rousseau and his religious ideas found many adherents, in addition to those who followed Voltaire and the encyclopædists, as we have learned already in the case of Radiščev.
- ↑ I may mention in this connection Heraskov (the earlier works), the brothers Eminov, Rahmanin, Dmitriev-Mamonov, Čulkov, Popov, the brothers Ismailov, L'vov, and Zahar'in—and, of course, Radiščev.
