Prince Golitsyn Dmitry Alekseevich (1734-1803) was a very enlightened man. In 1796, he published a book “On the Spirit of Economists,” in which he touched upon issues of government. He believed that government should be based on an understanding of the role of agriculture. He recognized the source of wealth not from trade, but from production, but limited it to agriculture.
Golitsyn proposed releasing the peasants for a large ransom and without allocating land. The tenants of the landowner's land should become rich peasants who will exploit the landless fellow villagers.
Radishchev Alexander Nikolaevich(1749-1802) outlined his views in the book “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” (1790). In the book he realistically depicted all aspects of Russian life and various classes; considered political, social, economic and other problems; pointed to the sources of lawlessness and lawlessness - autocracy and serfdom. He concluded that the existing state of affairs can be changed only through a popular revolution that will destroy the autocratic serfdom system.
Radishchev highly appreciated the reforms of Peter I on the development of industry and trade, but noted their shortcomings and contradictions; he considered the old feudal basis to be an obstacle to their development. Radishchev considered the development of manufactories and crafts on the basis of the elimination of serfdom and the formation of small commodity producers.
Radishchev was the first Russian economist to give a detailed analysis of paper money circulation, showed Negative consequences issuing paper money in quantities exceeding the needs of commodity circulation.
He criticized everything active species taxes, including the poll tax of Peter I. He believed that it was necessary to tax all segments of the population, but taking into account their property income.
Transformations of Alexander I, reforms of M.M. Speransky and N.S. Mordvinova
Transformations of Alexander I
Alexander Ι(1777-1825) was brought up in the spirit of enlightenment. He tried to be guided by the principle of legality in government. He wrote that the main drawback of the state order is the “arbitrariness of government.”
He tried to create a set of laws for governing the state. In this he was helped by his close friends, who created the “Unspoken Committee”. The main activity of this committee was the reform central control. In 1801, a manifesto was issued on the establishment of ministries that replaced the existing Peter the Great Collegiums.
Alexander I fought against bureaucracy by streamlining all levels of the administrative apparatus, rationalizing the political structure based on the principles of legality and citizenship. Project government reforms he instructed his closest assistant M.M. to prepare. Speransky.
Plan of government reforms M.M. Speransky
Speransky Mikhail Mikhailovich(1772-1839) prepared a plan for government reforms in 1809 (“Introduction to the Code of State Laws”). Solution economic development He saw Russia in the government's deliberate policy of creating an economically independent class. The basis of independence is the full expansion of the institution of private property.
He asked the question about public education and believed that the government's task was to create a network of educational institutions and libraries, as well as general education youth. Speransky proposed creating a special closed lyceum near St. Petersburg for a limited number of noble children of noble families, where they could receive the most better education, and subsequently work in the central institutions of Russia.
He did not try to abolish the serfdom, but believed that it would be abolished on its own gradually under the influence of the development of industry, trade and education.
Speransky proposed dividing the system of power into 3 parts: legislative, executive and judicial. Legislative issues would be under the jurisdiction of the State Duma; courts are under the jurisdiction of the Senate, government administration is under the jurisdiction of ministries responsible to the Duma.
Speransky saw the unification of the legislative, executive and judicial systems of power in autocratic power emperor, so he proposed creating a State Council.
On his initiative, a plan for the financial recovery of the country was adopted. Among other measures of this plan, it was envisaged to introduce a new progressive income tax on the income of landowners from their lands.
On Speransky’s initiative, instead of 8 existing ministries, there should have been 11. In 1811, he developed General position about ministries.
Speransky’s main merit is considered to be the successful implementation of enormous work on systematization and codification of Russian legislation. Under his leadership, the first Complete collection laws Russian Empire in 45 volumes (1830) and the Code of Laws of the Russian Empire in 15 volumes (1832).
Dmitry Mikhailovich Golitsyn
In Prince D.M. Golitsyn, the family nobility had a persistent and well-trained leader. In 1697, already over 30 years old, he and a crowd of Russian noble youth were sent to study abroad and visited Italy and other countries. From the West, he brought a keen interest in the structure of the local states and in European political literature, while retaining his love for Russian antiquity. The rich library that he collected in his village of Arkhangelskoe near Moscow and was plundered after his exile in 1737, combined, along with valuable monuments of Russian law and everyday life, up to 6 thousand books in different languages and in Russian translation on history, politics and philosophy. All the most remarkable works of European political thinkers of the 16th, 17th and 17th centuries were collected here. early XVIII century, starting from Machiavelli, and between them more than a dozen special works on the aristocracy and the same number on the English constitution. This shows in which direction the collector’s thoughts were directed and what type of government occupied him most.
While governor of Kyiv, Golitsyn ordered the translation of some of these books into Russian at the local academy. From political doctrines At that time, Golitsyn was especially attracted to the moralistic school of rationalists with its head Puffendorf, who was also appreciated by Peter, who ordered the translation and publication of his Introduction to the History of European States and a treatise on the duties of man and citizen. Other works of the same publicist were translated for Golitsyn, along with Hugo Grotius’s treatise “On the Law of War and Peace”; but we do not find the works of Hobbes, the head of the materialist school of publicists, as well as Locke’s essay “On Government” in these translations. To Golitsyn, like Peter, the theory of the origin of the state developed by moralists, developed by moralists, not from the war of all against all, as Hobbes taught, but from the need of everyone in everyone and everyone in each other, was clearer and seemed more edifying - a theory that placed the basis of the state order not on rights, but duties of a citizen to the state and fellow citizens. In the same way, Locke, with his democratic teaching on the participation of the people in legislation, did not correspond to the boyar views of Prince Golitsyn.
Golitsyn was one of the most educated Russian people of the 18th century. The task of his intense mental work was to weld into a single view the love of Russian antiquity and the Moscow boyar claims with the results of Western European political thought. But, undoubtedly, he succeeded in what the Russians so rarely succeeded educated people his century - to develop political convictions based on the idea of political freedom. As an admirer of the science and political order of Western Europe, he could not be a principled opponent of Peter’s reform, which borrowed state ideas and institutions from there. But he did not put up with the methods and conditions of the reform, with the reformer’s mode of action, with the morals of his closest collaborators, and did not stand among them.
Peter respected, but did not like Golitsyn for his stubborn and hard temper, and under him the honest, businesslike and zealous governor of Kiev barely reached the senatorial position, but did not enjoy significant influence. Golitsyn looked at the events that took place in Russia under Peter and after him with the gloomiest gaze; everything here offended him as a violation of antiquity, order, even decency. He was not the only one who was burdened by two political ailments from which, especially recently, everyone has suffered: a government operating outside the law, and a favor wielding weak but arbitrary power. His thoughts focused on healing the fatherland from these ailments. He studied European government institutions in order to choose the ones most suitable for Russia, and talked a lot about this with Fick, whom we know. Based on the idea, subjectively or genealogically formed in his mind, that only the noble nobility is capable of maintaining lawful order in the country, he settled on the Swedish aristocracy and the Supreme privy council decided to make it a stronghold of his plan.
Supremes 1730 On the night of January 19, 1730 in Moscow, in the Lefortovo Palace, 15-year-old Emperor Peter II, the grandson of the converter, died of smallpox, without appointing a successor. Along with him, the dynasty was extinguished, the male line of the Romanov dynasty was cut short. At the same time, the succession to the throne was left without strong legislative norms and legal heirs. The law of Peter I, unclear, arbitrarily interpreted and left without action by the legislator himself, was losing its normative power, and Catherine’s testament did not have it, as a controversial document.
To replace the throne, they went through the entire existing royal house, named the queen-nun, the first wife of Peter, his youngest daughter Elizabeth, the two-year-old son of the eldest deceased daughter Anna, the Duke of Holstein, and the three daughters of Tsar Ivan. But they could not settle on anyone, they could not find an undeniable right to the throne in anyone. The law of Peter I confused all dynastic concepts and relationships. Candidates were valued for political reasons, personal or family sympathies, and not for legal reasons. Amid this confusion of rumors and interests, the Supreme Privy Council, as the head of the department, took the initiative in replacing the throne.
That same night, immediately after the death of Peter II, he consulted about this matter, scheduling a meeting of all the highest ranks of the state for the coming morning in order to decide together with them important question. At the same time, the Council replenished itself: its five-member composition already included three aristocrats, Prince D. M. Golitsyn and two princes Dolgoruky; now another Golitsyn, Dimitri’s brother, and two more Dolgorukys were invited. The presence of six persons from only the two noblest boyar families gave the eight-member Council not only an aristocratic, but also a downright oligarchic character. At the meeting they talked a lot and for a long time, “with considerable disagreement,” as Feofan Prokopovich put it.
The statement of Prince Dolgoruky, the father of Peter II’s second bride, about his daughter’s right to the throne, allegedly bequeathed to her by the late groom, and someone’s proposal for a queen-grandmother were rejected as “indecent.” Then Prince D. Golitsyn, raising his voice, said that God, punishing Russia for her immeasurable sins, especially for the adoption of foreign vices, took away from her the sovereign on whom all her hope rested. And since his death ended the male line of the royal house, it is necessary to move on to the eldest female line, the daughters of Tsar Ivan. Moreover, the daughters of Peter I themselves do not have the right to the throne, as they are illegitimate, born before their father married their mother. Catherine’s will has no meaning, since this woman, being of low birth, herself did not have the right to the throne and could not dispose of it; but the eldest of Tsar Ivan’s daughters, Catherine of Mecklenburg, is inconvenient, like the wife of a foreign prince, and an extravagant man at that; Most conveniently, the second princess, the Dowager Duchess of Courland Anna, the daughter of a Russian mother from a good old family, a woman gifted with all the qualities of mind and heart necessary for the throne.
Meanwhile, in another hall of the palace, senators and top generals They were waiting to see what the leaders would decide. Yaguzhinsky, already known to us, the former Prosecutor General of the Senate, took aside one of the Dolgorukys who were crowding here and expressed to him a purely Golitsyn way of thinking: “How long can we endure that our heads are being cut off! Now is the time for there to be no autocracy.” When the leaders came out and announced the election of Anna, no one objected, but Yaguzhinsky ran up to one of them and screamed, as if he had overheard Golitsyn’s words: “My fathers! Give us as much will as possible!” But this was a game of simplicity: Yaguzhinsky, like most of the dignitaries, having agreed with the choice of the leaders, dispersed, embittered by the fact that they were not invited to the meeting.
On the morning of January 19, to the Synod, Senate, generals and other high ranks gathered in the Kremlin, the Supreme Privy Council announced the entrustment of the Russian throne to Princess Anna, adding that the consent of the entire fatherland in the person of the assembled ranks was required. Everyone expressed full agreement. Nothing further was announced to the meeting. Meanwhile, on the same day, clauses or “conditions” limiting her power were hastily drawn up and, under the cover of the strictest secrecy, sent to Mitava in a letter to Anna. The Empress promises, upon accepting the Russian crown, not to marry for the rest of her life and not to appoint a successor either in person or on her own. And also to rule together with the Supreme Privy Council “in eight persons” and without its consent: 1) do not start a war; 2) do not make peace; 3) do not burden subjects with new taxes; 4) not to promote ranks above colonel and “not to appoint anyone to noble affairs,” and the guards and other troops to be under the authority of the Supreme Privy Council; 5) do not take away life, property and honor from the nobility without trial; 6) estates and villages are not favored; 7) neither Russians nor foreigners should be promoted to court ranks “without the advice of the Supreme Privy Council” and 8) state revenues should not be used for expenses (without the consent of the Council). These obligations ended with the words on behalf of the empress: “If I don’t fulfill or keep anything according to this promise, then I will be deprived of the Russian crown.”
Meanwhile, the zealous Yaguzhinsky, who was so passionate against the autocracy on the night of January 19, became angry when he saw that he would not be allowed into the Supreme Privy Council, and secretly sent to Anna in Mitava with a warning that she should not believe the deputies of the Council in everything until she herself arrived in Moscow, where he will find out the whole truth. Anna agreed to the conditions without hesitation and signed them: “Therefore, I promise to support everything without any exception. Anna". After two or three days, she decided to leave for Moscow, demanding 10 thousand rubles from the Council envoys for the lift.
S.P. Yaguzhinsky
Ferment among the nobility. The election of Duchess Anna to the Supreme Privy Council, soon becoming known, caused an extraordinary movement in Moscow. An accidental circumstance gave it not local, only Moscow, but also all-Russian significance. On that very day, January 19, when the emperor died, his wedding with Princess Dolgoruka was scheduled. Following the regiments with their generals and officers, many provincial nobility came to Moscow in anticipation of the court festivities. Having gathered for a wedding and going to a funeral, the nobles found themselves in a whirlpool political struggle. The plan of the supreme leaders was initially met with a dull murmur in society. A contemporary, who vigilantly followed the events of that time and took an active part in them against the leaders, Archbishop of Novgorod Feofan Prokopovich vividly depicts in his note the course of the movement: “The vision and hearing became pitiful everywhere throughout the city; no matter where you come, no matter what meeting you come to, you hear nothing else but sad complaints about these eight-person masterminds; everyone severely reproached them, everyone cursed their unusual boldness, insatiable delicacy and lust for power.” The nobles who came to Moscow divided into circles, gathered at night and carried on lively discussions against the supreme leaders; Feofan numbered up to 500 people captured by the agitation fever. The leaders, “the noblest of the nobility,” formed an opposition alliance in which two opinions fought: supporters of one, “daring,” thought to suddenly attack the leaders with weapons in their hands and kill them all if they did not want to give up their intentions; adherents of a different opinion, the “meek” one, wanted to come to the Supreme Privy Council and declare that it was not the job of a few to alter the composition of the state and conduct such a thing secretly from others, even from the government officials: “it smells unpleasant and stinking.” But Feofan discovered that the energy of the opposition was “noticeably cold” every day from internal discord: the weakest part of it, the conservative one, wanted to preserve the old ancestral autocracy at all costs; the strongest and most liberal sympathized with the enterprise of the supreme leaders, but was personally irritated against them because they “did not call them into their friendship.” However, even in this liberal part, the foreign ambassadors did not notice any unanimity. “Here,” wrote Magnan, the secretary of the French embassy, from Moscow, “on the streets and in the houses one can only hear speeches about the English constitution and the rights of the English parliament.” The Prussian ambassador Mardefeld wrote to his court that in general all Russians, that is, the nobles, want freedom, but they cannot agree on its measure and the degree of limitation of absolutism. “There are countless parties,” Spanish Ambassador de Liria wrote from Moscow in January, “and although everything is calm so far, perhaps some kind of outbreak may occur.”
Prince V.L. Dolgoruky
First of all, of course, they turned to the West - how is it there? Their eyes ran around the local constitutions, like beautiful things in a jewelry store - one is better than the other - and were perplexed as to which one to choose. “Everyone is now busy thinking about a new way of government,” we read in the dispatches of foreign ambassadors, “the plans of the nobles and the petty nobility are endlessly varied. Everyone is undecided about what type of government to choose for Russia. Some want to limit the power of the sovereign to the rights of parliament, as in England, others, as in Sweden, others want to establish an electoral government, as in Poland; finally, the fourth desire an aristocratic republic without a monarch.”
In the absence of a political eye, in the absence of the habit of measuring political distances, it seemed so close from the torture chamber to the English Parliament. But with such a confusion of opinions, a scarecrow stood before everyone’s eyes, forcing those who disagreed to huddle closer to each other: this is a favor, a disease of a dissolute and unkempt government. “Having experienced the rise of the Dolgorukys,” the ambassadors wrote, “the Russians are afraid of the power of the temporary workers and think that under an absolute tsar there will always be a favorite who will rule them with a rod, a whip, and a fling,” as the Dolgorukys did under the late Peter II. This means that the nobility was not against the idea of limiting power as a preventive measure against temporary workers. But he was outraged by the plan of the supreme leaders, as an oligarchic idea that threatened to replace the power of one person with the arbitrariness of as many tyrants as there were members in the Supreme Privy Council. According to the historian and publicist of Catherine’s time, Prince Shcherbatov, the leaders of themselves “instead of one created a crowd of sovereigns.” They looked at the matter in the same way in 1730.
In one note, which was then circulating from hand to hand in the form of a letter to someone in Moscow on behalf of the middle nobility, we read: “We can hear here what is happening in your country or has already been done so that we can have a republic; I am very doubtful about this: God forbid that instead of one autocratic sovereign, there will not be ten autocratic and powerful families! And so we, the nobility, will be completely lost and will be forced to worship idols more bitterly than before and seek mercy from everyone, and even it will be difficult to find.” The ferment reached its extreme when, at the solemn meeting of the Supreme Privy Council on February 2, the Senate, the Synod, the generals, the presidents of the colleges and other civilian officials were read the “conditions” signed by Anna and supposedly her letter, of course, prepared in advance on her behalf in Moscow. In it, agreeing to her election, she stated that “for the benefit of the Russian state and to the satisfaction of her loyal subjects,” she wrote and signed in what ways she wanted to lead that government.
The obligations imposed on Anna as an indispensable condition for her election now turned out to be her voluntary sacrifice for the good of the state. This cunning, stitched with white thread, left the congregation in utter amazement. According to Feofan Prokopovich’s graphic description, everyone lowered their ears, like poor donkeys, whispered, but no one dared to respond with indignation. The supreme gentlemen themselves also quietly whispered to each other and, looking sharply with their eyes, pretended that they too were surprised by such a surprise. One prince, D. M. Golitsyn, often coughed and shouted, repeating “until he was full” in different ways: how merciful the empress is; God moved her to this scripture; From now on Russia will be happy and prosperous. But as everyone remained stubbornly silent, he spoke reproachfully: “Why won’t anyone say a word? Please tell me what you think, although, however, there is nothing to say, but just thank the empress.” Finally someone from the bunch in a quiet voice and with great hesitation he said: “I don’t know and I’m very surprised why it occurred to the empress to write like that.”
But this timid voice found no echo. They prepared and offered to sign the minutes of the meeting, which stated: after listening to the letter and points sent by the Empress, everyone announced in agreement, “that we are very pleased with Her Majesty’s mercy and will sign with our own hands.” At this point the poor donkeys lost patience and refused to sign, saying that they would do it in a day. Everyone seemed to have suddenly aged, “they walked around decrepit and thoughtful,” says Feofan. The servile feeling was hit too hard; no one expected that the empress would be tied up so harshly. The supreme leaders were asked how the government would continue to be. Instead of declaring that the answer to this question had already been given by Anna herself in a letter and paragraphs and that her will was not subject to revision, Golitsyn allowed those present to write a draft about this on their own and submit it the next day. With this, he revealed poorly hidden cards.
Until now, the matter seemed to be correct. The Supreme Privy Council, essentially remaining the only body of supreme government, elected Princess Anna to the heirless throne; all the highest ranks up to the brigadier, who were considered official representatives of the people, “representing the face of the entire fatherland,” as Prokopovich put it, unanimously approved the choice of the Council. Unexpected, but turning out to be a desired chosen one by right of generosity, she brought to the benefit of the fatherland the rags of the ancestral autocracy that had survived after Peter I and, in the paragraphs signed with her own hand, indicated in what ways she wanted to conduct her reign. The gracious gift is not considered as a purchased item, but is simply received with due thanksgiving. And Golitsyn threw this gift into the discussion of the highest ranks up to the “foreman” and thereby discovered that the conditions were not the empress’s generous gift to the people, but her behind-the-scenes deal with the leaders.
The play was staged on a shaky stage: in an atmosphere of fake legality, a simple, genuine court trick was played out. Moreover, the matter of regulating personal supreme power became confused, blurring into a general revision of government institutions. Golitsyn’s forced or careless proposal caused a stormy response: a frenzy of opinions, notes, and oral statements about a new form of government began, with which all ranks up to the colonel and even the disorderly nobility besieged the Council. The leaders had to listen and read a lot of grief. The confusion reached the point where there was fear of an uprising. The Supreme Council wanted to intimidate the dissenting politicians by reminding them that it had commanders, detectives, and torturers for the rebels. Then the opposition turned into a conspiracy: weak people, “low-powered,” as Prokopovich put it, without position or connections, gathered secretly, were afraid to spend the night at home, ran from one acquaintance to another, and then at night, in disguise.
Noble projects. The call for officials to participate in the discussion of the case gave the oligarchic intrigue the appearance of a broader political movement. Until now, the issue has revolved around government circles: the Supreme Privy Council has dealt with higher institutions– Senate, Synod, generals, presidents of colleges. From the moment the projects are submitted, society comes into play, the nobility of noble families with ranks and even without ranks. Government institutions are scattered into circles, dignitaries interfere in the ranks of their class brethren; opinions are given not from government officials, not from colleagues, but from groups of like-minded people.
New interests are entering the movement. Up to 13 opinions, notes, projects submitted or prepared for submission to the Supreme Privy Council from various gentry circles are known; under them we find more than a thousand signatures. Only the project drawn up by Tatishchev and submitted by the Senate and the generals was developed into a complete historical and political treatise. The rest were compiled hastily, thoughts developed somehow; This means that here you can look for an unvarnished, frank expression of the political mood of the nobility. The projects do not directly address either the points or the election of Anna with limited power, as if they tacitly acknowledge a fait accompli. Only Tatishchev, as a historian-publicist, showed his familiarity with Russian history and Western political literature, as a follower of the moralistic school of Puffendorf and Wolf. He puts the matter on a general basis state law and proves that, in its position, autocratic rule is most useful for Russia and that, after the suppression of the dynasty, the election of a sovereign “according to natural law should be the consent of all subjects, some personally, others through attorneys.” Tatishchev knew the bicameral system of representation in the West, and perhaps he remembered the composition of the domestic Zemsky Cathedral XVII V. Therefore, he is indignant not so much at the limitation of Anna’s power, but at the fact that a few did it without permission, secretly, trampling on the rights of the entire nobility and other ranks. He calls on like-minded people to defend this right to the extreme.
Other projects are more base: they have no time for the theory and structure of supreme power; they focus their attention on two subjects—high government and desirable benefits for the nobility. The projects paint such a management plan with incomplete and unclear outlines. The “supreme government” either remains the Supreme Privy Council or the Senate becomes. Most of all, the projects are concerned with the numerical and family composition of this government. It should not form such a tight circle as the existing eight-member Supreme Privy Council. It should contain from 11 to 30 people; The most important thing is not to allow more than two members from the same family into it: the quadruple of princes Dolgoruky in the Supreme Council on January 19, obviously, stuck out as an annoying spoke in the eyes of the entire nobility.
All top management should be elected and of the nobility. The nobility is not a solid, homogeneous class: it distinguishes between “family people”, clan nobility, “military and civilian generals”, bureaucratic nobility and nobility. From these ranks, members of the Supreme Privy Council, the Senate, presidents of colleges and even governors are selected. The generals and nobility are elected to these positions; for some projects, only the “noble” and together with the Supreme Privy Council and the Senate. This electoral meeting in projects is called society. He also acquires legislative and even constituent power; The clergy and merchants participate in the development of a plan for state reforms only on special issues that concern them.
Some projects express a desire to ease the tax burden of peasants, that is, the payment responsibility of the nobles themselves; but there was not a single nobleman who would utter a word not about the emancipation of the serfs - before that - but at least about the legal determination of the master's taxes and duties. A significant part of the projects consists of benefits for the nobility in terms of service and land ownership: the appointment of a term of service, the right to enter the service directly as officers, the abolition of single inheritance, etc. These benefits attracted ordinary nobility into the movement. The business was conducted by noble or bureaucratic nobility. The petty nobility, indifferent to talk about different forms of government, did not act independently, did not form special political circles, but huddled around important “persons” who promised them tempting benefits. It echoed its leaders all the more obediently because most of it were guards and army officers, accustomed in the ranks to obey the same leaders, their colonels and generals: out of 1,100 signatures under various projects, more than 600 were officer signatures.
All projects are built on the idea that the nobility is the only eligible class with civil and political rights, a real people in the legal sense of the word, a kind of pays legal; through him the government rules the state. The rest of the population is only a controlled and working mass, paying for both, both for its management and for the right to work; This is a living state inventory. The people in our sense of the word were not understood or recognized in the circles that wrote the projects.
Empress Anna Ioannovna in coronation dress
New plan. While the nobility hurried to express their class desires in their projects, Prince D. Golitsyn was developing and discussing with the Supreme Privy Council the plan for the present constitution. According to this plan, the empress controls only her own court. Supreme power belongs to the Supreme Privy Council, consisting of 10 or 12 members from the most noble families. In this Council, the Empress is given only two votes. The council commands all the troops: everything follows the example of the Swedish State Council during its struggle with the Diet nobility in 1719–1720. Golitsyn has three more institutions under the Council: 1) the Senate of 36 members, which preliminarily discusses all matters decided by the Council; 2) The nobility chamber (chamber) of 200 members, chosen by the nobility, protects the rights of the estate from encroachment by the Supreme Privy Council and 3) The House of City Representatives manages commercial and industrial affairs and protects the interests of the common people.
So, the noblest families rule, and the noble representatives, along with the merchants, defend themselves and defend the people from this rule. This plan did not put out the fire, but only added boyar oil to the noble fire. The old Don Quixote of the inveterate Moscow boyars, in view of his chosen one approaching from Mitau, finally made concessions, decided to slightly open the doors of the jealously closed supreme government and even allow something similar to the representation of popular interests, the idea of which was so difficult for the consciousness of the ruling classes. He embraces the interests of social classes even more broadly in the form of the oath to the empress he compiled. Here too, he stubbornly stands on the aristocratic composition and on the monopoly of the legislative power of the Supreme Privy Council. But he lavishes important benefits and benefits on the clergy, merchants, especially the noble nobility, and promises the entire nobility what they did not dare to ask for in their projects: complete freedom from compulsory service with the right to voluntarily enroll in the navy, army and even the guard directly as officers. This kind of charter of class liberties of the nobility was crowned with a promise, especially desirable for him, - not to allow courtyard people and peasants into any business. Petrovsky peasant Pososhkov and a whole series of administrative and financial businessmen, removed by Peter the Great from the boyar household, were pronounced political excommunication.
B. Chorikov.Empress Anna Ivanovna receives Chinese envoys
Crash. The political drama of Prince Golitsyn, poorly rehearsed and even worse acted, quickly reached its epilogue. Discord in government circles and the mood of the guard emboldened opponents of the restriction, who had hitherto hidden or pretended to join the opposition. A special party was formed, or “another company,” as Feofan put it, with the same transactional composition as the others: it included the empress’s relatives and their friends, offended dignitaries, like princes Cherkassky and Trubetskoy, whom the Supreme Privy Council did not allow into its composition . They were joined by people who were indecisive or indifferent. Here Osterman also came to life. All the time he sat at home sick, was just about to die, took communion and almost received unction, but now he has become the inspirer of a new company. Relationships, interests and personalities became clear, and it was no wonder that the companions agreed, assuring them that they would sooner achieve what they wanted from the autocratic empress than from the autocratic Supreme Council, he consoled the senators with the restoration of the Senate in the meaning of supreme rule, the generals and guards - with getting rid of the command of the supreme leaders, all - abolition of the Supreme Privy Council. The bell of the party was Feofan Prokopovich. He was exhausted, calling all over Moscow about the tyranny suffered by the rulers of the empress, whom the dragon V. L. Dolgoruky guarding her brought to the point that she was “breathing with force.” The Bishop himself was frightened by the success of his pastoral sermon, noting that many, inflamed by it, “are plotting something very terrible.”
Approaching Moscow, Anna immediately felt the solid ground beneath her, prepared by the conspiratorial agitation of a German reputed to be an atheist and the first Russian bishop present in the Holy Synod, and she boldly became the head of a conspiracy against herself, against her honest Mitavian word. In Vsesvyatsky near Moscow, contrary to the rules, she declared herself a lieutenant colonel of the Preobrazhensky regiment and captain of the cavalry guards, personally treating them to vodka, which was received with the greatest delight. Even before Anna's arrival, the guards officers openly said that they would rather agree to be the slaves of one tyrant monarch than many.
Anna solemnly entered Moscow on February 15, and on the same day high ranks in the Assumption Cathedral they swore allegiance simply to the empress, not to the autocrat, but to the “fatherland” - and nothing more. Not noticing the intrigue that arose around Anna, supporters of the Supreme Privy Council rejoiced and said that direct, decent rule had finally arrived. The Empress is assigned 100 thousand rubles a year and not a penny more, not the last snuffbox from the treasury without the permission of the Council, and only on receipt; slightly, although in a small way, she will violate the position given to her - now back to her Courland. And that it was done by the empress, and then only for the first time - a brush on the lips. But the leaders no longer believed in the success of their cause and, according to rumors, they themselves offered Anna autocracy.
And so, on February 25, one hundred and eight senators, generals and nobles in the Great Palace Hall submitted a request to Anna to form a commission to review the projects presented to the Supreme Privy Council in order to establish a form of government pleasing to all the people. The Empress was called upon to become a mediator in her own cause between the rulers and their opponents. One of the supreme leaders suggested that Anna, according to the rules, first discuss the petition with the Supreme Privy Council; but Anna, once again breaking her word, immediately signed the paper.
The leaders were dumbfounded. But suddenly an unimaginable noise arose: the guards officers, already in the proper mood, with other nobles began to shout in competition: “We don’t want the empresses to prescribe laws. She must be an autocrat, as all previous sovereigns were.” Anna tried to calm the screamers, and they kneeled in front of her with a frantic rebuke of their loyal service and with a final exclamation: “Order, and we will bring the heads of your villains to your feet.” On the same day, after the empress’s dinner table, to which the rulers were also invited, the nobility submitted another request to Anna, with 150 signatures, in which the “most humble servants” most obediently brought and all humbly asked to most graciously accept the autocracy of their glorious and praiseworthy ancestors, and those sent from the Supreme Privy Council and destroy the clauses signed by her. "How? – Anna asked with feigned surprise at simple-minded ignorance. “Weren’t these points drawn up at the request of the entire people?” - "No!" - was the answer. - “So you deceived me, Prince Vasily Lukich!” – Anna said to Dolgoruky. She ordered the items she had signed in Mitau to be brought and immediately tore them up in front of everyone. All the time, the supreme leaders, in the words of one foreign ambassador, “didn’t make a word,” otherwise the guard officers would have thrown them out the windows. And on March 1, in all the cathedrals and churches, the “packs” swore allegiance to the autocratic empress: their loyal conscience was pushed around left and right with the blessing of the clergy. Thus ended the ten-day constitutional-aristocratic Russian monarchy of the 18th century, built by the 4-week temporary rule of the Supreme Privy Council.
But, restoring autocracy, the nobility did not refuse to participate in government. In the same afternoon petition on February 25, it asked, by abolishing the Supreme Privy Council, to return the previous importance to the Senate of 21 members, to allow the nobility to elect senators, collegiate presidents and even governors by ballot and, according to the before-lunch petition, to establish a form of government for the future. If this petition had been respected, the central and provincial administration would have been composed of elected agents of the nobility like Catherine’s police captains. The Russian Empire did not become “the sister of Poland and Sweden,” as Fick had hoped; but next to republican-gentry Poland, Russia became autocratic-gentry.
Causes. The case of 1730 seemed to modern observers to be a struggle that arose due to the limitation of autocracy among ruling class, between the clan aristocracy and the nobility: other classes of the people did not take any part in this movement: it is impossible to attach class significance to the fussy running around of Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich in the Moscow noble houses. But initially the Supreme Privy Council gave a very narrow formulation to the case it had undertaken. This was, in fact, not a limitation of autocracy by class or popular representation, but only the joint exercise of the prerogatives of the supreme power by the person called to it and the institution that called this person to power.
The supreme power changed its composition or form, ceased to be individual, but retained the same attitude towards society. The restrictive clauses gave only one right to civil freedom, and even then only to one class: “The nobility’s life, property and honor cannot be taken away without trial.” But the supreme leaders’ clauses do not say a word about political freedom and the participation of society in government. The state is ruled unlimitedly by the Empress and the Supreme Privy Council, and the Supreme Privy Council represented no one but itself: some of its members were appointed by the supreme power even before its limitation, others were co-opted, invited by the Council itself at the night meeting on January 19–20. This is how the Council thought to conduct business in the future; only the opposition forced him to promise to convene all officials for a meeting, and only for a meeting, on the best structure of government. Of all the leaders, the Russian nobles were least represented.
Most of the ancient nobility of that time, the Sheremetevs, Buturlins, princes of Cherkassky, Trubetskoy, Kurakin, Odoevsky, Baryatinsky, were in Moscow genealogy no worse than the princes Dolgoruky, and members of these families stood against the Supreme Privy Council. The leaders could not even unite their own relatives around themselves: the names of the Golitsyns and Dolgorukys appear in the signatures of opposition projects. This opposition nobility was the soul of the movement, worried the small nobility, promising them tempting benefits in service and land ownership, led the noble circles, dictating notes for them to submit to the Supreme Privy Council. The ordinary gentry acted not as figures in action, but as extras, brought on stage to give the impression of quantitative strength. The table of ranks has not yet had time to shuffle the pedigree suits and free the rank from the oppression of the breed. In this nobility, dark and impoverished, in need of high-ranking benefactors, the habitual servile veneration of the family still coexisted amicably with the nascent servile veneration of rank. “The gentry slavishly serve the family and carry out their will in every possible way, and through this service, in order to enrich themselves, they receive commandantships and commands from other important royal interests,” - this is how Peter’s projector Ivan Filippov depicts the relationship of the ordinary nobility to the nobility, which did not soon change even after Peter. But the leaders of the nobility were also senior officials, members of government agencies, ahead of all were senators and generals, who were not just a bunch of generals, but a special institution, main advice General Staff with certain staff and salaries. The first project submitted to the Supreme Privy Council and the most oppositional one came precisely from the Senate and the generals.
Senate and Synod in St. Petersburg
This means that in the case of 1730 it was not individuals or public classes, and the highest government institutions, do not know the old, noble, with the new, bureaucratic, or both with the ordinary nobility, and the Senate, the Synod and the generals with the Supreme Privy Council, which arrogated to itself the monopoly of supreme government. In a word, it was not the government and society that fought for power, but the government bodies fought among themselves for the distribution of power. But institutions are only the wheels of the government machine, driven by governmental or social force. The leaders wanted such power to be noble families, or family people; but their opponents also wanted the same thing: family members competed with family members.
Since the time of the oprichnina, the ruling class has become so complicated and confused that it has become difficult to discern who and to what extent is family or non-family. The social force that was this mixed class now clung to ready-made government institutions, because there were no public institutions to cling to. The old military genealogical organization of the service class was destroyed by the abolition of localism and the regular army, and Peter's attempt to involve local noble societies management failed. Only institutions united the uncoordinated interests and unclear views of individuals and classes; The leaders themselves, separated by family scores and personal enmities, acted, if not unanimously, then at least compactly, not out of a sense of aristocratic solidarity, but out of camaraderie in the Supreme Privy Council. All that remained was to transform the highest government institutions into public, elective, i.e., representative institutions. This thought was wandering in the minds of that time. But both the leaders, with the possible exception of D. Golitsyn, and their opponents lacked either an understanding of the essence of representation or agreement on the details of its structure; by elected from the nobility we meant those recruited from the nobles who happened to be in the capital.
View of the Neva embankment in the 18th century
Thus, neither the established social relations nor the prevailing political concepts provided the means to untie the knot in which the clashing interests and misunderstandings were entangled. The issue was resolved violently, with a mechanical guard blow. The noble guard understood the matter in its own way, in a barracks way: it was pushed against the autocracy of a few in the name of the rights of all, and it attacked everyone in the name of the autocracy of one person - it turned the steering wheel in the wrong direction: asking for elective government, having restored autocracy, meant hiding one’s head behind tree. The day after the oath, autocratic Anna, fulfilling part of the nobles’ request, formed a Senate of 21 members, but appointed them herself, without any elections. Thus, as the case progresses, the main reasons for its failure become clear. First of all, the very plan of Prince D. Golitsyn had neither internal strength nor external support. He limited the supreme power not by a permanent law, but by an institution of unstable composition and accidental significance; in order to give it stability, Golitsyn wanted to make it the organ and stronghold of the clan aristocracy - a class that no longer existed: only a few noble families remained, scattered and even hostile to each other. Golitsyn was building a monarchy limited by a ghost.
Further, the Supreme Privy Council with its random and unpopular composition, stubbornly retaining the monopoly of supreme government, alienated the majority of the government class and aroused opposition with the participation of the guard and the nobility, turning the matter around, turning the issue of limiting autocracy into a protest against its own usurpation. Finally, the opposition and individual members of the Supreme Privy Council itself looked in different directions: the Council wanted to limit autocracy without touching the highest management; the opposition demanded a restructuring of this administration, without touching the autocracy or keeping silent about it; The mass of the guards and nobles sought class benefits, being hostile or indifferent to both the limitation of supreme power and the restructuring of government.
With such discord and political unpreparedness, the opposition circles could not develop a coherent and acceptable plan for the state structure. By this they justified the comment of the Prussian ambassador Mardefeld that the Russians do not understand freedom and will not be able to cope with it, although they talk a lot about it. Golitsyn himself explained the failure of his enterprise by the fact that it was beyond the strength of the people to whom he appealed to become his employees. In this sense, one must understand his words, with which he himself sang his death. When autocracy was restored, he said: “The feast was ready, but those invited turned out to be unworthy of it. I know that I will fall victim to the failure of this business; so be it, I will suffer for the fatherland. I already have a little time left to live. But those who make me cry will cry longer than I.” These words contain Golitsyn’s verdict on himself. Why, having undertaken to be the owner of the business, did he name such guests, or why did he start a feast when there was no one to invite?
Connection with the past. In Prince Golitsyn’s enterprise, two features arouse bewilderment: the choice of a person who is not on the hereditary line, and the forgery of the electoral act, which turned the conditions of election into a voluntary gift from the chosen one. The first feature suggests some involvement of Swedish influence. Anna's accession is somewhat reminiscent of her sister's accession to the Swedish throne Charles XII Ulrika-Eleanor in 1719. The same election of a woman in addition to the direct heir (Duke of Holstein) with a limitation of the power of the chosen one; the same desire of the aristocratic council of state to become sovereign and the same opposition of the nobility. Finally, Russian researchers of the events of 1730, with the help of Swedish historians, indicated obvious traces of the influence of Swedish constitutional acts in the restrictive clauses, in the plan and draft of the oath drawn up by Golitsyn. But despite the similarity of circumstances, the conditions were far from identical.
When electing Anna, Golitsyn remembered and could take into account what happened with Ulrika-Eleanor: it worked there - why won’t it work here? Swedish events provided only an encouraging example, Swedish acts and institutions provided ready-made models and formulas. But the motives, interests and tactics coordinated with them were their own, not borrowed. This was particularly reflected in another aspect of the matter. Why did Golitsyn need to falsify the electoral act? Here we need to turn to the Russian past. The behind-the-scenes intrigue in changing the way of government has had a long and unimpressive history in our country. In 1730, it was not the first time that the old and fundamental question of the Russian state order was raised - the question of the natural establishment of supreme power. It was caused by the suppression of the Rurik dynasty, as a historical necessity, and not as a political need.
Until 1598, the Moscow sovereign was looked upon as the owner of the land, and not the people. In the people's legal consciousness there was no place for thinking about the people as a state union; there could be no place for the idea of popular freedom. The Church taught that all power comes from God, and since the will of God is not subject to any legal definition, its earthly embodiment became outside the law, the law, and was thought of as pure anomie. Since 1598, Russian political thinking became in great difficulty. The church concept of power could still somehow be attached to the hereditary sovereign - the owner of the land; but the elected tsar, made though by earthly hands, was still difficult to fit into the idea of divinely appointed power. The political mood was divided. Poorly understanding what kind of kings Boris Godunov became, the masses retained a purely abstract biblical idea of tsarist power; but, already enslaved and previously able only to flee from the oppression of the authorities, in the 17th century she I also learned to rebel against the boyars and officials.
In turn, the boyars, under the influence of bitter experiences and observations of neighboring orders, became accustomed to the idea of a contractual king. But based on ruling class, and not from the masses of the people, who rightly did not trust him, this idea always sought to be cast and was cast twice in the same form of a behind-the-scenes deal, which came out in the form of a voluntary gift of power or manifested itself in weakened reins of government. This form was a way out of the situation between two fires, into which people found themselves, instinctively or consciously trying to heal the country from the painful growth of supreme power. The case of 1730 was the seventh attempt at a more or less covert transactional extortion of freedom by a government circle and the fourth experience of open, formal limitation of power. The secret extortion of freedom was caused by moral distrust of poorly educated political authorities and fear of a people distrustful of the ruling class; formal restrictions failed due to discord among the ruling classes themselves.
PHOTO - GAGARINS
SON of Daria Vasilievna Gagarina (1708–1774) Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn.
The Golitsyns are one of the most noble and ancient princely families of Russia, tracing their ancestry from the son of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas, Narimund, who reigned in Novgorod in the 15th century and received the name Gleb at baptism. From the family came 2 field marshals, 22 boyars, 16 governors, 37 high dignitaries, 14 Golitsyns fell on the battlefield, Vasily Vasilyevich (died in 1619) was even one of the contenders for the Russian throne. Princes, senators, scientists, military men, numerous representatives of the Golitsyns served Russia faithfully for six centuries, taking a prominent place in the history of their Fatherland.
Russian diplomat, colonel, active privy councilor, chamberlain, ambassador, chemist, mineralogist, volcanologist - that's all one outstanding man, representative of the third branch of the Golitsyn princes (Alekseevichs), grandson of Princess Anastasia Petrovna Golitsyn (nee Princess Prozorovskaya, member of the All-Joking Council established by Peter I), son of Lieutenant of the Butyrsky Regiment, Prince Alexei Ivanovich Golitsyn (1707–1739) and Princess Daria Vasilievna Gagarina (1708– 1774 ) Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn.
Alexey Ivanovich Golitsyn b. 3 March 1707 d. 5 June 1739
Entry:183789
Full tree
Generational painting
The Golitsyn family
Gender male
Full name
from birth Alexey Ivanovich Golitsyn
Parents
; Anastasia Petrovna Prozorovskaya (Golitsyna) [Prozorovskie] b. 22 October 1665 d. 10 March 1729
Events
Title: Prince
Military rank: Lieutenant of Artillery
April 18, 1728 marriage: ; Daria Vasilievna Gagarina (Golitsyna) [Gagarins] b. 8 May 1708 d. 1774
Had - 5 CHILDREN
February 9, 1729 birth of a child:
; Ivan Alekseevich Golitsyn [Golitsyn] b. 9 February 1729 d. 1 August 1767
6 April 1731 birth of a child:
; Petr Alekseevich Golitsyn [Golitsyn] b. 6 April 1731 d. 4 May 1810
February 21, 1732 birth of a child:
; Fyodor Alekseevich Golitsyn [Golitsyn] b. February 21, 1732 d. 1782
4 April 1733 birth of a child:
; Alexey Alekseevich Golitsyn [Golitsyn] b. 4 April 1733
May 15, 1734 birth of a child: Moscow, Russia,
; Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn [Golitsyn] b. 15 May 1734 d. 23 February 1803
1735 birth of a child:
; Ekaterina Alekseevna Golitsyna (Golovina) [Golitsyn] b. 1735 d. 1802
Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn b. 15 May 1734 d. 23 February 1803
Entry:183861
Full tree
Generational painting
The Golitsyn family
Gender male
Full name
from birth Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn
Parents
Title: Prince
3 August 1768 marriage: Berlin, ; Amalia-Adelheid von Schmettau [?] b. 16 August 1734 d. 15 April 1806
November 26, 1769 birth of a child: Berlin, Prussia, ; Marianna Doroteya Golitsyna (Salm-Reiferscheid-Krautheim) [Golitsyn] b. November 26, 1769 d. 11 December 1823
11 December 1770 birth of a child: The Hague, Netherlands, ; Dimetrius-Augustin Golitsyn [Golitsyn] b. 11 December 1770 d. 24 April 1840
Russian scientist and diplomat, ambassador to France and the Netherlands, friend of Voltaire and other French educators, honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1778). Author of works on natural science, philosophy, political economy. Supporter of the mitigation of serfdom.
SON of Daria Vasilievna Gagarina (1708–1774)
Photo - loons
Daria Vasilievna Gagarina (1708–1774) Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn.
Like his brothers, Dmitry Golitsyn studied at Cadet Corps, then continued his education at German universities, where he studied mainly physical and mathematical sciences. At first, according to the custom of that time, Prince Golitsyn was listed in military service in the Izmailovsky regiment (in 1757, with the rank of captain, he was sent to French army), and then he moved to the diplomatic service, which he began in Paris in 1760 under Prince D. M. Golitsyn (1721–1793), who temporarily filled the envoy’s place. In 1762–1763, with the rank of embassy adviser, having received an appointment from Peter III, Golitsyn was charge d'affaires in France, and in October 1763, Catherine II appointed twenty-six-year-old Prince Golitsyn as minister plenipotentiary at the Versailles court with the rank of chamber cadet (possibly an appointment was due to the fact that brother D. A. Golitsyna Peter, captain of the Izmailovsky regiment, was an active participant in the coup of 1762, which brought Catherine to the throne).
While serving in Paris, Golitsyn mainly had to deal with Polish question, which complicated relations between France and Russia. Another important aspect of his activities was the strengthening of cultural ties between the two countries. In his private reports to Catherine II, D. A. Golitsyn introduced her to various phenomena of the social and intellectual life of France, in particular, it was he who proposed the candidacy of the sculptor Etienne Falconet to create a monument to Peter I in St. Petersburg. Through Prince Golitsyn, the Russian Empress negotiated the transfer publication of the "Encyclopedia" of Diderot and D'Alembert in one of the cities of Russia, after the French authorities banned the printing of new volumes. Through the mediation of a young envoy, Catherine II acquired a collection of books from Diderot, who was in need of money, and he himself was appointed her librarian for life. Golitsyn was a supporter of the conclusion trade agreement with France and in a report dated April 13, 1766, he argued to the Empress that “the agreement cannot but be important for Your Majesty’s empire, since Russia constantly needs French goods, which are generally almost cheaper than other European ones.” Catherine replied: “At least everyone wasn’t there.” But, being an opponent of the import of French goods, she was not averse to luring representatives of French industry and instructed Golitsyn to persuade French Protestants to move to Russia. This gave rise to unpleasant explanations with French government. Misunderstandings were also caused by the refusal of the Versailles court to give the Russian Empress the title Votre Majeste Imperiale under the pretext that the application of any epithet to the words Votre Majeste (“Your Majesty”) was contrary to the rules of the French language. On Golitsyn’s report on this dated April 28, 1766, Catherine II wrote: “I’m against regular language and the Russian protocol to accept letters without the proper title." As a result of disputes, Golitsyn in August 1767 was ordered to "leave Paris without an audience", transferring control of the mission to an adviser. However, he was so accustomed to Parisian life that he could not part with France even in November asked permission to stay abroad to continue his education.However, neither his direct superiors nor the Empress, to whom Golitsyn addressed through Falcone, gave him this opportunity (Catherine II expressed the opinion that he would find an opportunity to use his talents to good use in his fatherland). During his stay in Russia, Dmitry Alekseevich received the title of actual chamberlain and the rank of privy councilor. In August 1769, Prince Golitsyn was appointed “plenipotentiary and extraordinary minister under States General United Provinces of the Lower Netherlands", but only in March 1770 was accepted in The Hague by the government of the republic. diplomatic activity in the Netherlands for the most part was aimed at ensuring the safety of Russian merchant ships during the war for the independence of the British colonies in North America. Golitsyn sympathized with the struggle of the North American colonies for independence; some historians believe that he was even the initiator of the creation and drafter of the “Declaration of Armed Neutrality” (1780), under the terms of which countries that did not participate in the war received the right to forcefully protect their ships carrying goods warring powers, which, of course, was not good for England. Golitsyn convinced the stadtholder of the Netherlands, William V, who had previously been a supporter of England, to join the countries that adopted the Declaration. After staying in The Hague for 12 years, in 1782 Prince Golitsyn was transferred to Turin, but he did not want to go there and, upon request, was dismissed with a pension (probably his recall from The Hague and subsequent appointment as envoy to Turin is explained by the dissatisfaction of the Russian court with Golitsyn’s contacts with John Adams, US Representative to the Netherlands). Dmitry Alekseevich was awarded during his diplomatic service the title of full chamberlain (1769) and the Order of St. Anne (November 24, 1782). Having left The Hague in 1782, Golitsyn settled in Brunswick. In recent years he was seriously ill and experienced financial difficulties. Prince Golitsyn died of tuberculosis in Brunswick on March 16, 1803, at the age of 69, and was buried in the cemetery of the Church of St. Nicholas. Ironically, the grave has not survived, just like the personal archive of the prince, who died during the Second World War, kept in Brunswick.
However, D. A. Golitsyn made his mark not only in the diplomatic field. He was a true son of the Age of Enlightenment, was friends with Voltaire Diderot and other French educators, and was interested in natural sciences, philosophy, political economy.
Even while working in Paris, Golitsyn was interested in scientific and technical innovations, followed natural science literature and maintained correspondence with scientists. Golitsyn's letters, which he sent to the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences through diplomatic channels, were valuable because in the last decade of the 18th century and the first years of the 19th century, almost no literature came to Russia from abroad.
Like many naturalists of the 18th century, Golitsyn was interested in various fields of science. Having become the Russian envoy to Holland, he established connections with Dutch scientists from different cities. Around 1776, Golitsyn created his home laboratory in The Hague, but he also experimented in other people's laboratories, and also assisted other scientists. Judging by a letter dated February 28, 1778 to the Dutch mathematician and physicist Swinden, Golitsyn had the largest electrostatic machine of his own design at that time (the diameter of two disks was 800 mm). Having retired in 1783, the prince was able to come to grips with scientific research.
In 1777, he sent his “Letter on Some Subjects of Electricity” to the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences, later published as a separate brochure. For this work he was elected a corresponding member of the Academy, as well as a foreign member of the Imperial-Royal Academy of Sciences and Fine Letters in Brussels. In addition, Golitsyn collected a rich collection of minerals and published more than a dozen works in this field.
He became widely known in scientific circles, became a foreign member of the Swedish and Berlin Academies of Sciences, and president of the Jena Mineralogical Society.
Golitsyn's socio-political views developed within the framework of the noble-aristocratic worldview, under the influence of Western European ideology, mainly the ideas of the physiocrats and French enlighteners. In 1773, he posthumously published the work of K. A. Helvetius “On Man” in The Hague. Calling for the “planting” of science and art in Russia in order to overcome “ignorance,” Golitsyn considered the most important and useful knowledge in this regard to be philosophy, which teaches how to be highly moral, how to soften passions and control oneself, and instills humanity and kindness in a person. At the same time, he considered French economists to be real philosophers, in whose defense he wrote in French great job"On the Spirit of Economists, or Economists Exonerated from the Charge that Their Principles Are the Basis of french revolution"(1796). In his ideas about man, Golitsyn significantly diverged from orthodox Christian views and was guided by the achievements of natural science anthropology of the 18th century. Social order, according to Golitsyn, this is a branch of general physical order; its laws should not be arbitrary; property, security, freedom - principles of social order consistent with the physical order of nature. Slavery, as a state contrary to freedom, is the last, according to Golitsyn, degree of degradation human being, humiliation of reason, corruption of morals. On this basis, he advocated the liberation of the peasant from serfdom, without land, but with the right to movable and immovable property. Believing that the land should be the inviolable property of the noble landowners, Golitsyn proposed releasing the peasants for high redemption payments without allocating land. He called on Empress Catherine II to set an example of the liberation of the peasants. However, Golitsyn believed that “having moved so quickly from slavery to freedom, they [the peasants] will not use it to strengthen their well-being and most of them will indulge in idleness.” Sharing the principle “Freedom in a monarchy, slavery in a republic,” he preached the ideal of a monarchy based on “fair” laws. Free thinking, speeches in defense of philosophy as an independent science, naturalistic ideas with elements of deism and mechanism, anthropology objectively placed D. A. Golitsyn in opposition to the dominant Orthodox religious worldview, strengthened the Renaissance and Enlightenment tendencies in Russian philosophical thought of the second half of the 18th century.
II.
Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn
- colonel, active privy councilor, chamberlain, ambassador, chemist, mineralogist, volcanologist. Representative of the third branch of the Golitsyn princes - the Golitsyn-Alekseevichs, whose ancestor was A.A. Golitsyn (1632--1694). The fifth son of lieutenant of the Butyrsky regiment Alexei Ivanovich Golitsyn (d. June 5, 1739) and Daria Vasilievna, née Princess Gagarina. Dmitry's early childhood may have been spent in an estate near Moscow or in Moscow, where his father's regiment was stationed. He received his education, like his brothers, in the Cadet Corps. For some time he served as a captain in the army. Since 1754 he served in the College of Foreign Affairs. Diplomatic Service began in Paris in 1760 - with D.M. Golitsyn temporarily filling the place of envoy. Under the new envoy, P.G. Chernyshev, Golitsyn did not have a specific position; his only duty was to pay weekly visits to Choiseul. In 1762 he was appointed by Peter III as an adviser to the embassy. In the fall of 1763, Catherine II appointed Golitsyn minister plenipotentiary at the Versailles court with the rank of chamber cadet. Perhaps the appointment is due to the fact that Golitsyn’s brother Peter, captain of the Izmailovsky regiment, was an active participant in the 1762 coup. While serving in Paris, Golitsyn mainly had to deal with the Polish issue, which complicated relations between France and Russia. Another important aspect of his activities was the strengthening of cultural ties between the two countries. In connection with the French authorities prohibiting the printing of new volumes of the Encyclopedia, the Empress, through Golitsyn, negotiated to move the publication to one of the cities of Russia. Golitsyn recommended Grimm as the supplier of the magazine "Literary Correspondence" for Catherine II. Through the mediation of the envoy, the empress acquired a collection of books by Diderot, who was in need of money, and he himself was appointed her librarian for life. With the help of Golitsyn, a sculptor was found to work on the monument to Peter I - Etienne Falconet. While serving in Holland, he did not break ties with friends from France: Diderot, Montesquieu, D'Alembert and Voltaire and remained an adviser on cultural issues. "Return" prodigal son", Rembrandt (circa 1666-1669, Hermitage). Acquired through the mediation of D.A. Golitsyn. Golitsyn was also involved in the selection and acquisition of works of art for sending to St. Petersburg: with his help, the collections of Croz, Cobenzl, and Feitham were purchased for the Hermitage. Diderot spoke about the artistic preferences of the prince: I properly felt the current decline in painting only after the acquisitions made by Prince Golitsyn for Her Majesty and which attracted my attention to old paintings . You will get a great collection there! The prince, our mutual friend, was incredibly successful in his knowledge of art. You yourself will be surprised how he understands, feels, judges. And this, my friend, is because he has high thoughts and a beautiful soul. And a person with such a soul does not have bad taste. In 1767, due to a diplomatic conflict: belittling the title of Catherine II in official correspondence with the St. Petersburg Versailles court, Golitsyn was ordered to “leave Paris without an audience.” During his stay in Russia, he received the rank of full chamberlain and the rank of privy councilor. In 1769 he was appointed "Minister Plenipotentiary and Extraordinary to the States General of the United Provinces of the Lower Netherlands." His diplomatic activities in The Hague were largely aimed at ensuring the safety of Russian merchant ships during the war for the independence of the British colonies in North America. The extent of Golitsyn’s participation in the creation of the “Declaration of Armed Neutrality” (1780) is not fully clear. However, according to the research of historians and, above all, N.N. Bolkhovitinov, Golitsyn was the initiator of the creation of the “Declaration...” and the compiler of its draft. Golitsyn convinced Stadtholder Wilhelm V, who had previously been a supporter of England, to join the countries that adopted the “Declaration...”. Probably, the dissatisfaction of the Russian court with Golitsyn's contacts with Adams, the US representative in the Netherlands, explains his recall from The Hague and subsequent appointment as envoy to Turin (November 24, 1782). Having never left for Turin, at the end of 1783 Golitsyn resigned and remained to live in Holland. In 1767, forced to leave France, Golitsyn asked permission to stay abroad to continue his education. Neither his direct superiors nor the Empress, to whom Golitsyn addressed through Falcone, gave him this opportunity. Due to health reasons, he delayed his departure to Russia for several months. In the summer of 1768, while undergoing treatment in Aachen, the prince met the daughter of the Prussian field marshal Amalie von Schmettau, who accompanied Frederick II's daughter-in-law Ferdinanda on a trip to the resort. The wedding took place in Aachen on August 14, 1768. The young people arrived in St. Petersburg in October of the same year. As soon as Golitsyn received a new appointment, the couple left for Holland. In Berlin, the Golitsyns had a daughter, Marianne (December 7, 1769), and a year later in The Hague, a son, Dmitry (December 22, 1770). From 1774, perhaps seeking a less formal lifestyle, Amalia Golitsyna lived near The Hague and raised her children. At first, she shared her husband’s atheistic way of thinking, but the princess later became very religious. In 1780, there was a break between the spouses, and Amalia Golitsyna moved to Munster with her children. In 1786, the princess converted to Catholicism and opened a religious-mystical salon (Kreise von MEnster). Nevertheless, the couple corresponded and Golitsyn sometimes visited his family in Munster. During his service in France, Golitsyn was a regular visitor to the salon of Victor Mirabeau, a kind of branch of the circle of the creator of physiocracy, F. Quesnay. He became one of the first Russians to join the ideas of the physiocrats. In his letters to Chancellor A.M. Golitsyn, understanding the need to increase agricultural productivity in Russia, D. Golitsyn spoke out for the liberation of peasants and granting them ownership of property, the gradual formation of land ownership, through the purchase of land by farmers, the creation of a middle class, and the destruction of subsistence farming. In his correspondence with the Chancellor, Golitsyn referred to the example of Denmark; he closely followed the progress of socio-economic reforms in this country. In 1766, Golitsyn studied more than half of the works on legislation favorable to agriculture submitted to a competition announced by the Economic Society in Bern. In letters to A.M. Golitsyn, the envoy retells and extensively quotes some competition works. Believing that changes should be achieved gradually, through the power of persuasion, he believed that the most effective would be the example set by the empress herself. Golitsyn’s letters were read by Catherine II, judging by the notes left on them, who was very skeptical of his proposals, and, unlike the prince, did not idealize the noble landowners. A supporter of social reforms, Golitsyn was nevertheless an opponent of the revolutionary coup. Later, under the influence of the events of the French Revolution, he would write: ... the Jacobins are presented to us as legislators, the sans-culottes - as sovereigns, freedom, complete, absolute equality, etc. - as the basis of a constitution that should give happiness and glory to the human race; where, finally, having proclaimed freedom of speech and press, opinions differing from those of the masters of the day are responded to with blows of a lance and a guillotine... In 1796, Golitsyn published the book “On the Spirit of Economists, or Economists Acquitted of the Accusation that Their Principles and ideas formed the basis of the French Revolution" (“De l"esprit des economistes ou les economistes justifies d"avoir pose par leurs principes les bases de la revolution francaise"), where he argued that the physiocrats of the older generation did not strive for revolution, but tried support the collapsing existing system. Even while working in Paris, Golitsyn was interested in scientific and technical innovations, followed natural science literature and maintained correspondence with scientists. Golitsyn's letters, sent to the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences through diplomatic channels, were valuable because in the last decade of the 18th century and the first years of the 19th century, almost no literature came to Russia from abroad. Like many naturalists of the 18th century, Golitsyn was interested in various fields of science. Having become the Russian envoy to Holland, he established connections with Dutch scientists from different cities. Around 1776, Golitsyn created his home laboratory in The Hague, but also experimented in other people's laboratories, and also assisted other scientists. Judging by a letter dated February 28, 1778 to Swinden, Golitsyn had the largest electrostatic machine at that time (the diameter of two disks was 800 mm) of his own design. After retiring in 1783, the prince was able to seriously engage in scientific research. Golitsyn summarized the results of his experiments on electricity in the works: “Letter about some objects of electricity...” and “Observations of natural electricity through kite". "In the first work, the question of the nature of electricity was considered (Golitsyn's concept is one of the variations of the fluid theory), a guess was made about "rays emanating from a positively charged body", the topic of lightning protection devices was discussed, as well as the influence of electricity on biological processes (using the example of electrification chicken eggs hatched by a hen). In his second work, Golitsyn drew an analogy between a cloud carrying an electric charge and a Leyden jar and described attempts to charge the latter using a kite in different weather, noting the lack of a stable result. Golitsyn also conducted a series of experiments to prove that that a pointed arrester is more effective than rounded or flat arresters. In the article “Letter on the Shape of Lightning Rods" (July 6, 1778, published in 1780), he covered this issue in detail. Golitsyn developed the design of a single-rod lightning rod, ensuring the insulation of its metal parts from the building structures of the protected structures to prevent damage when the rod is heated by a lightning strike. A similar lightning rod was installed at Rosendal Castle (Geldern). Golitsyn in this installation anticipated modern standards lightning protection of explosive and fire hazardous objects. Together with Swinden, Golitsyn carried out experiments to discover the influence of electricity on magnetism. Scientists were one step away from success: placing a magnetic needle in the plane of a spark discharge, they did not detect its movement under the influence of electricity. A positive result could be achieved if the arrow were above or below the discharge. Based on unsuccessful experiments, Swinden denied the connection between electricity and magnetism. Having become interested in mineralogy in the 1780s, Golitsyn, like many others, began collecting specimens, mostly in the mountains of Germany. His collection of minerals was replenished with receipts from Russia; P.S. Pallas provided the prince with great assistance in this. Forster, who visited Golitsyn in 1790, spoke about it this way: “The prince’s mineralogical cabinet is the collection of an expert who himself collected and preserved it, which happens rarely and is instructive in its own way. We were surprised at the one and a half pound block of flexible Peiresque sandstone brought from Brazil; The prince's experiments have convinced us that the decomposed types of granites of Siebengebirg near Bonn are even more strongly attracted by a magnet than basalts." Golitsyn highly valued the works of Buffon, with whom he knew personally and corresponded. The prince followed Buffon's principle of historicism in mineralogy, where the mineral was considered as a "document of nature's past." According to Golitsyn, minerals should be studied not only through chemical analysis, but also by the geography of their deposits, the form of crystallization, physical properties. Realizing the need to classify minerals and not finding any of the systems existing at that time satisfactory, Golitsyn in 1792 proposed his own, consisting of “the greatest possible simplification... reducing the number of species that can be nothing more than varieties.” In his classification there were 8 categories (quartz, metals and semimetals (native), calcites, products of flora and fauna, acids and salts, mixed substances, metals and mineralogical semimetals, products of volcanic activity), divided into classes and varieties. His "Treatise, or Abridged and methodological description Minerals", the mineralogy textbook itself, went through five editions. Later Golitsyn saw weak sides his classification, admitting that “I was terribly mistaken in thinking that it was already possible to systematize fossils according to their filiation and genesis.” The last and most major work Golitsyn was "Collection of titles in alphabetical order accepted in mineralogy for earths and stones, metals and semimetals and rock resins..." (Gallitzin D. Recuel de noms par ordre aiphabetique apropries en Mineralogie aux terres et pierres, aux metaux et demi metaux et au bitume... Brunsvik, 1801, p. 320; Nouvelle edition. Brunsvik, 1801, p. 316). The second, corrected, edition of the "Collection..." was published just before the death of the author. The book was not translated into Russian, but domestic mineralogists were familiar with it , in particular, V. M. Severgin, when compiling the “Detailed Mineralogical Dictionary,” used material from Golitsyn’s “Collection...” While examining the Spessart plateau on one of his last trips, the prince discovered an unknown mineral. Golitsyn sent a sample of the mineral to Klaproth in Berlin: chemical research showed that it is titanium oxide with iron. The prince sent a sample of the mineral with the results of the analysis to the Jena Mineralogical Society. Its founder and director Lenz called the mineral “gallicinite" (the name lasted until the middle of the 19th century; the name rutile is currently used). In the summer of 1799, Golitsyn was elected president of the Jena Mineralogical Society. Despite serious illness, the prince took an active part in its work. Before his death, Golitsyn donated his collection to the Mineralogical Museum of Jena (a cargo weighing 1850 kg arrived in December 1802), asking that the samples be placed according to the Haüy system. Golitsyn was one of the first to study the extinct volcanoes of Germany, noting the surprising silence of local naturalists when “their [volcanoes] number is amazingly large, their products are very diverse and they are constantly in sight; the materials that emitted these volcanoes have been used for centuries... ". The prince saw the reason for this in the relative youth of mineralogy and volcanology and in the absence of a unified classification of minerals. "Memoir about some extinct volcanoes Germany" was provided by Golitsyn in February 1785 to the Brussels academicians (Gallitzin D. Memoire sur guelgues vilcans etenits de l "Allemaqne. - Mem. Acad. Bruxelles, 1788, 5, p. 95-114). In his work, the prince summarized the results of research on volcanoes in the Rhine region below Andernach, in Hesse and near Göttingen (in the Fulda River basin) and noted the successes of French scientists in studying the volcanoes of Auvergne, Languedoc and Dauphine. While working on his “Memoir...” Golitsin used the works of Buffon, Dolomier, and Hamilton and criticized a number of provisions of Neptunism. Member-Director of the Dutch Society of Sciences (1777), Honorary Member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1778), Foreign Member of the Brussels Academy of Sciences (1778), Foreign Member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences (1788), Foreign Member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences (1793), Member of the German Academy of Sciences Academy of Naturalists (Leopoldina, Halle) under the name of Maecenas III (1795), Foreign Member of the London Royal Society(1798), Member of the St. Petersburg Free Economic Society (1798), President of the Jena Mineralogical Society (1799-1803). In 1795, before the occupation of Holland by French troops, Golitsyn moved to Brunswick. In recent years he was seriously ill and experienced financial difficulties. He died of consumption in Brunswick on March 16, 1803, and was buried in the cemetery of the Church of St. Nicholas (the grave has not survived). Personal archive The prince was kept in Brunswick and died during the Second World War. Awards: Order of St. Anne, 1st degree. In 1771, having learned from Helvetius’ relatives about the unpublished work he left behind “On Man, His Mental Abilities and His Education” (De l’homme, de ses facultes intellectuelles et de son education), Golitsyn, who was personally acquainted with the philosopher and shared his views , decided to publish the book. Through the vice-chancellor, the prince informed the empress of his intention. Catherine II requested a copy of Helvetius’ work. In December 1772, the first part of the book was rewritten, but, without waiting for Catherine’s decision, Golitsyn published the book in The Hague (June 1773) with dedication to the empress. The work of Helvetius, with some provisions of which not everyone agreed in France, received approval in Russia. In 1773, Golitsyn edited the book of the professor of the Paris Military School Keralio “The History of the War of Russia with Turkey, in particular the campaign of 1769.” Work of Keralio was published in St. Petersburg in French without indicating the author's name in one volume with "Genealogy of the Golitsyn Princes" and "Notes on an anonymous article from the "Military Encyclopedia" about Russian-Turkish war and the campaign of 1769." According to historians, the second and third parts of the publication were written by D.A. Golitsyn. "Remarks" are a critical analysis of an article that appeared in January-April 1770 in the magazine "L" Encyclopedie Militaire, where in the course of the military campaign was presented in a distorted light, and also contained attacks on the commander of the 1st Russian Army A.M. Golitsyn. In 1785, Golitsyn translated the first description into French physical geography and the economy of Crimea K.I.Gablitsa. " Physical Description Tauride region by its location and across all three kingdoms of nature" was published in 1788 in The Hague with a preface and comments by Golitsyn, who noted that the author continued the work begun by descriptions of travel "through the vast expanses of the empire" of Pallas, Johann and Samuil Gmelin, Lepyokhin. In 1790-1793, the Parisian Journal de physique, published by Jean Metairie, published several articles by J. A. Deluc attacking his scientific opponents, including Buffon.In response to Deluc and the chemist Balthasar de Sage, who also published in the journal materials directed against progressive French naturalists, the anonymous Defense de M. de Buffon (1793, The Hague) was published. In Russia, this work was published in the magazine "New Monthly Works" translated by D. Velichkovsky, N. Fedorov, P. Kedrin and I .Sidorovsky. Based on the surviving copy with Golitsyn’s dedicatory inscription, it was established that he was the author of the pamphlet. This is the only work of the prince that was translated into Russian. Recognizing some of Buffon's theories as erroneous, the author of the "Defense..." consistently rejected the accusations of Deluc and Sazh against him: ... scientists of all countries, working to improve the sciences, continue to always show respect for them [Buffon's works], despite the crept into them errors. I spent a deliberate part of my life getting to know Camper, Allaman and others; I know quite a few scientists in Germany. They are not exactly the opinions of Messrs. Deluc and Sazh: they think and speak frankly, they even write that the work of M. de Buffon, with all its errors, is and will forever remain the creation of a man with talents, and not a dry, so to speak, journal, like that of ancient Pliny; this is a collection of events that led him to reasoning and conclusions, whether they were fair or false, but always proving that he had to reflect and delve deeply into everything that his florid pen had written for us. Died in Brunswick on March 28, 1803.Golitsyn's works:
"Lettre sur quelques objets d"Electricite" (The Hague 1778, in Russian, St. Petersburg, 1778); "Defense de Buffon" (The Hague, 1793); "De l"esprit des economists ou les economists justifies d"avoir pose par leurs principes les bases de la revolution francaise" (Braunschw., 1796), etc.; published the posthumous work of Helvetius: "De l"homme, de ses facultes intellectuelles et de son education" (The Hague, 1772), the manuscript of which was purchased by purchase , as well as the work of Keralio, “Histore de la guerre entre la Russie et la Turquie, et particulierement de la campaqne de 1769” (Amsterdam, 1773), with its notes.
Literature:
House of the Romanovs. Compilation by P.H. Grebelsky and A.B. Mirvis, St. Petersburg, LIO "Editor", 1992, ISBN 5-7058-0160-2; Bak I.S. Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn: Philosophical, socio-political and economic views. -- Historical Notes, 1948, 26, pages 258--272; Golitsyn N.N., prince. Family of princes Golitsyn. St. Petersburg, 1898. Volume 1; Danilov A.A. Reference materials on the history of Russia of the 9th-19th centuries; Semevsky V.I. The peasant question in Russia in the 18th and first half of the 19th centuries. Volume 1. St. Petersburg, 1888; Tsverava G.K. Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn (1734--1803) / Editor-in-chief, Doctor of Chemical Sciences Yu.I. Solovyov. Academy of Sciences of the USSR. - Leningrad: Science, Leningrad branch, 1985. - 185 pages. -- (Scientific biographical series). -- 40,000 copies. Source here: http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/kakula/post277620000/
Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn
Golitsyn Dmitry Alekseevich (1734-1803) - prince, diplomat. From 1754 in the service of the College of Foreign Affairs, from 1760 - in the Russian embassy in Paris, where he established friendly relations with outstanding educators - Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu , D "Alember and others. He was a translator of a number of their works into Russian. In his reports to St. Petersburg he proposed to free the peasants from serfdom, sell them part of the state lands, etc. In 1769 - 1782 - envoy to The Hague. One of the authors of the adopted Catherine II Declaration of Armed Neutrality (1780). Advocated for recognition by Russia United States of America, met with the future US President D. Adams. After resigning, he lived abroad and studied science (mineralogy, physics, chemistry, biology, etc.).
Danilov A.A. History of Russia IX - XIX centuries. Reference materials., M, 1997.
Golitsyn Dmitry Alekseevich (1734-1803), Russian philosopher, economist and diplomat, member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1790), a number foreign academies and scientific societies. In his economic writings he paid considerable attention to the issues of population development in Russia. Being a supporter of the physiocrats, Golitsyn believed that agricultural labor ensures the existence and development of the state. He advocated the easing of serfdom, proposing to release peasants for high redemption payments, without allocating land. Golitsyn condemned the prohibition of the transition of peasants to the urban estate and believed that the reason for the weak development of industry in Russia was the small number of people employed in industry and trade. Golitsyn's economic ideas were actually directed against serfdom and promoted development, albeit limited, by bourgeois relations.
S. D. Valentey.
Demographic encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Editor-in-Chief D.I. Valentey. 1985.
Golitsyn Dmitry Alekseevich (15 (26). 05.1734 - 23.02 (7.03. 1803, Brunswick) - diplomat, scientist, publicist. In 1762-1768 - ambassador to France, in 1768-1798 - in the Netherlands; member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and a number of foreign academies, member of the Free Economic Society. Golitsyn's socio-political views developed within the framework of the noble-aristocratic worldview, influenced by Western European ideology, mainly the ideas of the physiocrats and French enlighteners. While abroad, Golitsyn maintained contacts with such thinkers as O. Mirabeau, Voltaire , D. Diderot; in 1773 he published a posthumous work in The Hague K. A. Helvetia « About a human" Calling for the “planting” of science and art in Russia in order to overcome “ignorance,” Golitsyn considered the most important and useful knowledge in this regard to be philosophy, which teaches how to be highly moral, how to soften passions and control oneself, and instills humanity and kindness in a person. “Jacobins, revolutionaries, propagandists and democrats,” from his point of view, “illegally” “usurped” the honorary title of philosophers. He considered the French “economists” to be real philosophers, in whose defense he wrote a large work in French, “On the Spirit of Economists, or Economists Acquitted of the Accusation that Their Principles Are the Basis of the French Revolution” (1796). According to Golitsyn's natural philosophical ideas, the basic natural laws are a matter of divine wisdom; they form the primary order of nature; but nature does not remain in a state of unchanging peace. Golitsyn shared his thoughts J. Buffon about the emergence of a new order of things in nature through connections, decompositions, new combinations of its elements, thereby paying tribute to deism and mechanism of the 18th century. In his ideas about man, Golitsyn significantly diverged from orthodox Christian views and was guided by the achievements of natural science anthropology of the 18th century. In his opinion, man is a two-legged animal, distinguished from other animals by the ability to speak, to communicate his ideas to his peers using language, the desire to see everything and know everything out of curiosity; The unique quality of a person is to have property. Social order, according to Golitsyn, is a branch of the general physical order; its laws should not be arbitrary; property, security, freedom - principles of social order consistent with the physical order of nature. A state contrary to freedom - slavery - is the last, according to Golitsyn, degree of degradation of the human being, humiliation of the mind, corruption of morals. On this basis, he advocated the liberation of the peasant from serfdom, without land, but with the right to movable and immovable property. Golitsyn makes the state of society as a whole, its morals, the character of the nation, the development of science and the arts dependent on “good” laws (or lawlessness), on “good” (or “bad”) political institutions. He shared the thought D. Yuma about the consequences arising from “good” laws: laws ensure property, property gives rise to confidence and peace of mind, from which curiosity develops, and from curiosity knowledge is born. Sharing the principle “Freedom in a monarchy, slavery in a republic,” he preached the ideal of a monarchy based on “fair” laws.
Based on the principles of the physiocrats, of all classes of society, Golitsyn considered the class of landowners to be the main producing and “making up everything in the nation”, which should be the most privileged class. He believed that the existence of a third estate, although not productive in nature, was useful for Russia. Free thinking, speeches in defense of philosophy as an independent science, naturalistic ideas with elements of deism and mechanism, anthropology objectively put Golitsyn in opposition to the dominant Orthodox religious worldview, strengthened the Renaissance and Enlightenment tendencies in Russian philosophical thought of the 2nd half of the 18th century.
V. F. Pustarnakov
Russian philosophy. Encyclopedia. Ed. second, modified and expanded. Under general edition M.A. Olive. Comp. P.P. Apryshko, A.P. Polyakov. – M., 2014, p. 137.
Works: Letters // Favorites. prod. Russian thought of the second half of the 18th century. M„ 1952. T. 2. P. 33-45.
Literature: Bak I. S. Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn (Philosophical, socio-political and economic views) // Historical notes. 1948. T. 26.
Golitsyn Dmitry Alekseevich (15.V.1734 - 23.II.1803), prince, - Russian scientist and diplomat. Author of books and articles on natural science, philosophy and political economy. Honorary member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences and a number of foreign academies and scientific societies; member of the Free Economic Society in St. Petersburg. In 1762-1768 - ambassador to France, in 1768-1798 - in the Netherlands. Friend of Voltaire, Diderot and other French educators. According to their own philosophical views joined the materialists of the 18th century. In political economy, he declared himself a supporter of the school of physiocrats that emerged in France in the mid-18th century, which had a bourgeois essence in its feudal form. Not understanding this, Golitsyn, after the French bourgeois revolution of the late 18th century, justified physiocratism from the accusation that it formed the basis economic policy French Revolution. Main work: “On the spirit of economists, or Economists acquitted of the accusation that their principles formed the basis of the French Revolution...” (“De l"esprit des économistes ou les économistes justifiés d"avoir posé par leurs principes les bases de la Révolution Française. Par le prince D... de G...", Brunsvick, 1796). Believing that the land should be the inviolable property of the noble landowners, Golitsyn proposed releasing the peasants for high redemption payments, without allocating land. At the same time, the tenants of the landowners' land would be rich peasants exploiting their landless fellow villagers. Such a proposal objectively opened up some scope for the development of bourgeois relations under the conditions of the serf system. Some of Golitsyn's numerous letters ( stored in the Central State Archive of Civil Aviation, Golitsyn Fund, files 1111-1125) published in the book: Selected works of Russian thinkers of the second half of the 18th century (vol. 2, 1952, pp. 33-45).
I. S. Bak. Moscow.
Soviet historical encyclopedia. In 16 volumes. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1973-1982. Volume 4. THE HAGUE - DVIN. 1963.
Literature: Bak I. S., Dmitry Alekseevich Golitsyn. (Philosophical, socio-political and economic views), in the collection: IZ, vol. 26, (M.), 1948; History of Russian economic thought, vol. 1, part 1, M., 1955; Essays on the history of philosophical and socio-political thought of the peoples of the USSR, vol. 1, M., 1955.
Read further:
Philosophers, lovers of wisdom (biographical index).
Essays:
Letters // Favorites prod. Russian thought of the second half of the 18th century. M„ 1952. T. 2. P. 33-45.
Literature:
Favorite Russian works thinkers of the second half of the 18th century, vol. 2, M. 1952.
Bak I. S., D. A Golitsyn (philosophical, socio-political and economic views), in the collection: Historical. notes, vol. 26, [M.], 1948.
History of Russian economic thought, vol. 1, part 1, M., 1955;
Essays on the history of philosophical and socio-political thought of the peoples of the USSR, vol. 1, M., 1955.