#radishchev

[postcard-from-the-past]

Radishchev Art Museum in Saratov, Russia

Russian vintage postcard

[my-russia]

Radishchev’s museum in Saratov

[ruslit]

Radischev: this work is so radical! He says that if the Tsar misbehaves, the Tsar deserves to be hung. Wow, such radical.

The народ puts you on the throne, don’t forget it.

The notion of sentimentality can be played out merely as a literary path (as in Karamzin) or as empathy, political and social (as in Radischev).

Radischev is moderately more archaic when describing regular things than in conversations, but when he is passionately defending an idea, the archaisms seem to come spilling out (see page 143)

“Church Slavic high horse” (see page 202)

Disjuncture between city/countryside is clear in sentimentalism, so its quite shocking that the women of Balgai are so immoral

[ruslit]

In the rise of sentimentalism, it is funny that the linguistic innovator Karamzin is more conservative politically than the archaic Radischev

Helvetius, Russeau, Goethe, Sterne, Richardson, Fielding

Sentimentalists: shift away from Classicism and cartesianism – Lock’s dispute with Descartes

Sentimentalism is based on the personal perception of the world: rule-based aesthetic is becoming less pronounced

Личность – in the abstract. This is not confessional, but “the” sentimental narrator

What genres does Sentimentalism take root in?

Light poetry, the journey, the novella (povest’)

If there is humor in Sentimentalism it is from the picaresque 

[ruslit]

Novikov and Radishchev tried to deal with Russian life in terms of ideas current in the West and demonstrated that the Russian language was rapidly becoming a suitable medium for the discussion of social, moral, and political questions aired in the West.

Neither Radishchev nor Novikov had extraordinary literary talent, but their generation was able to hand over to Karamzin a functional though irregular prose style, which he developed into the first stage of standard literary Russian, the language used by the great writers of the 19th century.

[ruslit]

Radishchev's Journey is a mixture of observed Russian fact, sometimes poignantly described, and humanitarian and libertarian rhetoric entirely in the manner of Helvetius or Rousseau. It has none of the charm and wit of Sterne's Sentimental Journey, which served as its formal model.

Radishchev lets his traveler and various characters he meets along the way discuss a variety of subjects and deliver some fiery tirades against aristocratic landownership, the hubris and reckless luxury of rulers, the evils of slavery, and other such topics. 

In a lengthy excursus on censorship, Radishchev asserts that freedom of thought is the best way to support true faith and that any form of censorship is counterproductive.

Radishchev's charges were true, and therefore powerful.

[ruslit]

Alexander Radishchev (1749-1802) was a well-read philosophy, and a passion adept of the liberal Enlightenment.

After studying law in Germany, he returned to Russia and a served as a military prosecutor and later middle-echelon civil servant. It seems likely that he published Journey from Petersburg to Moscow (1790) in the hope of getting some relief from his straitened circumstances. It very nearly cost him his life.

Radishchev's Journey is an utter surprise if viewed solely in the context of Russian literature, but it is no surprise in the context of the European Enlightenment, in which he partook while in Germany.

Radishchev's violent reaction to the abuses of Russian serfdom is the same as is found in works by European writers of his education and frame of mind who came in contact with it.