Discussions about Russian History > Imperial Russian History

The French and Russian Revolutions

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Mike:
Bolsheviks idolized French revolutionaries and particularily the Jacobins. As late as the end of 1980s, Leningrad boasted Marat St. and Robespierre Enbankment. And - believe it or not - there is still Danton St. in Astrakhan!

Tsarfan:
I think there is another thread running between the Jacobins and the Bolsheviks.

Had the Terror not so discredited the concept of liberalism, Europe might have evolved more along those lines throughout the 19th century -- with that evolution touching even Russia, particularly during the reigns of Alexander I and II.

Instead, with liberalism so thoroughly discredited, the alternatives to reactionary monarchy became increasingly extreme.  Take Karl Marx, for example.  He thought the most fertile soil for his theories lay in the most-developed western nations.  In fact, those nations turned out to be the least receptive to his theories, largely because their adoption of representative government gave them a more constructive alternative to absolutist rule.

So, in a sense, by discrediting liberalism at the beginning of mainland Europe's leap into the industrial era, the Terror paved a road leading directly to the Bolsheviks.

Elisabeth:
Eloquent as always, Tsarfan. I agree with everything you have written here, I only wonder if you have left out one important element:


--- Quote --- Had the Terror not so discredited the concept of liberalism, Europe might have evolved more along those lines throughout the 19th century -- with that evolution touching even Russia, particularly during the reigns of Alexander I and II.
--- End quote ---


And that element is Napoleon. The French Revolution would probably not have succeeded without him. And not only his aggression but also his espousal of the ideals of the French Enlightenment struck their own particular brand of terror in the hearts of the more conservative rulers of Europe, including Catherine the Great and Alexander I. There was much fear amongst the Russian upper classes that the invasion of 1812 would leave in its wake the emancipation of the serfs, as well as that of the Jews from the ghetto of the Pale. It's interesting that well into the late nineteenth century Russian Jews in the Pale were still naming their sons "Napoleon" in memory of the Emperor of the French. I admit I sometimes wonder, would Russia not have been better off if Napoleon had triumphed there? Civil rights, emancipation of the serfs and Jews, the Napoleonic code of justice, etc. Heretical thoughts!

Tsarfan:

--- Quote ---I only wonder if you have left out one important element:  Napoleon.

--- End quote ---


Napoleon poses a difficult case for me.  On one hand, his approach to government contained strong strains of Enlightenment thinking -- the replacement of feudal law with a rationalized legal code based on the equality of all before the law; the basing of military and civil service promotion on merit (although Peter the Great had moved in that direction without the benefit of the Enlightenment); and the view that the citizens of all civilized nations were equally deserving of good government.

On the other hand, he was a conqueror driven by a very personal vision of history and his ordained role in it that brooked no opposition.  Although he had a uniquely progressive vision of a unified Europe, it was a vision of a unified Europe spread out at the foot of his imperial throne.  Liberal though his thinking might have been on some points, it was a liberalism to be conferred by him, not one based on inalienable rights of the citizenry.

I think the watershed in Napoleon's legacy occurred when he crossed the Rhine.  Before that crossing, Napoleon's principles of internal government were admired even among large factions of the upper classes -- including Russia.  Beethoven who, despite his irascibility, took care not to cross certain lines with the nobility from whose hands he fed, saw no risk in dedicating his third symphony to Napoleon.  It was not Napoleon's liberalism, but Napoleon's crowning of himself as emperor, that caused Beethoven to scratch his dedication to Napoleon.

Had Napoleon stayed within the "natural" borders of France, there might still be a Bonaparte on the throne of France today.  But that crossing changed everything.  In the minds of Europe, the tattered credibility of liberalism that Napoleon had pulled from the flames of the Terror were finally and utterly destroyed by putting them in the service of military aggression and personal imperial glory.

So, I think the net result of Napoleon was to complete the job of discrediting liberalism that the Terror had begun in the minds of the the rest of continental Europe.

(I don't quite get the Catherine / Napoleon connection.  She died in 1796, just as Napoleon assumed control of the French army in Italy as reward for his service in suppressing a royalist riot in Paris in 1795.  He was just beginning to make a name for himself that she had probably seen only as a footnote in diplomatic dispatches, if at all.)

Mike:

--- Quote ---well into the late nineteenth century Russian Jews in the Pale were still naming their sons "Napoleon"
--- End quote ---

I've never heard or read of a Russian Jewish boy named Napoleon. Even in assimilated Jewish families children were given only traditional Hebrew names, which might have been complemented with European or Russian names: e.g. Yitzhak often became also Alexander, Tzvi - Grigoriy, Sarra - Sophia, etc. But no Russian Jewish - or non-Jewish - father in his senses would ever name his son Napoleon, however much he could revere the great emperor.

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