Abstract
This chapter relates the tensions arising from importing German scholars into Russia to staff Moscow University, the oldest in Russia, and the newly established one at Kazan. While the German scholars were receptive to the general thrust of Kant’s idealism, their Russian counterparts were far less so, resulting in clashes from the start. The promise of enlightened rule in the first years of the century gave way to reactionary forces that saw philosophy as a threat to the established order.
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Notes
- 1.
Alston 1969: 28–29.
- 2.
Minakov 2011: 253.
- 3.
S. Ponomarev, already in the nineteenth century, attributed it to Karamzin. See Ponomarev 1883: 20.
- 4.
- 5.
Unfortunately, failing to find the journal itself, I have been unable to corroborate this information. Judging from the description found in the secondary literature, the piece is almost certainly the one reprinted as Villers 1899.
- 6.
Ministerstvo 1875: 243.
- 7.
Vellanskij 1805: 59.
- 8.
Vellanskij 1805: 16.
- 9.
Anon. 1805: 33.
- 10.
For the most up-to-date biographical information on Lubkin, see Prijmak 2008.
- 11.
Istorija 1968: 145.
- 12.
Raeff 1967: 409–410.
- 13.
Lubkin 1966: 7.
- 14.
Lubkin in both cases incorrectly provided the titles of the works. The first is Johann Kiesewetter’s Versuch einer faßlichen Darstellung der wichtigsten Wahrheiten der neuern Philosophie, für Uneingeweihte. Nebst einem Anhange, der einen gedrängten Auszug aus Kants Kritik der reinen Vernunft, und die Erklärung der wichtigsten darin vorkommenden Ausdrücke der Schule, enthält, Wilhelm Oehmigke, Berlin, 1795. The second is that by Lazarus Bendavid, most likely his short Rede über den Zweck der Critischen Philosophie, Joseph Stabel, Vienna, 1796.
- 15.
Lubkin 1966: 8.
- 16.
Lubkin 1966: 13.
- 17.
Lubkin 1966: 17.
- 18.
Lubkin 1966: 23.
- 19.
- 20.
Sniadecki 1817: 264. The article, however, appeared without Sniadecki’s name.
- 21.
Sniadecki 1817: 266 f.
- 22.
Sniadecki 1819: 189.
- 23.
Sniadecki 1819: 191.
- 24.
K[achenovskij] 1820: 33–45.
- 25.
Sniadecki 1822: 215.
- 26.
Sniadecki 1822: 226.
- 27.
Sniadecki 1822: 227.
- 28.
Sniadecki 1822: 212.
- 29.
Sniadecki 1979: 119. This is a reprint of an article that originally appeared in Vestnik Evropy, 1823, No. 2.
- 30.
Sniadecki 1979: 120.
- 31.
Androsov 1979: 125
- 32.
Androsov 1979: 127.
- 33.
Androsov 1979: 127.
- 34.
Reinhard’s most philosophical publication before his stay in Russia was Reinhard 1797.
- 35.
As quoted from Reinhard’s 1816 Estestvennoe pravo in Kamenskij 1974a: 302.
- 36.
As quoted from Reinhard’s 1807 Sistema prakticheskoj filosofii in Kamenskij 1974a: 303.
- 37.
Berest 2011: 116.
- 38.
The editor of the final volume of Buhle’s Geschichte informs us in his “Vorbericht” to the second part of the work that Buhle’s manuscript was completed before he set off for Moscow. See Buhle 1805: iii. In a lengthy report on the state of Göttingen University allegedly by a young Russian student there in 1803, the anonymous figure wrote that Buhle “teaches logic, metaphysics, natural law and the history of philosophy. He speaks freely and clearly.” The report was published by a Wilhelm Freigang, a translator attached to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who claimed that it was sent to him to be made public to Russian readers. See Freigang 1803: 187 and 207 f.
- 39.
See Wes 1992: 101–102.
- 40.
Biograficheskij 1855: Vol. I, 126.
- 41.
Vucinich 1963: 211.
- 42.
- 43.
Berest 2011: 117 categorically states that Buhle did use his Lehrbuch for lectures.
- 44.
Buhle 1798: vii.
- 45.
Buhle 1798: 55–56.
- 46.
- 47.
Cvetaev 1816: 86.
- 48.
Cvetaev 1816: 5.
- 49.
For a perceptive and somewhat lengthier treatment of Cvetaev, particularly with respect to natural law, see Berest 2011: 126–128.
- 50.
A new professor, the Viennese Johann Braun, gave a description of Kazan in 1807. He reported that the town had about 17,000 inhabitants. The number decreased, however, during the summer, when many left for the countryside. See Zagoskin 1902b: 668–669.
- 51.
Sukhomlinov offered independent testimony to this in writing, “The foreign professors of the philosophy and juridical faculties were, for the most part, admirers of Kant.” See Sukhomlinov 1865: 109.
- 52.
Sukhomlinov 1865: 72.
- 53.
Sergej Aksakov, who was among the very first students at the newly created Kazan University, provided a brief, though informative and somewhat amusing, account of his experience as a new student. By his own admission, he had acquired a “fair mastery” of French before the University opened, but not of Latin, which he neglected but which would have been beneficial. Among his fellow pupils, few knew German. Although we cannot generalize on the basis of this single example, Aksakov was in all probability not a unique case. See Aksakoff 1917: 121–127.
- 54.
For more information on Levickij, see Bulich 1904: 69–70.
- 55.
For a wealth of information on Gorodchaninov, see Likhachev 1886.
- 56.
- 57.
Bulich 1891: 43.
- 58.
From Fincke’s work Estestvennoe chastnoe, publichnoe i narodnoe pravo as quoted in Kruglov 2009: 254.
- 59.
From Fincke’s work as quoted in Zaleskij 1903a: 278.
- 60.
From Fincke’s work as quoted in Zaleskij 1903a: 279.
- 61.
Zaleskij 1903a: 278.
- 62.
From Fincke’s work as quoted in Kamenskij 1974a: 301–302.
- 63.
Bunge 1830: 459–460.
- 64.
For additional biographical information, see, in particular Bulich 1891: 778–792.
- 65.
Koyré wrote that Solncev “was the first to make known the theoretical philosophy of Kant in Russia….” As we have seen, this is far from the case. Solncev’s interest in Kant, to the extent that there was one, was more or less confined to practical philosophy. See Koyré 1926: 104 f.
- 66.
Another source of information about Solncev’s allegiance is Zaleskij, who had access to a manuscript copy of Solncev’s lectures on natural law preserved in the Kazan University archives. Although he throws little additional light on the extent of Solncev’s familiarity with Kant’s writings, Zaleskij does say that Solncev devoted a portion of his course to Kant’s contributions to natural law and that Solncev referred to Kant’s definition of law as excellent. Nonetheless, the material in the course bears a similarity to Fincke’s book on the same topic. See Zaleskij 1903b: 71–76.
- 67.
Quoted in Feoktistov 1864b: 14 f.
- 68.
Quoted in Feoktistov 1864a: 483–484. Sreznevskij afterward went on to teach logic and rhetoric at a school in St. Petersburg (1820–1824). He later quit teaching and entered a monastery.
- 69.
Magnickij objected precisely to this emphasis on the role of reason in ethics. Commenting on Sreznevskij’s article, he wrote, “If moral feeling can be guided only by the suggestions of reason and innate human instincts, then what purpose does the law of revealed religion serve?” Quoted in Feoktistov 1864a: 488–489.
- 70.
Sreznevskij 1817: 193–194.
- 71.
Sreznevskij 1817: 196 f.
- 72.
Kruglov 2009: 257.
- 73.
Zagoskin 1904: 275.
- 74.
Quoted in Kamenskij 1971: 112.
- 75.
Quoted in Kamenskij 1971: 114.
- 76.
Quoted in Kamenskij 1971: 115.
- 77.
Lubkin 2005: 11.
- 78.
Lubkin 2005: 15f.
- 79.
Zagoskin 1902a: volume 1, 290–291.
- 80.
Perevoshchikov 1814: 98.
- 81.
Perevoshchikov 1814: 99 f.
- 82.
Perevoshchikov 1816a: 282.
- 83.
Perevoshchikov 1816b: 24.
- 84.
Perevoshchikov 1816b: 27.
- 85.
Perevoshchikov 1816b: 23.
- 86.
Vucinich 1963: 190 f.
- 87.
Stolovich 2008: 94–95.
- 88.
It was at Basel that Nietzsche became acquainted with him, and with his departure Nietzsche tried, albeit unsuccessfully, to secure the now vacant position in philosophy. Ryzhkova 2013: 285.
- 89.
Schwenke 2015: 106.
- 90.
Teichmüller 1882: 6–7.
- 91.
- 92.
Teichmüller 1874: 163.
- 93.
Haltzel 1981: 176.
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Nemeth, T. (2017). A New Century and a New Era – Moscow, Kazan, Dorpat. In: Kant in Imperial Russia. Studies in German Idealism, vol 19. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52914-1_3
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