Alexander Turgenev’s diary and Chaadaev’s first Philosophical Letter: A chronicle of Moscow life (unpublished episodes)

Abstract

The diaries and correspondence of Alexander Turgenev, to this day published only fragmentarily, contain important information on the early, pre-publication history of Petr Chaadaev’s First Philosophical Letter and the first stages of the heated debate provoked by its appearance in print in 1836. The first part of the article illuminates Chaadaev’s attempts to publicize his Letter in France in the mid-1830s. Because of his deep, well-established ties to Paris journalism Turgenev was selected by Chaadaev as his intermediary but showed surprising hesitation. Turgenev, a self-proclaimed Protestant “in his mind,” did not share Chaadaev’s Catholic zeal, and the Letter’s rhetorical fervor could not fully compensate for its derivative dependence on well-worn tropes of European political thought of the time. The article draws on Turgenev’s unpublished letters to Chaadaev to trace Turgenev’s maneuverings that allowed him to avoid the questionable honor of facilitating a French publication by the “Russian de Maistre” or “Russian Lamennais”. The second part of the article is based on Turgenev’s unpublished diary written in Moscow in October-November 1836. Confronted with public outrage after the publication of Chaadaev’s First Letter in Teleskop, Turgenev developed a double strategy. In conversations with Chaadaev and his inner circle, Turgenev harshly criticized Chaadaev’s self-centered ambition that led to the prosecution of the editor of the journal and its censor. At the same time, as a regular participant of the Moscow salons where rage against Chaadaev’s letter was in vogue, Turgenev was possibly the only one to “argue in favor of the freedom to speak freely about Russia”.