A Russian Advocate of Peace: Vasilii Malinovskii (1765-1814)

Vasilii Fedorovich Malinovskii (1765-1814) is a name which has hitherto lacked true resonance in the history of Russian culture. Tt is of course a name known to all students of Alexander Pushkin's biography, for Malinovskii was the first Director of the new Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum, if, sadly, for only the first three of the young poet's years at the school. For those scholars conversant with the intellectual and literary life of the "beautiful beginning" of the reign of Alexander I's reign Malinovskii has his little niche for his remarkable Rassuzhdenie 0 mire i voine (1803) and less for his Osennie vechera (1803), a little-known journal limited to a mere eight weekly issues and written entirely by the editor. As regards the of his 'eighteenth-century' Malinovskii, who lived the first thirty-five years life predominantly in the reign of the great Catherine, little information encumbers the memory of even specialists of the period. Indeed, his elder brother, Aleksei Fedorovich (1762-1840), is the more likely to be remembered for his literary and translating work as well for his later position as Head of the Moscow Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which brought him into contact with Pushkin and, not unexpectedly, with Karamzin. Karamzin referred to him as "one of my few old and genuine friends", but one searches in vain for a similar accolade for VasiIii Fedorovich.

Klappentext

This is the first extensive study devoted to Vasilii Malinovskii, one of the most significant figures in the history of Russian thought. He was one of the first supporters of abolition of serfdom in Russia. In his capacity as Director, Malinovskii contributed in a fundamental way to the establishment of the liberal atmosphere characterizing The Tsarskoe Selo Lycée, where Aleksandr Pushkin and some of the Decembrists were educated. br/ His major work, emDissertation on Peace and War/em (1803), contains a plan for the establishment of peace in Europe which was the only project of this sort to appear in Russia. At a time when Napoleonic wars were deeply transforming the previous emstatus quo/em, he proposed to redesign the geopolitical map of Europe regrouping its states on the basis of rational, ethno-linguistic criteria. A General Council empowered to deliberate on conflicts among them was to guarantee a permanent peace.

Inhalt
1: An Intellectual Biography.- 1.1. Spiritual and Intellectual Formation (17651789).- 1.2. The English Experience (17891791).- 1.3. The Years in Jassy, Work in the College of Foreign Affairs and Publicist Activity (17911811).- 1.4. Appointment as First Director of the Tsarskoe Selo Lycée (18111814).- 2: The Peace Thinker.- 2.1. Malinovskii's major work: Dissertation on Peace and War.- 2.2. The national context: speculation on peace in the Russian tradition.- 2.3. Malinovskii's peace project and the European models.- 3: The Social Reformer.- 3.1. Malinovskii as a social thinker.- 3.2. The peasant question in Malinovskii's system of ideas and in the contemporary debate.- 3.3. An analysis of four works.- 3.4. Agriculture or manufactures? Malinovskii's translation of Hamilton's Report.- 4: The Pedagogue.- 4.1. The Tsarskoe Selo Lycée.- 4.2. Malinovskii at Tsarskoe Selo.- Conclusions.