Napoleon's Civil Code in the Political Discourse of the Alexander Era

Gotovtseva Anastasiya Gennad'evna Doctor of Philology Professor, Department of Journalism and Broadcast Technologies, Russian State University named after A. N. Kosygin; Leading Scientific Associate, Institute of Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences 125993, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Sadovnicheskaya, 33, str. 1 brunhilda@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

The fundamental legislative initiative of Napoleon I, expressed in his "Civil Code" ("Le Code civil"). It has influenced the legislation of many countries. Napoleon himself, while in exile on St. Helena, claimed: "My glory is not in forty battles won... Waterloo will erase the memory of so many victories; it's like the last action that makes you forget about the first. But what nothing will erase, what will live forever, is my civil code, these are the protocols of my Council of State; these are the collections of my correspondence with my ministers; finally, all the good things that I have done as an administrator, as a reorganizer of a large French family." ^{[1, p. 401]}.

The liberal initiatives of the reign of Alexander I could not help but refer to this text, created in 1804 by the first consul of the French Republic.

Research methodology

When writing this article, the main method was the method of discursive analysis. This method, the subject of which is traditionally defined as "speech immersed in life", made it possible to study the extralinguistic aspects of texts of participants in the communicative field in political disputes around M.M. Speransky's legislative initiatives in terms of their correlation with the Civil Code of Napoleon. They also used such methods as content analysis, biographical method, comparative historical and comparative.

The results of the study

In 1808 M.M. Speransky, who had previously worked under another "young friend" V.P. Kochubey in the Ministry of Internal Affairs, was appointed to the Commission for Drafting Laws, which had been operating since the reign of Paul I and was then under the direct control of Comrade Minister of Justice, one of the "young friends" of Emperor N.N. Novosiltsev, and then who replaced Novosiltsev in his post. Gradually, moving in the circles closest to the emperor, the son of the Cherkutinsky priest became the one who determined the direction of political and social transformations at the beginning of the Alexander era. In 1810, with the establishment of the State Council, Speransky was appointed Secretary of State.

Actually, it is with the name of Speransky that the first attempt to introduce the Code of Napoleon on the territory of the Russian Empire is connected, at least this is what was attributed to him. The reformer had two editions of this document in his library and was well aware of the legislative practice of several European countries. It is not surprising that he used part of the provisions of the Code in one way or another for his "Draft Civil Code", published in three parts in 1809, 1810 and 1812. When drawing up the "Draft..." Speransky used the materials of the Secret Committee provided to him by the emperor.

Despite the fact that the "Project..." implied the preservation of the estates, granting them certain ranked privileges, the republican nature of the Napoleon Code was clearly visible in an attempt to limit the power of the monarch, and in the fact that civil rights (unlike political and special ones) were granted to the entire population of the Russian Empire, that is, the boundaries between the estates were erased. Indeed, the French text of the Codex was written in a wordless society. And it was precisely this that Speransky's political opponents drew attention to. As the "Draft Code" drafted by Speransky was reviewed, first by the Law Drafting Commission and then by the State Council, the dissatisfaction of conservative circles with Speransky's activities increased. In the context of the increasingly complicated foreign policy situation and the brewing war with Napoleon, it was not difficult to present a draft in which borrowings from the Napoleonic Code were viewed as a betrayal of Russia's interests.

Historian S.F. Platonov very clearly noted this feature of Speransky's project: "If Speransky's role had been limited to drafting transformations, little could have been said about Speransky, since his project remained without any influence on the structure of society and the state. The significance of this project is more noticeable in the history of ideas than in the history of institutions: it served as an indicator of a well-known trend in Russian society and aroused the protest of representatives of other trends against itself." ^{[2, p. 655]}.

Conservative circles of the Alexandrovsky "elite" fought against this trend in all ways. At the court of Alexander I, if you look at the balance of power in the most general way, throughout his reign two parties fought, represented by different favorites at different stages of this struggle. Moreover, one of the parties can be conditionally called "cosmopolitans" or "reformers", the other — "patriots" or "conservatives". In this court solitaire, in the period after the conclusion of the Peace of Tilsit and before the outbreak of the Patriotic War of 1812, the reformer Speransky was opposed by conservatives — N. M. Karamzin and A. S. Shishkov [see podr.: 3, pp. 8-28].

Karamzin, in the famous "Note on Ancient and New Russia in its political and civil relations", compiled by him for the Tver Salon of Grand Duchess Ekaterina Pavlovna, wrote unequivocally: "It has already been announced in the Manifesto that the first part of the laws is ready, that the following ones will be ready immediately. In fact, two books are being published under the name of the draft Code. What do we find?.. Translation of the Napoleonic Code! What a surprise for Russians! What food for slander! Thanks to the Almighty, we have not yet fallen under the iron scepter of this conqueror — we have not yet Westphalia, not the Kingdom of Italy, not the Duchy of Warsaw, where the Napoleonic Code, translated with tears, serves as a civil Statute. Is that why Russia has existed as a strong state for about a thousand years? Is it for about a hundred years that we have been working on composing our complete Code in order to solemnly confess to fools in the face of Europe and put our gray head under a book made in Paris by 6 or 7 ex-lawyers and ex-Jacobins?" ^{[4, p. 195]}.

Admiral Shishkov, who studied the third part of the "Draft" submitted to the State Council after Speransky's resignation, also tightly tied the text of his predecessor as Secretary of State to the Napoleon Code: "I found it (the third part of the "Draft Civil Code" – A.G.) written in thin language, without any expectation or consideration of our laws, with our customs and customs, it is ambiguous, often unintelligible and even filled with immoral articles, stupidly translated from the so-called Napoleon codex" ^{[5, p. 54]}.

Karamzin drew attention to the inapplicability of the Code to class society: "Is it appropriate to begin, for example, the Russian Code with a chapter on civil rights, which, in the true sense, did not happen and does not exist in Russia? We have only political or special rights of various states; we have nobles, merchants, burghers, farmers, and so on. Russian Russian — all of them have their own special rights, — there is nothing in common, except the name of the Russians (...) everything is non-Russian, everything is not in Russian, both things and the sentence thereof: (...) this Napoleonic form of laws is alien to the concept of Russians" ^{[4, p. 195]}.

Shishkov did not like the confusion of "states" and their rights. He analyzed in detail the first chapter of the first part of the "Draft..." in the 1814 edition, published some time after Speransky's resignation in connection with the resumption of discussions in the State Council. The Admiral noticed a textual confusion of civil rights, granted to all subjects, and political rights, granted only to representatives of the nobility and the "middle class" – burghers, merchants, state peasants. The boundaries between the estates thus turned out to be very blurred. In conclusion of his remarks, Shishkov even conducts an etymological analysis of the word "civil" in order to prove its inappropriateness in this document.

Criticizing the text of the "Draft...", Karamzin eventually asks rhetorical questions, for the sake of which he launched into lengthy discussions about the imperfection of the presented draft: "Leaving everything else, let's ask: is it time now to offer French laws to Russians, even if they could be conveniently applied to our civil status? We all, all who love Russia, the sovereign, her glory, prosperity, so hate this people, stained with the blood of Europe, showered with the ashes of so many destroyed powers, and at a time when the name of Napoleon makes our hearts shudder, will we put his Code on the holy altar of the Fatherland?" ^{[4, p. 197]}. New laws are not needed in Russia, because the Russian people are the "old people" who have already accumulated the necessary number of legal provisions, which only need to be systematized. Outdated laws, no longer usable, should not be in effect, but "decrees and regulations issued from the time of Tsar Alexei to our own: here is the content of the Code!" ^{[4, p. 197]}. Actually, this was exactly what Speransky did much later when compiling the "Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire", with the only caveat that it was done in chronological order, and not according to the type of law (civil or criminal), as Karamzin proposed.

Karamzin, in principle, opposed the idea of large-scale writing of new laws of the state. An absolute monarchy and a strictly class society are incompatible with the understanding of the law that Speransky professed: "Autocracy is the palladium of Russia; its integrity is necessary for its happiness (...) The nobility and clergy, the Senate and the Synod as a repository of laws, above all is the sovereign, the only legislator, the sole source of power. This is the foundation of the Russian monarchy, which can be approved or weakened by the rules of the reigning" ^{[4, pp. 205, 208]}.

In an absolutist state, where everything is ultimately decided by the monarch, his will is much more important, because laws may not be fulfilled and violated.

But for all the external rhetorical similarity of the positions of Karamzin and Shishkov, they differ fundamentally. Shishkov's conservatism is based on a complete rejection of any kind of changes in the Russian statehood, the desire to preserve it as it was formed historically. Everything is much more complicated with Karamzin's position. In his youth, who admired Robespierre, shed tears about his execution ^{[6, p. 165; 7, p. 502]}, after the ascent of Napoleon's star, who idolized him, the historiographer declared that "I am a Republican at heart and will die like this" ^{[8, p. 328]}. The ambiguity of his position has already become the subject of attention in Russian scientists ^{[9, p. 202]}. And this is fully explained by the phenomena of the development of republican thought. In the pre-Renaissance period, republican rule was not yet opposed to monarchical rule, and the battle of Cape Aktion was not considered as the collapse of a "good" state structure and its replacement with a "bad" one, the replacement of a "legitimate" government with an "illegal one" ^{[10, p. 460-464]}. In part, even the so-called "neo-Roman" authors of the era of the English Revolution had a similar ambivalence (for example, one of the leaders of the parliamentary opposition, Henry Parker) ^{[11, p. 31]}.

Tyranny can ruin both a "good" republic and a "good" monarchy. "What the Jacobins did in relation to the Republics, Paul did in relation to the Autocracy: he made them hate the abuses of it," Karamzin wrote in the same "Note on Ancient and New Russia" ^{[4, p. 163]}.

The basis of a "correct", "legitimate" state is civic virtue. And Tacitus' Rome, to which Karamzin dedicated his famous poem in the Pavlovian era, is bad not because it changed the state structure, but because the Romans lost their civic virtues, becoming slaves to tyrannical rule. It is precisely to avoid the establishment of tyranny and the complete loss of civic virtues that republican rule is not always possible, which should be replaced by a monarchical one if these virtues are not enough.

"The Republic cannot stand without high national virtue. That's why monarchical rule is much happier and more reliable.: it does not require extraordinary measures from citizens and can rise to the degree of morality on which republics fall." – he claimed on the pages of the "Bulletin of Europe" ^{[12, pp. 319-320]}. For Karamzin, Pavel I was a tyrant in Russia who discredited the monarchy: "He wanted to be John IV; but the Russians already had Catherine II, they knew that the sovereign, no less than his subjects, must fulfill his holy duties, whose violation destroys the ancient covenant of power with obedience and overthrows the people from the degree of citizenship into the chaos of private natural law" ^{[4, p. 163]}.

Napoleon, having assumed the crown, by this act suddenly lost the sympathies of Karamzin, who had previously praised the First Consul: "You know the political news from the newspapers," he wrote to his brother Vasily, "Napoleon Bonaparte exchanged the title of a great man for the title of emperor: power seemed to him better than glory" ^{[8, p. 169]}.

Accordingly, Napoleon became a tyrant and everything that comes from him is disastrous for any state, even though the Code was adopted by the Tribunal, approved by the Legislative Corps and signed by Napoleon, the first consul, even before the coronation. Here it is necessary to pay attention to the fact that as early as 1803 in his journal "Bulletin of Europe" Karamzin spoke favorably and even enthusiastically about the Code: "Consular speakers propose a civil code in parts, explaining every thought of it. The subject is so important for the happiness of people with civil society that not only the French, but all the friends of humanity listen to their speeches with curiosity, attention and lively pleasure. Order, clarity of ideas, thoroughness of reasoning, language worthy of laws, constitute the brilliant character of this Code" ^{[13, p. 235]}.

Thus, the same text, in a fairly short period of time in Karamzin's mind, went from a document that is interesting and necessary for all "friends of mankind" to furious indignation at its possible use in Russian legislation. All this, of course, forces us to look for another reason for such rejection, and it should be sought not in the text of the Code, or even in the personality of Napoleon, but in the internal alignment of political forces in Russia.

Conclusions

Gradually, the discussion of the "Project ..." in the State Council came to naught. The last meeting on this issue took place on March 8, 1815, and the French emperor himself lost his last battle at Waterloo three months later. The Napoleonic Code left the current political context until the end of the 19th century.

But at the same time, the congress was ending its meetings in Vienna, whose decisions decided to give Russia most of the territory of the Duchy of Warsaw, where the Code of Napoleon was introduced by the French emperor himself with a prohibition to make any changes to it. After the formation of the Kingdom of Poland, the Code was not abolished, which, however, did not bother Russian conservatives much, because such "concern" already worked as a propaganda tool.

However, the opinion that Speransky borrowed the text of his code from Napoleon has taken root in the public consciousness. G.A. Rozenkamf, who had a personal grudge against Speransky and was dismissed by him from the post of de facto head of the Commission of Laws, wrote about this in his "Notes": "Even before (trips to Erfurt — A.G.), who was sincerely committed to the French system of centralization and a zealous admirer of the Napoleonic Code, since he had been near the source itself, I am quite sure that such a miracle can and should be created here. The case was not too complicated either: the French Code consists of only 1800 paragraphs, and you can easily convey them in beautiful Russian phrases in some year" [Cit. po: 14, p. 150].

Even Speransky's biographer M.A. Korf was committed to this opinion, who in his panegyric official biography consolidated this version: "Imbued with Napoleonic ideas, he did not give any price to domestic legislation, called it barbaric and found it completely useless and superfluous to refer to his manual" ^{[14, pp. 154-155]}.

Modern researchers continue to argue about how strong the influence of the Napoleonic Code was on Speransky's legislative initiatives (the fact that this influence was is beyond doubt) [see podr.: 15, pp. 130-139].

Speransky himself, in his famous Perm letter to Emperor Alexander, noted: "... they were looking to prove that the code I introduced was a translation from French or a close imitation: a lie or ignorance, which is also easy to expose, because both are printed. In its source, i.e. in Roman law, all the rules will always be similar; but with common sense, with knowledge of these sources and their indigenous language, you can draw directly from them, without imitating anyone and without studying either in German or French universities" ^{[16, p. 416]}.

But this truth was not important to the opponents of the liberal party at the Alexander court, who used the discussion of the Code of Napoleon in the socio-political field of the era in connection with his "Draft Code ..." to discredit the "rootless Popovich". Thus, the text of the Code of Napoleon in Russian political reality has become not so much a material for the legislative formalization of the state system as an instrument of political struggle.