Kara-Murza A.A. Karamzin, Shaden and Gellert. On the Sources of Nikolai Karamzin's Liberal Conservative Discourse

Abstract: The author of the present article studies the sources of the origina historiosophical and historico-literary concept offered by Nikolay Karamzin (1766–1826) and described by Russian researchers (from Prince Pyotr Vyazemsky to Pyotr Struve) as 'liberal conservatism'. The author of the present article assumes that the prehistory of the 'Creation of Karamzin' (Yu. Lotman's expression) can be found during the period when Karamzin studied in Professor Iogann Shaden's private board school in Moscow (1778–1782). The school was located in the very center of the the Foreign Quarter of Moscow. In fact, it was Karamzin's first 'journey to Europe' 10 years before his well-known traveling through Europe in 1789–1790. Paradoxically, young Karamzin found his 'first Europe' not in the West but in Moscow as an integral part of Russian life. The author of the present article analyzes new materials about the life and studies of Karamzin in the Foreign Quarter of Moscow as well as images of European literature Karamzin was raised upon. Special attention is paid to a German philosopher, moralist, poet and fable writer Christian Gellert. Later in 1789 Karamzin visited places in Leipzig where Christian Gellert had been. For the first time in the history of Russian philosophy and cultural studies the author of the present article proposes a hypothesis about Nikolay Karamzin standing at the origins of Russian 'Christian liberalism' (culture-centered but not political teaching). According to the author of the present article, Karamzin's 'spiritual will' of 1826 is another proof of this hypothesis.   

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