The Monarch and the State in 18th-Century Russia

Lindsey Hughes, ed., Peter the Great and the West: New Perspectives. London: Palgrave, in association with the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, 2001. xxiv + 280 pp. ISBN 0-333-92009-0. $45.00.

Aleksandr Borisovich Kamenskii, Ot Petra I do Pavla I: reformy v Rossii XVIII veka, opyt tselostnogo analiza [From Peter I to Paul I: The 18th-Century Reforms in Russia—an Attempt at Full Analysis]. Moscow: Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi gumanitarnyi universitet, 1999. 575 pp. ISBN 5-7281-0396-0.

Nikolai Nikolaevich Petrukhintsev, Tsarstvovanie Anny Ioannovny: formirovanie vnutripoliticheskogo kursa i sud ' by armii i flota [The Reign of Anna Ioannovna: The Formation of Domestic Policy and the Fate of the Army and Navy]. St. Petersburg: Aleteia, 2001. 352 pp. ISBN 5-89329-407-6.

Claus Scharf, ed., Katharina II, Rußland und Europa: Beiträge zur internationalen Forschung [Catherine II, Russia, and Europe: Contributions of International Research]. Veröffentlichungen des Instituts für Europäische Geschichte Mainz. Abteilung für Universalgeschichte. Beiheft 45. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 2001. xxx + 607 pages. ISBN 3-805-32094. €45.00.

The 18th century, Russia's first "Western" century, has been an area of relative historiographic calm for several decades, and little published in the last decade has done much to ruffle that calm. The notion of the "reforming" or "modernizing" state remains at the center of the literature, with some attention to culture and ideology, both among the gentry and in the case of Catherine the Great. Historians continue to examine Russian society primarily from the point of view of state policy. The work here under review demonstrates the conservative nature of 18th-century studies but also reveals where advances may come and why they may come more frequently.

In Russia itself, the book market is flooded with reprints of 19th-century classics and not-so-classics on the tsars and empresses, circulating long-refuted legends as well as a fuller view of the past. Serious historians have put out major new works (not all about monarchs), some of which have attracted attention in the West. Among Western historians of Russia, the new Russian work does not seem yet to have stimulated much interest in the period, but a younger generation may be more receptive. Only Peter the Great has been an exception to this rule, but in this case most of the stimulus comes from the West. In Russia, Evgenii Viktorovich Anisimov and Iurii Nikolaevich Bespiatykh seem to be the only ones to have produced monographic studies of important aspects of the era. ¹ In the West, Peter has been the subject of several works in the last decade by James Cracraft, Lindsey Hughes, and this reviewer. Hughes, in particular, has been responsible for a small boom in conferences and writing on Peter and his time. Her latest contribution is Peter the Great and the West: New Perspectives, the results of a conference at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, marking the 300th anniversary of Peter's arrival in England. In this rather varied collection, Aleksandr Borisovich Kamenskii and Andrei Nikolaevich Medushevskii offer brief accounts of their by now well-known views, while Dmitrii G. Fedosov presents a fragment of ongoing work. Not surprisingly, the strongest group of articles touches on aspects of Anglo-Russian relations, following in the wake of Anthony Cross's fundamental writings on that subject. ² Two important pieces by Richard Warner and W. F. Ryan recount Peter's purchases of English ships for the Baltic fleet and the tsar's interests in English naval technology. Both articles eschew the usual clichés and generalities for precise information. Warner reminds us that Peter's navy was dependent for its rapid growth on ships bought ready-made in England, not just on his otherwise impressive building program. The building program in turn was founded to a...