The Chevalier d’Éon and His Contemporaries’ Contribution to French Rossica: From Diplomatic Dispatches and Notes to Anecdotes Secrètes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15826/qr.2022.5.769Keywords:
Russian Empire in the eighteenth century, historiography, source studies, Chevalier d’Éon, anecdote as a literary genreAbstract
The review is devoted to a book by S. Mezin and the publication of an interesting historical source. Mezin is a well-known specialist in the history of modern Russo-French relations in various spheres. He consistently focuses on eighteenth-century French Rossica in his works. Now he has presented an unknown essay about the court of Empress Elizabeth to the scholarly community. It was written in 1757 by Chevalier d’Éon in the genre of historical anecdote, very popular at the time. The essay has been published both in French and in Russian, with Mezin doing the translation himself. The reviewed book includes the text Secret Anecdotes about the Court of the All-Russian Empress by the French diplomat and spy, along with comments, study, and substantive analysis. The publication and accompanying materials are preceded by a detailed essay by Mezin entitled “French Russia in the Mid‑18th Century (1725–1762)”. This is not only used to provide a historical background for the source, but also to study an important but insufficiently examined topic. The reviewer considers Mezin’s book a valuable contribution to the historiography of the less explored period in the eighteenth century between the reigns of Peter I and Catherine II and to the source studies of this period in Russian history. At the same time, the reviewer clarifies some chronological and thematic characteristics of the historical anecdote as a specific genre, linking its emergence and formation with French historiography and literature in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
References
Artamonova, L. M. (2019). Vek Prosveshcheniya v “Quaestio Rossica” [The Age of Enlightenment in Quaestio Rossica]. In Dialog so vremenem. No. 68, pp. 372–379. DOI 10.21267/AQUILO.2019.68.34740.
Artamonova, L. М. (2019). Prosveshcheniye i sotsialnaya emansipatsiya v predstavleniyakh elity epokhi Yekateriny II: ot “kul’turnogo shoka” k modernizatsionnym praktikam [The Enlightenment and Social Emancipation under Catherine II: From “Cultural Shock” to Modernisation Practices]. In Quaestio Rossica. Vol. 7. No. 2, pp. 525–538. DOI 10.15826/qr.2019.2.391.
Golubkov, A. V. (2013). Anekdot kak al’ternativnaya biografiya vo frantsuzskoi kul’ture XVII veka [Anecdote as an Alternative Biography in 17th-Century French Culture]. In Supy, W. (Ed.). W kręgu problemów antropologii literatury. W stronę antropologii niezwykłości, studia. Białystok, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku, pp. 229–242.
Liechtenhan, F.-D. (2006). En Russie au temps d’Élisabeth. Mémoire sur la Russie en 1759 par le chevalier d’Éon. Paris, L’inventaire ed., 196 р.
Mezin, S. A. (2019). Neizvestnoe proizvedenie frantsuzskoi rossiki serediny XVIII veka “Sekretnye anekdoty o dvore imperatritsy Vserossiiskoi” [An Unknown Work of French Rossica of the Mid-18th Century: Anecdotes Secrètes about the Court of the Empress of All Russia]. St Petersburg, Europeiskii Dom. 156 p.
Mezin, S. A. (2020). Istoriya dopetrovskoi Rusi v izlozhenii Vol’tera: vzglyad prosveshchennogo evropeitsa [The History of Pre-Petrine Russia as Recounted by Voltaire: The View of an Enlightened European]. In Quaestio Rossica. Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 807–822. DOI 10.15826/qr.2020.3.496.
Redin, D., Soboleva, L. (2017). The Epoch of the Enlightenment: From the Voyages of Peter I to the Ideas of the Catherinian Period. In Quaestio Rossica. Vol. 5. No. 2, pp. 303–312. DOI 10.15826/qr.2017.2.224.
Smirnov, Yu. N. (2019). Literaturnye obrabotki famil’nykh predanii Aksakovykh i Rychkovykh kak istochniki po istorii yugo-vostochnykh okrain Rossii v kontse XVIII v. [Literary Treatments of the Aksakov and Rychkov Family Tales as Sources on the History of the South-Eastern Outskirts of Russia in the Late 18th Century]. In Rus’, Rossiya. Srednevekov’ye i Novoe vremya. No. 6, pp. 508–512.
