Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars

A comparison of the efforts of Peter I and Catherine II in the area of book publishing and journalism is telling. Peter achieved a breakthrough: in the last quarter century of his life, almost two thousand books and brochures were printed.⁹ The problem was that most of these publications lay like rubbish in warehouses: Peter’s selections did not excite the reading public. After the emperor’s death, the unsold backlog was cut up or burned, and many books were used for wrapping.

Catherine’s publishing policy was much more successful. She gave Russians translations of Homer, Cicero, Tacitus, Daniel Defoe, Jonathan Swift, and Henry Fielding.

She also sponsored the satirical journal All Sorts and Sundry, begun in 1769, which was modeled on the English political magazines of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele. Catherine wrote articles and allegorical tales for the magazine, expressing her political views and mocking the Russian elite’s laziness, dissipation, and kowtowing to the West. She continued to support such magazines; for example, when the Freemason and writer Nikolai Novikov, a shrewd and worldly pioneer of Russian journalism, wanted to start his satirical The Painter in 1772, the empress gave him 200 rubles.

The Painter was quite biting. Besides the exposés, so dear to Catherine’s heart, of the brainless scions of the nobility and the frivolous fashion plates at court, the magazine raised the painful serfdom issue. An anonymous article, now attributed to Alexander Radishchev, the first radical writer in Russian literature, depicted in grim tones the miserable condition of serfs. (In the beginning, Catherine not only tolerated such attacks, she encouraged them.)

Eventually, even with the moral and financial support of the empress, the satirical magazines began to wither: there were too many of them and not enough readers. Wisely, Catherine did not insist on the viability of her initiative and instead made a bold move in 1783, permitting private publishing in Russia for the first time; the state no longer had a monopoly on the printed word. (Of course, this also relieved Catherine of the financial burden of supporting book publishing and journalism.)

Catherine was right in assuming that the private publisher would be a better judge of what books the people wanted. New publishing houses mushroomed all over Russia. The result was a sharp increase in new books—but even more importantly, the book business became profitable. Novikov’s Tipograficheskaya Kampaniya, founded in 1784, had huge revenues, reaching 80,000 rubles a year.

At some point, Novikov became a monopolist: almost half the books in Russia were published by his company. Russian translations of Molière, Beaumarchais, Milton, Sterne, Goldoni, and Lessing were printed in elegant and relatively inexpensive editions. Novikov also published Russian authors, such as Lomonosov, and encyclopedias, reference books, dictionaries, and textbooks, which were sold in Novikov’s bookshops.

Novikov created the first ladies’ magazine in Russia, which had not only pictures of the latest Parisian fashions, but texts by serious writers. He also founded the first magazine for children, where Nikolai Karamzin (the future historian) made his debut. Karamzin later recalled that Novikov “sold books the way wealthy Dutch or English merchants sell their products: that is, with intelligence, intuition, and long-range planning.”¹⁰

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One would have expected the wild success of Novikov’s publishing to please Catherine: it confirmed the wisdom of her decree allowing private printing houses. But the empress was concerned that Novikov belonged to the growing number of Russian Freemasons and published Masonic literature. The Europe-based quasireligious union, with its secret rituals and ideas of universal brotherhood and moral self-perfection, was brought to Russia in the 1730s.

Even though there were many Masonic adepts in her entourage, Catherine did not approve of it: “A small-time, useless pastime that leads to nothing. Does a person who does good for the sake of good really need that foolishness?”¹¹

At first “that foolishness,” the Masonic lodges and rituals, merely irritated the empress. She mocked the Masons as “monkeys” and “shamans” in her comedy The Siberian Shaman, where they were depicted as crooks and extortionists.

Gradually, Catherine began to perceive Masonry as a political threat: she received reports of Russian Freemasons establishing secret contacts with the heir to the throne—her son, Paul—and of their ties with the anti-Russian Prussian Masons.

Soon, Catherine branded Russian Masonry as the “new schism.” The government banned one Masonic book after another for heresy, but Novikov did not stop distributing them by underground means. When Novikov was arrested in 1792, many banned books were seized from his stores and warehouses.