Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars

These words had a sobering effect on Diderot. From that moment on, the philosophe no longer made practical suggestions. Was Diderot disillusioned by the empress? Of course. But should he have had the illusions in the first place? The idea that people of culture “know better” how to run a country is close to the heart of the intellectual elite all over the world and therefore ever fashionable in elevated circles. But is it always correct and applicable?

Let’s take a look at the governmental activity of the great poet Gavrila Derzhavin, who became minister of justice. (Only one other Russian poet, Ivan Dmitriev [1760–1837], ever reached such administrative heights.)

Derzhavin’s brilliant career is doubly remarkable, because it was truly the result of his literary talents rather than his administrative ones. Derzhavin was born in 1743 in a poor noble family, and was so weak as an infant that his parents followed the folk remedy of wrapping him in dough and putting him in a warm oven so that he would “get a little bit of life” (as the poet recalled in his memoirs).¹³ After fifteen years in the army, Derzhavin retired, and published his first book of poems anonymously.

His literary and career breakthrough at the age of forty came with his ode “Felitsa,” dedicated to Catherine, which opened the first issue of a new magazine, Interlocutor of Lovers of the Russian Word (1783), and began solemnly and resonantly (as do all his best poems): “Godlike Tsarevna of the Kirghiz-Kaisatsky Horde!” Derzhavin used the imaginary Kirghiz Tsarevna Felitsa (from the Latin felicitas, happiness) to praise Catherine. “Felitsa” was a daring attempt to combine tribute to the empress with satirical attacks on some of her courtiers.

The publisher of the magazine, Princess Ekaterina Dashkova (the empress’s best friend), presented her the freshly printed issue, and the next day, when summoned by Catherine, found her august patroness with the open magazine in her hands and in tears: “Who can know me so well to describe me so pleasantly that it makes me weep like a fool?”¹⁴

Learning the author’s name (Derzhavin’s ode was also published anonymously), Catherine decided to reward him. The poet was lunching at the home of his director (he was already a clerk in the Senate) when a messenger brought him a paper parcel with the inscription “from the Kirghiz Tsarevna.” Derzhavin’s boss grumbled, “What are these gifts from the Kirghizians?” But he quickly caught on once he saw what was inside the parcel: a French diamond-encrusted gold snuffbox and five hundred gold coins. With a forced smile, the man congratulated Derzhavin, “but from that time hatred and anger crept into his heart so that he could not speak calmly with the newly celebrated versifier,”¹⁵ concluded Derzhavin in his frank and stern (as he himself was) recollections of that memorable day.

The ode that so pleased Catherine speeded up Derzhavin’s career tremendously: in 1784 he became governor of Olonetsk Province and then, in 1785, governor of Tambov Province. In 1791, Catherine made Derzhavin her personal state secretary, with the special unprecedented right to report to her “whenever he observed any illegal Senate decision.”

Derzhavin performed his administrative duties with great zeal and seriousness, wearying Catherine with detailed explanations of confusing and complex judicial cases, while what the empress needed from him was his poetry: she kept hinting that he should write more odes like “Felitsa.”

Catherine wanted Derzhavin to be her chronicler and glorifier and not pester her with “such requests as women asked his mother-in-law and wife,” as she irritably put it. The direct and intense Derzhavin “often bored her with his truth,” and she had to cut him off from time to time.

It is easy to imagine them together: both tall and imposing, but Derzhavin sinewy, thin, and narrow-faced, while the empress was plump, full-breasted, with beautiful neck and arms and an ugly long chin on a high-browed face. He would sit before her on a chair—back straight, his army training—surrounded by piles of papers and reading, reading, reading in a steady voice, while she sat back comfortably on a low down-stuffed chaise, listening while knitting and looking over at Derzhavin with her intelligent blue eyes.

Derzhavin later described (in the third person) these extraordinary audiences as the relationship of two people in love rather than empress and courtier: “It often happened that she grew angry and threw out Derzhavin, and he would get huffy and promise himself to be careful and say nothing to her, but the next day when he entered, she would see right away that he was angry: she would start asking about his wife, his home life, would he like something to drink, and more such gentle and kind talk, so that he would forget all his chagrin and become candid once again.”¹⁶