Part One 1
The Russian language as a vehicle for the enlightenment: Catherine IIâs translation projects and the society striving for the translation of foreign books
Yusuke Toriyama
The reign of Catherine II (1762â96) was a time of Russian enlightenment. Promoting Russiaâs modernization in general, as Peter I did, the Empress actively encouraged the proliferation of art and letters in the empire, often through her own patronage. Moreover, this modernization practically meant Europeanization â a process based on cultural import from the West, in which the role of the medium, which enabled communication between different cultural spheres, was crucially important. In this respect, the significance of the role of translation and publication was certain. Note that the 1760s heralded the sudden growth of publication in Russia: 262 Russian books were published in 1756â60, 805 in 1761â5, 767 in 1766â70, and 958 in 1771â5.1
From this viewpoint, the creation of the Society Striving for the Translation of Foreign Books (in Russian, Sobranie staraiushcheesia o perevode inostrannykh knig, hereafter referred to as the Society) in 1768 had a symbolic meaning. This organization, established by Catherine, was focused on the translation by intellectuals of important foreign books into Russian, an endeavour she supported with an annual subsidy of 5,000 rubles from her own pocket. The Empress also influenced the choice of work for translation. For fifteen years until 1783, the Society published 112 translations including many representative works of the age of Enlightenment, for example, selections from the EncyclopĂ©die, Montesquieuâs Lâesprit des lois and works by Corneille, Racine, Voltaire and J. J. Rousseau, among others. Gary Maker defined the Society as âprobably the leading Russian voice for the French Enlightenmentâ in its day.2
At the same time, the Society faced many problems. Isabel de Madariaga wrote, âthe numbers and the titles published far outpaced the capacity of the reading public to absorb them, and the problem of marketing translations became crucial. It must be remembered that most cultured nobles and non-nobles could read the classics of the French and German Enlightenment in the original languages.â3 The Society faced challenges in selling and circulating their publications to the extent that the Empress ordered that the books be peddled around the city to ensure their distribution.4 Moreover, the cluster of most educated Russians at this time capable of understanding the contents of the Societyâs books likely did not need translation, although the majority of Russians remained monolingual (and many were uneducated and illiterate).5
Another crucial fact regarding the history of Russian-language publishing is that many Russian intellectuals considered the Russian literary language of this time as still developing. Throughout the eighteenth century, it was perceived as âunfinishedâ, âunrefinedâ and not fit for purpose as a literary language for scholarship â although the notion of an âunsuitableâ or âunfinishedâ language is untenable from a linguistâs viewpoint.6 Through the activities of the Society, the Empress tried to use Russian as a vehicle for the ideas of the Enlightenment. However, bearing in mind that her contemporaries considered the language âincompleteâ, we cannot take her decision as a matter of course
What motivated Catherine to establish the Society and what made her choose Russian as a vehicle for the Enlightenment despite its disadvantages? Searching for an answer to these questions, in this chapter we discuss the expectations for the roles and functions of Russian-language publishing and the Russian language in the first half of Catherineâs reign. For this purpose, we examine the discourse of those who engaged in the activities of the Society and other translation projects she initiated, focusing on linguistic issues. Furthermore, like the authors of the above-cited article, we adopt the theoretical basis suggested by social scientists since the âlinguistic turnâ. We conceive language not as being a purely referential tool for describing objects, but also a constructive force.7 This viewpoint benefits the discussion on the eighteenth century in Russia, which was marked by the evolution of the Russian language and the development of a new worldview by many Russians. Illustrating the standardization of vernacular languages in Europe in the early modern period, partly for pragmatic (to facilitate communication between regions) and partly for honorific (to give them some of the prestige or dignity associated with Latin) reasons, Peter Burke stated that âcivilization implied following a code of behaviour, including linguistic behaviourâ.8 It is reasonable to assume that Catherine, motivated to make her empire civilized after European models, likewise sought to create a code for the empireâs lingua franca based on the vernacular language, in this case, Russian.
Vladimir Semennikovâs monograph, which was published in 1913, along with the complete list of books published and planned for publication by the Society, provides an insight into the history and legacy of this organization.9 Aside from this comprehensive work, there are few studies of this subject, although the research of Marker and de Madariaga includes concise overviews of the Society as a promoter of the Russian Enlightenment in the cultural context of that time.10 Jonesâ account of the Society is short, but includes important remarks. Significant is his suggestion that Diderotâs view that a civilized nation needs to have a perfected language might have influenced Catherine to establish the Society.11 Our aim is to discuss the significance of the Society and other translation projects in the cultural context of the early reign of Catherine, focusing on the role and function of the Russian language. After outlining the activities of the Society and linguistic background of the time in the first section, the next two sections will describe the Empressâs thoughts on the potential of the Russian language. In the second section, based on the discussion by Victor Zhivov and Marcus C. Levitt about the functions of the Russian and Church Slavonic languages, we examine the notion that using Russian was beneficial for integrating the European Enlightenment within Russiaâs indigenous ecclesiastical culture.12 In the third section, we show that publishing in Russian was justified by the ideas of the Enlightenment and required standardization of the language. Following this, in the fourth section, we examine the text of the Societyâs publications written by translators (for example, the translatorâs preface), clarifying their mission to enrich Russian and create a new norm corresponding to the policy of the Empress, a goal which they shared. This approach clarifies the role and function of the Russian literary language of this time and the factors that motivated Catherine to choose Russian as the empi...