THE 18TH-CENTURY RUSSIAN ELITE AND
THE TRANSFER OF EUROPEAN KNOWLEDGE AND IDEAS:
MEMBERS OF THE RUSSIAN ELITE AND
THEIR STUDY EXPERIENCE IN GERMANYAnalyzing the literary activities of O. P. Kozodavlev and the elites of his period who experienced
German education will help us appreciate the role of European literature in the formation of the modernRussian nation in the later 18th and early 19th century.
1. Introduction and Kozodavlev’s biography
In Russia in the second half of the 18th century, especially during the reign of Catherine II,many of the young elite were sent to German universities by the government, to complete their highereducation.
After returning to Russia, they were active in various fields, such as politics, economics andeducation. Some contributed to the formation of modern Russian literature, introducing European
literary works and trends; and it is highly important for understanding the development of thisliterature to examine the relation between their literary activity and their participation in this crosscultural initiative.
In this study we will focus especially on the work of Ocip Petrovich Kozodavlev (1754-1819), oneof the students sent to Leipzig University by Catherine II’s government.
Before analyzing his literary work, however, let us briefly review his biography.
Osip Petrovich Kozodavlev was born in 1754, the son of the captain of a horse-guard regiment.
After completing military school, he was sent to Leipzig University in 1769, and remained there until
1774, studying philosophy, politics and literature. At the university, he attended lectures by Professors
Platner and Gellert, and other well-known thinkers. Shortly before Kozodavlev’s arrival, A. N.
Radishchev and A. M. Kutuzov had studied at the same university.
His experiences in Germany had a profound impact on Kozodavlev’s work throughout his life.
After returning to Russia, he became a member of the Academy of Science, and participated in thepreparation of the Dictionary of the Russian Language. In addition, beginning in the second half of the1780s, he joined in the establishment of national schools and served as an acting Minister of Justice. In
the beginning of the 19th century, during the reign of Alexander I, he was appointed to the Ministry ofInternal Affairs, and published the Northern Post Office (1809-1819) political newspaper for 10 years.
Traditionally, Kozodavlev has been primarily regarded as a politician and economist. However,though not as widely known, as a literary author, as Radishchev for example, he made a significant
contribution to the development of Russian literature through his translations, adaptations and original
ACTES DU CONGRÈS DE LA SIEDS 2015 (JSECS)

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KANAZAWA TOMOOworks.
Most of these works were published in the 1770s-1780s, including one of his main achievementsin the context of the history of Russian literature: a translation of Goethe’s play, Clavigo, which I havediscussed in an article published in the academic journal Russian Literature.
Here I would like to focus on his poem, Dream (Сновидение), which appeared in the magazine
Interlocutor for Russian Language Lovers(Собеседник любителей российского слова); and to consider thework in the historical context of Russia in the 1780s.
In 1783, the monthly Interlocutor for Russian Language Lovers, whose main editor was Kozodavlev,
began publication under the patronage of Empress Catherine II. The editors’ main aim was to publish
a periodical consisting only of original articles and literary works written in Russian; that is, excludingtranslations of European literature. Many famous authors, including G. R. Derzhavin, I. F. Bogdanovich,
D. I. Fonvizin, I. I. Dmitriev and even Catherine II herself, contributed to the journal.
Though Kozodavlev, who edited the journal along with Madam Dashkova, also wrote several
pieces for the journal, little attention has been given to these works, and he is principally known, in thiscontext, for having introduced Derzhavin’s poem “Feritca” to readers and other authors, in the first issueof the periodical.
2. Kozodavlev’s Dream in the last issue of Interlocutor for Russian Language Lovers
His poem Dream appeared in the 16th that is the last issue of the monthly magazine.
According to the only analysis of this poem, in an essay written in the 1850s by N. A. Dobrolyubov,
which considered a variety of works published in Interlocutor for Russian Language Lovers (1783-1784),“Dream” was composed with ‘rhythmical tone and humor’. Beyond this brief reference, however, there isno discussion of the poem, its theme, or Kozodavlev’s aim in writing it.
However, I would argue that the poem is, in fact, highly important for understanding the processof enlightenment and education in 1780s Russia, and shall begin with a summary of the story and thestructure of the poem.
a) Beginning of DreamThe poem Dream begins with a brief introduction by the author-narrator, and the description ofthe dream follows it.
Снабденный нежною душоюКакой-то господин Клитон,Гонимый лютою судьбою
Однажды странный видел сон,О коем здесь я повествую.
Он был влюбленой человек,И победить свою драгуюСтарался тщетно целый век.
Моя рассказывала МамаTHE 18TH-CENTURY RUSSIAN ELITE AND THE TRANSFER OF EUROPEAN KNOWLEDGE 3Частенько сказочку об нем.
Сия возлюбленная ДамаДовольно знала об всем,И прозу и стихи читала,Рассказывала сказки мне,И все то утром толковала,Что ночью видел я во сне.
Она примешивать стараласьТо часто в повестях своих,О чем и в книгах начиталась,И что слыхала от других.
(Dream in Interlocutor for Russian Language Lovers, №16, 1784, p. 54)
In the introduction, the narrator recalls that in his youth his mother once told him about thedream of a Kliton, who is an unhappy man, disappointed in love.
According to the narrator, his mother was “a wise woman”, highly cultivated and familiar withliterature, even “Homer”. Though not an author herself, she savored the description of Kliton’s dream,with its characters from Classical mythology such as Phoebe, Amor and Aurora.
More than a mere recollection of childhood, the scene illustrates how a wise mother educates her
son through storytelling; and it joins the broader introduction in articulating the poem’s thematic focus
on education and enlightenment.
b) Kliton’s dream
With this in mind, we return to Kliton’s dream itself. Depressed by his unhappy experience in love,
Kliton falls asleep one day, and dreams that Amor, one of the gods of Classical mythology, picks him up
in a carriage drawn by doves and they fly high into the sky, finally ending up in a beautiful palace, whereKliton is left alone. Amazed and at a loss, Kliton enters the palace and suddenly hears a beautiful voice.
On the way to the palace, flying high in the sky, Kliton is alternately filled with fear and elation,
gazing down at the beautiful scenery. In spite of the abnormal situations, he never wakes up from thedream. The narrator himself wonders why Kliton is not troubled by this, but immediately supplies hisown answer, namely, that the god Morpheus has encompassed Kliton in a deep sleep, oblivious both tohimself and the improbability of his situation in the dream.
The narrator further volunteers that ladies’ naps during public officials’ boring speeches at parties
are attributable to the same cause. Thus, freely digressing from the main plot, the narrator refers to
trifling events in the real world, attributing them to Morphean pranks.
Consider a further significant instance, wherein the narrator compares the vehicle of theimagination, the “flying carriage”,with a scientific device, the “hot-air balloon”:
По воздуху летать опасно,Кто что теперь ни говори.

4KANAZAWA TOMOOСие искуство мне ужасно,—По мне оно огнем гори.
Пускай одне лишь только птицыПо воздуху себе парят.
Шары, воздушны колесницы,И Монгольфьеров весь снаряд
Меня ни мало не прельщают,Таких я выдумок стращусь,Хоть их и много похваляют,Летать я право не пущусь.
Клитону же тогда казалось,Сие искусство колдовством;(Dream, p. 63)
In this scene, the narrator attempts to provide an objective interpretation of the flight in Kliton’s
dream, through comparison with a hot-air balloon.
The quoted reference to the ‘Montgolfier’ hot-air balloon, in particular, provides a clue as towhere and how Kozodavlev obtained some of the central ideas, motifs and plots of his literary works. In
1783, in France, the Montgolfier brothers performed hot-air balloon flights for the first time in history.
Needless to say, this epoch-making event caused a worldwide sensation, and many intellectuals referred
to it in their works, among them Kozodavlev in Dream.
However, it is certain that, in the case of Kozodavlev, it was the literary image of Montgolfier,described in the famous German periodical Deutsche Mercur, which attracted his attention, rather than
the actual Montgolfier.
This German periodical was edited by C. M. Wieland, a German professor-writer, famousthroughout Europe at the time. The periodical was also sold in Russia in those days, and well known to
Russian intellectuals. In 1783, immediately after the brothers’ success, Wieland wrote an essay about“Montgolfier”, printed in the issue of the same year; and in the same issue, published the poem Cleliaand Sinibald (Klelia und Sinibald), in which the motif of “Montgolfier” also appears.
Though there is no proof, it is certain that Kozodavlev was profoundly influenced by Wieland’s
work, and that he was a regular reader of this journal. In the first issue of Interlocutor, for example,
Kozodavlev wrote the didactic story A Pleasant Trip (Приятное путешествие), in which we can clearlyobserve affinities with
Wieland’s Socrates out of his Senses: or, Dialogues of Diogenes of Sinope (Sokrates Mainomenos oderdie Dialogen des Diogenes von Sinope).
Therefore, it is thought that Wieland’s work stimulated Kozodavlev to employ the ‘Montgolfier’balloon in his Dream; we might even suppose that the central action, of flying across the sky, wasinspired by Wieland’s work.
As we have already seen, Kozodavlev emphasizes the significance of the education of the child in
the introduction to Dream, and here, in Kliton’s dream itself, he attempts to describe the fantastic trip inTHE 18TH-CENTURY RUSSIAN ELITE AND THE TRANSFER OF EUROPEAN KNOWLEDGE 5

the carriage from an objective point of view.
Moreover, we must remember that the narrator, recalling Kliton’s dream from his mother’s tellingin his childhood, is now an adult, and likely describes the dream from his current viewpoint and in hisown words.
We may suggest, then, that it was not so much Kliton’s dream itself, but the broader scene ofdomestic education, and the influence of such education on the human sensibility, which Kozodavlev isfocusing on in Dream. Eventually we would meet him as an illuminist in this poem.
3. Historical context: background and environment
Now let us consider the background and environment in which Kozodavlev conceived of Dream;that is, his relation to the official Westernizing initiative of the government, and the literary tendencies
in 1770s and 1780s Russia.
In the 1780s, Catherine II organized the Commission for public schools, to spearhead thefoundation of national schools and universities; and in 1786, she established detailed provisions forstudents concerning “authorized textbooks”, system of the lecture and so on. Importantly, Kozodavlev
was a member of the Committee as of 1785.
In addition, we must keep in mind that after the publication of Interlocutor was discontinued,Kozodavlev began to publish his long historical essay, A consideration on the national education in Europe(Рассуждение о народном просвещении в Европе), in which he praises the historical development of theGerman enlightenment and educational system. We can see in his activity at this time that he is keenlyinterested in problems facing the Russian educational system.
In Russia at this time, increased interest in childhood education began to appear, not only
in national projects but also in journalism and literature. In 1785, for example, one year after thediscontinuance of Interlocutor, N. I. Novikov began to publish Reading for Children, which was the firstchildrens’ magazine in Russia.
Furthermore, in the second half of the 1780s and throughout the 1790s, numerous periodicals
concerned with the formation of childhood education emerged; among them Karamzin’s Moscow
Journal and Reading for Taste and Wise as an appendix for Moscow News.
These historical facts help us understand the background of Kozodavlev’s composition of Dream in
1784, and its publication in the last issue of Interlocutor.
Kozodavlev was deeply interested in the enlightenment initiatives of the Russian government.
In 1784, even as the last issue of his journal was being prepared, he felt that he would likely soon
be seriously engaged in establishing the foundations of the new educational system, along with hiscolleague; and it seems reasonable that this prospect would have influenced Kozodavlev in writing andpublishing Dream, as a symbolic work, in preparation for his subsequent activity.
Finally, we must remind ourselves of the fact that Dream is an unfinished poem. When Kliton, in
his dream, reaches the beautiful palace, he suddenly hears a female voice.
Он видит сад перед собоюНа яшмовый ступив балкон.
Сей сад натуры красотою,6KANAZAWA TOMOOЕго зовёт из комнат вон;Но вдруг в чертогах поражаетПриятный глас Клитонов слух;Божественный сей глас пленяетНаполненный любовью дух.
Он слышит пение небесно,Как будто Тоди там поёт,Которая в восторг чудесноСердца чувствительны влечет.
(Dream, p. 69.)
Most of description of the dreams in the stories written in the second half of the 18th century, suchas the dreams in the works of A. P. Sumarokov and F. A. Emin, end with the dreamer waking up from hisdream. However, at the end of Kozodavlev’s dream-story we read, “To be continued.” Yet, in fact, boththe poem and the journal in which it was published were discontinued.
It is quite likely, then, that Kozodavlev had effectively said, in Dream, what he had wished to say.
Kozodavlev’s keen interest in enlightenment and education were engendered in his student days
at Leipzig, under the influence of German culture. As I have argued, German literature and periodicals,such as the works of Wieland, were decisive inspirations for his conceptualization of the enlightenment
and education in general. It is also significant that the first childrens’ magazine in Europe appeared inGermany, the Leipzig Journal. More detailed analysis of this phenomenon, however, will be reported on
at a later opportunity.
Kanazawa TomooThe University of Electro-Communications