Russia as a Space of Hope: Nineteenth-Century French Challenges to the Liberal Image of Russia

Abstract

This article analyses the clash of representations of Russia in nineteenth-century France, as part of the more general political struggle for the meaning of ‘Europe’. Against the liberal idea of Europe — according to which Russia was a land of barbarism and tyranny — different groups of romantics, socialists, mystics, anarchists, conservatives and authoritarian thinkers presented Russia as a model for Europe to follow, although for different reasons. Thus, for some conservatives, Russian Christianity offered the promise of religious regeneration, while for others the tsarist hierarchy could well be the model or order that Europe needed. On the other hand, the Russian peasant commune offered romantic intellectuals and socialist and anarchist thinkers the promise of social regeneration or an anti-capitalist model of society. Among others, the article deals with the ideas of Bonald, Maistre, Balzac, Comte, Le Play, Considérant, Cœurderoy, Lèbre, Reclus, de Staël, Herzen, Mickiewicz, Haxthausen, Herder and Cyprien Robert.