Mother of the Church: Sofia Svechina, the Salon, and the Politics of Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Russia and France 9781501757297

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MOTHER OF THE CHURCH

Sofia Svechina ( 1782-1857) from an engraving by Eugene Leguay (image courtesy of Bibliotheque Nationale de France)

MOTHER •• •• • • • • • ••••• • •••••••• • ••••••• •••••

of the • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

CHURCH

••••••••••• • • •• • ••• ••• • ••••• • • • • • • • •

Sofia Svechina, the Salon, and the Politics of Catholicism in Nineteenth-Century Russia and France

TATYANA V. BAKHMETYEVA

NIU Press I DeKalb, IL

Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb 60115 © 2016 by Northern Illinois University Press All rights reserved 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 978-0-87580-737-9 (paper) 978-1-60909-198-9 (e-book)

1 2 3 4 5

Cover design by Shaun Allshouse Composition by BookComp, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bakhmetyeva, Tatyana, author. Title: Mother of the church-Sofia Svechina, the salon, and the politics of Catholicism in nineteenth-century Russia and France I Tatyana V. Bakhmetyeva. Description: DeKalb : Northern Illinois University Press, 2016. I Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2016011180 (print) I LCCN 2016030364 (ebook) I ISBN 9780875807379 (paperback) I ISBN 9781609091989 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Swetchine, Madame (Anne-Sophie), 1782-1857.[ Catholic converts-France-Biography.[ France-Intellectual life-19th century.[ Saint Petersburg (Russia)-Intellectual life-19th century. I Salons-France-History-19th century.[ Salons-Russia (Federation)-Saint Petersburg-History-19th century. I Catholic Church-France-History-19th century.[ BISAC: BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY I Religious. I HISTORY I Europe I Russia & the Former Soviet Union. I HISTORY I Europe I France. Classification: LCC BX4668.S94 B35 2016 (print) I LCC BX4668.S94 (ebook) I DDC 282.092 [B]-dc23 LC record available at https:lllccn.loc.govl2016011180

To Stewart, always

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations

ix

Acknowledgments

xi

Introduction PART 1: ST. PETERSBURG PROLOGUE CHAPTER

11

The World in Flux: The French Revolution, Napoleon, and the Russian Nobility

14

In the Salons of St. Petersburg

34

CHAPTER 3

At a Religious Crossroads

54

CHAPTER 4

Becoming Catholic, Becoming Russian

77

CHAPTER

1

2

PART II: PARIS PROLOGUE CHAPTER 5

109

Making Paris Home: The Micro-Politics of Friendship

112

"Neutral Grounds in Paris": The Early Years of Svechina's Salon

135

CHAPTER 7

Svechina and French Religious Politics, 1830-1848

163

CHAPTER 8

The Kingdom of Saint-Dominique

180

CHAPTER 9

Opportunities Lost

206

CHAPTER

TheNewCrisisandtheEnd

237

Writing the Modern Saint

260

CHAPTER 6

10

CoNcLusIoN

Notes

273

Bibliography

311

Index

329

ILLUSTRATIONS

fRONTISPIECE

Sofia Svechina (1782-1857), from an engraving by Eugene Leguay (image courtesy ofBibliotheque Nationale de France)

ii

FIGURE

1

Sofia Soimonova as a young girl, artist unknown

25

FIGURE

2

Joseph de Maistre, lithograph from a painting by Pierre Bouillon (image courtesy of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library)

42

FIGURE 3

Charles de Montalembert (image courtesy ofBibliotheque Nationale de France)

181

FIGURE 4

Henri Lacordaire (image courtesy of BIU Sante, Paris)

185

FIGURE 5

Henri Lacordaire's conferences at Notre-Dame (image courtesy ofBibliotheque Nationale de France)

194

FIGURE 6

Alfred de Falloux, ca. 1837, artist unknown

202

FIGURE 7

Alexis de Tocqueville, lithograph by Theodore Chasseriau (courtesy of the Library of Congress)

253

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A

s with any book, this one not only took many years of research but was also shaped-and re-shaped-through many conversations with colleagues and friends; it went through multiple drafts generously read by yet more colleagues and friends who gave feedback and offered ideas; it was completed only because family-and yet more friends-provided emotional support and created a stimulating and happy social environment. Now, thinking back, I feel that I should have kept a detailed diary, a travel log, in which I noted the name of everyone whom I encountered on this journey and who helped me to complete it. Alas, I kept no such record and have to rely on my memory. The journey has been a long one-too long, in fact. Please forgive me if I fail to acknowledge your help or advice. Several institutions and organizations provided financial assistance to this project. The University of Rochester History Department's travel and research grants, the John Tracy Ellis Dissertation Award from the American Catholic Historical Association, and travel grants and a Dissertation Award from the University of Rochester's Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies all helped support several trips to archives in France and Russia. A grant from the Friends of the University of Rochester Libraries funded the purchase of several important sources, making it easier to work at home. The staff of the University of Rochester Libraries and especially the Interlibrary Loan Department seemed to possess a magical ability to make books and materials appear almost at the moment I ordered them. Friends and colleagues at the University of Rochester History Department were, of course, an inspiration. Among them, I want to single out Jean Pedersen, whose incredibly detailed and helpful notes and suggestions left me in awe of her intellectual generosity. Abroad, members of the Society of Jesus from the Center for Russian Studies/ Slavic Library in Meudon, especially Father Rene Marichal, made my time working in the archives of the center unforgettable. Wonderful food, splendid conversations, and peaceful walks in the park that surrounded the archive gave me much needed respite from lonely hours in the library. Sister Natalie, former curator of the Slavic Library, helped me navigate through the maze of the archive. The monks of the Order of St. Benedict from the Solesmes Abbey shared not only their heavenly music and their enthusiasm for Sofia Svechina but also rare documents from their archives. Sandrine Lacombe from the Archives Nationales sought me out to inform me that the archives had purchased a new collection of documents related to Svechina and allowed me access to these documents even before they were cataloged and processed.

Xli

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My dissertation advisers, Dorinda Outram and Brenda Meehan, readily and generously shared their truly inexhaustible knowledge, while their patience and support sustained me through the early stages of this journey. When failing health forced Brenda Meehan to step down as my adviser, she remained a true inspiration both professionally and personally until her untimely death. Dorinda Outram took over the advising of this project in its final dissertation stage and then continued to share her insights as I was working on the book. My anonymous reviewers' comments helped me to broaden the narrative both contextually and structurally and encouraged me to push my analysis farther. My editors, Amy Farranto and Nathan Holmes, readily-and patiently-offered support and guidance. It was a pleasure to work with them and a privilege to publish this book with the Northern Illinois University Press. Finally, I want to thank my family for their support and patience. My mother, Lyubov Bakhmetyeva, eased the pressure of parenting and running the household. My children, Daria and Sophia, grew up with this project, first getting familiar with it when it was a dissertation, then as it turned into a book. Having to compete with it for my attention, they came to see it as another sibling, and not a very pleasant one. I also want to thank my step-children, Henry and Cea, who readily welcomed me into their lives several years ago, turning what could have been a formidable challenge of building a new family into an easy transition that made the writing process much easier. But most of all I want to thank my husband, Stewart Weaver, who is my daily inspiration in every aspect of life, including professional. His eloquent and graceful writing style is an ideal that I will never reach. But his love, support, and encouragement make me try nevertheless. His coming into my life enriched it in more ways than he can imagine. It is to him that this book is dedicated, with love.

INTRODUCTION

0

n September 14, 1857, Parisians passing by Montmartre Cemetery might well have wondered whether they had missed an announcement of the recent death of some dignitary as they watched the graveside gathering of several noted French politicians and intellectuals. Those whose curiosity was sufficiently piqued to ask after the deceased might have heard for the first time the name of Sofia Svechina-or Madame Swetchine as she was known to everyone in the funeral party-a Russian emigre who had died a few days earlier in her apartmenton Rue Saint-Dominique. Once the hostess of a prominent Parisian salon and the center of an impressive orbit of French Catholic intellectuals, Svechina had outlived her fame, and having heard her name, the passersby would most likely have moved on, idle curiosity satisfied. But those who lingered to ask more would have heard, perhaps, a remarkable story. Sofia Svechina was born into a prominent and educated Russian noble family in 1782. Her father, Petr Aleksandrovich Soimonov (1737-1800), was Catherine the Great's personal secretary and one of the guardians of the Academy of Science in St. Petersburg. At the age of seventeen, Svechina married her father's friend, forty-two-year-old General Nikolai Sergeevich Svechin (1759-1850). At this point Svechina appeared to have been on her way to a conventional career as a Russian noblewoman: she became a lady-in-waiting at the court of the Empress Maria Fedorovna and lived at the Winter Palace next to the apartments of the heir to the throne (soon to become Emperor Alexander I), who was among her close friends. Like many other Russian noblewomen, she opened a salon in St. Petersburg, one frequented by many illustrious French emigres and distinguished Russians. Despite her growing success as a hostess and her seemingly idyllic life, Svechina and her husband left Russia and moved to France in 1816. Their sudden emigration coincided with another important event in Svechina's life: her

2

INTRODUCTION

conversion to Roman Catholicism at a time when conversion to any foreign religion was not only illegal in Orthodox Russia but also, in the wake of Russia's war with Napoleonic and Catholic France, highly controversial. In Paris Svechina and her husband found a new home, and it was there that her true "career" blossomed when she opened a salon that quickly became one of the best known and most original in Paris-a surprising success for a foreigner of humble origin. Svechina's salon soon acquired a distinctively religious character and turned into a meeting place for the French intellectual Catholic elite, the members of the Liberal Catholic movement who gathered around Svechina, surrounding her, as one of her biographers, Armand de Pichard, admiringly put it, like "luminous rays:' 1 Closest to her was Father Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire (1802-1861), a celebrated Catholic writer and preacher credited with the revival of the Dominican order in France, in whose life Svechina played the role of a spiritual advisor. 2 Also among the members of her intimate circle were Count Alfred de Falloux (18111886), historian, publicist, writer, and minister of education under the Second Republic, and Count Charles de Montalembert (1810-1870), a leader of the Parti Catholique in the Chamber of Peers. Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), celebrated author of Democracy in America, historian and political thinker, who met Svechina late in her life and confided in her, thought that she was a perfect combination of saintliness and genius/ as did Viscount Armand de Melun (1807-1877), a Catholic politician who determinedly sought to alleviate the plight of the working class. Svechina intimately knew both Frederic Ozanam and Sister Rosalie Rendu, two passionate fighters for social justice who were later beatified by the Catholic Church for their work among the poor. Her salon also attracted many Russians living in or passing through Paris; some of them lingered there for years, like Ivan Gagarin (1814-1882), Svechina's relative, one of the first Russian Jesuits, and an advocate of Russia's conversion to Catholicism. And there were many others. Together, these French and foreign politicians and intellectuals formed an impressive circle of friends, followers, and acquaintances, many of whom left memoirs in which they spoke of Svechina with admiration, respect, awe, and love. 4 Although other salonnieres also surrounded themselves with men of talent, their influence over these men was often limited to providing a forum for their works or easing their access to important social networks. Svechina, on the other hand, as Duke Albert de Broglie insisted, "had power over souls;' serving as a mentor, spiritual counselor, and even an intellectual advisor to many distinguished women of Parisian society and many influential men. 5 It was to her that many of these intellectuals sent drafts of their books and articles, humbly asking for her opinion. It was her advice they sought when their careers were in flux, as did Montalembert, Lacordaire, and Falloux. It was to her that they confessed the most intimate struggles of their souls, as was the case with Alexis de Tocqueville.

INTRODUCTION

3

Not everyone was enamored with Svechina. To the French literary critic Charles Sainte-Beuve (1804-1869), her salon seemed dull, excessively pious, and rehearsed, quite unable to live up to what he saw as the ideal salon: "gay, brilliant, inspired, wise, witty, [a place] where enjoyment, audacity, wisdom, and folly charm the hours:' 6 Other critics too thought her religiosity excessive and mocked the title given to her by her admirers, "the Mother of the Church:' 7 Still others, including many in her native Russia, found her intellect limited, her education unsystematic and undisciplined, her mind wandering, and her sophisms as published by Falloux silly and childish, not worthy to appear even in a school album. 8 Her alleged humility seemed to these critics to mask her need for power, while her influence on some of her followers, especially Lacordaire, they saw as potentially impeding and destructive, calling her his "grey shadow:' 9 Svechina's later biographers struggled to reconcile these conflicting views of her as they sought to explain the enigma of her influence. Among those attentive readers and reviewers who pondered these questions was the great American novelist Henry James, who devoted a chapter of his volume on French literary criticism to Sofia Svechina and the English translation of Falloux's biography. Despite his praise of the book and of its subject, James's article on Svechina, which appears among others on such French writers as Georges Sand, Guy de Maupassant, and Victor Hugo, betrayed a sense of bewilderment about Falloux's fascination with her. Anticipating a similar bewilderment on the part of his readers, James explained it by the inability of the English language to capture Svechina's French spirit, which, once removed from its French context, lost its charm, he thought, and, more importantly, its interest. 10 Other commentators struggled with the mystery of her appeal as well. Some found the key to it in the intellectual work "which she underwent for more than fifty years, and which explains the influence she exercised over all who approached her:' 11 Others suggested instead that " [Svechina] was childless and probably a maternal instinct lay at the root of much of her strange power" and stressed that "it was sympathy and understanding, arising from her own great sensitivity, that attracted people to her:' 12 Yet others concluded that "those who look for the means by which [Svechina] exercised and carried into the most diverse spheres an influence which, for thirty years, was ever on the increase, are amazed to discover that she neither sought nor combined any means whatever:' 13 Thus, when it comes to the mystery of Sofia Svechina's appeal, we are still confronted with many questions. Why and how did this woman-whom her biographers remembered as humble and modest both in personal taste and demeanor, but intellectually powerful, but whom her critics saw as limited and manipulative-gain such a level of admiration and devotion both in St. Petersburg and in Paris? Why did so great a number of distinguished intellectuals of her time

4

INTRODUCTION

seek her counsel? What was the source of her mysterious power? And beyond such questions of her influence and authority are others that pertain to her own life. To begin with, why did she convert to Catholicism at a moment when such conversion could not have been interpreted as anything but a betrayal of her native country, a country that was, after all, just recovering from a war with Catholic France? Why did she leave Russia at the moment of its greatest triumph, never to return to her homeland again? How did she succeed in the highly competitive and crowded world of Parisian salons? These questions drive this book's original exploration of Svechina's life, punctuating and shaping the narrative. My main goal in revisiting Svechina's life is to understand the creative process that lay behind it and to understand her life in the context of the world that informed it. Instead of looking at Svechina as a singular subject in isolation, this book places her within the web of her social connections; it looks at her "personality as influenced by and interacting with the world around it rather than standing over it like a colossus:' 14 1his approach suggests that rather than seeing Svechina's life as a linear and continuous narrative in the manner of conventional biography, one can seek out those particular moments in her life when shifts of self-presentation occur and conflicts emerge and explore her life through a series of questions instead of a series of dates. One of the first and largest historiographical questions that this book explores is that of the conversion of a large number of Russian nobles (capital nobles in particular) to Catholicism at the beginning of the nineteenth century, of which Svechina's was only one prominent example. To decipher these conversions-and to understand Svechina's conversion-one must view them within the context of two deep crises, political and cultural, that affected the Russian nobility at the turn of the century. The first crisis, triggered by the French Revolution, was an intellectual and spiritual one. In Russia, just as everywhere else in Europe, the apocalyptic events of the French Revolution came to be understood as a direct result of the corrupting ideas of the philosophes. This understanding encouraged the European and Russian nobility to search for alternative ways of thinking, pushing them away from Enlightenment rationalism and toward religion and mysticism. The second crisis, triggered by the Napoleonic wars, was one of Russian national identity. The Russian elite, heavily informed by French culture, now, in the aftermath of the war with Napoleonic France, had to view this culture as hostile and alien-a change that forced Russian nobles to reimagine their national identity in opposition to, rather than in collaboration with, the West. As a result, Russian nobles, especially those closest to the court, experienced a sense of loss and disorientation as they had to abandon some elements of a bicultural identity that had been important to their sense of self. But some resisted this change, developing an alternative, cosmopolitan vision of national identity, which they enacted through

INTRODUCTION

5

their conversions to Catholicism. Svechina's case stands right in the middle of these two crises, offering a unique opportunity to understand how the Russian capital nobility experienced the tensions and conflicts of their era and tried to resolve them. Part I, "St. Petersburg;' places Svechina and her fellow converts in the contextand at the roots-of an emerging debate about Russian national identity and the nature of Russian civilization that in the 1840s and 1850s led to the appearance of two groups of intellectuals, Slavophiles and Westernizers. This debate, the accepted view has it, was triggered by Petr Chaadaev (1794-1856) who in 1836 published the first of the several Philosophical Letters in which he expressed many of the views that conjured to life both the Westernizers, who were inspired by Chaadaev's ideas, and the Slavophiles, who were infuriated by them. Chaadaev, despite his lasting influence on Russia's intellectual life, often appears in modern historiography as an intellectual loner because of his emphasis on Catholicism as a necessary element of Russia's Westernization, an element that was rejected by most other largely secular and rationalist Westernizers. The story of Svechina and other converts, however, suggests that Chaadaev's ideas represent the culmination of the thinking of a much larger group of people who, like him, thought that Russia's destiny, its past, present, and future, should be linked to Europe and who saw Catholicism as a path to bring together two civilizations, the Russian and the European. In their criticism of this idea, the Slavophiles of the 1840s were responding not only to Chaadaev but to the whole Russian Catholic movement, of which Svechina was a notable and prominent member. 15 The scarcity of the sources about Svechina's conversion makes it necessary to explore it by way of a collective portrait of Russian converts, who, one by one, add pieces to the puzzle of noble conversion to Catholicism at the turn of the century. In the course of this exploration, the first part of this book, while discussing Svechina's individual conversion, tells the story of a whole generation caught at the crossroads of history and reconstructs the world of the Russian nobility that Svechina inhabited. Chapters 1 and 2 recreate her physical world; they explore Svechina's experience of Russia's war with Napoleon, her marriage, and her social life in the peculiar world of Russian salons. Chapters 3 and 4 bring to life the world of ideas in which she lived; they look more closely at the inner movements of her mind that eventually led to her embrace of the Roman Catholic faith. Another important issue that this book addresses is that of the building and inner workings of the salon. The history of the salon as an important cultural institution remains a popular topic among historians, who in recent years have significantly expanded our understanding of the origins of this institution, the trajectory of its development, and its changing functions. 16 And yet, as our understanding of the nature of salons is becoming more nuanced, their internal

6

INTRODUCTION

dynamics remain less understood. Often, we see very little of the creative process that went into the opening of a particular salon, of the strategies that salon hostesses used to create their networks and to maintain them; we do not know much about how they selected celebrities to serve as focal points of their salons or how they advanced the careers of their proteges. The existing literature often talks about salon hostesses as mediators, but how did they mediate? Similarly, salons are often characterized as neutral grounds. Once again, what does this mean? How was this neutrality achieved, and how did it manifest itself in daily salon interactions? It is these questions that this book attempts to address in Part II, "Paris;' bringing readers directly into Svechina's salon and inviting them to observe closely how she constructed it, and how she operated her networks to advance the careers of her friends and proteges, and how she maintained a neutral forum for political discussion. Chapters 5 and 6 closely follow Svechina as she finds her way into the world of Parisian salons, meeting other hostesses, apprenticing with them, building her network, selecting a physical space for her salon, and identifying both celebrities who could serve as focal points of her salon and proteges whose careers she could help to advance, building her reputation as an influential hostess in the process. Focusing on the history of Svechina's salon, chapters 7 and 8 address another important issue: the creativity that women exercised in using religion as a way out of the private and into the public sphere. Women's religiosity has traditionally been seen as proof of their natural inclination toward things emotional and irrational, seemingly confirming the validity of a dichotomy between private and public: men operate in politics and thus in the public sphere, while women dominate religion-that is, the private sphere. 17 The story of Svechina's salon challenges these assumptions in several important ways. First, the success of a salon frequented by a number of leading Catholic intellectuals suggests that the renewed interest in religion in the first decades of the nineteenth century was not limited to women. The re-Christianization of French society was a much wider project, in which men also actively participated, and it was characterized not only by the return to traditional forms of religiosity perceived as female but also by the intense intellectualization and politicization of religion-something that was supposed to make it a modern force for a modern society. In this project of the modernization of religion, Svechina's salon was a leading influence. Second, Svechina's life also suggests that women's interest and participation in all things religious did not always lead to their exclusion from public life. Her model of authority demonstrates that it was precisely the sphere of religion that turned Svechina into a person of power, one who used her spiritual authority and her highly valued personal abilities (such as that of fostering friendships and repairing relationships among her salon visitors) to advise her proteges on

INTRODUCTION

7

their careers and intellectual work, advocate for their interests, and create aliiances that benefited their careers while simultaneously advancing the cause of the Liberal Catholic movement. Using not institutionalized but private channels, she-paradoxically-gained public authority. Furthermore, Svechina's case demonstrates that models of female authority were not always based on breaking away from and/or standing in opposition to existing structures and institutions-a strategy that, in fact, often limited women's ability to empower themselves. Her model of authority was based on positioning herself between the existing structures rather than apart from them. In every instance of her life, she sought reconciliation rather than rupture. In that respect Svechina resembles such women as George Sand, Marie d'Agoult, Hortense Allart, and Delphine Gay de Girardin who, Whitney Walton argues, "constructed an alternative position for women between the two poles of feminist equality and republican motherhood:' 18 Finally, just as the study of salons is inextricably linked to the study of political culture, so the study of Svechina's salon is linked to the study of French religious politics. In an attempt to solve the puzzle ofSvechina's authority and influence, this book places her in the midst of a small but important group, the Liberal Catholics, who struggled to find their place in the increasingly complex landscape of political parties and ideas as they pursued their ultimate goal: reconciliation between the modern world and their faith. Svechina was not only deeply personally involved in this project but often guided it by advising its leading proponents. Yet, her role in it-and in the personal and intellectual lives of the members of the Liberal Catholic movement-is still not fully understood or acknowledged even as interest in Liberal Catholicism itself grows. In Carol E. Harrison's recent book on the French Liberal Catholic movement, for instance, Svechina's name surprisingly does not appear at all, even though an entry on Svechina in a modern dictionary of religion strongly asserts that her place in the movement was quite prominent: During the July monarchy and first years of the Second Empire, no important matter of the Church of France was undertaken or decided without consulting her. No religious activity or even internal attitude of any significance was adopted without her consent and approval in the critical moments of their lives by men such as Armand de Melun, Charles de Montalembert, Henri Lacordaire, Prosper Gueranger, Alfred de Falloux, and a few others. 19

Addressing this omission, this book restores Svechina to her central position within the Liberal Catholic movement as it attempts to solve the enigma of her appeal. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 argue that it was above all Svechina's ability to create a neutral space and to balance her salon-and herself-at the intersection of ideas, identities, and politics that lay at the core of her influence. It was this skill that she

8

INTRODUCTION

shared with those Liberal Catholics who found themselves in a state of crisis in the 1820s and early 1830s, under attack by both conservative Catholic and liberal politicians. To survive as an influential movement, they needed to regroup and renegotiate their position within the Church, for it was only by remaining within the Church that they could continue their work and have any standing among Catholics. Yet, as one of the leaders of the movement, Father Henri Lacordaire, pointed out in one of his letters to Svechina, the French clergy were divided. "One part wants the ancient Church of France with its maxims and its methods;' he wrote, while "the other part believes that France is in a state irreparably new:' 20 Svechina sought to close the gap between these two camps by creating a place of intersection, a neutral ground, where the two could meet and turn their differences into similarities. It was also Svechina who helped the members of the movement to rebuild their public careers, consolidate their ranks, and recruit new believers. As a result of these efforts, at the end of the 1830s, Liberal Catholics emerged from the crisis of the 1820s as a political group, influential both within and outside the church. They led the fight for freedom of education and seemed successful in bringing about a rapprochement between the middle class and the church. Unfortunately, their success was short-lived. By the early 1850s, Liberal Catholics had lost both their conservative Catholic and liberal secular allies. While their failure came as a result of a number of political developments and bad decisions by their leaders, one cannot overlook the fact that it coincided in time with the closing of Svechina's salon and her gradual debilitation. This coincidence leaves one wondering whether the closing and her illness too contributed to the collapse of the Liberal Catholic movement. The story of Svechina's salon is, thus, the story of Russian conversions to Catholicism, of the European salon, of Liberal Catholicism. But more importantly, the story of Svechina is ultimately also the story of the nineteenth century, a century not only of conflict and revolution, of the confrontation of classes, identities, beliefs, and ideologies, but of possibilities and experimentations as people who lived through these conflicts sought models on which future societies, both Russian and French, might be built. For Svechina and the members of her milieu, the only possible foundation for these new societies was the Catholic Church. Her story, thus, is also the story of a long and uneasy process that religion in general, and the Catholic Church in particular, went through to negotiate its place in the new political and cultural landscape, to adapt to the new realities, and to claim its right to be an important political force that had the ability to reconcile past and present. This process is far from over, and Sofia Svechina and the Liberal Catholics have an important place in its history.

PROLOGUE

I

n early June of 1815, at the age of thirty-three, Sofia Svechina and her adopted daughter Nadine set off for the Bariatynskii family country estate in Peterhof. Such a country excursion was nothing unusual for a Russian noble family. Following the tradition established by Peter the Great, who wanted to socialize his courtiers in the habits of the Western aristocracy, Russian nobles routinely abandoned the capital for their country homes with the arrival of summer. Like all members of the nobility, Sofia Svechina loved these summer retreats. Trips to the country offered her a chance to slow the pace of her daily routine and devote time to other much treasured activities: reading, writing, and thinking without distraction. In the countryside she could finally "restore her moral strength through study and solitude:'' Such trips also allowed her the pleasure of reuniting with her younger sister Ekaterina. The sisters had been close since early childhood. In fact, following the death of their mother soon after Ekaterina's birth, Sofia filled the maternal void in her younger sister's life and became not only her friend and playmate but also her caregiver. After Sofia's marriage, Ekaterina continued to live with her until her own marriage to Prince Grigorii Ivanovich Gagarin (1782-1837) in 1809. But even then the sisters remained intimate. They often travelled together and rented summer houses, either on one of the Neva islands, at Peterhof, or at Tsarskoe Selo. 2 Childless herself, Svechina delighted in spending time with her small nephews. The boys reciprocated her affection and followed their aunt everywhere, so much so that Svechina at times had to lock herself in her room to catch a moment's peace and to find time for reading. While she read in her room, the boys patiently waited by her door, ready to greet her when she emerged. 3 The summer of 1815 was very different, however. The earlier idyllic family country escapes were a thing of the past as both sisters had recently been through life-shattering experiences. Sofia's sister Ekaterina had separated from her husband, whose imprudent affair in 1813 with the Tsar's favorite, Maria Antonovna Naryshkina, had cost him not only his family but also his position at court. As the secretary to the State Council in the Department of Laws, Prince Gagarin was recognized for his brilliance and had once had, by all accounts, a very promising career ahead. Unfortunately, he had attracted the attention of Naryshkina, whose incomparable beauty, noted even by those who disliked her flirtatious personality, proved an irresistible temptation. When the couple's plans to elope were discovered, Gagarin's career foundered, as did his family life. 4 Svechina followed the drama closely and shared with her friend Roksandra Sturdza the agony that her sister's suffering caused her. 5 But her sister's misfortunes were not the only source

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of grief for Svechina at the time. Her own life too had been shattered as yet another scandal unfolded, this one involving herself and her husband. Sometime in the years 1812-1813, Sofia Svechina and her husband, General Nikolai Svechin, had purchased a house from Aleksandr "Lvovich Naryshkin (1760-1826), who, as it happened, was not only a close associate of Svechina's father, Petr Soimonov (with whom he had supervised the Imperial Theater some years earlier), but also a brother-in-law of the very Maria Naryshkina whose love affair with Prince Gagarin had ruined Sofia's sister's marriage. Naryshkin had long lived beyond his means, and even his famous parties, which dazzled the noble society of St. Petersburg and Tsar Alexander himself, often were organized on credit. 6 The sale of his house, which had been in his family since the seventeenth century, was meant to improve his financial situation. It stood at the corner of Vozdvizhenka and Mokhovaia streets, right in the heart of Moscow, offering a splendid view of the Kremlin. Given its advantageous location and substantial size, the house was a bargain: it had suffered much damage during the 1812 Moscow fire and needed repair. It was probably the bargain price that attracted the Svechins, whose finances were always tight. But the investment went terribly wrong, and they suffered significant financial losses on the purchase when the house went into foreclosure because of Naryshkin's debts. 7 The general travelled back and forth between Moscow and St. Petersburg in an attempt to rescue the situation. Svechina, who remained in St. Petersburg, followed the events from afar, growing increasingly concerned as the general's health deteriorated under the emotional and physical stress of their financial ruin. 8 A trip to the countryside seemed like a welcome escape not only from heat, then, but also from her worries. But other things were on her mind when she departed for the Bariatynskii estate in early June. She was concerned about her adoptive daughter, Nadine, who, always somewhat sickly, had fallen seriously ill again in March 1814 and whose health Svechina hoped to restore in the fresh country air. More importantly, however, in solitude she hoped to find an answer to a question that preoccupied her mind: for a while now she had debated the issue of religious affiliation and felt torn between two faiths, two Churches, the Orthodox and the Catholic. She once said that in religious matters moderation had its own criminals-the neutrals. 9 Not guilty of the crime of neutrality, she instead found herself powerfully drawn to both Churches. Such dual loyalty, however, was impossible as the two Churches were very much at odds, each viewing the other as schismatic and heretical and each claiming the exclusive title of the One True Church. It was to test and reflect on these rival claims that Svechina now undertook her retreat. Naturally, the place to focus on this task was in the countryside, away from the distractions of the capital.

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The lifestyle that the countryside encouraged was that of the English gentry: long promenades in shadowy alleys of manor parks, lazy boat rides in the local lakes, picnics in the fields, and, of course, long hours of quiet reading and study. Svechina, who always longed for an existence apart from the crowd, as she wrote to her friend Roksandra Sturdza, 10 cherished these quieter moments during her sojourns in the countryside, where she could build a "grand wall of China" between herself and the rest of the world. 11 The Bariatynskii estate, which belonged to the family of Svechina's friend Anna Ivanovna Tolstaia (Bariatynskaia), offered her just such quiet. Located not far from the summer palace where the imperial family celebrated the name day of the empress every June, the estate suited Svechina's purposes perfectly. It stood on a high hill from which opened a lovely view to the Gulf of Finland; a beautiful wooded alley joined the house and the sea. Around the estate, as the Countess Varvara Golovina, who also frequented this beautiful spot, recalled in her memoirs, were many wonderful places for walks and "forests, gardens, many flowers, and fruits:' From the study window "to the right, the city [was] visible, to the left-the sea:' 12 Here, in this study, Svechina finally decided to confront the question that had long distracted her. Her seclusion ended in a ceremony of abjuration from Orthodoxy on October 27 (November 8), 1815. On that day she was officially welcomed into the Catholic Church by a Jesuit priest, Father Jean Rozaven. 13 Why she converted is the subject of Part I of this book.

C 11 \ P T I R I

THE WORLD IN FLUX The French Revolution, Napoleon, and the Russian Nobility

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n the night of June 24, 1812, Emperor Napoleon, with his 680,000-man strong well-seasoned Grand Armee, crossed the river Nieman near the Lithuanian town of Kovno, violating Russian borders in an apparent act of war. Although war with Napoleon had long been felt to be inevitable, the attack came as a shock to both Tsar Alexander I and his subjects. The war was of a sort that Russians had not experienced for a long time; from the reign of Peter the Great, Russia had always directed its wars outward, making them mostly offensive. The war of 1812 was to be a defensive war, a war against an aggressor who had long since become a household name. Russians followed Napoleon's victories somewhat apprehensively and somewhat admiringly, but always attentively. Even though they boded ominously for Russia, his spectacular conquests earned him quite a few admirers in the Francophilic circles of the capital. 1 But now Russia had to face his seemingly invincible army and potentially become yet another entry on his long list of vanquished enemies. The initial surprise of the French advance quickly turned to panic and fear in some quarters and anger in others. The tsar's proclamations and manifestos, however, calmed the early confusion, panic, and anger, changing it into a determination to fight and hopes of eventual victory. In his proclamations Alexander appealed to his subjects in the way a father would appeal to his children, presenting the approaching struggle as one for the survival of not only their land, but their homes and families, as a struggle for life and death, as an apocalyptic battle. This appeal to the patriotic feelings of the Russians achieved the result he hoped

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for: the war became a truly patriotic one, unifying people of all social estates and leaving them equally determined to participate in the war effort. Sofia Svechina, like many other Russians, experienced the war of 1812 very personally. Her husband, General Nikolai Svechin, petitioned to return to active military service and on July 21, 1812, was appointed a commander of the Novgorod militia (opolchenie). Although he was never to be involved in military action, Svechin nevertheless resumed the nomadic life of an active officer as he worked to organize and supply the militia. Accustomed to her husband's quiet presence, Svechina missed him, joking to her friend Roksandra Sturdza that she and her husband were now like Sun and Moon, never seen together. 2 In an attempt to keep herself busy during her husband's absence, Svechina briefly moved to her country estate near Nijnii Novgorod. But her country sojourn did not last: although she loved the peace and solitude, the prolonged isolation and predictable daily routine of country life never appealed to her. Writing from the estate, she confessed to Sturdza that she had no taste for the countryside since she liked neither to plant nor sow. 3 She soon returned to St. Petersburg, where she reconnected with her old acquaintances and plunged herself anew into St. Petersburg's social life. She found that the social life had dramatically changed. The atmosphere in both capitals, Moscow and St. Petersburg, had become somber and quiet. People on the streets seemed anxious, even somewhat paranoid: Russian nobles who spoke French ran the risk of being apprehended by the mob as French spies. Refugees from the western parts of the empire brought with them confusion and uncertainty. "Grief, fear and despair has taken hold of everyone;' wrote one witness, Varvara Bakunina, in a letter to a friend. 4 Many packed their belongings and left St. Petersburg, expecting its inevitable fall. Seized by anger, the citizens turned against anything French, jeering a company of French actors off the stage as they attempted to perform a French play that had been enthusiastically received by the Russian public not long before. The French actors had to be escorted from the capital under heavy protection. Gypsies and Russian music took their place on stages in the capital. Even French fashion was shunned; ladies appeared at balls wearing Russian national costumes. 5 Patriotism became fashionable, something that Pushkin ironically observed in an unfinished novel about 1812 that described "social circles and drawing rooms filled with patriots; some threw the French snuff out of their snuffboxes and began to use the Russian variety; others burned French pamphlets by the dozen; others turned away from Lafitte and took to sour cabbage soup instead:' 6 While carefree amusements and balls still provided much-needed escape from unsettling news, the conversations in salons turned to more serious topics and

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were now conducted in Russian, instead of the more familiar French. Salons themselves looked emptier as many men left for the battlefield. The mood of gloom and foreboding that descended upon the capital was expressed in and further exacerbated by the packing away of some of the national treasures in preparation for their removal to safety; in anticipation of the invader's possible capture of the capital, the authorities even considered moving Falconet's famed statue of Peter the Great, the "bronze horseman;' who had stood guard over the Neva's bank since 1782. 7 Svechina, however, found this quieter and gloomier St. Petersburg much to her liking; the extravagant festivities of the capital's nobility had never appealed to her. More importantly, although social life slowed down, public life suddenly became busier than ever as the war paradoxically offered women of the nobility new opportunities, of which Svechina took full advantage. Inspired by the upsurge of patriotism and determined to partake in the war effort, noblewomen of Russia organized the Imperial Women's Patriotic Society in the fall of 1812. The initiative came from a group of women that included among others Princess Varvara Repnina, Countesses Maria Nesselrode, Ekaterina Uvarova-and Sofia Svechina. The initiative was approved by the emperor, who announced the creation of the society in a special decree of November 1812, placing it under the protection of his wife Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna who became the society's official director. Svechina was thrilled that the society had received such a powerful patroness and hoped that the empress's participation in its activities would bring increased interest from the public. "It is a great benefit to the society to have the active protection of the Empress;' she wrote to a friend, adding, "This benevolence will, at all times, be a powerful and permanent safeguard; it is not only the elevation of her rank that makes me think this, but the power that she exercises on opinion, which she alone can turn in our favor:' 8 Encouraged by the protection of the imperial family, the founding group advertised their new project in one of St. Petersburg's newspapers, explaining the goals of the society and inviting both new members and donations. The initial membership fee-200 rubles-was high even for some members of the nobility, but the society nevertheless grew steadily. Already by the end of the first year, it had expanded to almost one hundred members and attracted such notable society women as Elizaveta Olenina, the wife of the president of the Academy of Fine Art; Princess Ekaterina Trubetskaia, the wife of the future Decembrist; Daria Derzhavina, the second wife of the poet Gavriil Derzhavin; famed society beauty Princess Zinaida Volskonskaia, and others. 9 Although membership was reserved for women, some men, named honorary members, nevertheless became closely associated with ilie society. Aleksandr Ivanovich Turgenev, for example, served as its secretary. The interest of such prominent Russian statesmen as Turgenev (who was a secretary of the State Council and a director of the

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Department of Religious Affairs of Foreign Confessions), the endorsement of the imperial family, the presence of women from illustrious noble families-all guaranteed the success of the society, which quickly became one of the most visible and active organizations dedicated to charity and war relief efforts. The projects that the society focused on varied greatly; its members collected and distributed financial aid to the needy, sought and created educational and professional training opportunities for the children of impoverished families, and secured housing for those who needed it. As the society matured, it sought not only to provide direct financial relief to the families affected by war but also to furnish work opportunities that would allow these families to live independently and support themselves. In 1813 the society opened the College for Girls, the mission of which was to turn girls into good wives, caring mothers, and exemplary educators of children able to support themselves and their families through their work and acquired skills. Svechina's position as a founding member of the organizing committee and, briefly, as the president of the society (a position from which she soon resigned, claiming that she found it inconsistent with her self-effacing character), 10 placed her right in the midst of its daily operations. She organized and monitored various projects, collected money, gathered requests for assistance, and distributed help. Busily running around St. Petersburg, she visited the needy in districts far removed from the city center, where the lights of the Nevskii Prospekt could not reach and where marshes and forests still dominated the landscape, often harboring criminals and vagabonds. The distances were often daunting, "simply monstrous" in the eyes of foreign visitors who complained that to attend a soiree one sometimes had to travel one or two lieus (about five to nine kilometers) between houses. 11 Svechina seemed little disturbed by such distances, however, perhaps because like many Russians she likened them to crossing from one street to another, 12 or perhaps because the challenge involved appealed to her as a real sacrifice, a necessary element of any charitable activity in her view. "He who has never denied himself, for the sake of giving, has but glanced at the joys of charity;' she wrote. "To be happy in the performance of our duty, we must exceed it. ... How can a gift leave a trace, which has left no void?" 13 These charitable visits were the part of her job that Svechina loved most. The administrative duties, of which she also had plenty in her position as the president of the society, made her miserable. She particularly disliked dealing with the internal conflicts among members of the society, complaining to Roksandra Sturdza that it was not in her nature to argue with people or to refuse their requests. When the members of the council objected to the candidacy of a new member proposed by an outgoing one, Svechina agonized over how to resolve the conflict without upsetting eitller the candidate or other members of the council. Matters

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of administration seemed trivial and inconsequential to her. They often involved people's ambitions and pride, qualities that Svechina herself, she claimed, lacked and therefore could not understand in others. Yet despite her expressed dislike of bureaucratic matters, Svechina, as the society's second president in 1813-1814, proved to be a very capable administrator. In her correspondence with Sturdza, she emerges as a person with a deep commitment to the society's mission and a clear awareness of the practical things that it entailed. Acknowledging the lack of rules for distributing help, she spoke about the necessity to develop clear and firm criteria based on the type of aid. Anxious about the society's possible financial collapse, which could, she feared, lead to a failure to fulfill its mission, she also suggested a plan of intervention according to which she would speak with Elizaveta Alekseevna and then, with the emperor's permission, present the affairs of the society to him in hopes that his benevolence would assure its survival. Fearing that the 30,000 rubles promised by the members would not materialize, Svechina hoped for an imperial loan that would allow the society to continue to bring relief to the needy. 14 Crossing the city from end to end, Svechina visited the poor, talked to them, comforted them, delivered money. She seemed to thrive in this new environment; it offered her a public role that differed radically from her previous position as lady-in-waiting. Appointment to the position of maid of honor was a highly desirable and competitive one: in addition to the prestige associated with it, it also carried a sizable dowry. 15 But often it required little more than mere presence at palace ceremonies and other official events. 16 The empress's ladies-in-waiting frequently spent hours sitting idly by, entertaining themselves with gossip and empty conversation, waiting for the moment when their presence would be required to play cards or to accompany the empress or the grand duchess to plays and performances. Svechina's closest friend, Roksandra Sturdza, the future Countess Edling and also one of the ladies-in-waiting at court, described quite vividly how imperial friiuleins spent their days: early risings, morning walks with the empress (during which they were to keep the conversation going), crowded afternoon dinners with state and foreign dignitaries, long evening carriage rides-all this Sturdza found very monotonous. 17 Svechina shared Sturdza's lack of enthusiasm for court duties that could hardly have satisfied her inquisitive mind and her restless nature (although she treasured the honor ofher position and kept her chiffres, an insignia that all ladies-in-waiting received at their appointment, for the rest of her life). Working for the Imperial Women's Patriotic Society, on the other hand, suited her perfectly: it satisfied her social needs and kept her usefully busy while her husband was away. But one should not overlook perhaps the most important aspect of this relief work for Svechina-its spiritual appeal. The work of charity was emerging

The World in Flux

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as an important element of a noblewoman's life in this period. The ideologies of Sentimentalism and Romanticism "encouraged a new concern for the lower classes" and ascribed nobility of spirit to those who helped them, stressing that "even peasants had feelings" and that "it was an honorable calling to see to their well-being and to that of the entire patrie in the abstract:' 18 Svechina too felt the powerful appeal of charities. "Let us desire no more intellect than is requisite for perfect goodness;' she once said. "For goodness consists in a knowledge of all the needs of others and the means of supplying them [that] exists within ourselves:' 19 This emphasis on philanthropic activities as something integral to the life of a Russian noble and, more specifically, a noblewoman, was a relatively new phenomenon that suggested that Russian noble identity, especially female, was gradually turning away from "theatricality" toward "moral and intellectual substance:' This theatricality of the Russian nobility and its focus on appearances had developed from a tendency to "emulate the French aristocracy in ways that fostered moral superficiality and a puerile egocentrism;' a tendency characterized by the cultivated stifling of emotions and avoidance of feelings and experiences deemed unpleasant, as well as by a lack of social concerns and interest in the life of the lower classes. 20 The war with Napoleon, which awakened not only patriotism but also a sense of unity among all strata of Russian society, became one of the impulses that reoriented the Russian noble experience of self, ascribing to it strong feelings of social duty that stressed service to the people over service to the state. This reorientation created a particularly radical shift in the identity of Russian noblewomen, bringing with it a new cultural ideal of womanhood that "represented upper-class women as repositories of the nation's collective moral virtues:' These new women, in contrast to the frivolous, shallow creatures of the age of Catherine II, appeared as "chaste Christian wives" and active philanthropists. It was through these qualities that they expressed their patriotism. 21 Sentimentalism also strengthened the view of women as mothers, wives, muses, and nurturers, making giving, sharing, and caring important-and requiredqualities of noblewomen. Svechina embraced these qualities too, perhaps in an attempt to compensate for her failure to have children. In charitable work she found the meaning and joy of life. '"Is not life useful when it is happy?' asked the egotist:' she once noted in an aphorism. '"Is it not sufficiently happy when it is useful?' asked the good man:m Svechina's reflections capture the contradictory impulses that characterized noble involvement in charitable activities. On the one hand, she identified and expressed the Romantic impulse to help the poor whom she idealized, as did many other nobles who believed that the poor were closer to Christ not only because of their Christ-like poverty but also because of their supposed humility and simplicity of heart. On the other hand, she could not shed the attitude of a noble who, in

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her idealization of the poor, also patronized them and saw them as a means to her own spiritual perfection, saying once, "It is a mercy to the rich that there are poor. Alms are but the material life of the latter; it is, at least in a degree, the spiritual life of the former. If the rich could not give, they might still be charitable; the heart has a thousand ways for that; but the portion of wealth [that] they retain, would no longer be purified, ennobled, and sanctified by that [that] they dispense:m But the creation of new public opportunities for women and the disruption of traditional patterns of sociability and a change in their identity were not the only changes that the war brought. It also saw the culmination of a long-developing crisis of national identity that both coincided with and was exacerbated by the gradual crisis of ideas and beliefs that had been underway since the turn of the century, when the powerful tide of Romanticism began rising across Europe, changing not only the literary tastes and fashions of the nobility and the emerging European bourgeoisie but also attitudes to religion, which swung back from indifference and hostility to intense interest and devotion. This crisis helps to explain the life's trajectory that led to Svechina's abjuration in 1815. What triggered it was a growing disillusionment with the rationalist philosophy of the Enlightenment, a philosophy that in the minds of many observers had not only led to the horrors of the French Revolution and Napoleonic wars, but had also-and perhaps more importantly-destroyed meaning when it destroyed God. One of the many Russian converts to Catholicism (identified by Ivan Gagarin as Elizaveta Alekseevna Golitsyna, who became a nun in France and later died in America24 ) perhaps expressed it best when she confessed that while she loved studious reading, she often questioned afterwards why so much labor was spent on something that would be forgotten one day. She wondered if there were "some science that would serve me even beyond my grave:' 25 Many Russian and Europeans nobles and intellectuals agonized over the same question as they suddenly discovered the limited potential of knowledge and science, its temporal nature. Svechina too experienced such agony at the turn of the century, an agony that started some time before the war with Napoleon but was deepened by it. For Svechina, the debate between reason and religion was particularly charged: she was born into a family that took pride in its commitment to reason, science, and education-pursuits that defined the careers of several of her relatives on both sides. Her paternal great-uncle, Fedor Ivanovich Soimonov ( 1692-1780 ), made his name as the first Russian hydrographer and geographer. A naval officer and graduate of the Moscow Navigational School, he completed his education in Holland and, after having successfully passed his examinations conducted personally by Peter the Great, emerged as one of Peter's close associates, fighting in several of his campaigns. He was best known not for his military accomplishments, however,

The World in Flux

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but for his scholarly work as a cartographer, geographer, and historian. In 1719 and 1720 and then again from 1724 to 1727, he explored the Caspian Sea, traversing its waters with a group of like-minded colleagues to measure depths and sketch the outline of the shore. His description of the Caspian Sea was finished in 1726; his atlas of the region-the first of its kind-was published a few years later. Along with his later atlas of the Baltic Sea, it would serve Russian merchants and officers for many years to come. Soimonov gradually and quite successfully climbed the career ladder until in 1740 he was suddenly exiled to Siberia by the capricious Empress Anna Ioanovna for his association with Artemii Volynskii, a cabinet minister who had attempted to challenge the empress's favorite, Biron, a crime for which Volynskii paid with his life. But even in his place of exile, the city of Okhotsk, Soimonov continued his scholarly work, which was eventually recognized by the Empress Elizabeth, who lifted his sentence of exile and made Soimonov governor-general of Siberia-a post he occupied from 1757 to 1763, when he finally returned to the capital, where he served as a senator from 1763 to 1767. He spent his last years at his estate not far from Moscow, writing a biography of Peter the Great. His life, a somewhat typical but also somewhat unusual life for a Russian statesman, a life that followed and reflected many sharp turns in Russian politics, created a powerful legacy for the Soimonov family. No less powerful was the intellectual legacy of Svechina's mother's family. Her maternal grandfather, Ivan Nikitich Boltin (1735-1792), was one of the most active participants in the project of the Russian Enlightenment. A major general, a statesman, a member of the Russian Academy of Science since its creation, and a historian, Boltin traveled extensively throughout Russia and collected a vast amount of materials about Russian history. Most of his own written works were of a critical nature and targeted authors who, in his opinion, had unfairly represented Russian history, viewed the country as backward, and denied it its historical originality. These two learned families merged in the marriage of Ekaterina Ivanovna Boltina (1756-1790) and Petr Aleksandrovich Soimonov (1737-1801), Sofia's parents. Like his uncle Fedor, Petr Aleksandrovich Soimonov cultivated in his house an atmosphere of serious study and devotion to learning. Catherine the Great's personal secretary, he was also elected a senator and became one of the guardians of the Academy of Science in St. Petersburg. He was actively involved in cultural life as well, serving on the imperial committee that supervised theaters and music. Given her family's background and connections, Sofia was destined to receive a superb education. It was supervised by her father, who, after his wife's death following the birth of his second daughter, Ekaterina, chose not to remarry, dividing

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his time instead between the affairs of state and his two small girls. Dedicated to his daughters, whom he named after his beloved Empress Catherine (whose birth name was Sofia), he fought with his mother-in-law over the custody of the girls. Given their tender age and Soimonov's court responsibilities, the grandmother naturally suggested that the girls would be better off with her. The father, however, strongly objected, insisting on keeping them. The family feud escalated. The opposing sides even asked the empress to intervene, but she refused to get involved in her secretary's family life. In the end, Soimonov was able to keep the children at his palace quarters and educate them as he saw fit. New ideas about female education were very much in the air at the time, stimulated by Catherine's personal interest in improving-or rather creatingeducation for girls. Recognized for her own love oflearning, reading, and writing, the Empress sought to overturn the notion that women did not need education as their place in the world confined them to the private sphere of their homes. She believed that even in the privacy of her home a woman had to be taught to be the kind of mother who could cultivate in her children qualities necessary to conscious citizenship. The task of developing the system of such education for women was daunting. Princess Ekaterina Dashkova, Catherine's friend and one of the leading conspirators in the coup that brought her to power, once observed that when Catherine took the throne there were only two educated women in Russia: the empress and herself. This situation changed dramatically during Catherine's reign. She made it a norm for members of the nobility to educate their daughters, either with the help of private tutors or in such newly founded state institutions as the Smolnyi Institute for Noble Maidens, opened in 1764 at the Voskresenskii Smolnyi Convent, and the Catherine Institutes in St. Petersburg (1798) and Moscow (1802), opened after her death. The goals and purposes, as well as methods and direction of female education, however, were not always clear to its proponents. The uncertainty manifested itself in the curriculum of these institutions, which, although expanded beyond the conventional female range of European languages, dancing, and drawing to include physics and mathematics, remained limited. Graduates of Smolnyi, for example, were educated mostly in the art of entertaining their guests, as the school considered "manners and social accomplishments (that is, 'dancing, singing, tender expressions, sighs', as the playwright Griboedov put it)" essential to securing good marriages, the perceived ultimate source of happiness for girls. 26 This focus on "decorative" learning comes across in remarks made by the Count de Segur, who noted that by the 1780s Russian noble society boasted many elegant women, well-versed in poetry and literature, who displayed elegant manners, played multiple musical instruments, and spoke seven or eight foreign languages. 27 While meant to be flattering, such remarks betray the continued emphasis on

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domestic and artistic skills in female education and suggest ambivalence and even confusion over its goals and extent. Russian nobles, including women, remained unconvinced that girls, especially those destined to live in the provinces, needed to know the difference between the Greeks and the Romans, stressing that knowledge of household skills and of their native language would perfectly suffice. 28 Others insisted that the nobility had to be educated against narrow-mindedness, and that it was especially important for women, as future mothers whose duty, in fact, was to promote education. 29 1his ambivalence could not prevent the gradual spread of serious female education in private homes, undertaken by private tutors who taught girls alongside their brothers. 30 Although expensive, private home schooling nevertheless remained the preferred form of education for those who could afford it, while institutional education was typically reserved for girls from impoverished noble families. Private home schooling often required multiple tutors and governesses who taught a variety of subjects, including foreign languages, typically French and German, less frequently English (knowledge of which therefore was considered a sign of a more educated person). 31 Classical languages were rarely taught to girls. 32 Although it was believed that Greek and Latin disciplined and trained young minds through instruction in formal grammar, these skills were considered unnecessary for girls, who were not destined for state service. The Russian language too was often omitted from the girls' curriculum because it was the language of official state correspondence, a "male" language considered too coarse and vulgar for polite women. Only after 1812 did Russian find its way into the curriculum of all state institutions and boarding schools for noble women. 33 But despite these shortcomings, the new educational efforts bore fruit: there began to appear women recognized and admired for their knowledge and intellectual abilities. In fact, foreign visitors observed that at the end of the eighteenth century, Russian women were better educated than Russian men. 34 Even among these learned women, Svechina's education stood out. Perhaps it was her father's unusual dedication to his empress's beliefs about female education or his unfulfilled desire to have a son, but the education of his daughters, especially Sofia, combined skills typically taught to girls of their birth-drawing, singing, dancing, and those foreign languages expected of young women (French, German, and, less frequently, English, and Italian)-with skills and subjects typically reserved for boys: the natural sciences, philosophy, Greek, Latin, Hebrew, and Russian, in which Svechina conversed well. Her father's efforts to give his daughters a superb education were certainly not wasted on Sofia. As a young girl, she developed a passion for learning, exhibiting a sharp and quick mind and a strong will, which her father also encouraged his young daughter to cultivate. Her biographers loved to repeat stories from her

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childhood that illustrate how unusual she was in this regard. Like many children who passionately want a toy, Svechina once ardently desired a watch. Her desire was so strong, her biographers noted, that she lost sleep over it. Finally, her father gave one to her. Instead of rejoicing, however, Svechina was suddenly seized by another thought: that there was something better than having a watch, namely, giving one up. And so she returned the watch to her father and never spoke of it again. Yet another story that her biographers liked to repeat as an illustration of her strength of character-and of mind-was that of her conquering her fears of an Egyptian mummy that her father kept in his study as part of his treasured collection of exotic curiosities, a collection typical for a learned person of his time. Terrified of the mummy, Sofia avoided her father's study, even though other fascinating objects beckoned her there. One day, she finally forced herself to march courageously into the study to face her nemesis, took it out of its coffin, held it tight-and fainted, seized by intense emotions. Having recovered, she was able finally to face the object of her terror. Her father's study, with all its exciting trinkets and objects, was now safe for exploration, and she could satisfy her limitless curiosity. These stories, repeated by all of Svechina's biographers, suggest, however, not so much the uniqueness of her character, which supposedly revealed itself in early childhood, as the somewhat austere atmosphere that reigned in a family that lacked a softening motherly presence and was managed by the father, a serious and busy statesman who cultivated hard work and discipline in his daughters. One of the earliest portraits of Sofia confirms that impression and provides rare insight into the world of her childhood. In it Sofia appears as a girl of seven or eight years old, dressed in a boy's jacket, with short hair, and holding a book in her hand. The image stands in sharp contrast to typical portraits of the period: as Sentimentalism continued to dominate the artistic tastes the of nobility at the turn of the century, it became customary to represent children surrounded by their doting family and by objects that emphasized their youth and innocence. Girls in such portraits typically appeared in lacy dresses, clutching dolls in their hands or petting small dogs-objects suggesting domesticity, sweetness of character, playfulness, fragility, and naivete. Svechina's portrait, on the other hand, suggests the very different set of values that dominated in her family and perhaps even the very different attitude of her father toward female education and femininity in general. The book in her hands emphasizes rational over emotional qualities, head over heart, male qualities over female, while the boyish clothing and short hair indicate a disregard for the preferred type of beauty-ornate in appearance and decorative in function. This austerity and lack of sentimentality was perhaps inspired by some of the instructional pedagogical manuals that circulated in Russian noble society in the last quarter of the eighteenth century and were undoubtedly

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FIGURE 1.

25

Sofia Soimonova as a young girl

familiar to Svechina's father. One of these manuals, a 1778 Russian translation of Mademoiselle d'Espinassy's Essai sur /education des demoiselles (1764), explicitly instructed its readers: When giving your daughter instruction, you should attempt to stamp out in her those fantastical and laughable fancies to which so many women are subject. Here I am speaking not only about the fears and whims that come to them from childhood, but their opinions on dreams, portents of happiness, and all kinds of secret knowledge, which run directly contrary to sound reason and which have no other foundation than the superstition of the common people; so too [should you try to stamp out] that extreme instability of feelings which so often causes them unhappiness.35

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Or perhaps Svechina's father found inspiration in a child-rearing manual composed by his empress, Catherine, in March 1784 for Nikolai Saltykov, governor of her grandchildren-the future Emperor Alexander, his brother Constantine, and their sister, Alexandra-with the explicit purpose of providing detailed instructions on raising her grandchildren. Catherine, for whom the project of writing a manual offered a chance to bring together many of her passions-education, writing, and her grandchildren-prepared the manual with the same great care with which she drafted official government documents. It consisted of several chapters, organized thematically, that dealt with issues deemed important by Catherine. They ranged from trivial and mundane advice on how children were to be dressed, to strict instructions on how to cultivate their manners and good behavior, to more insightful suggestions on how to encourage them to do good and exhibit honesty and other moral virtues. Her suggested strategies emphasized simplicity, physical activity, avoidance of idleness, kindness, and in addition to the fully expected emphasis on teaching the knowledge of God included such unorthodox recommendation as frequent exposure of children to fresh air, lowering of heat in their living quarters, prohibition of alcohol, spartan sleeping arrangements, encouragement of independent thinking, limited duration oflessons to prevent boredom, and avoidance of pressure to study. 36 The empress's plan of rearing a perfect heir undoubtedly generated interest in her reflections, especially among courtiers with small children who would want their children to be raised in accordance with the plan. As Catherine's personal secretary, Soimonov was also probably familiar with this manual, adopting perhaps some of its recommendations. At minimum, he followed his empress's advice on simplicity in dress, as little Sofia's portrait suggests. Whatever his methods and inspirations, her father succeeded in developing in Sofia and her sister an insatiable thirst for knowledge and a disciplined approach to learning. That persistence, discipline, and hard work indeed became distinctive features of her personality. She applied them to any activity she undertook and continued to educate herself constantly. Reading was for Svechina one of the most important daily pursuits. The early portrait in which little Sofia appears with a book in hand was somewhat prophetic in this respect: she kept a book in her hand for the rest of her life and even in her older age continued to exhibit the habits of sustained and intense study that she had learned as a child. But her study was not particularly systematic, reflecting, perhaps, confused notions about female education. Svechina read a lot, but her reading list was not organized; she once told one of her friends, who disapproved of her reading Louis-Sebastien Mercier's Tableau de Paris, that she was intent on reading everything, therefore it mattered little where she started. 37 And the volumes of her notebook, which Svechina began in 1801, at the age of nineteen and in the second year of her marriage, do reveal

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that she was indeed determined to read everything. Her eclectic list included the works of Fran