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"PEOPLE'S ANCESTORS ARE HISTORY'S GAME": BYRON'S DON JUAN AND RUSSIAN HISTORY
Studies in the Literary Imagination, Fall 2003 by Walker, David
The English have replaced the French: nowadays women and men are falling over themselves to imitate anything English; everything English now seems to us good and admirable and fills us full of enthusiasm. But we, unfortunately, are so addicted to things foreign that we frequently consider even their vices virtues.9
Indeed, during the reign of Catherine, in particular, Russia witnessed a steady increase in the number of British residents in its cities, with a particular concentration in St. Petersburg, home of Catherine's court. The British, it seems, enjoyed a very cordial relationship with their hosts. As well as Catherine herself, the upper ranks of the nobility had prominent among them a significant number of Anglophiles, including Count Chernyshev, Count Vorontsov, and Princess Dashkava. The English Club in St. Petersburg was the city's most prestigious venue for the Anglo and Russian upper classes. Nor was British influence confined to the higher strata of Russian society: "grooms, valets, and governesses" found themselves employed in places of trust in Russian households; St. Petersburg was also the site of a number of working artists and sculptors. It was not always the case that the British were perceived uncritically in Russia. Cross, for instance, relates a wonderful and salacious anecdote of Major Semple, an excellent example of the unscrupulous British chancer abroad (Cross 262).
Court culture during Catherine's reign was a vibrant affair, with Catherine herself acting positively as an impetus for artistic activity. The theatre-and intellectual activity, in general-was vigorously and generously patronised by the monarch. Literature, in particular, enjoyed the fruits of Catherine's interest in promoting culture: "Catherine's own marked interest in letters, and the vast programme of translations she sponsored, gave a tremendous impetus to the literary life of the capital and encouraged a whole crop of new writers of noble and non-noble origin to experiment with new forms of novels, poetry and journalism" (Madariaga 330). Translation is particularly important here as the Society for the Translation of Foreign Books made the introduction of what we now recognise as "classic" texts of Enlightenment Europe available in Russian during Catherine's reign. Such works include Robinson Crusoe, Gulliver's Travels, and with the exception of The Social Contract, the complete works of Rousseau. Russian literary satire was based upon English Augustan models, a factor that no doubt accounted in part for Byron's popularity.10 Catherine's patronage of literature did Russian intellectual life an immense service in bringing it closer to the wider currents of western intellectual activity, putting Russia on the intellectual map in the eighteenth century as well as "initiating direct contact with some of the best minds of the European Enlightenment" (Madariaga 335).
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