"La Russie - un colosse difformé": An Anonymous Manuscript from the Papers of the Chevalier Corberon
The document published below, entitled 'La Russie', is a contemporary figurative description of eighteenth-century Russia, of unknown authorship. The original manuscript is in the Bibliothèque Municipale, Avignon, among the private papers of Marie-Daniel Bourrée, Chevalier de Corberon, secretary to the French Minister at St Petersburg 1775- 77, chargé d'affaires 1777-80, and author of the well-known diaries, later published as Journal Intime.*
The manuscript is undated, and the writer is not identified. The handwriting is not de Corberon's. It may be assumed that, like the rest of de Corberon's papers relating to Russia, it was written at the time of his posting to St Petersburg. Before his arrival in Russia, the Chevalier took pains to inform himself about the country to which he had been sent, by consulting a wide variety of experts, French and other, and the document may have been supplied by one of these informants.
It consists of a brief appraisal of Russia's development in the eighteenth century, written en philosophe in the form of an extended metaphor drawn from sculpture. It reflects a common western view of Russia as powerful, but rude, barbarous and outlandish, reshaped but not yet civilised by the dynamic impact of Peter the Great. De Corberon himself shared such critical views at the start of his sojourn in Russia, though he later modified them considerably. The main implications of the metaphorical description are clear; but what is the significance, in relation to Russia, of the reference to "la proportion des parties honteuses" in the reign of Peter and his successors?
The document is reproduced from the manuscript. Collection No. 3060 (Recueil de Corberon), f. 122. Acknowledgments are due to the Bibliothàque Municipale, Avignon, for permitting me to consult and transcribe it.
- A. Lentin (The Open University)
* Un diplomate francais à la cour de Catherine II 1775-1780. Journal intime du Chevalier de Corberon, chargé d'affaires de France en Russie, (ed) L. H. Labande, vols. I-II, (Paris, 1901).
La Russie
Figurés Vous un beau bloc de marbre sur lequel plusieurs ouvriers avoient sculpté des Bas-reliefs, sans ordre, sans méthode, d'un style barbare, mais par çi par là vigoureux. Pierre 1er survint, tourna le bloc, travailla sur la Surface opposée, fit voler à grands coups de marteau des éclats à droite et à gauche; et forma un Colosse, imposant dans le lointain, par l'énormite de sa masse, mais de près, assés difforme par Ie peu de rapport de ses dimensions. Il est difficile à dire ce que cette besogne ne seroit enfin devenue, si Pierre eut vécu plus longtems. Les successeurs de ce monarque se sont évertués diversement sur le colosse. L'un lui a fait la taille, 1'autre s'est énervé sur la jambe, un troisième sur la physionomie. Tous ont opéré sur les muscles au point de leur former une tension éraillée. Il en est résulté un ensemble assés bizarre, comme Vous voiés, surtout si Vous Vous rappellés les antiques bas reliefs du revers, toujours subsistans. Mats ce qui frappe plus particulièrement la vue, c'est la proportion des parties honteuses. Aucun des successeurs de Pierre n'y a touché. Le probleme est: si cet abandon provient de pudeur, ou de respect pour cette sorte de monstruosité.