Book Reviews : Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia. By RICHARD PIPES. (Rus sian Research Center Studies No. 33, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1959. $5.50.)

• Author: Herbert J. Ellison
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296001300343
• Date: 01 September 1960
• Published date: 01 September 1960
• Subject Matter: Articles

832

The

authors

have

included

in

the

appendix

a

large

part

of

the

basic

statistics

from

which

they

drew

their

conclusions.

These

will

be

of

interest

not

only

to

the

sociologist

and

political

scientist,

but

to

the

historian

and

the

psy-

chologist,

or

anyone

interested

in

the

dynamics

of

leadership

and

constituency.

Los

Angeles,

California

CHARLES

G.

BELL

Karamzin’s

Memoir

on

Ancient

and

Modern

Russia.

By

RICHARD

PIPES.

(Rus-

sian

Research

Center

Studies

No.

33,

Cambridge:

Harvard

University

Press,

1959.

$5.50.)

Mr.

Pipes

justly

points

to

the

neglect

of

conservative

leaders

and

conserva-

tive

thought

in

the

historiography

of

nineteenth-

and

twentieth-century

Russia.

As

a

contribution

to

the

study

of

Russian

conservatism

in

the

reign

of

Alexan-

der

I

he

offers

his

translation

of

Nicholas

Karamzin’s

Memoir

on

Ancient

and

Modern

Russia,

introduced

by

a

commentary

on

the

development

of

Karamzin’s

political

ideas

up

to

the

writing

of

the

Memoir

(1810),

and

including

also

a

his-

tory

of

the

text.

The

introductory

essay

makes

splendid

reading,

informative

for

the

general

reader

and

provocative

for

the

specialist.

It

is

a

fine

piece

of

compact

analysis

of

the

development

of

Russian

political

organization

and

conservative

tradition

and

a

useful

background

to

the

discussion

of

Karamzin.

Evaluating

the

influence

of

Karamzin’s

views,

Mr.

Pipes

writes

that

they

&dquo;had

no

effect

whatsoever

on

the

policies

of

Alexander....

But

in

the

subsequent

reign

of

Nicholas

I

these

views

became

the

monarchy’s

official

state

program.&dquo;

And

while

he

makes

a

high

estimate

of

the

influence

of

Karamzin’s

ideas,

Mr.

Pipes

carefully

avoids

ex-

aggerating

their

quality.

Finding

that

&dquo;Karamzin’s

defense

of

the

autocratic

system

was

little

more

than

an

elaboration

of

ideas

current

in

Russia

in

the

eighteenth

century,&dquo;

he

notes

too

that

&dquo;His

[Karamzin’s]

intellectual

eclecticism

actually

increases

his

value

for

the

historian:

in

his

very

unoriginality

one

finds

assurance

that

the

ideas

he

espoused

were

current

rather

than

contrived.&dquo;

This

rather

low

estimate

of

Karamzin’s

quality

as

a

political

thinker

applies

also

to

the

whole

of

Russian

conservative

thought

of

the

period,

most

of

whose

&dquo;argu-

mentation

was

either

pragmatic

or

purely

emotional,

but

in

either

event

strikingly

devoid

of

the

philosophic

content

which

distinguished

the

best

of

Western

con-

servative

thought

of

the

time.&dquo;

Plainly

the

greatest

significance

of

Karamzin’s

ideas

lies

in

their

contribution

to

official

and

unofficial

conservatism

in

the

reign

of

Nicholas

I

and

after,

and

on

this

there

is

no

dispute

with

Mr.

Pipes.

One

might,

however,

suggest

that

there

are

important

elements

of

the

Karamzin-inspired

tradition

of

conservative

thought

which

are

disregarded

in

the

introductory

essay.

Mr.

Pipes

justly

dwells

on

the

rigidity

of

Karamzin’s

conservatism,

the

narrowness

of

his

defense

of

gentry

privileges,

his

&dquo;misunderstanding

of

the

workings

of

government

and

completely

unrealistic

conception

of

Russia’s

social

structure.&dquo;

But

certainly

there

is

much