The Epoch of Peter I in the Historical Consciousness of the Decembrists

Abstract

The article analyses the attitude to the Petrine era shared by the members of the secret political societies in the first quarter of the 19th century. The study focuses on the assessments of the personality of Peter I, his reform activities and its aftermath for Russian history that were stated by the participants of the Decembrist revolt. Although only some of the Decembrists had a professional background as historians, the comprehension of grandiose state transformations in the first quarter of the 18th century was significantly important for the majority of the plotters. The author shows that various assessments of the Decembrists Petrine era were determined by the combination in their historical consciousness of westernism and ideas of Russian identity. Decembrists, as people of their epoch, had different views on Peter I: from idealization to censure. Their ambiguous attitude to the reforms of Peter I was based on the Petrine compromise concept of state-building according to Western models with their adaptation to Russian conditions, which led to the “catching-up model” of Russia’s development, its secondary nature in relation to Western civilization. Realizing the interconnection between the establishment of an autocratic state system and the creation of a new social structure, the Decembrists, especially the authors of historical and political books and treatises, reacted negatively to the formation in Peter’s time of a new type of statehood - a “regular state” - with its comprehensive control, suppression of individual liberty and legal consolidation of serfdom.