Enlightenment and Debates on Colonial Management in the Aftermath of the Russian-Persian War of 1826--1828.
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In my dissertation,"Enlightenment and Debates on Colonial Management in the Aftermath of the Russian-Persian War," I analyze literary and non-literary texts on Russias relationship with the Caucasus,and the economic and cultural development of Transcaucasia after the Russian-Persian war of 1826-1828. I study Russian culture in the framework of comparative colonialisms,and examine the twentieth-century Russian reconsideration of the countrys imperial past. I reveal the role played in that reconsideration by the famous Russian formalist Yurii Tynianov 1894-1943) whose novel The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar 1929) contains an artistic foresight of the phenomenon that later,in the scholarly world of the last quarter of the twentieth century received the name of Orientalism.. A significant part of my dissertation is dedicated to the project of the Russian Transcaucasian Company that the famous Russian poet and diplomat Alexander Griboedov 1795-1829) coauthored with Peter Zaveleisky,the vice-governor of Tiflis,in 1828. I show how the project provoked the critical comments of contemporaries that touched upon such topics as monopolies and free trade,slavery and serfdom,usage of local laws in colonies,protection of intellectual property and others. Although Griboedovs and Zaveleiskys idea of patterning their company after the British East India Company was known to be anachronistic and had no chance to be realized,it served as a catalyst for discussion about the further development of the Russian Empire. Both authors of the project and their most important critic General Mikhail Zhukovsky refer to the ideas of such representatives of the European Enlightenment as Adam Smith 1723-1790),abbé； Guillaume Thomas Raynal 1713-1796) and Denis Diderot 1713-1784) to support their own arguments. Those thinkers stress the importance of the balance between self-interest as a driving force behind the progress of the society,and the forces that would keep this self-interest in check and prevent it from turning into destructive greed,harmful for the individual and the society. These restraining forces include state laws and the personal ethics of individuals participating in the economic transactions. The relationship between personal self-interest,moral self-restraint,and moderation,on the one hand,and the laws regulating the economic activities that all three enlighteners discuss extensively in their writings,on the other,becomes the topic of the polemic between the authors of the Russian Transcaucasian project and their commentator. Zhukovsky equates chartered companies of the kind that Griboedov and Zaveleisky are planning to establish in Transcaucasia with unrestrained greed while the latter two insist on the special historical conditions that make them necessary. I study the aftermath of the Russian-Persian War and the figure of Alexander Griboedov not only as it was perceived by the contemporaries but also as it was reevaluated in the beginning of the twentieth century in the famous novel by Yury Tynianov The Death of Vazir-Mukhtar. I view Tynianovs novel as a specific form of scholarly fiction,a novelistic study in Russian Orientalism. Tynianovs novel exposes the phenomenon of Russian Orientalism through parody of literary and historical Orientalist texts. Important among these texts are the "Oriental Journeys:" Alexander Pushkins Journey to Arzrum 1829-1835),and the chapter "Persia" of Sentimental Journey 1923) by Tynianovs friend and fellow Formalist Victor Shklovsky. These Journeys,one written in the nineteenth century and the other in the twentieth,appear in relation to the Journey from Petersburg to Moscow 1790) by the late eighteenth-century Russian sentimentalist writer Alexander Radishchev,who harshly criticized contemporary enthusiasm for things imperial. Shklovsky,and after him,Tynianov use the imitation of Radishchevs sentimentalist style to express their own moral stance against imperialism. In Tynianovs novel,the allusions to the Journeys of both his contemporary and friend,on the one hand,and to Radishchev,on the other,stand in contrast to his parody of Pushkins Journey to Arzrum 1836). While disapproving of "Russian colonial politics" in the "Orient," Pushkin questions neither the legitimacy of the colonization in principle,nor the stereotype of Western superiority over the "Orientals," his main concern being "the aesthetic freedom of Russias artists," rather than "the political liberty of the Caucasian peoples".¹； The interests of the formalists Tynianov and Shklovsky far exceed the formal,purely aesthetic aspect of literature. Tynianovs novel reveals the interconnectedness between literary Orientalism and the imperial project while Shklovskys Journey openly denounces imperialism. Their moral involvement in the problem shows their affinity with the late eighteenth-century Enlightenment to which they "offer their hands over the head of the XIX century.". ¹；Harsha Ram,"Pushkin and the Caucasus," in The Pushkin Handbook Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,2005),399.