a note on some european foreign office archives and russian domestic history, 1790-1812

8/12/2019 A Note on Some European Foreign Office Archives and Russian Domestic History, 1790-1812

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A Note on Some European Foreign Office Archives and Russian Domestic History, 1790-1812Author(s): R. E. McGrewSource: Slavic Review, Vol. 23, No. 3 (Sep., 1964), pp. 531-536Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2492688.

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532 Slavic Reviewof Russian administrators. Ludwig Graf Cobenzl, who was the Austrianambassador to Petersburg from 1779 to 1800, established himself, de-spite marked personal peculiarities, including a mania for French com-edy, on the most intimate footing with Count Bezborodko and held afavoredposition at court until 1798. Cobenzl was shrewd, cautious, andconservative, and his voluminous reports to the Ballhausplatz showedboth perception and excellent sources of information. When he wasabsent from the capital, Cobenzl's duties were carried on by GrafDietrichstein, Graf St. Julien, and the Consul General, an extremelyable man named Viazzoli. Though neither Dietrichstein nor St. Juliencommanded the sources or the knowledge which Cobenzl had available,their reports were useful, and Viazzoli's contributions were especiallygood.2In addition to the regular ambassadorial and consular reports, theAustrian archives contained valuable materials compiled by specialemissaries. When Dietrichstein first came to Petersburg in 1797, hewas Paul's special favorite, and the tsar carried on long, intimate con-versations with him. Dietrichstein reported these talks at great length,and the result is a collection of very important material for evaluatingPaul's attitudes and character. The Stutterheim diaries offer similardata for the years 1804-5. Karl, Freiherr von Stutterheim was a specialmilitary envoy attached to the staff of the Grand Duke Constantine.His diaries are particularly useful for military and diplomatic ques-tions, but they also contain a large amount of information on Alexan-der, the Dowager-Empress,shifting internal politics in a crucial period,and the interior balance of power. Other special materials includeseveral accounts of Paul's assassination, a magnificent eyewitness de-scription of Moscow on the eve of Napoleon's arrival, and a detailedsummary and analysis of the Bank plan announced in December,1797. This latter sketch and related correspondence, which was largelyViazzoli'swork, is almost unique as an informed contemporary critiqueof Paul's fiscalpolicies.The Austrian archives' greatest value was in providing a connectednarrative of personnel changes, policy debates, and those daily develop-ments which create the atmosphere in which politics are carried for-ward. Each dispatch contained information on decrees, decorations,advancements, retirements, and social life, and in this sense the dis-patches could be read as a gazette. Articles appearing in Russian publi-cations were either copied or clipped, and published government re-ports added their bulk. The Austrian reports bring the Russian courtto life, and though their style is not always distinguished, their richness

2 Cobenzl's official correspondence for the period 1790-99 numbers twenty-two cartons.These included the reports written by Dietrichstein, St. Julien, and Viazzoli. The corre-spondence is in the series, Russland II Berichte, cartons 71-93. In the Austrian archivesonly the Berichte and Varia series contained useful information. Cobenzl's role at theRussian court has never been studied systematically.

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Some European Foreign Office Archives, 1790-1812 533in detail give a sense of immediacy largely missing from the fragmen-tary correspondence and scattered personal memoirs which are theusual sources for this period.The Austrian diplomatic papers require critical treatment, for re-porting is incomplete and sometimes inaccurate, and some subjects onwhich substantial information might logically have been expected arecovered partially or not at all. Biographical material on members ofthe court or administration is uneven, and personal data concerningeven such dignitaries as Bezborodko, Kochubei, Czartoryski, Novo-siltsev, or Speransky is scanty. Rostopchin and Kutaisov, who werebitterly detested, were discussed at length, but what was said waspiquant rather than important. Cobenzl's dispatches were filled withreferences to Bezborodko, but Cobenzl wrote in political rather thanpersonal terms, and though Bezborodko's role as Paul's balance wheelemerged, the man himself never did. The same was true of his nephew,Viktor Kochubei. On the other hand, the Austrian archives containrich biographical materials on the imperial family, especially on TsarPaul and Maria Fedorovna. Paul's personal characteristics, attitudes,and behavior occupied a large place in the Austrian diplomatic reports;for Cobenzl, quite correctly, saw Paul as the mainspring of the Russiansystem, and faithfully recorded his daily behavior. Moral judgments onPaul aside, there is no source richer in commonplace minutiae, nosource which gives a fuller and more careful assessment of the tsar'scharacter than the Austrian dispatches. Though often puzzled, some-times horrified, and finally embittered by Paul's inconsistencies, Co-benzl maintained balance and objectivity, and the result is an intimateportrait of the emperor unparalleled in the contemporary literature.3In the economic and social spheres, the Austrian archives are com-paratively weak on external trade but strong on finance. Tax policieswere covered in detail, the course of the ruble was followed closely, andthe reactions of the merchant community to fiscal questions were care-fully recorded. Agricultural problems as such were scarcely touched,but the Austrians were interested in conditions among the peasantry;rebellions and social disturbances in general were fully reported,though it is apparent that authentic information was difficult to find.Russian culture, however, received short shrift, and the intellectualhistorian will find almost nothing of direct interest. A few commentswere passedon books which were being read, but the names of Russianwriters were seldom mentioned. Finally, the military historian will finda great deal to interest him. Russian military preparedness occupiedthe Austrian representatives constantly, and there were continued dis-

3 Only the Austrian archives, of those read, contain much material on Paul, and noneof the standard biographies of the members of the imperial family use this information.In this sense, the data on Paul comprise new and valuable material. The Prussian, Swedish,and Danish archives should all contain equally valuable information, although the PublicRecord Office, which also should have done so, proved a disappointment (see below).



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534 SlavicReviewcussions of the relationship between the Russian economy and Russianmilitary capacity, as well as morale, training, and conditions in theRussian armies.4The archives of the French ministry of foreign affairs were less valu-able for this period than either the Austrian or the English. Formalrelations between France and Russia were broken in 1792, and thoughthey were resumed before Paul's death, regular reporting from St.Petersburg did not begin until 1802. The French reports on the earlyyears of Alexander's administration contained very little of conse-quence, for French representatives lacked contracts, and at first theywere positively isolated. When war broke out again, another gapoccurred in the French dispatches, and the only connected reportingwhich we have on the French side covers the period 1808 to 1812. Inthis period, however, the French reports have a special value, since theBritish had been expelled, and the Austrianswere in disgrace.The topics that the French reports covered best were court politicsand domestic economic questions. Caulaincourt regularly reviewed theentire administration in a series of special memoires, in which he alsocommented on current political problems and the position taken byeach member of the government. Caulaincourt was as well informedin his time as Cobenzl was in his, and like Cobenzl, Caulaincourt en-joyed the tsar's favor. Moreover, since the French were interested indeveloping commerce and investments in Russia, Caulaincourt wasparticularly careful to report Russian tariff policies and Russian con-trols over foreign merchants. Furthermore, Russia's economic nation-alism in the post-Tilsit period threatened French as well as British in-terests, and the French ambassador'sdispatches protesting those policiescontain excellent data on this new direction in Russian economicthought.There are several special collections in the French archives whichdeal with Russian domestic history. One of the most important is thereports, memoirs, and correspondence of General Langeron, portionsof which have been published, which include materials on Russianadministration, Russian economic and military affairs, and commen-taries on key Russian political personnel. French material on theDanubian and Black Sea regions, as well as on Greek affairs, are veryrich, and data on the economic development of southern Russia in rela-tion to the Principalities is extraordinarily full. Finally, the story ofFrance'srole in Russia's economic growth is partially documented, andthere one can find the background for the fascinating, and still untold,

4 Two very interesting files of correspondence in the Lieven Papers at the BritishMuseum add substantially to the data concerning the military. These are letters fromCount Arakcheev and Pierre Dolgoruky. The latter deal specifically with conditions inthe Russian armies during the crucial period, 1804-7. See Lieven Papers, Add. 47243(Dolgoruky) and Add. 47244 (Arakcheev). These letters have not been available previously.



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Some European Foreign Office Archives, 1790-1812 535story of the collaboration of the Duc de Richelieu and Count Kochubeiin the southern provinces.5The Public Record Office proved a richer repository than the Frenchforeign office archives, though on balance the English materials are in-ferior to those in Vienna. The British archives have been used spar-ingly for anything but diplomatic history, yet they contain some uniqueelements. Over-all, the British records are most valuable for economicquestions, and in many instances the English reports provide full docu-mentation for ideas found in the French archives. English ministerial,later ambassadorial,reports contain excellent material on tariff policy,and the annual consular reports provide the fullest available tradestatistics for the Russian Empire. The consuls were able to add un-published data as well as commentaries, and since British consuls werechosen from the English trading community itself, these comments areunusually helpful.6 Russia's fiscal position also interested the English,and during Paul's reign Sir Charles Whitworth argued that Englandcould control Russian foreign policy through pressure on those Dutchfinancial houses which were providing the funds to meet Russia'sgrowing deficits. Whitworth's argument was buttressed with circum-stantial details concerning the Russian debt, Russian funding proce-dures, and fiscal attitudes of the Russian government as well as theeconomies that government was trying to practice. This information isparalleled by consular reports which give a more general view of Rus-sian fiscal policies and the reactions of the merchant community tothem.On the political and administrative side, the English materials,though much more complete than the French, are distinctly inferiorto the Austrian. This was disappointing, for every evidence suggestedthat Whitworth's reports would be especially good for Paul's reign, andthe existence of a strong English party in St. Petersburg in a positionof influence should have produced valuable data for the period endingin 1807. Sir Charles Whitworth was deeply enmeshed in court in-

5 The diplomatic correspondence in the Archives du Minist&e des Affaires 1Etrang&esis in the series Correspondance politique: Russie, and the miscellaneous material, in-cluding Langeron, is in the Memoires et documents series. Mr. John Nicopolous, a doc-toral candidate at the University of Paris, is working on the economic development of theBlack Sea; Basile Spiridonakis did an interesting doctoral study based on this information:Les principautes danubiennes de 1774 a 1792: 1Rtudepolitique et diplomatique (unpub-lished, Paris, 1962). Mr. Spiridonakis put together a valuable guide to materials onRussian history in the French foreign office archives which he allowed me to use before itwas printed. See his Mdmoires et documents du Ministere des Affaires 1trang&res deFrance sur la Russie (Quebec: Universite de Sherbrooke, 1962). Rondo Cameron's excel-lent France and the Economic Development of Europe (Princeton, 1961) does not touchFrench activities in southern Russia in the first decade of the nineteenth century.

6 In the Public Record Office, all material for this period pertaining to Russia is filedin the same series, F. 0. 65. Thus diplomatic dispatches, consular reports, and all support-ing materials may be found in the same place, and all pertinent data may be read at thesame time.



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536 Slavic Reviewtrigues, though the exact nature of his activities has caused some con-troversy. Certainly his reports document the venality of the Russiancourt, and Whitworth provides additional evidence, if it were needed,that Mlle. Lapukhin and Kutaisovwere Paul's most influential advisers.The English minister is most unsatisfactory, however, on the very sig-nificant period from November, 1796, to March, 1798. This was the erain which Paul developed his most important domestic reform proposals,and it was also Maria Fedorovna'stime of largest influence. Whitworthwas in a position to know a great deal about these matters, but he re-ported little of what he knew. Even the crucial question of the newLand Bank was poorly reported; this omission seems unusual sinceWhitworth's correspondence generally was excellent on economic andfiscal affairs. Finally, although Whitworth was as well placed as Co-benzl to observe and comment on Paul's character, he did not do so,and his reports are greatly inferior to the Austrian as sources for thetsar'sbiographer.The English reports for the period 1801-8show the same deficienciesin reporting domestic political questions and personalia. Neither Alex-ander I nor the domestic views of Alexander's ministers appear withany clarity despite the Anglophile character of the first reform admin-istration. British representatives reported the constitutional and ad-ministrative changes which were made, but they viewed them primarilyin terms of regularizing conditions which had been disturbed by Paul.After 1802 domestic politics were scarcely mentioned at all, althoughthe English reports continued to provide substantial data on economicquestions, and it is in the latter field that the Public Record Office ismost valuable for the historian of Russia.The three archiveswhich we have briefly surveyed may be consideredmajor repositories of source material for Russian domestic history.Their emphases vary, and the period in which they are read would haveconsiderable bearing on their value, but the experience with thesearchives clearly indicates that European foreign office archives areamong the important sources available to the historian of Russia out-side the Soviet Union.

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a note on some european foreign office archives and russian domestic history, 1790-1812

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