Approcher l’altérité russe au début du XVIIIe siècle : la Russie de Pierre le Grand vue de l’Europe, au travers de l’Atlas historique des frères Châtelain

Details

Supervisors

Lecuppre, Gilles

Faculty

Faculté de philosophie, arts et lettres

Degree label

Master [120] en histoire, à finalité approfondie

Abstract

enThe aim of this dissertation is to account for Western perceptions of Russia (or Muscovy) in the early eighteenth century through the Atlas historique of the Châtelain brothers (and more precisely the fourth volume, 1714). We have evaluated, in successive approaches, how our source reflects the state of knowledge and stereotypes about Muscovites, their country and their society at the time of its writing. From a practical point of view, we have highlighted a historiographical "tradition of ignorance", limiting the development of Western knowledge about Russia throughout the Early-modern Age. We have also noted the geographically ambiguous position of Muscovy, between Europe and Asia, between "West" and "East". At the ideological level, a conceptual and theoretical approach allowed us to develop the notions of "barbarian" and "civilization", and to adapt them to the Russian context under the aegis of Eurocentric frames of thought, the theory of climates and the "universalizing" relativism of the Enlightenment. A final part allowed us to examine the social, religious and political system of Muscovy, revealing the specificities of our source, which is globally situated at the edge between Renaissance determinism and the "optimistic" Enlightenment thought, while being the product of Huguenot (and anti-monarchic) “exilés” in the Provinces-Unies. Overall, we have developed the notion of "median otherness" for Russia in the early 18th-century: a half-known, half-wild, half-Western zone, half-civilized populations and a half-acceptable system characterize this space.