Čaadaev, Pjotr Jakovlevič

ČAADAEV, PIOTR JAKOVLEVIČ. - Russian thinker, the "first Westernizer." Born between 1793 and 1796 into a noble family, he was educated in admiration for Western culture. In 1812 he took part in the battle of Borodino; he was later in France with the victorious Russian regiments. For some time he was a member of Freemasonry. From 1823 he made a long journey abroad. He spent the years 1826-31 in Moscow, leading a very retired life. His Philosophical Letters are famous, the first of which dates from 1836. Because of the ideas on Russia and on the Church of Rome contained in them he was declared mad by Emperor Nicholas I. To defend himself he later wrote the Apology of a Madman.

C.'s Westernism is not positivistic or atheistic, but religious, and contains in germ the messianic idea of Slavism. On the one hand C. was an opponent of the much-debated formula orthodoxy, autocracy and nationality, appreciated Western culture, expressed himself in a very negative sense on the historical and cultural development of Russia, which he considered a backward country; he admitted the idea of the primacy of the Church of Rome and praised the cultural and social activity of the latter (yet without ever becoming a Catholic); on the other hand he predicted for Russia - young, virgin, profoundly religious - a great social and Christian future. On the political plane he was a supporter of a cultured and prudent liberalism permeated with historicist considerations. He died in 1856.

The Works and letters, written for the most part in French, were edited by M. Gherbenzon (2 vols., Moscow 1913).

[Bernardo Schultze]