ISRN UU-ÖSTUD-AR--06/9--SE

Department of Eurasian Studies

Uppsala University

LIBERALISM AND CONSTITUTIONALISM IN EARLY 19TH CENTURY RUSSIA

The Case of the Decembrists

Susanna Rabow-Edling

Department of Eurasian Studies Uppsala University

a r b e t s r a p p o r t e r W o r k i n g P a p e r s

No. 106

ISSN 1103-3541 November 2006

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Liberalism and Constitutionalism in Early 19th Century Russia: The Case of the Decembrists

“Long live the constitution! Long live the republic! Long live the people! Perish the nobility

and the rank of the czar!”1

Nationalism in the East has long been considered to be different from nationalism in the West.

Although Hans Kohn’s famous dichotomy has been challenged, it still determines the way

most people look at Eastern nationalism.2 Nationalism in the East is seen as authoritarian,

ethnic and cultural in contrast to the democratic, civic, and political nationalism of the West.

According to the common view, Western nationalism is based on modern liberal,

constitutional ideas, which made it democratic, while Eastern nationalism is based on cultural

belonging, which made it conservative or regressive and hostile to foreign influence.3

According to the conventional historical narrative, nationalism in the West grew out of the

spirit of the American and French Revolutions with their concepts of national self-

determination and popular sovereignty. It embraced the universalistic ideas of the

Enlightenment and preached cosmopolitanism, individual liberty and the equality of man

regardless of social class or nationality. As a consequence, nations were formed as unions of

citizens, through the will of individuals expressed in contracts and plebiscites. Hence, the

civic concept of the nation that emerged signified a sovereign citizen-people.

Scholars argue that when this original idea of the nation, connected to the development of

capitalism, democracy and industrialization in Western Europe, spread east, to populations

and countries in different social, political and cultural contexts, its original meaning changed

and came to signify a unique people.4 Thus, they maintain, nations in the East appealed to

collective rights rather than individual ones. In contrast to the stress on universal similarities

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of nations, nationalism in the East emphasized national diversity and distinctiveness.

Membership in the nation was based on custom, language and common origin. Instead of

forming voluntary unions of citizens based on contracts, the nation in the East united around

the Romantic concept of the people as a collective unit based on a common way of life. Here

nationalism was concerned with myths of the past and dreams of the future without any

immediate connection with the present.5 Thus, according to the common view, two types of

nationalism emerged, a civic in the West, a cultural in the East.

Recently, scholars have started to question this ethnocentric typology, drawing attention to

cultural manifestations of the nation in the West.6 But, there are very few comparable

reinterpretations of nationalism in the East.7 Studies of nationalism in Russia have focused on

cultural or ethnic expressions of the nation and on the impact of Romanticism.8 Consequently,

there are no detailed investigations of the civic concept of the nation in Russia and so the

assumption that Russians attached different meanings to the original concept of the nation

remains unchallenged.9 The present paper is an attempt to remedy this gap in the literature. It

argues that the so-called Decembrists brought the civic idea of the nation to Russia and used

it, without changing its meaning, as the source of legitimacy for their attempt to transfer

power from the tsar to the people.10

The Decembrists were members of secret societies, the most important of which became

known as the Northern Society and the Southern Society. The Northerners were in general

more conservative than the radical Southerners, but their concepts of the nation were in fact

rather similar.11 On December 14, 1825, the Northern Society staged an uprising in St

Petersburg. Two weeks later there was a revolt in the South. Both failed due to bad planning,

treachery, and a series of unfortunate events. Around eighty people were killed, 121 were sent

to exile in Siberia, and five of the leaders were executed. This was the first time that an

educated elite with its own program of social change had taken up arms against Russian

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autocracy. The members of the secret societies were mostly young officers and members of

aristocratic families. In this they were no different from contemporary secret reformist

societies in Western Europe, which were often dominated by officers. The Decembrists were

inspired by the waves of revolt, with their demands for constitutionalism and independence,

that spread across Europe and South America during this period and they were partially

modelled on these conspiratorial groups. Like them, they demanded a constitution and civil

liberties.12 According to the Decembrist Vladimir I. Shteingel, “events in Spain, Piedmont

and Greece inflamed minds about freedom in Russia.”13

Many of the Decembrists had fought against Napoleon. The fact that the Russian army had

saved Europe from “the tyranny of Napoleon” made the contrast with the despotism at home

difficult to bear.14 Aleksandr Bestuzhev, one of the Decembrists, tried to explain the feelings

of the returning soldiers in a letter to Nicholas I written after his arrest: “We delivered our

homeland from tyranny but we are tyrannized anew by the master. . . Why did we free

Europe, was it to put chains on ourselves? Did we give a constitution to France, so that we

should not dare to talk about it? Did we buy with our blood primacy among nations, so that

we should be oppressed at home.”15 The introduction to the proposed Russian constitution,

drafted by the Northern Society, reflects this longing for liberty: “All the European nations are

attaining constitutions and freedom. The Russian nation, more than any of them, deserves one

as well as the other”.16 The fact that the tsar had already granted constitutions to Finland and

Poland turned this longing into a real possibility.

In his famous book, Die nationale Gedankenwelt der Dekabristen, Hans Lemberg placed

the Decembrists in the context of modern nationalism.17 This was an important contribution

to the scholarship on the Decembrist movement, which had previously been seen in the

framework of constitutional, liberal or revolutionary ideas.18 Lemberg studied cultural

manifestations of the nation, such as the significance of a common language, myths and

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memories of a common history, and national feeling to Decembrist thought. He argues that

the Decembrists have left the Age of Reason and entered the epoch of Romanticism and its

notion of the nation as a unique people with a unique culture and history. This, he holds, can

be seen in the link between their patriotism and their interest in history and national tradition.

However, it was not only Romantic nationalists who used an idealized image of history. In

fact, it was not unusual for political thinkers in Western Europe and America to employ

ancient rights and freedoms against royal absolutism. Like the Decembrists, French, English

and American patriots tried to justify their present position by an appeal to a constructed

legendary past of freedom and equality. This was in fact a common strategy to defend

political claims and demands for change. 19

The Decembrists used the city-republic of Novgorod and its popular hero Vadim as

symbols of ancient Russian liberty. Here are clear links to ancient Rome and Greece and its

republican, civic values. There are also explicit references to ancient heroes. Vadim is hailed

as a Russian Brutus – a tyrannicide and a symbol for rule by the people, liberty and equality.20

These were the same civic values that were endorsed by the “patriots” of the American and

French revolutions and their followers around the world. Decembrist patriotism is indeed

permeated with the republican ideas that prevailed in Europe and America after 1777. These

ideas were used in the political language of the pre-Romantic period, the language that is

commonly associated with civic nationalism.

There are definitely elements of Romanticism in Decembrist thought, primarily in their

literature, but their political driving force was the modern civic concept of the nation, the

original idea that was formed in the West and expressed in the American and French

Revolutions. 21 This idea spread over the world and continued to have an immense impact at

least until the 1840s. That is not to say that the civic idea of the nation lacked cultural

components. On the contrary, notions of cultural superiority can be found both in the practices

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of states identified as civic nations and in the ideas of political thinkers associated with this

type of nationalism. For example, civic nationalism was sometimes used to support the

assimilation of cultural minorities.22 Such notions of assimilation are found in the

Decembrists’ concept of the nation as well. Hence, the claim that the civic idea of the nation

is a political concept without any cultural content needs to be questioned. But so does the

claim that the civic concept of the nation does not exist in Eastern Europe. The main point

here is that the Decembrists used a similar concept of the nation as Western thinkers who

could be associated with civic nationalism.

Both the Northern and the Southern Society proposed constitutions for a future Russia,

written by Nikita Muraviev and Pavel Pestel respectively. Although they did not express the

views of all its members, they were supported by a significant part. In both draft constitutions,

the idea of the nation and the citizen are treated at length.

The nation

Authorities on nationalism tell us that the civic concept of the nation was defined by the

French philosophes as a community of people sharing the same laws and political institutions

within a defined territory.23 According to the Encyclopedie edited by Denis Diderot the

“nation” is used to describe a considerable number of people inhabiting a specified extent of

land delineated by fixed limits and obeying the same government. The Modern Dictionary of

Arts and Sciences from 1774 presents a similar definition.24 Laws and institutions played a

vital role in the shaping of the character of a people. It was these laws and institutions that

formed the nation, rather than language or common origin.

Rousseau saw national character as products of history and education, not gifts of nature.25

He thought it possible and important to rectify or improve the national character by legislation

and national education. “[I]t is the laws, the mores, the customs, the government, the

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constitution, and the mode of existence that results from all these [that make la patrie].”26 In

the draft for the constitution of Poland, Rousseau wrote that “[I]t is national institutions which

form the genius, character, tastes and manners of a people, which make it what it is and not

something else”.27 While Montesquieu held that national character forms the political life of a

country, Hume maintained that a number of individuals become a nation when they are united

in one political body. In the words of Abbé Sieyès, the “creator” of the National Assembly in

France, the nation was “a body of associates living under common laws and represented by

the same legislative assembly”.28 The belief that the state could turn strangers into citizens,

peasants, or immigrant workers, into Frenchmen had been taken over from the Roman

tradition.29 Given the general view of Russian nationalism as being based on an ethnic,

cultural idea of the nation, one would not expect this political concept of the nation to be

prominent in Russian nationalism. But in fact it was, as can be seen from the draft constitution

of the Southern Society.

Reminiscent of the philosophical founders of civic nationalism, this constitution states that

the experience of all periods and all states has proven that nations are everywhere what their

governments and their laws have made them.30 Consequently, “political laws are the nation’s

most effective teachers: they form and, so to speak educate the people and it is from them that

the customs, habits, and conceptions receive their characteristic traits and forms of action…it

is political and civil laws which make the nations what they are”.31 The political dimension of

civic nationalism can hardly be more clearly manifested.

The concept of citizenship as voluntaristic grew out of this political definition of the nation

as a people with common laws and government. Since political institutions form the nation,

allegiance to these institutions becomes the essential criterion for nationhood in civic

nationalism. The nation is a free association of rational human beings which individuals enter

into voluntarily and which is based on an a subjective identification.32 For Rousseau the

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nation was a product of the will of individuals. Men united as a nation by free declaration, that

is, by acts of free will.33 This conception lies at the basis of Abbé Sieyès’ description of the

formation of the nation. First “a fairly considerable number of isolated individuals…wish to

unite.” By working together they form “a common will.” Eventually, “they put a few of their

number in charge,” and finally they “delegate” responsibility to a “body of representatives”

who act on behalf of the whole body.34 America is a good example of a nation constituted by

covenants. Because there was no nation in America before the Declaration of Independence,

the Americans established themselves as a nation by a voluntary act.35 The French

Constitution of 1791 states that a foreigner may be naturalised as long as he chooses to live in

France (fixer son domicile) and to swear the civic oath (le serment civique). The same

principle was followed in American legislation at this time.36 In the sense that the individual

can, in principle, choose to which nation he belongs, the nation is a contractual political

association.37

This idea is reflected in the draft constitution of the Northern Society. According to this

document, a foreigner not born in Russia but having lived there for seven consecutive years

had the right to request Russian citizenship through the courts, so long as he renounced on

oath all allegiance to the government to which he was previously subject. All native

inhabitants of Russia and the children of foreigners born in Russia were considered to be

Russians, unless they declared that they did not wish “to enjoy this privilege”.38 Hence, it was

in terms of adherence to shared political principles, rather than culture, ethnicity or language

that membership of the civic nation was conceived.39 As Brubaker puts it, “the dominance of

citizenship over nationality, of political over ethnocultural conceptions of nationhood is

perhaps best expressed in Tallien’s remark of the spring of 1795: ‘the only foreigners in

France are the bad citizens’”.40

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However, this dominance of political over ethnocultural conceptions in civic nationalism is

problematic. There is a conflict between the concept of an indivisible nation and cultural

diversity which sometimes turns civic nationalism into an imperialist force. In Russia this

tendency is most visible in the proposal of the Southern Society, where assimilation of

national minorities is an explicit goal. A unitary nation cannot allow for cultural difference.

Consequently, special rights, or laws that in any way come into conflict with national ones,

cannot be accepted. This is the reason why Pestel in the proposal of the Southern Society

stresses that “the laws of religion” must be combined with “unitary political laws” and not

influence them in different ways.41 He holds that “variety in the religious laws may be

combined with uniformity in the political laws.” Christianity is upheld as a norm and “the acts

of all non-Christian faiths which are contrary to the spirit of the Christian law must be

prohibited,” but everything that is “not contrary to its spirit, even though different from it,

may be permitted according to circumstances”.42 Thus, the Tatars, who profess Islam, “are

allowed to keep this faith and any persecution of it is forbidden”.43 In the Manifesto of the

Senate drawn up by Trubetskoi on the Eve of December 14, 1825, religious tolerance to all

faiths is proclaimed.44 Hence, the Decembrists believed that freedom of religion was

significant to the formation of a modern nation, but it should be accepted only as long as

religious rules were not in conflict with the laws of the nation.

Linguistic diversity was treated in a way similar to religious differences.45 Pestel insisted

on the primacy of Russian over all other languages of the empire. With respect to language

requirements, Muraviev wrote that twenty years from the promulgation of his Constitution

only those who have become literate in the Russian language would be recognised as

citizens.46 To the French revolutionaries it was a matter of political pragmatism that a nation

based on the common will of the people should share the same language. Only when all

citizens spoke the same language could all citizens “communicate their thoughts without

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hindrance” and enjoy equal access to state offices.47 Moreover, a high culture could not

prosper without a common language. Linguistic diversity was denounced as conducive to

reaction, while linguistic unity was advocated as indispensable to Republican citizenship.48

The concept of a unitary nation pertains not only to religion and language, but also to

ethnicity. It concerns minority rights and the right to nationhood. Ultimately, it affects the

form of government and issues of representation. The importance of this principle and the

degree of its applicability is of course dependent on the ethnic, linguistic, and religious make-

up of the country to which it is applied. The concept of an indivisible nation does not have as

far-reaching consequences in a relatively homogenous state as it does in a multi-ethnic empire

of the Russian type. Hence, both Societies’ draft constitutions treat this issue at length.

Pestel believed in the importance of a unitary nation, despite the many different

nationalities living on Russian territory. He argued that all peoples and races must be formed

into one sole nation, dissolving all differences into one common mass so that all the

inhabitants throughout the entire territory of the Russian state were to be Russians. This

nation should be accomplished politically, by applying the same laws and system of

administration to all, using the same (Russian) language.49 In addition, the state was to attend

to the economic development of the different peoples, particularly those on the borderland. In

the same way, Sieyès had argued for a unitary nation in France. Thus, he fought against the

representation of local interests. Sieyès held that a political representative should represent the

nation as a whole. “It belongs to the National Assembly, and to it alone, to interpret and

present the general will of the nation,” he said.50 A similar concept of the nation was

articulated in Velestinlis’ draft Greek constitution from 1797. “The Greek Republic is one, for

all it contains within it [sic] different races and religions”. It constitutes “a unitary,

indissoluble body…. Those people living in this Empire, without distinction of religion or

language are to be divided into primary assemblies”. They are divided “for administrative

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convenience and so that justice shall be done everywhere in like manner.”51 Thomas Jefferson

and Destutt de Tracy who agreed on many fundamental points disagreed on the subject of

federalism and the role of central government. Destutt, who like Sieyès believed in the

advantages of a centralised state administration, argued that “the confederate system” might

work well in America, “because they have no powerful neighbours.” But if “France had

adopted this form, it is doubtful whether it could have resisted all Europe, as it did by

remaining one and indivisible”.52

Pestel advocated the French position. He held that in order to form a single, indivisible

nation, one language, one government and one unified political order for the entire country

were needed. Pestel was afraid that a federal system would weaken the link between the

regions which would lead to weaker support for the union, or even secession. In either case

the new Russian nation would be destroyed. As with religion and linguistic diversity,

common laws are contrasted to separate laws, institutions and practices. Pestel believed that in

a federal system each regional government would argue that it could arrange the public affairs

of its own region better without the interference of the supreme authority. Each region,

forming a small separate state within the federal state, would be only tenuously connected to

the whole. “The particular wellbeing of the region might in the short term have a more

decisive influence on the imagination of its rulers and people than the general wellbeing of the

whole state, the benefits of which for the region may not be readily apparent. The word ‘state’

will in such a system be an empty word, since nowhere will people be aware of the state, only

of their region”. The consequence of such a system would be that the “love of the fatherland”

would turn into allegiance to a region. As far as Russia was concerned, Pestel believed that

the federal system would be ruinous. Not only were its regions governed by different

institutions and judged by different civil laws, but they also spoke different languages and

professed different faiths. Their inhabitants were of different origins and at times belonged to

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different powers. So, “if this heterogeneity were to be reinforced through a federal system, it

is easy to predict just how quickly these diverse regions would secede from the Russian

core”.53

Muraviev, on the other hand advocated a federal system for Russia modelled on the United

States. However, as in the American Constitution (and even more so the legislation regulating

the creation of new territories and states in the American union), the autonomous states that

were to be created in Russia would not reflect the ethnic make-up of their population.54 In this

way the same principle of a unitary nation was employed in both Societies’ proposals. Their

disregard for ethnic, cultural and linguistic differences in the multi-national Russian empire

had parallels in the West. Indeed, many political thinkers, who could be associated with civic

nationalism, argued in the same way. Contrary to what might be expected, it was often

“liberal” and “radical” thinkers who promoted assimilation of cultural minorities, while

conservative thinkers opposed it.55

A common belief was that the welfare of the nation was dependent on its prosperity,

security and progress. In order to be viable a nation had to be of sufficient size. In Friedrich

List’s words, “large population and an extensive territory endowed with manifold national

resources are essential requirements of the normal nationality… A nation restricted in the

number of its population and in territory, especially if it has a separate language, can only

possess a crippled literature, crippled institutions for promoting art and science. A small state

can never bring to complete perfection within its territory the various branches of

production”.56 To Pestel, federalism would weaken the Russian state in exactly these respects.

As we have seen, he believed that federalism would lead to the secession of regions. Then

Russia would lose not only its power, greatness and strength, but perhaps also its very

existence. “Russia would once again experience all the harm inflicted in ancient times by the

appanage system, which was nothing more than a kind of federal state structure”.57 Here,

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Pestel echoes the prevalent French view that, because of the competitive international states

system, strong central governments were necessary to the survival of European nations.58

There was a belief among many political thinkers in the West that small, and especially

small and backward, nationalities had everything to gain by merging into greater nations and

making their contribution to humanity through these. This, they believed, was simply a

consequence of the laws of progress.59 Destutt de Tracy asserted that a people often gain a

great deal by being conquered. “[T]his is particularly true, of those whose fortune it is to be

conquered by a representative government, for they thereby gain both liberty and economy…

To be thus conquered, is in truth more like a rescue from bondage, than a subjection.”60 A

couple of decades later John Stuart Mill described colonial rule as a system that is “as

legitimate as any other if it is the one which in the existing state of civilization of the subject

people most facilitates their transition to a higher stage of improvement.” Thus, superior

societies possessed a historical mission to enlighten the natives.61

The case for the establishment of a nation-state depended on whether it could fit in with or

advance historical evolution and progress. Hence the defence of small cultures became an

expression of conservative resistance to the inevitable advance of history.62 Jefferson agreed

with Destutt de Tracy that the measure of a nation’s greatness was the freedom that the people

generally enjoyed in pursuing their individual interests and thus in promoting the wealth and

welfare of the community as a whole.63 This thinking is reflected in the proposal of the

Southern Society, which states that the right to nationhood must prevail in the case of those

peoples who can enjoy their own political independence (such as Poland), whereas “the right

of convenience” must prevail over those peoples that cannot themselves make use of their

political independence and must of necessity come under the power of some stronger state

(such as Finland !).64 Thus, the principle of self-determination, characteristic of civic

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nationalism, was not promoted in order to encourage the realisation of a distinct cultural

identity, but to give expression to the universal desire for liberty among all peoples.65

To Pestel, it certainly seemed obvious that the many peoples of the empire were much

better off as members of a Russian nation than on their own. “The nomadic peoples are half

savages, and some are even complete savages; they live in ignorance and degradation.

Consequently, even out of Christian duty one should endeavour to improve their condition,

the more so… [considering] that they live in our state, in our fatherland. The goal is that they

will become our brethren. It may be reached by settling them permanently and turning them to

agriculture”.66

Hence, imperialist sentiment is integrated into the civic idea of the nation. As Anthony

Smith argues, civic nationalism often demands “as the price for receiving citizenship and its

benefits, the surrender of ethnic community and individuality, the privatization and

marginalization of ethnic culture and religion of minorities within the borders of the national

state”.67 This was actually one of the reasons why Herder reacted against Enlightenment

thinkers, accusing them of eliminating cultural diversity.68

The concept of a single, indivisible nation is also related to the role of privileges. A basic

prerequisite for this nationalism, based on political principles and institutions, is that the

people is sovereign and possess a general will, which means that special rights for various

separate groups cannot be accepted, whether it involves local, cultural, or noble privileges.

The citizen

The common view of the civic concept of the nation is that it was not only anti-monarchical

but also anti-aristocratic, breaking with the world of the ancien régime.69 In America, despite

the structure of colonial society, debates and concerns over the role of the aristocracy in

political life remained central well into the nineteenth century. In Europe, the existence of an

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aristocracy was a fundamental social problem and became a structural problem in European

constitutionalism. It involved the issue of privilege and social oppression and thus lay at the

heart of political struggles and dominated the debates on the forms of governmental

institutions.70

The French nation-state had been constructed in opposition not only to the absolute power

of the monarch, but also to corporate and provincial privilege. The nation was contrasted to

the privileged orders and corporations of the ancien régime.71 It was in this spirit that Destutt

de Tracy refuted Montesquieu’s typology, which defined governments as either despotic,

monarchical, or republican. Instead, Destutt divided all governments into two classes, one of

which he called “national, in which social rights are common to all; the other special,

establishing or recognizing particular or unequal rights”.72 Sieyès asserted that the nobility

simply had no grounds for their special rights: “Is it not obvious that the nobility possesses

privileges and exemptions which it brazenly calls its rights and which stands distinct from the

rights of the great body of citizens?” Because of these special rights the nobility did not

belong to the common order, nor was it subjected to common laws. Thus, its private rights

made it “a people apart in the great nation… As for its political rights, it also exercises these

separately from the nation. It has its own representatives who are charged with no mandate

from the people… They are foreign to the nation first because of their origin, since they do

not owe their powers to the People; and secondly because of their aim, since this consists in

defending, not the general interest, but the private one”.73

In the same way, Pestel justified removing noble rights and privileges, because all

members of the nation were entitled to the same universal rights. He argued that the

advantages enjoyed by the Russian nobility were not based on any corresponding obligations.

On the contrary, these advantages served to excuse those who enjoyed them from all

obligations; and so, Pestel held, they must be recognised as privileges rather than rights.

15

Hence, the nobility should no longer enjoy the exclusive right to occupy all public offices.

This right should be distributed among all Russians. Whoever deserved a public office by

virtue of his knowledge, capabilities and qualities should be entitled to it, regardless of his

background or class. Talents, knowledge, and virtue could be found in all estates. Thus, entry

to the governmental bureaucracy should be based on merit rather than social status.74

Furthermore, Pestel criticized the existing criminal law which meted out different

punishments to perpetrators depending on social status. The nobility, he argued, should be

subject to the same punishments as other Russians for similar crimes. To Pestel, the nature of

punishment should correspond to the nature of the crime and not to the social class of the

criminal; for crime is the product of a person’s moral qualities and not a mark of his

belongings to a particular class.75 This can be compared to The French Constitution of 1791

which guarantees that all appointments to government offices will be made on the basis of

talent and virtue only; that all contributions will be repaid equally; that the same offence will

be punished in the same way, regardless of the status of the perpetrator. This constitution also

states that there no longer exists any nobility, nor any hereditary distinctions, or distinctions

by privileged orders.76

The American Constitution asserts that “[n]o Title of Nobility shall be granted by the

United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without

the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind

whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State”.77 In the United States, the presence of an

aristocracy was a central issue to political theory, but was hardly a social reality. France, on

the other hand, was a country where ancient privileges and special rights were entrenched.

Thomas Paine emphasised that the French constitution brought about a complete change in

this hierarchical society: “The French constitution says: there shall be no titles; and of

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consequence all that class… which in some countries is called ‘aristocracy,’ and in others

‘nobility,’ is done away, and the peer is exalted into the man”.78

Pestel declared that people are all born for the good in the sense that they are all created by

the Almighty, and therefore it is unjust to reserve the term “wellborn” only for the nobility.

Consequently, the nobility’s privileged use of this term should be abolished. The titles of

Prince, Duke, Count, Baron, etc derive from the time when such titles indicated different

positions in the power structure. Such titles cannot exist in a state based on real justice, true

morality, good sense and reason. For that reason, noble status and all titles and ranks should

be abolished.79 In the constitution of the Northern Society, Muraviev argues against the

division of men into grades: “Civil ranks adopted from the Germans are to be abolished in

accordance with ancient resolutions of the Russian people.” The titles and classes of

smallholders (odnodvorets), petit bourgeois (meshchanin), nobleman (dvorianin) and

distinguished citizen (imenityi grazhdanin) should all be replaced by the titles “Citizen” or

“Russian.”80

The French Revolution created a class of individuals enjoying common rights, bound by

common obligation, formally equal before the law. It substituted a universal law for privilege

and maintained that “all are equally dependent on the law”.81 “There are no longer any

privileges or exceptions to the common law of all Frenchmen for any part of the Nation, nor

for any individual”.82 This egalitarian idea of the nation had its most influential expression in

the American Declaration of Independence of 1776 which stated that “all men are created

equal” and “endowed…with certain unalienable Rights”.83

The same conception of the nation is expressed in the draft Constitutions of the Decembrist

Societies. Both Muraviev and Pestel state that all Russians must be equal before the law. In

Pestel’s words, “any statute which violates this equality is an intolerable abuse which must be

eradicated.” 84 According to Muraviev, “the distinction between nobleman and commoner is

17

not recognised in that it is contrary to our faith, whereby all men are brothers, all are well-

born in that they are born by the will of God, all are born for the good and are simply men.”85

This statement can be compared to Sieyès remarks on the same subject: “Inequalities of

wealth or ability are like inequalities of age, sex, size, colour, etc. In no way do they alter the

nature of the equality of citizenship; the rights inherent in citizenship cannot attach to

differences”.86 The same concept is found Velestinlis’s Rights of Man from 1797, which

states that “when someone is at fault, whatever his position, the law is that for the fault [sic]

and is unalterable.” That is, “the rich man is not punished less and the poor man more for the

same wrong act, but equally”.87

According to Pestel, the aim of society is the gratification of common needs, which as they

arise from common and identical properties in human nature, are the same for all men.88

Distinctions between classes prevented this aim from being fulfilled. They ruined the bonds

between citizens so that separate factions were formed. They aimed exclusively at granting

greater privileges to some people and of oppressing the mass of the nation for the selfish

interest of a minority. “It follows from this that in the state all men without exception must be

completely equal before the law…the estates [both the aristocracy based on wealth and on

hereditary rights] must be eliminated…all men must form but a single estate which may be

called civic estate, and all citizens of the state must have one and the same rights”.89 All

Russian citizens must have equal enjoyment of private, civil, and political rights throughout

the state.90 The Decembrists saw serfdom as the main obstacle to the drawing together of all

classes.91 Trubetskoi’s “Manifesto” therefore stated that the right to own men should be

abolished and that there should be equality of all classes before the law.92

Civic nationalists imagine the nation as a community of equal, rights-bearing citizens.93

But these rights are linked to duties. In Rousseau’s words “all should employ the same rights,

bear the same burdens without aristocracy, privileges, or hereditary distinctions.”94 According

18

to the Spanish constitution of 1812, every Spaniard, without exception, was obliged to

contribute to the expenditure of the State in proportion to his means.95 This was also the view

of the Decembrists, who maintained that civil society was created for the greatest possible

good of each and every citizen and not for the good of the few at the expense of the majority.

Consequently, not only did all the people in a state have equal rights to the benefits afforded

by that state, but everyone was equally obliged to bear the burdens associated with state

organisation.96

In order to achieve the aim of the greatest possible good, the state had to collect revenues

and because all citizens had equal rights to enjoy society’s benefits, they also had equal

obligations to contribute to the creation of these benefits. As Muraviev stressed, “every citizen

is obliged to carry out his social duties.” Therefore, the Decembrists argued, it was not right

that only a part of the people carried the entire burden of taxation, while others did not

contribute. Thus, the nobility could not be exempted from the payment of taxes on equal basis

with others. Nor should they be exempted from military service on par with other citizens.

Since all members of society benefited equally from military power, all social classes should

contribute to maintain this power. The nobility, therefore, should not be exempted from

personal obligation to serve and its present privilege not to do so should be abolished.97

The purpose of the French Revolution, in Sieyès view, was to deprive the nobility and the

clergy of their ancient privileges because neither of them contributed to the well-being of the

whole nation. Instead the third estate should lead the French nation. The third estate is the one

body “containing within itself everything needful to be a complete nation.” It is “like a strong

and robust man with one arm still in chains. If the privileged order were removed, the nation

would not be something less but something more”.98

The absence of a bourgeoisie in much of Eastern Europe is a commonly stated reason why

civic nationalism did not develop there. However, although most of the Decembrists were

19

landlords of noble origin, they tried to build a modern liberal nation with a capitalist

organisation. In this sense they worked against their own class.99 Acting against privileges

and for the common good, the Decembrists spoke of the important role of the middle class in

building a citizen-nation. They lamented the fact that “[t]he middle class is respected and

important in all other countries; in our country this class is miserable, poor, burdened with

obligations, deprived of means of a livelihood”.100 Leading Decembrists like Pestel,

Kakhovskii and Bestuzhev complained that the burgesses were overburdened by duties and

taxes and that the time had come for them to be freed from the old guilds which only

hampered industry.101

The elimination of corporate privilege was essential to Adam Smith’s critique of the

mercantile system. The French physiocrats also promoted laissez-faire economics. They

demanded the abolition of all traditional restraints, prohibitions, and regulations which

prevented the free development of individual property and the optimum utilization of its

productive capacity.102 Their ideas were institutionalised in the French constitution of 1791

which asserts that “there are no longer any guilds, nor professional, craft, or arts

corporations”.103 In the draft constitution of the Northern Society, Muraviev underlined the

importance of abolishing existing merchant and trade guilds and corporations. “Everyone has

the right to engage in whatever trade that seems to him the most profitable: agriculture, cattle,

hunting, fishing, craftwork, factory work, trade, etc”.104 Pestel agreed with this economic

liberalism, arguing in the proposal of the Southern Society that there should be freedom to

engage in economic activity for all citizens alike. Everyone should have the right to form

corporations and companies.105 “Townspeople should have the same civil rights as other

citizens, their guilds abolished, and liberty to live and work wherever they wish to”.106 The

Decembrist Manifesto echoed these views, stating that every citizen had the right to choose

whatever occupation he wishes; to acquire every kind of property and make every kind of

20

contract. Poll tax and arrears should be cancelled and monopolies on salt and alcohol

abolished.107

The concept of equal citizenship also applied to the form of government. In this sense,

civic nationalism was a democratic nationalism shaped around the citizen-nation. Hence, to

the French revolutionaries the civic idea of the nation applied not only to the whole people, i.

e. to all the inhabitants of a country, but also to the principle of popular sovereignty. Instead

of king and nobility the whole people was considered to be sovereign and the source of the

authority of the state.108 Most importantly, the people should write their own laws in

accordance with which they should live. Rousseau wrote that “obedience to a law which we

impose upon ourselves is what constitutes liberty”.109 This idea is expressed in the Spanish

constitution: “Sovereignty lies by its nature in the People. Precisely for this reason, it has the

exclusive right to formulate its fundamental laws”.110 Destutt de Tracy tried to explain the

difference between such a “national” regime and other regimes. The “national” regime was

founded on “the principle, that all rights and power originate in, reside in, and belong to, the

entire body of the people or nation; and that none exists, but what is derived from, and

exercised for the nation.” A “special” regime, in contrast, recognises particular or unequal

rights. In a “special” government the legitimate source of power does not belong to the

general will of the nation.111

This new idea of popular sovereignty is reflected in the proposal of the Northern Society,

where it is written that “[t]he people is the source of sovereign power; to whom belongs the

exclusive right to make fundamental statutes for itself”.112 The new concept also applied to

the organization of government in the sense that the People’s Assembly, which was to be

composed of men elected by the Russian people and representing it, “assumed the character of

Majesty”.113 This Assembly, consisting of the Sovereign Duma and the Chamber of the

People’s Representatives, should be invested with all legislative power.114

21

The French Constitution of 1791 stated that: “[S]overeignty is one, indivisible, inalienable

and indispensable. It belongs to the Nation”. All the powers emanate from the Nation

alone.115 Velestinlis’s Greek constitution conveys a similar conception: “the general power of

the Republic consists in the entire Nation.” The people name their delegates, give authority to

those chosen from them, and decide if the appointed laws are “good for [their] happiness”.116

Because “the nation is essentially the source of all sovereignty,” Thomas Paine writes, no

individual, or “body of men”, may “be entitled to any authority which is not expressly derived

from it”.117 In the same way the Spanish constitution of 1812 states that, “the Spanish people

are free and independent, and are, and cannot be the inheritance of any family or

individual.”118 The Decembrists believed the same to be true for Russia. One cannot allow the

arbitrary rule of one man to become a principle of government, Muraviev writes, “not only

because the experience of all nations and all epochs has shown that autocratic power is

equally ruinous for both rulers and society, but because the Russian people is free and

independent.” Therefore, he continues, “it is not and cannot be the property of any single

person or family.”119 Pestel uses the very same phrase. The government, he continues, also

belongs to the people. “It exists for the good of the people, and has no other grounds for its

existence, whereas the people exists for its own sake and not for the good of the

government”.120 As is stated in the American Declaration of Independence, “Governments

derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.”121

Destutt de Tracy held that the modern concept of representation, whereby a nation

delegated the effective power to functionaries elected by the people for a limited period,

enabled a “special” regime to become “national”.122 Pestel agreed with this view, making it

clear that a representative system had to be installed and the aristocratic order to be

eliminated.123 To be a citizen, Muraviev asserted, meant to have “the right to participate in the

government of society, either indirectly, i.e., by choosing officials or electors – or directly, by

22

standing oneself for election to public office in the legislature, executive or judiciary.”124 As

the old world gave way to the new, “special” regimes would become “national.” This

development, which was stimulated by republican revolutions, indicated the progress of

civilisation.125 The Decembrists believed that time was ripe for Russia to become “national.”

Conclusion

This paper has argued that the civic concept of the nation appeared in Russia at about the

same time as it did so in the rest of Europe and that the Decembrists were the first to employ

it in Russian political struggle. They brought the modern idea of the nation to Russia and used

it, without changing its meaning, as the source of legitimacy in their attempt to transfer power

from the tsar to the people. The Decembrist uprising failed, but this idea of the nation changed

the way in which relations of power were conceived and claims to legitimacy were made. It

contributed to a change in political rhetoric from a concern with the role of subjects to that of

the rights of citizens.

On a more general note, the paper challenges the problematic dichotomy between a

Western civic and an Eastern cultural nationalism. It suggests that Russian intellectual history

is integrated into European intellectual history to an extent that its social and political history

is not, and that there is reason to make further investigation of the presence and role of liberal

ideas in Russian history.

23

Notes

1 Cited in A. Yarmolinsky, Road to Revolution. A Century of Russian Radicalism, (Princeton, N. J., 1986); pp.

32-33.

2 For a recent discussion of the Kohn’s dichotomy and its prevailing role in the study of nationalism, see A.

Liebich, ”Searching for the perfect nation: the itinary of Hans Kohn (1891-1971)”, Nations and Nationalism, vol.

12 (October 2006).

3 H. Kohn, The Idea of Nationalism, (New York, 1945); L. Snyder, The Meaning of Nationalism, (New

Brunswick, 1954); A. Kemiläinen, Nationalism. Problems Concerning the Word, the Concept and Classification

(Jyväskylä, 1964); F. Meinecke, Cosmopolitanism and the National State, ( Princeton, 1970); J. Plamenatz,

“Two Types of Nationalism” in Nationalism, ed. E. Kamenka (Canberra, 1973); E. Hobsbawm, Nations and

nationalism since 1780, (Cambridge, 1992); L. Greenfeld, Nationalism. Five Roads to Modernity, (Cambridge,

Ma., 1993); M. Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism (London & New York,

1994), pp. 6-7; P. Sugar (ed.), Eastern European Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, (Washington, DC,

1995); H-J Lüsebrink, “Conceptual History and Conceptual Transfer: the case of the ‘Nation’ in Revolutionary

France and Germany” in I. Hampsher-Monk et al. (eds.), History of Concepts: Comparative Perspectives,

(Amsterdam, 1998), pp. 115-128.

4 B. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, (London, 1991); E.

Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, (Oxford, 1983); Greenfeld, Nationalism; Hobsbawm, Nations and

nationalism; Kohn, Idea of Nationalism; Plamenatz, “Two Types of Nationalism;” Sugar, Eastern European

Nationalism; P. Sugar and I. Lederer; Nationalism in Eastern Europe, (Seattle, WA., 1994).

5 Kohn cited in Snyder, Meaning of Nationalism, pp. 118-20; Kemiläinen, Nationalism, pp. 111-112, 137, 227,

55; Meinecke, Cosmopolitanism and the National State, pp. 10, 12; M. Hughes, Nationalism and Society.

Germany 1800-1945, (London, 1988).

6 R. Beiner, (ed.), Theorizing Nationalism, (Albany, NY., 1999); J. Hutchinson, The Dynamics of Cultural

Nationalism: The Gaelic Revival and the Creation of the Irish Nation State, (London, 1987).

7 S. Auer, Liberal nationalism in Central Europe, (London, 2004); A. Walicki, The Enlightenment and the Birth

of Modern Nationhood, (Notre Dame, 1989).

24

8 See for example S. Rabow-Edling, Slavophile Thought and the Politics of Cultural Nationalism, (Albany, NY.,

2006); National Identity in Russian Culture, ed. by S. Franklin and E. Widdis (Cambridge, 2006); N.

Riasanovsky, Russian Identities. A Historical Survey, (Oxford, 2005). J. Billington, Russia in Search of Itself,

(Washington, D. C. 2004); C. Ely, This Meagre Nature: Landscape and National Identity in Imperial Russia,

(Dekalb, 2002); Russian Nationalism Past and Present, ed. by G. Hosking and R. Service, (Basingstoke, 1998).

9 Soviet scholars have taken an interest in what they refer to as the “civic literature” of the Decembrists, which is

seen in the framework of a specific Russian revolutionary tradition. See M. V. Nechkina, A. S. Griboedev i

dekabristy (Moscow, 1951); V. G. Bazanov, Ocherki dekabristskoi literatury. Poeziia (Moscow, 1961).

10 The only general history of the Decembrist movement in English is A. G. Mazour, The First Russian

Revolution, 1825. The Decembrist Movement. Its Origins, Development, and Significance, (Stanford: Stanford U.

P., 1961). Marc Raeff has written an introductory chapter in his volume of documents, M. Raeff, The Decembrist

Movement, (Englewood Cliffs, N. J: Prentice-Hall, 1966). See also W. J. Leatherbarrow and D. C. Offord (eds),

A Documentary History of Russian Thought (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1987). In addition there are two biographies by

Patrick O’Meara, K. F. Ryleev: A Political Biography of the Decembrist Poet, (Princeton, 1984) and The

Decembrist Pavel Pestel. Russia’s First Republican, (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003).

See also G. Barratt, The Rebel on the Bridge. A Life of Baron Andrey Rozen 1800-84 (London, 1975); idem,

Voices in exile: the Decembrist memoirs (Montreal and London, 1974) and C. Sutherland, The Princess of

Siberia (1984). There is a vast literature on the Decembrist movement in Russian. For primary sources see

Vosstanie dekabristov. Materialy i dokumenty, A. A. Pokrovskii et al. eds. (Moscow, 1925-2001), 19 vols. and I.

Ya. Shchipanova and S. Ya. Shtraikh (eds), Izbrannye sotsial’no-politicheskie i filosofskie proizvedeniia

dekabristov (Moscow, 1951), 3 vols. Important secondary sources are M. V. Nechkina, Dvizhenie dekabristov, 2

vols. (Moscow, 1955); B. E. Syroechkovskii, Iz istorii dvizheniia dekabristov (Moscow, 1969); O. V. Orlik,

Dekabristy i evropeiskoe revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie (Moscow, 1975); N. M. Druzhinin, Izbrannye trudy.

Revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie v Rossii v XIX v (Moscow, 1985); S. V. Mironenko, Dekabristy. Biograficheskii

spravochnik (Moscow, 1988); S. A. Ekshtut, V poiske istoricheskoi alternativy. Aleksandr I. Ego spodvizhniki.

Dekabristy (Moscow, 1994); V. M. Bokova (ed), 170 let spustia. Dekabristskie chteniia 1995 goda (Moscow,

1999); N. Eidelman, Udivitelnoe pokolenie. Dekabristy: litsa i sudby (St Petersburg: Pushkinskogo fonda, 2001);

O. I. Kiianskaia, Pavel Pestel: ofitser, razvedchik, zagovorshchik (Moscow: Paralleli, 2002).

11 Many scholars stress the differences between the Southern and the Northern Societies. See for ex J. Billington,

The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture (New York, 1966), pp. 264-267; A. Ulam,

25

Russia’s Failed Revolutions: From the Decembrists to Dissenters (New York, 1981); A. Walicki, A History of

Russian Thought from the Enlightenment to Marxism, (Stanford, 1979), pp. 53-70; Legal Philosophies, pp. 25-

26; A. Walicki, Russia, Poland and Universal Regeneration. Studies on Russian and Polish Thought of the

Romantic Epoch (Notre Dame, 1991), p. 12; O’Meara, The Decembrist Pavel Pestel, pp. 194-5. Russian scholars

who single out Pestel as an extremist are Ekshtut, V poiske istoricheskoi alternativy; V. S. Parsamov, “O

vospriiatii Pestelia sovremennikami”, Osvoboditelnoe dvizhenie v Rossii (Saratov, 1989), E. L. Rudnitskaia,

Fenomen Pavla Pestelia, Annali. Serione Storico-politico-sociale. XI-XII. 1989-1990 (Napoli, 1994). For a

different view see O. I. Kiianskaia, Pavel Pestel. See also works by Yurii Lotman and Natan Eidelman.

12 Mazour, The First Russian Revolution, pp. 64-65, 54-58; J. Hartley, Alexander I, (London, 1994), pp. 203-

204; Walicki, A History of Russian Thought, p. 69; Yarmolinsky, Road to Revolution, pp. 15-35. For the

relationship between Decembrists and Greek revolutionaries, see T. C. Prousis, Russian Society and the Greek

Revolution, (Dekalb, 1994), pp. 46-50; R. Gildea, Barricades and Borders: Europe 1800-1914, (Oxford, 1996).

13 V. I. Shteingel cited in Prousis, Russian Society, p. 47.

14 Mazour, The First Russian Revolution; Yarmolinsky, Road to Revolution.

15 M. V. Dovnar-Zapolskii, Idealy dekabristov, (Moscow, 1907), p. 94.

16 Hartley, Alexander I, pp. 209-210, 216-217; Mazour, The First Russian Revolution, p. 91.

17 H. Lemberg, Die nationale Gedankenwelt der Dekabristen (Cologne-Graz, 1963). See also S. S. Volk,

Istoricheskie vzgliady dekabristov (Moscow-Leningrad, 1958).

18 For the link to the revolutionary movement see. A. Herzen, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, V. P. Volgin ed.

(Moscow, 1956), vol. VI, pp. 200, 245-47; vol. XII, p. 55; vol. XIII, p. 273; Lenin, Sochineniya, vol. XVIII, pp.

14-15; vol. XX, pp, 223-224; M. V. Nechkina, Griboedov i dekabristy (Moscow, 1951); Idem, Dvizhenie

dekabristov, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1955); B. E. Syroechkovskii, Iz istorii dvizheniia dekabristov; N. M. Druzhinin,

Izbrannye trudy; A. E. Adams, “The Character of Pestel’s Thought,” American Slavic and East European

Review, vol. 12, no. 2 (April, 1953), pp. 153-161; Walicki, A History of Russian Thought, p. 69; Raeff, The

Decembrist Movement, p. 29; O’Meara, K. F. Ryleev, pp. 329-31; D. Saunders, Russia in the Age of Reaction

and Reform 1801-1881, (New York, 1992), p. 88; H. Seton-Watson, The Russian Empire 1801-1917 (Oxford,

1988), pp. 196-97; J. Gooding, Rulers and Subjects: Government and People in Russia (London, 1996), p. 39.

19 J. P. Greene “Empire and identity from the Glorious Revolution to the American Revolution” in P. J. Marshall

(ed.) The Oxford history of the British empire, vol. II (Oxford, 1998), p. 228; Kohn, Idea of Nationalism, pp.

206-7, 167. See also Gabriel de Mably, Observations sur l’histoire de France (1765).

26

20 Lemberg, Die nationale Gedankenwelt, pp 91-102.

21 For Western influences on the Decembrists see A. N. Pypin, Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Rossii pri

Aleksandre I (St Petersburg, 1885); V. I Semevskii, Politicheskie i obshchestvennye idei dekabristov (Moscow,

1909); M. V. Nechkina, “Dekabristy vo vsemirnoe-istoricheskom protsesse, Voprosi istorii XII (1975); Orlik,

Dekabristy i evropeiskoe revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie; V. V. Pugachev, “O spetsifike dekabristskoi

revolyutsionnosti,” Osvoboditelnoe dvizhenie v Rossii, 2, 1971; Mazour, The First Russian Revolution, pp. 53-

56; F. Venturi, “Destutt de Tracy and the liberal revolutions,” Studies in Free Russia (Chicago, 1982); O’Meara,

K. F. Ryleev and The Decembrist Pavel Pestel; Raeff, The Decembrist Movement; N. V. Riasanovsky, A Parting

of Ways. Government and the Educated Public in Russia 1801-1855 (Oxford, 1976).

22 C. Gans, The limits of nationalism, (Cambridge, 2003), p. 13; W. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship: A

Liberal Theory of Minority Rights, (Oxford, 1995), pp. 49-74 ; A. D. Smith, National Identity (London, 1991),

pp. 40-1; A. D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations, (Oxford, 1986), ch. 6.

23 A. D. Smith, National Identity (London, 1991), p. 9.

24 Kemiläinen, Nationalism, pp. 55, 26, 32.

25 J.-J Rousseau, The Political Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau ed. C. E. Vaughan (Cambridge, 1915), vol II,

p. 319.

26 Ibid., p. 204.

27 J-J Rousseau, ”Consideration sur le gouvernement de Pologne et sur sa réformation projetée en avril 1772,”

Du Contrat social (Paris, 1962), pp. 347-348 cited in Kemiläinen, Nationalism, p. 73.

28 Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 315-316; D. Hume, “Of National Characters” in

E. F. Miller, ed., Essays Moral, Political and Literary, (Indianapolis, 1985), pp. 202-203; E. J. Sieyès, What is

the Third Estate? (London, 1963), p. 58.

29 R. Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany, (Cambridge, Ma, 1992), p. 7.

30 P. Pestel, Russkaia Pravda/La Legge Russa di Pavel Pestel (Moscow, 1993), p. 183.

31 Ibid., p. 153.

32 See Kohn, Idea of Nationalism.

33 J-J Rousseau, 1st draft of the Social Contract, bk. I, chap. 5; Political Writings, vol. I, p. 462.

34 N. Onuf and P. Onuf, Nations, Markets and War: An Essay in Modern History, Forthcoming, p. 211; E. J.

Sieyès, What is the Third Estate?, pp.121-122.

27

35 Kohn, Idea of Nationalism, p.16; H. Kohn, American Nationalism: An Interpretative Essay (New York:

Macmillan, 1957), pp. 3-10.

36 La Constitution Francaise decretee par l’Assemblée Nationale Constituante, aux années 1789, 1790 et 1791;

acceptée par le Roi le 14 septembre 1791 (Paris: Didot jeune, 1791), Article IV, p. 21.

37 A. D. Smith, The Nation in History, (2000), p. 6.

38 N. M. Muraviev, A Project for a Constitution, in W. J. Leatherbarrow and D. C. Offord (eds.) A Documentary

History of Russian Thought. From the Enlightenment to Marxism (Ann Arbor: Ardis, 1987), pp. 43-44.

39 See Kohn, Idea of Nationalism; Hobsbawm, Nations and nationalism, p. 87; Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging,

pp. 6-7.

40 Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood, p. 7.

41 Pestel, Russkaia Pravda, chapter II, § 2.

42 P. Pestel, Russian Law in M. Raeff, The Decembrist Movement, p. 140.

43 Ibid., p. 143.

44 A Manifesto by Prince Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoi from Vosstanie Dekabristov. Materialy po istorii

vosstaniia dekabristov, vol I, (1925), pp. 107-108; transl. in Mazour, The First Russian Revolution, pp. 283-284.

45 See Hobsbawm, Nations and nationalism, p. 87.

46 Pestel, Russkaia Pravda, p. 183; Muraviev, Project for a Constitution in W. J. Leatherbarrow and D. C.

Offord, Documentary History, p. 43.

47 Abbé Grégoire, “Rapport sur la nécessité et les moyens d’anéantir les patois et d’universaliser l’usage de la

langue francaise” cited in Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood, p. 7.

48 See Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac, “Report to the Committee of Public Safety, January 1794” in Hobsbawm,

Nations and nationalism, p. 21.

49 Pestel, Russkaia Pravda, p. 183.

50 Sieyès quoted in K. M. Baker, Inventing the French Revolution. Essays on French political culture in the

eighteenth century (Cambridge, 1990), p. 248.

51 Clogg, Movement for Greek Independence, pp. 157-58.

52 A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, A Commentary and Review of Montesquieu’s Spirit of Laws, Philadelphia, 1811,

reprinted New York, 1969, pp. 82-83.

53 P. I. Pestel, Russian Law in W. J. Leatherbarrow and D. C. Offord (eds.) A Documentary History, pp. 54-55.

28

54 Muraviev, Project for a Constitution in Raeff, The Decembrist Movement, pp. 107-108; Peter S. Onuf,

Statehood and Union: A History of the Northwest Ordinance (Bloomington, 1987).

55 U. S. Mehta, Liberalism and empire : a study in nineteenth-century British liberal thought, (Chicago, 1999);

W. Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship, pp. 49-74; Liberalism, Community and Culture, (Oxford, 1989), pp.

206-19; J. Tully, Strange multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity, (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 161-62;

Smith, National Identity, pp. 40-1.

56 F. List, Oxford English Dictionary VII, pp. 175-76 cited in Hobsbawm, Nations and nationalism, pp. 30-31.

57 Pestel, Russian Law in Documentary History, pp. 54-55.

58 See Destutt de Tracy, Review of Montesquieu, pp. 82, 181, 232; Sieyès, What is the Third Estate?; Idem, Dire

– sur la question du veto royal – a l’Assemblée Nationale (Paris, 1789); See also O’Meara, The Decembrist

Pavel Pestel, pp. 77-78, 83; Baker, Inventing the French Revolution; Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood .

59 Hobsbawm, Nations and nationalism, pp. 34-35. See also Smith, Nations and Nationalism, p. 186.

60 Destutt de Tracy, Review of Montesquieu, pp. 91-92.

61 J. S. Mill, Considerations on Representative Government, ed by R. B. McCallum, (Oxford, 1946), p. 313.

62 Hobsbawm, Nations and nationalism, p. 41.

63 Onuf & Onuf, Nations, Markets and War, p. 332. See J. Appleby, “What is Still American in the Political

Philosophy of Thomas Jefferson,” William and Mary Quarterly, vol 39, no. 2 (1982), pp. 287-309.

64 Pestel, Russkaia Pravda, pp. 107-111.

65 Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood, pp. 1, 7.

66 Pestel, Russkaia Pravda, p. 165.

67 Smith, Nations and nationalism, p. 186.

68 Rabow-Edling, Slavophile Thought, pp. 62-71.

69 O. Dann, “Introduction” in O. Dann and J. Dinwiddy, (eds.) Nationalism in the Age of the French Revolution

(London: Hambledon Press, 1988), p. 8.

70 B. Bailyn, To Begin the World Anew. The Genius and Ambiguities of the American Founders (New York:

Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), p. 140.

71 Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood, pp. 12, 6.

72 Destutt de Tracy, Review of Montesquieu, p. 12.

73 Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? p. 58.

74 Pestel, Russkaia Pravda, p. 187.

29

75 Pestel, Russian Law, in Documentary History, 1987, pp. 55-56.

76 La constitution Francaise, 1791, pp. 13-15.

77 The Constitution of the United States of America, (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records

Administration), Article I, Section 9, p. 9.

78 T. Paine, The Rights of Man, Part I in B. Kuklick, (ed), Political Writings, (Cambridge, 1989), p. 89.

79 Pestel, Russian Law in Documentary History, pp. 55-57.

80 Muraviev, Project for a Constitution in Documentary History, p. 45.

81 Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood, p. 39; Sieyès, What is the Third Estate? p. 162.

82 La constitution Francaise, 1791, p. 14.

83 The Declaration of Independence, 1776 in Constitutional Documents and Records, 1776-1787, ed., M. Jensen,

(Wisconsin, 1976,) vol I, p. 73.

84 Muraviev, Project for a Constitution in Documentary History, p. 44; Pestel, Russian Law in Documentary

History, p. 55.

85 Muraviev, Project for a Constitution in Documentary History, p. 44.

86 Sieyès, What is the Third Estate?, pp. 161-62.

87 Clogg, Movement for Greek Independence, p. 151.

88 Pestel, Russian Law inDocumentary History, p. 51.

89 Pestel, Russkaia Pravda, pp. 191, 113.

90 P. Pestel, The Russian Law in M. Raeff, The Decembrist Movement, p. 154.

91 Ivan Yakushkin, Vosstanie Dekabristov III, 1927, 44 in Raeff, The Decembrist Movement, p. 51.

92 A Manifesto in Mazour, The First Russian Revolution, p. 283.

93 Ignatieff, Blood and Belonging, p. 6.

94 Rousseau, Political Writings, 1915, vol. II, p. 352.

95 Politisk Constitution för Spanska Monarkien af Cortes antagen den 19 Mars 1812 (Stockholm, 1821), section

2, p. 5.

96 Pestel, Russian Law in Documentary History, p. 55.

97 Muraviev, Project for a Constitution in Documentary History, pp. 44, 47-8; Pestel Russian Law in

Documentary History, p. 55-56; Pestel Russian Law in Raeff, The Decembrist Movement, p. 151.

98 Onuf & Onuf, Nations, Markets and War, p. 213; Sieyès, What is the Third Estate?, pp. 56-57.

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99 M. Laserson, The American impact on Russia, diplomatic and ideological, 1784-1917, (New York:

Macmillan, 1950), p. 118; Walicki, History of Russian Thought, p. 59.

100 Iz pisem i pokazanii dekabristov, pp. 37-38 cited in Mazour, The First Russian Revolution, p. 13.

101 Laserson, American impact on Russia, pp. 117-118.

102 Kohn, Idea of Nationalism, pp. 221-223.

103 La constitution Francaise, p. 14.

104 Muraviev, Project for a Constitution in Documentary History, p. 44.

105 Pestel, Russian Law, in Raeff, The Decembrist Movement, p. 156.

106 Ibid., p. 152.

107 A Manifesto in Mazour, The First Russian Revolution, p. 283.

108 Hobsbawm, Nations and nationalism, p. 87; Kemiläinen, Nationalism, pp. 55-56, 30, 16.

109 Rousseau, Political writings, vol. I, book I, chapter 8.

110 Constitution för Spanska Monarkien, Title I, First section, p. 4.

111 Destutt de Tracy, Review of Montesquieu, pp. 12-14.

112 Muraviev, Project for a Constitution in Raeff, The Decembrist Movement, p. 104.

113 Ibid., p. 112.

114 Ibid., p. 109.

115 La constitution Française, 1791, Title III, Article I-II p. 25.

116 Clogg, Movement for Greek Independence, pp. 159-60.

117 Paine, The Rights of Man, p. 72.

118 Constitution för Spanska Monarkien, Title I, First section, p. 4.

119 Muraviev, Project for a Constitution in Documentary History, pp. 42-43.

120 Pestel, Russian Law in Documentary History, p. 53.

121 The Declaration of Independence, p. 73.

122 Destutt de Tracy, Review of Montesquieu, pp. 18-19.

123 Pestel, Russian Law in Raeff, The Decembrist Movement, p. 155.

124 Muraviev, Project for a Constitution in Documentary History, pp 43.

125 Destutt de Tracy, Review of Montesquieu, pp. 12-13, 18-19.

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