How Voltaire praised the 'enlightened despot' Catherine the Great

Guardian ^ | Friday June 2, 2006 | Nick Paton Walsh

[lizol]

How Voltaire praised the 'enlightened despot' Catherine the Great

Satirist's heartfelt letters to the woman he admired are bought for Russia

Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow Friday June 2, 2006 The Guardian

They are the heartfelt correspondence from the great acerbic wit of the European Enlightenment to the last Russian empress, in which he praises her authoritarian style and mocks the extravagances of her French counterparts.

For years, the letters from Voltaire to Catherine the Great have been hidden away in a private collection - the contents a mystery. But now, courtesy of a Moscow art dealer, they will be returned to Russia, where their musings and advice may provide solace to the current Kremlin resident, Vladimir Putin, himself accused by critics of an authoritarian style.

Alexander Khochinsky, a Russian art dealer, paid a record €583,200 (£400,000) in Paris for the 26 letters written by the French satirist to Catherine II. Yesterday, he refused to say on whose behalf he had bought the archive. He said: "I cannot say the name of the person, but they are very important and in Russia." He added that the purchaser was not one of Russia's oligarchs. "I did a lot of work to get the archive at the best conditions and price," he said.

The Kremlin has recently promoted the return to Moscow of valuable artefacts from Russia's history, many of which were lost to foreign collectors during the the last century. The oligarch Viktor Vekselberg paid a reported $100m (£54m) in 2004 for the Fabergé eggs which he then returned to Russia.

[MNJohnnie]

So he was that era's "Jimmy Carter", a self styled Moralist who loved all the era's thugs like Catherine the Great and Fredrick the Great etc

[lizol]

Voltaire, who lambasted the French monarchy during the Enlightenment for its excesses, approved of her role as an "enlightened despot".

Sounds familiar, doesn't it? :-)))

We can read such useful idiots everyday on FR. According to them - if it's Russian, it's sacred.

[lizol]

You know - there are always people who are bewitched with brutal force.

Things have not changed since then.

Keep in mind also attitude of leftist intelectuals to Stalin. I think it's comparable.

[KC Burke]

Himmelfarb points out in her recent book how Voltaire and most of the french enlightenment intellectuals were antidemocratic, against representative government and favored enlightened despots that would cater to them. Streisand and her ilk still feel the same.

[MNJohnnie]

Keep in mind also attitude of leftist intellectuals to Stalin. I think it's comparable.

Excellent. I did my History Degree project in college on the Fellow Travelers. You are dead on. I still cannot get my mind around their thinking. It total rationalization. Like the Western Leftists of today, they simply refused to believe anything that does not validate what they feel. Just bizarre.

[MNJohnnie]

Man, you nailed it.

[lizol]

Voltaire and most of the french enlightenment intellectuals were antidemocratic, against representative government and favored enlightened despots that would cater to them.

In those letters mentioned in the article Voltaire - among others - supports destruction of Poland and partitions of it between Prussia, Russia and Austria.

Poland at that time was a representative, constitutional monarchy, surrounded by despotic neighbors.

[DeuceTraveler]

I will never understand such thinking. I just finished Ayn Rand's Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and she considered such men suicidal. I think they were beyond her ability to rationalize, also.

What is the book title of Himmelfarb's recent work?

[ClaireSolt]

I never thought of Voltaire as primarily a satirist.

[spanalot]

"where their musings and advice may provide solace to the current Kremlin resident, Vladimir Putin, himself accused by critics of an authoritarian style."

I hope Putie does not die trying to have sex with a horse.

[eddie willers]

Ms Rand loved Voltaire. (who hated the type people we now call "Liberals")

Here another except from the article.

Voltaire supported her military endeavours, including her war against the Turks. Mr Bompard said that after Louis XVI's wedding to Marie Antoinette, the monarch, soon to be deposed by the French revolution, celebrated by setting off hundreds of fireworks which apparently killed many bystanders. "He wrote that more people were probably killed by the fireworks than by Catherine's war against the Turks," said Mr Bompard.

[KC Burke]

The book is The Roads to Modernity : The British, French, and American Enlightenments

[otness_e]

Yeah, because he had a clenched-teeth relationship with probably the founder of modern liberalism, Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Personally, I could care less, as Voltaire, Rousseau, Rand, they’re all the same regarding their atheism, and had it been up to them, they’d slaughter us Christians completely, and in fact, Voltaire DID in fact advocate massacring Christians just as much as Rousseau and Diderot did. I hate atheism for it’s attempted slaughter of Christians for their even having a religion. I could tolerate Protestants trying to slaughter us, Jews trying to slaughter us, Pagans trying to slaughter us, heck, even Muslims trying to slaughter us, because at least those guys had a differing religion as an excuse, unlike the atheists who literally wanted to exterminate all religion. Quite frankly, the French Government at the time should have had Voltaire and his ilk executed the very second he tried to push dissent against the Catholic church. Heck, God should have smited them while they were still alive, like Kefka often did to people in Final Fantasy VI.