Jean Chappe d’Autroche and his Voyage to Siberia (1768). Demystifying Russia under Catherine the Great

Abstract

Jean Chappe d’Autroche, the French scientists and prominent member of the Académie des Sciences, was sent in 1761 on a scientific mission to Siberia to observe a rare astronomical phenomenon, namely the transit of Venus over the sun’s disc. In 1768 he published in Amsterdam a book entitled Voyage en Sibérie (Voyage to Siberia), in which not only did he discuss the astronomical event in question, but also analyzed various aspects of the Russian socio-political reality. Extremely critical towards contemporary Russia, his account infuriated Catherine the Great to the point that she decided to write in French and then to publish in 1770 the Antidote, a curious booklet in which she attempted to discredit Autroche’s work and to contest the unfavorable image of her Empire presented by the French writer.