New Book on the Author of a Poem Monrepos. Baron Nicholay and his Entourage

Abstract

On October 17, 2017 the conference “An Alsatian Intellectual in Enlightenment Russia: L.G. Nikolay, Strasbourg President of the Russian Academy of Sciences” happened. Materials of the conference, with the addition of other essays and documents, formed the basis of the book under review (published under the editorship of Sorbonne Professor Rodolphe Baudin and Senior Researcher of IWL RAS Alexandra Veselova). The book’s authors are well-known scientists from France, Russia, Germany and Switzerland. Baron Ludwig Heinrich von Nikolay (1737–1820; in Russia he was called Andrey Lvovich) played a prominent role in Russian social and cultural life at the end of the 18th century. Nicolay came from the intellectual milieu of Strasbourg, which became a subject of research in the essays included the book by R. Baudin, D. Ryusk and V. Berelovich. From 1769 he was in Russia, where he was entrusted with the position of mentor to the heir to the throne, Pavel Petrovich. In 1798, Nikolay was appointed president of the Russian Academy of Sciences; N. Prokhorenko’s essay is devoted to his productive activity in this post. Thanks to his personal qualities, Nicholas managed to stay at court after the coup on March 12, 1801 and ingratiate himself with Alexander I; in 1803 he left the service. A number of materials of the reviewed work are devoted to the literary work of Nikolay, a prolific and versatile poet (articles by M. Arens and A. Ananyeva). For posterity, the name Nikolay is associated primarily with the famous estate of Mon Repos in Vyborg, which he acquired in 1788, to which he dedicated a poem in 1804, probably his best work (article by Yu. Moshnik and M. Efimov). The book also pays attention to Nikolay as a character in historiographical essays and fiction (articles by A. Veselova and M. Efimov). Attached are five unpublished letters from Nicolai; their addressees are the diplomat and lawyer F.A. Annenberg and the poet and scientist K. Pfeffel. The book is provided with a chronology of Nicolai’s life and work and brief annotations of articles (in French and Russian).