A journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow : [with Catherine II's notes on the work and a bibliography

Radishchev’s Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow made educated Russians think about the problem of serfdom, but it did not, like Uncle Tom’s Cabin, have a close relationship to the emancipation. Serfdom in Russia was not abolished until almost eighty years after the appearance of this work, which was, naturally enough, ordered burned by the Empress Catherine II when it first appeared.But the Journey, which is here presented in an English translation for the first time, was a serious criticism of serfdom and of the entire Russian social order—a criticism which helped to make many intelligent and influential Russians aware of much that was wrong in their country and led them to think of reform. Radishchev was one of the first of the advanced Russian intelligentsia, and his book is often made the starting point in the study of Russian intellectual history. PREFACE NOTE ON DATES AND TRANSLITERATION CONTENTS INTRODUCTION A JOURNEY FROM ST. PETERSBURG TO MOSCOW Το Α. Μ. Κ. My Best Beloved Friend [*1] THE DEPARTURE [*4] SOFIYA [*9] TOSNA [*14] LYUBANI [*21] CHUDOVO [*41] SPASSKAYA POLEST [*86] PODBEREZ’E [*99] NOVGOROD [*113] BRONNITSY [*119] ZAYTSOVO [*154] KRESTTSY [*197] YAZHELBITSY [*204] VALDAI [*210] EDROVO [*236] KHOTILOV [*208] VYSHNY VOLOCHOK [*278] VYDROPUSK [*289] TORZHOK [*341] MEDNOE [*350] TVER [*370] GORODNYA [*395] ZAVIDOVO [*401] KLIN [*410] PESHKI [*417] CHERNAYA GRYAZ [*419] EULOGY ON LOMONOSOV THE EMPRESS CATHERINE II’S NOTES ON THE JOURNEY BIBLIOGRAPHY NOTES INDEX BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX Primarily an attack on serfdom and an appeal to the serfs voluntarily, Aleksandr Radishchv's Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow has often been described as a Russian Uncle Tom's Cabin. Published in 1790, the book was banned immediately and the author first sentenced to death, then banished to eastern Siberia. On the order of the Empress Catherine II, who read the Journey very carefully, all copies that could be found were collected and burned. The few that escaped were widely circulated and laboriously copied out by hand, but the book was not freely published in Russia until 1905.