The Russian Jesuit Myth
In 1865, Iurii Samarin, a representative of the second generation of Slavophiles, wrote five open letters to the Jesuit father, Jean (Ivan) Martynov, a Russian convert to Catholicism. This series of letters, published first in Russian in the Slavophile journal Den´, then translated into French and published in Paris in 1867, formed the basis for the Russian Jesuit myth. Partly inspired by the French, and more generally European, Jesuit myth, it can be understood as a "message," a "language," a "narrative," a "legend," or even a "fiction that claimed to be true."1 It was the Russian version of one of the three influential modern European myths of conspiracy that formed during the long 19th century: those of the Freemasons, the Jesuits, and the Jews.2
The Russian Jesuit myth, like its sources of inspiration, had the same kind of explanatory function, which could give meaning to both the past and the present; possessing the strength to mobilize, it was used as a "weapon of propaganda in political disputes."3 However, the political, ideological, cultural, [End Page 791] and religious contexts for the formation of the Jesuit myth in France and Russia were different.
The French Jesuit myth arose in a postrevolutionary period at a time when "modern France itself was being born amid the beginnings of the industrial revolution."4 This was also an era marked by the rensewal of the Catholic Church and "the appearance of new literary forms" shaped by Romanticism, which was "more favorable to the Christian tradition and religious feelings than the Age of Enlightenment had been."5 Yet, at the same time, this period saw the emerging political fight for religious freedom and secularism (laïcité) and, not least, the formation of major political movements—liberalism, nationalism, socialism—that contained a large antireligious component.6
The Russian Jesuit myth, in contrast, acquired its final form in the writings of Samarin some decades later, after the Polish Uprising of 1863–64 and in the context of reforms in the Kingdom of Poland that were carried out by close friends and in part prepared by Samarin himself.
Although the two myths appeared in totally different circumstances, they were both based on the "fantasy of an all-powerful [Catholic] clerical power."7 In the Russian case, however, this myth not only crystallized the hatred many members of Russian high society felt at this time for the Society of Jesus, but it also fed, expressed, and strengthened the hatred of "Polish rebels" as Catholics. Consequently, the Russian Jesuit myth was part of an even more complex ideological triad of Latinism-Jesuitism-Polonism, a term used by imperial representatives in the Kingdom of Poland for Russian politics after the uprising of 1863–64.
An analysis of Samarin and Martynov's foundational texts reveals parallels with those of other "men of letters" (hommes de Lettres) of the 1840s–60s (Father Ivan Gagarin, Mikhail Katkov, Ivan Aksakov, Nikolai Strakhov) as well as the decisions and policies of imperial representatives (such as Nikolai Miliutin and Vladimir Cherkasskii) after the Polish Uprising. They also evoke legal and administrative decisions taken from the reign of Catherine II to that of Alexander I concerning the presence of the Society of Jesus on the territory of the Russian Empire from 1772 to 1820, and the issue of conversion to Catholicism among some of Russia's aristocracy, especially in the first half of the 19th century, under the direct or indirect influence of the Jesuit fathers. [End Page 792]
By analyzing both political events and intellectual texts, we can better understand the content of the Russian Jesuit myth, its origins, the mechanisms of its construction, its Russian and non-Russian intellectual influences, and its specific features. Of particular significance is also how "men of letters" became "men of action": how, on the one hand, some thinkers sought to put their knowledge and expertise at the service of the imperial government to achieve the state's objectives (or indeed actively formulated those objectives), and how, on the other hand, that government, to some extent attentive to public opinion, agreed to "collaborate" with representatives of this "societyin-the-making."8 Not least, our analysis makes it possible to understand how this myth, as part of a more complex ideological construction, was used in Russian policy to solve one of the "great imperial questions"—the Polish Question—after the 1863 uprising.
More broadly, then, this story, which belongs to the history of relations between the Catholic and Russian Orthodox worlds, shows the connections between the history of ideas and the history of imperial governance in non-Russian, non-Orthodox territories throughout the 19th century.9 Like other stories connected to mythology, it is an attempt to understand how a myth is born, persists for decades, indeed centuries, transforms, and then partly or completely disappears.
Historical and Intellectual Origins of the Russian Jesuit Myth
The Jesuits in the Russian Empire, 1772–1820
The origins of the Russian Jesuit myth and the Polish Question both go back to the reign of Catherine II: after the Partitions of Poland, the tsarina ruled over a large population [End Page 793] belonging to the Roman Catholic and Uniate churches, under the direct or indirect leadership of the Society of Jesus.10
Although Catherine described the Jesuits as "the most perfidious of all the Latin orders," she refused to publish Clement XIV's 1773 papal bull suppressing the Society "everywhere and forever."11 Instead, she allowed the Jesuits to remain in Russia, explaining this decision by the Jesuits' educational talents, which were unrivaled by any other Catholic order.12 Further, in refusing to obey the pope's order, she intended, as empress of Russia, to affirm her independence from the Holy See and other European courts. She also used the Jesuits' antipapal discourse to assert her authority over her new territories.
In 1800, Paul I allowed the Jesuits to establish themselves in St. Petersburg and take over the Church of St. Catherine, the center of a parish of some 9,000 to 10,000 Catholic faithful. At Tsar Paul's request, on 7 March 1801 Pope Pius VII reestablished the Society in Russia. In 1803, under Alexander I, the Jesuits opened a boarding school for the children of young Russian nobles.
However, relations between the Russian imperial authorities and the Society worsened under Tsar Alexander. The Jesuits preached their faith not only to Protestants but also to Orthodox and Jews throughout the empire. In 1801, Alexander issued a decree reminding Catholic priests of the prohibition against "seducing the non-Catholic faithful in the empire into the Roman faith."13 In the 1810s, the number of Jesuits generally increased, albeit with occasional temporary declines, partly due to Pius VII's reestablishment of the Society in 1814 throughout the world.
The following year, upon his return from the Congress of Vienna, Alexander issued the decree expelling the Jesuits from St. Petersburg, closing their schools, and forbidding them from setting foot in the other capital, Moscow.14 [End Page 794] This was motivated by a number of reasons, but mainly the fact that the tsar had not had the Jesuits' support during the "Holy War" against Napoleon. The informal compact of trust between the tsar and the Society of Jesus had been broken.15 In 1820, Alexander finally expelled the Jesuits from Russia. According to the explanations contained in the imperial legislative texts, it was the conversion of "young men," Orthodox soldiers, women in high society, and members of other Christian faiths and religions—Uniates, Protestants, Jews—that was the main cause of this expulsion.16
Conversion to Catholicism and … to the Society of Jesus
As the expulsion decree suggests, the Society had left its mark on Russia, particularly on Russia's high society in St. Petersburg and Moscow. A key figure was Joseph de Maistre (1753–1821), Piedmont-Sardinia's ambassador to Russia, who had also been a proponent of Catholicism and an advocate for the Society of Jesus in Russia. In 1810, he wrote Cinq lettres sur l'éducation publique en Russie to Count Aleksei Razumovskii, minister of education, calling on Russia to reform its educational system under the guidance of the Jesuits, so as to realize the project of reuniting Christians under the Holy See, with the pope as spiritual head, and to protect the well-being of the monarchical system in Russia against revolution.17 Under the influence of both the Jesuit fathers and de Maistre as well as the mysticism of that period and the idea of creating a "Christian republic," many members of Russian aristocratic families, particularly women, converted to Catholicism in the 1800s to 1820s.18
A further wave of conversions in the 1840s involved young Russian nobles, born in the 1820s after the Jesuits' expulsion from Russia. Unlike earlier converts, they had no direct contact with the Jesuits but took their religious and political commitment further—with a fight for "justice" and "liberty," including religious liberty.19 They were prepared not only to change their faith but also to take holy orders in the Church of Rome, to become priests and missionaries so as to be able to act and be useful. At that time, the Society of Jesus, which was perceived in Russia as the "most dangerous [End Page 795] religious community"20 because it was the most powerful, most active and most "intellectual" of the Latin orders, was also attracting more Russian-born Catholics.21
This shift in the causes and forms of conversion to Catholicism may also have been due to developments in the ideological context: the period of relative "openness" to non-Orthodox Christian faiths typical of Alexander I's reign had given way to the "closed" nature of Nicholas I's. A series of laws, especially the 1845 Penal Code, not only strengthened the prohibition against conversion from Orthodoxy to other Christian denominations and religions but also laid down severe penalties' for these "offenses" (including the loss of noble title, the confiscation of property, corporal punishment, exile to Siberia, etc.).22
The intellectualization of a spiritual quest was another dimension and cause of the conversions of young Russian nobles in the 1840s. They belonged to the same circles of friends (kruzhki) that would later produce the Slavophile and Westernizing movements as well as "Russian Catholicism."23
Ivan (Jean-Xavier) Gagarin (1814–82) is the best-known convert of that period.24 Born into a noble family and entering diplomatic service at the age of 20, he was in his youth a close friend of a number of future Slavophiles, [End Page 796] especially Samarin; from 1838 to 1842, he used to discuss with Samarin the place of Russia in Europe and the idea of converting to Catholicism.25 It was not Gagarin's conversion that put an end to their friendship but rather his entry into the Society of Jesus.
Gagarin converted to Catholicism in 1842, under the direct influence of the ideas of Petr Chaadaev and in opposition to the official discourse of theologians and religious thinkers such as Metropolitan Filaret of Moscow and Andrei Murav´ev. Within seven years, in 1849, he became a priest under the name Jean-Xavier and a member of the Society of Jesus.26 Together with close associates who were also converts, such as Father Jean (Ivan) Martynov—another key figure in this story—Gagarin founded the journal Études in 1856, to promote the plan of a "grand reunion" between the churches. The same year, as "friendly relations" between France and Russia were resuming after the Crimean War, he wrote and published La Russie sera-t-elle catholique?, a book in which he explained how "reconciliation" could be achieved between the Russian Empire, the Orthodox Church, and the Church of Rome under the auspices of the pope.27
Under Gagarin's plan, "the pope will lay down the necessary conditions for the unity of the Church and, at the same time, will guarantee both the rights and freedoms of the Russian Church as well as the legitimate authority of the Russian emperor."28 Gagarin's use of expressions such as "the pope will lay down" and "the pope will guarantee" amounted to placing the Church of Rome above the Russian Church: as the Jesuit saw it, the pope would have the determining role in these relations, not only between the churches but also between the representatives of temporal powers, the pope and the tsar.29 Moreover, Father Gagarin raised another question of great importance for Russian and European thinkers of the era: the threat of revolution, its origins, [End Page 797] and the role of Russia. He thus asserted that Russia was faced with a dilemma: "Catholicism or revolution."30 Russia was fighting revolution on the one hand, and the Catholic Church on the other. In Gagarin's opinion, "the old Muscovite party"—the Slavophiles—were on the side of the revolutionary principle, preaching "the Oriental form of the 19th century's revolutionary idea."31 "Reconciliation of … the Holy See, the Orthodox Church, and the Russian Empire," as he proposed, "will defeat revolution" and thus "Catholicism will triumph."32 In 1857, Father Gagarin's book was translated from French into German and Spanish, and the next year into Russian. It prompted discussion across Europe, and especially in Slavophile circles in Russia.
Beginnings of the "Jesuitism" Controversy
The Jesuit Question, or the role of the Society in Russia, both in the past and in the future, was a major topic of discussion between the Slavophiles and the Russian-born Jesuit fathers in the 1860s, but this was not a new topic for the Russian general public. In his Letters of a Russian Traveler from 1789, 16 years after the papal ban on the Society, Nikolai Karamzin mentioned discussions in Berlin of the existence of "Jesuitism" and "clandestine Jesuits," who, according to one of his informants, "are trying hard to control Europe." Even "if the Pope has refused to protect the Order, he has been unable to destroy the very essence of the Society …," which had "its own banks, its own bankers," and "relations everywhere."33
In his historical drama Boris Godunov (1825), Pushkin introduced the literary image of the Jesuits in the person of Father Czernikowski (Pater Chernikovskii)—"the black one"—who encourages the False Dmitrii (Lzhedimitrii), supported by Poland, to conquer Moscow:
May St. Ignatius aid theeWhen other times shall come. Meanwhile, tsarevich,Hide in thy soul the seed of heavenly blessing;Religious duty bids us oft dissembleBefore the blabbing world; the people judgeThy words, thy deeds; God only sees thy motives.34 [End Page 798]
Following Pushkin, Fedor Tiutchev presented the Jesuits in his political treatise as both a militia faithful to the popes and one cause of the profound crisis of the papacy.35
In the 1860s, the Slavophiles returned to the subject. On 21 March 1864, the Russian newspaper Den´, under the editorship of the Slavophile Ivan Aksakov, published an article on a "rumor that the French priest who has arrived in St. Petersburg" to preach in St. Catherine's Cathedral actually had another much more important mission, namely "to found a Jesuit college and obtain permission for the Jesuits to establish themselves once more in Russia, or at least in St. Petersburg," a mission that, according to Den´, had received a "sympathetic ear from a certain part of society in the capital."36
The author of the article—Aksakov himself—begins with certain questions: Where does this sympathy come from? What are the reasons for a related phenomenon to be found in Russian high society, namely conversion to "Romanism" and "Latinism"? In general, he continues, "this phenomenon—conversion—may be explained by the following reasons: many of these people are totally foreign to their native land, to Orthodoxy, [and] to all religion," and, furthermore, "the Roman preacher does not convert, he seduces into Romanism."37
According to Aksakov, those who think that allowing the Jesuits to enter Russia is a simple matter of tolerance and religious freedom are mistaken.38 In fact, "letting the Jesuit Order establish itself in Russia would be like knowingly and deliberately letting in a band of fraudsters, thieves, and others of that type."39 But whereas the thief uses blunt material methods to achieve his ends, the Jesuit fears nothing because his actions are almost undetectable, for "lies are so mixed in with truth in Jesuitism that it is extremely hard to grasp that truth from among the trickery."40 Since the Jesuit, he writes, recognizes all means as acceptable and legitimate to his ends, he does not commit crimes himself but rather inspires them in others; he makes these crimes morally feasible for the human conscience. His ultimate goal is the constant propagation of "Romanism," the recruitment of spiritual subjects for his spiritual sovereign, the pope. It is impossible to engage in an "open fight" with the Jesuits, Aksakov contends, because they use weapons that conscience denies [End Page 799] the members of other Christian faiths. So the great strength of Jesuitism, this "Christian order, all its successes and prerogatives, are due to the principle that the Jesuit may allow himself every un-Christian means" because "his conscience is open to every un-Christian act, to everything that is the negation of Christianity."41
The editor-in-chief of Den´ concludes by stating that liberal principles, and in particular the freedom to preach, cannot be applied to the Society of Jesus, because "they have no Christian doctrine of faith, they seek a material goal, not a spiritual one; they envisage not the domain of the spirit but solely the domain of external practical activity."42
The article in Den´ received not only a reply from the imperial government denying its "erroneous rumors," but also a rejoinder from the Society of Jesus itself. This was written by Father Martynov,43 a co-religionist of Father Gagarin, and it was published first as a pamphlet in Paris and then in Den´ itself in November 1865.44
Martynov finds "the judgments contained in the Den´ article so implausible and its accusations so terrible" that they require refutation. He thus accuses the Russian Church and its supporters of "being afraid, and exaggerating everything," because "the dominant Church in Russia suffers from impotence, its Orthodoxy is a standard of discord. … A Church that calls itself One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic, bears no fruit of spiritual life."45 In contrast, according to Martynov, the Society of Jesus and its members ("organs of the Church of Christ") possess "a true strength—invisible, incomprehensible, and unknown," the "strength of divine Grace," and the "converting strength of our preaching, of the fruitfulness of our pious works, of our influence in [End Page 800] society, of our ever-vigilant zeal in bringing souls to Christ and of our unshakable constancy in directing our steps to our goal."46
The Specific Nature of the Russian Jesuit Myth
Aksakov's polemical attack on the Society of Jesus was part of the history of personal relations between former friends and may be understood as a response to Father Gagarin's plans for "reconciliation" between the churches. It should also be included in the wider discussions in the 1860s of the Polish Question and the potential of the principles of "tolerance and religious freedom" as one means to resolve it following the uprising that began in Warsaw in January 1863.47
Within Russian society, the uprising revived negative images of the Catholic Polish people that had been created after the first uprising (1830) by "men of letters" such as Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov, and Tiutchev. These images were repeated and revamped by journalists and critics, including Katkov, Aksakov, and Strakhov, as well as intellectuals and "experts" like Cherkasskii, Aleksandr Gilferding (Hilferding), and Samarin himself, who would become "men of action" against the backdrop of the Great Reforms and the Polish Uprising. Whereas the poetic and polemical texts of the 1830s may have had an indirect impact on Nicholas I's Polish policy, the work of the journalists, intellectuals, and "experts" of the 1860s had a much greater and more direct influence on the imperial government's decision making and policy implementation. The reasons for this included the greater development of the press and public opinion at the outset of the Great Reforms as well as the government's appeal to "opinion makers," usually Slavophile or those friendly to that movement, to find a way of solving the Polish Question.
Katkov on the Polish Question
The Slavophiles did not start this discussion but rather one of the founders of Russian conservatism and nationalism, the journalist and editor Mikhail Katkov, who, just as the Warsaw uprising began in January 1863, became editor in chief of the daily paper Moskovskie vedomosti. In his almost daily articles in Moskovskie vedomosti, Russkii vestnik, and [End Page 801] Sovremennaia letopis´ from 1863 to 1865, Katkov deeply influenced Russian public opinion on the Polish Question.48
Conceiving the Polish Question as a matter of concern for both Poland and Russia, he differed here from Aksakov, who proposed "offering" the Kingdom of Poland political independence.49 Katkov, in contrast, thought that if Russia offered independence to the Kingdom of Poland, it would stop being "a great European Power." In his view, "the question of Great Power status is a matter of life or death, for as a Great Power, Russia is obliged to concern itself with developing all its productive forces, trade, science, art, civil and political welfare." "Reestablishing an independent Poland would turn Russia into a half-European, half-barbarous country."50
Nor did Katkov agree with the interpretation of the Polish uprisings as a conflict between civilizations, Russian Orthodox against Polish Catholic. This idea, put forward by Pushkin in the 1830s, was repeated and extended at the time of the 1863 uprising. Strakhov, for example, wrote in Fedor Dostoevskii's journal Vremia that any "proper criticism of Poland must go beyond Poland and include criticism of Western civilization" and "the Polish holy of holies, their Catholicism from Rome." Solving this Polish Question—"la question fatale" of Russian history—was key to solving the conflict between Russian civilization and European, par excellence Catholic, civilization. In Katkov's opposing view, assertions of this type were what gave "true meaning" to the Poles' revolts and justified their "most fantastic demands."51 By this logic, he continued, Poland embodied European civilization and Russia barbarism: "But Russia, as a Great Power, and with the other four Powers makes up Europe itself! … Europe does not consider us to be its enemies, quite the contrary, it needs us and our support; a great, powerful, independent Russia is essential for the global system."52
To solve the Polish Question, Katkov proposed separating the "two elements," the "national-Polish and the religious-Catholic," by "cleansing the Catholic Church in Poland of its Polish element, its national element": "the [End Page 802] Catholic faith in Russia has become de facto the Polish national institution, placing the Church and even the entire Polish people in a false position."53 Freeing Catholic priests in Poland from national and political falsehoods and the threats "of terror from revolutionary committees" and inviting Czech, Croat, and Slovene Catholic priests to come and officiate for the population of the Kingdom of Poland and the empire, he believed, would provide a religious settlement of the Polish Question.54 In his view, it was important to "'break' the monopoly of one nationality [Polish] in the Church and introduce other national elements into the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Poland" so that "religious matters are separated from political matters" and "priests become once more servants of the altar and stop being tools of revolution."55
On the advice (and probably under the influence) of his personal "adviser" on "Catholic matters," Avgust Hessen—who was an official expert on Catholicism at the Ministry of the Interior and a secret informant for the Holy See, supposedly recruited by Father Martynov56—Katkov proposed a number of practical measures. These included the introduction of Russian into the Roman Catholic liturgy and the institution of religious tolerance and freedom of conscience throughout the Russian Empire.57 As he put it: "The [Orthodox] clergy cannot control the conscience [sovest´] of people who are adult and independent. While deploring anyone's separation [from our Church], we must respect their freedom of conscience."58 Katkov stated bluntly that Catholic converts like Father Martynov could be useful to Russia and the Catholic Church in the Russian Empire. Overall, he recommended "the construction of a supraconfessional community of subjects loyal to the [End Page 803] monarchy of Alexander II … subjects also bound together by a common language and belonging to a common space."59
Though very powerful, Katkov's voice was only one part of the choir in which Samarin sang the lead part. Whereas Katkov proposed "de-Polonizing Catholicism,"60 Samarin, in contrast, sought to Latinize Polonism by linking the religious and ethno-national elements, following the pre-1860 tradition of identification and valid virtually until the end of the empire.61 It was Samarin's vision of the Polish Question and its solution that was finally accepted by the imperial government in 1863–65.
Samarin on the Polish Question
In September 1863, Samarin published an article in Aksakov's Den´ titled, "The Current State of the Polish Question."62 He had composed it in July and early August while at Prince Cherkasskii's Vasil´evskoe estate, no doubt to some extent influenced by the prince.63 In March of that year, Cherkasskii had written to Samarin: "Polish affairs are attracting society's attention. … Meanwhile there has arisen [voznik] the eternally new Polish question [vechno-novyi pol´skii vopros] that requires a definitive solution, not only in Warsaw but also in Lithuania and Kiev, in other words more generally in Russia. There are many obstacles but not much talent and courage to solve it."64
In his article, Samarin sets out the complexity of the Polish Question, which he conceived as consisting of three issues: the Polish people as one of the elements in a greater Slavic entity, one of the "Slavic tribes"; Poland as [End Page 804] an independent state; and Polonism as propaganda for Latinism within the Slavic world.65
The truly specific feature of the Polish people, says Samarin, is that Poland belongs to both the Latin world and the Slavic world. Indeed, claiming that "Poland is the sharp-edged knife plunged by Latinism into the heart of the Slavic world to divide it [raskolot´ ego]," he points out the "profound links" between "Polonism" and "Latinism," links he says that some journalists and editorialists [meaning Katkov] refuse to notice: "Polonism is the military combat of Latinism," which in turn is "the pure product of Western Catholicism," "not only in its features of dogma and hierarchy, but in all the moral concepts and practical relations determined by the Roman Catholic vision of the relationship between the individual and the Church, and its vision of faith, grace, and justification."66
Samarin then expands his views of Latinism and Polonism: "Latinism's task was to transform the idea of the ecclesiastical unity of the Church into a visible symbol represented by the figure of the pope: in other words, to transform the unity of faith and love into legal recognition, and the members of the Church into subjects of their chief. … Like two souls incarnated in a single body, the Slavic idea and the Latin idea are now waging and have always waged a war, incessant and without concession, within Poland."67 Believing that Poland can have a future only if it unites with the Slavic world "and not the Latin world," he nonetheless doubts the Poles' ability to recognize "their betrayal of the Slavic idea."
To solve the Polish Question, Samarin proposes a plan for the "profound spiritual rebirth" of Poland. First, the uprising in the Kingdom of Poland must be suppressed and that area's entire administrative system transferred to the army.68 Then the peasants' condition must be improved and the influence of Polonism and Latinism in the Russian Empire's western provinces rooted out to ensure the predominance of Orthodox-Russian culture in the following ways: "disseminating the enlightenment [prosveshchenie] of the Russian Orthodox Church in opposition to secular knowledge," "improving the clergy's living conditions in these regions," and "enlisting priests of the dominant Church into the administrative system of these lands."69 [End Page 805]
The imperial government noticed the proposals contained in Samarin's article. Just as it was being published, Samarin was invited by Nikolai Miliutin to accompany him to Poland: "His Majesty has required [potreboval] me to go to Warsaw to examine the most urgent questions, particularly the Peasant Question. I have received a new confirmation: to find a definitive solution to this matter. … Now the outcome of this matter is partly in your hands."70
After receiving this invitation, Samarin expressed his feelings to Cherkasskii, whom Miliutin had also invited to Poland: "I am attracted by the opportunity of seeing the country, mixing with the peasants, understanding the state of affairs, and gaining a clear vision of the condition of the village class."71 Cherkasskii replied: "I am glad you have found an opportunity to expound on these Polish matters and that you are taking with you a number of precise, clearly thought-out ideas. This will be a great help for Miliutin."72
The "special mission" to the Kingdom of Poland in the "midst of an insurrectional crisis"—undertaken by Miliutin, Samarin, Cherkasskii, and Hilferding—began on 8 October 1863 and lasted six weeks.73 They had first to observe and understand the situation on the ground, particularly among the peasants, then to explain and present to the government (and to some extent public opinion) plans for reforms—for the peasantry, education, and religion—so as finally to implement policy and administrative decisions.74 At the same time, Samarin and Hilferding were to prepare and publish a series of articles on "Polish affairs" in various Slavophile periodicals, especially Den´ and Russkii invalid.75
After the mission, Samarin wrote a report on "the trip to the Polish countryside," in which he returned to the meaning of the Polish Question. This time, he also mentions the strong links between the insurgents and the Jesuits: "The hard nub of the modern Polish Question is whether the people [End Page 806] perceive the government's fight as being not against the Polish nation, as many people think, but against the monstrous mix of revolutionary fervor and Jesuit cunning."76
Although Samarin had also been invited to attend the meetings of the Committee for Polish Affairs chaired by Miliutin in January 1864, and Alexander II had considered making him minister of education and religious affairs in the Kingdom of Poland, he decided to travel abroad, saying he was "very ill."77 Those close to him described "his lack of desire to take part in Polish affairs, his moral illness that crushed his intellectual and spiritual abilities."78
From the Polish Question to the Russian Jesuit Myth
Samarin went abroad for his health and to continue working on Aleksei Khomiakov's papers. "His real work, equal to his talent," according to Aksakov, "was explaining the ideal of the Orthodox Church and continuing the work of Khomiakov."79 Yet Aksakov also asked Samarin to find books on the history of the Society of Jesus, a request that set in motion Samarin's further engagement on this issue. Responding from Venice on 29 May 1864, Samarin writes: "Today I received the letter … about you and Martynov's letter … I've found the Jesuits' catechism [for you], but why do you need it? Do you want to argue with the Jesuits? That's just what they want … to show that they are being slandered. … The Jesuits are already blamed. If you need to refresh your memory, reread Ranke."80 In the first part of his letter to Aksakov, Samarin advises him not to reply to Father Martynov and the Society of Jesus. Gradually becoming more impassioned, however, he writes, "As for the Jesuits' relations with us, they have left their mark on the history of Western Russia; today's Poland is their diocese." He ends the letter by referring to the book of his former friend Gagarin, La Russie sera-t-elle catholique? "Remember Gagarin's pamphlet that Khomiakov replied to, in which he suspected us Slavophiles of having revolutionary ideas. I am amazed how that could be written."81 Eventually, Samarin became so "impassioned" that he decided not only to continue to look abroad for books on the Jesuits but to reply personally to Father Martynov, [End Page 807] Father Gagarin, and the Jesuits in general.82 Several factors likely played a role in Samarin's decision, including the comparison Gagarin had made between the "old Muscovite party" and the European revolutionaries, which was perceived by Slavophile circles as denouncing them to the government;83 and his sarcastic remarks about his former boyhood friend in La Russie sera-t-elle catholique?, particularly an allusion to Samarin's doctoral thesis.84
Back at Cherkasskii's estate in August 1865, one year after writing "The Current State of the Polish Question," Samarin suggested to Aksakov a plan for publishing Father Martynov's letter followed by his own reply:
First of all, I'll send you Martynov's letter, then my first one, which is long. … In my view, Martynov's letter should be set in a Slavonic type to give it a special flavor; I hope to have something to say about this in my third letter. Second, … the first and second letters must be published together. … There will be one other letter, perhaps two, not very long, and then the afterword. I've already got all the material for that.85
With this publication Samarin intended to "finish with the Jesuits once and for all": "May the Devil take them away!"86
In his reply to Father Martynov and the entire Society of Jesus, which was published in Aksakov's Den´ in late 1865, Samarin used sources from the [End Page 808] Society itself (the Rules, the writings of Jesuit theologians)87 and from other institutions (decrees from popes, European monarchs), and the "historiography" of the period.88 Each letter is devoted to a single topic: "general accusations against the Jesuits" (first letter), "Jesuitism as a psychological phenomenon" (second letter), history of the suppression of the Society in 1773 (third letter), activities of the Jesuits in Russia over the centuries (fourth letter), and an analysis of plans to convert Russia proposed by Russian-born Jesuit fathers (fifth letter). Taken together, Samarin's text was intended to demonstrate to Russian and European readers the Society's "harmful" activity throughout the world, particularly in Russia, and to explicate, through the history of one of the most famous orders of the Catholic Church of Rome, the mechanisms of that church's operations. The number of letters he wrote—five—was also symbolic, because it corresponded to the number Joseph de Maistre—a man known as a protector and defender of Jesuits and their system of education—had written to Count Razumovskii, the minister of education, back in 1810.
Samarin begins by analyzing the actual word "Jesuit," which, he says, has become a common noun.89 In his words: "This is a form of honor that is not given to everyone, but it is also a significant symptom of a historic role [End Page 809] skillfully played on the world stage. The adjective derived from the noun has entered common usage to denote certain general qualities. … A jesuitical promise, a jesuitical statement, a jesuitical reception do not mean a sincere promise or true statement or honest reception."90 Everyone and everywhere, he emphasizes—in Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, Berlin, and Moscow—understands the meaning given to the word. He then accuses the Society of Jesus of wishing to play a major political role in Europe and the entire world, of having a "dishonest attitude" in "financial affairs," for being unscrupulous in converting non-Catholic children and "heathen peoples."91 "So even now," he writes, "when the Jesuits' strength is forever broken," their apologias and methods arouse "a painful feeling of moral nausea … almost as much everywhere as when they first appeared."92
Then, using extracts from the Rules and members' theological writings, Samarin shows his readers how the order "pierces the human heart," spreads everywhere, and "poisons" and "corrupts" every social class.93 Turning to the historical documents relating to the Society's suppression in 1773, he suggests that this action had long been anticipated: "this single deed is made up of several deeds, of a whole series of expulsions at various times, which were repeated again and again wherever the Jesuits established themselves. … And it was not the enemies of Christ's name, nor heretics and schismatics, but faithful monarchs, benefactors of the Society, pious priests of the Church, who expelled the Jesuits from one European country after another."94 He ends this part of his text by exclaiming, "something painful oppresses one's soul" when one studies "the Jesuits' casuistry" and their history; "breathing becomes hard in this atmosphere permeated with fraud and sacrilege."95
All the components of the 19th-century European Jesuit myth as dissected by Michel Leroy are already present in Samarin's text: the Jesuits are [End Page 810] enemies of nations and peoples, because they are "absorbed" by the idea of universal power; the order is an instrument for the conquest and exercise of papal power; to that end, they use all means from embezzlement of wealth to assassination and revolution; the Jesuits possess an unimaginable range of ways for corrupting people's souls and minds, perverting their morals and behavior.96 Samarin thus repeats and reproduces all the interpretive patterns and anti-Jesuit arguments that had long existed in European culture—the interpretations and arguments forged by members of various religious and social groups, such as Protestants, Gallicans, Jansenists, anticlericals, and others throughout the centuries.97
The novelty of Samarin's text is that it presents a panorama of the order's actions in Russia over hundreds of years, denounces its current plans (such as a "reconciliation" of the two churches under the pope) as devised by Russianborn Jesuits, and demonstrates the links between "Latinism and Jesuitism" as seen from an Orthodox point of view.
To be sure, by this time, the 1860s, there were already a number of books in Russian and French on the Jesuit presence throughout the Russian Empire, which Samarin cites.98 We should likewise recall the anti-Jesuit passages of Nikolai Karamzin and Pushkin. But Samarin's originality—and the reason he can be called the founding father of the Russian Jesuit myth—are found in his overarching narrative: in summarizing in his first three letters all European "knowledge" of the Society of Jesus's activity throughout the world as well as its propaganda methods, he places the "Russian experience" of the Jesuits in the context of a "global experience" of the order in its "quest for universal power." This experience is both past and present; under the influence of this idea of global domination, Russian-born Jesuits—Samarin's prime targets are his former friend, now Father Jean-Xavier Gagarin, and Father Martynov personally—are seeking, he says, to convert Russia to "Latinism" when they propose their [End Page 811] plans of reunion between the churches.99 And this Latinism was ultimately a "Christianity transformed by European civilization," which in turn produced "Jesuitism."100 The circle is closed. Indeed, by creating the Russian Jesuit myth he completes his construction of the Latinism–Jesuitism–Polonism triad.
Initial Reactions to Samarin's Letters
Samarin was wrong in thinking that his "Letters would not be read."101 A few weeks after the last Letter was published, Father Gagarin sent Katkov a response and asked him to publish it, because Aksakov had closed Den´ at the end of 1865.102 Though refusing to be defined by Samarin as a "denouncer of Slavophiles," Father Gagarin continued to criticize them virulently and hence denounced them implicitly to imperial and church authorities. Samarin and Khomiakov, he claims, "cannot be seen as Orthodox, because they believe that the opinions of councils are not sufficient to resolve conflicts within the Church and that the views of all the faithful should be sought." Indeed, he goes so far as to "say that the Slavophiles place the people and Orthodoxy above the Russian monarchy."103 Nor did he understand the "fanaticism of the Slavophiles," particularly against the Jesuits: "Take for example your criticisms of the Jesuits. They are forbidden to enter Russia. But sooner or later this ban will be lifted. For Russia, the important thing is to separate the concept of Catholicism from the concept of Polonism, and the return to Russia of the Jesuits is a consequence of this."104 Denying that the presence of the Jesuits in Russia is dangerous, he writes: "from Catherine to Alexander I, no one accused the Jesuits of propagating Polonism. Never was Catholicism in Russia so free of the Polish spirit. … That is why the Poles do not like the Jesuits, which is understandable, but it is not clear why the Russians do not like the Jesuits."105 Gagarin ends his letter with advice that echoes Joseph de Maistre: "spread true education [in Russia]."106 [End Page 812]
Although Katkov was close to Gagarin's position on some points, he did not dare publish this response, especially since the reception of Samarin's Letters among Russian high society was positive. As Cherkasskii's wife noted in her Diary: "Samarin's first letter on the Jesuits, published in Den´, is quite remarkable. It is an indictment of that order. But I look forward to the section on the principles that define Jesuit doctrine. … Countess Maria Fedorovna has also written to me, 'Many people are talking about the articles on the Jesuits, how good they are, how clear, even if Iurii Fedorovich advises ladies not to read them.'"107
The Russian Jesuit myth as formulated by Samarin went down well with Russian high society, because its attitudes to Catholicism and the Jesuits after the Polish Uprising of 1863 were the complete opposite of what they had been before the war against Napoleon under Alexander I.
Whereas Samarin's text on the Polish Question enabled imperial government officials—Miliutin, head of the Polish Affairs Committee in St. Petersburg, and Cherkasskii, director of internal and religious affairs in the Kingdom of Poland—to initiate "Polish reforms," including confessional ones, with a view to weakening "Polonism's links to Latinism," his Five Letters laid the basis for engaging in combat with "Jesuit forces, visible and invisible, in permanent contact with Rome," and with Paris.
The Latinism–Jesuitism–Polonism Triad in Action
Although Samarin decided in early 1864 to withdraw from the political stage and was hence unable to convert his ideas directly into decisions and ultimately governmental action, he was not opposed, at least initially, to the "dictatorial methods" used by "Miliutin's team" in Poland. In a letter from Berlin to Aksakov dated 22 June 1864, he writes: "You know very well that in the Polish affair I went along hand in hand with the government; you also know that I helped write the dictatorial plan …, signed it, and emphasized the need for dictatorial methods to implement it; … I came away only because of my health problems. So I am morally involved in this affair, and I bear full moral responsibility for it with the others."108
This view of the need to engage in a "combat against Papism," Polonism, Latinism, and "Jesuitism" by force and "dictatorial methods" was advanced by Miliutin, who was preparing in St. Petersburg a reform targeting [End Page 813] Catholic monasteries in the Kingdom of Poland.109 In August 1864, he wrote to Prince Cherkasskii: "In the newspapers … it is very important to explain this obvious but little-known truth that everywhere, whatever the confession (Catholic, Protestant, etc.), whatever the order (monarchic, constitutional, republican, etc.), the State must take dictatorial, arbitrary, antireligious measures to suppress Papism's thirst for power and absolutism, which is destructive for any civil society."110 Cherkasskii replied to this from Warsaw, writing: "We live in a country of secret, semireligious, semipolitical societies that have existed since the 16th century … it is important in this land of Ultramontanism to prevent [people] submitting to Catholic canons; it is important to destroy the entire bastion of Catholicism, to divide the clergy itself into groups and to give the right to independence to every minority within the Catholic world."111
Two years later, in September 1866, during an audience with Alexander II, Cherkasskii likewise emphasized, "We are reproached for persecution and cruelty, but we cannot weaken; the Catholic Church is a militant one par excellence, always working to advance and seeking to benefit from our weaknesses."112
According to Cherkassii's wife, both were convinced of a "forthcoming resolution of the Polish Question and a possible collapse of papal power."113 Despite the many difficulties, Miliutin thought in March 1866 that "it would only take two years to solve the Catholic question."114 In two years, from 1864 to 1866, Miliutin's team had managed in fact to bring in a number of reforms in the religious domain, "against Latinism" and Papism, which mostly went against canon law and the interests of the Catholic Church.115 Some [End Page 814] of them also affected the Greek Catholic Church in the Kingdom of Poland, by seeking to "cleanse the Uniate rite."116 Miliutin's team prepared other reforms in the religious domain to "strengthen the ongoing unification between the Kingdom of Poland and the empire."117 In his report of 5 May 1866 to Viceroy (namestnik) Friedrich Berg, Cherkasskii proposed "suppressing the metropolitan of Warsaw" and "submitting the Polish Church to the authority of the Catholic Ecclesiastical College in St. Petersburg," created by Alexander I in 1801.118 According to Cherkasskii—and this idea was not mentioned in the report to Berg—they had to deal with the Jesuits, "visible and invisible," in order to finally settle the two questions, Polish and Catholic.
Back in February 1865, Cherkasskii had already complained to Miliutin: "Simply fighting against the Polish element is just bearable, but to engage in a double combat, one against the Poles and the other against our own, who are stronger and more influential, is difficult."119 Without naming names, Cherkasskii was referring to the viceroy, Count Berg. In September 1866, Miliutin, in his letter, returned to Berg's "active role" in the Catholic Question and "his proposal to call the Jesuits" back to the Kingdom of Poland to pacify the country.120
In her diary, Cherkasskii's wife repeated her husband's ideas with a frankness that he himself could not afford in his letters to Miliutin: "Count Berg himself, it is rumored, is a Pole, if not by his origins in the Baltic aristocracy then by the habits of his youth, spent under [Viceroy Ivan] Paskevich in Warsaw: by conviction and family influence,121 he is a Jesuit and a Catholic."122 [End Page 815] She also repeats and extends Miliutin's idea about Berg's proposal to bring the Jesuits back to the Kingdom of Poland: "Count Berg explained Rome's intrigues against us and the Polish clergy's involvement in the uprisings as misunderstandings. He has invented a way of appeasing and generally pacifying the country; according to him, Poland should be returned to the command [rasporiazhenie] of the Jesuits, their representatives made eligible for all ecclesiastical functions and given the task of spiritually administering the country. Indeed in 1863 he proposed something of the sort to the tsar, but His Majesty indignantly refused the idea."123 The viceroy's idea of inviting in the Jesuits, she continues, was shared by members of Polish high society: "On one occasion Count Ourusski said to me, 'our clergy is fanatical and nationalistic, the Jesuits' skillfulness could have restrained them, and the Jesuits would have been so useful in education. Count Berg agrees entirely and has made the point in Petersburg, but up there they are prejudiced against the Jesuits. Introducing the Jesuits into Poland became the favorite dream of moderate Polish patriots … some of whom were clandestine Jesuits."124
These supposed "clandestine Jesuits" exercised Cherkasskii and Miliutin's minds to such an extent that Cherkasskii asked Father Vladimir Guettée, a Catholic priest converted to Orthodoxy, to "obtain some information from Paris about the Jesuits and their maneuvers in Russia's Western provinces, especially Poland."125 As a positive response, Father Guettée sent Cherkasskii two letters from Paris dated December 1866. In the first, which one may call "introductory," he promises to "discover what may be useful … for the work so successfully initiated of destroying Jesuitism in Russia."126 Yet already here Father Guettée asserts (confirming the main ideas in the Jesuit myth) that "the Roman Church, abandoned by the vast majority of its members, is not strictly speaking a Christian Church but a carefully organized machine, whose apparent motor is the pope, and whose real motor is the Jesuit. This is the notion required to understand the current Roman Church, in Poland and elsewhere." To "disorganize the Jesuitical machine," Father Guettée says, [End Page 816] one must "prevent the motor from providing the impulse." "We shall only achieve this by gradually destroying within the Polish Church the Ultramontane base that the Jesuits have given it." More practically, he suggests "gradually separating the Polish Church from Rome," or first setting up a sort of Gallican Church, "bringing it closer to the Orthodox Church, with which it will have a host of affinities," and as a consequence, "Jesuitism will quickly disappear."127
In his second letter, Father Guettée is much more specific, referring to "two main centers of Jesuitical propaganda," the charities Oeuvre des Polonais and Oeuvre du catholicisme en Pologne. Although the visible purpose of the first "center" is to "centralize sums of money to help poor Poles," its hidden purpose is to "support Jesuitical propaganda."128 He does not make any special distinction between the centers but implies that the Oeuvre du catholicisme en Pologne is the larger and more powerful. Through its network of prelates and laypeople, the Oeuvre du catholicisme en Pologne has access to the aristocracy ("legitimist," "liberal"), the world "of finance," and even "the government sphere" and the "university sphere (Sorbonne)."129
Father Guettée further asserts that the Jesuits' propaganda reaches not only high society in Poland, Russia, and France but also poorer and less educated folk. To destroy this Jesuitical influence, it is not enough to keep a few men under surveillance. While the clandestine surveillance of individuals is necessary, one has to have "means diametrically opposed to those the Jesuits use, and yet similar in nature."130 To reach those who cannot read, one needs to deploy "a propaganda of anti-Jesuitical images, showing the vices of the Roman clergy and the scandalous episodes in the history of the popes and the Roman congregations; revolting facts about the establishment of the Uniate Church in Russia's western provinces; the tortures carried out by the Roman Inquisition; the Jesuits' excesses in Poland, etc."131 For ordinary folk who can read, one should "tell the stories these images represent."132 To inform [End Page 817] the more educated and clerics in parishes and seminaries, publish "small, clear books against Rome's errors and against the Administrator [the papacy], and against the Jesuits, etc., and distribute thousands of them." Father Guettée goes further, probably indirectly offering his services: "If you have men who are well acquainted with these matters, it would be useful, with their help, to initiate controversies in a number of literary and religious journals, carefully written, and distributed in schools, etc."133 He ends by promising to find even more "information about Jesuitical propaganda."134
Cherkasskii's request for more information about the links between Paris and the "hidden Jesuits" in Poland reveals to what extent the director of internal and religious affairs in the Kingdom of Poland believed in an "international Jesuit conspiracy." Guettée's two letters then show just how fully he responded to Cherkasskii's expectations.135 He presented the activities of the Society as those of "a secret society covering the entire country with a vast network of surveillance and influence, directed at the life of families," including Russian aristocratic families living in Paris, "at government decisions and the destiny of the whole of France," as well as the destiny of the Polish territories of the Russian Empire.136 Not only did these "enemy Jesuits," both visible and invisible, arouse deep feelings of hatred against the Society of Jesus among men of letters, "men of action," and churchmen, as had occurred with Samarin, Cherkasskii, Miliutin, and Father Guettée, but all of these men were ready to use—and did indeed use—the same methods as the Jesuits to attain their ends. This imaginary, fantasized conspiracy led to real action; the myth lay behind Russian government policy in the Kingdom of Poland—as shown above—and would continue to serve as the ideological basis for future political action, both in this part of the empire and elsewhere.
Guettée's letters arrived too late, however: on 20 November 1866, after the meeting in St. Petersburg concerning the abrogation of the Concordat with Rome, Cherkasskii's superior and friend Miliutin suffered a stroke.137 In a letter to his wife, Cherkasskii wrote, "Le Monde will say afterward that [End Page 818] God Himself had a hand in the matter."138 After a long conversation with the tsar and despite the latter's promise to support him in the Kingdom of Poland, Cherkasskii decided to resign.139 Still, on leaving Warsaw, he wrote to a few faithful friends, "You must not let this [Russian] affair drop, you must stay in place to the last moment."140 After Miliutin's stroke and Cherkasskii's departure from Warsaw, his wife evoked the myth in her Diary, writing that Viceroy Berg "can [now] keep all his commitments to the Jesuits and his ladies and laugh at the Russian government."141 Their "clandestine" enemy did ask Pavel Mukhanov for a report on the state of the Catholic Church in Poland, in which Mukhanov severely criticized Cherkasskii's (and thus Miliutin's) policy in the religious domain in 1864–66.142
For all the endeavors of Samarin, the man of letters and ideologist in this case, and Miliutin and Cherkasskii—the two men of action—they did not succeed in "ridding the country of Jesuitism" or solving that "eternally new Polish Question" once and for all. But with the political action they took against what they saw as Latinism, Jesuitism, and Polonism, they did create an atmosphere of hatred and fear in the Kingdom of Poland and in other parts of the empire, which lasted decades. Every Catholic priest who came to Russia after the 1860s was kept under surveillance as a possible "propagandist for the Jesuits," a "protector of the Poles," and an "envoy with secret instructions from Paris."143
Spreading the Russian Jesuit Myth into the Ottoman Empire and Europe
The purpose of Samarin and his friends' anti-Jesuit propaganda was even more ambitious: in February 1866, Samarin wrote proudly to Princess Cherkasskaia that "these Letters are being translated into Bulgarian and Arabic, for Syria."144 The choice of languages—Bulgarian and Arabic—was significant, because it responded to the second-generation Slavophiles' own interests in supporting the Slavic peoples of the Ottoman Empire and the imperial government's new policy in the Middle East after the Crimean War.145 [End Page 819] Translation of the Letters—the quintessence of the Russian Jesuit myth—into Arabic and Bulgarian was intended to spread that myth among the peoples of the Ottoman Empire, in territories perceived by the Russians as belonging to their zone of influence. This translation was carried out by representatives of Russia's educated society—thinkers like Samarin and Aksakov and publishers like Petr Bartenev, whose aim was to counter the activities of the Jesuit fathers (and more generally the Catholic orders) who were beginning to operate in the Slavic lands of the Ottoman Empire in the 1860s and in its Arab lands long before.146 One must not neglect the personal aspects of the story, however, because Father Gagarin had spent lengthy periods in Syria from 1859 and during the 1860s. Together with a few other clerical and lay faithful Frenchmen, he helped found the charity Oeuvre des petites écoles d'Orient, later Oeuvre d'Orient, to support the schools of the Catholic orders working in the Slavic and Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire. To achieve his aims, Father Gagarin had begun studying Arabic and Bulgarian at the age of 46.147
Samarin's Latinism–Jesuitism–Polonism triad was used in Russian propaganda not only in the territories of the Ottoman Empire but also in Europe. In his February 1866 letter to Princess Cherkasskaia, Samarin writes of his reluctance to have his Five Letters translated into French, because, as he puts it, his text is "only new for a Russian audience," since "it was all taken from French sources and was well known abroad," except for the part devoted to "the activity of the Jesuits in Russia."148 Despite this reluctance, it was published in Paris in early 1867, with the title Les Jésuites et leurs rapports avec la [End Page 820] Russie (The Jesuits and Their Relations with Russia).149 The speed of its translation and publication—and the change of title to emphasize Jesuit activity in Russia, although that feature of Five Letters only composed 26 percent of the whole text—shows that Samarin's book played an active part in the "battle of sources," in which the Holy See and the Russian Empire had been engaged for decades.150
This "battle" was started by the Holy See in 1842 with Gregory XVI's papal allocution Haerentem diu animo and the publication of 90 documents on the situation of the Catholic Church in the territories of the Russian Empire after the Three Partitions of Poland. In 1866, responding to the Russian government's policy in the wake of the 1863 uprising, Pius IX had published and distributed throughout Europe an Esposizione documentata sulle costanti cure del Sommo Pontefice Pio IX a riparo dei mali che soffre la Chiesa Cattolica nei dominii di Russia e Polonia (Documented Exposition of the Constant Concern of the Supreme Pontiff to Relieve the Evils the Catholic Church Suffers in the Domains of Russia and Poland). This text, which was translated into French by Father Louis Lescoeur, presented a collection of documents on relations between the Holy See and the Russian court in St Petersburg from 1842 to 1866, including Russian legislative texts and the private correspondence of senior representatives of the Russian administration concerning the reforms of the Catholic Church in the territories of the Russian Empire.151
The French version of Samarin's Five Letters was the first response to the Holy See's publication of this collection in 1866.152 Later, more generalist texts appeared, such as that of Aleksandr Popov, in which the "historian" presented "evidence in support of the government's measures justifying the abrogation of the Concordat with the Holy See."153 Yet these texts, published [End Page 821] in Russian, were rather intended for a more restricted, "domestic," audience, namely Russian-speakers.
Following the appearance of Samarin's book in French, a number of histories of the Jesuit presence in the Russian-Polish lands were published: these were works of "historical research" or the publication of "sources" or translations into Russian of books published abroad.154 In this way, Samarin, influenced by the French and European Jesuit myths, provided future Russian "historians" with an "interpretive framework" for analyzing the activity of the Society of Jesus throughout the world, especially Russia. He proposed, and indeed imposed, for his successors a particular vision of relations between the Catholic Church, the Society of Jesus, and the Poles.
The other side did not remain silent. After the publication of Les Jésuites et leurs rapports, Father Gagarin began to publish sources from the Society's archives as well as "historical" research, particularly to "commemorate" the centenary of the First Partition of Poland and the dissolution of the Society by Clement XIV.155 Later, this work of "refuting [falsehood] and asserting the truth" about the Jesuits in Russia, and more generally relations between Russia and the Holy See, begun by Father Gagarin, was taken up by his close colleagues such as Father Paul Pierling and a new generation of "historian Jesuits" such as Fathers Adrien Boudou and Marie-Joseph Rouët de Journel.156 The "battle of the sources" that began in the 1840s–60s with Rome's publication of documents became over time a "war of histories" between the Holy See and the Russian Empire, a "war" in which pro- and anti-Jesuit positions loomed large and the decisive role was played by the representatives of [End Page 822] the second generation of Slavophiles and the Jesuit fathers—whether Russian aristocrats converted to Catholicism or their successors.157
The political, ideological, and economic context in Europe and Russia shifted at the end of the 19th century, however, producing new mythological configurations. As anti-Judaism strengthened and antisemitism rose, the modern forms of the Jesuit myth and the Jewish myth began to drift and meld together in Europe.158 In 1875, the German essayist Ottomar Beta published a text with the significant title Darwin, Deutschland und die Juden, oder der Juda-Jesuitismus (Darwin, Germany, and the Jews, or Juda-Jesuitism). This first synthetic formulation of "Juda-Jesuitism," which conjured the fusion or "connection" between a pair of conspiracies, presaged "Judeo-Masonry" (1882) and "Judeo-Bolshevism" (1917).159 Yet in turn-of-the-century Russia another process was occurring: the Jesuit myth was being displaced by the Jewish conspiracy myth, the myth of hidden power funded by major international banks and driven by secret relations among the "world's powerful." Anti-Jesuitism began to be compared with antisemitism, and antisemitism ultimately took its place. Whereas in 1789 Karamzin described the Jesuits with words and expressions often applied to the Jews but without naming them, in 1899 Vasilii Rozanov said it loud and clear: "Yes, the Jews are the Jesuits of our time … and Judaism [is] the [religious] order of today." While "the past century was the century of a combat against Jesuitism, which the Jesuits … presented as a combat against Catholicism and Christianity, all the evidence shows that the century to come will be marked by the combat against Judaism, which the Jews, using the Jesuit tactic, present to those Christians who have no eyes to see as a combat against the human principles of brotherhood and love."160
As the Russian Jesuit myth gradually declined and lost its power to mobilize and propagandize in the political and religious spheres of the early 20thcentury Russian Empire, Rozanov's text shows that it still provided a pattern [End Page 823] for the myths that succeeded it.161 Le mythe jésuite russe est mort, vive le(s) nouveau(x) mythe(s)!
By Way of a Conclusion
The question of the birth, uses, and death of the Russian Jesuit myth is very broad and cannot be exhaustively covered in a single article. However, some preliminary conclusions can be made concerning the specific features of the Russian Jesuit myth, particularly when compared with the French and more broadly the European Jesuit myth. Let us first set out the contrasting periodizations. The Russian Empire was one of the few countries in which the Society of Jesus was able to continue its activities after its suppression in 1773, but it was banished from Russia in 1820, just a few years after its reestablishment throughout the world in 1814. The Society would then remain forbidden in Russia through the October Revolution, while it was "tolerated" in France after 1814 but with no official status, and its members there did not engage in debate with their ideological "opponents."162
A second key issue is the importance of personal connections. The presence of the Jesuits in Russia from 1773 to 1820 led to a number of secret conversions to Catholicism among the Russian high aristocracy, giving rise to a "Russian Catholicism." The key role, however, was played by the converts of the 1840s, notably Fathers Gagarin and Martynov, who had had no direct contact with the Jesuits and were forced to leave Russia because of their new faith. In initiating public debates abroad concerning the Church of Rome, revolution, and the "union of the churches," they were deliberately arguing with the friends of their youth who were promoting Slavophile ideas. The responses of Ivan Aksakov and, especially Iurii Samarin, in turn, formed the basis of the Russian Jesuit myth. In other words, personal dynamics were more important to its formation, when compared with the appearance of the French myth in its modern form.
Third, the anti-Jesuit narrative that had existed in Russian culture since the end of the 18th century turned into a myth much later than in France, only in the 1860s at the time of the 1863 Polish Uprising—an acute crisis for the existence of the Russian Empire as a (geo)political entity. It thus became part of an anti-Catholic, anti-Polish, anti-Jesuit triad aimed primarily at the Catholic Church and its faithful. Men of letters who sought to explain to [End Page 824] educated society and the government the "sense" of the Polish Question were utilized by that government; transformed into men of action, they devised and enforced government policy in the territory of the Kingdom of Poland.
Finally, the Russian Jesuit myth also declined later in Russia than in France and Europe more generally, but its ghost left behind foundations for new myths, or rather for a new combination of parts of the old myths. Its influence lingered on in the historiographical debate on the place of Catholicism and the Jesuits in Russian history, which remained lively even after the fall of the Russian Empire and the establishment of the Soviet regime. [End Page 825]
Elena Astafieva is Researcher at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CERCEC, CNRS-EHESS) in Paris. She studies Russian imperial history with a special focus on the interactions among religion, science, and politics from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th. Her recent publications include "Theology, Religion, and Politics in Imperial Russia," Politika (https://www.politika.io/en/notice/theology-religion-and-politics-inimperial-russia); and "Found and Buy, Study and Appropriate, Build and Reconfigure: The Three Stages in Turning the "Coptic Domain" in Jerusalem into the Church of Saint Alexander Nevsky (1856–1896)," European Journal of Turkish Studies (https://journals.openedition.org/ejts/6195).
Footnotes
. Thanks to LabEx Tepsis, I was able to conduct research in the Manuscripts Section of the Russian State Library (NIOR RGB), the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), and the Russian State Historical Archive (RGIA). My warm thanks go to my colleagues Oleg Anisimov, Wladimir Berelowitch, Jawad Daheur, Roger Depledge, and Tetsuo Mochizuki for their valuable help, comments, and advice. I also wish to thank the anonymous reviewers of my text; their comments and remarks have been extremely useful for this research.
1. On the formation of the "French Jesuit myth," see Michel Leroy, Le mythe jésuite: De Béranger à Michelet (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1992); and more generally, Frank Damour, Pape noir: Genèse d'un mythe (Brussels: Lessius, 2013); and Damour, "Le mythe jésuite," Études 418, 5 (2013): 665–73. On the definition of "myth," see Roland Barthes, Mythologies (Paris: Seuil, 1957); Georges Van Riet, "Mythe et vérité," Revue philosophique de Louvain, 58, 57, pt. 3 (1960): 15–87; Raoul Girardet, Mythes et mythologies politiques (Paris: Seuil, 1986); Leroy, Mythe jésuite; and Leroy, "Mythe, religion et politique: La 'légende noire' des jésuites," Lusitania Sacra, 2nd series, 12 (2000): 367–76.
2. Loïc Nicolas, "Jésuites, Juifs, francs-maçons: La rhétorique au service de la conspiration," Diogène, no. 1–2 (249–50) (2015): 75–87.
3. Leroy, Mythe jésuite, 3.
4. Leroy, "Mythe, religion et politique," 368.
5. Ibid.
6. It would be interesting to examine the connections between these three major political movements and the three great myths that formed during the long 19th century.
7. Leroy, Mythe jésuite, 5.
8. On the question of the link between the "poetic" in the broadest sense and the political, see A. L. Zorin, Kormia dvuglavogo orla: Literatura i gosudarstvennaia ideologiia v Rossii v poslednei treti XVIII–pervoi treti XIX veka (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2001); and Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy. From Peter the Great to the Abdication of Nicholas II (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005).
9. The bibliography on the Polish Question and relations between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic worlds is extensive. See, e.g., Theodore R. Weeks, Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1861–1914 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996); Anna Komzolova, Politika samoderzhaviia v Severo-Zapadnom krae v epokhu Velikikh reform (Moscow: Nauka, 2005); Elena Astafieva, "L'Empire russe et le monde catholique: Entre représentations et pratiques, 1772–1905" (PhD diss., EPHE-Sorbonne, 2006); M. D. Dolbilov, Russkii krai, chuzhaia vera: Etnokonfessional´naia politika imperii v Litve i Belorussii pre Aleksandre II (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2010); Dolbilov and Darius Staliūnas, Obratnaia uniia: Iz istorii otnoshenii mezhdu katolitsizmom i pravoslaviem v Rossiiskoi imperii 1840–1873 (Vilnius: LII leidykia, 2010).
10. Marek Inglot, La Compagnia di Gesù nel Imperio Russo (1772–1820) et la sua parte nella restaurazione generale della Compagnia (Rome: Editrice Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, 1997); Elena Vishlenkova, Orden iezuitov i "Pol´skii vopros": Pol´skaia ssylka v Rossii XIX–XX vekov. Regional´nye tsentry (Kazan: n.p., 1998), 25–31; V. B. Lushpai, "Iezuity v politike Ekateriny II," Voprosy istorii, no. 8 (1999): 130–37; Sabina Pavone, Una strana alleanza: La Compagnia di Gesù in Russia dal 1772 al 1820 (Naples: Bibliopolis, 2010).
11. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii (hereafter PSZ), 48 vols. (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia Vtorogo otdeleniia Sobstvennoi Ego Imperatorskogo Velichestva Kantseliarii, 1830), vol. 19, no. 13.808 (§19, 4).
12. PSZ, vol. 19, nos. 14.102, 14.122.
13. PSZ, vol. 26, no. 19.987.
14. PSZ, vol. 33, no. 26.032. Since the government "was concerned for its subjects, who were not to be deprived of religious services," before the Jesuits were expelled from Moscow, it prepared "37 blank alien passports" for priests from Bavaria (22), France (11), and Italy (4). After that, the Jesuit fathers were "sent directly under control out of the country to wherever they wanted" (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii [GARF] f. 1165, op. 1, d. 33, ll. 1–23).
15. Vishlenkova, Orden iezuitov i "Pol´skii vopros," 25–31.
16. PSZ, vol. 37, nos. 28.198, 28.812.
17. He expressed these ideas in other texts too, such as Lettre à une dame russe sur la nature et les effets du schisme et sur l'unité catholique, written in February 1810, and Réflexions critiques d'un chrétien dévoué à la Russie sur l'ouvrage de Méthode, archevêque de Tver (March 1812), collected in Joseph de Maistre, Œuvres complètes en 14 volumes (Lyon: Vitte et Perrusel, 1884–87).
18. See also E. K. Tsimbaeva, Russkii katolitsizm: Zabytoe proshloe rossiiskogo liberalizma (Moscow: Editorial URSS, 1999), esp. 55 and 164–65 (appendix).
19. See, e.g., Ivan Sergeevich Gagarin's thoughts on liberty and despotism, republican ideals and revolution (Dnevnik. Zapiski o moei zhizni. Perepiska [Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kul´tury, 1996], 250, 254–55).
20. Even among Catholic converts there were some who thought "ill" of the Society of Jesus: for example, the convert Vladimir Pecherin wrote, "The very name 'Jesuit' was odious to me, and then a thought came to me: as soon as they hear in Russia that I have become a Jesuit, it will mean shame and ignominy" (Zamogil´nye zapiski, in Russkoe obshchestvo 30-kh godov XIX v.: Liudi i idei [Memuary sovremennikov], ed. I. A. Fedosov [Moscow: Izdatel´stvo Moskovskogo universiteta, 1989], 139).
21. This decision to join the Society of Jesus, which was perceived as the most "powerful" at that time, was probably due more to the personal fantasies—myths?—of the Russian converts who became Jesuits in France than to reality, at least as judged by legal and statistical facts. After the Society of Jesus had been reestablished throughout the world in 1814, Jesuits in France did not obtain the same legal status as before, and their position was fragile because they were merely "tolerated." In the 1820s, there were fewer than 500 Jesuits in France, their schools were attended by only 2,200 pupils, one-sixth of those at royal schools, and far from the 100,000 being taught in the 89 Jesuit schools in the 18th century (Leroy, "Mythe, religion et politique," 371–72).
22. For more details, see the first part of my doctoral thesis: Astafieva, "Empire russe et le monde catholique," 66–67.
23. On "Russian Catholicism," see Tsimbaeva, Russkii katolitsizm.
24. On the life and works of Gagarin, see Charles Clair, "Premières années et conversion du Prince Jean Gagarine," Revue du monde catholique 19 (1883): 113–15; Roger Tandonnet, "Le fondateur de l'Union des Églises," Études (November 1956): 182–95; Clotilde Giot, "I. S. Gagarine, premier jésuite russe et artisan de l'Union des Églises" (PhD diss., University of Lyon, 1993); Paul Pierling, Le Prince Gagarine et ses amis, 1814–1882 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1996); and René Marichal, "Ivan Sergeevič Gagarin, fondateur de la Bibliothèque slave," Les premières rencontres de l'Institut européen Est-Ouest (http://russie-europe.ens-lyon.fr/IMG/pdf/marechal.pdf).
25. Ivan Gagarine and Georges Samarine, Correspondance, 1838–1842 (Meudon: Plamia, 2002).
26. The young Gagarin wanted to become an active member of the Society, because he felt "a tender veneration for the Society, which so gloriously bears … the name of Jesus" (Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu [ARSI] Franc., 5–VII, 9–12).
27. Ivan Gagarine, La Russie sera-t-elle catholique? (Paris: Charles Douniol, 1856).
28. Ibid., 42–43.
29. Father Gagarin even wanted to send his pamphlet to Alexander II with a personal letter, but his superiors did not agree. Father Ambroise Rubillon, assistant to the Father Provincial for France, wrote to him: "However measured, however well-meaning it may be in its form, the content of this pamphlet is saying to Alexander: change your religion, give up the supreme power you exercise in the spiritual sphere, which is not yours. … And although you, exiled for having changed religion, are sending this book with a letter to the tsar, it does appear to me to be really too presumptuous. … Our father said that it went too far, but he would be quite happy for someone, especially in the embassy, to send it in his name" (quoted in Marichal, "Ivan Sergeevič Gagarin," 32).
30. Gagarine, Russie sera-t-elle catholique?, 68.
31. Ibid., 74.
32. Ibid., 80.
33. N. M. Karamzin, "Pis´mo 15, 1 iiulia, 1789," Pis´ma russkogo puteshestvennika (Moscow: AST, 2018), 33.
34. A. S. Pushkin, Boris Godunov: A Drama in Verse, trans. Alfred Hayes (London: Kegan Paul, 1918).
35. Tiouttchev, "La Question romaine," Articles politiques (1976): 559–61.
36. Jurij Samarine, "Extrait d'un article de fond du Journal Le Jour (1864, no. 12)," in his Les Jésuites et leurs rapports avec la Russie (Paris: Joël Cherbuliez, 1867), 2.
37. Ibid., 1–2.
38. Here he refers to the ideas of Mikhail Katkov and his Catholic "experts" like Hessen, discussed below.
39. Samarine, "Extrait d'un article," 3.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid., 4–5.
42. Ibid., 5–6.
43. Father Ivan Martynov, one of the 1840s generation of Russian Catholics, is a character of great interest for the history of "Russian Catholicism," but his life and works are little researched. He was born in Kazan in 1821 and entered the novitiate of the Society of Jesus in 1845. He wrote a number of texts on Russia, the Catholic Church in Poland, and the need to use Russian in Catholic worship, which are preserved in the Society of Jesus's Archives in Rome (ARSI Franc., 5-VII, 10); see also his abundant correspondence with the Fathers General of the Society of Jesus and the Vatican Archives (Archivio della Sacra Congregazione degli Affari Ecclesiastici Straordinari, Russia-Polonia, Pos. 320, fasc. 96 [1873]). He was chosen by Monsignor Dupanloup as a "personal theologian" during the preparations for the Vatican I Council, to the surprise of all, not least Father Gagarin (ARSI Provin. Fran., vol. V, 554 bis, 607–8). His writings in French include De la langue russe dans le culte catholique (Lyon: Pitrat, 1874) and Fragments glagolitiques du IXe siècle (Paris: Julien, Lanier et Cie, 1857).
44. Jurij Samarine, "Lettre du père jésuite Martynov du 2 mai 1864," in his Les Jésuites, 10–24.
45. Ibid., 10, 19–20.
46. Ibid., 21.
47. The second or January uprising began in early 1863 with Polish insurgents attacking Russian military barracks in various parts of the Kingdom of Poland. Although political dissatisfaction in the region had been growing since 1861, the imperial government was not prepared for these events, which it described as a "revolt." Reestablishment of a Polish state with the borders it had had before the First Partition of 1772 was the key goal of the insurgents' demands.
48. Moskovskie vedomosti, Russkii vestnik, and Sovremennaia letopis´ were three periodicals that Katkov published. All of Katkov's articles on the Polish Question and those of his "correspondents" on the ground were collected and published later as books, to which I refer: M. N. Katkov, 1863 god: Sobranie statei po pol´skomu voprosu, pomeshchavshikhsia v Moskovskikh vedomostiakh, Russkom vestnike i Sovremennoi letopisi (Moscow: V. V. Chicherin, 1887), fasc. 1–2; and Katkov, 1864 god: Sobranie peredovykh statei Moskovskikh vedomostei (Moscow: Universitetskaia tipografiia, 1888). On Katkov's influence, see also Dolbilov, Russkii krai, chuzhaia vera, esp. 460–75.
49. Katkov, 1863 god, 23.
50. Ibid., 45.
51. Ibid., 498.
52. Ibid., 504.
53. Ibid., 392; also Katkov, O tserkvi (Moscow: A. I. Snegirova, 1905), 110.
54. Katkov, 1863 god, 392–93.
55. Ibid., 393.
56. According to Hessen himself in a letter to Katkov, Minister of the Interior Petr Valuev recruited him, saying: "I would like to recruit Mr. Hessen; he is a Catholic, a sincere Catholic, and at the same time devoted to the Russian people; for that reason he may be useful to us" (Nauchno-issledovatel´skii otdel rukopisei Rossiiskoi gosudarstvennoi biblioteki [NIOR RGB] 120-2-20, l. 67). On the idea that he was an informant, see Archivio della Sacra Congregatione degli affari ecclesiastici straordinari, Russia-Polonia, Pos. 319–22. Apparently, Aleksandr Sivers suspected Hessen of being a "double agent." Hessen reported Sivers's words to Katkov: "It seems to me that Katkov has too much trust in his correspondents; how does he know that there may not be among them people operating at the suggestion of the Jesuits for the purpose expressed by Gagarin in his book La Russie sera-t-elle catholique? I would like to see Katkov to give him a certain piece of information" (NIOR RGB 120-2-20, l. 117).
57. Katkov, O tserkvi, 395.
58. Ibid.
59. Dolbilov, Russkii krai, chuzhaia vera, 464.
60. An expression used, e.g., in ibid., 460.
61. See Astafieva, "Empire russe et le monde catholique," particularly the section on 19thcentury Russian intellectuals' visions of the links between religious and ethnonational principles (332–470); and Elena Astafieva, "Théologique, religieux et politique en Empire russe," Politika dictionary (https://www.politika.io/fr/notice/theologique-religieux-politique-russieimperiale).
62. It was published first in Den´, no. 38 (1863), and later collected in Samarin's complete works: "Sovremennyi ob˝em pol´skogo voprosa," in Sochineniia Iu. F. Samarina (Moscow: A. I. Mamontov, 1877), 1:325–56.
63. Prince Vladimir Aleksandrovich Cherkasskii (1824–78) knew Samarin from their work with Nikolai Miliutin on the Editorial Commission (Redaktsionnaia komissiia) preparing the peasantry reforms (1858–60). For more on Cherkasskii, see "V. Cherkasskii," in Entsiklopedicheskii slovar´ (St. Petersburg: Brokgauz & Efron, 1903), 76:575; for Miliutin, see Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, Un homme d'État russe (Nicolas Milutine): D'après sa correspondence inédite. Étude sur la Russie et la Pologne pendant le régne d'Alexandre II (1855–1872) (Paris: Hachette, 1884).
64. Cited in Slavianskoe obozrenie (1892), 54.
65. There are also other articles on the Polish Question in the same volume of Samarin, Sochineniia Iu. F. Samarina. This discussion is at 325.
66. Ibid., 333–34.
67. Ibid., 342.
68. Ibid., 346.
69. Ibid., 347.
70. NIOR RGB f. 337-1-30, l. 1.
71. Ibid., l. 6.
72. Ibid.
73. In practice, Miliutin's "team" and military escort confined themselves to the areas close to the Warsaw-Vienna railway line. On Hilferding, see "Hilferding," in Russkii biograficheskii slovar´, ed. A. A. Polovtsov, vol. 5 (St. Petersburg: I. N. Skorokhodov, 1916), 195–204; and Henryk Głębocki, "Aleksandr Hilferding i slavianofil´skie proekty," Ab Imperio, no. 2 (2005): 135–65.
74. The results of their observations, the proposals and reforms, were published almost simultaneously: Issledovaniia v Tsarstve pol´skom po vysochaishemu poveleniiu proizvedennye pod rukovodstvom stats-sekretaria N. Miliutina, 6 vols. (St. Petersburg: n.p., 1863–66).
75. Russkii invalid, a press organ of the Ministry of War, whose minister, Dmitrii Miliutin, was also involved in "Polish affairs" and the brother of Nikolai, for whom and with whom Samarin and Hilferding were working. Some of Dmitrii Miliutin's memoirs have recently been published (Vospominaniia general-fel´dmarshala grafa Dmitriia Alekseevicha Miliutina, 1863–1864 [Moscow: Rosspen, 2003]).
76. Boris Nol´de, Iurii Samarin i ego vremia (Moscow: Algoritm, 2003), 178.
77. NIOR RGB 327-I-30, l. 19; Nolde, Iurii Samarin i ego vremia, 185, 196.
78. NIOR RGB RGB, 327-I-36-1, l. 42.
79. Nolde, Iurii Samarin i ego vremia, 197.
80. NIOR RGB 265-140-1, ll. 93–94. Samarin is referring to the books of the Prussian historian Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886), who wrote extensively about the papacy and the place of the Jesuits in the Catholic Church.
81. Ibid., l. 97.
82. Ibid., 107. On 19 September/7 October 1864, Samarin wrote to Aksakov from Ostend: "I've found quite an interesting book here, Lutteroth's letters on the Jesuits." On Henri Lutteroth, see below.
83. Relations between the Slavophiles and the tsarist government were not always easy, especially under Nicholas I. Slavophile ideas were perceived by the tsar as dangerous, and Samarin himself relates that during his meeting with the tsar in 1849 the latter said of the Slavophile movement: "[With your ideas] you directly targeted the government; you implied that from Tsar Peter I to myself we have all been surrounded by Germans and are ourselves Germans. Do you even understand yourselves what you want? You have turned public opinion against the government; this was preparation for another 14 December." Quoted by A. A. Teslia, Etapy istorii slavianofil´stva v kontekste issledovanii natsionalizma, 3 (http://www.hrono.ru/libris/pdf/tesla_aa_slavanophili%20main%20lines.pdf).
84. In 1856, Father Gagarin wrote: "These strange Christians have very poorly formed ideas about the divinity of Jesus Christ, and to tell the truth, they are much less concerned with their future lives and the ways of ensuring their eternal happiness than with the dominant position their Church could exercise in this world. Clear evidence is the ease with which these so vehement partisans of Orthodoxy agree with the adepts of Hegel's philosophy concerning the relations between church and state" (Russie sera-t-elle catholique?, 73). This is an allusion to Samarin's university thesis, defended in Moscow in 1844, in which the student Samarin, deeply affected by Hegel, analyzes the relations between the state and the Orthodox Church under Peter I.
85. NIOR RGB, 265-140-1, l. 126.
86. Ibid., ll. 128–29.
87. One of Samarin's frequently cited "source texts" is the moral theology textbook by the Jesuit theologian Hermann Busenbaum (Medulla theologiae moralis facili ac perspicua methodo resolvens, casus conscientiae [Antwerp: Verdussen, 1694]). Samarin sees it as a reference for St. Alphonsus Liguori, whose own work was the basis for Father Jean-Pierre Moullet's Compendium, published in Fribourg in 1834. In Busenbaum's book and those of his two successors, says Samarin, there are many more references to Jesuit casuistry than to Holy Scripture or the church fathers: "It is a sort of encyclopedia or guide with solutions for all doubtful cases" (NIOR RGB, 265-140-1, ll. 133–34). Comparing this passage with one written in the 1840s by Frédéric Busch, an eminent Protestant in Strasbourg, it can be seen that Samarin repeats Busch's arguments. See Leroy, Mythe jésuite, 81.
88. Samarin often refers to L'histoire des Jésuites by Father René François Guettée, a French church historian and theologian who converted to Russian Orthodoxy after his Histoire de l'Église de France was put on the Index. Naturally, Guettée could not be "neutral" in his historical work toward the Jesuits and the Church of Rome. Overall, Samarin had other "secondhand sources" produced over the centuries by Protestants, Gallicans, Jansenists, and European anticlericals, which he does not cite directly. On Father Guettée, see below.
89. See the article by Francesco Farusi in the Jesuit journal Simvol: "Iezuit: Semanticheskaia evoliutsiia etogo slova," Simvol, no. 26 (1991): 208–12. He shows that the word "Jesuit" has been used for centuries by Protestants, Gallicans, Illuminati, and others to "create a negative image of the Jesuits, so that the word will become the synonym of hypocrisy and dishonesty." Officially, the word "Jesuit" was first used by the Society of Jesus only in 1975. Frank Damour adds: "The very term 'Jesuit,' by which the Companions of Jesus were quickly known, helped form the myth. The word was never used by Ignatius or written in the Constitutions or any papal document before the Council of Trent. And for good reason: it is pejorative, used ironically as early as the Middle Ages to refer to the hypocrite or Pharisee. So this early name for the Companions of Ignatius was negative in tone." Indeed, "Jesuit" has kept this pejorative connotation in every European language, as attested in dictionaries from the 17th century on, defining a Jesuit as a "hypocrite" or "devious." Damour asks how far "the very name Jesuit bears the trace of the myth that haunted part of their history" ("Mythe jésuite," 665).
90. In this text, I use the French translation of the Letters (Samarin, Jésuites et leurs rapports, 27); on this translation, see below.
91. Samarin gives examples of direct or indirect involvement in a large number of assassinations of monarchs and even pontiffs over the centuries (ibid., 40). On financial misconduct, see ibid., 41, 63. He speaks of the Society practicing "child theft"; he reminds Russian readers of the story of the conversion of a Jewish child to Catholicism by Jesuit fathers in Polotsk in the early 19th century, one of the reasons for their banishment from the Russian Empire (ibid., 42). And he asserts that to convert the Japanese, Chinese, and other Asian peoples, "the Jesuit missionaries would imitate the external ways and customs of the idolatrous priests and pretended to be Brahmins, bonzes, and Mandarins" (ibid., 59–61).
92. Ibid., 101.
93. Ibid., 133.
94. Ibid., 235.
95. Ibid., 236.
96. For more details, see Leroy, Mythe jésuite.
97. There are a number of books on this topic, of which the most recent is Pierre Antoine Fabre and Catherine Maire, eds., Les Antijésuites: Discours, figures et lieux de l'antijésuitisme à l'époque moderne (Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2010).
98. Primarily the book by a graduate of the Kazan Theological Academy, A. I. Linov [Lilov], O zlovrednykh deistviiakh iezuitov v otnoshenii k pravoslavnoi tserkvi v Rossii v kontse XVI i v nachale XVII veka (Kazan: n.p., 1856) (Samarin, or his translator, cites the title in French). He also used Henri Lutteroth's book La Russie et les jésuites de 1772 à 1820, written and published in Paris in 1845, mentioned above. According to Gleb Struve, Lutteroth was a French Protestant historian and knew Turgenev, who gave him a number of documents on the Jesuits in Russia. See Struve, "Alexander Turgenev, Ambassador of Russian Culture in Partibus Infidelium," Slavic Review 29, 3 (1970): 454–55 n. 13.
99. Samarin ends his Letters: "To finish, allow me to give you some disinterested advice. Give up your designs on Russia and cease looking here for ground for your seeds. Believe me, there is none here" (Jésuites et leurs rapports, 344).
100. Ibid., 255–56.
101. NIOR RGB 327/I-36-1, l. 204.
102. In a letter from January 1866 to Pierre (Pieter) Beckx, Superior-General of the Society of Jesus, Gagarin writes of "violent attacks against the Society" and against him personally, as well as his desire to answer these "calumnies" (ARSI, Franc., 10-XXIII, 4). The request to publish is in NIOR RGB 120-18-11, 6 pp.
103. ARSI, Franc., 10-XXIII, 2.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid., 3.
106. Ibid. Interestingly, Father Gagarin also personally addresses Samarin, saying: "only one thing hurt me, and that is that these articles were signed with your name. … Your attacks cannot wipe out for me the memory of our former friendship. Of that you may be certain."
107. NIOR RGB 327/I-36-1, l. 257. Cherkasskii continues: "Samarin's articles were read with great appreciation" (ibid., l. 266); and "I am reading the fourth letter, to Martynov, particularly lively and well-written" (ibid., l. 292).
108. Nolde, Iurii Samarin i ego vremia, appendix: Letter no. 36, 522.
109. In his correspondence, Pope Pius IX is described as either "the old pope of Rome" or "the feeble-minded graybeard" (NIOR RGB 327/I-32-1, ll. 8–9, 14).
110. Cited in Slavianskoe obozrenie (1892): 314–15. See also NIOR RGB 327/I-30-2, l. 129.
111. Slavianskoe obozrenie (1892): 317.
112. NIOR RGB 327/I-35-1, ll. 105–6. Yet to achieve his ends, Cherkasskii even sought to use the methods for which Samarin reproached the Jesuits: to obtain the Holy See's confirmation of the puppet they had chosen as bishop, he suggested to Miliutin, "offering the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars (where, by all accounts here, corruption is quite advanced …) a gift of some 5,000 rubles" (NIOR RGB 327/I-31-1, l. 212). But Miliutin dissuaded him, because "even money, if we knew how to use it, cannot help us at this point" (NIOR RGB 327/I-31-1, l. 217).
113. NIOR RGB 327/I-37-1, l. 167.
114. NIOR RGB 327/I-32-1, l. 93.
115. The most important of these reforms were a change in the system of ecclesiastical patronage (ukase of 14 July 1864), the secularization of Catholic monasteries and the closure of some deemed to be "dangerous" (ukase of 27 October 1864), control of Catholic clergy's travel, the establishment of a state subsidy for the secular clergy (ukase of 14 December 1865), and new regulations for appointment to ecclesiastical functions (regulation of 30 June 1866). A number of archived documents in NIOR RGB show the process of preparing and implementing these reforms; see esp. 327/I-30-2 and 327/I-32-1; see also Issledovaniia v Tsarstve pol´skom, vol. 5.
116. This involved closing some Uniate monasteries (ukase of 28 November 1864), secularizing the Uniate clergy, and introducing Russian in divine service. For more details, see NIOR RGB 327/I-31-1, 327/I-34-5; 327/I-38-53; 327/I-34-28a, etc.; GARF f. 109, op. 2, d. 696, l. 12 and following.
117. NIOR RGB 327/I-40-2, ll. 2–9.
118. NIOR RGB 327/I-40-2, see also 327/I-33-63. The subordination of the Church in the Kingdom of Poland to the Catholic Ecclesiastical College in St. Petersburg cannot, for reasons of space, be analyzed here.
119. NIOR RGB 327/I-31-1, l. 39.
120. Ibid., l. 443.
121. She adds that Berg's wife, an Italian Catholic, "once had great hopes of converting her husband to Catholicism" from Lutheranism. She was encouraged by "highly fanatical people" and "by her spiritual father, apparently the pope himself," and had a great influence on her husband. Her arrival in the Kingdom of Poland "was awaited with hope, particularly for the monastic question" (NIOR RGB 327/I-35-1, l. 206).
122. Ibid., l. 210. To reinforce her idea (or rather her husband's), Princess Cherkasskaia shares her observations concerning the religious behavior of the viceroy: "Count Berg, officially a Lutheran, came only once a year, or even less, for communion at the German church. His other exercises of piety he shared strictly between Orthodoxy and Latinism, to satisfy the demands of his family and his office. Never before had any viceroy remained standing [vystaival] as faultlessly as Berg during the longest [Orthodox] episcopal services, and I have often seen him sleeping on his feet, then waking up and making the sign of the cross like a Latin and lightly beating his breast (mea culpa), probably thinking he was at St. John's." This was a reference to St. John's Cathedral, the largest Catholic place of worship in Warsaw.
123. Ibid., 209.
124. Ibid., 210.
125. Father René François (Vladimir) Guettée was accused of being a Jansenist and close to Gallicanism. See Jean-Paul Besse, Un précurseur: Wladimir Guettée (1816–1892), du Gallicanisme à l'Orthodoxie (Lavardac: Monastère Orthodoxe Saint Michel, 1992). For Cherkasskii's request, see NIOR RGB 327/I-7-14, l. 1.
126. NIOR RGB 327/I-7-14, l. 1.
127. Ibid., l. 2.
128. Ibid., l. 3.
129. Ibid., l. 3. Father Guettée lists all the propaganda methods used by the Oeuvre du catholicisme en Pologne. First, it places young Poles in seminaries to be educated for free and then sent to Poland on various missions, "either as secret agents, or priests, or teachers." In addition, "it works to introduce them into Russian families," in Russia and especially outside that country. He further expressed his regret: "Unfortunately there are Russians in Paris who think themselves highly honored to be received in the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain, which are under the domination … of Jesuitism. Continual efforts are made to place in these families Jesuit tutors, as Catholic priests, who are the secret agents of the Society of Jesus."
130. Ibid., l. 4.
131. Ibid.
132. Ibid. "A few pages would suffice for each booklet."
133. Ibid.
134. Ibid.
135. Interestingly, in the margin of this last letter, Cherkasskii writes, "He is not Orthodox at all." Later in his letter to Samarin, he repeats this point: "From my correspondence with Abbé Gaité [sic] I have realized that in fact he is not Orthodox" (NIOR RGB 327/II-7-2, l. 25).
136. Leroy, "Mythe, religion et politique," 373.
137. On the concordat between the Russian Empire and the Holy See and its abrogation, see Astafieva, "Le Concordat de 1847 entre la Russie impériale et le Saint-Siège: Origines, contenu et suites," in Le droit ecclésiastique en Europe et à ses marges (XVIIIe–XXe siècle), ed. Brigitte Basdevant-Gaudemet (Leuven: Peeters, 2009), 47–61; and Ol´ga Serova, Rossiia i Vatikan: Politika i diplomatiia. XIX–nachalo XX veka, 1: 1825–1870 (Moscow: Iazyki slavianskoi kul´tury, 2018), esp. 776.
138. NIOR RGB 327/I-37-1, l. 222.
139. Ibid., l. 226.
140. Ibid., ll. 251–52.
141. Ibid., l. 272.
142. For more, see GARF f. 547, op. 1, d. 169, l. 50.
143. See, e.g., GARF f. 109, op. 2, d. 824.
144. Quoted by A. A. Teslia, "'Mif ob iezuitakh' v otsutstvie iezuitov: Rossiia 1860-e," Logos 27, 4 (2017): 55.
145. Theofanis G. Stavrou, Russian Interests in Palestine, 1882–1914 (Thessaloniki: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1963); Derek Hopwood, The Russian Presence in Syria and Palestine, 1843–1914: Church and Politics in the Near East (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969); Elena Astafieva, "La Russie en Terre Sainte: Le cas de la Société Impériale Orthodoxe de Palestine (1882–1917)," Cristianesimo nella storia, no. 1 (2003): 41–68; Eileen Kane, "Pilgrims, Holy Places, and the Multi-confessional Empire: Russian Policy toward the Ottoman Empire under Tsar Nicholas I, 1825–1855" (PhD diss., Princeton University, 2005); N. N. Lisovoi, Russkoe dukhovnoe prisutstvie v Sviatoi Zemle v XIX–nachale XX vv. (Moscow: Indrik, 2006); K. A. Vakh, ed., Velikii kniaz´ Konstantin Nikolaevich i russkoe palomnichestvo v Sviatuiu Zemliu (Moscow: Indrik, 2012); O. V. Anisimov, Rossiia i Napoleon III (Moscow: Indrik, 2014); Astafieva, "How to Transfer 'Holy Russia' into the Holy Land? Russian Policy in Palestine in the Late Imperial Period," Jerusalem Quarterly, no. 71 (2017) (https://www.palestine-studies.org/sites/default/files/jq-articles/Pages%20from%20JQ%2071%20-%20Astafieva.pdf).
146. Bartenev also published Five Letters in brochure format; it would be instructive to examine the possible connections between the interests of propaganda—pursued by the Slavophiles and probably in part supported by government representatives—and economic interests, particularly those of author and publisher. On the Jesuit fathers' activities in the Arab territories of the Ottoman Empire at that time, see Chantal Verdeil, La mission jésuite du Mont-Liban et de Syrie (1830–1864) (Paris: Les Indes savantes, 2011).
147. During one of Gagarin's visits to the Middle East, he met a group of Bulgarian seminarians and subsequently began to think of setting up "a college for them." For more, see Marichal, "Ivan Sergeevič Gagarin," 36.
148. Quoted by Teslia, "'Mif ob iezuitakh' v otsutsvie iezuitov," 55.
149. Samarine, Jésuites et leurs rapports.
150. As mentioned above, only the fourth and fifth Letters were devoted to the history of the Jesuits in the western lands of the Russian Empire after the Three Partitions of Poland and the ban on the Society, as well as a general discussion of the links between the Jesuits and Russia; in other words, of the 319 pages of the French text, only 83 were devoted to "the relations of the Jesuits with Russia."
151. Louis Lescoeur, L'Église de Pologne: Exposé, avec pièces à l'appui, de ce qu'a fait le Souverain Pontife Pie IX pour porter remède aux maux que souffre l'Église catholique de Pologne (Paris: V. Palmé, 1868).
152. In his text Samarin refers to Dmitrii Tolstoi, Le Catholicisme romain en Russie: Études historiques, 2 vols. (Paris: Dentu, 1863–64). Tolstoi was at that time a senior official in the Russian Ministry of National Education and a member of the State Council. His book was published in French at the time of the Polish Uprising but had been written 15 years earlier at the personal request of Nicholas I, to respond to "the accusations of Pope Gregory XVI."
153. Aleksandr Popov, Posledniaia sud´ba papskoi politiki v Rossii, 1845–1867 (St. Petersburg: F. S. Sushchinskii, 1868).
154. More than 20 publications have been found from 1867 to 1913 in the form of "research" or translations, of which the most notable are Mikhail Moroshkin, Iezuity v Rossii: S tsarstvovaniia Ekateriny II-i i do nashego vremeni, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg: n.p., 1867–70); Johannes Huber, Iezuity, ikh uchenie, organizatsiia i prakticheskaia deiatel´nost´ v sfere obshchestvennoi zhizni, politiki i religii (St. Petersburg: F. Pavlenkov, 1898) (translated from German); Andrei Demianovich, Iezuity v Zapadnoi Rossii v 1569–1772 (St. Petersburg: V. I. Golovin, 1872); Bishop Vladimir, Nedobrye dela iezuitov v Iaponskoi Imperii v 16-m i 17-m vekakh i do nastoiashchego vremeni (Voronezh: n.p., 1892); Konstantin Trubnikov, Russkie iezuity i istina (n.p., 1895); and Dmitrii Skvortsov, Orden iezuitov, kak sila polititcheskaia (n.p., 1897). Note that the number of books about the Jesuits increased in the years after the 1905 October Manifesto, which allowed former Uniates in the Kingdom of Poland who had been forcibly converted to Orthodoxy by state decree in 1875 to adopt Catholicism.
155. It has been established that there were from six to eight publications of this type by Gagarin, of which the most important are Récit d'un jésuite de la Russie (Paris, V. Palmé, 1872), and Les Jésuites en Russie, 1806–1816 (Paris: n.p., 1877).
156. Paul Pierling, La Russie et le Saint-Siège: Études diplomatiques, 5 vols. (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit, et Cie, 1896–1912); Adrien Boudou, Le Saint-Siège et la Russie: Leurs relations diplomatiques au XIXe siècle, 2 vols. (Paris: Plon, 1922–25); Marie-Joseph Rouët de Journel, La Nonciature d'Arezzo (1802–1806), 5 vols. (Rome: Imprimerie polyglotte vaticane, 1922–27).
157. Note that this "war" continued during the Soviet period, waged on the Catholic side by a highly committed Polish researcher, Zofia Olszamowska-Skowrońska, and on the Soviet side by Evgenii Adamov and Eduard Winter.
158. Damour points out that the parallels drawn between Jews and Jesuits are almost as old as the Society; in 1554, in his text for the University of Paris, Étienne Pasquier claims that there "was a lot of Jewishness in Jesuitry" (Damour, "Mythe jésuite," 668).
159. Ibid., 670.
160. Vasilii Rozanov, "Antisemitizm-antiiezuitizm," in his 1900 god v neizvestnoi perepiske, stat´iakh, rasskazakh i iumoreskakh Vasiliia Rozanova, Ivana Romanova-Rtsy i Petra Pertsova (St. Petersburg: Rodnik, 2014), 400.
161. Teslia, "'Mif ob iezuitakh' v otsustvie iezuitov," 62.
162. As Leroy notes, there is only one known contribution by Jesuits to counter the debates against them "concerning the Jesuit myth": in 1844, Father Xavier de Ravignan, a preacher at Notre-Dame in Paris, published De l'Existence et de l'Institut des Jésuites, which had "a huge success" (Leroy, "Mythe, religion et politique," 372).
