The Muscovian Letters of Francesco Locatelli (1735), or the illusory modernisation of Russia’s legal and political system during the reign of Peter the Great and his successors
The Muscovian Letters of Francesco Locatelli (1735), or the illusory modernisation of Russia’s legal and political system during the reign of Peter the Great and his successors

Summary/Abstract: In the 18th century thinkers of the French Enlightenment discover Russia, whose institutional reforms replace their traditional utopian topics. The myths of Peter the Great and of Catherine II as Minerva of the North are created. Russia also becomes a peculiar laboratory of Enlightenment incarnate. Francesco Locatelli, the author of the Muscovian Letters, who between 1733 and 1735 spent two years in Russian prisons, attempts to deconstruct these myths. His book, which enjoyed an immense popularity in Europe, is an accusation of arbitrariness and inhumanity of the Russian regime.

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