In 1775, Johann Gottfried Reichel, a professor of history at Moscow University, delivered a speech (Slovo) in honor of Catherine II’s birthday, titled “On the Manner in Which the Ancients Awakened Love for the Fatherland in Their Citizens.”^[1] Consider Reichel’s summary of the ways in which the ancient Greeks and Romans manufactured patriotic love:

“…this love was awakened, strengthened, and distributed by education; instruction; employing the art of poetry; by public displays of remembrance; by praise; public generosity; public honoring; the teachings of philosophers and the propositions of heathen cults.”^[2]

This article traces the representations and creation of a patriotic program in Catherinian Russia. In so doing, it will touch upon almost all of the Hellenistic and Latin instantiations of patriotism that Reichel invoked. At a most basic level, the article asks how love for the fatherland manifested itself, how it could be evoked in the first place, and how it was consequently perpetuated and solidified. Reichel’s speech is emblematic for a specifically Russian patriotic program and maps some of the new terrain in which emotions could be articulated in Catherinian Russia. The Slovo thus tells us something, I believe, about the political culture in the second half of the eighteenth century. This political culture was marked, on the one hand, by a language of emotion that put a premium on the empress’s motherliness and love for her subjects. On the other hand, it was characterized by an emphasis on morality and inner virtue, according to Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter a critical dimension of Catherine’s concept of a “civic society” in Russia during the second half of the eighteenth century.^[3] With its patriotic program, in Wirtschafter’s words, “the absolute monarchy co-opted morality into politics.”^[4]
Love of the fatherland functioned as both an orienting guide and a norm that created obligations in times of crises and the larger transition from a small-scale to a large-scale society. Wars, imperial expansion, and the creation of estates demanded a greater commitment to the common good and a redefined relationship between the individual and the community.^[5]
Reichel’s speech was held at Moscow University on the occasion of the birthday of her majesty, Catherine II, the “Mother of the fatherland.” Such family celebrations were intended to strengthen the imagined emotional bond between rulers and ruled. They were part of a familial, emotionally charged imagery routinely deployed on such occasions, an imagery that had already become an integral part of celebratory ceremonies at new educational institutions, such as Moscow University (founded in 1755). These family celebrations had also been integrated into state-propagated patriotic education. Explications of the love of the fatherland developed along the lines of Greek and Roman historical examples and became an important element in the reception of antiquity as well as in the process of Europeanization during the second half of the eighteenth century. Significantly, the creation of a patriotic emotional culture and reflections on what love for the fatherland actually stood for developed within a European context: they always incorporated and adapted West European teachings. Reichel himself belonged to the many foreign scholars who disseminated West European knowledge throughout the Russian Empire. He had studied in Leipzig under Johann Christoph Gottsched and in 1762 became professor of German and rhetoric at Moscow University, where he regularly gave celebratory speeches such as the one cited above. He had many Russian followers and pupils, not least of whom was Denis Fonvizin.^[6]
Because of its empire-wide conceptual reach, love of the fatherland as a virtue and qualification potentially included everyone. This was particularly relevant for those foreigners who chose the Russian Empire as their new fatherland. Speeches such as that of Reichel legitimized the existence of these foreigners in the Empire and can be seen as part of their personal efforts to integrate themselves. Reichel, for example, wrote about a speech delivered in 1762 on the occasion of Catherine’s coronation to fellow historian Gerhard Friedrich Müller of the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg: “My speech may not prove my eloquence, but at least it will always be a public testimonial of my patriotic conviction toward the Russian Empire, because it certainly flowed from my innermost heart.”^[7]
Reichel delivered his speeches in Latin. Khariton Chebotarev, who was librarian and later professor and chancellor of Moscow University, translated the texts into Russian for print.^[8] In eighteenth-century Russia, public speech itself was a new medium that created publicity and developed its own, highly specific language. Like other university speeches, the Russian version of Reichel’s Slovo was produced by the university’s own typography and could thus, thanks to the new medium of print, circulate in the wider literate world beyond the community of Reichel’s listeners.
Using the example of Catherinian Russia, this article investigates the larger phenomenon of the invocation of love of the fatherland and the monarch as a fundamental element of state–society communication.^[9] The purpose of this political-emotional concept was to create loyalty to a larger-than-local entity by linking traditional loci of emotion – religion and the family – with the polity. The concept of love of the fatherland projected family ties and religious devotion onto the state and connected the traditionally religious emotional system with a new sense of community, which was no longer exclusively built on religious values.^[10]
From the ruler’s point of view, love of the fatherland should mobilize the common good and, as a “virtuous teaching,” steer passions in the right direction. This topic decidedly moved to the fore after the emancipation of the nobility in 1762 when the nobility had to redefine itself. As a consequence, the idea of duty out of love replaced both self-referential duty (duty out of duty) and coerced duty. The social obligation to serve was transformed into a personal moral obligation.^[11] Appeals to love of the fatherland were communicated through new media and incorporated into the state’s educational initiatives. As a concept, love of the fatherland was first and foremost geared toward the elite, namely, the nobility and imperial officialdom.^[12] However, as an educational ideal it was also disseminated via educational institutions to non-noble estates. For the subjects, love of the fatherland offered a possibility to connect the old with the new Russia and both to understand and live up to the enormous challenges that the transformation processes of the “changed Russia” engendered.^[13] In the age of enlightenment, these patriotic feelings complemented the seeming dominance of reason and offered a model of order that joined the ancient with the novel, the foreign with the native. Defining the state as “fatherland” related each individual to this abstract entity.^[14] Last but not least, love of the fatherland carved out a new discursive space for the political and compensated for the lack of legal participation in power.^[15]
In the following I hope to show how politics and emotion were deliberately combined during the second half of the eighteenth century. My article thus probes the emotional style and the emotional standards of love of the fatherland, as conceived and realized by the state and its educational institutions. My approach is inspired by “emotionology” (Peter and Carol Stearns), that is, “the attitudes or standards that a society, or a definable group within a society, maintains toward basic emotions and their appropriate expression; ways that institutions reflect and encourage these attitudes in human conduct.”^[16] As for “appropriate expression,” one might also say that the following constitutes an attempt to reconstruct the “feeling rules” (Arlie Hochschild) or “display rules” (Paul Ekman) for patriotic feelings.^[17] The sources for my inquiry in the discourse and practices of patriotic emotion include government documents, textbooks, and speeches.^[18]

EMOTION AND COMMUNICATION FROM ABOVE: “MOTHER OF THE FATHERLAND” AND “SONS OF THE FATHERLAND”

Reichel delivered his speech on the occasion of Catherine II’s birthday in 1775. Birthdays of rulers, Reichel elaborated, give reason for all subjects to “rejoice” and celebrate: “The day has come, which for us Russians is the happiest and which we celebrate with great joy and great reverence.”^[19] Such feasts allowed for the display of emotions and for a celebration of the personal tie between the empress and her subjects. Russian rulers had begun to foster similar festivities since the beginning of the century. These celebrations became part of a new style in communication, which was marked by a communal semantics of the family. While the decrees of the Petrine era sounded more like top-down orders, there was now the didactic tone of a concerned ruler who strove hard to be understood by his/her subjects. The government’s rhetoric described the relationship between rulers and subjects as a community united in love for the fatherland. This emotional order was expressed in the personal metaphors “Mother of the fatherland” and “son of the fatherland.”^[20] Love of the fatherland was propagated as the highest motivation for action. This emotion was supposed to fulfill a social function. It connected ruler and subjects as well as subjects and subjects, and held all responsible to contribute to the common good. This collective emotional attitude was also supposed to inform individual actions, to “guide individual effort.”^[21] In the emotionally suffused rhetoric of love for the fatherland, from the ruler’s perspective the execution of duties and respect for the law constituted the most important proof of love. From the perspective of the ruled, patriotic rhetoric put an obligation on the ruler to take on the role of a caring father or mother.^[22] Reichel, for instance, considered only the birthdays of “caring rulers” to be sufficient grounds for rejoicing.^[23] Other speeches featured appeals to the tsar or tsarina to “love them [the Majesty’s subjects – I. S.] as they do love you” or hailed “the love of the people as a ruler’s greatest glory.”^[24] Consequently, the exemplary qualities of a monarch hinged on his or her love of the fatherland and his or her commitment to the common good. If a monarch failed to live up to this expectation, the rhetoric of love of the fatherland could lead to a loss of love for the ruler and ultimately have a destabilizing, implosive effect on the entire sociopolitical system. Consequently, too, the rhetoric of “love of the fatherland” played an important role in all of the violent changes of power during the eighteenth century.^[25] Whenever the succession to the throne was unclear, love for the fatherland was invoked to legitimize palace revolts, particularly if the perception was that the ruler, as was the case with Peter III, neither fulfilled his obligation to provide for the welfare of his subjects nor properly lived his role as an example.^[26] In times of sociopolitical upheaval only love of the fatherland seemed to promise a restoration of order.
In the age of enlightened absolutism, appeals to reason and understanding for the necessity of unpopular political measures characterized the official communicative style. It should be remembered, however, that such rational didactics were always embedded in the larger, emotionally charged discursive bed of the empress’s all-encompassing motherly care and tireless work for the well-being of the fatherland.^[27]
More specifically, government rhetoric employed emotions in the following contexts: in legitimizing explanations of governmental measures; in appeals for the fulfillment of duty and obeying the law; in constructions of communal memory; and when pointing to a divine order. Patriotic rhetoric signaled that the common good superseded personal well-being. Patriotic love was pure (istinnaia) and selfless.^[28] Hence Catherine II also pointed to her “true love of the fatherland” (istinnaia liubov′ k otechestvu), which had moved her to ascend the throne.^[29]
The endless admonitions to show obedience and effort toward the common good now were routinely tied to emotions. Fulfilling one’s obligations according to one’s status and office no longer seemed to suffice.^[30] All appeals to fulfill one’s duty interweaved loyalty to the ruler with love of the fatherland. Serving the ruler and the beloved fatherland became a fixed formula in governmental communication. Duties were supposed to become internalized and “planted into the hearts.”^[31] In her manual for a future legislation, the Nakaz of 1767, Catherine II even wielded patriotic feelings in the battle of crime prevention: “The love of the fatherland, disgrace, and the fear of shame are those means …, by which most crimes can be prevented.”^[32]
Similarly, emotions became a staple of the politics of history and were targeted in efforts to conjure up patriotic memories. In the 1785 Charter to the Nobility, for example, the incorporation of territories along the Black Sea was tied to the memory of Russia’s baptism. The gain in land was supposed to bring not only strategic and economic advantages, but also – emotionally and religiously coded – joy for each individual:

“Each Russian [Rossiianin] feels a deep joy in his soul, when he pictures this land during the times of Vladimir, when by holy baptism this prince … spread the saving Christian faith over all of Russia…”^[33]

Here we have an attempt to incorporate the new territories emotionally into the empire, an example of, if you will, emotional-geographic expansion. Peace treaty manifestoes in particular were permeated by religious feelings. Gratitude toward divine providence and the fulfillment of god-given governmental duties dominated these documents. On the occasion of the 1774 peace with the Ottoman Empire, Catherine expressed the hope “that our sons and those of the fatherland feel our motherly affection for them and that they join us in uniting minds and hearts for a well-earned thanksgiving to God.”^[34]
Over time one can observe a dissemination in more, and different, kinds of media of emotional-patriotic rhetoric. The “love of the fatherland” now was not only conjured up in manifestoes and orders (ukazy), but also was spread as a slogan on ruble notes. Since the 1770s, “love of the fatherland” appeared as an inscription on printed money.^[35]
The explosion of performative media also had an impact. In the second half of the eighteenth century, the emotional ties between rulers and their subjects were increasingly articulated in new rituals, ceremonies, decorations, gifts, and gestures. The members of the 1767 legislative commission formally proposed to Catherine the honorary title “Mother of the fatherland” as a sign of the love of her majesty’s subjects.^[36] While Peter I had been the first to receive the title “Otets otechestva,” which was modeled on the classical concept of pater patriae, this title had yet to become linked with emotionally charged rhetoric.^[37] Organized religion – the sermons and speeches of high Church officials – achieved this linkage; thus the empresses after Peter I were ascribed the role of “Mat’ otechestva,” or, defender of faith and fatherland (pace, for instance, the Order of St. Catherine’s [founded 1714] motto, “For Love and Fatherland” [Za liubov’ i otechestvo]).^[38]
The 1767 proposal to honor Catherine II as “Mat’ otechestva” was submitted “in the name of the senate and the people” and purportedly expressed “heartfelt emotions” (serdechnyia chuvstva). The text of the proposal characterized the deputies as “burning with love” (liuboviiu pylaia) and carried away by emotion (chuvstvitel’nost’) upon reading the Nakaz.^[39] The empress in turn expressed her gratitude for the proposal to bestow this title upon her. However, probably as a shrewd political move and in keeping with the traditional rhetoric of conspicuous modesty, she rejected the title. “I consider it the duty of my office to love my god-given subjects; to be loved by them is my wish,” Catherine proclaimed.^[40] Still, in real life many called the empress by the title. On coins, busts, in odes and speeches, she was continuously labeled “Mother of the fatherland.” Reichel, for example, addressed the empress as “most precious Mother of the fatherland” (vsedrazhaishaia Mat’ otechestva).^[41] In addition to the formal proposal of the title, the legislative commission received requests from various circles for permission to erect a statue of her majesty.^[42] Other signs of mutual love between the empress and her subjects proliferated. For instance, F. G. Sideau’s 1782 painting depicts Catherine surrounded by her family and closest courtiers and features the inscription: “Oh, you all-too-fortunate subjects! As she loves these children, so does she love you.”^[43] Likewise, on a coin issued by the St. Petersburg mint, Catherine is depicted as Minerva writing on a board, which is handed to her by Russia personified as a female figure. The accompanying inscription says: “This is how you should love her.”^[44]
A further representational strategy of the Catherinian era was extensive travel throughout the vast empire.^[45] These journeys went far beyond the pilgrimages to monasteries and the icons that had belonged to the traditional travel repertoire of Russian rulers. Catherine’s visits also targeted secular institutions such as the newly founded gubernii, or were supposed to demonstrate the imperial appropriation and incorporation of new territories. During these journeys, personal encounters with the empress were meant to showcase the close ties between the ruler and her subjects; they made this union visible and emotionally tangible both to those present, empress and subjects, and – via media – the wider world.^[46] Flowers would line the empress’s paths on these occasions. The imperial visits drew large, and often rural, crowds in provincial towns and sometimes offered a chance of kissing her majesty’s hands.^[47] The reactions often took recourse to emotional language: throwing a single glance at the empress filled contemporaries with “feelings of joy.”^[48] According to some reports, Catherine expressly prohibited any attempts by local officials to disperse crowds, arguing “that she is among her children, whom she loves and by whom she has the honor of being loved. Nobody has the right to prohibit them from seeing their mother.”^[49]
Concomitant with the establishment of love of the fatherland as a new emotional standard was the promise of safeguarding the earthly “happiness” (schast’e) of her subjects.^[50] Consider Catherine II’s Nakaz: “May all examples and traditions of various peoples, as they are used in this work, show no other effect than to add to the array of measures, by which the Russian people [narod Rossiiskii] attain happiness as best as humanly possible.”^[51] Finally, it bears noting that the love for ruler and fatherland, as promoted under Catherine II, never renounced the idea of ascetic, religious love, with its selflessness and purity. The secular-patriotic and religious love programs were closely intertwined. The earthly and the eternal fatherland were two parts of one whole.

PATRIOTIC EDUCATION: LOVE OF THE FATHERLAND AS A CIVIC VIRTUE

“Good citizens,” Reichel explained in his speech, experienced joy on the birthdays of caring rulers.^[52] In the eighteenth century, emotions and familial ties between rulers and subjects became staple descriptions of the “good citizen” and “son of the fatherland.”^[53] This new type of subject distinguished himself through patriotism, which was defined as civic virtue and as commitment to the common good. He not only obeyed the law but also experienced an emotional union with god, his ruler, and the fatherland. He constantly worked on the perfection of patriotic love in himself and in others. This ideal subject was male because patriotic virtues were grafted onto a legally defined concept of citizenship, which excluded women. “Daughters of the fatherland” were inconceivable in a legal order that saw male individuals as the foundation of state and society.^[54]
Love of the fatherland, continued Reichel, had to be “awakened, strengthened, and solidified in their hearts.” Reichel’s wording demonstrates that patriotism was a goal to be attained and then internalized.^[55] Each citizen would have to do his share to shape and perfect the emotion.^[56] Reichel’s vocabulary was typical for the patriotic language of German scholars of his time, who aimed at the internalization of an emotional world attached to the secular state.^[57] In Reichel’s own words:

“If we regard this with the appropriate respect and attention, we can easily see our duties, which we owe our rulers, meaning that in our lives we not only perfectly obey their laws and orders, but also appreciate all those deeds they undertake for our bliss; ascribe their efforts to god, and devoutly retain our love of the fatherland along with our love for them. Let us plant it deeper and deeper into our hearts every day and strive as best we can to kindle it in others.”^[58]

So much for that. Yet there is more to Reichel’s Slovo. Reichel applied the ancient republican ideal of amor patriae to Russia’s present. He discussed at length whether patriotism can exist in monarchies or only, as the ancient traditions would have it, in republics.^[59] Needless to say, in his historical analogies Reichel ignored those – foreign – voices that considered Russia’s autocracy to be despotic rather than monarchic.^[60] At the outset Reichel lists negative examples from republics in which love of the fatherland turned into wrath after individuals or groups used the veil of patriotism to get to power. In Reichel’s account the ideal form of monarchy was a positive counterexample to this model; it had proved that it was indeed capable to “awaken, safeguard, adhere to, and spread” the love of the fatherland.^[61]
In Reichel’s scheme, love of the fatherland served as a moral codex and motivated actions. The love for one’s rulers and one’s obedience to imperial law were the foundation of this patriotic attachment to the fatherland. The fulfillment of duties and the subordination of self-interest to the common good were the abstract signs of this love, service for the empress and the fatherland – “with heartfelt pleasure” – its concrete instantiations.^[62]
As for the objects of love, Reichel introduced a hierarchy only when adducing teachings on duty from antiquity (Socrates, Plato, and Cicero). These ancient authors described “love of the fatherland” as the most important duty of the “good citizen.” The fatherland towered above everything as “something grandiose,” which deserved more obedience than one’s own father.^[63] Pointing to Cicero, Reichel explained that the fatherland was the object of the indivisible love of all: “Our parents, children, relatives, and friends are dear to us; but all of love and the love of all are contained within the fatherland; which virtuous man would ever hesitate to give his life to be of service to it?”^[64]
To strengthen this love of the fatherland became a major educational project during the eighteenth century. Since it was a feeling and a virtue, and hence independent of background, rank, and rational capabilities, it could be claimed from anyone. As the most important motivating factors, which would generate love of the fatherland, Reichel introduced the example of the empress, Christian laws, as well as honor and the prospect of rewards.
Reichel underscored the special role the empress played in this educational process: she acted as an example and fulfilled her motherly duty, which demanded that she educate her subjects. One of the major functions ascribed to the empress in speeches was that of a role model of patriotism. This role represented the personal, accessible side of the reforming tsar’s image, as developed in panegyrics and the belles lettres of the eighteenth century.^[65] To be sure, Reichel ventured, there was no lack of “glorious and strongly patriotic men,” whose example could “improve adolescent hearts.” But the highest ideal was the empress herself – the “best and most perfect example in her love of the fatherland.”^[66] She displayed “heroic virtues.”^[67] The empress’s love for “us and the fatherland” should serve, again in Reichel’s words, as an “encouraging example to fulfill this virtue, so that our main focus in all things is set on the fatherland and thus the common good.”^[68]
Reichel drew on Catherine’s Nakaz as the most important document of imperial patriotic instruction. This manual combined the commandments of Christian compassion with patriotic educational goals. Reichel quoted paragraphs 1 and 2 of the Nakaz:

“The Christian religion teaches us that one does upon the other as much good as is possible. Since we consider this rule, that is given by the Christian law, as one already planted or yet to be planted in the hearts of our entire people, we cannot follow any other principle except that it is or will be the wish of each honorable person in society to see his entire fatherland on the highest level of well-being, fame, happiness and peace.”^[69]

Reichel emphasized the unifying power of Christian teachings, which could stimulate patriotism. Those who lived the civic virtue of patriotism were rewarded not only in this life, but could also be sure of God’s mercy.^[70] As a third stimulus that kindled patriotism, yet with frequent references to ancient texts, Reichel introduced personal honor (chest’). This impetus for human action purportedly held a powerful grip on “the noble heart” and “the healthy mind.”^[71] Generally speaking, he thought that a loosening of honor leads to the collapse of everything.^[72] As for the Russian Empire, Reichel described how the empress opened pathways to honor via a system of rewards and public veneration.^[73]
Quoting the Nakaz, Reichel identified the empress and those parents “who lead their children toward love of the fatherland” as the two key institutions in the educational process.^[74] Catherine II took her educational role very seriously. With the Provincial Statute, which was issued in the year of Reichel’s speech, she laid the foundation of a school system in Russia. In 1786, there was a follow-up statute on public schools, which were supposed to teach “God’s laws and the fundamental rules of unshakable loyalty to the ruler and the true love of the fatherland and its citizens.”^[75] What is more, there were long chapters on the topic of patriotism in the textbook O dolzhnostiakh cheloveka i grazhdanina, which was to be introduced in fourth grade at all imperial schools.^[76] Like other textbooks it was basically compiled from foreign models, and put together at the behest of the empress by Janković de Mirievo, a Serb (interestingly for our purposes, he had studied under Joseph von Sonnenfels, a scholar of cameralism at the University of Vienna and the author of a 1771 treatise titled Über die Liebe zum Vaterland [On the Love of the Fatherland]).^[77]
As the textbook’s title suggests, and consistent with Reichel’s speech, love of the fatherland functioned as a lesson in duty: “Love of the fatherland is the duty of each member of the state [chlen gosudarstva] and each subject.”^[78] Loyalty and “honest feelings” (chestnyia chuvstvovaniia) were put on a natural law footing: subjects were obliged to have these feelings in return for rights and privileges.^[79] This also implied that the ruler only “earned” the love of her subjects, if she was concerned about their well-being. The textbook defined love of the fatherland as a “civic virtue” (grazhdanskaia dobrodetel’).^[80] It had to be elicited, shaped by education, carefully cultivated, and eventually perfected. Janković explained at length “what it is that brings forth a love of the fatherland in our hearts.”^[81] A lack of patriotism was ascribed to deficient education.^[82] While, as we have seen, love of the fatherland manifested itself mainly in obedience and observance of the law, this love also “demanded” commitment to the common good, even if the individual did not entirely concur and experienced inner conflicts.^[83] Since love of the fatherland was anchored in morality and emotion, it potentially included everyone. Nonetheless, the social hierarchy was left intact, each estate had different obligations, and the textbook featured estate-specific prescriptions on how to express love of the fatherland.
The nobility was, of course, considered closest to the ruler. “Love for the ruler and unshakable loyalty to him” were the first duties of any nobleman; more than any other estate, the nobility had the possibility to prove them.^[84] A nobleman’s proximity to the ruler obliged him to display a greater commitment than other members of society to the common good. The nobility was defined as the estate “that can and must do the most for the common good.”^[85] Love of the fatherland demanded not only commitment and eagerness in military and civil service, but also respect for members of the lower estates. The textbook conjured up the ideal of a patriotic community, in which the nobility not only profited from the work of the lower estates but also strove “to be useful to them.”^[86] Thus the textbook underlined the element of charity (caritas) and compassion in patriotic thinking, just as it was designed in ancient teachings and later incorporated in the Christian notion of compassion.^[87] Love for the community was intended to overcome the nobility’s estate-based self-interest. Finally, the motivation of “honor” (chest’) as an impetus for action was limited to the nobility.
Another important role in the education of subjects was assigned to the clergy. This was partially a result of the book’s foreign origin. It also, however, demonstrates how, since mid-century, the secular power tried to impose a new task on the clergy: the moral and ethical education of the people.^[88] The clergy should display its love of the fatherland by “kindling loyalty and love of the ruler and the fatherland in the people by instructing them.”^[89] The textbook defined patriotism as an expression of Christian brotherly love. By emotionally binding the individual to the ruler, to his fellow citizens, and to the fatherland, the love of mankind became secondary.^[90] Boundaries to the outside followed the family model: just as members of a family loved each other more than nonrelatives, the patriotic community felt less toward the subjects of other rulers.
During the second half of the eighteenth century, the textbook’s educational maxims were also spread in sermons.^[91] The expansion of worldly educational events corresponded to the efforts to affect piety (blagochestie) through spiritual instruction and enlightenment.^[92] The “true son of the church” (vernyi syn tserkvi) should also be a “good citizen” and “son of the fatherland.” Sermons differed from secular speeches in the following respects: While panegyrics by the bishops particularly emphasized the empress’s love of the people, sermons tended to describe pure compassion and the faithful “as loved by all and loving all.”^[93]
Love of the fatherland, as it was designed in official government discourse and in educational institutions, also offered links to, and a common language with, Freemasons.^[94] As a program of civic virtue, patriotic love was very much compatible with Masonic ideas. For example, the ideal of fraternity in Freemasonry was homologous to the community of patriots.
To sum up, love of the fatherland, as stipulated by patriotic education in Catherinian times, was dominated by a catalogue of duties and a commitment to the common good. Additionally, this love was connected with a personal notion of honor and pride in the community. Patriots experienced “true joy” (istinnoe udovol’stvie) when they considered the well-being of the fatherland.^[95] This pride of one’s own, of the familiar marked the border to other communities. Over the course of the last third of the eighteenth century, a first generation of self-proclaimed patriots thus increasingly dedicated themselves to the improvement of the common good; they took the educational aspect of their love of the fatherland, namely, to kindle the same emotion in others, very seriously, hence literally – at least in their own perception.

PATRIOTIC OCCASIONS AND PUBLIC IMAGES OF EMOTIONS

From the mid-eighteenth century onward a culture of patriotic occasions developed, which facilitated an enthusiastic common experience for large groups of people.^[96] Love of the fatherland was celebrated via new forms and in new places. The intersubjectivity and contagiousness of patriotic emotions was deliberately used in crowd events, such as collective listening to passionate patriotic speeches, singing of songs, or gathering around monuments.^[97] Fireworks, parades, and memorial services for fallen soldiers all “elevated” the fatherland in the eyes of the people: fatherland turned into a collective emotional experience.^[98]
Throughout the eighteenth century, public sentiments were tied to rulers in various ways: beholding a monument or a portrait, listening to a speech on the occasion of a birthday. Newly created spaces for festivities, such as Khodynskoe pole (Khodynsky Field) in Moscow, invited the populace to partake in victory celebrations. On this field, feelings of happiness united the participants. In a university speech, Professor Matvei Afonyn even refers to it as Shchastlivoe pole (Happy Field).^[99] This was the location for glory and celebrations. Here, the subjects could see their empress, accompany her in the parade to the palace, and thus display their affection and love for her.
Reichel’s Slovo at the university was part of a new celebratory and memorial culture that articulated the glory of the ruler and the empire. In his speech, Reichel emphasized the importance of public awards for the evocation of love of the fatherland. Fame and glory inspired patriotic commitment. In antiquity, a patriotic community’s celebrations and memorials always complemented personal awards such as medals. Reichel described the common memory of one’s ancestor’s glorious deeds as an educational process:

“The young would listen attentively, greedily, and tearfully to these panegyrics on their ancestors. They would gladly anchor these tales in their memory and would draw from them rules for life and a strong intention to distinguish themselves with meritorious deeds for the fatherland.”^[100]

When transposing this Ancient Greek and Roman tradition to a Russian context, Reichel paid homage solely to the empress as a shining example of patriotism. The university’s festive congregation of “famous men” celebrated her birthday. Public awards, such as those that Reichel spoke of, were, however, available not only for the monarch but also for other “heroes.” Over the course of the eighteenth century, a system of decorations was created that followed West European models. The empress took recourse to this system particularly in the emancipation of the nobility.^[101] Another example for the new forms of public awards was the triumphal arch in Tsarskoe Selo, which was erected in 1771 in honor of Grigorii Orlov upon his return from Moscow and his assignment to fight the plague epidemic.^[102]
Speeches, poetry, and songs developed into an important part of court culture and of the celebratory ceremonies in the educational institutions of the country. To illustrate, in the Universitetskii Blagorodnyi Pansion, founded in 1779, pupils delivered speeches just before the beginning of award ceremonies.^[103] The topics of these speeches were highly scripted. On one such occasion in 1799, a boarding school pupil delivered a Rech’ o liubvi k otechestvu (Speech on Love of the fatherland).^[104] This speech was subsequently published by one of the boarding school’s professors, M. N. Bakkarevich, without, however, naming the student. Not unlike Reichel, the orator drew on examples from antiquity, before finally focusing on “our most precious fatherland” (Drazhaishee Otechestvo nashe). He invoked the spirit of patriotism as an impetus for action and offered the following definition for love of the fatherland: “It is a love of order, of state-building [ustroistvo], of laws, of virtue, of the common and the individual good.”^[105] The “holy fatherland” appeared in this speech as a demanding actor in its own right that called for effort. The entire speech hinged on a motto borrowed from Thomas Aquinas: “What do you do for the fatherland?” The orator described virtue, education, and observation of civic duties as the foundation of a patriotic code of behavior. He conceived of the fatherland as a unity beyond estates, where performance and virtue were the leading principles: “It [the fatherland – I.S.] never differentiates between its children except for virtue, talent, and merit. It hinders no one on the path to promotion and glory.”^[106] The “spirit of patriotism” should capture all estates and combine all powers into “one wonderful hymn.” The boarding school pupil defined patriotism as a disciplining principle, which implemented morality, prevented sins, and created order.^[107] As a motivational principle, love of the fatherland supposedly led to the fulfillment of duties and to great deeds. It turns the warring soldier into a “fearless hero” without parallel.^[108] The fatherland, the youthful speaker proclaimed, promised “happiness and security” as rewards for all the efforts and sacrifices that it demanded. Directly addressing his own age cohort, the “youths of Russia” (Iunye Rossii), the orator adjured the immortality of their deeds, because their memory would perpetuate the community of the fatherland.^[109]
Like Reichel, he emphasized the exemplary role of the ruler “who burned with a love of the fatherland.”^[110] He declared patriotism to be the source of the new, powerful Russia. The question posed to his beloved Russia – “who? which powerful spirit has lifted you from the ashes to such unreachable heights of power and glory?” – received the following answer: “the love of my great monarchs, and the love of my faithful children.”^[111]
The speaker saw “happiness and peace” (schastie i spokoistvie) realized in Russia. In 1799, which was a time of continuous military conflicts, he juxtaposed the outside threat with a vision of a “holy union of worldwide friendship.” There, enlightenment would reign along with virtue and love.^[112]
At the end of the century, therefore, there was a subtle but unmistakable shift from an abstract “fatherland” (otechestvo), which had figured so centrally in Reichel’s birthday speech, to the notion of “beloved Russia”: “Drazhaishee Otechestvo nashe. Drazhaishaia Rossiia.”^[113] This is emblematic for the rise of the native, unique country Rossiia in the patriotic discourse of the second half of the eighteenth century. This “invention of Rossiia” (with a nod to Larry Wolff’s Invention of Eastern Europe) transformed the fatherland into a more concrete and tangible entity.^[114] In line with the ascent of Rossiia, the community of the fatherland began to appear more frequently as an agent in its own right. If in Reichel’s speech it had been the empress who decided over public acknowledgment and glory, in 1799 it was the fatherland that watched over memory: “The hour will come and we will no longer be; our deeds, however, will remain. Posterity will know of them, and the fatherland will bless our memory.”^[115]
The media by which glorious deeds ought to be passed from generation to generation were mainly poetry and song, at least for Reichel. The recital of poems was also part of celebrations at educational institutions. These were framed by musical performances and the singing of songs.^[116] In 1799, another boarding school student, Semen Rodzianka, recited a poem of eight stanzas in front of a congregated audience. The poem was called Liubov’ k otechestvu (Love of the Fatherland): “The spirit, ignited by you, burns to sing of you.”^[117] The poem begins with the verse: “The love of the fatherland is holy.” Sacralizing patriotic love was a standard feature of the new emotional lexicon and defined this feeling as noble and pure, in other words, as divine. Rodzianka described love of the fatherland as the foundation of any well-ordered community. In his view, this love combined heart and mind, heroic glory, and selfless effort for the common good. Rodzianka extolled the object of love and identification, “liubeznaia Rossiia,” as a country of glory and heroes: “Russia is the land of paladins.”^[118] This community, which protected its members against the outside, would withstand all enemies like a fortress.^[119] Rodzianka concentrated in his poem on heroism and glory, combined with pride of Russia. His youthful and male self-love and ambition was, however, connected back to the community. Happiness could be experienced only by those who were acknowledged by the community for selfless striving for the common good, and who deserved to be called “patriot” by their fellow citizens. Community and happiness came from love of the ruler and devotedness to the fatherland.^[120]
Just as in the 1799 speech “O liubvi k otechestvu,” Rodzianka’s poem started with a description of the emotion and ended with an appeal to his peers, the “young Russians” (Rossy iunye). Rodzianka painted the visionary picture of a community that was working on its moral perfection, and that was willing to make sacrifices for the fatherland:

“Let us beautify our hearts and the fatherland, so as to serve him [Emperor Pavel – I.S.] eagerly; and let us strive to live and to die for our beloved Russia!”^[121]

Poetry found memorable and illustrative images for abstract principles. It coined formulaic phrases of pathos, which were easily repeated and could be celebrated by the community in conjunction with specific rituals. As an example one might mention the first Russian national anthem Grom pobedy, razdavaisia! (Thunder of Victory, Resound!). It was first performed as a choral polonaise, to which people danced, at a great gala in 1791 in Potemkin’s Tauride Palace in St. Petersburg on the occasion of the conquering of Jassy. It was, in effect, a panegyric (by Gavrila Derzhavin):

“Thunder of victory, resound! Rejoice, brave Ross! Adorn yourself with the sonorous glory: you have shaken Mohammed. Be glorified by this, O Catherine, be glorified, thou tender mother of ours!”^[122]

Poetic forms such as odes or songs implanted the glorious deeds of the ancestors in the collective memory. As a part of celebratory ceremonies they strengthened the community. Poetry was accorded an important function in the kindling of patriotism: “…poetry has always been a school of virtue and love of the fatherland.”^[123] Using examples from antiquity, Reichel explained that the main content of ancient epics and songs was eulogies of heroes. Since in the case of Russia the ruler was stylized as ideal in his/her love of the fatherland, s/he also dominated songs and poems. Hymnal songs, in particular cantatas, about the glory of the ruler became part and parcel of celebratory ceremonials.^[124]
Catherinian Russia honored the heroes of its past along with its rulers in the memorial services for the fallen soldiers, which were celebrated annually beginning in 1778.^[125] Monuments were at first reserved for rulers. The most famous was commissioned in 1782 by the empress: Falconet’s statue of Peter I on Senate Square in St. Petersburg. Plans for a monument to the heroes of the fatherland’s history, such as Reichel had described along the lines of ancient examples, were first designed in 1804 by the sculptor Ivan Martos. In Moscow’s Red Square, Martos built a memorial dedicated to the two leaders of the people’s militia during the wars of 1612–1613, Koz’ma Minin and Dmitrii Pozharskii, “whose love of the fatherland would have astounded Rome and Greece.” In an extensive program Martos described Minin’s and Pozharskii’s selfless dedication to the fatherland and how the deeds of “the two great Russians” affected the hearts of their countrymen “through the mighty voice of feeling” – note the rhetoric of emotion here.^[126] The monument, which was in the making for a long time, was consecrated in 1818, and built, as the inscription says, by “a grateful Russia.”
According to Reichel, memorials betokened the glory of the ancestors and should inspire the young to follow suit. As spaces of memory they represented community and evoked feelings. In 1798, for example, Ivan Pnin penned the poem Chuvstvovaniia Rossiianina, izliiannye pred pamiatnikom Petra Pervago, Ekaterinoiu vtoroiu vozdvignutym (Feelings of a Russian, as they flow forth in front of the monument to Peter the First, built by Catherine the Second). In a dialogue with Peter I, Pnin hailed the merit of the ruler and his exemplary role. The question of the ruler’s motivation evoked emotions in the poem’s lyrical I. The heart gave the answer: “From love of the fatherland, from love of his subjects.”^[127]
As Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter and Peter Hiller have shown, the role of the Russian theater was instrumental in shaping patriotic emotions.^[128] During the last third of the century, then, one would have to add theater to the list of media which Reichel introduced in his speech of 1775. Petr A. Plavil’shchikov was the most influential author and director who saw the theater stage as the main forum where one could learn “how the fatherland was to be loved.”^[129] In Plavil’shchikov’s writings, love of the fatherland conjoined and forged a single whole of the author, the dramatis personae, and the spectator. Love of the fatherland erased the distance between these the three and was the single most important precondition for the sentimentalism that developed in theater halls.^[130] Ballets such as Opolchenie ili liubov’ k otechestvu (People’s Militia or Love of the Fatherland) feted patriotic commitment immediately after the Fatherland War.^[131] Now speeches on “Love of the Fatherland” were held not only in educational institutions but also in the rapidly expanding literary circles. The governmental and instructional program was showing results.

CONCLUSION

What were the main components of the official program of patriotic love during the second half of the eighteenth century? Love of the fatherland was seen as normative and as creating obligations to a morally renovated Russia, where individual and common good flew together in the concept of “fatherland.” First and foremost were obedience to the law, civic virtues, and love of the monarch. Then there was patriotic love, with its demand of selfless commitment and its ideal of the “istinnyi syn otechestva,” often linked to the commandments of Christian compassion and to the ascetic orthodox discourse of love.
Love of the fatherland functioned as a vehicle of transfer of the emotions that governed the family and a community of believers to a larger community. This transfer can be gleaned from the semantic residue of “father” (otets) in “fatherland” (otechestvo). Thus the attachment to an unfamiliar group of translocal persons was couched in the well-known local rhetoric of family and religion. Because of its absence, this community was made tangible through patriotic occasions such as festivities, monuments, and so on, all of which served to create an emotional presence of the fatherland.^[132]
The emotional ties between ruler and ruled buttressed the legitimacy of the empress and gave her an opportunity both to demand, as “Mat’ otechestva,” devotion to and work for the fatherland from her subjects, and to serve as a role model who instructed her subjects. It can be argued that patriotic love raised the status of the subject because it implied its care and responsibility and thus its participation in the common good. Patriotic love also incorporated the subject in a new community of all patriots because this emotion connected not only the empress with her subjects but also subjects with subjects.
As a set of virtuous teachings, love of the fatherland was meant to point passions in the right direction. Yet there were limits to this emotion: it was bounded by the common good as defined by the empress. In the imagined community of virtuous patriots everyone was equal – but only in the imagined community, for everyone had to fulfill estate-specific rather than universal duties. The social hierarchy thus ultimately stayed intact. And yet, love of the fatherland was always ascribed the potential of overcoming estate boundaries and uniting all social groups in the “civic family” (grazhdanstvennoe semeistvo).^[133]
Apart from the limits dictated by the soslovie system, the patriotic program was circumscribed by adherence to Christian laws (which was, to be sure, true for all eighteenth-century educational programs).^[134] Future research might ask whether this program reached the Empire’s non-Christian subjects, and, if so, how it did.
In addition to estate and religion, patriotic love was also bounded by gender: men were supposed to display patriotic love, while women seem to have remained restricted to their traditional duties.^[135] In patriotic discourse they figured, however, as parents who were expected to kindle in their children love of the fatherland.^[136] How exactly “family love” in eighteenth-century Russia was supposed to look is one avenue for future research.
New emotional standards, such as love of the fatherland, were especially popular in times of rapid change and instrumentalized by the state to rectify deficits.^[137] Love of the fatherland was used as a moral, noninstitutionalized weapon to fight corruption and difficulties in the practical realization of new laws. A similar pattern can be observed in the Habsburg Empire, where “bureaucratic patriotism” was used in analogous ways.^[138] The military was another sphere in which the emotion of love of the fatherland was deployed in an effort to boost motivation and to guide soldierly action. In years of constant military conflict, official rhetoric proffered a heroic image of “Russian soldiers burning with love of the fatherland” (liuboviiu k Otechestvu pylaiushchimi Rossiiskimi voinami).^[139]
The ups and downs of emotional appeals like love of the fatherland and complaints about the corruption of the passions was a widespread phenomenon, not just in Russia. Specifically Russian – with some parallels to the German case – was the prevalence of family metaphors in patriotic discourse. One difference to other national patriotisms was the standing of the concept of liberty, which was borrowed from the Ancient Roman patria tradition. In Russian official discourse this liberty concept was superseded by love of the fatherland, especially with respect to a motivation for human action. To illustrate, in the Russian version of the article “Oligarchie” from the Encyclopédie des Sciences, “leur amour pour la liberté” was translated by Ivan Tumanskii 1770 as “liubov’ k otechestvu.”^[140]
Love of the fatherland legitimized talk about, and work for, the commonwealth and provided an interpretive frame for events. This patriotic love – and consequently the relationship between the individual and the commonwealth – was a subject of intense debate in the literary public sphere that came into being at century’s end.^[141] The issues that were discussed in speeches and published texts included the question of how the object of love, the fatherland, was to be designed, whether love of the fatherland constituted a natural, god-given feeling or had to be learned, and who was capable of patriotic virtue in the first place. Reminiscent of the German case, in the nineteenth century, feelings as well as love of the ruler and of the fatherland were then tied to the national character and were designed as a part of national identity.^[142]
Yet it remains to be seen how precisely the display rules of love of the fatherland were received and put into practice and to what extent patriotic love became part of a new political identity. One thing is certain: as a Catherinian emotional concept that created for “sons of the fatherland” a discursive and a practical space, which rested on common and mutual responsibility, it was successful indeed.