SOURCE: Alexandrov, Vladimir E. “Dialogue and Rousseau in Fonvizin's The Minor.” Slavic and East European Journal 29, no. 2 (1985): 127-43.

In the following essay, Alexandrov contends that the emphasis by Soviet critics on the historical and political themes in The Minor has overshadowed other features of the play, notably its parallels with several works by Enlightenment thinker Jean Jacques Rousseau and the dialogic structure of the play, which serves to undermine its overt Enlightenment message as articulated by the play's “positive” characters.

Most of what has been written about Fonvizin's famous comedy The Minor (Nedorosl', 1782) has come from the pens of Soviet scholars. As one might expect, they have focused on the relation of the play's themes to Russian history and culture, and, with particular zeal, on the supposed diligence with which Fonvizin scourged abuses rampant under the eighteenth-century Russian monarchy. One Soviet investigator wittily summarized this preoccupation as follows...