SOURCE: Gleason, Walter. “Introduction: State and Nationality in Fonvizin's Writings.” In The Political and Legal Writings of Denis Fonvizin, translated by Walter Gleason, pp. 1-21. Ann Arbor, Mich: Ardis Publishers, 1985.

In the following essay, Gleason identifies the key arguments in each of Fonvizin's essays on political and social subjects; points out their concern with morality, political ideals, and the proper role and conduct of the state; and argues that Fonvizin's major contribution to eighteenth-century Russian political thought was his distinction between state and nationality.

State and nationality: these two issues sum up the history of political thought under Catherine the Great. The topics are not independent of one another. The Imperial state laid claim to the banner of nationality as a means of maintaining the loyalties and enthusiasms of its citizens; nationality was the potential instrument to undermine the foundations of autocracy. While the advocates of each cause...