Introduction

The Part examines the rise of secular literature and its alignment with the stylistic conventions and linguistic norms of European classicism. The process was not streamlined, and types of writing new to Russia gained momentum from the second half of the eighteenth century. The Part outlines the development of the notion of authorship and readership in relation to publishing, education, and friendship networks, which constituted the literary field under the patronage of Catherine II and outside court. The Part shows how literature explored newfound ideas of sensibility and subjectivity, developing, by the 1790s, a concomitant belief in the idea of genius typical of early Romanticism. Consistent with a larger Enlightenment context, eighteenth-century literature debated questions of cultural progress and national identity. The Part also shows a growing tension between the restrictive politics of the period and the confidence authors placed in literature as a mode of enquiry into enlightened absolutism.