European History Colloquium

Victoria Frede, Associate Professor, History, UC Berkeley
Friday, February 27, 12:20 pm
Goldwin Smith Hall - 283

The Reign of Virtue: The Cult of Friendship at the Court of Empress Elizabeth

The cult of friendship arrived in Russia in the mid-1750s, during the reign of Elizabeth (r. 1741-1762). Hoping to tame the fractious clans that dominated Russian politics at the time of her enthronement, her advisors discovered friendship as a disciplinary remedy. A voluntary relationship between adults who selected one another to practice higher ideals in tandem, it would breed a new type of statesman, whose relationship to the state, too, would become a voluntary, virtuous commitment. This ideal became key to her governing ideology: cast as the goddess, Astraea, she would preside over the return of a “golden age” of virtue, peace and plenty. Tracing the adoption of the cult of friendship, the chapter contrasts correspondence between Elizabeth’s advisors of the 1740s against those of the later 1750s. Led by her favorite, Ivan Shuvalov, they rapidly began to mix invocations of friendship with those of civic virtue: zeal for the wellbeing of the empress, fatherland, and common good.