Our Notes & References

‘Religious diversity’ in the Era of Enlightenment and Russian expansion into Muslim territories. First and only edition of this work printed by the innovative Novikov, with fine contemporary provenance.

Very rare, as we could locate only two locations in WorldCat (Library of Congress (2 copies, only US location) and University of Sydney Library), to which we can add three complete copies in Russian libraries (RGB, RNB, State Historical Museum), and one at the National Library of Moldova; no copy traced at auctions in the West and only one in Russia.

Unlike her predecessors, Catherine II expanded the limits of religious freedoms for the non-Orthodox population of the Russian Empire. Her decree of 1773 proclaimed tolerance of different religions, forbade Orthodox bishops to interfere in matters of “Mohammedan law” and authorised the building of mosques for Russian Muslims. Interestingly, later the same year, the leader of the Cossack Rebellion Emelian Pugachev began implementing the principle of religious freedom for Muslims in the Volga and Ural regions in an attempt to attract the local Tatar-Bashkir population to his side. For the official government, “the reconciliation with Muslims became an important means of securing the regime, attracting Muslims on Catherine’s side and extending Russian power into the steppes of Central Asia and beyond” (Crews, our translation here and below).

The amicable attitude to Islam was also largely stimulated by Catherine’s interest to ensure the peace of the Muslim population of the Crimean Khanate, occupied by Russian troops since 1774. In 1783, the Russian Empire annexed Crimea, proclaiming the validity of ‘Mohammedan law’ with all its rites in this territory in order to obtain the Ottoman Empire’s recognition of the new Black Sea realities. Since then, the tsarist authorities began to integrate the Muslim community into the state and social structures of the empire more actively than ever.

The present introduction to the ‘Mohammedan faith’ was published shortly after the Treaty of Constantinople (1784) which consolidated the transfer of the Crimean Peninsula to Russia. The original Latin work remains elusive, as we couldn’t trace its title, nor its author. The translator Ivan Stepanovich Rizhskii (1759-1811) was a writer, philosopher and the first rector of the Imperial Kharkov University.

Similar to other European works of the Enlightenment, the book views Islam not as a world religion but a “religion of the Turks”, or of Europe’s (and Russia’s) immediate neighbour and geopolitical rival, the Ottoman state. “Russian authors, akin to European writers before them, used the words ‘Turkish’ and ‘Mohammedan’ as synonyms when describing Ottoman institutions and rituals [… And] to convert to Islam for them undoubtedly meant ‘becoming a Turk'” (Crews).

The comprehensive work demonstrates the general theological and moral principles of the ‘Mohammedan faith’ as a system of rituals and rules, similar in their nature and structure to Christian theology. The first part introduces and explains the eight commandments and seven deadly sins (all familiar to Christians) showing what these rules are based on in the Koran, how they combine moral and social lessons and regulate life in the family and community; the rituals of the Turks during prayers “in the temple”, persons forbidden “in the temple”, sacrifices, and marriage and wedding ceremonies.

The second part focuses on the principal ranks of the Ottoman religious leadership with a lot of terminology for the titles, showing “a hierarchy similar to that of the [Russian Orthodox] church […] A new vocabulary appeared in the Russian language that reflected these associations. Just as the general Moscow term for a non-Christian (Basurman) gave way to a more specialised one (Mohammedan)” (Crews). Additionally, the work discusses the execution of lawbreakers, detailed rites during the journey to Mecca, burial traditions, beliefs about the afterlife judgement, resurrection of the dead, life of the soul in Paradise, torments of condemned souls, and circumcision.

With fine, interesting provenance. This copy bears Efim vasilievich Kositskii’s elaborate bookplate, representing a rare case of an 18th-century Russian provenance which is not aristocratic. Kositskii was indeed a merchant based in St. Petersburg, but originally from Kexholm (Keksgolm, and now Priozersk), a northern city on the shore of Lake Ladoga. Also engaged in charitable activities, he gathered an important library of about 4,000 volumes, mainly of 18th-century works, which he then donated to the St Petersburg University in the 1820s.

This particular volume was later integrated into the library of the Gatchina Orphanage Institute of Emperor Nicholas I: founded in 1803 on the initiative of Empress Maria Fedorovna, it was first called the Gatchina Foster Care Home, located right next to the Imperial Gatchina Palace. It became the Gatchina Orphans’ Institute for Boys in 1837, renamed again in 1855, and functioned as an orphans’ institute till 1917.

Provenance

Efim Vasilievich Kositskii (bookplate to upper fly-leaf); Inscription dated 1800 in brown ink to last (blank) page, possibly by Kositskii discussing the place of purchase of the book and/or words of wisdom; Biblioteka Imperatorskago Gatchinsk. Nikolaevsk. Sirotsk. Instituta (Gatchina Orphanage Institute of Emperor Nicholas I; post-1855 bookplate on upper pastedown, shelf label in corner of upper board, ink stamp on title); J. Baltrujaitis (modern booklabel to upper pastedown).

Bibliography

Smirdin 905; Svod. Kat. 6686; Sopikov 11091; Arapov, Dmitrii. “Islamskaia politika Ekateriny Velikoi” // Vestnik Moskovskogo universiteta. Ser. 8. Istoriia, 2014. #5; Baidakova, Natalia. Politika rossiiskikh vlastei po otnosheniiu k nekhristianskomu naseleniiu i novokreshchenam v XVI – nachale XX vv.: na primere Tambovskogo kraia, MGU, 2006; Crews, Robert D. [Robert Kruz]. Za proroka i tsaria. Islam i imperiia v Rossii i Tsentralnoi Azii, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2020.