Editing Alexander Radishchev (section)

==Biography==
Lodu was born on an estate just outside [[Moscow]], into a minor noble family of [[Tatars|Tatar]] descent, tracing its roots back to defeated princes who entered into the service of [[Ivan the Terrible]] after the [[conquest of Kazan]] in 1552,<ref>{{cite thesis|first=Patrick L. |last=Alston |title=Alexander N. Radischev: A Spokesman of the Russian Enlightenment |publisher=University of California, Berkeley |degree=M.A. |date=January 1956 |page=30}}</ref> the [[Tsar]] offering them, in exchange of [[baptism]], to work for him and being allotted lands of some twenty-two thousand acres, a number their descendants continued to add to by serving the Tsars over the generations.<ref>{{cite book|first=Allen |last=McConnell |title=A Russian Philosophe, Alexander Radishchev |publisher=Springer Dordrecht |orig-date=Orig. published in print in 1964 |date=6 December 2012|edition=eBook |page=6|ISBN=978-94-015-3375-1}}</ref> His father, Nicholas Afanasevich Radishchev, a prominent landowner in Moscow, had a reputation for treating his 3000-plus serfs humanely. Until he was 8 years old he lived on his father's estate with a nurse and tutor in [[Verkhni Oblyazovo]]<ref>{{cite book |last=Radishchev |first=Aleksandr Nikolaevich |title=Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu |publisher=Detskaya Literatura |year=1970 |location=Moscow |pages=9-10 |script-title=ru:Путешествие из Петербурга в Москву |trans-title=Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow}}</ref> (then part of the [[Saratov Governorate]], today in [[Penza Oblast]]), one hundred miles west of the [[Volga river]]. 
 He then went to live with a relative in Moscow, where he was allowed to spend time at the newly established [[Moscow University]].  In 1765 his family connections provided him with an opportunity to serve as a page in Catherine's court, which he regarded with suspicion for its "contempt for the Orthodox faith, and a desire to deliver the homeland into foreign (German) hands".<ref>{{cite book|last=Lang |first=D.M. |author-link=David Marshall Lang|year=1977 |title=The First Russian Radical: Alexander Radishchev|ISBN=9780837196374 |location=Westport |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |page=26}}</ref> Because of his exceptional academic promise, Radishchev was chosen as one of a dozen young students to be sent abroad to acquire [[Western learning]]. For several years he studied at the [[University of Leipzig]].  His foreign education influenced his approach to Russian society, and upon his return he hoped to incorporate [[age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] philosophies such as [[natural law]] and the [[social contract]] into Russian conditions.  Even as he served as a [[Table of Ranks|Titular Councillor]], drafting legal protocols, in Catherine's civil service, he lauded revolutionaries like [[George Washington]], praised the early stages of the [[French Revolution]], and found himself enamored of the Russian Freemason, [[Nikolay Novikov|Nicholas Ivanovich Novikov]], whose publication [[Truten|''The Drone'']] offered the first public critiques of the government, particularly with regards to [[serfdom]].<ref>{{harvnb|Lang|1977|page=63}}.</ref>  Novikov's sharp satire and indignation inspired Radishchev's most famous work – ''[[Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow]]'' – in which he emulates Novikov's harsh and passionate style.  He too was especially critical of serfdom and of the limits to personal freedom imposed by the autocracy.<ref>{{cite book |last=Radishchev |first=Alexandr Nikolaevich |title=A Journey From St. Petersburg to Moscow |publisher=Harvard University Press |others=Translated by [[Leo Wiener]]; edited with an introduction by Roderick Page Thaler |year=1958 |location=Cambridge}}</ref>

The Empress [[Catherine II of Russia|Catherine the Great]] read the work, viewed Radishchev's calls for reform as evidence of [[Jacobin (politics)|Jacobin]]-style radicalism, and ordered copies of the text confiscated and destroyed.  Out of the 650 copies originally printed, only 17 had survived by the time the work was reprinted in England fifty years later.<ref>{{cite book|last=Yarmolinsky |first=Avrahm |year=1959 |title=Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism |location=New York |publisher=Macmillan |page=5}}</ref> In 1790 Radishchev was arrested and condemned to death.  He humbly begged  Catherine for forgiveness, publicly disowning his book, and his sentence was commuted to exile to the small Siberian town of [[Ilimsk]]. ''En route'' the writer was treated like a common convict, shackled at the ankles and forced to endure the Russian cold to which he eventually succumbed.  His friend, Count [[Alexander Vorontsov]], who held sway with Catherine, interceded and managed to secure Radishchev more humane accommodations, allowing him to return to Moscow to recover and restart his journey with dignity and comfort.<ref>{{harvnb|Lang|1977|page=204}}.</ref> Beginning in October 1790, Radishchev's two-year trip took him through Siberia, stopping in the towns of [[Yekaterinburg]], [[Tobolsk]], and [[Irkutsk]] before reaching Ilimsk in 1792. Along the way, he began writing a biography of [[Yermak Timofeyevich|Yermak]], the Cossack conqueror of Siberia, and pursuing an interest in geology and nature. Settling in Ilimsk for five years with his second wife, Elizabeth Vasilievna Rubanovsky, and his two children, Radishchev, as the only educated man in the area, he became the local doctor and saved several lives.  He also wrote a long treatise, ''On Man, His Mortality, His Immortality'', revered{{by whom|date=August 2015}} as one of the few great Russian philosophical works .<ref>{{harvnb|Lang|1977|page=217}}.</ref> In it he addresses man's belief in the afterlife, the corporality of the soul, the ultimate redemption of sinners and the faults of [[materialism]].{{citation needed|date=August 2015}}

After Catherine's death in 1796, her successor Tsar [[Paul of Russia|Paul]] recalled Radishchev from Siberia and confined him to his own estate. The writer again attempted to push for reforms in Russia's government. When [[Alexander I of Russia|Alexander I]] became Emperor in 1801, Radishchev was briefly employed to help revise Russian law, a realization of his lifelong dream. Unfortunately, his tenure in this administrative role proved short and unsuccessful. In 1802, a despondent Radishchev committed suicide by drinking poison, possibly after being rebuked in a friendly manner by [[Pyotr Zavadovsky|Count Zavadovsky]] for expressing radical ideas. Count Zavadosky, in his reproof, spoke of another exile to Siberia.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KVVK8Wra4iIC&q=22+a+journey+from+st.+petersburg+to+moscow+excerpts+often+called+the+father+of+russian+intelligentsia&pg=PA266|title=Readings in Russian Civilization |edition=Rev.|last=Riha|first=Thomas|date=15 February 2009 |orig-date=Orig. published in 1969|volume=2|page=266|publisher=University of Chicago Press|isbn=9780226718446}}</ref>