Peter Simon Pallas, Siberia, and the European Republic of Letters

Abstract

Peter Simon Pallas was also a member of what European men of learning in the eighteenth century often called a Republic of Letters, an idealized society that cut through state borders and acknowledged no limits to its pursuit of knowledge. His intensive engagement with the leading theorists of the time, his attempts to separate himself from the dilettantish scientific efforts of the nobility, and his struggle to craft a space of independent action within the Academy of Sciences all attest to his membership in the Republic. Admittedly, Pallas often fell short of the Republics ideals; some of his scientific work directly supported Russian imperial claims, he refused to investigate the issues at the heart of the Pugachev Rebellion, and by the last decades of his life he was enjoying most of the prerogatives of privilege in Russia. The limitations of the Republic inside Russia were ultimately due to its citizens - men like Pallas - who found the favors offered by the Russian state a seductive alternative to the more demanding Republic of Letters.