The beginning of the nineteenth century, entering history by the felicitous phrase of poets as “the fair beginning of Alexander’s days,” was marked by the profound influence of Enlightenment ideas on the state policy of the Russian Empire. The young Emperor Alexander I and his close circle sincerely believed that the development of science and broad education could become reliable keys to the country’s large-scale economic flourishing. Reality, however, imposed harsh conditions: the state required urgent modernization in order not to fall behind a rapidly changing world.
One of the most important steps toward this goal was the Imennoi ukaz (personal ukaz) promulgated on 12 (24) February 1802 to the President of the Academy of Sciences, Baron Nikolai. This document was intended to solve the global problem of the transfer of world technologies to domestic ground.
By early 1802 the Russian economy faced serious challenges caused by several factors. First, against the background of Europe (and above all England, where the Industrial Revolution was already in active development), Russia’s growing technological lag became increasingly evident. Native manufactories and traditional agriculture were in acute need of the introduction of new approaches and a constant influx of up-to-date knowledge to increase their efficiency.
Abroad, various learned societies and inventors at that time were actively publishing information about their discoveries in the areas of crafts, the arts, and agriculture. But this information practically did not reach Russian practitioners, remaining unknown to the wide circle of persons who might have turned these inventions to the benefit of their own estates.
The principal obstacle on the road of knowledge was the language barrier. The majority of those directly engaged in production — merchants, artisans, and the small landed nobility — simply did not possess foreign languages to the degree sufficient for independent reading of foreign scientific periodicals. The situation was further exacerbated by the near absence in Russia at that historical moment of a domestic specialized press, that is, technical periodicals in the Russian language.
Recognizing this problem, the Emperor expressed his highest will in the ukaz: henceforth the Academy of Sciences was to purposefully extract descriptions of important discoveries from foreign works and journals, translate them into the Russian language, and publish them as appendices to the public gazettes.
The document paid particular attention to the quality and style of these translations. The law expressly prescribed that the manner of expression of the publications and the very form of presentation of the material should be, as far as possible, simple and adapted to direct practical application. The state sought not merely to import dry academic theory but to give people comprehensible instructions for improving their manufactures.
The requirement to translate complex technical texts “in simple phrasing” played a colossal role in the development of domestic science and culture. It was precisely this necessity to render foreign articles in accessible language that fostered the creation of an entirely new Russian technical and agronomical terminology.
Moreover, Alexander I’s ukaz effectively stimulated the emergence and development in the country of an entire genre of popular-scientific and technical literature in the Russian language. A logical continuation of this policy was that already two years later, beginning in 1804, the Academy of Sciences undertook the publication of a specialized “Technological Journal.”
In the long term the state initiative produced the desired economic effect. Although the process of technological renewal was not instantaneous, the appearance of translated articles in the periodical press initiated a gradual penetration of advanced Western technologies into Russian practice. In particular, domestic landowners were able to acquaint themselves with new agricultural crops and advanced systems of crop rotation, while manufacturers learned of contemporary technical methods for manufactories.
Despite the clearly progressive character of the document, it contained a significant defect reflecting the nature of the absolute monarchy. The law included a strict requirement: before going to press all translated materials had first to be read and approved in the General Academic Assembly and then without fail be submitted for the Highest approval by the Sovereign Emperor himself.
Such strict centralization and the necessity of personally approving each text at so high a level inevitably led to excessive bureaucratization. This enormous bureaucratic burden artificially slowed the process of publishing relevant articles, depriving the dissemination of knowledge of the required promptness.
The Imennoi ukaz of 12 (24) February 1802 can confidently be called a major milestone in the history of Russian technical thought. It demonstrated the state’s readiness to overcome the barriers between high academic science and the practical needs of society. By giving Russia its own technical terminology, a specialized popular-scientific press, and access to world experience, this document laid a solid foundation for the further industrial and agricultural development of the empire, even despite the retardant factors of the state apparatus.
Period: Early nineteenth century, 12 (24) February 1802, 1802, 1804, Age of Enlightenment
Persons: Alexander I (Emperor), Nikolai Ludwig Heinrich (baron, President of the Academy of Sciences)
Geographical names: Russian Empire, Russia, Europe, England
Events, processes: Age of Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution, Imennoi ukaz, technology transfer, modernization, agriculture, production, technological renewal, crop rotation, bureaucratization
Organizations, institutions: Academy of Sciences, General Academic Assembly, Technological Journal
