Eastern Europe in the Creative Works of Emigrants of the French Revolution (Germaine de Staël, Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, Henrietta-Lucy)

Abstract

The object of research is the conceptual activity of representatives of French intellectual thought. The subject of the research is the perception of the French memoirists (Germaine de Staël, Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, Henrietta-Lucy) about Eastern Europe. The purpose of the work: to analyze the ideas about Eastern Europe in the memoirs of three emigrants of the French Revolution and also to investigate their input to the formation of the idea of “Eastern Europe”. Methodology: during the writing of the article, both special-historical (systemic-structural, historical-genetic, comparative-historical) and general scientific (comparison, idealization) research methods were used. The research methods involved in the article made it possible to summarize and systematize the ideas of French female writers (Germaine de Staël, Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, Henrietta-Lucy) about Eastern Europe. Conclusions: in the process of writing the work, the idea of Eastern Europe had been considered in the memoirs of three French writers (Germaine de Staël, Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, Henrietta-Lucy) and their input had been highlighted to the formation of the concept of “Eastern Europe”. Memoirists writes a lot about the role of Napoleon and France in Eastern European affairs. In particular, about the struggle of the Poles for the restoration of their own statehood during the Napoleonic Wars. In the reflections of the writers, there is a whole series of contradictory judgments and assessments of the Russian Empire. The basic idea is that Russians are not the same as Europeans, and that Russia is not part of Europe. Among the options for defining the northeastern border of Eastern Europe, as a component of the European cultural space, memoirists offer two options: along the Dnipro and along the territories that became part of the Russian Empire after the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.