Czartoryski and His Essai sur la diplomatic
| Autor: | M. K. Dziewanowski |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 1971 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Slavic Review. 30:589-605 |
| ISSN: | 2325-7784 0037-6779 |
| Popis: | The first book of Tolstoy's War and Peace contains an episode from the Allied War Council at Olmiitz, on November 27, 1805, five days before the Battle of Austerlitz. With the Council over, Prince Andrei Bolkonsky takes Prince Boris Drubetskoy, a new aide-de-camp, to present him to Tsar Alexander. Coming out of the emperor's room as they approach is a tall man in civilian dress who has a striking face and sharply projecting jaw, which gives him a peculiar vivacity and keenness of expression. "Who was that ?" asks Drubetskoy. "He is one of the most remarkable but to me most unpleasant of men-the minister of foreign affairs, Prince Adam Czartoryski," replies Bolkonsky. "It is such men as he who decide the fate of nations." To a Russian nationalist such as Bolkonsky, Czartoryski was an intruder, an interloper, a foreigner who managed to gain the favor of his sovereign-a misguided Russian tsar with strange cosmopolitan leanings. Moreover, by that time Czartoryski was widely suspected of supporting a scheme to reconstruct Poland, perhaps at the expense of the lands that every Russian patriot regarded as the recovered patrimony of Riurik. Yet even the resentful and suspicious Bolkonsky could not hide his admiration for Czartoryski's superior intelligence. The career of Prince Adam Czartoryski had many aspects and phases. During his long and eventful life (1770-1861), he was first of all a diplomat and statesman of great and varied experience. Czartoryski's biographer has characterized the scope of the prince's experience: "He was the contemporary of five Russian sovereigns. His partners and adversaries included Vorontsov, Rumiantsev, Nesselrode, and Gorchakov; Talleyrand, Guizot, Thiers, Lamartine, Walewski, and Drouyn de Lhuys; Pitt, Fox, Castlereagh, Grey, Palmerston, and Russell; Cobenzl, Metternich, Buol, and Goluchowski. He was an adversary of the great Napoleon and became a friend of Napoleon III. His activities as statesman started at the time of Jefferson's presidency and ended at the time of Lincoln's."1 The prince was also a prolific writer. During nearly |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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