Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia: The ...

impressive flowering of talent and enterprise:
In Russia, the Middle Ages of Europe persisted well into the 19th century, with the blight of serfdom. Yet, there were some occasional bright sparks of Enlightenment. Stites reveals some of these to us, by documenting hitherto underappreciated, if not outrightly unknown, cultural events after 1860. Key events include the freeing of some serfs, that led a few to contribute to the arts in Moscow and other major cities. But there also appears to have been an easing up of Imperial strictures. For example, until 1865, plays to be performed in provincial cities had to be approved by Imperial censors. And that any such approved play would have to be first performed on an Imperial stage. While this may not have been enforced on every occasion, it certainly was in many or most instances. To an American, British or French visitor of that time, such restrictions would have been greeted with incredulity, and cited by them as examples of Russian autocracy. But free speech was scarcely a consideration to the Romanovs. From this context, the limited liberalisations allowed after 1860 were indeed generous to Russians who had chafed under the earlier edicts. And it is precisely in this context that the book makes its point. There was indeed an impressive flowering of talent and enterprise, because in no small part, it had been put down for so long.