Pyotr Chaadaev
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Pyotr Yakovlevich Chaadaev or Petr Yakovlevich Chaadaev (Russian: Пётр Яковлевич Чаадаев) ( 1794-1856 ) was a Russian philosopher, who published his "Philosophical letters" about Russia in French in 1829, which circulated in Russia as manuscript for many years. The works could not be published in Russia because of its highly critical nature of Russia's significance in world history and politics. When in 1836 the first of the philosophical letters was published in the Russian magazine Telescope, its editor was exiled to the Far North of Russia. Chaadaev was declared a madman. During the 1840s Chaadaev was an active participant in the Moscow literary circles. He befriended Alexander Pushkin and was a model for Chatsky, the chief protagonist of Alexander Griboyedov's play Woe from Wit (1824).
[edit] New International Encyclopedia biography
Petr (Piotr) Yakovlevitch Tchaadaev (1794-1856) was a Russian writer, born at Moscow. After leaving Moscow University without completing his course (1812) he entered the army and served in the Napoleonic Wars. The main thesis of his famous Philosophical Letters, the first of which appeared in 1836 in the Moscow Telescope, was that Russia had lagged behind Western countries and had contributed nothing to the world's progress. He therefore concluded that Russia must start de novo. These strikingly uncomplimentary views caused their author to be adjudged insane, and his next work was entitled, fittingly, The Vindication of a Madman (1837). In this brilliant but uncompleted work he maintained that Russia must follow her inner lines of development if she was to be true to her historical mission. The Slavophils at first mistook Tchaadaev for one of them, but later, on realizing their mistake, bitterly denounced and disclaimed him. Tchaadaev really fought Slavophilism all of his life. Most of his works have been edited by his biographer, M. Gershenzon (two volumes, Moscow, 1913-14), whose excellent little study of the philosopher was published at St. Petersburg in 1908. (1)
