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chancellor to Empress
ELIZABETH
. From 1758 she
became close to the future empress Catherine II.
She actively participated in the palace revolt that
brought Catherine to the throne in 1762,
although Dashkova's desire to be rewarded more
prominently caused an initial rift between the
two. Dashkova's first intellectual enterprise was
the journal
Nevinnoe uprazhnenie,
which she
established in 1763. From 1769 to 1783, she
traveled in Europe, where she met leading intel-
lectuals of the day such as Voltaire, Diderot, and
Adam Smith. Back in St. Petersburg, from 1783
to 1794 she served as director of the
ACADEMY OF
SCIENCES
and president of the Russian Academy,
remarkable appointments for an 18th-century
woman. During these years she founded two
important publications,
Sobesednik liubitelei
russkogo slova
(Companion for Lovers of the Rus-
sian Language) (1783-84) and
Novye ezhemesi-
achnye sochineniia
(1786-96), to which she
attracted leading literary figures of her day, such
as G. R. Derzhavin, D. I.
FONVIZIN
, Ia. B. Kniazh-
nin, V. V. Kapnist, and others. She took part in
launching the
Dictionary of the Russian Academy,
as
well as the periodical
Russian Theater
(1786-94).
In 1794, the publication of Kniazhnin's tragedy
Vadim Novgorodskii
(1793) led to a final rift with
Catherine II and Dashkova's removal from her
posts. Dashkova played an invaluable role in
promoting cultural enlightenment and educa-
tion in Catherinian Russia. Her memoirs, first
published in Russian in 1804-6 and later trans-
lated into English as
Memoirs of Princess Dashkova,
were very popular among readers and, while not
always reliable in their exposition of historical
events, they contain interesting information
about the reign of Catherine II and about life in
18th-century Russia.
Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova, ca. 1790
(Hulton/Archive)
training in biology to present his nationalist
views as scientific gave them an air of authority
that added to their influence among followers of
pan-Slavism. He also influenced later philoso-
phers of history, such as Oswald Spengler.
Dashkova, Princess Ekaterina
Romanovna
(1743-1810)
(née Vorontsova)
writer
An immensely talented woman who excelled as
a writer, art connoisseur, teacher, philologist,
editor, naturalist, and musician, Dashkova was a
noted and controversial intellectual during the
reign of
CATHERINE II
. Born into the prominent
aristocratic Vorontsov family, she was educated
in the home of her uncle, Mikhail Vorontsov,
Davydov, Denis Vasilievich
(1784-1839)
soldier and writer
The scion of an aristocratic family, Davydov
embarked on a military career in 1801. As an
adjutant to
BAGRATION
from 1806 to 1812, Davy-
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