A new century and a new era

Moscow, Kazan, Dorpat

pp. 27-52

in: Thomas Nemeth, Kant in imperial Russia, Berlin, Springer, 2017

Abstract

This chapter relates the tensions arising from importing German scholars into Russia to staff Moscow University, the oldest in Russia, and the newly established one at Kazan. While the German scholars were receptive to the general thrust of Kant's idealism, their Russian counterparts were far less so, resulting in clashes from the start. The promise of enlightened rule in the first years of the century gave way to reactionary forces that saw philosophy as a threat to the established order.