Republikanin i arystokrata. Spotkania J. Q. Adamsa z J. de Maistre’em w Saint-Petersburgu w latach 1809 -1814
Streszczenie
J. Q. Adams was the first minister of the United States in Russia. Dis diaries are very
valuable as the source of knowledge about the court of tsar Alexander the First and the
diplomatic life during the stormy days of Napoleonic wars. St. Petersburg in those days
gathered the flower of al) european arystocracy who, on russian ground, tried to find any
shelter because of danger of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars. J. de Maistre
as the legate of Sardinia was just among those emigrants. He lived very simply reading many
books, but he was homesick. He was interested in ancient philosophy and the european
thought. J. Q. Adams was also interested in. that. So these both men started to change their
books and opinions. They became more and more closer to each other, but they never bccame
friends.
J. Q. Adams, as the man o f the American Revolution, could not agree with the political
opinions and with the religious convictions of J. de Maistre. Nowadays J. de Maistre is
known an the father of the european conservatism. In J. Q. Adams’s diaries he is described
as a great philosopher, an orthodoxal catholic and a politician who gloryfied on ancient
regime. J. Q. Adams admired the erudition of J. de Maistre but did not agree with his
political opinions. Perhaps, that is why the writings of J. de Maistre (now in the Adams’s
Library, Mass.) were never talked about and quoted in the Adams family.
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