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Russia’s “first philosopher” Peter Chaadaev was a cultural lightning rod who embodied some of the “hottest” political and social flash points of his age: resistance to autocracy; fame; media representation; and the intersection of private self and public persona. This paper examines a seminal early moment in his career that played an important role in shaping his reputation, his early retirement from military service in 1821. While this incident is frequently noted in passing, its significance has never been fully explored, particularly for how it centers around Chaadaev’s semi-public expression of “revolutionary” sentiment in the form of contempt for authority. Through a close look at early nineteenth-century “radical” political emotions, Romantic ideas of language/utterance, and the specific emotional and political contours of Russian society in the 1810s, this paper considers the origins of a defining characteristic of Chaadaev in the eyes of his contemporaries – his expression of contempt – and addresses how this emotion became a “sticky” affect for him and essential component of the sign of “Chaadaev” in Russian culture.
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