Chaadaev’s “Revolutionary” Retirement

Petr Chaadaev’s retirement from military service in 1821 has always attracted attention and a number of explanations; however, as the extent of these different theories makes clear, the sense of this event remains incompletely understood. This article offers a deeper contextualization of the affair, one that considers how an emotional affect – Chaadaev’s display of contempt for authority in a personal letter – lies at the heart of the matter. This Chaadaevan affect only becomes fully legible when considered in relation to various contextual elements, including Romantic philosophy of language, early nineteenth-century “radical” political emotions, Russian liberal elite sentiment toward Alexander I , the global democratic movements of the 1810s, and, finally, the intricacies of contempt itself. Taken together, these different elements greatly expand understanding of how Chaadaev and his contemporaries understood his behavior – and why it was ultimately so meaningful as to inspire writers across the nineteenth century from Pushkin to Dostoevsky.