Catherine the Great’s Instruction to the Commission for drafting a new code of laws and the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Arts

The article aims to determine the role of the Imperial Academy of Sciences and Arts in publishing and preserving the text of Catherine the Great’s Instruction. The study examines editions of the Instruction produced by the Academy of Sciences’ printing house during the reign of Catherine the Great. The originality of the research lies in its examination of the Academy’s contribution to the publication and preservation of the Instruction on the basis of previously unstudied archival documents. The research establishes for the first time that the combined print run of editions of the Instruction produced by the Academy’s printing house exceeded a record 9,000 copies. The empress’s state secretary, G. V. Kozitsky, who had previously served at the Academy of Sciences and maintained his ties with it, was directly involved in translating the Instruction into foreign languages and publishing the document. Professor J. J. Stählin and the Academy’s engravers, C. M. Roth and P. T. Balabin, created illustrations for the best-known edition of the Instruction, published in 1770, highlighting its social and political significance. The study establishes that, by entrusting the original texts of the Instruction to the Academy of Sciences for safekeeping, the empress underscored both the importance of this programmatic document and the role of the Academy as an institution charged with promoting the spread of Enlightenment ideas in Russia.