“Nakaz” of Catherine the Great

This is a philosophical-political tractate about the state and the principles of ruling, written by Catherine the Great, her “Nakaz”, or in other words Instruction. She had worked on this Nakaz for 2 years after she took the throne hence a palace revolution and the killing of her spouse – Emperor Peter III.
This book displays the good and noble intentions of the young empress and her belief in the ideals of French enlighteners, with two of whom, Voltaire and Diderot, she corresponded with. A great deal of her Nakaz is a direct lift from Montesquieu’s “Spirit of the laws”. The Nakaz proclaimed the ideas that enticed the young Empress, but weren’t shared by her confidants at all. Primarily they were ideas of the supremacy of statute laws
and the equality of citizens before law. But with the practice of serfdom there were no citizens in Russia, just subjects.
Catherine’s noble impulsions and detached from reality arguments stumbled into complete misunderstanding. Nevertheless, Catherine convened a special committee and introduced her legislative initiatives, which had already been cut and corrected by those who proofread it. The committee went forward in readjusting the Nakaz. In a year, Catherine stopped the work of the committee and tried to forget her initiatives. The Nakaz was recalled from circulation and the book became a rarity.