Two centuries of the Russian classics Two centuries of the Russian classics 2686-7494 IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2686-7494-2025-7-4-50-73 Research Article Articles The “Secret Mission” of Princess E. R. Dashkova in the Socio-Political Struggle of the Third Quarter of the 18th Century Mikhail  M.  Safonov red@rusklassika.ru 25 12 2025 7 4 50 73 E. R. Dashkova Catherine II Voltaire D. Diderot Russia the palace coup the Age of Enlightenment enlighteners Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 The author set out to reconstruct the secret political activities of Empress Catherine II’s close friend, Princess E. R. Dashkova, in the third quarter of the 18th century, following the palace coup on 28 June 1762. Empress Catherine II’s closest friend and the future head of two Academies carefully concealed this aspect of her multifaceted activities and did not tell anything about it in her famous Memoirs. The author of the article managed to establish that during her first trip abroad, the stateswoman of the Russian monarch, who was in a semi-basement, carried out a secret mission entrusted to her by the empress. The essence of this mission was to neutralize, through personal contacts with the luminaries of the Enlightenment, Diderot and Voltaire, the negative perception of the image of Russia created in the works of K.-K. Ruhlier and J.-B. Chappe d’Autroche, and convince European public opinion that the works of these French authors who have visited Russia are, in fact, lampoons. Luppol, I. K. Deni Didro [Denis Diderot]. Moscow, Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union Publ., 1960. 295 p. (In Russ.) Mezin, S. A. Didro i tsivilizatsiia Rossii [Diderot and the Civilization of Russia]. Moscow, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie Publ., 2018. 270 p. (In Russ.) Safonov, M. M. “Angal’t-Tserbstskaia devstvennitsa” [“The Virgin of Anhalt-Zerbst”]. Tekhnologiia vlasti. Nestor, no. 1 (7), 2005, pp. 208–242. (In Russ.) Safonov, M. M. “Vol’ter, kniaginia E. R. Dashkova, Ekaterina II” [“Voltaire, Princess E. R. Dashkova, and Catherine II”]. Vol’terovskie chteniia [Voltairean Readings], issue 2. St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia Publ., 2014, pp. 132–153. (In Russ.) Safonov, M. M. “ʽVol’teriada’ Zhana Giubera i kniaginia Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova” [“Jean Hubert’s ʽVoltériade’ and Princess Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova”]. Trudy Gosudarstvennogo Ermitazha [Proceedings of the State Hermitage Museum], vol. 91. St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum Publ., 2018, pp. 145–156. (In Russ.) Safonov, M. M. “Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova i Vol’ter” [“Ekaterina Romanovna Dashkova and Voltaire”]. Rossiia i zapadnoevropeiskoe Prosveshchenie [Russia and the Western European Enlightenment]. St. Petersburg, National Library of Russia Publ., 2016, pp. 112–128. (In Russ.) Somov, V. A. “ʽPrezident trekh akademii’ E. R. Dashkova vo frantsuzskoi ʽRossike’ kontsa XVIII veka” [“E. R. Dashkova’s ʽPresident of the Three Academies’ in the French ʽRossica’ of the Late 18th Century”]. E. R. Dashkova i A. S. Pushkin v istorii Rossii [E. R. Dashkova and A. S. Pushkin in the History of Russia]. Moscow, Moscow Institute for the Humanities named after Princess E. R. Dashkova Publ., 2000, pp. 39–53. (In Russ.) El’kina, I. M. “Prosvetiteli i kniga Shappa d’Otrosha o Rossii” [“The Enlightenment and Chappe d’Autroche’s Book on Russia”]. Vestnik Moskovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriia IX. Istoriia, no. 6, 1973, pp. 71–81. (In Russ.) Karrer d’Ankoss, E. Impertaritsa i Abbat. Neizdannaia duel’ Ekateriny II i abbata Shappa d’Otrosha [The Empress and the Abbot. The Unpublished Duel of Catherine II and Abbot Chappe d’Autroche]. Moscow, Olma-Press Publ., 2005. 460 p. (In Russ.) Carrer d’Ancausse, Hélène. L’impératrice et l’abbé: un duel littéraire inédit entre Catherine II et l’abbé Chappe d’Auteroche. Paris, Fayard, 2003. 642 p. (In French) Dulac, Georges, et Vladimir Somov. “Politique, litérature et mestification: Echec à Rulière. Un récit de Diderot rapporté par D. Golitzin.” Dix­huitème siecles, no. 23, 1991, pp. 219–222. (In French) Tourneux, Maurice. Diderot et Catherine II. Paris, Calmann-Lévy, 1899. 601 p. (In French)