In Search of an Order

The essays presented in this book cover that age of European rationality during which, by fits and starts, between intermittent wars and armistices, the gradual move took place from the epoch of the Baroque to Classicism and then to the age of Romaticism. During the period, one of the empires evolves into a European superpower, reaches its apogee and slowly declines; in the meantime, its counterpart on the other shore closely watches and emulates its neighbour/enemy/big brother and gradually masters the art of being an empire. We leave the scene of the narrative delineated in this volume at the turning point when the impoverished Sweden sets out on the path towards European nation statehood, leaving the newly magnificent Russia to shine on land and sea in its stubborn pursuit on unrestricted dominion. The stage of this historical drama is not only populated by armies and navies, but also enlivened by an incessant flow of travelers traversing the expanses of the other, in both directions and beyond each other's confines, in search of each other's secrets, the keys to the other's (and consequently one's own) symbolic constitution.