The Concept of "Freedom" in Political Texts by Russian Authors of the 18th Century

Solovev Konstantin Anatol'evich Doctor of History Professor, Department of History of State and Municipal Administration, M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University 119991, Russia, g. Moscow, ul. Lomonosovskii Prospekt, 27, of. 2 ksoloviov@spa.msu.ru Other publications by this author

The eighteenth century was the first in Russian history when the need for social construction, the formation of an image of the future and the search for mechanisms for its implementation appeared and developed in government and society. The first embodied "construct" was the "regular state" of Peter I (although elements of social construction can already be seen in the reform plans of V.V. Golitsyn [31 p. 179-180]). Then the "images of the future" manifested themselves in the controversy over the "Conditions" presented to Anna Ioanovna by the Supreme Privy Council, in the transformative plans of Elizabeth Petrovna's advisers, and finally in the enlightened absolutism of Catherine II. And it is not by chance that in the second half of this century Freemasonry was widely spread in Russia, and "utopia" became one of the most significant genres in literature ^{[32, p. 209, p. 39-36; 27, p. 159-164]}.

The formation of the image of the future required reliance on semantic constructions that could withstand the influx of new meanings. Such supporting structures have become political and managerial "concepts" ("words and grammatical forms that are carriers of meaning in its main forms: "images, symbols and concepts"" ^{[11, p. 438]}) that are formed in the Russian "political" language. These concepts were partly taken from the language of earlier times (such as "autocracy and autocracy"), partly borrowed from the political vocabulary of antiquity and the European Enlightenment of the XVII – XVIII centuries. (the concept of "common good"), partly they were a reflection ("tracing paper") of foreign vocabulary in the Russian language (the expression "common people").

In modern research on the history of political and managerial thought of the XVIII century. the problems associated with the study of the conceptual and terminological apparatus are becoming more and more noticeable. Here we can note both studies devoted to identifying the impact of "general concepts and ideas peculiar to the Enlightenment" on the formation of any of the Russian authors ^{[29, p. 60]}, and the opposite approach - the study of the existence of a specific concept in the political language ^{[22, p. 11-19]}. A significant step towards understanding the existence of the concepts of "freedom" and "will" in the normative documents of Russia of the XVII – XVIII centuries was the study of A.B. Kamensky ^[9]. New generalizing works on the reception of European values in Russia of the XVIII century are appearing ^[1].

The objectives of this article are to identify the concept of "freedom" (and the close to it, but not equivalent concept of "will") in the political and managerial texts of Russian authors of the XVIII century.; an indication of the origins and method of its isolation from the total number of meanings that the word form "freedom" carried in previous eras; designation of those meanings, which were supposed to convey the concept of "freedom" to the reader. The basic research method is textual analysis in its various variants, semantic (including hermeneutics), genetic, and comparative.

The need to use the concept of "freedom/will" in political texts of the XVIII century inevitably referred both authors and readers to two semantic fields: the historically emerging space of meanings of ancient Russian writing, with already established and, to a large extent, well-established versions of understanding what "freedom" and what "will" are; and a set of new semantic possibilities that arise when translating concepts from foreign languages: liberty, la libert?, die Freiheit – used by foreign thinkers of the XVII-XVIII centuries.

"Freedom" and "will" in ancient Russian texts

Among the eight variants of the interpretation of the word "freedom" in the "Dictionary of the Russian language of the XI – XVII centuries", the first one is closest to the political sphere: "freedom, independence" and the fifth: "the opportunity to act according to one's will" ^{[30, p.171]}. In the first interpretation, freedom is understood as the possibility of the "land" (urban community) not to depend on someone's will imposed from the outside. And this is clearly seen in the almost only case when this word was used to describe the relationship between the prince and the urban community: in 1399, Prince Mikhail of Tver decided, before his death, to transfer his rule to his son Ivan, to which the Tverites reprimanded him: "..."kamo come from us, O Great Freedom of the And the glory of the sons of Tfer is honest, great are the guards of the Tfer city, who always guard them like an eagle's nest..." ^{[21, pp. 146-147]}. The meaning of "freedom" is obvious here – it is the independence of Tver from external influence, but not the freedom of Tver residents from princely power. In addition, "freedom" in this fragment is a concept associated with collective, but not individual action, the common will of the inhabitants of Tver land.

As for the second interpretation, I.N. Danilevsky writes that, at least in pre-Mongol Russia, the concept of "freedom" did not have positive connotations, since freedom was associated with ideas about the lack of something: ownership, obligations, etc. ^{[6, p. 82]}. And, as V.V. Korshakov quite rightly notes, "to describe political independence and independence in decision-making in the Old Russian language, a different designation was used: "will"" ^{[13, p. 18]}. In the examples he gives and in other cases (such as, for example, the invitation in 1236, to Novgorod, of Prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich "on the whole will of Novgorod" ^{[20, p. 236]}), one can see that "will" does not mean independence from external influence, but the right to independence for the entire urban community. It should be noted that civil semantics, which implies not only personal freedom, but also the right to participate in government, as it appears in G. Grotius ("By freedom he [Tacitus – auth.] understands civil freedom, that is, the right of self-government of the state. The fullness of such a right exists in the people's government, limited rights exist in the rule of the nobility; in particular, freedom is complete when none of the citizens is excluded from holding public office ^{[5, p. 551]}), in terms of "freedom" and "will" used by the chroniclers, there is no. "Freedom" is rather a designation for the totality of the rights of the urban community. And "will" is a term for the rights to independence in relation to the prince, that is, the right of the entire population to rule, which is not divided into the rights of individuals.

Where the Old Russian tradition met with borrowings from abroad, a new meaning of the word forms "freedom" and "will" arose, associated with law (law), and therefore associated with individual rights. The statement from the "Measure of the Righteous": "Freedom is and convenience is a natural space that is alien to forgiving deeds, as it is, if it is not lawful or need does not forbid" ^{[30, p. 171]}, is a direct quote from the "Digests of Justinian". And there it is placed with reference to Florian's "Institutions": "Freedom is the natural ability of everyone to do what he pleases, if it is not prohibited by force or law" ^{[7, pp. 116-117]}. Two semantic "beacons" of this phrase: "natural ability" and "law" refer us to the theory of "natural law", which in its current form came to Russia only in the XVIII century. But, since the "Measure of righteousness" could have been compiled as early as the end of the XIII century ^{[2, p. 17]}, and its text reflects the linguistic specifics of the XIV century ^{[8, p. 140]}, it can be argued that, at least since the XIV century, the semantics of "freedom" in Russia could potentially connect with the semantics of "rights". And that means. That the Old Russian understanding of the concept of "freedom" as the common "will" of the entire urban community has not become the only possible one.

And already in the XVI century. we meet precisely a new (individual) semantics in the use of the word forms "freedom" and "will" in the third epistle of Prince Kurbsky to Tsar Ivan IV: "Who shut up the kingdom of Russia, that is, free human nature, like strongholds in hell, and who would come from your land, according to the prophet to other lands, ... you call that a fraudster, but they are seized on the eve, and you are executed by various deaths" ^[34]. In this fragment, "freedom" is presented as the "natural" state of a person, an individual. Elsewhere in the same epistle ("Oh, trouble! Oh, woe! Into which abyss the devil, our adversary, will bring down and destroy our autocracy and will!" ^[34]) we see a direct connection between state laws and the degree of "autocracy and will" available to the population. Consequently, we can say that, probably under the influence of familiarity with European political thought, in the Russian political elite of the XVI century. the interpretation of the concept of "freedom" as the collective will of the population begins to be complemented by another - personal freedom.

"Freedom" in the European enlightenment thought of the XVII century.

The second semantic field influencing the formation of the Russian concept of "freedom" is the European political thought of the XVII - XVIII centuries. This field was not homogeneous and there was no single concept of "freedom". Each of the thinkers important to the Russian society gave their own interpretation. The general boundaries of this semantic field were set by a relatively uniform interpretation of such concepts as "common good" and "natural law".

In Russia at the beginning of the XVIII century, the works of thinkers of the XVII and the very beginning of the XVIII centuries had a serious influence on the minds: Thomas Gobs, Christian Wolf, Samuel Pufendorf, Hugo Grotius, Just Lipsius, John Locke [10 pp. 107-120]. Not being able, in this article, to give a complete analysis of the semantics of the concept of "freedom" in European political thought of that time, we will limit ourselves to a few remarks about a number of its most important interpretations. First of all, we note that in the very first translation of S. Pufendorf's treatise "On the position of man and Citizen" into Russian, "freedom" is presented as a supporting element of "self-will" - the force that distinguishes man from animals and manifests itself in the possibility of choice: "To create freely, to be, when there is one a proposal, it can be made or not made, made up, or rejected, or many proposals by him, one can be made up, others rejected" ^{[25, p. 22]}. Such an understanding of freedom is fundamentally different from the basic interpretation of freedom in ancient Russian texts, since Pufendorf's "freedom" is both individual and has a public expression in the law, which is "no bond of our freedom," that at least our will did not want and differed, moreover, it is an obligation, like an internal two-step cognizes what is required If she does not comply with the charter, then she is not a good teacher..." ^{[25, p. 22]}.

To understand the meaning of the concept of "freedom" in T. Gobs, the XIV chapter of his treatise "Leviathan" is important, which he begins as follows: "Freedom, according to the exact meaning of the word, means the absence of external obstacles, which can often deprive a person of part of his power to do what he would like, but cannot interfere with the use of the left a person has power according to what is dictated to him by his judgment and reason" ^{[3, p. 89]}. And since the will of one person can serve as an "external obstacle" to the will of another, it is necessary for Gobs to indicate the limits of individual freedom. And he does this by separating "law" and "law": "One should distinguish between jus and lex – law and law, although those who write on this topic usually confuse these concepts, because the right consists in the freedom to do or not to do, while the law defines and obliges to one or the other to a member of this alternative, therefore, law and law differ from each other" ^{[3, pp. 89-90]}. This is a much tougher juxtaposition of "freedom" (which is realized in "law") and "law", which arises where people are ready to give up the fullness of their rights "for the sake of some other good that they hope to acquire" ^{[3, p. 91]}. As Lucien Jaume rightly noted: "In fact, freedom for Hobbes means the complete opposite of the law" ^{[39, p. 210]}. Accordingly, the problem of the realization of "right" (that is, "freedom"), under conditions of restrictions, is the main theme of Gobs's reflections. The "civil science" of Hobbes, as Tom Orell writes, consists in identifying "the duties and freedoms of subjects and sovereigns" ^{[42, p. 135]} within the framework of a social contract.

J. Locke takes the next step in understanding both personal and civil freedom. He fundamentally does not want to contrast "freedom" and "law": "Human freedom in society consists in the fact that he is not subject to any other legislative authority, except that established by consent in the state, and is not subject to anyone's will and is not limited by any law, except for those that will be established by this legislative body in accordance with the trust placed in it" ^{[14, p. 274]}. Freedom, therefore, is not outside the law, coming into conflict with it (as outlined by Pufendorf and clearly expressed by Gobs), but inside the law: natural, if we are talking about the individual and state, if we are talking about society. And if Gobs insisted that a person can and must exchange part of the rights to life and security, then Locke chose a fundamentally different approach: "This freedom from absolute, despotic power is so necessary for the preservation of a person and is so closely connected with it that he cannot part with it without paying for it with his own security and life" [Ibid., p. 275]. In an effort to achieve a "stable position" on the issue of "the connection between freedom and necessity" ^{[37, p. 123]}, Locke found this equilibrium position by placing freedom inside a space enclosed by law, regularly designating the outer boundaries of this space with the term "framework".

So, in the Western European political thought of the XVII century, two semantic levels of "freedom" are clearly distinguished: personal and public. At the same time, on a personal level, freedom correlates with the "secular concept of civil law" ^[38] and is either expressed in the law or opposed to it. By itself, understanding the importance of the role of law in society is not new to Russian political thought. It is in the above quote from Kurbsky's epistle. It is even more vividly expressed in Fyodor Karpov's letter to Metropolitan Daniel, written, most likely, in the 1630s: "the essence of every civilisation is the truth and laws to correct the unsettled ..." ^[23]. But we do not see a direct correlation between the two concepts: "freedom" and "law" in Russian political writings before the XVIII century. Namely, this ratio is key to understanding the concept of "freedom" in one or another thinker of the early Enlightenment. In addition, the personal level of freedom in the European Enlightenment of the XVII century is closely related to the concept of property ("freedom ... to dispose and dispose as he pleases of his personality, his actions, possessions and all his property within the framework of those laws to which he obeys" ^{[14, pp. 292-293]}), and therefore responsibility for this property. Finally, both the personal and civil levels of "freedom" imply freedom of choice, which in ancient Russian literature rather correlates with the semantics of "will" even before the Horde times.

The beginning of the formation of the Russian concept of "freedom"

The political and cultural revolution that took place in Russia in the first quarter of the XVIII century actualized the European semantic space in the minds of the Russian elite. Two events in the post-Petrine history had the greatest impact on the direction of development of Russian political thought. The first event was the confirmation of Empress Anna Ioanovna on the throne, although it is important not in itself, but because it caused a public discussion of the "Conditions" put forward by the Supreme Privy Council. The second is the work of the Established Commission in the early years of the reign of Catherine II. Both events can be called the most striking manifestations of public freedom, even if not realized in the end.

The beginning of the formation of the concept of "freedom" in the political vocabulary of Russia can be said in relation to the second third of the XVIII century. In the political texts of the Peter the Great era, the word "freedom" itself is rare. For example, it is not present in one of the key texts of that time – the "Deduction" of P.P. Shafirov, although another concept of educational thought – "the common good" - is widely used in it. In another important political document – "The Word about the power and Honor of the tsar" by Feofan Prokopovich – this concept is used with two opposite connotations: the positive one is associated with the truths of Christianity ("Christ freed us with his cross from sin, death and the devil, from eternal condemnation..."), the negative one is associated with the attempts of the ancients "Monomakhs and Tsarebortsev", as well as modern "freedom lovers", to transfer the ideals of Christian freedom into the political sphere: "Christ freed us from ceremonial legal provisions, and from spontaneous human inventions, as if to save the necessary ones ... But Christ did not give us freedom from obedience to the commandments of God and from subjugation by the ruling power, but he approved it even more..." ^{[24, pp. 78-79]}. The idea of the possibility of political freedom in Russia by F. Prokopovich, like most figures of the Peter the Great era, was alien.

The appeal to the concept of "freedom / will" became inevitable when comprehending the "Peter's legacy". And the events of 1730 showed that the free expression of the will of a small, but still a part of society, is possible in Russia. One of the most active participants in those events, V.N. Tatishchev, left us a corpus of political texts with a different genre nature. For us, in this case, the text of the first half of the 1730s, called "A conversation between two friends about the benefits of science and colleges," is most important. His genre is "conversation", in its "Socratic" version, widely represented in European journalism of the XVII – XVIII centuries [A.G. Gotovtseva, 2018, p. 10] and received "wide distribution" in Russia "already in the Peter the Great era", in the form of mainly translations ^{[16, p. 286]}.

The genre of "socratic dialogue" has long been used for works with a certain pedagogical load, when philosophy is understood "as an activity for the education of the soul" ^{[41, p. 497]}. As it is required at the very beginning of the learning process of something new, the genre of "conversation" allows you to talk (long and in detail) those ideas that need to be learned. With regard to the concept of "freedom", this kind of "pronouncing" of ideas extracted from reading Western European thinkers was the answer to question 103, about natural freedom: "The will by nature is so necessary and useful to man that no single well-being can match it ... For whoever is in any kind of captivity, that cannot already, according to their desire to rest, have fun, honor, gain estates and keep them ... Above, I showed you that it is not safe for a person to rely on himself alone at the best age and mind, and therefore we see that the will of a person is put on the bridle of bondage for his own benefit, and through this it is possible to have prosperity in the equation and stay in the best well-being. This bond is one by nature, the other by its own will, the third by compulsion" ^{[33, p. 121]}.

In the lines presented above, we can notice a rather slow movement of thought from archaic to modern. "Will" as a condition of "well-being" is defined very vaguely. The two elements of "will" ("rest and have fun") are extremely vague and legally inaccurate. The third element, the right to property, is formulated with the help of such an action ("to take down"), which refers to the feudal nature of this property. In addition, Tatishchev's "will" is connected with state duty. Having identified three different reasons for restricting freedom: "by nature", "of his own free will" and "under compulsion", Tatishchev correlates different political regimes with them: the monarchy and the republic ^{[33, p. 122]}. According to the logic of his reasoning, the third political form associated with the violent restriction of freedom should be despotic power, but Tatishchev does not name it, putting in this place being "among robbers or in captivity by the enemy" ^{[33, p. 122]}.

In other political texts of the 1730s - 1750s, the concept of "freedom", both in a personal and social sense, was almost not used. There is some hint of the possibility of its application in the documents of a managerial nature ("notes") by P.I. Shuvalov and I.I. Shuvalov. Thus, Peter Shuvalov, defining the methods of state reforms, wrote: "It is impossible to find out the flaws evenly, no matter what kind of matter they are, without going into detail, it is consequently impossible to correct or bring them into a better state. For the sake of free and impartial thought, one should enter into the essence of the kind of evil or matter, and look for the causes of what happens..." ^{[35, p. 177-178]} Ivan Shuvalov in the "Report to the Governing Senate" of 1760 on the education of the nobility, wrote about the need for "a free path to sciences and arts" ^{[35, p. 252]}. In both cases, one can notice a reference to the ideas of the European Enlightenment. But these statements have an indirect relation to the concept of "freedom" as a key element of public life.

The use of the concept of "freedom" in the texts of the 1760s.

A major shift in public consciousness has occurred since the early 1760s. First of all, by the decree of Peter III of February 18, 1862, the nobility were granted "liberty and freedom". The rationale for this decision contained a reference to the ideas of the Enlightenment, but only in the part where it was said about the "benefits of the fatherland." Freedom itself was defined as the realization of "the power given to Us from the Almighty, from Our Highest Imperial grace" ^{[19, pp. 912-913]}. And as an implementation of the concept, in this case, this word form cannot be considered. Empress Catherine II expressed her intention to bring this decree "to the best perfection." And, although the first attempt to update this decree, within the framework of the work of the special commission, did not yield anything ^{[15, pp. 26-27]}, the decree itself continued to operate and the concept of "freedom", thereby becoming the official term of power, without, however, having a conceptual justification.

Another official document of the 1760s, which uses the concept of freedom, is the "Order" of Catherine II of the Laid Commission, where article 98 says: "The judicial power consists only in the execution of laws, and then so that there is no doubt about the freedom and safety of citizens" ^{[17, p. 23]}. The expression "freedom of citizens" is alien to the general context of Russian political and managerial texts of that time. It got into the "Order" as a direct quote from Montesquieu's "spirit of the laws" (which was already noted by the publisher of the order Chechulin). The expression "libert? et la secret? des citoyens" in the French-language version of Catherine's "Order" is identical to what is written in Montesquieu: "Si vous les regardez dans le rapport qu'elles ont avec la libert? et la secret? des citoyens, vous en trouverez souvent trop peu; et vous verrez que les peines, les d?penses, les longueurs, les dangers m?me de la justice, sont le prix que chaque citoyen donne pour sa libert?" ("If you consider them from the point of view of their relationship to the freedom and security of citizens, you will often find that there are too few of them, and you will see that all these difficulties, costs, delays and the very errors of justice are the price that every citizen pays for his freedom" ^[40]).

Accordingly, we can say that the "freedom of citizens" in the Mandate is not a conscious innovation in political language and not an attempt to master the concept of "freedom", but only an accidental borrowing. This is confirmed by the fact that in almost all other cases of using the word "freedom" in the "Mandate", we are talking about the possibility of freeing some part of the population from certain duties. The exception is Article 517 of the "Mandate", in which there is a certain desire correlated with the concept of "freedom of speech": "It would still be a great misfortune in the State if no one dared to present their fears about the future of any adventure, nor to excuse their poor successes, from the persistence of the happiness that occurred, below freely speak their own opinions" ^{[17, p. 140]}. In 1785, when issuing "Charters" to the nobility and cities, Catherine II used the word form "freedom" only where it was necessary to designate the granting of nobles or townspeople with any benefits, which is far from the civil (and even more so political) meaning of this term.

The most important text of the 1760s, for the approval of the concept of "freedom" in the public consciousness, was the project of A.Ya. Polenov on the topic of the competition of the Free Economic Society "What is more useful for society - for a peasant to own land or a movable estate ...", announced in 1766. There are two fragments in this work in which the terms "freedom" and "liberty" are used in their civil meaning. The first, in the section "Advantages of property", where Polenov writes that "a peasant, being the master of his estate, without fear from any side in his reasoning to undergo any violence and using what he acquired freely, can dispose and use it, depending on his benefits" ^{[18, V. 289]}. Let us note the combination of the concepts of "freedom" and "property" in the spirit of Locke, although here, of course, there is no question of direct personal freedom of the peasants, but only of "free" (that is, independent of the will of the landowner) property management.

The second fragment is in the section "On the origin of the slave state", where it says that "natural law, influenced by the creator himself into our hearts, does not conclude for its perfection the reasons for such institutions; so that people voluntarily agreed to it on their own and would expose themselves to such a cruel lot, also it is impossible to believe, reasoning especially according to a person's innate inclination to acquire well-being and an irresistible desire for freedom" ^{[18, p. 292]}. A direct reference to "natural rights", in characterizing the state of people and society as a whole, for the 1760s. This is already a common place. It occurs twice, for example, in P.I. Shuvalov's note "On the need to introduce a lightweight 32 ruble coin from a pound...", written in the 1760s. ^{[35, p. 139]} But the allocation of "liberty" (that is, personal freedom) as a natural right is still a rarity.

As an intermediate conclusion, we can note that until the 1780s in Russia, in socio-political and managerial texts, several attempts were made to master the concept of "freedom/liberty", but these two word forms did not become an obligatory component of political vocabulary. Only in relation to the 1780s can we talk about a certain shift in the consciousness of the Russian elite, as evidenced by the texts of gr. N.I. Panin (and his secretary D.I. Fonvizin), kn. M.M. Shcherbatov and A.N. Radishchev.

Options for using the concept of "freedom" in the 1780s.

The evolution of N.I. Panin's ideas about the role of freedom in society (or, perhaps, the evolution of the form of their representation) is clearly visible when comparing the texts of his two projects of 1762 and 1783. In the "draft on the reform of the Senate" of 1762, the concept of "freedom" in the political sense (as the freedom of citizens or the freedom of the people) is not used at all. But a close understanding of the need for "freedom" is manifested. For the first time, Panin names the main drawback of Elizabeth Petrovna's rule: "a certain person for the production of cases can consider himself not subject to trial and answer before the public, therefore, free from any obligation to the sovereign and the state, except for execution" ^{[12, p. 130]}. The designation of these "persons" as "random people", "temporary workers and courtesans" leaves no doubt that we are not talking about freedom as such, but about the substitution of freedom by the arbitrariness of favorites. Then Panin writes about some "freedom" of the departments of the Senate to address the consideration of the decisions of the empress "if in their execution they can touch or oppress our state laws or our people's welfare" ^{[12, p. 140]}. In this case, the concept of "freedom", albeit indirectly, but correlates with two main theses of European political thought: a) freedom is a necessary element of the public good and b) freedom must necessarily correlate with the law.

Everything is different in the 1783 draft "On Fundamental State Laws" (known in the record of Secretary N.I. Panin – D.I. Fonvizin). The basic position of the project is about the interaction of the government and the people. And it is formulated in such a way that allows the highest degree of freedom of the people in relation to power: "... any power that is not marked by the divine qualities of righteousness and meekness, but produces insults, violence, tyranny, is power not from God, but from people whom the misfortunes of the times allowed yielding to the power to humiliate their human dignity. In such a disastrous situation, the nation, if it finds the means to break its shackles with the same right that is imposed on it, does it very cleverly, whether it breaks" ^{[12, p. 173]}.

And further, the draft establishes a direct link between "freedom" (i.e., "law" in the legal sense) and "law" in the economic sense (i.e., property): "When a free person is one who does not depend on anyone's whim; against that, the slave of a despot is one who cannot dispose of himself or his estate, and who has no other right to everything he owns except the highest mercy and reverence, then according to this interpretation of the political liberties, its non-severing connection with the right of ownership is visible" ^{[12, p. 178]}.

And we can say that with the appearance of this text, the reception of European ideas about "freedom" has ended in Russian public thought. However, this happened within the framework of the "cabinet culture", the most important feature of which is the creation of projects, the implementation of which is currently impossible.

The assimilation of European political structures in Russia led to the emergence of different interpretations of the concept of "freedom" and, accordingly, to a different semantic load of the concept of "freedom". A vivid example of this is the use of this concept in the texts of the book by M.M. Shcherbatov. Already in the "Remarks" on the "Mandate" of Catherine II, he demonstrated his understanding of freedom as an exclusively personal, not a social state, connected not with legality, but with "state benefit": "I am not saying this to completely prohibit slaves from giving freedom, but so that it may be the fruits of it services and diligence, and on such a basis that, upon his release, that freed person would be placed in a state in which he himself would be happy and more useful to the state" ^{[36, p. 84]}. This view of freedom was also expressed in "Reflections on the inconveniences in Russia of giving freedom to peasants and servants, or making property of estates" in 1766. The concept of "public freedom" is so alien to Shcherbatov (in this text) that as the main argument against the personal freedom of peasants, he argues that this freedom it will not be withheld by the law: "Thousands of examples of this can be imagined fights, not just face to face, but villages against villages and crowds against crowds of murders, and for long past vexations of revenge. According to this well-known character, let everyone judge whether it is easy to restrain such villagers by imposing free, general laws?" ^{[36, pp. 148-149]}.

The political content of the concept of "freedom" in Shcherbatov's texts takes place in the 1880s. In his utopian essay "The Journey to the land of Ophir by Mr. S ... a Swedish nobleman", there is a discussion by the chief Ophir official Agibe about what protects the sovereign better: guards or popular love: "his power, not based on love and justice, but [on] autocracy and torment, will be magnified, he will be afraid his guards, and by their power he is terrible to all others; and firmness of spirit, virtue and legitimate freedom will be exterminated" ^{[36, p. 254]}. Here, the phrase "legitimate freedom", combined with the monarchical principle of the organization of power, is closer to the concept of "permitted freedom" than "natural" freedom. But Shcherbatov's very appeal to the topic of public freedom is indicative.

Shcherbtov's most vivid statement, in which he relies on the concept of "freedom", is contained in "Thinking about legislation in general", and again in the characterization of despotic power: "everything that touches this unclean vessel is infected with poison, and everything turns into public harm. ... Whether any assembly of state or local officials is established, there is no liberty in them, there is no spirit of union, there is no love for the fatherland, but all under the rule of a despot or some of his nobles grovel, not daring to arise to amiable freedom, lower to think about the mutual rights that bind societies, for this is among others the vice of despotism what the despot of the despot produces, and the state is filled with such..."^{[36, p. 394]} This is very characteristic of Shcherbatov: he turns to the concept of "freedom" in order to denounce despotism, but not in order to formulate an ideal social structure.

And we see a fundamentally different approach to understanding the concept of "liberty/freedom" in A.N. Radishchev. Freedom is not only the basic principle of the organization of society, but also an indispensable condition for the existence of two other social categories, exalted, a little later, by the Great French Revolution: equality and fraternity. This understanding of freedom is reflected, no doubt, in the ode "Liberty". But even more clearly in the chapter "Hotilov" of his "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow": "Born in the midst of this freedom, we truly honor each other as brothers, belonging to one family, having one father, God. ... Balance of power, equality in property will take away the root of even civil disagreement." And further: "Civil law has shown you people who have exchanged unlimited freedom for peaceful use. But if they all put a limit to their freedom and a rule to their deeds, then all are equal from the womb of matter in natural freedom, they should be equal in restriction thereof" ^{[26, pp. 121 and 123]}. Here, the concept of "freedom" is the basic condition for further movement towards equality and fraternity. And this is already extremely close to what J.J. Rousseau wrote in his treatise "On the Social Contract": "If we try to determine what exactly is the greatest good of all, which should be the goal of any system of laws, it turns out that it boils down to two main things: freedom and equality. To freedom, since any dependence on a private person also reduces the power of the State; to equality, because freedom cannot exist without it" ^{[28, p. 51]}.

Conclusions.

1. Historically, the semantics of the concept of "will" in Ancient and Medieval Russia correlated with the practice of defending the collective rights of the population of a particular territory ("land") in relations with the authorities, and the semantics of "freedom" - with the assertion of individual rights. In this regard, the historical semantics of "freedom" in the Russian language is closer to the common European understanding of personal (individual) freedom. But before the XVIII century, the concepts of "freedom" and "will" were only fragmentary in political speech.

2. The consolidation of the concept of "freedom/will" in political speech occurred in Russia in the second half of the XVIII century, under the influence of two processes. One process is the transformation of the "royal" model of power relations into "imperial" ones, which took up the entire first quarter of the XVIII century. The second is the acquaintance of the educated part of Russian society with the political literature of European countries and the gradual rooting of political vocabulary in the minds of the most prepared part of the Russian elite. 

3. Until the end of the XVIII century, the semantic content of the terms "freedom" and "will" was not completely separated. The use of one term or another was the choice of the author himself. At the same time, the semantics of "freedom" and "will", in each case, received individual content, depending on the political preferences of the author. As close as possible to the pan-European interpretation of the category of "freedom" (as a set of individual rights) we can see in the papers, Mr. N.I. Panin. For the founder of Russian conservatism, Kn. M.M. Shcherbatov, "freedom" is a class category, rather reflecting a common set of rights for individual groups of the population. And there is a fundamentally different interpretation of the concept of "freedom/will" by A. N. Radishchev, who was the first to make the realization of "freedom" in society dependent on achieving "equality" in the production and distribution of material goods.

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