Comment convertir la Russie ? Quelques paradoxes politicoreligieux dans les écrits de Joseph de Maistre

The history of Russia still attracts a lot of interest and excitement. Often Western people’s perception of this country seems contentious to us, in Poland. The aim of my paper is to familiarise the reader with its depiction of the eminent Savoyard conservative philosopher Joseph de Maistre (1753‐1821). De Maistre spent 14 years in St. Petersburg (1803‐1817), during which period the Napoleonic wars, and then the final defeat of the French Emperor, thoroughly demolished the geopolitical and ideological aspects of the Old Continent. I have engaged myself in reconstruction, based on a number of dispersed sources (archives, correspondence, texts, studies), of some political and religious paradoxes and utopias which result of Joseph de Maistre’s overall vision of the Russian state.