The worlds of Saint-Simon discovered by Andrey Gladyshev
Tanshina Natalia
This essay is devoted to the analysis of the book by A.V. Gladyshev «The worlds of Cl.-H. de Saint-Simon. Between Napoleon and Louis XVIII». The subject of the monograph is the life and ideas of Saint-Simon in the context of the Bourbon Restoration period 1814-1816. Applying interdisciplinary methodology, Gladyshev revisited the opinion widely spread in the Russian and foreign historiography concerning an intellectual heritage of Saint-Simon and the period of Restoration as a whole. The period of Restoration is presented by Gladyshev as a time of turmoil, accelerating the processes of developing of new ideas and forming of political ideologies. Saint-Simon immediately participated in this process of institutionalizing a post-revolutionary France. The work demonstrates the evolution of the perception of the intellectual heritage of Saint-Simon from the 19th till 21th centuries. If contemporaries perceived his ideas as eccentric projects, the twentieth century historians interpreted him as a prophet of the Entente, the European Union, industrial society, positivism and social partnership.