Sogomonov A.Ju. Baron A. Delvig’s Moral Crusade (Engineering and Ethical Reflection in the middle of XIX century). Semestrial Papers of Applied Ethics. 2024. No. 1 (63). Pp. 139-162.

Abstract

Baron A. Delvig (1813-1887) was gifted engineer and statesman of the highest rank in the Russian empire at the eve of the capitalist epoque. He left us voluminous memoires, which are not only of the unique historical evidence, but maybe the first attempt of the critical analysis of the process of public mores transformation and the genesis of Russian ethos of modernization. Nonstandard style of thinking and more generally his independent modus vivendi allowed him to construct full of nuances grand canvas of semantically ambivalent civic culture and ethos of Russian elites. Delvig himself personally and in his analysis was an “architect” of the typically Russian model of syncretism of individual autonomy and deep loyalism, values liberalism and profound mental etatism.