Pyotr Chaadayev

Pyotr or Petr Yakovlevich Chaadayev (Russian: Пётр Я́ковлевич Чаада́ев; also spelled Chaadaev, or Čaadajev; 7 June [27 May O.S.]

Because there was nothing to charge him with, Chaadayev was declared legally insane and put under constant medical supervision, though this was a formality rather than a real administrative abuse.

[8]) After leaving Moscow University without completing his course in 1812, he entered the army and fought against the 1812 French invasion of Russia.

His first Philosophical Letter has been labeled the "opening shot" of the Westernizer-Slavophile controversy which was dominant in Russian social thought of the nineteenth century.

We belong to those who are not an integral part of humanity but exist only to teach the world some type of great lesson.Upon reading the first Philosophical Letter, Tsar Nicholas I wrote in the margin that only a madman could have expressed the views it contained, a comment that shortly thereafter caused Chaadayev to be declared insane, though the judgment may also have been based on Chaadayev's "eccentricities and nervous peculiarities.

"[11] In this brilliant but uncompleted work he maintained that Russia must follow her inner lines of development if she was to be true to her historical mission.

)[2] Most of his works have been edited by his biographer, Mikhail Gershenzon (two volumes, Moscow, 1913–14), whose study of the philosopher was published at St. Petersburg in 1908.