The figure of Tsar Peter I of Russia (1672–1725), a reputed reformer of the early Russian state, has many times become such a plastic signifier as to convey different kinds of symbolism for different political purposes. However, many authors agree that the formidable pace of Petrine reforms caused a genuine struggle to construct a new language of Russian technocracy – an instrument for the sovereign power and collective actions. Disproportions between the novelty of the emerging technological reality in Russia and the archaic Church-Slavonic language of the government created a characteristic clash between res et verba. Peter’s “politics of neologisms,” which also invoked new methods of visualization and quantification, shaped national and cultural identity, and induced pedagogical and institutional discussions. My paper will examine how the state-supported procedures of technical translation influenced the administering of the early Russian Enlightenment. I will argue that Peter’s adopted strategies and procedures of technical translation in the linguistic sense played a role as a factor in translation in the sense of building a new bureaucratic system – a Leviathan that would soon grow into a European empire. Peter’s intentional approach to translation prioritised the practical knowledge of how to perform concrete manual operations but not the conceptualization of skills, which slowed down the institutionalization of knowledge practices and the evolvement of continuous legal frameworks for sustainable bureaucracy. My contribution will conclude by considering the impact which was thus generated for the subsequent development of the Russian version of imperial humanism.
