De Gruyter has published a new book on Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi as a cameralist, philosopher, and jurist. Danila Raskov’s article on Russian translations of Justi’s works is available in open access.

Translations are never neutral, and translators often act as co-authors, transferring one discursive reality into another. The eighteenth century marked the peak of translation activity across Enlightenment Europe. The focus of Raskov’s article is on translations from German into Russian of the most prominent and prolific cameralist of the eighteenth century, Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi (1717–1771). It turns out that Justi was translated into Russian more than into any other language. Four of his treatises on the art of statecraft, good governance (Policey), and manufactures were translated within two decades. Altogether, these translations amount to more than three and a half thousand pages.

In the genre of intellectual and conceptual history, Danila Raskov shows that the appropriation of Justi’s ideas took place through processes of domestication and amplification. Moreover, he demonstrates how the intellectual act of translation was intertwined with the political and the aesthetic, as pretentiousness, vastness, and an obscure and difficult style were themselves characteristic of the Baroque epoch.

Editors and authors launched their new book “Johann Heinrich Gottlob von Justi (1717–1771): Philosoph – Kameralist – Publizist” (De Gruyter) on October 15, 2025, at the University of Jyväskylä.