St Petersburg Dialogues

St Petersburg Dialogues: or Conversations on the Temporal Government of Providence (Les Soirées de Saint-Pétersbourg, ou Entretiens sur le Gouvernement Temporel de la Providence) is an 1821 book by the Savoyard diplomat and philosopher Joseph de Maistre.

Summary
In a series of dialogues, three characters, called the Count, the Senator and the Chevalier, meet in Saint Petersburg and explore a range of subjects related to theodicy, punishment and epistemology. The book argues that the continuous blood sacrifice of men is a constant and fundamental law in all of human life and society.

Reception
St Petersburg Dialogues is Maistre's most famous and influential work. The scholar Mark Wegierski writes that it is "extraordinary" in its wide range, which includes "pointed criticisms of Locke and Voltaire, the beginnings of a logothetic linguistic theory, as well as such controversial passages as those in praise of the executioner, and on the divinity of war".

According to the Maistre scholar Carolina Armenteros, the essayistic style of the dialogues expresses an "organicism … opposed to the mechanistic rationalism of the Enlightenment," offering "a pre-romantic and imaginative ideal of the search for truth that springs from respect for variation and particularity … an ideal rooted in awe."