A Herzen Reader

Admirers of Gogol, having accepted as truth the opinions which had shone through so brilliantly in his works, were insulted by his renuncia­tion, his defense of the status quo, his disparaging, in the words of the neo- Slavs; they picked up the glove that he had thrown down, and, of course, there came to the forefront a fighter worthy of him—Belinsky.

He published a strong article against Gogol's new book in The Contemporary.

Hence the correspondence. In giving more publicity to these letters, we are far from any idea of condemnation and reprimand. It is time for us to look upon publicity with grown-up eyes. Publicity is a purgatory from which the memory of the departed passes on into history, the only life pos­sible beyond the grave.

There is no need to hide anything; in publicity there is repentance, the last judgment and certain reconciliation, if there can be reconciliation. More­over, nothing must be hidden; only that which is unimportant and empty is forgotten, lost without a trace.

The whole question is; do Gogol and Belinsky belong to us as public figures in the field of Russian thought? And if so—was there a correspon­dence between them?

As I have already said, Belinsky read me his letter and that of Gogol in Paris.

Notes

Source: "Primechanie k 'Perepiske N. Gogolia s Belinskim' v Poliarnoi zvezde," Poliar- naia zvezda, kn. i, 1855; 12:275-76, 539-40.

♦ 7 *

The Polestar, Bk. II, i856. "Forward! Forward!" is dated March 3i, but the peace treaty ending the Crimean War was actually signed on March 30. This programmatic article identifies the commune (obshchina) as the cornerstone of Russian socialism and Rus­sia's hope for the future. Herzen called upon advanced Russian society to become politi­cally active now that Nicholas I was dead and the war had ended.

Forward! Forward! [1856]

Keep moving now, do not stand in one place, it is difficult to say what will come and how, but there has been a real jolt and the ice has begun to break up. Move forward. You'll be amazed how easy it will be to go on after this.

This morning, Count Orlov threw the last clump of earth on the grave of Nicholas, having solemnly witnessed his death and along with it the begin­ning of a new era for Russia.

The war was costly for you and peace brought no glory, but the blood of the Sevastopol warriors did not flow in vain if you take advantage of that terrible lesson. Roads strewn with corpses, soldiers worn out before encountering the enemy, poor communications, confusion in the quarter­master service—all clearly demonstrated the incompatibility of a deadening autocracy not only with development and general welfare, but even with force and external order, with that mechanical supplying of the essentials that is despotism's ideal. To what purpose was the oppression of thought, the persecution of the word, eternal parades and instruction, to what pur­pose was police surveillance over the entire government, with hundreds of thousands of documents being received and issued?

The purpose was that forty-two years after the brilliant, young, liberal colonel M. F. Orlov signed on March 30, 1814 the capitulation of Paris in the name of those who defeated Napoleon, another Orlov, an old man, who was his brother and the chief of the gendarmes, bore the guilty head of Rus­sia and accepted a peace given by another Napoleon, also from the ranks of the gendarmes.

"Do you really believe in the tremendous power of the tsar of which you speak?" I said in 1853 at a Polish meeting in London, and I repeat my words, because events have so sharply confirmed them. "Russia is strong, but impe­rial power, as it is now constituted, is unable to summon that strength. It has no roots in national consciousness; it is not Russian and not Slavic. It is a temporary dictatorship, a state of siege, introduced into the foundations of the government. Perhaps it was historically necessary, but it has outlived itself; it realized its destiny when Alexander I entered Paris as a liberator, surrounded by kings and crowned heads, whom he restrained from pillage and violence."

Alexander I knew this, and was somehow at a loss after the victory, feel­ing that it was impossible to continue on the path of absolute power, and he went sadly along with head bowed toward the 14th of December, lacking the strength to either gain control of events or to yield to them.

The same consciousness, on the other hand, was demonstrated by the tremendous conspiracy in which leading people from all active layers of Russian society took part. To remain any longer under the yoke of un­limited absolute power was so intolerable that a handful of heroic people proudly threw down a challenge to tsarist power "in the very jaws of the lion" as Michelet said. Strength won out over thought. With his cold and heavy arm Nicholas stopped the young life that pressed forward, stopped every kind of movement, and achieved what? In the thirtieth year of his reign a deadly quiet hung over his crushed, silent people; a restrained Po­land was barely breathing, Russian literature had come to a halt, the 14th of December was defeated, and he—the representative and head of reaction in Europe—wanted at last to test his strength.

And this thirtieth year became for him a year of terrible atonement. With impotent wrath, with burning shame, Nicholas saw his troops, which he had taught so well to handle a rifle, beaten by the commissary; courts, boards, and councils were filled with thieves. Surrounded by informers and two or three different police forces, he knew about every liberal quatrain written by some student, every imprudent toast proposed by some young man, but he lacked the means to find out the facts and to reach the truth in every other matter.

Right next to him, alongside him, brazenly stood another power, elusive, omnipresent, stealing at one go the gold from his throne and the iron from the peasant's plow, with one hand not allowing the soldier's rations to reach them while stealing the peasant's piece of bread with the other hand.

Several months before his death (as the newspapers recount), Nicholas, angered by the theft of money for disabled soldiers, said that he knew of only one person in the service who did not steal, and it was him.

What a realization of weakness and what a punishment! Nicholas died beneath its weight.

Is it possible that Alexander and Konstantin, whose honesty we have no right to doubt, imagine that they are eradicating evil by handing over to the courts several rogues and publishing official circulars with critical remarks?

Evil fears the light, evil fears publicity, evil fears freedom—and yet ab­solute power fears all of this. This is the frightening mutual guarantee be­tween the two powers. Theft was not a national problem in France, but ten years of the first empire was sufficient to turn French generals into robbers, and prefects into bribe-takers.

We ourselves have to fight evil, to raise our voice against it, to seek counsel and means, to display willpower and strength, if they were not in fact bro­ken by the Nicholaevan yoke. If we do not, nothing will happen.

But he did not break them. The same year that was so merciless for the tsar showed us once again the inexhaustible, healthy might of the Russian people. How strange all this is and how full of deep significance! Rus came to life as he was passing away, and he was passing away because he had no faith in his own people. [. . .]

The air of 1612 and 1812 began to blow through Russia with the news of the enemy invasion, and not a single person mistook the Turkish crusade for "enlightenment and freedom."¹ We don't know how the war would have ended had it really turned into a popular uprising, but we are genuinely glad of the peace, all the more because it brings not splendor but humility. The iron of victorious swords can forge the strongest chains.

On the contrary, the modest peace obliges everyone to be thoughtful about our position. Everyone now sees that the former path will not do at all; however, we are sure that no one—neither the government nor you— has a definite idea, plan, or program. But to leave the future to the vagaries of fortune is a bad thing. People are not responsible for the way that events change ideas about the future, but the wish to master them and realize in them one's reason and will is integral to conscious human development.

We did not comprehend our actual situation because, attracted by su­perficial strength, we approached a historical task like forced labor. There are many reasons for this, and an exclusionary national identity is as much of a hindrance to understanding our original development as Western civilization. [. . .]

It is not only imperial power in its Petrine form that has outlived its time, but all of Petersburg Russia. What it was able to achieve has been achieved. We must free ourselves from the moral yoke of Europe, that Europe on which up to now our eyes have been directed. [. . .]

We are not petty bourgeois—we are peasants.

We are poor in cities and rich in villages. All efforts to create in our midst an urban bourgeoisie in the Western sense have resulted in empty and ab­surd consequences. Our only genuine city-dwellers are government work­ers; the merchants are closer to the peasants than to them. The gentry are naturally much more rural than urban dwellers. Thus—the city for us is re­ally just the government, while the village is all Russia, the people's Russia.

Our peculiarity, our originality is the village with its communal self- governance, with the peasants' meeting, with delegates, with the absence of personal land ownership, with the division of fields according to the num­ber of households. Our rural commune has survived the era of difficult state growth in which communes generally perished and has remained whole in double chains, preserved under the blows of the owner's stick and the bureaucrat's theft.

Naturally, a question arises at the very outset: should our commune be formed on the basis of an abstract notion of personal independence and a sovereign right to property, eradicating patriarchal communism and do­mestic mutual assistance, or, on the contrary, shouldn't we develop it on its popular and social principles, seeking to preserve and combine personal independence, without which there is no freedom, with a social inclination, with mutual assistance, without which freedom becomes a monopoly of the property owner. [. . .]

But in approaching this issue we are hindered not by the tsar but by the terrible crime of serfdom. Serfdom is Russia's guilty conscience, its right to slavery. The scars on the backs of the martyrs and suffering people of the field and the front hall are not in fact on their back but on our face, on Rus­sia's face. The landowners are bound hand and foot by their absurd right.

Thus the first enemy with whom we must fight is right before our eyes.

There is, at first glance, something crazy in our inability to resolve this question. The younger gentry wanted this fifteen years ago in Moscow, Penza, Tambov, and I do not know where else; Alexander I dreamed about it; Nicholas wished it. The young members of the gentry have now become middle-aged landowners, and we have no reason to doubt that Alexander II opposes it. Who does not want this to happen? Who is the powerful figure who is stopping at the same time the people and the tsar, the educated part of the gentry and the suffering peasants?

Again it's the fantastic boyards russes, and once again the invented old Muscovite party. Well, the estates of these boyars are also mortgaged and the payments are overdue, so where is their power—no, it is not about them.

No, let us be frank, the question of emancipation has not been resolved because we did not know how to begin, and we did not know how to begin in part because it is not soluble from the point of view of the Petersburg government, which nurtured this evil and profited by it, nor from the point of view of that liberalism at the heart of which lies the religion of personal property, the unconditional and ineradicable admission that it is forever indestructible. [. . .]

How can we approach a solution to such a complex question? For that to happen we must discuss it, exchange ideas and check opinions. The cen­sorship does not allow us to do this in print, and the police do not allow us to do this orally. Once again we have to run to those fruitless arguments between the adherents of an exclusive theory of nationality and the follow­ers of cosmopolitan civilization.² Is it not a sin to waste one's strength on these sham debates, to wear down one's mind on this internecine strife, at the same time that one's heart and conscience ask for something else, and the same time that the melancholy peasant leaves his unsown field to do his compulsory labor, and the house-serf with clenched teeth awaits the birch rod?

At least we should ask the sovereign that all of us again be subject to cor­poral punishment, because it is totally repulsive that the protection of our gentry's backs gives us the right to be executioners.

.Isn't it clear that as a first instance our entire program comes down to the need for open discussion and that all banners disappear into one—the banner of the emancipation of the serfs with land.

Down with the ridiculous censorship and the ridiculous rights of land­owners! Down with compulsory labor and quitrent. Free the house serfs!

We'll tackle other issues later on.

March 31, 1856

Notes

Source: "Vpered! Vpered! Pervaia stat'ia v Poliarnoi zvezde," Poliarnaia zvezda, kn. 2, 1856; 12:306-12, 546-47.

As was claimed by Napoleon III to justify the attack.

Herzen is referring to the arguments between the Slavophiles and liberal Westernizers.

♦ 8 ♦

The first edition of "Baptized Property" appeared in i853. The head of the postal service, Adlerberg, informed the Third Department that the brochure was written in a way that was offensive and harmful to the government. While the tsar took great pains to prevent its penetration into Russia, the Russian ambassador in London purchased a copy for the Grand Duchesses Olga and Maria Nikolaevna (Let 2:158, 182-84). A few years later, the Crimean War and the death of Nicholas made additional comments necessary. The introduction to the second edition below was written in October 1856, and published in 1857 by the Free Russian Press. Herzen displayed his concern over government inac­tion, and yet he held out hope that the new tsar would free the serfs in due time.

Prince Yuri N. Golitsyn (1823-1872), to whom several lively pages of Past and Thoughts are devoted, wrote to Herzen on July 8 (20), 1858, from Dresden that he had sought out London publications in Russian "in order to find out abroad what was going on at home. [. . .] Among the ones I received and read with great delight was the brochure previously unknown to me: 'Baptized Property.' As a Tambov landowner familiar with peasant life, this article aroused in me the desire to share my thoughts with you." Golitsyn says that he does not mind having recently been criticized by a letter-writer in The Bell—his regard for the editor's importance to Russia overcame any hurt feelings. Because of his foreign contacts and the discovery of a set of issues of The Bell that he had bound in revo­lutionary red and embossed with his family crest, Golitsyn was exiled to the provinces at the end of 1858. He spent two colorful years abroad in 1860-62, after which he returned to Russia and wound up composing patriotic music in gratitude when the tsar's life was spared in 1866 (Eidel'man, Svobodnoe slovo Gertsena, 365-68).

The Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko heard "Baptized Property" read aloud at a dinner in Nizhny-Novgorod and wrote in his diary about the powerful effect of sincere, truthful human words; the London exile was "our apostle" (Let 2:376). A number of Herzen's bolder articles were later reprinted and distributed by radicals in Russia; what made "Baptized Property" particularly dangerous was its being handed out several years later in rural areas following the Emancipation (Let 3:222-26, 476).

Baptized Property A Preface to the Second Edition

[1857]

Three years ago, while making my first attempts at Russian publishing in London, I printed a small piece on serfdom under the title "Baptized Prop­erty." I ascribe no great importance to that brochure; on the contrary, I find it highly inadequate, but the edition has sold out. Mr. Torzhevsky has expressed a desire to issue a new one and I saw no reason to deny him this right.

Many events have transpired in Russia during these three years, but serf­dom remains as it was—a sore and a stain, the outrage of Russian life that humbles us and makes us—blushing and with a lowered head—confess that we are lower than all the peoples of Europe.

After the death of Nicholas, with what fervent hope and palpitations we awaited changes that were possible and common to all mankind and could be accomplished without tremendous upheaval, merely by a comprehen­sion on the part of the government of its goal and purpose. From the dis­tance of our exile we watched with hope and without the slightest ill will. At first the war got in the way. Then the war was over but nothing happened! Everything was put off until the coronation. The coronation took place— still nothing! And a new reign got into its daily routine. Up until now all the reforms have been limited to fine phrases and nothing has advanced beyond rhetoric.

And yet how easy it would have been to perform miracles; that is what is unforgivable, that is what we cannot bear. Our hearts bleed and vexa­tion seethes in our breasts when we think of what Russia might have be­come with a departure from the gloomy reign of Nicholas; aroused by war, brought to consciousness, without the collar of slavery around our neck, how quickly, originally, and vigorously it could move forward.

There is not even the beginning of emancipation, that primer of civic development. Why were militias raised, why did the peasant bring his la­bor, his kopeck, and his blood to the defense of a soulless throne, that with some babbling about its gratitude returned him to the master's rod and hard labor in the fields?

They say that the present tsar is kind. Maybe the ferocious persecution that characterized the past reign is over; we would be the first to heartily welcome that.

But that is really very little, that is still a negative distinction. It is insuf­ficient to not do evil while having so many resources to do good, which no other European monarchy possesses. But he does not know how to get started and what to do.

And there is no one to tell him. There it is—the result of enforced si­lence, that is what it means to rip out the people's tongue and place a lock on their lips. The Winter Palace is surrounded by a kingdom of the deaf, and within it only the Nicholaevan general adjutants speak. They, of course, will not be talking about the spirit of the times, and it is not from them that Alexander will hear the groans of the Russian people.

It order to hear this, in order to know about the evil and the means to eradicate it, it is not necessary now to pace, like Harun al Rashid, under the windows of his subjects.¹ One has only to lift the shameful chains of censor­ship, which soiled a word before it had been said. And the same Smirdin or Glazunov who supply books to mere mortals will bring to the tsar the voice of his people.²

But the servants of Nicholas, so steeped in slavery, do not want this.

They will ruin Alexander—and how one feels sorry for him! One feels sorry for his good heart, for the faith we had in him, for the tears that he shed on several occasions.

These people will drag him into the same routine, will lull him with lies, will frighten him with the impossibility, will drag him again into for­eign affairs to distract him from the internal ones. All of this is happening already. [. . .]

At home the deceived peasant once more drags himselfacross the master's field and sends his son to the manor house—this is terrible! The government knows that they cannot avoid the task of freeing the peasants with land. The conscience, the moral consciousness of Russia demands that it be resolved. What do they gain by dragging it out and putting it off until tomorrow?

When we say that this is cowardice in the face of necessity and that this spineless sluggishness will result in the peasants solving the question with an axe, and we implored the government to save the peasant from future crimes, good people raised a cry of horror and accused us of a love for bloody measures.³

This is a lie and a deliberate refusal to understand. When a doctor warns a patient of the terrible consequences of the disease, does this mean that he loves and summons these consequences? What a childish point of view!

No, we have seen too much and too close at hand the terror of bloody revolutions and their perverted results to call them forth with savage joy.

We simply pointed out where these gentlemen are headed and where they will lead others. Let them know that if neither the government nor the landowners do anything—it will be done by the axe. And let the sovereign know that it is up to him whether the Russian peasant will take the axe from behind his sash!

Something has to be done—they cannot put off the question and ignore its consequences.

October 25, 1856, Putney

Notes

Source: "Kreshchennaia sobstvennost'. Predislovie k vtoromu izdaniiu," 1857; 12:94­96, 5i6-i9.

Harun-al-Rashid (763-809), an Arabian caliph.

Alexander F. Smirdin (1795-1857), owner of a bookstore, library, and printing press in Petersburg. Ivan I. Glazunov (1826-1889), ^a bookseller and publisher, grandson of the founder of Russia's oldest book business.

This was the reaction to Herzen's article "St. George's Day! St. George's Day!"

^ 9 ♦

The Polestar, Bk. III, 1857. The first separate issue of The Bell in July 1857 included this announcement with additional comments. During the dramatic trial scenes in The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky had the defense lawyer Fetyukovich pull out all the stops, with quotations from the gospels and references to the well-known Schiller epi­graph from The Bell: "As a man and a citizen I call out—vivos voco! [. . .] Not in vain is this tribune given us by a higher will—from here we can be heard by the whole of Russia."¹ Herzen did not have great faith in state-run trials either, but for fundamentally different reasons. Dostoevsky is more critical of the liberals and radicals who read The Bell than of its editor, who died a decade before the publication of The Brothers Karamazov.

The Bell A Supplement to The Polestar

[1857]

"Vivos voco!"

The Polestar comes out too rarely—we do not have the means to publish it more frequently. Aside from that, events in Russia are moving quickly, they must be caught on the fly and discussed right away. For this purpose we are undertaking a new periodical publication. Without fixing the exact times of its appearance, we will attempt to issue one sheet, sometimes two, every month under the title The Bell.

The success of The Polestar has far exceeded our expectations, and allows us to hope for a positive reception for its traveling companion.

Nothing needs to be said about its political tendency; it is the same as The Polestar, the same one that moves with constancy through our whole life. Everywhere, in all matters, to be on the side of freedom against coer­cion, the side of reason against prejudice, the side of science against fanati­cism, and the side of advancing peoples against backward governments. These are our general doctrines.

In our attitude toward Russia, we passionately wish, with all the strength of our love, with all the force of our uttermost belief, that at last the old and unnecessary swaddling clothes that hinder her powerful development would fall away. For that purpose, now, as in 1855, we consider as the first necessary, unavoidable, and urgent step:

freedom of expression from censorship freedom of the serfs from the landowners freedom from corporal punishment.

However, not limiting ourselves to these questions, The Bell, dedicated exclusively to Russian questions, will ring out from whatever touches it— absurd decrees or the foolish persecution of religious dissidents, theft by high officials or the senate's ignorance. The comical and the criminal, the evil and the ignorant—all of these come under The Bell.

For that reason we turn to our fellow countrymen, who share our love for Russia, and ask them not only to listen to our Bell but to take their own turn in ringing it.

The first issue will appear around the ist of June.

London, April 13, 1857

It will be sold at Trubner and Co, 60, Paternoster Row, London (Price 6 pence)

Note

Source: "Kolokol. Pribavochnye listy k Poliarnoi zvezde," Poliarnaia zvezda, kn. 3, 1857; i2:357-58, 557.

i. "I summon the living!" From the epigraph to Friedrich Schiller's 1798 "Song of the Bell" (for more on this quotation, see the introduction). The Dostoevsky quote is from the translation of the novel by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Far- rar, Straus and Giroux, 1990), 744.

♦ 10

The Bell, No. i, July i, i857. The epigraph was a poem by Nikolay Ogaryov about the years of enforced silence in Russia, which are coming to an end as all its bells sound forth. Ac­cording to Herzen, Ogaryov convinced him to undertake this new project (Gertsen, So- branie sochinenii, 27:bk. i, 265). This preface outlines the publication's direction, which Herzen hoped would be acceptable to the widest possible circles, including the new tsar, although he indicates some impatience with the slow pace of change during the two years since Alexander II ascended the throne. The political demands mentioned com­prise the essential points of his program, and he frequently returned to this list in sub­sequent articles. Sections that appeared in the previous document are not repeated here.

A Preface to The Bell

[1857]

[. . . ] The appearance of a new Russian organ which serves as a supplement to The Polestar is not a chance occurrence that depends on the whim of a single person, but the answer to a demand: we must publish it.

To explain this I must remind you of the short history of our printing press.

The Russian Press, founded in 1853 in London, was a form of inquiry. In founding it, I addressed our fellow countrymen with an appeal. [. . .]¹

[. . .] While awaiting what was to come, I began printing my own works and short pieces written by others. There was no response, or, worse, the only thing that reached me was censure, fearful babbling, and careful whis­pers telling me that publishing abroad would be dangerous, that it might be compromising and cause a great deal of harm; many people close to me shared that opinion. This frightened me.

The war came. At a time when Europe turned its greedy attention to everything Russian and bought up the entire press runs of my French bro­chures,² and the translation of my Notes into English and German quickly sold out—not even ten Russian books were sold. They lay in piles at the printer's or were given away at our expense, and, what is more, to no effect.

Propaganda was just beginning then to be an active force that could pay its own way; without that it is strained, unnatural, and can only serve a party function, but more often calls forth a quickly developed sympathy, which pales and withers as soon as the sounds of the words cease.

A minority realizes some portion of its ideal only when—apparently separating itself from the majority—it expresses the same thought, aspira­tions, and suffering. The majority is in general undeveloped and sluggish; feeling the burden of its contemporary situation, it does nothing; agitated by questions, it can remain without having resolved them. People appear who make these sufferings and aspirations their life's work; they act in word as propagandists and in deed as revolutionaries, but in both cases the real basis of one and the other is the majority and the degree of their sympathy for it.

Since 1849 all attempts by the London emigration to publish journals were unsuccessful; they were supported by donations, did not pay for themselves, and failed; this was clear proof that the emigration no longer expressed the thoughts of its people. They had come to a halt and were reminiscing, while the people had set off in another direction. And at the same time as the last broadsheet of the French democratic party in London faded away, four editions of Proudhon's book A Manual of Speculation on the Stock Market were snapped up in Paris.

Of course, the importation of forbidden books into Russia is made dif­ficult by strict and ferocious measures. But hasn't simple contraband made its way despite all measures? Did the strictness of Nicholas stop theft by civil servants? There was courage enough for bribes, for robbing soldiers, and for contraband, but not for spreading free speech; it must mean there was no genuine demand for it. I was horrified to admit this. But inside there was enduring faith that caused me to hope despite my own conclu­sions; while waiting, I continued my work.

Suddenly the telegraphic dispatch about the death of Nicholas.

Now or never!

Under the influence of this great and beneficial news I wrote the pro­gram for The Polestar.³

[. . .] Twenty-nine years after the day our martyrs were executed the first Polestar appeared in London. With a strongly beating heart I awaited what would follow.

My faith began to be justified.

I soon started receiving letters full of youthful and ardent sympathy, notebooks of verse, and various articles. Sales began at first with difficulty and growing slowly; then, with the publication of the second issue (in April 1856), the number of requests increased to such an extent that some of our publications are completely sold out,⁴ others have been republished, and of a third group only a few copies remain. From the second issue of The Pole- star until the beginning of The Bell the sale of Russian books has covered all the expenses of the printing house.

There can be no stronger proof of the genuine demand for free speech in Russia, especially if one remembers the obstacles with customs.

Thus, our labor has not been in vain. Our speech, the free Russian word, is spreading throughout Russia, rousing some, frightening others, and threatening a third group with publicity.

The free Russian word will ring out in the Winter Palace, reminding them that steam under pressure can blow up a machine if one does not know how to manage it properly.

The word spreads among the younger generation to whom we will hand over our work. Let them, more fortunate than we, see in action what we have only talked about. We look at the new army, marching to replenish our numbers, without envy, and greet them amicably. For them, joyous holidays of liberation; for us, the ringing of bells with which we summon the living to the funeral of everything decrepit, outdated, ugly, slavish, and ignorant in Russia!

Notes

Source: "Predislovie k Kolokolu," Kolokol, l. i, July i, 1857; 13:7-12, 485-89.

Herzen proceeds to quote several paragraphs (concluding with the challenge that "if tranquility is dearer to you than free speech—keep silent") from his 1853 broadsheet announcing the beginning of the Free Russian Press. See Doc. 2.

Herzen: "The Old World and Russia was first placed in an English review and then in L'Homme and then printed on Jersey in a separate edition—and all sold down to the last copy."

Here Herzen includes sections from "An Announcement About The Polestar" (i855), which is translated in Doc. 4.

Herzen: "The press runs of Interrupted Stories, Prison and Exile, and the first and second issues of The Polestar are completely gone. Baptized Property came out in a sec­ond edition."

^11 ^

The Bell, No. i, July i, i857. The French text of "Venerable Travelers" appeared in the London-based French newspaper Le Courier de l'Europe on June 27, 1857, with a sarcastic introduction by the editor, saying that it was a pity the Grand Duke Konstantin had not made it to London on his last European trip because he could have been shown some­thing really interesting, the Russian printing house. Herzen still lacked regular access to Russian periodicals, but he made up for it with the skillful and highly satirical use of news from European papers. For The Bell, this piece appeared in a section called "Mis­cellany," under an epigraph from Gogol: "Through visible laughter to invisible tears!" (Skvoz' vidimyi smekh—nevidimye slezy!). In a letter to Shchepkin's son Nikolay, Herzen recommended his "touching" little article (Eidel'man, Svobodnoe slovo Gertsena, 199). "Venerable Travelers" was the first of what Herzen intended to be a series of sketches about the Russian royalty abroad; the second installment was to cover the journey of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich, but Turgenev and Ogarev convinced him to drop the plan, and the next part of the series was published only a decade later. (See Doc. 99.)

Venerable Travelers The Widowed Empress

[1857]

Since the death of Nicholas the embarrassing constraints on Russians' right to travel have been eliminated. Good deeds rarely happen without a reason; scarcely had Alexander II cut that rope binding us to his father when his own family made more use than anyone else of the newly granted right to movement. On all European roads—except English ones—grand dukes have appeared in their search for German brides, along with for­mer German brides converted into Russians with patronymics. Once more the widowed empress has given Europe the spectacle of an Asian waste of money and truly barbarian luxury. Her loyal subjects could note with pride that every trip the venerable invalid makes and every holiday celebrated is the equal in Russia of a failed harvest, overflowing rivers, and a couple of fires. Once again all sorts of German princes—who have read Liebig and Moleschott about the non-nutritious Russian potato—hung about in Nice with their wives and children, sponging off Russian bread.¹

Alexandra Fyodorovna, having been raised in the pious rules of evangelical-Potsdam absolutism and having flourished in the dogmas of Orthodox-Petersburg autocracy, could not immediately recover and was at a loss after the royal demise. It was painful for her to see the liberal tendency of the new emperor; she was bothered by the malicious idea of amnes­ties and the outrageous thought of the emancipation of the serfs. She saw with horror as the majestic supports on which the Nicholaevan dam rested (those German and Russian Kleinmikhels) grew unsteady. The specter that had haunted her for thirty years had risen once more from the moats of the Peter Paul Fortress, from beneath the Siberian snows, and it pointed an ac­cusing finger at the Phrygian cap.² In fact, how could she not tremble when terrorists like Lanskoy and Sukhozanet were taking the helm of the ship that had been run aground by her dear departed and could not be refloated without Anglo-French assistance?³ Foreseeing another 10th of August and 21st of January, mourning the loss of the Nicholaevan style of uniform and the comrades-in-arms of the "unforgettable one," the empress left the revo­lutionary palace and proceeded to Berlin.⁴

A new blow awaited her there from her nearest and dearest. Her brother the king, with a poor understanding of the roles of the sexes and befuddled by drink, suddenly awarded the empress—can you guess what?—the rank of colonel of the dragoons.⁵ And in her old age she had to "take off her black attire" and dress up in a costume of which the Prussian newspaper said: "it was half unreal, half dragoonish!" Thus she presented herself—as a venera­ble androgyne and a widow-dragoon—to the officer corps, who were moved to tears, which one might have expected from Germans.

What would happen if the empress on her side had named him, her af­fectionate and crowned brother, the venerable headmistress of the Smolny Monastery? Would we see him appear at the assembly in decollete with bare arms and riding breeches, or in the uniform of the former Kaiser- Nicolaus regiment, in a starched skirt with crinolines and. ornamental braid! Let him see for himself what it means to confuse the sexes.

This opened the eyes of the empress, and with every step in Europe she came more and more over to our side, and from an empress-colonel is be­coming a citizen-empress. [. . .]

Having democratically spent some time with various Piedmontese of­ficials and advisers to the authorities in Nice, our Orthodox Protestant went to see the pope. Pius IX recalled his youth, how he himself had served in the Guardia Nobile, so he put on his best cassock and, like a polite gentle­man, assumed a dignified air and went off to visit her himself. No one knows anything about their pious tete-a-tete; maybe he asked the empress to convert Russia to Catholicism, and maybe he explained the benefit and advantage of his discovery of the immaculate conception!⁶

We are most pleasantly surprised that in Rome, in this oldest of cit­ies, the venerable invalid flutters about like a butterfly. We are, it is true, beginning to think that devotion and blind love dreamed up danger to the health of the imperial widow—after all, where is the proof? In Petersburg until the age of fifty she danced, got dressed, laced herself up, and had her hair curled. In Nice there were picnics, breakfast on yachts, music, pleasurable strolls—and I do not know what else. In Rome she went here and there, vanity of vanities: whether it was the same old illumination of St. Peter's or the lighting of fireworks, our Alexandra Fyodorovna was there. [. . .]

When Nicholas was in Rome, after leaving his comrade-in-arms and friend the Neapolitan king,⁷ he inspected St. Peter's Basilica, found every­thing in order, and wrote on the cupola: "I was here on such-and-such a date and prayed for Mother Russia." Although it was not entirely appropri­ate and not at all good form for the head of the Eastern church to disturb God in someone else's quarters, evidently he prayed fervently, and not just about Mother Russia but also about the mother of his children, and God heard his royal prayer! [. . .]

Notes

Source: "Avgusteishie puteshestvenniki," Kolokol, l. 1, July 1, 1857; 13:13-18, 489-93.

Justus von Liebig was a German scientist interested in the soil, and Jacob Mole- schott was a Dutch physiologist. The dowager empress Alexandra Fyodorovna spent the winter season of 1856-57 in Nice, renting three villas for her large entourage, which included many German nobles.

A symbol of liberty in ancient Rome, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century France, Ireland, and in the Americas.

Herzen is being ironic; S. S. Lanskoy quit a Decembrist group long before the up­rising, and N. O. Sukhozanet was a member of the guards unit that mounted a defense against the Decembrists on Senate Square. The former was appointed minister of the interior in 1855 and the latter became minister of war the following year. The "Anglo- French assistance" was that by defeating the Russians in the Crimea, emancipation became a necessity for Alexander II.

On August 10, 1792, the French monarchy was overthrown, and on January 21, 1793, Louis XVI was executed. Alexander II ordered new uniforms for the military and dismissed several of his father's ministers. His mother left on a year-long trip to Europe in May 1856.

In place of the deceased Nicholas I.

In 1854, Pope Pius IX had announced the doctrine of Mary's immaculate conception.

The tsar visited Italy in 1845 and met with the king of the Two Sicilies, Ferdinand II.

^ 12 +

The Bell, No. 2, August 1, 1857. A French translation of "Revolution in Russia" appeared in the Brussels newspaper La Cloche on October 1, 1862. As fundamental reform began to be discussed in his homeland, Herzen expressed a strong preference for a peaceful path forward over any kind of revolution, something he had already made clear in From the Other Shore. Nevertheless, he had no patience for reactionary forces, who threatened further delay and stagnation. Herzen knew relatively little about the new tsar, but was willing to place his hopes in anyone who was not Nicholas, as well as in the inevitable consequences for the country of the unsuccessfully fought Crimean War. For Russia, the time for change had come.

In the same issue, Herzen included the essay "Moscow and Petersburg" (1842), which he wrote in Novgorod during his second period of exile. Although his views had somewhat altered, he felt it would be wrong to censor himself. "I left the article as it was, through a sense of respect for the past." The satirical juxtaposition of the two capi­tals ends with feigned excitement over the railroad that is soon to join them. Herzen predicted that in the future, caviar would be cheaper in Petersburg, and Moscow would find out two days sooner which foreign periodicals had been banned (Gertsen, Sobranie sochinenii, 2:33-42).

Gentlemen, it is better that these changes came from above than from below.

—Alexander II, a speech to the Moscow nobility

We are not only on the eve of great upheaval, we have already entered into it. Necessity and public opinion carried the government to a new phase of development, change, and progress. Society and the government came up against questions that suddenly acquired the rights of citizenship and became urgent. This excitation of thought, agitation, and renewed striving to solve the main tasks of governmental life, and to dismantle the historical forms through which it has functioned—is the essential soil of every fun­damental period of upheaval.

But where are the signs that ordinarily precede revolutions? Everything in Russia is so quiet, and people look at the new government in such a beaten-down way and with such good nature, awaiting its assistance, that one is more likely to think that centuries will go by before Russia enters into a new life.

But what would be the purpose of these signs? In Russia everything has happened differently; it has only had one fundamental upheaval and that was achieved by one man—Peter I. Since 1789 we have been accustomed to see all upheavals proceeding by means of explosions and rebellions, every concession achieved by force, and every step forward come from battle—so that when there is talk of upheaval, we involuntarily look for the public square, barricades, blood, and the executioner's axe. Without doubt, an up­rising and open struggle is one of the most powerful means of revolution, but it is hardly the only means.

[. . .] We are just people who are deeply convinced that the current gov­ernmental structures in Russia do not work, and we wholeheartedly prefer a path of peaceful human development to a bloody path, but with all that, we sincerely prefer the stormiest and most unbridled development to the stagnancy of a Nicholaevan status quo.

The sovereign wants changes and improvements; instead of a useless rebuff, he wishes to listen to the voice of reason in Russia, to people of progress and science, practical people who live with the common folk. They will not only be able to clearly understand and formulate what they want— better than the Nicholaevan burgraves—but, more than that, they will be able to understand for the people their desires and strivings. Instead of faint-heartedly cutting off their speech, the government itself should under­take the work of social reconstruction together with them, the development of new forms and new outlets for Russian life. We do not yet know what they are, nor does the government, but we are moving toward discovering them, and in that lies the remarkable interest that our future holds.

Peter I alone carried within himself that unforeseen, new Russia, which he brought about with harshness and threats against the will of the people, relying on autocratic power and personal strength. The current government does not have to resort to any kind of progressive terror. There is an entire milieu, mature in thought, ready to move with or against the government, in the name of the people and for their benefit. This circle may not be very large, but we absolutely do not accept that it is inferior in consciousness and development to any circle in the West. If it is unaccustomed to the consideration of social issues, then it is freer of everything traditional, and is newer, simpler, and more youthful than Western society. It has also lived through the suffering, failures, and trials of European life, but survived by means of its education, ideas, and heart, not having exhausted all its strength, but carrying in its memory the dreadful lesson of recent events. Like a youth who has been defeated by some great unhappiness that took place before his eyes, it quickly matures and gazes with a grown-up look at life through this sad example.

But for this common task the government has to step over the palisades and fences of the table of ranks that prevent it from seeing and heeding this grown-up speech, which is timidly and half surreptitiously expressed in literature and educated circles.

Can the thought of moving forward an entire part of the world to redeem three gloomy decades, to unite the two Russias between whom Peter's ra­zor has passed¹—a matter of purification, emancipation, and development, touching along the way fearful and colossal questions about landowner- ship, labor and its reward, the commune and the proletariat, before whom all European governments tremble—is it possible that this huge historic mission, coming of its own accord, will flatter Alexander II less than the empty and solitary height of absolute imperial power, limited by bribes, relying on bayonets, serfdom, liquor taxes, the secret police, ignorance, and beatings, ruling amidst general silence and suppressed groans?

We do not think so. And even if it were so, it is hardly possible to have a continuation of the Nicholaevan reign. We are certain that this merciless, backward-dragging despotism has run its course in Russia. The govern­ment itself senses this, but feels new and awkward in the world of reform, improvement, and the human word; it is shy and slow-moving, not believ­ing in its strength and confused by the difficulty and complexity of the task. This deadening notion of its own weakness, that we are not up to the task, exists among us, and, unfortunately, not just in the government but in us as well.

This is not modesty, but the beginning of despair and depression; for so long we were cowed and downtrodden, so accustomed to blush in the presence of other nations and to consider all the filth of Russian life to be irreparable—from bribes to birch rods—that we really almost lost faith in ourselves. This unfortunate feeling surely must pass. Goethe said quite correctly:

To lose one's courage is to lose everything, It would be better not to have been born.²

Of course, the last three decades were hard, and our whole historical de­velopment followed a difficult and strange path, but didn't this time leave us pledges for the future? Did we really come to a stop, exhausted, did Rus split up into parts or fall under foreign dominion? No, we stand whole and unharmed, full of strength, unified in the face of a new path.

We are frightened by the backward and terrible condition of the people, its habit of lawlessness, and the poverty that is crushing it. All of this un- arguably makes—and will make—development difficult, but, in contrast to Burger's ballad,³ we say: the living stride fast, and the pace of the popular masses, when they begin to move, will be very great. We do not need to lead them toward the new life, just to remove what is crushing their own traditional ways. [. . .]

For 150 years we have been living in the ruins of the old; nothing whole has remained and there is nothing to regret. We have an imperial dictator­ship and rural life, and between them every sort of institution, attempt, initiative, and idea, coming more and more to life, not tied to any caste or to any existing order. Since Peter I we have been in a state of restructuring, looking for new forms, imitating, making copies, and a year later we try something newer. It is enough to change ministers for state serfs to sud­denly become personal serfs of the imperial family or vice versa. What does not change is the foundation, the soil, i.e., there is still the village with its physiological character, its pre-governmental state and condition, a premise whose syllogism lies in the future rather than as a continuation of the Mus­covite kingdom; it also existed at that time, that is all we can say. It would be very difficult to change it, and it is unnecessary; quite the contrary, on it will be built the Rus of the future!

Of course, it is not easy to go from military despotism and German bureaucracy to a simpler and more popular governmental structure. But where are the insurmountable obstacles? To be sure, it is difficult to see the truth if some are not permitted to speak it and others are interested in keep­ing it hidden. The sovereign sees nothing from behind the beams and posts of the chancellery and the bureaucracy and the dust raised by soldiers on maneuvers; that is why the government, as it enters into the era of reform, is feeling its way along, desiring it and not desiring it, and those who might give advice are floundering like a fish on ice, with no voice.

In order to continue Peter's work, the government must openly renounce the Petersburg period as Peter himself renounced Muscovy. These artificial contrivances of imperial administration have grown old. Having so much power and, on the one hand, leaning on the common folk, while, on the other, on all thinking and educated people in Russia, the current govern­ment could perform miracles without the slightest danger to itself.

No monarch in Europe has been in the position of Alexander II, but from him to whom much is given, much is demanded!.

June 15, 1857

Notes

Source: "Revoliutsiia v Rossii," Kolokol, l. 2, August 1, 1857; 13:21-29, 496-99.

The speech quoted in the opening epigraph was delivered on March 30 (April 11), 1856; it was not published but news of it spread quickly. In comparing the emancipation manifesto and the original address, Herzen later said that "the manifesto is unusually stupid, but the speech is unusually wise—they clearly scared themselves" (Gertsen, So- branie sochinenii, 25:340).

Peter allowed the peasants and clergy to keep their beards, but insisted that the gentry shave. Old Believers had to pay a beard tax.

From the verse cycle "Maxims."

Herzen is referring to the ballad "Lenore" by Gottfried August Btirger (1748-1794).

^ 13 +

The Bell, No. 6, December 1, 1857. The problem of corporal punishment was one that Herzen raised in a number of essays, and it was a central issue for many advocates of re­form in Russia. (See Doc. 29.) In chapter 15 of Past and Thoughts, Herzen recalled what he learned in exile about the government's treatment of peasants who objected to ab­surd orders and corrupt behavior by officials sent from Petersburg. During the inquiry, everything was done in the usual Russian way. "The peasants were flogged during the examination, flogged as a punishment, flogged as an example, flogged to extort money, and a whole crowd of them sent to Siberia."

To Flog or Not to Flog the Peasant?

[1857]

To flog or not to flog the peasant? That is the question!—Of course one must flog him, and very painfully. Without a birch rod how can we convince a man that he must work for the master six days a week, with only the re­maining time for himself? How can he be convinced that when the master takes it into his head, the peasant has to drag himself to the town with hay and firewood, and sometimes to hand over his son for the front hall and his daughter for the bedroom. Any doubts about the right to flog is by itself an infringement on gentry rights, on the inviolability of property as recognized by the law. And, in essence, why not flog the peasant if it is allowed, if the peasant tolerates it, the church blesses it, and the government takes the peasant by the collar and whips him?

Do we really have such heavenly souls if we think that an entire caste of people, who share with the executioner the right of corporal punishment, and, having the advantage of whipping according to their own desires and for their own profit—and people they know, not strangers—should such a caste for reasons of humanity and heartfelt emotion throw away the rod? Enough nonsense.

A few months back a ship's captain, on the journey from New York to England, flogged a boy, not a rare occasion, it seems, for us. When the ship reached England, the sailors complained. The captain was brought to court and then hung by the seashore. That is how to break the habit of misusing the rod!

A second instance. Three years ago some sort of officer quarreled in Lon­don with a cab driver; one word followed another and the officer struck the cabbie; the offended driver pulled out his whip and hit the officer across the face. The officer went to the police. The judge said: "For goodness sake, you are the one who should be punished, not the cabbie, you are guilty all around and yet you lodge a complaint. Go back to your quarters." That is how to break someone of the habit of misusing his fists.

This is how a person can be taught both one and the other lesson. Who does not know the story (blushing, we read various extracts in the Times) about an aide-de-camp (Elston-Sumarokov) who was sent to Nizhegorod- skaia province for an investigation of indignant peasants? The matter is in itself remarkable. A certain landowner's serfs (I believe it was Rakhmanov) proposed paying for themselves; the owner took the money, i.e., stole it, and sold the peasants to someone else instead of giving them their freedom. The serfs of course refused to obey the new landowner. Is this a difficult matter to sort out? However, with us the courts count for nothing, and what are needed are a commission, aides-de-camp, aiguillettes, a military party, and birch rods. Elston-Sumarokov was sent with birch rods. The peasants fell to their knees (a rebellion on one's knees!). He asked them: "To whom do you belong?" The serfs mentioned the name of the former owner, while Sumarokov said the name of the new owner (Pashkov, it seems, or the other way around) and ordered that all the peasants should be flogged with­out distinction. The serfs gave in. Then the aide-de-camp got so worked up that he gave instructions to the provincial authorities that one section of the kneeling, rebellious peasants be sent to Siberia, another to punishment battalions, and the third group were to be flogged again. The provincial authorities would have been happy to fulfill this order but were not bold enough to take on such a clear violation of positive law and turned to the senate. In return for such an understanding of justice and such knowledge of the laws Elston-Sumarokov was made vice-director of one of the depart­ments in the War Ministry.

And you are judging whether to flog or not to flog a peasant? Whip him, brothers, whip him in peace! And when you get tired, the tsar will send an aide-de-camp to help!!!

Some sort of landowner in the Agricultural Newspaper has rightly protested the impertinent objections to birch rods, and sensibly observed that "for in­significant misdeeds a punishment of a few blows of the rod (2, 20, 200, 2,000?) does not kill a man either morally or physically (sometimes, it is true, people die, but this is morally useful for an Orthodox believer, and the dead can feel no pain!). The landowner's power is that of a parent over his children, and according to our Orthodox beliefs children accept punishment from their parents without complaint. Punishment by the rod is not going to be replaced by any foreign notions, because the birch rod in the hands of a well-meaning and kind landowner is a genuine blessing for the serfs!" [. . .]

Notes

Source: "Sech' ili ne sech' muzhika?" Kolokol, l. 6, December 1, 1857; 13:105-7, 527-28.

♦ 14 ♦

The Bell, No. 8, February 1, 1858. This is Herzen's answer to a letter that—in the end— was never published, but which raised issues that Herzen felt obliged to address. It is one of Herzen's most significant statements on laughter, and on how he would treat, in his own manner, facts about the arbitrary behavior of Russian serf owners and bureau­crats, amidst concerns that he was turning liberal observations into radical propaganda.

Mikhail Bakhtin included some of Herzen's observations on laughter in Rabelais and His World.

A Letter Criticizing The Bell [1858]

We recently received a letter severely criticizing The Bell.

This letter is full of such warm affection for the cause and a desire that our publications may help it, that we can only sincerely thank our anonymous critic and make use of that portion of his advice with which our conscience is in agreement.

We regret that the letter says that it must not be published, because we would have liked to acquaint our readers with it.

We will allow ourselves one observation. The author of this letter can see for himself how from the first issue of The Bell up to the most recent one we have fervently asked everyone sending us news to check it out carefully. What means of verification do we have? If on our pages, as in all periodi­cals, mistakes get past us, we are prepared to correct them—but we cannot always prevent them.

In the sixth issue it was said that Moscow chief of police Bering was still in place, but he has in fact retired. Le Nord, which carries semiofficial cor­respondence, in writing about the end of the student disturbances in Mos­cow, mentioned only the retirement of a policeman. After that we received a letter that directed our attention to the fact that "Zakrevsky had stood up for Bering." Then, days later, we saw that Bering had been replaced by Kropotkin.¹ We must confess our mistake, thank the sovereign, and advise Zakrevsky to surprise us in the same nice way.

As for humor, we are not entirely in agreement with our critic. Laughter is one of the most powerful weapons against something that is obsolete but is still propped up by God knows what, like an important ruin which pre­vents new growth and frightens the weak. I repeat what I said previously: "What a man cannot laugh about without falling into blasphemy or fearing the pangs of conscience is a fetish, and he is in its thrall, afraid to let it get mixed up with ordinary objects."²

Laughter is no joking matter, and we will not give it up. In the ancient world they laughed heartily on Olympus and on earth while listening to Aristophanes and his comedies, and they laughed out loud all the way up to Lucian. After the fourth century, humankind stopped laughing—they wept, and heavy chains fell on the mind amidst the groans and pangs of conscience. As soon as the fever of fanaticism began to abate, people again began to laugh. It would be extraordinarily interesting to write the history of laughter. No one laughs in church, at court, on parade, before the head of their department, a police officer, or a German boss. House serfs have no right to smile in the presence of their masters. Only equals can laugh amongst themselves.

If inferiors were permitted to laugh in front of their superiors and if they could not hold back their laughter then you can forget about respect for rank. To cause men to smile at the god Apis is to deprive him of his holy status and turn him into a common bull. Take the cassock off the monk, the uniform off the hussar, the ashes off the chimney sweep and they will no longer frighten children or adults. Laughter is a leveler, and people don't want that, afraid of being judged according to their individual merits. Aristocrats have always thought that way, and the wife of the count's factotum Figaro, complaining in The Guilty Mother³ about the bitter results of the year 1789, says that now everyone has become like everyone else, like the whole world!

In general the Russian character shows an Asian tendency to a man­nered servility on the one hand, and a haughty conceit on the other. [. . .]

And why are we so easily offended by a joke, but so strong when we are being scolded from above? Belinsky wondered about that fifteen years ago. Leaf through London's Punch and look at its political cartoons, in which the queen's consort is spared least of all. And what do Victoria and Albert do about this? They look at Punch and laugh with everyone else. That is the best proof of England's maturity. [. . .]

Notes

Source: "O pis'me, kritikuiushchem Kolokol," Kolokol, l. 8, February 1, 1858; 13:189-91, 537-38.

Major-General Alexander Timashev-Bering was Moscow chief of police from 1854 to 1857. Count Arseny A. Zakrevsky was the governor-general of Moscow from 1848 to 1859. Prince Alexey I. Kropotkin was Moscow chief of police from 1858 to i860.

Herzen provides the source: Letters from France and Italy by Iskander.

The third play in the Beaumarchais trilogy about Figaro.

15 ♦

The Bell, No. 9, February 15, 1858. Herzen's lead article for this issue was called "Three Years Later (February 18, 1858)," in which he recalls his 1855 letter to the new tsar (Doc. 5). The work of emancipation had begun, and nothing must stop its progress. State power (vlast') and public opinion were now lined up against the opponents of freedom, so they labored in vain and would be punished by publicity. However, the openness was not without its limits; in 1858, the Russian government took measures to try to paralyze the work of the Free Russian Press, and the Kingdom of Poland was instructed to more effectively halt the transit of revolutionary Russian publications. After Russian agents in Berlin found many booksellers offering Herzen's works, the Prussian government was contacted about ending this practice, and authorities there issued an order forbidding the sale of The Bell in Prussia; in a letter Herzen referred to this as an "arrest of The Bell." Booksellers were also barred from placing other publications by the author on display in store windows. Foreign Minister Gorchakov ordered a Russian official to approach the government of Saxony, whose own foreign minister asked for translations of some of these works, after which the order forbidding their sale was issued.

Lackeys and Germans Refuse Permission [1858]

[. . . ] By an order issued January 29, The Bell, The Polestar, and Voices from Russia have been banned in Saxony. Prussia established a cordon sani- taire against us some time ago. They say that the Prince of Lippe-Valdek- Sundershausen and Meiningen¹ wishes to take active and energetic mea­sures against us—if that is true, we are lost! [. . .]

They will not stop either the printing or the sale of Russian books with these measures, which serve as a free advertisement for us and give our publications international significance.

Let's explain this once and for all. For us, the cause of Russian propa­ganda is not a whim, a means of entertainment, or a source of income—it is our life's cause, our religion, a piece of our heart, and our service to the Russian people.

We labored without losing hope when there was no expectation of suc­cess. Now, when the Russian minister of foreign affairs and the German minister of the interior acknowledge our power and influence, could we possibly stop?

Be assured that we will not. With hand on heart we swear before all Rus­sia to continue our work until the last heartbeat. It will not cease even with our death. We are not alone, and we will bequeath our printing press to the next generation who will take it up with new strength and new ideas.

The only thing that could stop us is the elimination of censorship in Rus­sia, not the introduction of Russian censorship in German lands.

Do not think that these measures were taken against us; to an equal and much greater extent they were taken against the sovereign. The bureau­cratic and military Masonic orders, having conquered the fourteen-step lad­der that leads to the front hall of the palace, are trying to twist The Bell's clapper with German obstacles so that its sound does not reach the Winter Palace.

The table of ranks is not angered at our theories since we are not profess­ing any at present; we have taken as our motto:

Freedom for the serfs from landowners;

Freedom of the word from censorship;

Freedom for everyone from corporal punishment.

Is this really anarchy, sedition, robbery, rebellion, arson, Sodom and Gomorrah?

They are angry that we have begun to point out individuals. This prevents the conspirators from deceiving the sovereign and robbing the people.

Wishing to bring without fail information to the sovereign about mea­sures that hide the truth from him, for the first time we are sending The Bell in a sealed package to him personally.

Will it reach him or not?... It's hard to make a bet on this! Is the sovereign under the watchful eye of the police or not? Do they open his mail or not?

We'll see!

Note

Source: "Lakei i nemtsy ne dopuskaiut," Kolokol, l. 9, February 15, 1858; 13:198-99, 541.

1. Herzen refers ironically to rulers of the tiny German principalities of Lippe, Valdek, Schwartzberg-Sundershausen, and Saksen-Meiningen.

♦ 16 ♦

The Bell, No. 12, April 1, 1858. Censorship drove Herzen abroad in 1847, and the rise and fall of restrictions on free speech and on freedom of the press in Russia were of endur­ing interest to him.

Censorship Is on the Rise [1858]

Instead of abolishing the censorship, the censorship has been doubled and made more complex.¹ Formerly the censoring was done by censors, priests, and the secret police; now all departments will act as censors, and every ministry will appoint its own eunuch to the literary seraglio, this at a time when a relaxation of censorship was expected. Indeed, the new project was presented to the committee of ministers, but Panin and, after him, every­one except Grand Prince Konstantin Nikolaevich unanimously, and with noble indignation, rejected any change. In truth, we are beginning to think that all this is being done for the benefit of The Bell and The Polestar. To enforce silence after having permitted a small degree of conversation is difficult and awkward. Russian literature will move to London. Along with English freedom and our warm greeting, we are preparing the best paper and excellent ink.

Note

Source: "Tsenzura usilivaetsia," Kolokol, l. 12, April 1, 1858; 13:255, 551-52.

1. A decree was issued January 25, 1858, supplementing the existing censorship with officials from a number of ministries, including the imperial court, army, navy, inte­rior, finance, justice, communications, and the general staff. This was in answer to the proposal presented to the ministers by Prince P. A. Vyazemsky nine days earlier recom­mending a new censorship statute, which was vigorously opposed by the ministers of justice, finance, and communications (V. N. Panin, P. F. Brok, and K. V. Chevkin).

^ 17 +

The Bell, No. 16, June 1, 1858. A continuation of the theme of the Russian government's attempt, with the help of its conservative allies, to silence Herzen's publications.

Logophobia [1858]

The other day the Kolnischer Zeitung announced a new ban on The Bell in Prussia. In Saxony all our periodicals are banned. In Naples the embassy secretary is frightening the booksellers; commercial travelers of the Third Department in the uniforms of adjutant generals, and councilors of state who imagine themselves privy councilors, are floating all around the cor­rupted parts of Europe, nosing about the shops, making discoveries and denunciations, using German ministers as police detectives and truffle spotters and German princelings as bulldogs in pursuit of The Polestar and The Bell. What is all this about? What is the source of this crude impatience? It would be a pity if it comes from the sovereign: it is so unworthy of him. It would be a pity if it comes from Gorchakov:¹ they tell us that he is a well- intentioned person, and we were prepared to believe this!

Or are these the pranks of people in "supporting roles," volunteer zealots and Nicholaevan gendarmes who are left without anything to do?

Can it be that every power, even one that wishes to do good, is fated to have no other means of hearing the truth than when it is wrapped in com­pletely servile phrases, and sweetened with vulgar flattery? The language of a free man grates upon ears grown soft with the rhetoric of Byzantine eu­nuchs in guards uniform, old stewards in the livery of their late master.² [. . .]

Notes

Source: "Slovoboiazn'," Kolokol, l. 16, June 1, 1858; 13:281-82, 563.

Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov (1798-1883) was appointed minister of foreign affairs in i856.

Herzen then quotes passages from "Lackeys and Germans Refuse Permission" about those who would prevent the sound of The Bell from reaching the Winter Palace.

^ 18 ♦

The Bell, No. i8, July i, i858. Herzen increasingly doubts the expediency of appealing to the authorities, although he still hopes that the tsar will reach out to the people. The image of the fairy-tale hero at the crossroads, faced with difficult choices with serious repercussions, will reappear in The Bell, most notably in one of the final issues (Doc. i00). Natan Eidelman saw in this article Herzen's disillusionment with the govern­ment's program in a "concentrated" form; he also analyzes it for the reuse of phrases and arguments from letters to or from the author, evidently a common practice of Her- zen in his journalism (Eidel'man, Svobodnoe slovo, 238). The Bell began to address a broader spectrum of readers than just the upper-class intelligentsia, who were the pri­mary focus of early publications by the Free Russian Press. One of the final items in this issue was Herzen's announcement that the Holy Father had bowed to pressure from the Russian government and banned the sale of all Russian publications from London in his domain. Herzen was not surprised, since "inquisition is a papal activity," and he half expected to hear that anathema had been pronounced on The Bell and its pages consigned to the flames.

July 1, 1858 [1858]

A year ago the first issue of The Bell appeared. We stop for a moment and glance back at the path we have traveled. and feel sadness and heaviness in our hearts.

Meanwhile, in the course of this year one of our most ardent hopes has been realized; one of the greatest revolutions in Russia has begun, the one that we have predicted, craved, and called for since childhood—the libera­tion of the serfs has begun.

But we don't feel any better, and this year we almost took a step backward.

The reason is obvious, and we will state it directly and steadfastly: Alex­ander II has not justified the hopes that Russia had at his coronation. Last June he still stood, like the hero of our fairy tales, at the crossroads—whether he would turn to the right or to the left no one knew. It seemed that he would without fail follow the path of development, liberation, construction. tak­ing one step, and then another—but suddenly he thought better of it and turned

From the left to the right.¹

Maybe there is still time. but he is being hurried along by the palace coachmen, who are taking advantage of the fact that he does not know the road. And our Bell is ringing out to him that he has gone astray, ringing out Russia's distress and the danger that he faces.

But that is the problem—the powerful people of this world do not know how to either listen or remember. History lies before them, but it is not for them that it tells of the bitter experience of nations and of posterity's harsh judgment of tsars.

Not to make use of the remarkable position in which events in Europe and the previous reign left Alexander II is to such a degree absurd that it is difficult to find room in one's head for it.

Having the possibility of choosing one of two roles—Peter I or Pius IX— to choose Pius IX is the ultimate example of Christian meekness.

"But," they will tell us, "Peter I was a genius—geniuses aren't born ev­ery century, and not every tsar who wants to be Peter I can succeed." The thing is, to be Russia's Peter in our time one does not have to be a genius; it would be sufficient to love Russia, to respect and understand the human dignity in a Russian man, and to listen closely to his thoughts and his aspira­tions. A genius might do great harm, as Peter did; he would inject his own will instead of developing the new growth that has appeared, when one just has to avoid weeding it out, trampling it, or constraining it, removing any obstacles and allowing it to grow on its own. Peter I had to create and de­stroy—in one hand he had a spade, and in the other an axe. He made a clear­ing in the wilderness, and, of course, cut down the good along with the bad. But we have ceased to love terror, no matter what kind and for what purpose.

Terror is no more necessary in our time than genius. The active, think­ing part of Russia is moving ahead rapidly, knowing what it wants and re­vealing it in the form of public opinion. At the end of the last reign, in spite of the danger and persecution, the thoughts fermenting in people's minds were so strong that they created an underground literature in manuscripts, which were passed from hand to hand. Subsequently, the same thought process led to expressions of delight with all the fine initiatives of the new government. Half of Peter's work—the most difficult half—is now being done by a chorus. Around Peter, everything was silent; waking earlier than everyone else, he had to rouse others, make guesses, and be inventive. Now many have woken up and gone ahead, waiting to be called to give advice. Except for a very few, everyone opposed Peter's reforms; now the entire na­tion, except for the decayed part of the gentry and old men who have lost their faculties, is ready to further the reforms of Alexander II. As for the sham service oligarchy, all the parvenus from the barracks and the inkwells, the mental hospitals and prison battalions of Nicholaevan students—they have no opinion. Today they beat the serfs who want to be free, and tomor­row they will shoot the gentry who do not want to free them.

However, it could be that the reforms that Alexander II has talked about in his speeches, manifestoes, decrees, orders, and official journals do not coincide with the wishes of thinking Russia, thoughts which have mani­fested themselves in literature and public opinion.

Not at all—they are exactly the same.

This is the boundless, heart-rending irony and tragicomedy of our situ­ation. A government is never so powerful as when it is in agreement with public opinion. [. . .]

The tsar tries very hard to extend a hand to the people, and the people try very hard to take hold of it but they can't get past Panin and company.² It's like a scene out of Aristophanes! Just when the sovereign is completely ready, one of those gray-haired children—Orlov³ or Zakrevsky—stands on tiptoe and touches his extended hand, shouting: "Your majesty, for God's sake! They will bite off your finger!"

Let them just try! The sovereign was in the Caucasus during the troubles there and he loves bear hunting.⁴ What are Circassians and bears to him? Doesn't he daily face dangers from these pillars of the fatherland, who shield him from Russia and create around him a pleasant garland of old men, who, if needed, by moving slightly can form themselves into a noose?

And K. I. Arseniev⁵ taught Alexander Nikolaevich the criminal affair that is Russian history from Peter I to Alexander I.

We have nothing to hide, as we are always saying. Let every reader, with hand on heart, say where in The Bell are to be found impossible demands, political utopias, or calls for rebellion?

The existence of The Bell marks a boundary and a turning point. With the promulgation of the rescript on the liberation of the serfs our path had to change, not in its essence but in its type of activity.⁶ We sacrificed in part our polemics and restricted even more the scope of our questions. We came closer to the government because the government came closer to us. We are concerned with the form of government—we've seen them all in action and none of them will do if they are reactionary, and all of them are suitable if they are contemporary and progressive. We sincerely and frankly believed that Alexander II would replace the bloody era of revolution and would serve as a peaceful and mild transition from antiquated despotism to a humanely free state of Russia.

We may have been mistaken in this, but thinking as we did, for the six months while the rescript was in the works we consistently and almost ex­clusively occupied ourselves with its realization.⁷

What did we demand, and what did we write about?

We demanded that the gentry not snatch emancipation away from the serfs, and that the wish—expressed timidly and with an upper-class lisp by the government—concerning estates and land not be interpreted to the benefit of the landowners. Were we correct? The proof can be found in the eloquent words of Bezobrazov and Blank, in the central committee, in the increased censorship, gentry opposition, and the forced resettlement of serfs on poor land.⁸

Besides, we said that the emancipation of the serfs was not sufficient, that alongside the landowner was a second scourge of the Russian people— the government official, that is, the police and the courts. We said that until the Japanese-style table of ranks fell—while we still had an inquisitorial court behind closed doors along with official secrecy, and while the police admonish people with birch rods and lash them without a trial—until that time the liberation of the serfs would not bring genuine benefit.

It could be that the sovereign is frightened that the entire civil service— those fraudulent handlers of official papers—do not share this opinion, but if Panin affirmed or favorably received his proposal, then maybe we would have defenders for the accused and jurors, and the court would operate in the light of day.

The sovereign wished to make changes, but he is in the dark and does not know where to begin; everyone deceives him, from the lowest clerk to the chancellor, and the voices of people outside government do not reach him. The public status of those who are not in service or who have not served long enough is such that only the gentry might be allowed to dance in the tsar's presence at a ball, and the merchants might on some sad or happy occasion greet him with bread and salt on a golden platter.

This leads logically to our third demand—openness.

Isn't it absurd that they put up the dam themselves, bar access to it, and then are surprised there's no water? Lift the censor's floodgate and then you will find out what the people think, what is hurting, pressing, torment­ing, and ruining them. maybe all sorts of rubbish will at first float to the surface—what does it matter as long as the water carries away all those half- dead Vladimir cats and Andreevsky hares.

With openness, there can be publicity about legal cases that will throw a terrifying light on the subterranean misdeeds of the police and the courts, like that of our articles about Sechinsky, the Kochubey trial, Vrede, Elston- Sumarokov, Governor Novosiltsev, and others.⁹

If one removes the censorship restrictions, then the Third Department can be closed down; writers will denounce themselves, and finally this nest of spies will be destroyed in Russia. [. . .]

Have we demanded anything else?

Whatever our theoretical opinions, however "incorrigible" we were about them, we did not express them, we expunged them willingly while the mas­sive government coach plodded its way forward, but when it began to go backward, crushing legs under its heavy wheels, then we proceeded along a different path.

This is the third phase into which The Bell has entered.

We established a motto—I summon the living! Where are the live people in Russia? It seemed that there were live ones even at court and we ad­dressed our words to them—we do not regret that. No matter what hap­pens, the sovereign, having begun the process of liberating the serfs, has earned a great name in history and our gratitude is unchanged. But we have nothing to say to him. The live ones are those people of thought scattered all over Russia, good people of all castes, men and women, students and officers, who blush and weep when they think about serfdom, the arbitrari­ness in the courts, and the willfulness of the police; they are the people who ardently wish for openness and who read us with sympathy.

The Bell is their organ and their voice; on the barren, stony heights there is no one to listen to it, but in the valleys its pure sound rings out all the more powerfully.

Notes

Source: "1 iulia 1858," Kolokol, l. 18, July 1, 1858; 13:293-98, 569-70.

From a poem called "The Old Barrel Organ (Remembering the Unforgettable One)" ("Staraia Sharmanka. K vospominaniem o Nezabvennom"), probably by V. R. Zotov, which circulated in Petersburg and Moscow, and was published in The Bell on November 1, 1857. The "Unforgettable One" is the late tsar, Nicholas I.

Count Viktor N. Panin (1801-1874), minister of justice from 1841 to 1862.

Prince Alexey F. Orlov (i786-i86i), head of the Third Department from i844 to i856, from i856 chair of the State Council and Committee of Ministers, and from i857 chair of the Secret and then Main Committee to examine the question of serfdom.

While still heir to the throne, Alexander II traveled to the Caucasus and visited military units actively engaged in combat, for which he was awarded the Order of St. George, fourth degree.

Konstantin I. Arseniev (i789-i865) was a statistician, historian, and geographer, who tutored the future tsar from i828 to i835.

In November i857, the tsar instructed Vladimir I. Nazimov (governor of Vilna, Kovno, and Grodno) to allow local gentry to form committees to discuss how the serfs might be freed; copies of the rescript were sent to all the other governors and it was published. The "Secret Committee" Alexander set up in January i857 to examine the emancipation question was renamed the Main Committee early the following year.

Herzen: "There are many who reproach The Bell, among them the Prussian Kreuz- Zeitung, with a disrespectful tone and familiar air toward people who, although they stand in the way of any improvement and are major scoundrels, still belong to the high­est ranks. [. . .] In the ringing of our Bell there is a howl that arises from the jail cells, bar­racks, and stables, from the landowners' fields and the censor's slaughterhouse—The Bell definitely belongs to bad society, which is why it lacks the clerk's manners and the secretary's courtesy."

Grigory B. Blank (1811-1889), ^a Tambov landowner, strongly supported serfdom. Nikolay A. Bezobrazov (1816-1867), leader of the St. Petersburg gentry, wrote brochures about gentry rights.

Herzen refers to articles published in The Bell in 1857 and 1858, exposing crimes against serfs and others, and the absence of punishment for their tormenters.

♦ 19 ♦

The Bell, No. 27, November i, i858. While this public letter to the empress caused a stir, it was not without precedent. In i826, poet Vasily Zhukovsky wrote to Maria Alexan- drovna's mother-in-law, Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, whom he had earlier tutored in Russian. Zhukovsky believed that then eight-year-old Alexander Nikolaevich should receive more than just a military education, because Russia needed enlightenment and new laws (Wortman, Development of Russian Legal Consciousness, 138-39). In his mem­oirs, Herzen claimed that Maria Alexandrovna wept when she read this open letter about the education of her children. Anna Tyutcheva, lady-in-waiting to the empress (and fu­ture wife of the Slavophile journalist Ivan Aksakov) wrote in her diary that the scoundrel Herzen was right, and not for the first time; Tyutcheva firmly believed that the empress understood better than anyone else the weaknesses in the education arranged for her sons (Let 2:455-56). The letter was well received by many close to the court for the intelli­gent and polite tone it adopted (Let 2:458), although at least one historian of Russia later found the entire idea of writing to the empress on such a subject "ridiculous" (Ulam, Ideologies and Illusions, 23). At the end of this issue of The Bell, Herzen invited the tsar to send him any royal speeches—like the one made to the Moscow nobility—that could not be published in Russia.

In Scenarios of Power, Richard Wortman described Nikolay Alexandrovich's tutor, August Theodore Grimm (1805-1878), as a man "whose pedagogy created a scandal that quickly went beyond the bounds of the court and brought the heir's education into debates on Russia's destiny." Wortman went on to say that "Herzen's letter reached its mark. Within a month it was circulating in the court." In 1859, Count Sergey Stro- ganov was chosen to supervise the heir; since the universities were undesirable centers of anti-monarchist politics, he invited respected scholars to read lectures at the palace (Wortman, Scenarios of Power, 2:95-99). Nikolay Alexandrovich, fifteen years old when the letter below was written, grew into a well-educated and promising young man, but tragically died from meningitis in 1865, which prompted Herzen to write another letter to the emperor (Doc. 68). The next in line, Alexander Alexandrovich, to whose educa­tion little attention had been paid, assumed the role of heir, and in 1881 succeeded his father as tsar.

A Letter to the Empress Maria Alexandrovna [1858]

Your Highness,

We lack a present, and therefore it is not surprising that we are particu­larly concerned with the future of our country. The first dawns after a grim and prolonged winter have paled, having barely commenced. and we have grown poorer than we were before, without the hatred that we have lost and the indignation which has softened. We have given ourselves up to the spring breezes, and exposed our long-hardened hearts to feelings unknown since childhood. but we were not fated to see the fulfillment of these or other dreams. People and tsars in our transitional age are left with appeals and placards. To the next generation, perhaps, will belong action and drama.

We do not envy them. Our activity is coming to an end . soon we will pass away, exhausted—but not defeated—by our thirty-year struggle. Let the new generation that comes to replenish our ranks find a better use for their strength. And you, Highness, can be in the forefront of this.

Unfortunately, the fate of autocratic monarchies depends to a great extent on the personality of the tsar. It was not for nothing that Peter I sacrificed dynastic interests and the life of his own son to his reforms.¹ Alexander I, who said of himself "Je ne suis qu'un heureux hazard," has passed into history.² It is in this game of chance that you can increase the possibility of winning in the near future, for the good of Russia.

Until now, the upbringing of the heir has been in your hands, but in a year or two it will slip out of them.

Think of this, when you are alone—when the noise of the court settles down, when all that unnecessary whirlwind of receptions, empty speeches, and empty responses abates, when all those Andreevsky and Vladimirsky stars take a seat and you—a woman and a mother—are left alone with your conscience. Think then about your great responsibility, and the great duty that lies with you.

It is said that you are intelligent, and that not for nothing has the current trend in ideas penetrated the double window-frames of the Winter Palace. It is said that you desire the liberation of the serfs. That means a great deal.

You love Russia—it could not be otherwise. How could you not love the country that, surrounding you with all possible blessings, has placed on you the imperial mantle? And that is not all; another link has been forged between you and the people. The crown which fell on your head during a gloomy year of war and internal desolation constituted for the people an exodus to a new life. With childlike faith they greeted the new reign. With the sovereign you shared those outbursts of popular delight that had not been heard in Russia since Alexander I, wearied by his triumph, returned in 1815 to a burnt-out Moscow. How could you not love Russia! In this country pulses beat strongly; in its very disorder and awkward movements one senses youthful strength, one senses that in this cradle and in these tightly bound swaddling-clothes our future history is straightening out its limbs. To take part in the growth and fate of such a people is a great and tremendous matter.

Your maternal heart long ago showed you what you can accomplish, and how you can show your gratitude to the people. You tried to save your son, the future tsar, from the worst kind of education for grand dukes, that is, a military education, surrounded by military discipline and Ger­man clientism. All Russia rejoiced upon hearing that you had summoned people with a higher civilian education. Many even thought that they would see your son on the benches of Moscow University, that Sevastopol of re­search and education, which religiously and at great sacrifice held its ban­ner of truth and thought aloft during thirty years of persecution. And they would see him there without a group of general aides-de-camp, without an escort of both secret and regular police—as one sees the son of Queen Victoria in university halls. We blessed you from afar. But this could not have been pleasing to the Black Cabinet³—and what surprise can there be in that? Prior to this, weren't you acquainted with these people, who, like logs, hinder all progress, openness, court reform, and stand in the way of the liberation of the serfs? How could they look on with indifference as your son received a humane education? It was bad enough that La Harpe⁴ nearly spoiled Alexander I. But why did you so quickly change your mind and hesitate on the very first step? Why, in a matter of such importance, did you allow behind-the-scenes intrigue in the torture chambers of the Third Department to force out of your son's classroom people upon whom Rus- sia—and you yourself—looked with confidence, and allow in their place an undistinguished German pedant? ⁵ [. . .]

Let us see what von Grimm is like. I am leafing through his Wanderun- gen nad Sudosten.⁶ This is what he said in the dedication to Konstantin Niko- laevich: "But such delightful memories are clouded by the very sad thought that the great man, under whose patronage and blessing we traveled, is no more amongst us—that great emperor whom you call father, in whom Rus­sia found its pride and glory, and whom a Europe engulfed in strife saw as an unshakable polestar." [. . .]

Your poor son! If he were someone else, we would not care about him; we are aware that most of our aristocratic children are educated very badly. But the fate of Russia is bound up with his education, and that is why we are distressed to hear that a man who could write these lines has been ap­pointed to look after him. What if your son actually believes that Nicholas was the greatest man of the nineteenth century and wants to be like him?

Or perhaps state wisdom and an understanding of Rus will be instilled in him by Zinoviev?⁷ Where did he become a teacher and why is he more able than fifty. or even five hundred other battalion commanders and all sorts of generals who give orders in a hoarse voice and educate soldiers with a rod? We know of one virtue of his, a tender love for his brother, whom he removed as supervisor of an asylum and set up as a trustee of the Kharkov district, defending him against the right-wing students. But these family virtues, valued in Arcadia, are matched by crimes in government circles. Fi­nally, even if Zinoviev were as educated as Zakrevsky, an orator like Panin, with a clear conscience like Rostovtsev, and chaste like Butkov,⁸ wouldn't it be possible to find instead the kind of people pushed aside by him and the intrigue of the Black Cabinet—who are Russian, educated, love their country, and do not wear epaulets?

Epaulets are a grand thing, and a military uniform, like a monk's cassock, cuts a person off from other people; neither a monk nor a soldier are our equal and that is why they are set off from us. Both are incomplete people, people in an exceptional position. One has his arms always folded like a corpse, while the other has them always raised like a fighter. Neither death nor murder constitute life's best moments.

The title of Russian tsar is not a military rank. It is time to give up the barbaric thought of conquests, bloody trophies, cities taken by storm, ru­ined villages, trampled harvests—what kind of daydreams are Nimrod and Attila? The time has passed for scourges of mankind like Charles XII and

Napoleon. All that Russia needs is based on peace and is possible in peace­time. Russia thirsts for internal changes, it needs new civil and economic development, and, even without war, the military hinders both these goals. Troops mean destruction, violence, and oppression, and they are founded on silent discipline; that is why a soldier is harmful to the civic order, be­cause he makes no judgments, and the sense of responsibility that distin­guishes a man from an animal has been taken away from him.

Teach your son to wear a suit and enroll him in the civil service and you will be doing him a great favor. Occupy his mind with something nobler than an endless game of soldiers; the classroom of the heir to the throne should not resemble a corps de garde. This is a peculiarity ofPrussian princes and other petty German princelings. The royal house of England seems to be no worse than others, so why does the Prince of Wales, instead of learn­ing about the Horse Guards or the Royal Blues or the Coldstream Guards, sit with a microscope and study zoology?

With deep distress we hear stories of how a cadet is sent to the heir for them to play war in the halls of the Winter Palace. a game of Circassians and Russians. What shallowness, what poverty of interests, what monot­ony. and along with that, what moral harm! Did you ever think what that game means, what it represents. what is the reason for the rifle, bayonet, saber, why these bivouacs, for which the servant lights a spirit lamp on the floor instead of a campfire? This entire game represents the misfortune of battle, that is, wholesale killing and the triumph of brute strength. there's just one thing missing—blood up to the knees, the groans of the wounded, piles of corpses, and the savage cries of the victors. What kind of children's game is this, what kind of dress rehearsal for inhumanity or senseless behav­ior when it degenerates to the level of a corporal? [. . .]

Do not think that—carried away by sentimentalism—we wish to say that military science and military craft are useless for the heir to the throne. No! The sad necessity that in time of peace one must be ready to repel an enemy makes military organization necessary. In preparing to be head of state, the heir must know the military part of his responsibilities, but as one part; financial and civic questions, as well as judicial and social issues, have a greater right to be understood well by him.

Is it not sad to see the grand dukes learning the details of each regi­ment's uniform, all the secrets of handling a rifle, and how to command a platoon and a battalion, but not about civilian work, or the limits of vari­ous powers, or the economic state of the various parts of Russia, and they remain alien to Russian literature and those contemporary questions that shake the world and make the entire human race tremble. Ask any one of them and you will see whether or not we are correct. But why even ask?

Look at how barren their lives are, how useless is their wandering about for Russia. one travels to a stud farm, a second to look at the walls of some citadel, and the third to see the fifth or the fifteenth division.

It is terrible to think how hackneyed and empty our grand dukes' exis­tence has become. A man lived and died in our midst; he may have been endowed by nature with a good heart, but his entire life was spent in un­necessary busyness and aimless bustle. What distinction did Mikhail Pav- lovich⁹ add to a life spent close to the throne? That he was head of artillery in the Russian army?

Mikhail Pavlovich did not know Russia, did not even know Petersburg; he knew the guards regiments, the artillery, cadets. and he died, having returned from a military exercise and having given Paskevich an imperial honor. [. . .]

Your Majesty, save your children from this kind of future!

I know very well that my words, if they reach you, will surprise you with their impertinence: the sharp words of a free man sound odd in the halls of the Winter Palace. But overcome your distaste and think about what my sad words express; maybe you will find in them the great sorrow that eats at my heart, and see my honest desire for the well-being of Russia more than any insult or impertinence.

You stand too high to take offense, and I am too independent to be impertinent.

In olden times, tsars sometimes took off their robes and, dressed like mere mortals, they walked around the markets and squares, listening to popular talk and gaining practical wisdom in the crowds. This practice has lapsed, and it really is not necessary—free speech has itself penetrated the cavalry guards at court. Do not push it aside—think about it, and, if it makes you happier, forget who wrote it, although he sincerely wishes you well.

November 1, 1858

Notes

Source: "Pis'mo k Imperatritse Marii Aleksandrovne," Kolokol, l. 27, November 1, 1858; 13:353-60, 586-87.

Herzen is referring to the court decree of June 24, 1718, concerning the conspiracy which formed around Alexey Petrovich and was directed against Peter's transformation of the country. Alexey was condemned to death and Peter approved the sentence.

"I am only the result of a stroke of luck."

Herzen employs the term "Black Cabinet" to designate the most reactionary mem­bers of the Main Committee discussing the serf question: the police chief and head of the Third Department (V. A. Dolgorukov), the minister of government property (M. N. Muravyov), the chairman of the State Council (A. F. Orlov), the minister of justice (V. N. Panin), and an aide-de-camp (Ya. I. Rostovtsev). Herzen published an essay called "The

Black Cabinet" in the August 1, 1858, issue of The Bell. (See Gertsen, Sobranie sochinenii, 13:300-305, nn. 570-72.)

Frederic-Cesar de La Harpe (1754-1838), a Swiss government official who became tutor to Grand Duke Alexander Pavlovich, later Alexander I. Herzen refers ironically to the widespread opinion that La Harpe had a liberal influence on his pupil.

The person forced out was Moscow University law professor Konstantin D. Kavelin (1818-1885), who began tutoring Nicholas Alexandrovich in 1857, but had to step down the following year after his article on emancipation appeared in the April 1858 issue of The Contemporary. Grimm, tutor to the children of Nicholas I, succeeded him. The poet Fyodor Tyutchev, who served on the Foreign Censorship Committee, complained of another absurdity: while Grimm was being entrusted with the instruction of the heir, there was a proposal to ban his books from entering Russia (Choldin, Fence Around the Empire, 57-61).

Published in Berlin in 1858.

Nikolay V. Zinoviev (1801-1882), an aide-de-camp who from 1849 to i860 taught the grand dukes Nikolay, Alexander, and Vladimir Alexandrovich.

Yakov I. Rostovtsev (1803-1860) directed the military academies, and served on the Secret and Main Committees for the serf question; Vladimir P. Butkov (1820-1881) was a state secretary from 1854 to 1865.

Mikhail Pavlovich (1798-1849) was the younger brother of Nicholas I.

♦ 20 +

The Bell, No. 27, November i, i858. In the years leading up to the emancipation a split developed between Herzen and two prominent liberals, the jurist and writer Boris N. Chicherin and Moscow law professor Konstantin D. Kavelin. They had already publicly disagreed with Herzen in the almanac Voices from Russia, and Chicherin continued to speak for what he said were the majority of enlightened, right-thinking Russians who did not respond positively to revolutionary propaganda. Chicherin visited London in the fall of 1858 to try to get Herzen to moderate his views; each recorded impressions of the meeting in their memoirs (Herzen, My Past and Thoughts, 2:624-29). Herzen's publi­cation of an anonymous letter that called for emancipation from below, and "We Stand Accused," led to a strongly worded response from Chicherin, in which he envisioned Russian society moving in two different directions, one of which responded impatiently to conservative moves as the other sought a common language with autocracy. Despite the harsh tone he had adopted, Chicherin insisted that his personal respect for the editor of The Bell remained as strong as ever; the memory of Granovsky was sacred to them both (Zhelvakova, Gertsen, 435). Although Herzen felt that the attack was unnecessarily nasty, his belief in political dialogue led him to publish it, referring to himself and his antagonist as two officers who acknowledged each other's rank while fighting in oppos­ing armies. Chicherin accepted this comparison, but still insisted that they agreed on the basics—freedom for the serfs with land and freedom of conscience—while disagree­ing over tactics. If society was at this point not sufficiently unified to act responsibly, then it was too soon to demand action from the government (Let 2:451-57).

Chicherin claimed that Herzen's misuse of free speech would lead to greater repres­sion back home. After this charge was made public, Herzen received many letters of support. Kavelin was particularly effusive in his expressions of respect and affection, reminding Herzen of the role that he, Belinsky, and Granovsky had played in Kavelin's life. "For me you are not an abstract idea, but a living person, and you have no advisors because you see so far into the future" (Let 3:67-69). Chicherin was sent a collective letter by Kavelin, Turgenev, Pavel Annenkov, and others, taking him to task for justify­ing persecution in Russia and for gladdening the government with this sign of serious disagreement among progressive forces. Even the conservative pedagogue and censor Nikitenko said that Chicherin's criticism of the London exile was harmful. Herzen gave a detailed answer to accusations made against him; this article and the one that follows led to a complete break in their relations, surprising and regrettable in a group of people who shared so many mentors and friends (Let 2:453).

We Stand Accused [1858]

Liberal conservatives accuse us of attacking the government too much, ex­pressing ourselves too sharply, and being too abusive.

The red democrats fiercely accuse us of making allowances for Alexan­der II, praising him when he does something good and believing that he desires the emancipation of the serfs.

The Slavophiles accuse us of a Western turn of mind.

The Westernizers accuse us of Slavophilism.

The strict doctrinaires accuse us of frivolousness and instability because in the winter we complain about the cold, and in the summer about the heat.

On this occasion, there will be just a few words about the final accusation.

It was provoked by two or three admissions on our part that we were mistaken, that we were carried away by our enthusiasm; we won't attempt to justify ourselves by saying that we were mistaken and carried away along with the rest of Russia, and we do not shirk the responsibility that we have voluntarily assumed. We must be consistent; unity is a necessary condition for all propaganda, and it is right to demand that of us. But while taking a measure of guilt upon ourselves, we wish to share it with other guilty parties.

It is easy to follow one line when you are dealing with a mature order of things and consistent types of activity. What's hard about taking a sharply defined position in relation to the English government or the French impe­rial house? Would it have been hard to be consistent under the last tsar?

But we do not find unity in Alexander II's actions; first he represents himself as the liberator of the serfs and a reformer, and then defends the

Nicholaevan harness and threatens to trample the shoots that have just emerged.

How can one reconcile the speech to the Moscow nobility with Governor- General Zakrevsky?¹

How to reconcile the easing of censorship with the ban on writing about the liberation of the serfs with land?

How to reconcile the amnesty and the desire for open discussion with Rostovtsev's project and Panin's power?² [. . .]

The instability of the government is reflected in our articles. In follow­ing the government we lost our way, and did not hide the fact that we were annoyed at ourselves. In this there was a kind of link with our readers. We had not led, but had walked alongside them; we had not taught, but had served as an echo of thoughts and ideas suppressed at home. Swept up in the contemporary movement of Russia, we were carried rapidly along by the changing winds blowing from the Neva.

Of course, a person who silently awaits the outcome, stifling both hope and fear, will never make a mistake. History—that graveside oration—is bet­ter protected against blunders than any participant in ongoing events. [. . .] While lacking an exclusive system or a party spirit that repels every­thing else, we do have an unshakable foundation and ardent feelings that have guided us from childhood to old age, and in them there is no frivolity, hesitation, or compromise! The rest seems secondary to us; there are many different ways to implement what is agreed upon. in this is the poetic ca- priciousness of history and it is impolite to meddle.

The emancipation of the serfs with land is one of the most important and substantial questions for Russia and for us. Whether this emancipa­tion is "from above or below"—we will back it! If the liberating is done by peasant committees made up of the accursed enemies of emancipation— we will sincerely and wholeheartedly bless them. If the peasants liberate themselves first from the committees and then from those landowners who constitute the committees—we will be the first to congratulate them in a brotherly way and from the heart as well. Finally, if the tsar orders the re­moval of estates from subversive aristocrats and sends them somewhere beyond the Amur River to Muravyov—we will say equally from the heart: "Let it be as you command."³

It does not follow from this that we recommend these means, that there are no others, or that these are the best—not at all. Our readers know what we think on this subject.

However, since the most important matter is for the peasants to be freed with land, we will not argue over means.

In the absence of a binding doctrine, leaving it, so to speak, to nature itself to act as we cheer on every step that is consistent with our views, we may often make mistakes. We will always be glad for "our learned friends," sitting calmly in lodges on the shore, to shout out for us to keep "to the right or to the left"; but we hope that they do not forget that it is easier for them to observe the strength of the waves and the weakness of the swimmers than it is for us to swim. especially so far from shore. [. . .]

Notes

Source: "Nas uprekaiut," Kolokol, l. 27, November 1, 1858; 13:361-63, 587.

The speech on the need for the emancipation was delivered March 30 (April 11), 1856.

In the coronation manifesto issued by Alexander II on August 26, 1856, the sur­viving Decembrists and other political prisoners were granted amnesty. During the summer of 1858 there was discussion of Rostovtsev's proposal to set up temporary governor-generals in case of peasant agitation when the reforms were carried out. The project, supported by Alexander II, was opposed by Minister of the Interior Lanskoy. By taking this stance, Lanskoy risked dismissal, and foreign newspapers mentioned pos­sible successors.

Count Nikolay N. Muravyov-Amursky (1809-1881) was governor-general of eastern Siberia from 1847 to 1861.

21 +

The Bell, No. 29, December 1, 1858. Konstantin Kavelin wrote to Chicherin early in 1859, criticizing the bureaucratic tone Chicherin took with Herzen and questioning his right to speak so condescendingly to a man who wanted the reforms to succeed without casualties. Chicherin forwarded Kavelin's letter and others written in a similar spirit to Herzen, who refused to publish them for fear of compromising the authors.

"A Bill of Indictment," which continues the open discussion with Chicherin, is one of several in which Herzen refers to irony as a distinctive characteristic of his writing and a deliberate choice in making his political message more effective. By March 1859 Herzen was ready to bring an end to this particular polemic. He continued to receive letters of support, including one from the Slavophile editor Alexander Koshelev (1806­1883), who described the "sobering" effect of uncensored free speech coming from Lon­don, and advised Herzen to pay no attention to the criticism of "doctrinaire liberals." In the May 1859 issue of The Contemporary, Chernyshevsky managed to weave support for Herzen into a review of Chicherin's writings (Let 3:15-16, 20, 38, 42, 46).

A Bill of Indictment [1858]

I appear before our readers with a bill of indictment in my hands.

This time the accused is not Panin or Zakrevsky—the accused is me.

This accusation, expressed on behalf of "a significant number of think­ing people in Russia," has great importance for me. Its final word is that all my activity, that is, my life's work, is bringing harm to Russia.

If I believed this, I would find the selflessness to hand over my work to others and disappear somewhere in the back of the beyond, lamenting how my entire life had been a mistake. But I am not the judge of my own case; there are too many maniacs who are sure that they are doing the right thing, and you cannot prove a case with ardent love, pure intentions, or your entire life. Therefore, I will turn over the accusation to the court of public opinion.

Until the time when the public speaks loudly on the side of the accuser, I will stubbornly follow the path along which I have been traveling.

Until the time when I receive dozens of ardent expressions of sympathy with the accusatory letter, I will persist.

While the number of readers continues to grow—as it is now growing— I will persist.

While Butenev in Constantinople, Kiselev in Rome, and I don't know who in Berlin, Vienna, and Dresden wear themselves out rushing about to viziers and pashas, to ministers' secretaries and cardinals' assistants, ask­ing and begging for the suppression of The Bell and The Polestar, and until the Allgemeine Zeitung and Gerlach's Kreuz-Zeitung stop bewailing the fatal influence of The Bell on the nerves ofPetersburg dignitaries, I will carry on.¹

I stand before you in my "hopelessly incorrigible state," as Golitsyn ju­nior characterized me in 1835, when I was being judged by a committee of inquiry.² Be as strict, cruel, and unjust as you wish, but I ask of you one thing: in the English manner, let us stick to business and leave personali­ties out of it.

I am prepared to print everything that is possible in terms of quality and quantity.

The "Accusatory Letter" which we have published today differs substan­tially from previous letters opposing The Bell. In those letters there was a friendly reproach and the kind of friendly indignation in which could be heard a familiar native sound.

There is nothing like that in this letter.

Those were written from our side, and in the very disagreement and re­proach there was sympathy. This letter was written from a completely op­posing point of view, that is, from the viewpoint of administrative progress and governmental inflexibility. We never accepted it and so there is no sur­prise in the fact that we did not follow that path. We never represented our­selves as government authorities or statesmen. We wanted to be Russia's protest, its cry of liberation and its cry of pain, we wanted to unmask villains who stand in the way of success and rob the people. We dragged them to the place of punishment and made them look ridiculous. We wanted to be not just Russia's revenge but its irony—and nothing more. What kind of Bludovs and Panins are we—we are the book publishers for "a significant number of suffering people in Russia."

And here I must add that we are not at all in the exclusive position that is often ascribed to us, and which is ascribed by the author of this letter, and against which I protest with all my strength. What kind of monopoly do we have on Russian publishing, as if we held the concession on Russian speech in foreign lands?

If we are, as the author of the letter says, "the strength and power in Rus­sia," then the reason is not that we are the only ones with an instrument.

Now that we have gotten the ball rolling, you can publish in Russian in Berlin, Leipzig, and in London itself.³

And if, in good conscience, we cannot recommend the Brussels periodi­cal Le Nord as an outlet for Russian articles, what is to prevent placing them in Russia Abroad?⁴

To us belong the honor of initiative and the honor of success, but not a monopoly.

Notes

Source: "Obvinitel'nyi akt," Kolokol, l. 29, December 1, 1858; 13:404-6, 597-600.

Herzen complained about the campaign to suppress The Bell in earlier essays, in­cluding "Lackeys and Germans Refuse Permission" and "Logophobia" (Docs. 15 and 17). Apollinary P. Butenev (1787-1866) was Russia's representative to Constantinople from 1856 to 1858; Nikolay D. Kiselev (1802-1869) was the Russian ambassador to the papal court in Rome from 1856 to 1864. The Kreuz-Zeitung, so called because of the cross on the title page, was also called the Neue Preussische Zeitung; it was founded in 1848 in Berlin by the far-right leader Eduard Ludwig Gerlach, who proposed new periodicals to polemicize with The Bell, not only abroad, but within Russia itself.

Alexander F. Golitsyn (1796-1864) participated in a number of investigative com­missions, including the one in 1834 that looked into the activities of Herzen, Ogaryov, and others. Herzen refers to him as "junior" to distinguish him from Prince Sergey M. Golitsyn (1774-1859), another commission member.

Herzen: "Besides our press, as the reader probably knows, there is another press in London run by Z. Swietoslawski."

The Russian government used Le Nord to try to influence public opinion in Europe. Russkii zagranichnyi sbornik was a liberal journal, edited in Paris and printed in Leipzig.

The Bell, No. 44, June 1, 1859. The title of the article below was written in capital letters and in English. This is the first detailed polemic against attempts made between 1857 and 1859 in The Contemporary and other Russian journals to discredit—in coded lan­guage—the journalism of exposure and denunciation, and to reevaluate the historical and socio-literary significance of the Nicholaevan era's "superfluous people," signaling that the time had come for action (Walicki, Slavophile Controversy, 452, 460). Herzen believed that the attacks on his journalism "served the interest of the most reactionary part of the tsarist bureaucracy, and that the young radicals might live to be decorated by the government" (Ulam, Ideologies and Illusions, 25). Natan Eidelman devoted many pages of analysis to this "family" quarrel, which pitched a more radical message inserted between the lines against a more moderate, but openly expressed, stance (Eidel'man, Svobodnoe slovo, 258-59, 271, 295, 308-15).

In several issues of The Contemporary, both before and after the appearance of "VERY DANGEROUS!!!" Dobrolyubov attacked pustozvonstvo ("idle talk," literally "empty ring­ing," a reference to The Bell), and claimed that unmasking particular abuses without criticizing the entire structure simply deflected attention from the main battle; he inti­mated that only the younger generation could effectively serve humanity (Gertsen, So- branie sochinenii, 4:48-112). In answer to this article, "Last Year's Literary Trifles," and to criticism from conservative literary figures in The Library for Reading (where Herzen had read Pisemsky's A Thousand Souls) and Fatherland Notes (where he read Goncharov's Oblomov), Herzen boldly reaffirmed the power of his targeted laughter.

After Nekrasov heard in his St. Petersburg club of the attacks contained in "VERY DANGEROUS!!!" and its inference that The Contemporary had been "bought," he and Dobrolyubov considered traveling to London to demand that Herzen retract his remarks, and, in Nekrasov's case, to possibly challenge him to a duel (Let 3:48). In the end it was Chernyshevsky who made the trip, meeting with Herzen in late June-early July 1859. He commented afterward that while the trip was not made in vain, it would have been tedious to prolong the debate (Let 3:55). Letters and reminiscences from that period indi­cate that there was great curiosity about what the two men said to each other (Let 3:58). According to a prison memoir by S. G. Stakhevich, in 1869 Chernyshevsky claimed that his message to Herzen was that the accusations in The Bell helped the government better exercise control over local officials, while leaving the state structure intact. "But the es­sence of the matter is in the state structure, and not in the agents" (Evgen'ev-Maksimov, Sovremennik, 388-91; Woehrlin, Chernyshevskii, 254). In his i860 article "The Superflu­ous and the Jaundiced" (included in the four-volume version of My Past and Thoughts), Herzen to some extent agreed with this criticism of expository journalism.

VERY DANGEROUS!!!

[1859]

Recently a pernicious current has begun to waft through our journalism, some kind of corrupted thinking which we do not accept as an expression of public opinion but as something inspired by the censorship's ruling and edifying triumvirate.¹

Pure men of letters, people of sound and form, are tired of the civic di­rection in our literature; it has begun to offend them that so much is writ­ten about bribes and open discussion and there are so few Oblomovs and anthologized poems. If only the Oblomov that exists were not so completely boring one could forgive them their opinion. People are not to blame when they have no sympathy for the life around them that is breaking through and rushing ahead, and, realizing their frightening position, begin, let us say, to speak about it, however incoherently. In Germany we saw all sorts of Jean-Pauls, who, in light of the revolution and reaction, were overwhelmed, and composed lexicons or tales of the fantastic.² Here, however, things have taken a further turn. The journals that have built a pedestal of their noble indignation and almost a profession of their gloomy sympathy with those who suffer, split their sides laughing at investigative journalism and at unsuccessful attempts at open discussion. And this did not happen by accident; they set up a big booth to hiss at the first attempts of free speech in a literature whose hair has not yet grown back since its recent imprisonment. [. . .]

Laughter is convulsive, and if, during the first minute a man laughs at everything, during the second moment he blushes and despises his laugh­ter and that which caused it. It took all ofHeine's genius to make up for two or three repulsive jokes about the deceased writers Berne and Platen and a lady who was still alive.³ For a time the public shied away from him, and he made peace with them only through his extraordinary talent.

Without a doubt, laughter is one of the most powerful means of destruc­tion; Voltaire's laughter struck and burned like lightning. From laughter idols fall, as do wreaths and frames, and a wonder-working icon turns into a dark and badly drawn picture. With its revolutionary leveling power, laughter is terribly popular and catchy; having begun in a modest study, it moves in widening circles to the limits of literacy. To use such a weapon not against the absurd Trinity of censors—in which Timashev plays the Holy listener—but as its trident, means to join it in the poisoning of thought.

We ourselves saw very well the blunders and mistakes of investigative literature and the awkwardness of the first open discussion; what is surpris­ing in the fact that people who their whole lives were robbed by neighbor­hood police, judges, and governors now have a lot to say? And they have kept silent about even more!

When did our taste become so spoiled and refined? For ten years we put up with chatter about all the Petersburg camellias and courtesans, who, in the first place, are as alike as sisters the world over, and, second, have this in common with cutlets, that while one may from time to time enjoy them, there is simply nothing that need be said afterward.⁴

"But why are investigative writers such poor narrators, and why do their stories resemble court cases?" That comment may be relevant to individu­als, but not to a movement. Someone who poorly and dully conveys the tears of the peasant, the brutality of the landowner, and the thievery of the police, you can be sure will do an even poorer job describing how a golden- haired girl spilled the water she had scooped up from a pool, and how a dark-eyed youth, seeing the swift-flowing liquid, regretted that it was not flowing over his heart.⁵

There were outstanding works in "investigative literature." Do you fancy that you can now noisily throw all the stories by Shchedrin and others into the water with Oblomov's arms around their neck? Gentlemen, you are too extravagant!

You have no pity for these articles because the world about which they write is alien to you; it interests you only to the extent that one is forbidden to write about it. Plants native to the capital, you have sprung up between Gryaznaya Street and the Moyka Canal, and what lies beyond the city limits seems foreign to you. The coarse picture of a story like "Transport"—with carts stuck in the mud, and ruined peasants who gaze with despair at a ferry, waiting one day, and another, and a third—cannot interest you as much as the long odyssey of some half-wild, icy nature, which drags on, drifts off, and disintegrates into meaningless detail.⁶ You are prepared to sit at a microscope and analyze this rot (not looking for pathologies, which are contrary to the purity of art; art must have no use and while it may at times be somewhat harmful, base utilitarianism will kill it)—doing so stimulates your nerves. We, quite to the contrary, cannot—without yawning and dis­gust—follow physiological descriptions of some sort of Neva wood lice who have outlived that heroic period in which their ancestors—and there were many—were Onegins and Pechorins.

And besides, the Onegins and Pechorins were completely authentic, and expressed the real grief and destructiveness of Russian life at that time. The sad fate of the superfluous person, a casualty only because he had devel­oped into a human being, revealed itself then not only in narrative poems and novels, but on the streets and in drawing rooms, in villages and in cit­ies. Our most recent literary recruits needle these delicate dreamers who were broken without a fight, idle people who could not find their way in the environment in which they lived. It's a shame they do not come to any conclusions—I happen to think that had Onegin and Pechorin been able— like many others—to make peace with the Nicholaevan era, Onegin would be Viktor Petrovich Panin, and Pechorin would not have perished on the way to Persia, but would, like Kleinmikhel, be running the transportation system and interfering with railway construction.⁷

The era of Onegins and Pechorins has passed. In Russia now there are no more superfluous people; now, to the contrary, there are not enough peo­ple for the work that is required. Anyone who cannot find something to do now has no one to blame—he is in fact an empty person, a piece of wood or a lazybones. And that is why Onegins and Pechorins naturally become Oblomovs.

Public opinion, pampering the Onegins and Pechorins because it sensed in them its own suffering, turns away from Oblomovs.

It is complete nonsense to say that we have no public opinion, as a learned commentator recently said, thus demonstrating that we had no need of open discussion because we had no public opinion, and we had no public opinion because we had no bourgeoisie!⁸

Public opinion has shown its tact, its sympathies, and its implacable se­verity, even during times of public silence. Where did all that uproar come from over Chaadaev's letter, over The Inspector General and Dead Souls, the Tales of a Hunter, Belinsky's articles, and Granovsky's lectures? And, on the other hand, how viciously it fell upon its idols for civic treachery or lack of firmness. Gogol died from its sentence, and Pushkin himself experienced what it means to strike a chord in praise of Nicholas.⁹ Our men of letters were more likely than the public to forgive praises sung to an inhuman, barracks despot, as their conscience had been dulled by a refinement of the aesthetic palate!

The example of Senkovsky is even more striking. What did he do with all his wit, his Semitic languages, his seven literatures, his lively memory, and his sharp exposition?. At first the rockets, flashes, crackling, sparklers, whistles, noise, merry atmosphere, and free-and-easy laughter attracted ev­eryone to his journal—they looked and looked and laughed and then, little by little, they went away to their homes. Senkovsky was forgotten, like St. Thomas week when they forget about some bespangled acrobat, who the previous week had interested the whole town, as people packed his booth and hung about him in crowds...¹⁰

What did he lack? It was the quality that Belinsky and Granovsky had in such abundance—that eternally troubling demon of love and indignation, visible in tears and laughter. He lacked the kind of conviction that would have been his life's work, a map on which everything would have been laid out with passion and pain. In the words that come from such conviction there remains a trace of the magnetic demonism under which the speaker worked, which explains why his speeches disturb, alarm, and awaken. be­coming a force and a power that sometimes moves entire generations.

But we are far from judging Senkovsky unconditionally; he is vindicated by the leaden era in which he lived. He might have become a cold skeptic, an indifferent blase, laughing at good and evil and believing in nothing— the same way that others shaved the top of their head, became Jesuit priests, and believe everything in the world.¹¹ It was all an escape from Nicholas— and how could one not try to escape at that time? The only people we do not forgive are those who ran to the Third Department.

What is there in common between that time, when Senkovsky clowned around under the name of Brambeus, and our time? Then it was impos­sible to do anything, even if you had the genius of Pestel and the mind of Muravyov—the ropes on which Nicholas hung people were stronger. It was only possible to martyr oneself, like Konarsky and Wollowicz.¹² Now everywhere there are calls for energetic people, everything is beginning, on the rise, and if nothing happens, then no one is to blame—not Alexan­der II, not his censorship trio, not the local policeman nor other powerful people—the fault will lie in your weakness, so blame yourself for the false direction you have taken, and have the strength to acknowledge yourselves a leaderless, transitional generation, the one of which Lermontov sang with such terrible truth!.. ¹³

That is why at such a time empty buffoonery is tedious and out of place; it becomes repulsive and nasty when it hangs donkey bells not on a troika called Adlerberg, Timashev, and Mukhanov¹⁴ from the tsar's stables, but on one that—sweaty, exhausted, and occasionally falling back—is dragging our cart out of the mud!

Gentlemen, isn't it a hundred times better, instead of hissing at clumsy experiments while sticking to the beaten path, to lend a hand and demon­strate how to make use of open discussion? [. . .]

Notes

Source: "VERY DANGEROUS!!!" Kolokol, l. 44, June 1, 1859; 14:116-21, 492-99.

Herzen refers to an 1859-60 government committee whose goal was to exert a moral influence on journalism so that it would support official views; its members, which included Alexander V. Adlerberg (1819-1889, member of the Main Censorship Administration), Alexander Timashev (1818-1893, head of the secret police), and Pavel A. Mukhanov (1798-1871, member of the governing council for the Kingdom of Poland, in charge of internal and spiritual matters), were frequently criticized in The Bell.

Jean Paul Richter (1763-1825) was a German romantic writer with a taste for the humorous and grotesque.

Ludwig Bёrne (1786-1837) was a German critic; August von Platen (1796-1835) was a German poet. The woman in question was a friend of Bёrne.

Herzen has in mind "Petersburg Life," a series of feuilletons in The Contemporary by Ivan I. Panaev (1812-1862) describing the demimonde of the northern capital.

Herzen's remarks are a parody of common phrases from the poetry of Maykov and Fet, and have much in common with Dobrolyubov's criticism of "pure art" in The Contemporary.

"Transport" ("Perevoz"), by Ilya V. Selivanov (1810-1882), appeared in The Contem­porary in the third issue published in 1857. The "long odyssey" is Goncharov's Oblomov, which appeared in the first four issues of Fatherland Notes for 1859. Herzen takes issue with Druzhinin's praise of the novel in Readers' Library and Dobrolyubov's strongly posi­tive essay in The Contemporary, as well as Goncharov's role as a censor.

Panin was minister of justice. Count Peter A. Kleinmikhel (1793-1869) was direc­tor of transportation and public buildings from 1842 to 1855.

Herzen is challenging the basic argument of an article by Pollunsky in Readers' Library, 1859:3.

Nikolay Gogol was widely criticized for his i847 book Selected Passages from a Cor­respondence with Friends (Doc. 6). On Pushkin, see Chapter V of Herzen's 1850 essay "On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia" (Doc. 1).

St. Thomas Sunday is the first Sunday after Easter, and begins a week (fomina nedelia) devoted to the apostle who only believed the miracle after he had seen the risen Christ.

In his 1859 article "Russia and Poland," Herzen mentioned the "Pecherins, Gaga­rins, and Golitsyns" who lived as Catholics in emigration, Vladimir Pecherin becoming a monk, and Prince Ivan Gagarin a Jesuit priest.

Konarsky and Wollowicz were Polish revolutionaries executed by the tsarist government.

Herzen has in mind Lermontov's poem "Thought" ("Duma").

The three super-censors whom Herzen has previously mentioned.

♦ 23 *

The Bell, No. 49, August 1, 1859. Semi-public banquets, organized by progressive forces (on the model of France in 1848) were organized in Russia only after the death of Nicho­las I. For instance, the Moscow intelligentsia gathered in November 1855, not long after Granovsky's passing, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Mikhail Shchepkin's acting debut; anything honoring Shchepkin acquired extra resonance in pre-emancipation Russia because he was born a serf. Organized by Sergey Aksakov and Sergey Solovyov, the 200 guests included professors, literary figures, enlightened merchants, and mem­bers of the Moscow administration. Konstantin Aksakov gave a toast to "public opinion" (obshchestvennoe mnenie), which brought a standing ovation, this being the first time that phrase was used in public, and alarmed the Third Department agent deputized to attend (Istoriia Moskvy, 3:769-70; Christoff, Nineteenth-Century Russian Slavophilism, 3:164). Hearing about such events at a distance, Herzen was unable to gauge their effect, and fully aware that any praise of the living could only harm them. Herzen focused below on the hypocrisy of a dinner whose main purpose was to pay homage to those in power.

Political Dinners in Moscow

[1859]

I

We Russians have always liked to dine and to dine well, but recently we have learned to dine politically, and, while formerly we gathered for fish soup with sturgeon, now we gather for dinner with a speech. Even that con­summate Nicholaevan Zakrevsky was given a dinner on April 24, 1859, with a speech by Kornilov; we cannot resist acquainting our readers with it.¹

Count Arseny Andreevich,

Not long ago we celebrated the tenth anniversary of the governing of Moscow by your highness, and the same feelings of love and devotion to you have brought us together now. However, all that was then joy­ful in our feelings is now clouded by the genuine sadness of farewell. A severe blow has been sent to you from on high. It is not the first in your arduous, brilliant life; you had already traveled a difficult path.

During 11 years of service under your thoughtful leadership, full of good-humored concern, we have grown used to seeing you always firm, always tireless, always indefatigable, strict toward yourself, and indulgent to others.

That is how you behaved during the calamitous year when cholera devastated Moscow. Quickly, with sensible measures, having asked God's help, you brought to an end the calamity and lent a compassion­ate hand to the orphans and families of the epidemic's victims.

Thus you behaved during the Crimean War, a terrible time for the Fatherland.² Vigilant under the weight of your responsibilities, you encouraged the inhabitants of Moscow and roused their patriotic feelings.

We have seen the same in you during joyous times in our beloved fatherland.

At this time of carrying out the magnanimous idea of our august Sovereign about the abolition of serf dependency³ you restrained the first premature impulses, allowed the general opinion to form and mature and in your comments on the work of the Moscow committee you exceeded the liberalism of many who saw in your actions back­ward, late, and old-fashioned ideas and convictions.

In private relations with us, you were not our chief, but our father. We boldly came to you with our joys and our sorrows. You refused no one advice, comfort, or help.

Everywhere and in everything you were always the model of lively, thoughtful, and prudent activity.

God grant that this courage and strength not fail you now when your peace of mind and your family have need of it.

And if the non-hypocritical love and devotion of your former subordinates can serve to comfort you, then, Count, we are all pres­ent, and our genuine tears tell you more eloquently than words how deeply we are feeling the misfortune that has struck you and every­one close to your tenderly affectionate heart.

May the one on high fortify you and heal your heart's wounds!

Gentlemen! To the health of our unforgettable and ever-dear Count Arseny Andreevich!

II

On May 10, there was a dinner for the Moscow head of government, Count Stroganov.⁴ It was supposed to serve as an expression of the pleasure felt by Moscow residents that Zakrevsky had finally been replaced.⁵ More than 400 people signed up for the dinner, even those who had given the dinner for Zakrevsky.

A quarter hour before the count's arrival a commandant arrived and asked in the count's name that there be no speeches.

Nevertheless, Voeykov⁶ spoke and Stroganov responded, and then the dinner came to an end. After dinner, Professor Solovyov⁷ caught up with Stroganov and said a few words to him. The remaining speeches were given after the departure of Stroganov. That's something new! [. . .]

Notes

Source: "Politicheskie obedy v Moskve," Kolokol, l. 49, August 1, 1859; 14:403-5, 618-19.

A farewell dinner was given for the governor-general of Moscow, on April 17, 1859. According to Petr Vyazemsky's memoirs, it was rumored that his dismissal had to do with his defense of gentry and landowner rights, and thousands of members of the gen­try from Moscow and other regions gathered to show support. Alexey Kaznacheev, direc­tor of government property in Pskov, organized a dinner in his honor and composed a speech in which he described Zakrevsky's service to the fatherland, which was delivered by Fedor Kornilov, who headed the chancellery of the Moscow governor-general.

Herzen: "During the Crimean campaign, Zakrevsky supplied low-quality cloth, etc., from his factory for the militia, and his officials enriched themselves; but one ought not thank him for this!"

Herzen: "On the peasant question, Zakrevsky pressed the committee's minority, who were sincerely attempting to change the serfs' way of life, delaying their activities and threatening them, but, in the end, seeing that the wind from Petersburg on the mat­ter of serfdom was blowing a bit more favorably for the minority, and wishing to please his master, he presented the minority's project with his own additions."

Count Sergey G. Stroganov (1794-1882) was a member of the State Council, trustee of the Moscow educational district, and military governor-general of Moscow in 1859-60; beginning in i860 he was chief tutor for the grand dukes Nikolay, Alexander, Vladimir, and Alexey.

Contemporary memoirs report that the more liberal members of Moscow society openly greeted the news of Zakrevsky's dismissal with undisguised joy.

Voeykov was leader of the Moscow nobility from 1856 to 1861 and a member of the Moscow committee to examine the peasant question.

Sergey M. Solovyov (1820-1879) was a historian and professor at Moscow Univer­sity from i847 to i877.

♦ 24 +

The Bell, No. 55, November 1, 1859. In part 1 of Past and Thoughts, Herzen described his part in a March 1831 student rebellion at Moscow University against Professor Malov of the Politics Faculty. They succeeded in getting Malov dismissed, but Herzen and five other students were held for several nights in the university prison. During the fall of 1859, students in the first year of Moscow University's medical school rebelled against Professor of Comparative Anatomy and Physiology N. A. Varnek. One of the students involved in this affair sent material to The Bell, which formed the basis of Herzen's ar­ticle, information that was included in the case file by the Third Department.

The Supreme Council of Moscow University Pharisees

[1859]

Yet another shooting star.

It appears that Moscow University has lived through its age of glory. It is as if the death of Granovsky drew a line. Was the weight of the Nicholaevan press necessary to forge the teachers and students into a unified family?

Now things are too free, and that is why professors, at least the majority of them, act like some kind of board of decency.

A year ago students stopped attending the lectures of some third-rate professor named Varnek; the university authorities inflated the incident, which ended with the expulsion of a dozen students, and it is through no fault of the academic high council that the affair didn't take a Nicholaevan turn. For some time we have known about this ugly story, but only recently did we obtain the details, which we will briefly convey to our readers.

The students chose as their deputy Zhokhov, who said to Varnek on their behalf: "Professor, we have not listened to your lecture, and in the future we will not cross the threshold of any auditorium where you are teaching. We ask you to allow us the possibility of having another professor."

The university authorities, whose academic-police dignity had been of­fended, resolved to break the will of the seditious students; they began their actions with the expulsion of Zhokhov, having announced that he was kicked out because of his ignoble verses by order of the late emperor, whose will had up to now not been carried out, because the trustee Nazimov had protected him, and another trustee, Kovalevsky, had somehow forgotten about him!..¹

Second, they extracted from students a written obligation to attend Var- nek's lectures. The tricks and ruses they resorted to are quite interesting. Thus, the inspector demanded that medical students, in small groups, ap­pear before him from 11 to 12 at night, to avert the possibility of strikes. Also, not without ulterior motives, he began the signed statements with the scholarship students, who had to choose one of two things—to agree or to go off and be medical assistants. Finally, the necessary preparations had been made and on the 19th the dean posted an announcement that the following day at a certain hour Mr. Varnek would lecture in the ana­tomical theater. Long before the beginning of the lecture students crowded the corridor adjacent to the amphitheater. At 11:30 university officials be­gan to appear. Finally, trustee Bakhmetev himself arrived.² He politely ex­changed bows with the students and addressed them with the following words: "Gentlemen, we may now enter. It's time!" He pronounced this phrase in such a regular, affectionate voice, as if he knew nothing about the opposition that had formed. "We won't go!" shouted the crowd. "But gentlemen, remember that you gave your word of honor to the inspector." "Under the lash. they threatened us." "Then you absolutely don't want to go in?" "No! No!" "Then I ask you not to reproach me. I will act as my conscience demands. Rector, set up a commission to sort out this strange business. Whatever the decision, I will not hesitate to sign it, if it is just." The trustee bowed politely to the students once again and left, without even having seen Varnek.

At 7 o'clock in the evening several first-year medical students were called to the governing body, where they found Alfonsky, Barshev, Leshkov, and Krylov; Armfeld had left, not waiting for the students to gather and, as the rumors suggested, having argued with the others over their too honorable intentions!.. ³

The accused were led into a room and there was another attempt to con­vince them. "Why have you refused to go to Varnek's lectures?" "Because he lectures badly." "Who told you that he lectures badly? How did you acquire so much information in just two months that you take it upon yourselves to judge a professor, a man of science? You are young and might easily be mistaken." "We are not the only ones who feel this way." "Who else?" "All the medical students." "Well, listen up, medical students," exclaimed Barshev, a professor of criminal law, "that means you have formed a con­spiracy!" "The trustee," said the president, "out of sympathy for your youth, wants to bring this story to an end in-house. Agree to listen to Varnek and you will be left in peace and no one will be punished. Think it over—stub­bornness is useless and even dangerous."

The students thought it over and repeated that they would not listen to Varnek. They were released. On the 23rd, first-year medical students were summoned to the mineralogical hall, where they were handed written ques­tions and told that no one could leave until they had answered everything. The students, feeling that they were in the right, answered directly and sharply, without being in command of the full body of laws. That was suf­ficient; members jumped at the thoughtlessly severe phrases and, based on the degree of their sharpness, divided the accused into categories and handed the matter over for a final decision to the academic council. In this way the harshest punishment went to several people who had not taken part in the recent events, solely on the basis of their liberal opinions!

"But first," continues our correspondent, "before I say something about the decision of the university court, I will dwell for a moment on a curi­ous episode which accurately characterizes the professors' friendly attitude toward the students. If I were to call them two enemy camps, I would not earn a scolding from my comrades for exaggeration."

The student Klyauz, having spoiled the question sheet, asked the sec­retary for another one. "Don't give him one," said Barshev, "he was sent out to the corridor to see his friends, and they ordered him to give false information." "Professor, be careful with your accusations." "So," shouted Barshev, "you are still trying to vindicate yourself!" "I am not vindicating myself, but simply saying that you are lying." "Arrest him," ordered the en­raged member to the inspector. "But he really didn't leave the room," said Ilinsky.⁴ "In that case, pardon me, Mr. Klyauz," muttered the embarrassed professor.

The amusing anecdote ought to have finished with this, but, unfortu­nately, with us nothing has been done as one would have expected it for a long time. The next day Klyauz was expelled. On whose complaint and on whose command no one knows even now; Barshev didn't complain and the commission was not even thinking about punishing Klyauz! Isn't this act worthy of the defenders of openness in court proceedings, as our men of science present themselves?

On the 28th the academic council met, on the 29th Minister Kovalevsky presided, and on December 4 the decision of the famous mock trial was read in the auditoriums: "i0 people are expelled for bad behavior, and about i00 with the right to return in a year."

Later, the second category were allowed to repent and given the form for an appeal: "I, the undersigned, promise to henceforth obey uncondition­ally all of the authorities' instructions." And out of 100 people only three refused this shameful appeal. That same day the minister strictly forbade students from gatherings in crowds, making speeches, etc., in the university garden and in the auditoriums.

What did the students in other divisions do? And, most of all, what about the young professors and associate professors. it would be interesting to have a record of these official opinions. [. . .]⁵

In conclusion, we address ourselves in a friendly and brotherly manner to young Russians with advice and, to be more exact, a fervent plea.

We do not in the least share the military-judicial tendencies of the Mos­cow professors' high court. It would be shameful for you to doubt our sym­pathy. Our entire life and all the separate events in it can serve as a witness to the fact that even if fate put us in the place of the Barshevs and Krylovs we would still be true to our convictions; that is why—with a clear con­science and the candor of affection—we have decided to implore you to be careful, because you may ruin not only yourselves, but much more.

Russia requires this sacrifice of you. There are stages in an organism's resistance that demand stricter hygiene. And precisely now Russia finds itself in such a condition. The old has been uprooted and the new has not yet taken root. There is nothing on which to rely. Besides the sovereign's noble instincts, on the one hand, and part of society, on the other, besides the redoubled intellectual activity and that anxious expectation that antici­pates a great future, there is nothing and nothing is guaranteed! Do not give any cause for the now-calm Andreevsky jackals and the secret executioners to be let loose on you. The memory of Novosiltsevs and Pelikans is not that old, and the five-year-old shoots are not so strong as to withstand a reaction.⁶ Right next to us there is an important example—look at the quiet ocean of the peasant world, awaiting in majestic peace the destruction of their shameful slavery. How happy the plantation owner-gentry would be if they could summon up a storm!

Your strength is Russia's strength, so preserve it, do not waste it in vain. Ahead of us there is so much to do, so many battles!

Notes

Source: "Sinkhedron Moskovskikh universitetskikh fariseev," Kolokol, l. 55, November 1, 1859; 14:191-97, 521-22.

The opening epigraph is a refrain from a song by the French poet Pierre Jean de Beranger (1780-1857).

Vladimir I. Nazimov (1802-1874) was a trustee of the Moscow educational district from 1849 to 1855, military governor of Vilna, and governor-general of Kovno, Minsk, and Grodno from 1855 to 1863. Evgraf P. Kovalevsky (1790-1867), also a trustee of the Moscow educational district from 1856 to 1858, was minister of education from 1858 to 1861.

Alexey N. Bakhmetev (1801-1861) was a trustee of the Moscow educational district in 1858-59.

Arkady A. Alfonsky (1796-1869) was a professor, a surgeon, and rector of Moscow University in 1842-48 and 1850-53; Sergey I. Barshev (1808-1882) was a professor of criminal law and rector from 1863 to 1870; Vasily N. Leshkov (1810-1881) was a lawyer and professor of police law at Moscow University; Nikita I. Krylov (1807-1879) taught Roman law, while Alexander O. Armfeld (1806-1868) taught forensic medicine.

Ilinsky was police inspector for the medical school at Moscow University from 1857

to 1860.

Here Herzen attaches an internal university council document about the case that outlines their deliberations in greater detail.

Count Nikolay N. Novosiltsev (1761-1836) held a number of senior government positions, including chairman of the Government Council and Committee of Ministers, and trustee of the St. Petersburg educational district. Ventseslav V. Pelikan (1790-1873) was professor of anatomy and surgery in Vilna, and chair of the military-medical aca­demic council; he helped to judge participants in the 1831 Polish uprising. Herzen al­ludes to the approximately five years since Nicholas I died.

♦ 25 +

The Bell, No. 60, January 1, i860. Herzen later said that this essay, with which he was very pleased, was his final effort to free the tsar from the influence of the gentry oli­garchs, who were agitating for a greater role in governance in return for the imminent loss of their serfs. To his earlier requests for emancipation, an end to corporal punish­ment, and freedom of expression, he added a plea for openness in judicial proceedings. In November 1859, Herzen gained access to the records of fifty meetings of the Editorial Commission of the Main Committee on the peasant question, which rejected emanci­pation without land, proof of the influence of Nikolay Milyutin.¹ However, news of the illness of Yakov Rostovtsev, the Editorial Commission chair, led to concerns over a re­treat from the progress that had already been made; conservative gentry opposition had increased and there was growing support for asking the tsar to convene an aristocratic assembly before emancipation plans were finalized. For the March 15, i860, edition of The Bell (nos. 65-66), Herzen used a black border to highlight news of General Rostov- tsev's death, and the appointment of Count Viktor Nikitich Panin to succeed him.

The Year i860 [i860]

I

Without exaggerated hope or despair we enter the new decade with the firm, even step of an old warrior who has known defeat, and who knows most of all difficult marches through the sandy, dusty, and joyless steppe. [. . .]

.No matter what, things cannot be worse than they were ten years ago. That was the honeymoon of reaction, and with a frozen tear in our eye and anger boiling up in our heart, we looked at the unsuccessful campaign and cursed the shameful age in which we had to live. [. . .]

The gloomy cloud of which we had a premonition from the sharp pain in our mind and heart, obscured more and more as it grew darker and darker, and everything became confused, twisted, and began to sink. heroes arose who served no purpose; words full of wisdom were spoken, but no one understood them. [. . .]

II

Later we felt relieved and could breathe again!² Morning had come. Tamed by experience and memory, we greeted with tender emotion the brightly burning dawn of a new day in Russia. We rejoiced not because of what this did for us, but, like people recovering after the crisis in an illness, we rejoiced in the right to hope.

Wearied by everything that surrounded us, we gazed at this strip of light in our native sky without arrogant demands or youthful utopias. We limited ourselves to the desire that the coarse iron chains were removed from the poor Russian people, making possible further development; the rest, it seemed to us, would take care of itself, most likely after we were gone. It didn't matter, as long as we got to see for ourselves that there were no obstacles on the path. Our thoughts and our speech went no further than: The freedom of serfs from landowners, The freedom of the word from censorship, The freedom of the courtroom from the darkness of official secrecy, The freedom of backs from the stick and lash.

While we thought and spoke about this, the famous rescript to the nobil­ity of the three Polish provinces was issued.³

He who comprehends the depth of emotion and prayerfulness that filled Kant at the news of the proclamation of the French Republic, as he bared his head, and, lifting his eyes to heaven, repeated the words of Simeon, "Now let my soul depart in peace!"—he will understand what transpired in our soul when we heard the words softly proclaimed by the sovereign—but all the same proclaimed—the emancipation of the serfs!

We grew young again and believed in ourselves, and in the fact that our life had not been spent in vain. then the censorship was eased, along with an end to the shameful restrictions on traveling, the children's colonies and military settlements, and the introduction of projects concerning openness in the courts. We began to rest from our hatred.

Our program was being implemented, and it was easy for us to say: "You have conquered, Galilean!" (The Bell, no. 9).⁴ We wanted to be defeated in that fashion.

An autocratic revolution could have led Russia to a major development of all its inexhaustible strengths and unknown possibilities, without having spilled a single drop of blood or having erected a single scaffold, and hav­ing turned the Siberian highway into a path of wealth and communication instead of a path of tears and the gnashing of teeth.

Yes, we were right to say to Alexander II at the time of his ascent to the throne: "You are exceptionally lucky!"⁵

Why are we entering a new decade without that radiant hope or firm ex­pectation with which we greeted the epoch of Russia's renaissance?

Alexander II, like Faust, called forth a spirit stronger than himself and was frightened. A kind of exhausting indecisiveness, an unsteadiness in all his actions, and by the end, completely retrograde behavior. It is obvious that he wishes to do good—and fears it.

What happened? Was there a war? An insurrection? Is the government collapsing? Are the provinces seceding? Nothing of the sort! The financial situation is poor, but that is just normal Russian management—everything looks splendid and yet we have not a penny to our names! Besides, reaction­ary moves do not help the financial situation.

What frightened the sovereign? What are people afraid ofin a cemetery?..

That is what human immaturity means, that people are afraid of non­sense and don't see the real danger, and that they lean against a rotten tree that is right next to a healthy one. Chasing fantasies, they let reality slip out of their hands; fearing ghosts in Jacobin caps, they pet jackals in a general's epaulets; fearing democratic pages in journals, they are unafraid of the oli­garch's official document in a velvet cover.

You cannot travel two paths.

No matter what kind of Janus you are, it is impossible to go in two oppo­site directions at the same time, you can only move with one of your halves in reverse, getting in your own way and helplessly rocking in place.

You cannot desire open discussion and strengthen the censorship.

You cannot desire enlightenment and drive students away from the uni­versity gates.

You cannot respect your people as subjects and then not allow them to take their children abroad.

You cannot stand on the side of the people and call yourself "the first nobleman."⁶

You cannot desire open courts and keep as your thief of justice Panin.

You cannot desire the rule of law and have in your own chancellery an entire division of spies.

You cannot begin new construction and take your helpers from the workhouse of the past. [. . .]

This vacillation will make us lose patience and fall not into despair, but into deep sorrow, all the more because it is completely unnecessary and comes from taking decoration for the real thing, probably from a habit of seeing in a man first of all the kind of collar and buttons he is wearing.

If the sovereign would look carefully, he would notice that he is sur­rounded by an entire world of phantoms, and that Panin, for example, is not in fact the minister of justice, but a marionette, and made very poorly of sticks. Gorchakov⁷ does not exist at all—there is just a uniform with a hole in the back in which the conjurer Mukhanov has thrust his fingers, as he pretends that the deceased is still alive, to the distress of the Polish people.

And with whom could you replace these experienced, venerable servants of the throne? Experienced in what? In the emancipation of serfs or the es­tablishment of open courts?..

Here's another example: was Moscow really worse after Zakrevsky? Surely Tuchkov is ten times better than him. If Zakrevsky⁸ had not read so many French novels and hadn't composed his own sentimental episode a la George Sand, he would still be oppressing Moscow, and the sovereign would believe that he was necessary to the tranquility of the ancient capital!

The cap of Monomakh is not only heavy, it is also large, and it can slip over one's eyes. If only it were possible for a moment to lift it up and show the sovereign—not in the manner of loyal subjects, but in a simple human way—all that is living and dead in Russia, all that will follow his lead if he himself does not abandon the path of development and liberation, and show everything that will oppose him... one would give a great deal for that to happen.

What strange times these are: we have no secrets, and we passionately want to show the sovereign all there is to know. But the Dolgorukovs and Timashevs,⁹ his professional ears, keep many secrets from him and conceal everything except harmful gossip. And ever more carefully they conceal the fact that the highest layer of the Russian nobility is not only not the sole true support of the throne, but because of its sickly state is itself looking for something on which to lean. The era has passed in which the Petersburg government existed not only by the grace of God but with the help of boyar oligarchs and German generals. Back then there was joint management and a system of mutual guarantees: the government allowed the nobles to rob the people and beat them with a rod, and the nobility helped the govern­ment to gather up more lands and beat their inhabitants with a whip.

Since then everything has gradually changed. Since then the Russia of Biron and Osterman has grown old, and the Russia of Lomonosov has ad­vanced.¹⁰ Since then we have seen 1812 and December 14, 1825. The new milieu snuck in imperceptibly, like a wedge between the people and the grandees, and in this milieu you will find atoms from all the different so­cial layers, but crystallized differently. There are the children of counts and princes and the son of a Voronezh cattle-dealer.¹¹ In this milieu you will find education, universities, all intellectual activity, books—and books now wield power.

Nothing is known about all this at court. [. . .] Nothing can reach the highest cells of the Winter Palace except people belonging to the first three ranks. It seems as if everything is proceeding as usual with the same uni­forms sewn with gold thread, but what the uniform is filled with has rotted and shrunk, going out of its mind and out of its century, and has passed away, but has been magnificently embalmed. [. . .] Because of these bodies in gold-threaded uniforms on parade, the sovereign cannot see that the center of gravity and energy has changed, and that elements have entered the formula of Russian life that were unknown in the time of Peter I and barely heard of under Catherine II. He does not know that it is now impos­sible to forbid either science or literature, and that there are beliefs and convictions common to every educated person, except the majority of that higher nobility who in the oligarchs' books are depicted as the support of the throne.

[. . .] When has a Russian emperor had on his side—as is the case with the emancipation of the serfs and the introduction of open discussion—the Russian people and educated Russia, the common people and men of let­ters, the young clergy and all the Old Believers, and, finally, the opinion of the whole world from the greatest periodic outlets to the humble pages of The Bell?

It is only the throne's "sole support" that is against these changes; its slavish efforts extend no further than an easing of quitrent. [. . .]

But it is not the tsar who has been weakened by this opposition, but them; the earth is disappearing from beneath their feet. Supporting autoc­racy by its imperial shoulder, in essence they themselves leaned on it. Leave them to their own devices and in a quarter hour they will tumble from their "beautiful heights" and become "Comme tout le monde," as Susanna Fi­garo said. [. . .]

Can the sovereign really be afraid that these made-up counts, who re­mind one of Soulouque's aristocracy, these impoverished princes with ar- cheological names, who with the help of the provincial Dobchinskys and local Bobchinskys, will force him—like Norman barons—to sign a Magna Carta of genuine liberties for the higher ranks of the civil service and the military or be led off to prison like Louis XVI?¹² [. . .]

All this is impossible because our Norman barons possess no power of their own or any from the people or from any contemporary idea—all their strength lies in the tsar's support.

There is only one thing they can do—spring from a corner and kill the tsar, because for this no strength is needed, you just have to be a villain. [. . .]

One could say to us that they are not the ones the sovereign fears. Then whom?

A popular uprising? It is difficult to imagine that the Russian peasant, who for centuries has put up with his disastrous state, would rebel because he was being liberated and begin to demand the return of serfdom!

Civil servants? People who take bribes will never rebel.

The merchants? What profit is in it for them? Tax-farmers would be the first to fall in battle for a paternalistic government.

You can look wherever you like in Russia—everywhere there are shoots and buds, everywhere grain is ripening, everywhere something is asking to come out into the light and develop, everything wishes to stretch its limbs after a long, long captivity, and nowhere is there any element of an upris­ing. One question that the people might raise concerns the liberation of the serfs with land, but that lies in the hands of the government.

[. . .] The government's harshest and most sadly despotic orders were directed against literature and now against students. That is what frightens them, that is where they see danger! It is strange, painful, and shameful, but that's how it is! The sovereign has been fussing over the censorship for, I think, three years—he curtails it, prolongs it, simplifies it, and then makes it more complex.

Cut off from any possibility of receiving journals in a timely fashion by the repulsive postal arrangements for book parcels in Russia, we thought for a long time that in Russia they were printing incendiary appeals, like the heretical books of Luther and the erotic works of Barkov.¹³

Not at all. When we received the March issues in November, and the February issues in December, we were able, little by little, to read through almost everything. The change from the Nicholaevan age is enormous. Thought that was repressed has revived, language has returned, and hu­man thoughts and interests have found their reflection in the "Reviews." All journals without exception have energetically and enthusiastically sup­ported this reign's most important idea—the liberation of the serfs with land. [. . .]

The problem, unfortunately, is that high above the ups and downs of everyday existence a humane word is considered impertinent and thought is suspicious in and of itself. Thinking and speaking (i.e., giving orders) should be done by the government; for a subject this is a luxury and leads only to gossiping about matters that do not concern him, for example, whether he can rightfully be confined to the Peter Paul Fortress without a trial, be sent hundreds of miles away without being told the reason, and so on. The ideal of government order and civilization for this ultra-first-class sphere is an eastern seraglio and a Prussian cavalry parade.¹⁴ It is a seraglio in which people, renouncing their zoological dignity, got down on all fours in the sovereign's presence, and a military formation in which a man attached to a rifle butt is reduced to being a wax figure with four thousand legs rising at the same angle and descending at the same instant. [. . .]

In the most recent instructions to the Moscow censorship committee, it was stated that the government considers it beneath its dignity to turn its at­tention to facts uncovered by the press. During the past decade, replete with stupidities, I do not think that anything stupider than this has been said. It is wondrously stupid. As if there is only one noble means of uncovering the truth—spying!

It is the same in regard to the students. The civilizing government must have universities and students but it wishes the students to resemble sol­diers in punishment battalions. [. . .]

What is it these gentlemen want from young people? It's very simple—a slavish spirit, slavish discipline, and slavish silence! What can be meant by the order from on high not to applaud professors?.. And why is the sovereign taking up the role of school disciplinarian and inspector?.. How differently Pushkin understood the dignity of a tsar when he had Godunov tell his son that the word of the tsar, like the sound of church bells, should only ring out to tell of some great event or great misfortune!

One of the worst infringements on liberty in the previous reign was the persistent attempt to break the youthful spirit. The government lay in wait for the child during his first steps in life and corrupted the child cadet, the adolescent schoolboy, and the young student. Mercilessly and systemati­cally it trampled the human embryos, breaking them of all human feelings other than submissiveness as if they were vices. [. . .]

Look at this generation—the portion that survived the spirit-killing gov­ernment education—sickly, nervous, inwardly troubled, no longer believ­ing in anything radiant or in itself.

And how many lay down their heads and died, never knowing a joyous day after entering the corps or the school? [. . .]

A silent nation, swallowing its tears, did not break discipline. [. . .]

III

These memories are oppressive! One would wish not to bring them into the new decade, but it is not we who have summoned the dark shades of the past.

Every blow of a government lash against youth and future Russia awak­ens in those aching hearts terrible images. [. . .]

Allow just one generation—you celebrated educators—to grow up in a humane way, able to look everything in the eye, to fearlessly speak their minds, to openly applaud and openly gather, just like what takes place in every school in England.

Can it be that an entrance hall where a dozen serfs keep silent in the master's presence and silently hate him is an educational model? Is the whispering of slaves more pleasing to you than the voices of awakening lives, their resonant laughter and even their occasionally arrogant words?

How backward are our educators! How far they are from a "human be­ing" and how close to Arakcheev, how noticeable the smattering of barracks dirt and the raznochinets¹⁵ petty official's ambition, which demands not re­spect for the person, but subordination and fear of his rank!

.We do not readily give in to the belief that it is so easy to stop them, and to the question of whether we think that all of these Nicholaevan rags can bring Russia to a halt and return it to the way it was before 1855 the answer is a decisive no!

But, on the other hand, we know that the path Russia is traveling can be twisted, covered with dirt, and sprinkled with broken glass; from a radiant, regular procession it can become a wearying march and continuous fight, in which the government—materially much stronger—would destroy a lot of people and create a lot of unhappiness without any need and without any purpose. That is why these reactionary moves, this return to a time which we need to forget, these shifts in the direction of the past do not plunge us into despair, but they do make us tremble with anger and vexation. That is why we are entering the new decade in a thoughtful mood and, as we cross the final boundary with the past, we are stopping once more to say to the sovereign:

Sovereign, awaken, the new year has rung in a new decade, which, per­haps, will carry your name. However, you really cannot use one and the same hand to brightly and joyously sign your name into history as the emancipator of the serfs and, at the same time, sign absurd injunctions against free speech and against young people. You are being deceived and you are deceiving yourself—it is Yuletide and everyone is in costume. Or­der them to take their masks off and take a good look at the ones who are friends of Russia and those who love only their own private advantage. It is doubly important for you that the friends of Russia can still be yours. Order them to take their masks off quickly. You will be surprised—this masquer­ade that surrounds you is not like the one that was organized two years ago for the grand dukes in the military academy. There, children pretended to be wolves and wild boars, while here, wild boars and wolves pretend to be senior officials and fathers of the fatherland!

Notes

Source: "i860 god," Kolokol, l. 60, January 1, i860; 14:214-25, 526-30.

Along with his service on the Editorial Commission, Nikolay A Milyutin (1818­1872) was minister of the interior from 1859 to 1861 and state secretary for Polish Af­fairs from 1863 to 1866.

After the death of Nicholas I in 1855.

The Nazimov Rescript was issued in August 1857 and published in November of that year.

The dying words of Emperor Julian the Apostate, who had fought the rise of Chris­tianity. Herzen had used this phrase at the beginning and end of his article "After Three Years," which appeared in the ninth issue of The Bell on Feb. i5, i858.

From "A Letter to Emperor Alexander the Second," which appeared in The Polestar in i855 (Doc. 5).

On September 4, 1859, in a speech to deputies from the provincial committees, the tsar stated that he had always and would always proudly consider himself the country's "first nobleman" (pervyi dvorianin).

Prince Mikhail D. Gorchakov (1793-1861) was governor-general of the Kingdom of Poland from 1856 to 1861, not to be confused with the better-known Prince Alexander M. Gorchakov, minister of foreign affairs.

Zakrevsky was relieved of his duties April 15, 1859, after granting written permis­sion for his daughter, Countess Nesselrode, to enter into a second marriage without having ended the first one, and having threatened a priest with exile to Siberia if he did not perform the ceremony as ordered. Pavel A. Tuchkov (1803-1864) succeeded him as governor-general of Moscow from 1859 to 1864.

Prince Vasily A. Dolgorukov (1804-1868) was chief of gendarmes and head of the Third Department from 1856 to 1866.

The Baltic German Ernst Biron (1690-1772) was a favorite of the Empress Anna Ioannovna and regent in 1740; Count Andrey Osterman (1686-1747), born in Westpha­lia, entered Russian service in 1704 and occupied senior government posts until 1741; Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-1765), of humble birth, was a gifted scientist, writer, and the founder of Moscow University.

Poet Alexey V. Koltsov (see Doc. 1).

Faustin Soulouque (c. 1782-1876) fought in Haiti's war for independence and served as the country's president and emperor. Bobchinsky and Dobchinsky are charac­ters in Gogol's play The Inspector General.

Ivan S. Barkov (1731-1768) was a poet, translator, and author of pornographic verse.

Under Paul I, a Wachtparade took place daily in the tsar's presence; under Alexan­der II, it was staged every Sunday.

Not of gentry birth.

♦ 26 +

The Bell, Nos. 68-69, April i5, i860. This is one of the periodic attacks on Panin in Herzen's satirical style.

Count Viktor Panin's Speech to the Deputies [i860]

Gentlemen,

You recall the words of our sovereign emperor; I have deeply en­graved them in my memory and I will act in conformity with them. You know that the plans of the Editorial Commission have not yet been confirmed, and for that reason I cannot say anything that will be either reassuring or favorable to you, and I hope that you will refrain from anything that might excite major hopes or fears among the gentry. Although I myself am a wealthy landowner, I will not forget the inter­ests of landowners of modest means, and, recalling that peasants do not have their own representatives here, I will keep in mind their benefit, all the more since I am completely convinced that there will be no way of avoiding sacrifices on the part of the gentry. Gentlemen, ours is a private, family matter, and it should not go outside this room, because there is no need to disseminate information, and especially to write about it to those abroad. And now, gentlemen, I have another request. I have heard that many of you gather at Count Shuvalov's, where members of the nobility are preparing for elections, and for that reason I ask you to curtail your visits because people there might try to lobby you.

My door is always open to you and to everyone, but I request that you not visit me, in order not to give credence to rumors that I am under the influence of one or another of you. Thus, gentlemen, I advise you to get to work. Gentlemen, in this regard I can offer my experience; there is no significant government business that cannot be concluded in fourteen days.

The nonsensical words of this count-bureaucrat have almost reconciled us to him, as we have begun to pity this lanky, sickly figure, whose brain had gone soft from the lofty heights (and, to be sure, it was not so firm before this). He is subject only to medical judgment; the court of public opinion is for those who placed him not in a madhouse but in the house of liberation.

Take note that every phrase is a plus-minus—which equals zero.

What can it mean that Panin has nothing to say that is either reassuring or favorable? What would he call reassuring? To leave things as they were? The rights to seize a dwelling, to receive one's quitrent in bed, to require six days labor, to the birch rod, to extortion? Why is the emancipation of the serfs a private and family matter, why must it be muted? This is a matter for an assembly of the land, it is historical, all-Russian, and not a family matter for rich landowners who feel the pain of the poor ones. And bragging about his own fortune is very nice! Imagine a judge who would say to a petitioner: "Despite the fact that I am rich and you are poor, I will defend you." For such a coarse bit of nonsense the minister of justice (if it weren't Panin) ought to have—through Topilsky—reprimanded him.¹

The fear of The Bell is too flattering and we will stand on a chair and give him a kiss on the forehead for this. [. . .]

Note

Source: "Slovo grafa Viktora Panina k deputatam," Kolokol, l. 68-69, April 15, i860; i4:254-55, 547-48.

1. Mikhail I. Topilsky (1811-1873) was a department director in the Ministry of Justice prior to i862.

The Bell, Nos. 68-69, April 15, i860. The comparisons, parallels, puns, and the parodic use of elevated language are typical of Herzen. Several of this article's themes are devel­oped more fully in the introduction to the volume After Five Years.

Letters from Russia [i860]

"It is very, very sad! Shouldn't Russia tell Alexander Nikolaevich what Ta- tyana told Onegin: But happiness was so possible, so close!"

One of the many letters we have received during the past ten days ends with these poetic but endlessly melancholy lines.

The letters are remarkable in and of themselves: frightened and sur­prised people have found the need to announce their indignation, their cry of pain, after the unexpected resurrection of Nicholaevan times.

We will steadfastly get through this time of terrible ordeals, we will be­come kinder and will not lose faith in Russia's development just because a weak tsar, tripping over Panin, has fallen into the slush and mud of Lu- zhin's denunciations.¹ We are even sorrier that "after a five-year reign, which filled Roman hearts with hope, Caesar has changed for the worse!" This was said of Nero; we sincerely wish that these words of the Roman chronicler not be repeated by a future Karamzin.

One should not reproach us. We restrained ourselves up to the last instant, until there was open betrayal, until the criminal appointment of Panin, until the arbitrariness in the matter of Unkovsky and Evropeus, the police conspiracy as a result of which there were arrests of students, Profes­sor Kachenovsky,² and we don't know who else.³ We could draw back and yield when the mainstream was following the right channel, but now it is quite another matter!

Farewell, Alexander Nikolaevich, have a good journey! Bon voyage!.. Our path lies this way. [. . .]

We are grains of sand—physically cut off—of the awakening crowd, the Russian masses—we are strong only in our instinct, by which we guess how its heart beats, how it bleeds, what it wants to say but cannot.

We will return to that subject, but now we will look at the letters. We will relate only the factual parts and the rumors.

The myths and legends circulating about Panin's appointment are re­markable. One correspondent writes that "Muravyov and Panin were charged with sealing Rostovtsev's study. The sovereign himself appeared and found Panin alone; he waited one hour, and then another. 'Well, then I will name you the chair of the commission.' " Ben trovato! ⁴ Absurdities ought to be based on dumb chance. When people play blind man's bluff the amusing part is that they do not know ahead of time whom exactly they will catch hold of. And if the sovereign had caught Muravyov, he would not have gotten a bad deal. It's annoying that only courtiers are invited to these petit jeux,⁵ or maybe luck would have shone on the Parisian Kiselev—who understood the peasant collective even under Nicholas—or on the oldest fighter for peasant emancipation with land, N. I. Turgenev.⁶ They would have managed this business better than the previous chair. But with the whole embarrass du choix⁷—between old Adlerberg and young Adlerberg,⁸ between the tall Panin and the not-too-bright Dolgorukov—there is not much to choose. Diogenes with his lantern would not find anyone here except for Butkov.

There is another legend that is in no way inferior. Two correspondents write that the empress helped bring about Panin's appointment "as a result of her economic and religious ideas, which did not agree with the thought of the emancipation of the peasants with land!"

Indeed, neither pietism nor political economy will lead you to a land allotment. This is a purely German opinion, i.e., harmful, but logisch con­sequent.⁹ Christianity demands that we should all be poor and to some ex­tent tramps; moreover, it teaches us to care more for our neighbor than for ourselves. For that reason it is no wonder that the empress, while herself remaining in worldly comfort, wished first to free the serfs from tempo­rary land, making it easier for them to receive an eternal allotment—heav­enly plowland—endless acres¹⁰ which have been sown for ages and, what's more, with seeds not from any granary.

We do not blame the empress for simultaneously following the teach­ings of the apostle Paul and the apostle Malthus and for not knowing the Russian situation. But why should she interfere in such foreign matters as the emancipation of our Russian serfs and the allotment of our Russian land to them?

According to a third legend, it is said that, as he was dying, Rostovtsev nominated Panin to the sovereign. That is difficult to believe; could he re­ally have wished to end his career as he began it, or did he die in a state of delirium?¹¹

As for the hero of this novel, i.e., Viktor Nikitich [Panin], he immediately began to act like strychnine, inspiring a stupor and a stiffening in every liv­ing thing with his numbing formalism and the dead letter of the law. Here is what occupied this head on a pole, who had been summoned to trivialize the great business of emancipation: it ordered "members of the commis­sion to appear in a civil service uniform or in tails, and ordered them to compile a register of all matters resolved and unresolved, those which can be taken up for discussion and those which cannot be discussed."

But the commissions themselves, through the sort of clairvoyance that comes to people just before death or a great calamity, went crazy, antici­pating the strychnine-like action of the Ivan the Great of justice. "In the administrative branch Prince Cherkassky again raised the question of birch rods and the number of strokes (it is simply monomania on this man's part!). There was an objection that he had already renounced the birch rod in print, to which he answered that 'it was one thing in print but another in deed, adding in a Karamzinian-Ansillonian style:¹² 'Those who want popularity can speak against the rod (and against God and Novgorod the Great!), but those who give it serious thought cannot deny its necessity.' " [. . .] It is said that Solovyov¹³ made a strong objection, and when a ballot was taken on Cherkassky's proposal the votes were divided evenly. A Hamlet­like question transposed in a Russian manner—To beat or not to beat, and if to beat, then how many strokes?—was sent to the general assembly, which produced the same split vote. The voice of the chairman Bulgakov (with whose rhetorical style we are familiar) should have tipped the balance.¹⁴ The eloquent chair took pity on the fond-of-flogging prince, and he came down on the side of birch rods; they can serve as triumphant palm branches with which the members can appease the gods at the gates of the city of Jacob, when, from the Capernaum of justice, Panin enters, riding on the back of the modest Topilsky.

They say that liberal defenders of birch rods justify themselves by say­ing that only twenty strokes are permitted (what savage Tatars—let them add up on their abacus 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 = and what does that equal?). However, let the birch rods remain during this whole transitional period as a monument to the vile, disgraceful caste not of aristocrats, but of ex­ecutioners and plantation owners. Honor and glory to those citizens who do not seek popularity and who upheld the ferocious and bloody appetites of the social class who, except for this, might have been forgiven the past by the people!¹⁵

Notes

Source: "Pis'ma iz Rossii," Kolokol, l. 68-69, April 15, i860; 14:256-60, 548.

1. Ivan D. Luzhin held various roles in the Russian government, as chief of police in Moscow, Kursk, and Kharkov, and as both a military and civilian governor.

Andrey M. Unkovsky (1828-1893) was the head of the Tver nobility from 1857 to 1859; Alexander I. Evropeus (1826-1885) was a member of the Petrashevtsy who, after serving his sentence, was, along with Unkovsky, a leader of the Tver gentry's liberal op­position, for which he was sent to Perm in i860. Dmitry I. Kachenovsky (1827-1872) was a professor of international law at Kharkov University. Herzen, who knew and liked Kachenovsky, had announced his arrest in the previous issue of The Bell.

Herzen: "The Times on April 9 again mentions searches and arrests, and, by the way, the fact that papers were confiscated from Professor Pavlov."

Herzen: "Very clever!"

Herzen: "Parlor games."

Count Pavel D. Kiselev (1788-1873) was minister of government property from 1838 to 1856, and ambassador to Paris from 1856 to 1862; Nikolay I. Turgenev (1789­1871) was a Decembrist, and later an emigre and author of memoirs.

Herzen: "Difficulty in making a choice."

Father and son.

Herzen: "It follows logically."

The measure Herzen uses is the desiatina, which equals 2.7 acres.

Rostovtsev is known to have gained favor by betraying the forces of progress in December i825.

Karamzin had an enormous influence on Russian linguistic style in the late eigh­teenth and early nineteenth centuries; Johann P. Ansillon (1767-1837) was a historian and theologian, and Prussian foreign minister from i832 to i837.

Yakov A. Solovyov (1820-1876), active in peasant reform, was a member of the Editorial Commission.

Petr A. Bulgakov (d. 1883) was a state secretary and, beginning in 1859, served as an expert member of the Editorial Commission on the issue of serfdom.

Herzen: "Two letters that we received disagree over one name. This is no joking matter. The people who voted for the birch rod in i860 should be aware that their name will remain on a pillar of shame no matter what kind of bureaucrats, administrators, or colleagues they are. That is why we sincerely ask people to tell us whether this list on names is accurate:

Against flogging

For flogging

Girs

Pr. Cherkassky

Solovyov

Samarin (?)

Domentovich

Milyutin

Bunge

Galagan

Arapetov

Semyonov

Pr. Golitsin

Semyonov 2

Lyuboshchinsky

Bulgakov

Zablotsky

Tatarinov

Kulchin

Gradyanko

Kalachov

Zalessky

Bulygin

Zheleznov

Another letter says quite the opposite, that Samarin was completely against Cher- kasskian flogging."

This was first published as the introduction to the anthology Five Years Later, and then separately in The Bell, No. 72, June 1, i860. At this point, Herzen shifted his focus from the tsar as the primary agent of change to the progressive intelligentsia. The poet and journalist Alexey Pleshcheev (i825-i893) wrote to a friend that while he had not yet received a copy of the book, judging by recent issues of The Bell, it was likely to assume a hostile tone; however, since the powerful people of the world were unlikely to read it, the consequences would be minimal. Turgenev liked the introduction, but Tolstoy was critical of the scattershot effect and the incredible display of egoism, but he also acknowledged "the broad-mindedness, cunning, kindness, and elegance" as quintes- sentially Russian (Let 3^20-24, i35).

Five Years Later [i860]

Farewell, Alexander Nikolaevich, have a good journey! Bon voyage!.. Our path lies this way!

—The Bell, April i5, i860

The publication of our political articles from the last five years, scattered in The Polestar and The Bell, by chance takes on a particular meaning on ac­count of the gloomy events at the time of the collection's appearance.¹ Cir­cumstances are turning it into a signpost. Once more we are entering some kind of new realm of chaos and twilight and again we must change our clothes and our language precisely because we remain unalterably true to our convictions. A certain depth is essential for navigation and the choice of channel depends not on us but on the stream; we will follow all of its twists and turns, provided that we are moving forward to our goal and not coming to a halt on a sandbank. while imagining that we are still in motion. Five years ago, for the first time after seven terrible years spent burying people, nations, hopes, and beliefs, we gazed a little more radiantly at the future and sighed, as people do when recovering from a serious illness.²

A flickering streak of pale light caught fire on the Russian horizon. We had a premonition, and made a prediction in the midst of the dark night, but did not expect it to happen that quickly—on it we focused all our re­maining hopes and fragments of all our expectations. We were already so alien to the West that its fate was no longer a vital question for us. With deep interest, with a sympathetic melancholy, we followed its darkly devel­oping tragedy, but, strengthened by what we had found out and, blessing the great past, we gathered ourselves together, like Fortinbras after Hora­tio's tale, to continue our journey.

We did not get very far—we were stopped by some sort of endless swamp which we had not expected and which threatened without any great noise to steal our last strength with its swampy, tedious filth, softening our despair with expectations and diluting our hatred with pity. [. . .]

Once again we were wrong about the timing, overjoyed by the pale dawn, not taking into consideration those uncontrolled, dark, insurmountable clouds over which light has no power, or with which entire generations must battle.

The fateful power of contemporary reaction in Russia—senseless, un­necessary reaction—is crushed with such difficulty because it relies on two strong points of the granite fortress, the obtuseness of the government and the underdevelopment of the people.

Slowness in understanding is a power, a force, and the greatest irony over reason and logic. Underdevelopment is not as stubborn, but it only yields to time, a very long period of time. This is what sends us into de- spair—we would sooner give up all things—our property, our freedom— rather than time. "Time is money," as the English say, and it is as expensive and as big a thing as possible: time is us!

But no matter how natural the annoyance that gnaws at a person when he sees that "happiness was so possible, so close," and is slipping away because of the clumsiness of his fingers, no matter how natural the horror that overcomes us when we cry out to our fellow traveler—who does not notice the abyss beneath our feet—and we feel that our voice is not reach­ing him, we must nevertheless submit to the truth. Instead of stubbornness and a waste of strength in defending paths that have been covered over by reactionaries, we must travel the path along which it is possible to get through. It is in this flexibility during a period of constant striving that all the creativity of nature consists, all the rich variety of its forms, notwith­standing a unity and simplicity of principles and goals.