A Herzen Reader

Who are they?.. Those who blush upon reading our words, those who feel that no matter how much you shout, you cannot drown out something troubling your conscience!

And if such people are not to be found?

Blessed is he who dies in good time!

The letters under discussion were seriously delayed. One of them sets out the complete history of the university business, and it will appear in the next issue; from the two remaining letters we will copy out a few small excerpts.

We hope that the writers are sure of the facts they are reporting to us. And once more we remind our correspondents that each time they supply us with incorrect rumors, news taken from the street and exaggerated by party spirit (as happened quite recently), they do us much greater harm than all the Shuvalovs with their various free and temporary agents.²

From the first letter.

.A few days ago I read an account by Moscow professors of matters relating to the students' address to the tsar. The thought expressed in it is the following: the government itself is guilty of the fact that such incidents, like the one with the address, are possible at the university, and it follows that at the very first signs of university agitation greater attention should be paid to the willfulness of the students and to seriously punishing the instigators.

From the second letter.

. Finally The Bell reached us that talks about university events. Not everything in the story you placed there is correct, and many de­tails are missing. Your correspondent, for example, praised professor Yeshovsky, but on October 11, when students entered the professors' room for an explanation with the trustee, he barred their way, and talked about dissension between students and professors. When the students remarked that they had come not to see the professors but Isakov, he answered: "While Isakov is here, we will not betray him!"³ In general our professors have distinguished themselves. Lents and Nikitenko, the generals of St. Petersburg University, were struck by the zeal for order shown by Solovyov and Babst, who were called before a commission to examine the university statutes.⁴

You know about Chicherin's inaugural lecture—you probably know his philosophy of slavery, i.e., the obedience to evil laws, and how he offended the students who were under arrest. At first he got away with it. But when the students being held were released, they decided to hiss him on December 9th. Having found out about this, the section of those enrolled who sympathized with the scholarly professor sent Solovyov's students and Sukhodolsky to warn him. Chicherin showed up at the lecture along with N. F. Pavlov and Korsh (one letter names the editor of Moscow News and another his brother). When one group of students began to whistle, another group under the leadership of Solovyov shouted: "Whistlers get out!" This cry at­tracted even the distinguished guest, Mr. Korsh, who with complete selflessness shouted: "Whistlers get out!"⁵

At the following lecture, a group of about twenty-five students asked Chicherin to listen to a few words from them. The learned professor said that he could not stop during the lecture, but after the lecture he would ask permission of the university inspector to speak with the students. Evidently the inspector agreed because the learned professor returned to the auditorium. There began a long explana­tion, which ended with the professor fearlessly saying: "I stand for an unlimited monarchical form of government. I hold to those convic­tions which I consider to be true, and it is not my fault if they are not ones that appeal to you". You can read what opinions appeal to the learned professor in Our Times.

To this not entirely favorable account the second letter adds more comfort­ing news for the conservative professor and his friends:

Mr. Chicherin's inaugural lecture met with loud approval in government circles. On October 30, Putyatin came in the tsar's name to thank the Moscow professors for conducting themselves so wisely while those in Petersburg were misbehaving, and he especially thanked Mr. Chicherin. After this, the censorship forbade any com­ments in writing against his lectures!

Notes

Source: "Akademicheskaia Moskva," Kolokol, l. 125, March 15, 1862; 16:80-82, 375-77.

Timofey N. Granovsky (1813-1855) was a charismatic professor of history at Moscow University and a key figure in Moscow intellectual circles from the 1830s until his death.

Working for the Third Department abroad.