A Herzen Reader

Source: "Plach," Kolokol, l. i58, March 8, i863; ^65-69, 377-78.

In i670 the Cossack Stenka Razin mounted a rebellion in the south of Russia against the nobility and the imperial government; he was defeated and executed in i67i.

A general term for a bloody peasant revolt, which stems from an uprising in fourteenth-century France.

Alexander II used the phrase "the first nobleman" (pervyi dvorianin) in a September 4, i859, speech to deputies from the provincial committees that were considering the serf question. In a November 28, i862, speech to noble deputies from Moscow and adjoining regions, the tsar described the honor he felt at being "a Moscow landowner" (Gertsen, Sobranie sochinenii, ^342, 345).

David Garrick (i7i7-i779), English, the best Shakespearean actor of his day.

♦ 52 *

This first appeared as a preface to the volume that marked the tenth anniversary of the Free Russian Press in London; an excerpt was later reprinted in the March i5, i863, issue of The Bell (No. i59). Herzen traces the ideological journey made by the Free Press dur­ing its first decade, while emphasizing its "living tie" to progressive opinion in Russia.

1853-1863 [1863]

Ten years ago, at the end of February, an announcement was sent out about the opening of the Free Russian Press in London.¹ The first printed mate­rial came out in May, and since then the Russian printing press has never stopped working.²

¹79

That was a difficult time: it was as if Russia had died, and entire months went by without any word about it in the magazines. From time to time there appeared news of the death of some decrepit old official, or that oneor another grand duchess had successfully given birth. more rarely a sup­pressed groan reached as far as London, which made one's heart sink and one's chest ache. There were almost no private letters, as fear caused all contacts to cease.

In Europe it was different, but not better. It was the five-year period after 1848, and there was not even the slightest ray of light. it was shrouded on all sides by a dark, cold night.

I became more and more distant from the milieu into which I had been thrown.

An involuntary force pulled me homeward. There were moments when I regretted having cut off any return trip, a return to that Siberia and to that jail, in front of which marched for the twenty-eighth year a fierce sentry in Hessian boots. [. . .] As a maelstrom and deep waters entice a man in the dark of night toward unknown depths, I longed for Russia.

It seemed to me that so much strength could not be crushed so stupidly, and get used up so absurdly. And, more and more vividly, I imagined the people, sadly standing to the side and alien to everything that was happen­ing, and the proud handful, full of valor and courage, the Decembrists, and our enthusiastically youthful circle, and life in Moscow after exile. Familiar images and views passed before me: meadows, forests, dark huts against the white snow, faces, the sounds of songs, and . and I believed in the near future of Russia, I believed when all others doubted, and when there was no justification for faith.

Maybe I believed because I was not in Russia at that time and did not ex­perience for myself the insulting contact with the whip and with Nicholas, and maybe it was something else, but I held firmly to my belief, feeling that were I to let it out of my hands, I would have nothing left.

With the Russian printing press I returned home, and around it a Rus­sian atmosphere was sure to form. could it possibly be that no one would respond to that first vivos voco?³

However, the "living person" did not rush to respond.

The news that we would be printing in Russian from London frightened people. The free word discomforted people and filled with horror not only people from whom we were distant but also those who were close to us, sounding so sharp to an ear that had grown used to whispering and silence. Uncensored speech caused pain, and seemed like an act of carelessness, almost a denunciation. Many advised us to stop and not publish anything; one person close to us came to London for that purpose.⁴ It was very dif­ficult. I was not prepared for this.

"Well, if they do not respond, others will!" and I went my own way, with­out the slightest greeting or a single affectionate word, i.e., without an af­fectionate word from Russia; in London there was a man who understood the idea of our printing press quite differently, one of the noblest represen­tatives of the Polish exiles.