A Herzen Reader

The Bell, No. i7i, October i, i863. Herzen composed this tribute after hearing about the death of Shchepkin in August i863. Born into serfdom, Mikhail Shchepkin became one of the most famous Russian actors of his day, and a prominent figure in Russian society. Because of his humble background, his successes took on a political resonance as Russia moved toward emancipation. The celebration of his fiftieth anniversary on the stage in Й55, and his election to the English Club in Moscow in i857, the first actor and the first ex-serf allowed to join, were events of more than personal significance, a fact duly noted by the Third Department. Shchepkin was friendly with both Slavophile and Westernizer circles, including the Moscow circle that gathered around Timofey Granovsky, and was a much-loved and much-respected figure in an age of strong friend­ships and even stronger antipathies. Herzen evaluates Shchepkin's gifts against the background of the Russian theater—where his chief rival for several decades was Pavel Mochalov (i8oo-i848)—and the European stage, with which Herzen was familiar. This article recounts the actor's visit to London in i853, the first visit to Herzen by one of his old Russian circle after the series of family tragedies he had suffered. That Shchepkin turned out to be an emissary from his Moscow acquaintances was an early warning to Herzen that even the liberals of his generation were turning conservative.

Mikhail Semyonovich Shchepkin [1863]

Moscow grows empty. and the patriarchal face of Shchepkin has disap­peared.. And it was firmly intertwined with all the memories of our Mos­cow circle. A quarter-century our senior, he was on very good terms with us, more like an uncle or an older brother. Everyone loved him madly: la­dies and students, elderly people and young girls. His appearance intro­duced calm, his good-natured reproach brought nasty quarrels to an end, his meek smile of an affectionate old man caused others to smile, and his limitless ability to forgive another person, to find extenuating reasons, was a school for humane behavior.

And with that he was a great performer, a performer by vocation and by his labor. He created moral truth¹ on the Russian stage, and he was the first to become untheatrical in the theater. His performances lacked false phrases, affectations, and caricatures; the characters he created were like figures from the paintings of Teniers and Ostade.²

Shchepkin and Mochalov, are, without doubt, the two greatest actors of all I have seen during the course of thirty-five years and across the expanse of Europe. They are both hints of the inner strength and potential of the Russian nature, which make our faith in Russia's future unshakeable.

We will not go into an analysis of Shchepkin's talent and significance on the stage; we will merely note that he did not at all resemble Mochalov. Mochalov was a man of impulse and of an inspiration that was not made obedient or structured; his gifts did not obey him, rather, he obeyed them. Mochalov did not work; he knew that at some point he would be visited by a spirit that would turn him into Hamlet, Lear, or Karl Moor, and he waited for that. and if the spirit did not come, he remained an actor who knew his role poorly. Endowed with unusual sensitivity and a keen understand­ing of all the shades of a role, Shchepkin, in contrast, worked terribly hard and never left anything to the arbitrary nature of a moment's inspiration. But his role was not the result of study alone. [. . .] Shchepkin's style from cover to cover was suffused with warmth, naivete, and his study of the part did not inhibit a single sound or gesture, but gave them firm support and a firm foundation.

However, it is likely that much will be written in Russia about his talent and his significance. I would like to write about my last meeting with him.

In Autumn i853 I received a letter from M. K. in Paris, saying that on a certain date Shchepkin would be arriving in London from Boulogne. The joy I felt frightened me. In the image of that radiant old man my early years looked out from behind the graves, the entire Moscow period. and at such a time. I have spoken about the terrible years between i850 and i855, about that five-year-long bleak ordeal in a populous wilderness. I was completely alone in a crowd of strangers and slight acquaintances. At that time Russians did less traveling abroad and were all the more afraid of me. The heightened terror that continued until the end of the Hungarian War³ turned into a uniform oppression, which plunged everyone into a hopeless despair. And the first Russian traveling to London who was not afraid to shake my hand was Mikhail Shchepkin.

I couldn't wait and the morning of his arrival I took an express train to Folkstone.