A Herzen Reader

The Bell, No. i86, June i5, i864. This essay, full of respect and concern for a famous prisoner of the tsar, was reprinted in French soon after it appeared in The Bell. Ironi­cally, during his trial Chernyshevsky had used the fact of Herzen's previous attacks on him in "VERY DANGEROUS!!!" (Doc. 22) and other essays as proof of the distance and mutual dislike between the two men (Let 3:283). The sentence handed down by the State Senate was published on May 9, Й64, in The St. Petersburg Gazette, and on May i8 The Stock Market Gazette announced that the "civil execution" would take place the following day on Mytinskaya Square. Herzen had previously commented on the Chernyshevsky case; here he includes eyewitness accounts of the public spectacle favored by the Rus­sian government. The lack of support shown Chernyshevsky by Russian liberals was a particular irritant. K. D. Kavelin had written Herzen on August 6, i862, that he was not especially upset by the wave of arrests. "This is war, and one of them will win out over the other" (Eto voina: kto kogo odoleet). Kavelin saw each side as permitting itself any and all means to achieve its end. Chernyshevsky's propaganda had drawn a line between "young Russia" and a Russia that was "a little liberal, slightly bureaucratic, with a whiff of the serf owner" (Ivanova, A. I. Gertsen, i88), and that distinction became clearer as the i860s progressed.

N. G. Chernyshevsky [1864]

Chernyshevsky has been sentenced to seven years of hard labor and perma­nent exile.¹ May this boundless villainy fall like a curse upon the govern­ment, upon society, and upon the despicable, corrupt journalism that called for this persecution, and exaggerated the case for personal reasons. They schooled the government in the murder of prisoners of war in Poland, and the affirmation of sentences in Russia by preposterous ignoramuses in the Senate and the gray-haired villains of the State Council. [. . .]

The Invalid recently asked where was the new Russia to which Garibaldi had offered a toast.² Evidently, it is not entirely "beyond the Dnepr" as one victim falls after another. How can one reconcile the government's terrible executions, the terrible acts of retribution, and confidence in the restful serenity of its hack writers? What does the editor of The Invalid think about a government that, without any real danger, without any reason, shoots young officers, exiles Mikhailov, Obruchev, Martyanov, Krasovsky, Truve- lier,³ and twenty others, and finally condemns Chernyshevsky to hard labor.

And this is the reign that we greeted ten years ago!

Isk—r.

P.S. These lines had already been written when we read the following in a letter from an eyewitness to the civil execution: "Chernyshevsky had greatly changed, his pale face was swollen and bore the signs of scurvy. They made him kneel, broke the sword, and displayed him for a quarter hour at the pil­lory. A young woman threw a wreath into Chernyshevsky's carriage—and they arrested her. The well-known man of letters P. Yakushin shouted out to him 'Farewell!' and they arrested him. When Mikhailov and Obruchev were exiled, they were taken out at 4 in the morning, but now it is done in broad daylight!... "

We congratulate all the various Katkovs—they have triumphed over this enemy! Well, do they feel good about it?

You placed Chernyshevsky at the pillory for a quarter-hour⁴—how long will you, Russia, remain tied to it?

Damnation to you, damnation—and, if possible, vengeance!

Notes

Source: "N. G. Chernyshevskii," Kolokol, l. 186, June 15, 1864; 18:221-22, 578-79.

Chernyshevsky was first sentenced by the Senate to fourteen years of hard labor, which was confirmed by the State Council but cut in half by the tsar.

During a visit by Garibaldi and Mazzini to Herzen in London on April 17, 1864, the latter toasted a new, democratic Russia. The reactionary newspaper The Russian Invalid made fun of this new Russia that had been educated by Herzen, whom they character­ized as "our emigre from beyond the Dnepr" (579).

These men were arrested for distributing radical literature and were sentenced to varying terms of hard labor and exile.

Herzen: "Will none of our Russian artists paint a picture of Chernyshevsky at the pillory? This denunciatory canvas will be an icon for future generations and will in­crease the exposure of the dim-witted scoundrels who have bound human thought to the criminals' pillory, making him a companion on the cross."