A Herzen Reader

A milieu that is diverse and chaotic, a milieu for intellectual ferment and personal development, it is composed of everything on earth—of raznochintsy, and the children of priests, of gentry-proletarians, of urban and rural priests, of military-school cadets, students, teachers, and artists; infantrymen and the occasional child of a military family, clerks, young merchants, and stewards. in it there were examples and fragments of ev­erything in Russia that was floating above the popular mixture. [. . .]

Blow after blow struck this milieu, and its head was smashed, but its cause was not damaged, it was less damaged than on December i4, and the plow went further and deeper. [. . .]

We want to write for this new milieu and add the words of distant pil­grims to what is taught them by Chernyshevsky from the heights of the tsarist pillory, to what underground voices from the imperial storerooms tell them, to what the tsarist fortress preaches day and night—our sacred dwell­ing place, our melancholy Peter and Paul Monastery on the Neva.

In the midst of the horrors that surround us, in the midst of the pain and degradation, we want to repeat again and again that we are on their side, that our spirit lives. and we no longer desire to correct the incorrigible, or cure the incurable, but to work with them on searching for the paths of Russian development, and the explanation of Russian questions.

June 1, 1864

Notes

Source: "VII let," Kolokol, l. 187, July 15, 1864; 18:238-45, 584-86.

In referring to the death of Nicholas I, who was buried in the cathedral in the for­tress, Herzen uses an image from Matthew 28 of the stone removed from the tomb of Christ as a sign of the resurrection.

"To the Young Generation," by N. V. Shchelgunov and M. L. Mikhailov.

A paraphrase of a remark made by Sofya in act 1, scene 4 of Griboedov's Woe from Wit.

♦ 66 *

The Bell, No. 190, October 15, 1864. Herzen exposes the manipulations of both govern­ment officials and the writers who backed them with his satirical, punning subtitles. Katkov attacked Herzen in almost every issue of The Moscow Gazette for seeking the destruction of Russia. After completing this article, Herzen hoped to go to Nice to see the monument he had ordered for his wife's grave, but was prevented from doing so by the arrival there of the empress, Alexandra Fyodorovna (Let 4:40-41).

Government Agitation and Journalistic Police [1864]

herr katoff—le grand

Had Katkov not been spattered with Muravyov and with blood, had poison from his ink not fallen on sentences for penal servitude, he would have been the most amusing fool of our times. His foolish side is completely serious, completely naive, and for that reason has such an irresistible effect on one's nerves.

A terrible professor, he abandoned the lectern, taking from his scholastic activity a teacher's tone, an oppressive pedantry, a pompous arrogance, and, with all this, set off to preach constitutional liberalism.¹ After the death of Nicholas, this was a novelty in the Russian press, and people began to read him. As soon as he realized this, he ceased writing, and began in a paternal way to suggest or in an imperious manner to upbraid. It was easy to guess that if some daring fellow did not take heed, the teacher would go to the authorities, i.e., with a denunciation, which is exactly what he did after the Petersburg fires.

That fire was the happiest day in Katkov's life. This is where his govern­ment career began. The government and society needed someone to blame for these fires, and Katkov accused his literary enemies. Such a brave man was a real treasure for the government.

The liberal publicist, promoted from the third or fourth rows to the very stage, began by throwing his liberalism, constitutionalism, worship of Eu­rope, etc. overboard, and suddenly felt himself to be a frenzied patriot, a frenzied support of autocracy, and a terrorist, and started to preach Mu- ravyov, Russification, and confiscation.

[. . .] And with this came the crude flattery of the former serf owners. [. . .] Katkov, a demagogue in his criticism of the Polish gentry, felt himself to be a hereditary grandee and became a defender of the Russian landowners against the rabble.

All of this taken together drove him mad. He began [. . .] to use "we" when speaking of the empire and posed as Godunov, having relinquished the throne. [. . .]

But fame has its drawbacks. Katkov's fame resounded throughout the world, everyone looked at him, everyone asked who was higher than the pyramids, eclipsing Alexander and illuminating Mikhail?² The Germans wrote brochures about him, Belgium published books about him ... his modesty suffered and our journalistic Saul took up his pen in a fury and wrote in issue No. i95 of The Moscow Gazette: