A Herzen Reader

The patriotic banquets have ceased, no one is singing to Muravyov any more either in person or by telegraph, no one is sending affectionate ad­dresses to the sovereign, and the day when one will blush in recalling this excess of servility is not far off. But the custom of gatherings, with collective discussion and abasement, continues. The address by the Moscow nobil­ity, in which they desire not only to love the sovereign, but to speak with him without witnesses, without guardians, and to speak precisely about the disgraceful behavior of bureaucrats, will become the foundation stone of constitutional agitation, which will engulf all Russia and in its turn will stir up another kind of agitation than that dreamed of by the Bezobrazovs and Davydov-Orlovs. If Alexander II, governed by the example of his father, had not silently crushed the Poles and silently sent off to hard labor his own people, the question would not have been raised so soon of establishing some control over the autocracy.

Ne reveillez pas le chat qui dort!.}¹ Only unfortunately, to wake the cat or not does not depend on personal will as much as it might seem. And there is no fatalism in this, but simply embryogenesis, certain phases of organic development. Yesterday, the fruit was not ripe and the cat slept soundly, today it is riper. and the cat sleeps innocently, but to make things worse everyone keeps trying to wake it.

The thing is, our pear is ripening rapidly, and for that reason everyone is trying to rouse us—the emperor Alexander and "Young Russia," the Mos­cow nobility and the Petersburg nihilists, privileges and hard labor, fair weather and foul. It is time for us to be convinced of this and act according to our convictions.

We will certainly reach the place toward which we are traveling without compass or sextant, if our strength—new and unexpected—does not fail us; consciousness will light the way and prevent aimless wandering from one side to the other, steps taken backward in confusion, and crude errors. [. . .]

Notes

Source: "K kontsu goda," Kolokol, l. 209, December i, Й65; i8:45i-69, 673-76.

Herzen: "Whether a stream is small or large, its path depends not on itself, but on the general slopes and inclines of the land" (The Bell, Й64).

Herzen most likely has in mind the young revolutionary democrats, followers of Chernyshevsky.

Herzen uses the word Cherv, the Old Slavic name for the letter that begins the name of his frequent adversary, Boris N. Chicherin (i828-i904), a proponent of what Herzen called "administrative progress." Cherv also means "worm," and the word for "purple- red" is the similar-sounding chervonnyi.

Moderantisme is a term for the party program of moderate republicans during the French Revolution.

The friend is M. A. Bakunin; the enemy is M. P. Pogodin.

A paraphrase from Eugene Onegin, chap. 8.

Vladimir Obruchev (i836-i9i2), on the staff of The Contemporary, was arrested in i86i for the distribution of the "Velikoruss" proclamation and sentenced to hard labor and Siberian exile. The other names mentioned here have appeared in previous docu­ments in this collection.

Herzen compares the revolutionary dictatorship's terror of i793 with the tsarist regime's repression of i862.

The i862 proclamation "Young Russia," with its calls for violence against the exist­ing order, was seen by liberals and even some to the left of them as having gone too far by provoking a strong reaction by the government (Doc. 45).

Vladimir P. Orlov-Davydov (i809-i882) and Nikolay A. Bezobrazov (i8i6-i867) were leaders of the nobility in the Petersburg region. The work of Henry Buckle, the English historian, had been translated into Russian; Christian Buntzen was a Prussian official and the author of theological works. Bezobrazov, who advocated a noble assem­bly, praised Katkov more for his attacks on The Bell than for other services to Russia, a fact which convinced Herzen that The Bell was a force to be considered, and that the sound of The Bell would outlast that of Katkov's Moscow Gazette. Orlov-Davydov and Bezobrazov are discussed in "Corrections and Additions" ("Popravki i dopolneniia"), The Bell, No. i96, April i, i865 (Gertsen, Sobranie sochinenii, i8:327-3i).

Polezhaev was arrested in i826 for his student lampoons. The poet Vladimir I. Sokolovsky (i808-i839) was arrested in Й34 for his part in a group that sang "libelous" verses. Both were sent to the Caucasus. Herzen was also implicated in the Sokolovsky case and imprisoned for the first time. Polezhaev and Sokolovsky are discussed in Her- zen's memoirs.

Count Alexander Khr. Benkendorf (1783-1844) became head of the political police and the Third Department in 1826; Leonty V. Dubelt (1792-1862) was the head of the Third Department from 1839 to 1856.