A Herzen Reader

the minister of the interior, on the basis of article 29 et cetera, has de­cided to announce the first warning to the Editing Commission and the publisher of the 'Statutes' in the august person of our currently reigning sovereign, the emperor Alexander Nikolaevich." [. . .]

III. The First Trial⁹

On November i9 (December i) in the St. Petersburg criminal court sev­eral cases were heard publicly "concerning crimes against the press laws. At first there was a report given behind closed doors about Blyummer,¹⁰ who was handed over to the court for the publication abroad of the journals Free Speech and The European. Blyummer was under arrest and from the cham­bers was taken back to prison."

Following this gloomy and mysterious incident behind closed doors, the doors opened, but it was not the beneficiary Bibikov, "called to account for the publication of the book Critical Studies," who walked through them. Despite the fact the Bibikov did not appear, the court took up a discussion of John Stuart Mill, Darwin, Fourier, and the rest.¹¹ "Two salient points" were discovered in Bibikov's book (according to The St. P. Gazette): first, that he sympathizes with Fourier's desire to equalize the rights of women and men; second, he does not sympathize with the petty bourgeois Kras- nov, who kills (fortunately in Ostrovsky's comedy, and not in real life) his wife—the "report" would like to see in Bibikov particular sympathy for the murderous philistine. The "Report" sees in this Bibikov's desire to under­mine the strength of the marital union, not realizing that the murder of a wife to a certain degree in fact does undermine that union's strength.

The family affairs of the Krasnovs caused the compilers of the "Report" to have doubts about Bibikov's conduct, and here we see a very successful and purely Russian addition to European laws on the press: instead of judging the book, the speakers went off to gossip with and interrogate Bibikov's friends, and even under oath to ask about his conduct. It turned out that Bibikov behaved like a "good citizen." And, in addition, "during a search of Bibikov's apartment, nothing suspicious was found." Excellent!

What was also wonderful was the reference to article i356 in the Law Code, which begins with the words: "If anyone in secret from the censorship or in some other fashion publishes something". but censorship has been lifted! "Whether there has been a decision or whether it has been put off until another session—is unknown."¹²

Notes

Source: "Pervoe zapreshchenie, pervoe predosterezhenie, pervyi sud!" Kolokol, l. 2i0, December i5, i865; i8:473-77, 678-80.

News of the ban was announced in The St. Petersburg Gazette on November ii, i865, and the document below was published there the following day.

This was the translation of an article by M. Conway that originally appeared in the Fortnightly Review about social reform advocated and practiced by a community in New York.

Alexander N. Pypin (i833-i904), a cousin of Chernyshevsky, was coeditor with Nekrasov of The Contemporary from i865 to i866. After that he contributed to The Her­ald of Europe (Vestnik Evropy), and became a well-known literary historian and ethnogra­pher, and a member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

Herzen paraphrases a comment by the monk Pimen from the drama Boris Godunov.

This is a somewhat incorrect reference to the biblical story (in Genesis) of Joseph's escape from the advances of Potiphar's wife; the fact that his cloak was left behind is what condemned him to prison.

On December 4, Й65, a second warning was issued to the journal and punitive measures against it—closure—were already being discussed.

The motivation.

Herzen fantasizes about how the current post-publication censorship might have been applied to the manifesto announcing the emancipation of the serfs.

Description of the official investigation of Petr A. Bibikov's book Critical Studies appeared in The St. Petersburg Gazette on November 20, i865. Using this material, Her­zen offers his own ironic account. Bibikov (i832-i875) was a commentator on current affairs (publitsist) and a translator.

Leonid P. Blyummer (i840-i888), identified in the article as having a graduate degree, was a journalist who worked in Berlin, Brussels, and Dresden between i86i and i865.

Of the seven essays in Bibikov's book, three were deemed subject to prosecution: the essay on Fourier's teaching, on Mill's logic, and on Darwin's theory.

Bibikov was sentenced to seven days in the guardhouse.