A Herzen Reader

". The venerable old man, the stately old man, eighty years old, with a long silver beard and white hair that fell to his shoulders, told me about those times, about his people, about Pestel, the solitary prison cell, hard la­bor, to which he was sent as a brilliant young man and from which he re­turned gray, old, still more brilliant, but from another world.

"I listened and listened to him, and when he had finished, I wanted to ask his blessing for life's journey, forgetting that it had already passed. [. . .] Between the gallows on the Kronverk rampart and the gallows in Poland and Lithuania, these milestones of the imperial highway, three columns had passed, relieving each other in the cold, dark twilight.soon their outlines fade and are lost in the distant blue sky." [. . .]

A remarkable group of people. Where did the 18th century get the cre­ative force to bring forth giants everywhere and in everything, from the Ni­agara and Amazon rivers to the Volga and Don?.. What remarkable fighters they were, what personalities, what people!

We hasten to pass on to our readers the obituary of S. G. Volkonsky, sent to us by Prince P. V. Dolgorukov.²

AN OBITUARY

Prince Sergey Grigorevich Volkonsky was remarkable for the firm­ness of his convictions and the selflessness of his character. He was born in 1787, and everything smiled upon him from birth: wealth, nobility, connections—fate gave him everything: he was the son of a holder of the St. Andrew's cross and a lady-in-waiting; he was the grandson of Field Marshal Repnin, in whose house he was raised until the age of 14, i.e., until the death of his grandfather; at 24 he was a colonel and an aide-de-camp; at 26 he was promoted to major general and a few weeks later, in recognition of the Battle of Leipzig, he was awarded a ribbon of the Order of Anna. He sacrificed all of this to his convictions, to his burning desire to see his homeland free, and at the age of thirty-nine he set off for hard labor in the Nerchinsk mines. just when Volkonsky had intended to quit the service com­pletely and travel, he was accepted into the secret society by Mik. Al. fon Vizin in the house of Count Kiselev, where Pestel read excerpts from his "Russian Justice." Pestel and other members of the society demanded that Volkonsky continue serving without fail, because there was the possibility that, due to his rank, he would receive a bri­gade and maybe even a division, and he could be useful to the society in case of an uprising.

The Emperor Alexander knew that Volkonsky was taking part in the schemes of the better part of contemporary youth; he com­manded the first brigade of the i9th Infantry Division, and when the commander-in-chief, Prince Wittgenstein, asked the sovereign in i823 about naming him a division commander, saying that Volkon- sky had excellent preparation for the service, Alexander answered: "If only he confined his activities to the service he would long ago have commanded a division!" One day, on maneuvers, Alexander, having summoned Volkonsky to congratulate him on the excellent condition of the Azovsky and Dneprovsky regiments, said: "Prince, I advise you to occupy yourself with your brigade and not with government affairs; it will be more useful for the service and for you."³

When Alexander died and Maiborod's denunciation was found among his papers, Chernyshev was sent from Taganrog to Tulchin [Tulcea], where Wittgenstein's headquarters were located, to arrest Pestel and the others. Passing through Uman, where Volkonsky was located, Chernyshev met with him, and, from his words and sev­eral questions, guessed that things were in a bad state. He himself went to Tulchin and found that Pestel had already been arrested and taken from his regimental quarters to Tulchin. Kind Wittgenstein, having known Volkonsky since childhood, warned him of the fate that awaited him. "Be careful," said Wittgenstein, "don't get caught: Pestel is already under arrest and tomorrow we will send him to Petersburg; be careful that you don't get in trouble as well!" Count­ess Kiseleva, nee Pototskaya, advised Volkonsky to flee abroad; she offered as a guide a Jew who was devoted to the Pototsky family, and who would undertake to accompany Volkonsky to Turkey, from where it would be easy for him to seek asylum in England. Volkonsky refused to flee, saying that he did not wish to abandon his comrades in time of danger. After dining with Wittgenstein, he went to the gen­eral on duty with the 2nd Army, Iv. Iv. Baikov, where Pestel was be­ing held, and found Baikov and Pestel having tea. Taking advantage of a minute when Baikov had to go to the window in order to speak with a courier from Taganrog, Pestel hastened to tell Volkonsky that "even if they torture me, they will learn nothing; the only thing that could destroy us is my 'Russian Justice.' Yushnevsky knows where it is; save it, for God's sake!"⁴