A Herzen Reader

What kind of freedom was necessary to these Asiatic slaves with their fear of freedom of thought and speech? What use is it to them? They are permitted to weep for serfdom—they themselves do not know how to go on without livery: they grew used to it and it will be awful and cold for them in the open air. It's the same old landowners and the same old bureaucrats in a different form. Their weapons were taken from the jails and the criminal courts, and their literature is the investigative file; neither they nor their journals are interested in a serious debate. In a serious debate we were the first who were prepared to throw down the gauntlet; other locations could have been found if their objections did not carry a whiff of the Peter and Paul Fortress. They do not argue, but complain about the administration; they address themselves not to their adversaries, but denounce the disor­ders; they provoke not objections but executions, and wish not to convince but to suppress.

While the conservative-liberal gentry was united with its literary major- domos in weak-nerved opposition, it was ludicrous. Now that it is in unison with Russia's fears, with Muravyov, with three police forces, the army, and electric shocks—even Valuev consenting to be on their side—it is no laugh­ing matter.

Together they represent that dark force which leads the weak sovereign from one crime to another and pushes Russia toward its former chaos.

.Why does the sovereign lack the energy to break free of these con­straints? Why can he not do what Napoleon I and Sully managed, and ques­tion Karakozov himself, in order to learn the truth not only about the shot but with that the truth about how investigations are carried out in Russia in the second half of the XIX century?

Why?..

Notes

Source: "Iz Peterburga," Kolokol, l. 22i, June i, i866; ^84-88, 393.

Fyodor F. Trepov (i8i2-i889) became chief of police in St. Petersburg in April i866.

Journals that received warnings, like The Contemporary and The Russian Word,

saw their subscriptions decline.

Orlov-Davydov spoke at the January 9, Й65, meeting of the Moscow Assembly of the Nobility.

♦ 86 ♦

The Bell, No. 222, June i5, i866. Herzen predicted that this article would delight every­one, and Ogaryov judged it one of the best that had appeared in The Bell. In a June i3, i866, letter to Natalya Tuchkova-Ogaryova, Herzen said that he himself sensed "two flames coursing through it: irony and

faith together." (Gertsen, Sobranie sochinenii, i9:397). In contrast to this juxtaposition, Andrey Sinyavsky (writing as Abram Tertz) observed almost a century later that such "flames" were incompatible: "Irony is the faithful companion of unbelief and doubt; it vanishes as soon as there appears a faith that does not tolerate sacrilege" (Tertz, On Socialist Realism, i99). Herzen reproduces here, with slight changes, the rescript issued after Karakozov's attempt that was pub­lished in The Northern Post for April i4, i866; he follows this with his own comments. As expected, not everyone was delighted, and the editor of The News, while crediting Herzen with a "brilliantly witty pen," declared that comparing the persecution of early Christians and present-day socialists was a sign of mental derangement. Herzen was well advised, the editor continued, to rethink his position and turn away from socialism before it destroyed more young people (Let

4:280).

From the Sovereign to P. P. Gagarin [1866]

Prince Pavel Pavlovich,

The unanimous expression of loyal devotion by the people whose rule was entrusted to me by divine plan is a pledge of the sentiments in which I find the greatest reward for my efforts toward the good of Russia.

The more comforting is this realization for me, the more I fulfill my obligation to preserve the Russian people from those kernels of false teaching, which in time could shake the smooth functioning of society, if no obstacle was made to their development.

The event that summoned from all corners of Russia declarations of loyalty also served as an occasion for a more precise examina­tion of those paths by which these pernicious false teachings were promoted and spread. The investigation being carried out by the special commission I have ordered is already pointing to the root of the evil. In that way Providence was pleased to open the eyes of Rus­sia to the consequences that one can expect from the aspirations and philosophizing of those who would brazenly encroach on all that has been sacred to it from time immemorial, on religious beliefs, on the principles of family life, on property rights, on obedience to the law, and on respect for the powers that be.