A Herzen Reader

All the rest is mud and dust on the road, logs and stones under the wheels; all the rest could be left in the shade to decay on its own, if only these logs and stones did not crush the best people, if they didn't drown in this swamp the intrepid sowers of the early morn as they went out to work. For that reason, together with the "general part" there will again be a sec­tion on unmasking abuses.

What our pause will mean to us is that it makes it possible to measure to what extent interest in The Bell is great or weak, alive or dead, and how much its absence will be noticed. However, toward the end of the year we intend once more to remind readers about ourselves, and to publish, ifpos-1857-1867

sible, a series of new articles in a special publication called A Bell Almanac.¹ It will also contain a program for our journal in 1868.

Perhaps, by the time we return, or during our home leave, younger and fresher activists will test their strength. It is time for young talents to break their seal of silence. Conditions in Russia for uncensored publication are terrible, the best journals have been crushed, and the best newspapers face the constant threat of warning and suspension. Why is so little published abroad? Our press and several others offer a genuine opportunity. We would happily welcome any Russian publication. We will not feel crowded—there are plenty more fish in the sea.

P.S. If any compelling reasons, events, communications, or corrections cause us to interrupt our silence, we will publish a supplement no later than August 1st.²

Notes

Source: "1857-1867," Kolokol, l. 244-245, July 1, 1867; 19:286-87, 486-88.

Herzen dropped the idea of an almanac later that year as he concentrated his efforts on articles for the periodical itself when it resumed publication.

34¹

A supplementary leaflet was issued on the occasion of The Bell's tenth anniversary (Let 4:430).

CRITICAL ESSAY

ALEXANDER HERZEN: WRITINGS ON THE MAN AND HIS THOUGHT

Robert Harris

In a number of important aspects, the literary career of Alexander Ivano- vich Herzen (i8i2-i870) gained a renewed impetus with his arrival on Brit­ish soil in i852, and culminated in the decade from i857 to i867, Herzen's Bell years. His writings during this fifteen-year period exhibit a mixture, and at times a synthesis, of the two major components in his development: the period of roughly fifteen years in Russia during which Herzen studied and wrote on philosophy and social thought, and the following decade during which he lived in the West, where he was exposed firsthand to European cul­ture and practice, people and institutions, popular views and public opinion.

After leaving Russia in early i847 and spending over five stormy and eventful years on the Continent (France, Switzerland, and Italy), Herzen relocated to London in the summer of i852, residing there for the follow­ing twelve and a half years. Within six months he had established the Free Russian Press, which would become the focus of his endeavors until his final years.

Many of Herzen's most subtle and intriguing concepts are formulated in The Bell (Kolokol), coedited by Herzen and, after the first two issues, by his close friend N. P. Ogaryov (i8i3-i877). In just over a decade, a total of 245 issues were produced, not great numbers at first blush, but significant for the genre, establishing the publication as one of the longest-running emigre journals in nineteenth-century Europe. This success was in part due to Herzen's established reputation as a writer, his deft skills as an ad­ministrator of the press, and, not least, his ability to fund the operation out of his personal fortune. Rising to a peak circulation of 2,500 copies, and passed on to many more than that number, The Bell holds the distinction of being the first revolutionary organ to gain wide distribution within Russia, clandestinely smuggled across its borders, disseminated illegally to intel­ligentsia and agitators, and, it is rumored, read secretly in the highest of­fices of government—even the palace.¹ Considering the obstacles involved, which included the organization of Russian-language authors and typeset­ters, the great distance and difficulties in shipping the contraband issues to Russia and evading its border controls and censorship, the controversial and sometimes incendiary nature of the content, and the palpable effect of Herzen's publications on public opinion inside Russia, his printing activi­ties constitute a remarkable, if not singular achievement in the annals of dissident protest in the face of an autocratic and hostile regime. Herzen's flagship journal, The Bell, remains one of the great legacies of Russian so­cial and political thought.