A Herzen Reader

The first edition of "Baptized Property" appeared in i853. The head of the postal service, Adlerberg, informed the Third Department that the brochure was written in a way that was offensive and harmful to the government. While the tsar took great pains to prevent its penetration into Russia, the Russian ambassador in London purchased a copy for the Grand Duchesses Olga and Maria Nikolaevna (Let 2:158, 182-84). A few years later, the Crimean War and the death of Nicholas made additional comments necessary. The introduction to the second edition below was written in October 1856, and published in 1857 by the Free Russian Press. Herzen displayed his concern over government inac­tion, and yet he held out hope that the new tsar would free the serfs in due time.

Prince Yuri N. Golitsyn (1823-1872), to whom several lively pages of Past and Thoughts are devoted, wrote to Herzen on July 8 (20), 1858, from Dresden that he had sought out London publications in Russian "in order to find out abroad what was going on at home. [. . .] Among the ones I received and read with great delight was the brochure previously unknown to me: 'Baptized Property.' As a Tambov landowner familiar with peasant life, this article aroused in me the desire to share my thoughts with you." Golitsyn says that he does not mind having recently been criticized by a letter-writer in The Bell—his regard for the editor's importance to Russia overcame any hurt feelings. Because of his foreign contacts and the discovery of a set of issues of The Bell that he had bound in revo­lutionary red and embossed with his family crest, Golitsyn was exiled to the provinces at the end of 1858. He spent two colorful years abroad in 1860-62, after which he returned to Russia and wound up composing patriotic music in gratitude when the tsar's life was spared in 1866 (Eidel'man, Svobodnoe slovo Gertsena, 365-68).

The Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko heard "Baptized Property" read aloud at a dinner in Nizhny-Novgorod and wrote in his diary about the powerful effect of sincere, truthful human words; the London exile was "our apostle" (Let 2:376). A number of Herzen's bolder articles were later reprinted and distributed by radicals in Russia; what made "Baptized Property" particularly dangerous was its being handed out several years later in rural areas following the Emancipation (Let 3:222-26, 476).

Baptized Property A Preface to the Second Edition

[1857]

Three years ago, while making my first attempts at Russian publishing in London, I printed a small piece on serfdom under the title "Baptized Prop­erty." I ascribe no great importance to that brochure; on the contrary, I find it highly inadequate, but the edition has sold out. Mr. Torzhevsky has expressed a desire to issue a new one and I saw no reason to deny him this right.

Many events have transpired in Russia during these three years, but serf­dom remains as it was—a sore and a stain, the outrage of Russian life that humbles us and makes us—blushing and with a lowered head—confess that we are lower than all the peoples of Europe.

After the death of Nicholas, with what fervent hope and palpitations we awaited changes that were possible and common to all mankind and could be accomplished without tremendous upheaval, merely by a comprehen­sion on the part of the government of its goal and purpose. From the dis­tance of our exile we watched with hope and without the slightest ill will. At first the war got in the way. Then the war was over but nothing happened! Everything was put off until the coronation. The coronation took place— still nothing! And a new reign got into its daily routine. Up until now all the reforms have been limited to fine phrases and nothing has advanced beyond rhetoric.

And yet how easy it would have been to perform miracles; that is what is unforgivable, that is what we cannot bear. Our hearts bleed and vexa­tion seethes in our breasts when we think of what Russia might have be­come with a departure from the gloomy reign of Nicholas; aroused by war, brought to consciousness, without the collar of slavery around our neck, how quickly, originally, and vigorously it could move forward.

There is not even the beginning of emancipation, that primer of civic development. Why were militias raised, why did the peasant bring his la­bor, his kopeck, and his blood to the defense of a soulless throne, that with some babbling about its gratitude returned him to the master's rod and hard labor in the fields?

They say that the present tsar is kind. Maybe the ferocious persecution that characterized the past reign is over; we would be the first to heartily welcome that.