A Herzen Reader

Until now, the upbringing of the heir has been in your hands, but in a year or two it will slip out of them.

Think of this, when you are alone—when the noise of the court settles down, when all that unnecessary whirlwind of receptions, empty speeches, and empty responses abates, when all those Andreevsky and Vladimirsky stars take a seat and you—a woman and a mother—are left alone with your conscience. Think then about your great responsibility, and the great duty that lies with you.

It is said that you are intelligent, and that not for nothing has the current trend in ideas penetrated the double window-frames of the Winter Palace. It is said that you desire the liberation of the serfs. That means a great deal.

You love Russia—it could not be otherwise. How could you not love the country that, surrounding you with all possible blessings, has placed on you the imperial mantle? And that is not all; another link has been forged between you and the people. The crown which fell on your head during a gloomy year of war and internal desolation constituted for the people an exodus to a new life. With childlike faith they greeted the new reign. With the sovereign you shared those outbursts of popular delight that had not been heard in Russia since Alexander I, wearied by his triumph, returned in 1815 to a burnt-out Moscow. How could you not love Russia! In this country pulses beat strongly; in its very disorder and awkward movements one senses youthful strength, one senses that in this cradle and in these tightly bound swaddling-clothes our future history is straightening out its limbs. To take part in the growth and fate of such a people is a great and tremendous matter.

Your maternal heart long ago showed you what you can accomplish, and how you can show your gratitude to the people. You tried to save your son, the future tsar, from the worst kind of education for grand dukes, that is, a military education, surrounded by military discipline and Ger­man clientism. All Russia rejoiced upon hearing that you had summoned people with a higher civilian education. Many even thought that they would see your son on the benches of Moscow University, that Sevastopol of re­search and education, which religiously and at great sacrifice held its ban­ner of truth and thought aloft during thirty years of persecution. And they would see him there without a group of general aides-de-camp, without an escort of both secret and regular police—as one sees the son of Queen Victoria in university halls. We blessed you from afar. But this could not have been pleasing to the Black Cabinet³—and what surprise can there be in that? Prior to this, weren't you acquainted with these people, who, like logs, hinder all progress, openness, court reform, and stand in the way of the liberation of the serfs? How could they look on with indifference as your son received a humane education? It was bad enough that La Harpe⁴ nearly spoiled Alexander I. But why did you so quickly change your mind and hesitate on the very first step? Why, in a matter of such importance, did you allow behind-the-scenes intrigue in the torture chambers of the Third Department to force out of your son's classroom people upon whom Rus- sia—and you yourself—looked with confidence, and allow in their place an undistinguished German pedant? ⁵ [. . .]

Let us see what von Grimm is like. I am leafing through his Wanderun- gen nad Sudosten.⁶ This is what he said in the dedication to Konstantin Niko- laevich: "But such delightful memories are clouded by the very sad thought that the great man, under whose patronage and blessing we traveled, is no more amongst us—that great emperor whom you call father, in whom Rus­sia found its pride and glory, and whom a Europe engulfed in strife saw as an unshakable polestar." [. . .]

Your poor son! If he were someone else, we would not care about him; we are aware that most of our aristocratic children are educated very badly. But the fate of Russia is bound up with his education, and that is why we are distressed to hear that a man who could write these lines has been ap­pointed to look after him. What if your son actually believes that Nicholas was the greatest man of the nineteenth century and wants to be like him?