A Herzen Reader

The Bell, No. 60, January 1, i860. Herzen later said that this essay, with which he was very pleased, was his final effort to free the tsar from the influence of the gentry oli­garchs, who were agitating for a greater role in governance in return for the imminent loss of their serfs. To his earlier requests for emancipation, an end to corporal punish­ment, and freedom of expression, he added a plea for openness in judicial proceedings. In November 1859, Herzen gained access to the records of fifty meetings of the Editorial Commission of the Main Committee on the peasant question, which rejected emanci­pation without land, proof of the influence of Nikolay Milyutin.¹ However, news of the illness of Yakov Rostovtsev, the Editorial Commission chair, led to concerns over a re­treat from the progress that had already been made; conservative gentry opposition had increased and there was growing support for asking the tsar to convene an aristocratic assembly before emancipation plans were finalized. For the March 15, i860, edition of The Bell (nos. 65-66), Herzen used a black border to highlight news of General Rostov- tsev's death, and the appointment of Count Viktor Nikitich Panin to succeed him.

The Year i860 [i860]

I

Without exaggerated hope or despair we enter the new decade with the firm, even step of an old warrior who has known defeat, and who knows most of all difficult marches through the sandy, dusty, and joyless steppe. [. . .]

.No matter what, things cannot be worse than they were ten years ago. That was the honeymoon of reaction, and with a frozen tear in our eye and anger boiling up in our heart, we looked at the unsuccessful campaign and cursed the shameful age in which we had to live. [. . .]

The gloomy cloud of which we had a premonition from the sharp pain in our mind and heart, obscured more and more as it grew darker and darker, and everything became confused, twisted, and began to sink. heroes arose who served no purpose; words full of wisdom were spoken, but no one understood them. [. . .]

II

Later we felt relieved and could breathe again!² Morning had come. Tamed by experience and memory, we greeted with tender emotion the brightly burning dawn of a new day in Russia. We rejoiced not because of what this did for us, but, like people recovering after the crisis in an illness, we rejoiced in the right to hope.

Wearied by everything that surrounded us, we gazed at this strip of light in our native sky without arrogant demands or youthful utopias. We limited ourselves to the desire that the coarse iron chains were removed from the poor Russian people, making possible further development; the rest, it seemed to us, would take care of itself, most likely after we were gone. It didn't matter, as long as we got to see for ourselves that there were no obstacles on the path. Our thoughts and our speech went no further than: The freedom of serfs from landowners, The freedom of the word from censorship, The freedom of the courtroom from the darkness of official secrecy, The freedom of backs from the stick and lash.

While we thought and spoke about this, the famous rescript to the nobil­ity of the three Polish provinces was issued.³

He who comprehends the depth of emotion and prayerfulness that filled Kant at the news of the proclamation of the French Republic, as he bared his head, and, lifting his eyes to heaven, repeated the words of Simeon, "Now let my soul depart in peace!"—he will understand what transpired in our soul when we heard the words softly proclaimed by the sovereign—but all the same proclaimed—the emancipation of the serfs!

We grew young again and believed in ourselves, and in the fact that our life had not been spent in vain. then the censorship was eased, along with an end to the shameful restrictions on traveling, the children's colonies and military settlements, and the introduction of projects concerning openness in the courts. We began to rest from our hatred.

Our program was being implemented, and it was easy for us to say: "You have conquered, Galilean!" (The Bell, no. 9).⁴ We wanted to be defeated in that fashion.

An autocratic revolution could have led Russia to a major development of all its inexhaustible strengths and unknown possibilities, without having spilled a single drop of blood or having erected a single scaffold, and hav­ing turned the Siberian highway into a path of wealth and communication instead of a path of tears and the gnashing of teeth.

Yes, we were right to say to Alexander II at the time of his ascent to the throne: "You are exceptionally lucky!"⁵