A Herzen Reader

Not at all. When we received the March issues in November, and the February issues in December, we were able, little by little, to read through almost everything. The change from the Nicholaevan age is enormous. Thought that was repressed has revived, language has returned, and hu­man thoughts and interests have found their reflection in the "Reviews." All journals without exception have energetically and enthusiastically sup­ported this reign's most important idea—the liberation of the serfs with land. [. . .]

The problem, unfortunately, is that high above the ups and downs of everyday existence a humane word is considered impertinent and thought is suspicious in and of itself. Thinking and speaking (i.e., giving orders) should be done by the government; for a subject this is a luxury and leads only to gossiping about matters that do not concern him, for example, whether he can rightfully be confined to the Peter Paul Fortress without a trial, be sent hundreds of miles away without being told the reason, and so on. The ideal of government order and civilization for this ultra-first-class sphere is an eastern seraglio and a Prussian cavalry parade.¹⁴ It is a seraglio in which people, renouncing their zoological dignity, got down on all fours in the sovereign's presence, and a military formation in which a man attached to a rifle butt is reduced to being a wax figure with four thousand legs rising at the same angle and descending at the same instant. [. . .]

In the most recent instructions to the Moscow censorship committee, it was stated that the government considers it beneath its dignity to turn its at­tention to facts uncovered by the press. During the past decade, replete with stupidities, I do not think that anything stupider than this has been said. It is wondrously stupid. As if there is only one noble means of uncovering the truth—spying!

It is the same in regard to the students. The civilizing government must have universities and students but it wishes the students to resemble sol­diers in punishment battalions. [. . .]

What is it these gentlemen want from young people? It's very simple—a slavish spirit, slavish discipline, and slavish silence! What can be meant by the order from on high not to applaud professors?.. And why is the sovereign taking up the role of school disciplinarian and inspector?.. How differently Pushkin understood the dignity of a tsar when he had Godunov tell his son that the word of the tsar, like the sound of church bells, should only ring out to tell of some great event or great misfortune!

One of the worst infringements on liberty in the previous reign was the persistent attempt to break the youthful spirit. The government lay in wait for the child during his first steps in life and corrupted the child cadet, the adolescent schoolboy, and the young student. Mercilessly and systemati­cally it trampled the human embryos, breaking them of all human feelings other than submissiveness as if they were vices. [. . .]

Look at this generation—the portion that survived the spirit-killing gov­ernment education—sickly, nervous, inwardly troubled, no longer believ­ing in anything radiant or in itself.

And how many lay down their heads and died, never knowing a joyous day after entering the corps or the school? [. . .]

A silent nation, swallowing its tears, did not break discipline. [. . .]

III

These memories are oppressive! One would wish not to bring them into the new decade, but it is not we who have summoned the dark shades of the past.

Every blow of a government lash against youth and future Russia awak­ens in those aching hearts terrible images. [. . .]

Allow just one generation—you celebrated educators—to grow up in a humane way, able to look everything in the eye, to fearlessly speak their minds, to openly applaud and openly gather, just like what takes place in every school in England.

Can it be that an entrance hall where a dozen serfs keep silent in the master's presence and silently hate him is an educational model? Is the whispering of slaves more pleasing to you than the voices of awakening lives, their resonant laughter and even their occasionally arrogant words?

How backward are our educators! How far they are from a "human be­ing" and how close to Arakcheev, how noticeable the smattering of barracks dirt and the raznochinets¹⁵ petty official's ambition, which demands not re­spect for the person, but subordination and fear of his rank!

.We do not readily give in to the belief that it is so easy to stop them, and to the question of whether we think that all of these Nicholaevan rags can bring Russia to a halt and return it to the way it was before 1855 the answer is a decisive no!