A Herzen Reader

The tsar also flinched and he also opened his eyes. the silence of the steppe, theft nearby, theft far away, neither a friendly glance nor a human face nor devotion, all buttoned-up collars and properly sewn and fitted uni­forms. while below are groans, armies perishing, the thunder of cannon, the fire's glow, ships sinking, blood flowing. a dispatch from Eupatoria fell from his hand and he died.⁵

Russia offered five years of waiting for a few kind words, for the desire to do good. And what happened? The very same proof of inability, of bank­ruptcy in doing good that after five years turned out to be evil!

And what follows from this? It is time to stop playing at garrisons. Let the government govern and let us take up our own affairs. For this we must go into retirement—the household is in disorder, the children need to be educated and landowner's sons need to be tamed.

We will weaken the government by our non-participation. Their busi­ness will suffer but the office work will not stop. Without us they still have

enough assistants to fill all the official cracks—clerks, bureaucrat-Germans, and bureaucrat-doctrinaires. It has raised officialdom to a science and has lowered the government to the level of an office in charge of decorum. Out of gratitude they should remain with the government, like mice with a sink­ing ship...

But we will be off on our own!

April 25, 1860

Notes

Source: "Za piat' let," Kolokol, l. 72, June i, i860; ^274-78, 555-56.

Herzen is referring to Panin's appointment, the exile of Unkovsky and Evropeus, and the harassment of students and professors at St. Petersburg University.

"Seven terrible years" refers to the reactionary period between the failed i848 upris­ings and the death of Nicholas I in Й55.

On "vivos voco," see the introduction and Doc. 9.

French forces landed in the Crimea in i854.

Russian forces were defeated near Eupatoria on February 5, Й55, news received by Nicholas I on February i4; his health took a serious turn for the worse within a few days and by February i8 he was dead. This rapid sequence of events led to rumors of suicide.

♦ 29 +

The Bell, No. 75, July i, i860. Earlier in i860, Herzen responded to a letter from a Rus­sian ship captain with an essay about the extraordinary importance of ending corporal punishment, a practice which offended both human dignity and natural empathy. "The great men of the i4th of December understand the importance of this so well, that members of the society undertook an obligation not to tolerate corporal punishment on their estates, and eliminated it from regiments they commanded" (Gertsen, Sobranie sochinenii, 27:bk. i, 22).

The article below is one of Herzen's most direct and passionate public statements on the issue, one of the problems weighing on his mind when he established the Free Russian Press (Doc. i3). This became a cause dear to many in Russia's emerging civil society, but not one that soon led to new laws. Almost four decades later, at one of the lively and significant Pirogov medical congresses (April 2i-28, Й96, in Kiev), the for­mer serf D. N. Zhbankov made a plea for "removing the negative factors which retarded cultural development," including corporal punishment. Zhbankov wore a peasant blouse, even to the Pirogov Society dinners, in order to call attention to the peasants' situation (Frieden, Russian Physicians, i9i).

Down with Birch Rods! [i860]

We would like to make a very simple and possible proposal to the educated minority of the gentry—a proposal carrying with it neither responsibility nor danger. We propose that they set up

a union to ban corporal punishment

The degree of education of this minority, its conduct on the provincial committees, its maturity as expressed in a desire for self-governance—all this is incompatible with the savage beating and lashing of serfs. In times of backwardness and patriarchal brutality, the conscience of the person met­ing out the punishment was to a certain degree clear; he believed that this was not only his right but thought that it was his duty. No one believes that now, and now everyone knows that punishment without a trial—based on personal views—is a selfish application of the rights of the stronger person and is the same kind of torment as the lashing of a horse. Serfs in the field and the house are beaten exclusively and naturally for financial advantage and for petty convenience.

The government cannot and will not hinder such a negative union. The government does not impose on gentry the obligation to lash their serfs. It simply allows this and helps in a fatherly way. [. . .]