A Herzen Reader

The Bell, No. 90, January i5, i86i. Herzen learned about Konstantin Aksakov's death through a letter from the deceased's brother, Ivan. Turgenev wrote to Herzen in Febru­ary i86i informing him that the article below made a deep impression on readers in Moscow and elsewhere in Russia, and that Turgenev himself appreciated the linking of his name with that of Belinsky and others in the essay "Provincial Universities" (that appeared in the subsequent issue) as much as he would a prestigious govern­ment award (Let 3^85). Ivan Aksakov later added that what Herzen wrote was much better than anything published in Russia about his brother or about Khomyakov (who died in September i860). Despite differing on a number of issues, Herzen had deep respect for the Moscow Slavophiles, agreeing with Konstantin Aksakov on the need to emancipate the serfs with land, and on the hopelessness of the government in St. Petersburg. At this point he felt closer in some ways to the Slavophiles than to pro- government liberals or the increasingly intolerant progressive writers. The Ministry of Education banned a speech at St. Petersburg University about Aksakov by Professor Nikolay I. Kostomarov (i8i7-i885) because of Herzen's praise for the deceased in The Bell. Walicki notes that the Aksakov obituary was "lengthy and extraordinarily warm," reflecting an idealization of Slavophilism and a celebration of its utopia at a moment when Slavophiles were about to abandon this vision (Walicki, Slavophile Controversy, 592). Lengthy excerpts from this tribute were included in Herzen's memoir (My Past and Thoughts, 2:549-50).

In the same issue of The Bell, Herzen reported on the "arrest" of the papers of history professor Platon V. Pavlov (i823-i895) in St. Petersburg, in connection with a Kharkov student affair. Pavlov, who had previously taught in Kiev and Moscow, was exiled to Vetlyuga after an i862 speech at a millennium celebration in St. Petersburg, later trans­formed and immortalized by Dostoevsky in the novel Demons.

Konstantin Sergeevich Aksakov [1861]

Following the powerful fighter for the Slavic cause in Russia, A. S. Khomya- kov, one of his comrades-in-arms, Konstantin Sergeevich Aksakov, passed away last month.

Khomyakov died young, even younger than Aksakov; it is painful for the people who loved them to know that these noble, tireless activists, these op­ponents, who were closer to us than many of our own, are no more. One can­not argue with the absurd power of fate, which has neither ears nor eyes and cannot even be offended, and for that reason, with tears and a pious feeling we close the lid on their coffins and move on to that which lives after them.

The Kireevskys,¹ Khomyakov, and Aksakov finished their work; whether their lives were long or short, when closing their eyes they could with full consciousness say to themselves that they had accomplished what they wanted to accomplish; if they were unable to stop the courier's troika sent by Peter, in which Biron sits and thrashes the coachman to make him gal­lop along rows of grain and trample people, then they did bring a halt to mindlessly enthusiastic public opinion and caused all serious people to be­come thoughtful.

The turning point in Russian thought began with them. And when we say that, it would seem, we cannot be suspected of bias.

Yes, we were their opponents, but very strange ones. We had a single love, but not an identical one.

From our earliest years we and they were struck by a single, powerful, instinctive, physiological, passionate feeling, which they took as a recollec­tion and we as prophecy—a feeling of boundless, all-embracing love for the Russian people, the Russian way of life, and the Russian way of thinking. And like Janus or a two-headed eagle, we gazed in different directions while our heart beat as one.

They transferred all their love and all their tenderness to the oppressed mother. For us, brought up away from home, that tie had weakened. A French governess had charge of us and we learned later on that our mother was not she, but a downtrodden peasant woman, which we ourselves had guessed from the resemblance in our features and because her songs were more native to us than vaudeville. We came to love her very much but her life was too cramped for us. It was very stuffy in her little room—all black­ened faces looking out from the silver icon frames, priests and deacons— frightening the unhappy woman, who had been beaten by soldiers and clerks; even her eternal cry about lost happiness tore at our heart. We knew that she had no radiant memories, and we knew something else, that her happiness lay ahead, that beneath her heart beat that of an unborn child, our younger brother. [. . .]