Being at a distance has not changed my feelings; in the midst of strangers, in the midst of passions called forth by the war, I have not rolled up my flag. Just the other day I publicly greeted the English people on behalf of the Russian people.3
Of course, my banner is not yours—I am an incorrigible socialist and you're an autocratic emperor; but there is one thing in common between your banner and mine—namely that love for the people about which we speak.
And in its name I am prepared to make a huge sacrifice. What could not be accomplished by long years of persecution, prison, exile, or tedious wandering from country to country—I am prepared to do out of love for the people.
I am prepared to wait, to step back a bit, to speak about something else, as long as I have a real hope that you will do something for Russia.
Your majesty, grant freedom to the Russian word. Our mind is constricted, our thought is poisoning our chest from a lack of space; it is groaning in the confinement of censorship. Give us free speech. We have something to say to the world and to our own people.
Give land to the peasants. It already belongs to them; wipe away from Russia the shameful stain of serfdom, heal the bruises on the backs of our brothers—those dreadful marks of disdain for human beings.
As he was dying, your father—do not be afraid, I know that I am speaking with his son—confessed that he was unable to do everything that he wished for all his subjects. Serfdom was gnawing at his conscience in the last moments.
He was unable during the course of thirty years to free the serfs!
Hurry! Save the serf from future crimes, save him from the blood that he will have to spill.
.I am ashamed at how little we are prepared to be satisfied with; we want things of whose justice you—and everyone else—have little doubt.
As a first step that will be sufficient for us.
It may be that on the height on which you stand, surrounded by a fog of flattery, you are amazed by my impertinence; maybe you even laugh at this lost grain of sand out of seventy million grains of sand that make up your granite pedestal.
But it is better not to laugh. I am saying only what is kept silent at home. For that purpose I have set up on free soil the first Russian printing press; like an electrometer, it will register the activity and pressure of suppressed force.
A few drops of water that cannot find a way out are sufficient to destroy a granite cliff.
Your majesty, if these lines reach you, read them without malice, alone, and then think about them. You do not often get to hear the sincere voice of a free Russian man.
10 March 1855
Notes
Source: "Pis'mo k Imperatoru Aleksandru Vtoromu," Poliarnaia zvezda, kn. 1, 1855; 12:272-74 538-39.
In September 1812, Napoleon failed to defeat the Russians at Borodino; his forces were defeated the following month at Tarutino, south of Moscow, with an unusually large number of French guns falling into enemy hands.
Vasily Zhukovsky.
Herzen refers to "A Popular Assembly in Memory of the February Revolution," a speech that he gave in French at a London meeting on February 27, 1855, commemorating the events of 1848. The speech was published in English, French, and Russian.
♦ 6 *
The Polestar, Bk. I, 1855. Herzen published the infamous 1847 correspondence between Gogol and Belinsky, which was still banned in Russia, along with Gogol's reaction to Be- linsky's article in The Contemporary. In A Remarkable Decade, Pavel Annenkov described Herzen's arrival at the hotel in Paris where a seriously ill Belinsky read his own letter in Herzen's presence. Although Herzen heard the letter in its original form in 1847, the copy he used for publication is faulty. His word for publicity—glasnost'—was widely employed during the first decade of Alexander II's reign, and, along with the word for restructuring—perestroika—was revived 130 years later by Mikhail Gorbachev.
A Note on "The Correspondence Between N. Gogol and Belinsky" in The Polestar
[1855]
The circumstances which gave rise to this correspondence are well-known to our readers. In 1847, N. Gogol, who was living abroad, published his Correspondence with Friends in Russia. The book was a surprise to everyone. Its spirit completely contradicted his previous creations, which had so deeply shaken all Russian readers. Was it an internal, psychic reshaping, one of those painful stages of development by which a person reaches eventual maturity? Was it the result of a physical ailment, indignation, a long period spent abroad or simply dizziness? In any case, the publication of such a book by such a major talent had to stimulate a powerful polemic.
Admirers of Gogol, having accepted as truth the opinions which had shone through so brilliantly in his works, were insulted by his renunciation, his defense of the status quo, his disparaging, in the words of the neo- Slavs; they picked up the glove that he had thrown down, and, of course, there came to the forefront a fighter worthy of him—Belinsky.
He published a strong article against Gogol's new book in The Contemporary.
Hence the correspondence. In giving more publicity to these letters, we are far from any idea of condemnation and reprimand. It is time for us to look upon publicity with grown-up eyes. Publicity is a purgatory from which the memory of the departed passes on into history, the only life possible beyond the grave.
There is no need to hide anything; in publicity there is repentance, the last judgment and certain reconciliation, if there can be reconciliation. Moreover, nothing must be hidden; only that which is unimportant and empty is forgotten, lost without a trace.
The whole question is; do Gogol and Belinsky belong to us as public figures in the field of Russian thought? And if so—was there a correspondence between them?
As I have already said, Belinsky read me his letter and that of Gogol in Paris.
Notes
Source: "Primechanie k 'Perepiske N. Gogolia s Belinskim' v Poliarnoi zvezde," Poliar- naia zvezda, kn. i, 1855; 12:275-76, 539-40.
♦ 7 *
The Polestar, Bk. II, i856. "Forward! Forward!" is dated March 3i, but the peace treaty ending the Crimean War was actually signed on March 30. This programmatic article identifies the commune (obshchina) as the cornerstone of Russian socialism and Russia's hope for the future. Herzen called upon advanced Russian society to become politically active now that Nicholas I was dead and the war had ended.
Forward! Forward! [1856]
Keep moving now, do not stand in one place, it is difficult to say what will come and how, but there has been a real jolt and the ice has begun to break up. Move forward. You'll be amazed how easy it will be to go on after this.
This morning, Count Orlov threw the last clump of earth on the grave of Nicholas, having solemnly witnessed his death and along with it the beginning of a new era for Russia.
The war was costly for you and peace brought no glory, but the blood of the Sevastopol warriors did not flow in vain if you take advantage of that terrible lesson. Roads strewn with corpses, soldiers worn out before encountering the enemy, poor communications, confusion in the quartermaster service—all clearly demonstrated the incompatibility of a deadening autocracy not only with development and general welfare, but even with force and external order, with that mechanical supplying of the essentials that is despotism's ideal. To what purpose was the oppression of thought, the persecution of the word, eternal parades and instruction, to what purpose was police surveillance over the entire government, with hundreds of thousands of documents being received and issued?