59. Fedotov 1942, 35.
60. This according to Clark and Holquist 1984, 84–87, 128. I have made some remarks on Bakhtin’s masochistic epistemology (Rancour-Laferriere 1990, 524).
61. Berdiaev 1971 (1946), 30.
62. Radishchev 1958, 146; Russian original is Radishchev 1961 (1790), 89.
63. Radishchev 1958, 152; Radishchev 1961, 93.
64. Radishchev 1958, 214; 1961, 145.
65. Pushkin 1962–65, vol. 7, 291.
66. Marina Gromyko, in her fascinating compendium Mir russkoi derevni, quotes the same passage from Pushkin as evidence for the positive and worthy features of the Russian peasant (1991, 94). She also quotes extensively from various published and unpublished ethnographic sources to demonstrate the existence of such qualities as intelligence, generosity, industry, honesty, and dignity among the peasants. Evidence for the peasant’s less admirable qualities, however, is played down by Gromyko—as if diverse or even contradictory qualities could not coexist. This is a perhaps understandable reaction against the brutal treatment of peasants and peasant culture by Soviet authority, and against the negative characterizations of the peasantry which had been offered by Soviet scholars and pseudo-scholars in the past.
67. Chaadayev 1969, 58. For the French original, see Tchaadaev 1970, 75.
68. Chaadayev 1969, 36.
69. Ibid., 37.
70. Chaadaev 1989, 204. For the French original, only recently published in Russia, see Chaadaev 1991, vol. 1, 256. See also Kamenskii 1986.
71. Chaadaev 1991, vol. 1, 256.
72. Chaadayev 1969, 57.
73. Gertsen 1962 (1852–68), vol. 1, 449.
74. See also Chaadaev 1989, 210–211.
75. Chaadayev 1969, 178; Tchaadaev 1970, 211.
76. Chaadaev 1989, 203. For the French original, see Chaadaev 1991, vol. 1, 255.
77. As quoted by Pipes 1974, 266.
78. The ambivalence tended to get resolved in favor of submissiveness. For example, although Chaadaev spoke of the existence of free will, he saw it as illusory (Chaadayev 1969, 89). He repeatedly insisted on the need for submission to some higher intellect or some moral imperative in life. For example: “The mind is powerful only because it is submissive” (70; see also pp. 69, 71, 73, 75).
Boris Tarasov, writing in a recent issue of Literaturnaia gazeta, detects (but does not psychoanalyze) the ambivalence of Chaadaev’s feelings on a variety of topics, e.g., on whether or not Christianity is good for Russia. See Tarasov 1990; see also Lednicki (1954, 29) on the “inconsistent mind” of Chaadaev, and Z. A. Kamenskii’s introduction to the 1991 edition (vol. 1, 9–85) on the “paradoxes of Chaadaev.”
Philip Pomper detects Chaadaev’s own masochistic strain when he refers to the “luxuriant self-castigation” in a passage from The Philosophical Letters (Pomper 1970, 36). In this case, too, psychoanalysis is not actually applied, but is implicit.
Julia Brun-Zejmis, in a very interesting recent article about national inferiority feelings in Russia, recognizes Chaadaev’s masochistic side: “Chaadaev’s pessimistic pronouncements about Russia answered a need for self-condemnation” (1991, 649).
79. Mickiewicz 1974, 306. Thanks to David Brodsky for the English translation.
80. Letter of 13 February 1991.
81. Lednicki 1954, 51.
82. See Kennan 1971 and Erofeev’s 1990 review of Custine 1989. For the original French I rely here on Custine 1843, in four volumes.
Custine’s travelogue is not without its problems. The author did not visit all of the major cities in Russia, nor did he communicate with Russians of all social classes. He was able to converse only with those Russians who knew French or some other Western language, which is to say that his in-depth contacts were limited primarily to members of the Russian nobility or government officials of various kinds. Custine does tend to ramble (he admits to “the wandering character of my thoughts,” 282). The book is also repetitious, especially concerning those Russian practices that Custine does not like, such as the tendency of the Russian nobility to ape the French. As Kennan has observed (1971, 75), Custine holds contradictory views toward Tsar Nicholas, and these are symptoms of a “most painful, almost tortured, ambivalence.” Custine does tend to exaggerate what is bad about Russia (ibid., 120). Sometimes Custine is wrong in matters of fact, as when he applies his observations about Russians to “Slavonians” generally (e.g., “All the Slavonian peasants [tous les paysans slaves] are thieves” [496], a sweeping statement that is not necessarily true even if limited to Russians). Custine can also be quite mistaken in interpretative matters, as when he dismisses the importance of Pushkin’s poetry (289) or harshly judges the art inside of Russian Orthodox churches (e.g., 424).
But most critics agree that Custine’s book is remarkably insightful. Alexander Herzen declared that it was “unquestionably the most diverting and intelligent book written about Russia by a foreigner,” and Viktor Erofeev writes that “Herzen’s words are still true today, despite the thousands of books written about Russia since that time” (Erofeev 1990, 23). Custine spoke with “true bearded Russians,” even if in French. As he quite correctly observes at the end of his book, “I have not fully seen, but I have fully devined” (617).
In Yuri Druzhnikov’s recent novel Angels on the Head of a Fin (1989), a condensed samizdat version of Custine’s work turns up on the desk of a Soviet newspaper editor. The antics which follow demonstrate that Custine’s ideas are every bit as relevant to Brezhnev-era Russia as to the Russia of Nicholas I. As the author of the novel points out, a complete and uncensored Russian translation of Custine’s work has yet to be published.
83. Custine 1989, 595; 1843, vol. 4, 313.
84. Custine 1989, 619.
85. Olearius 1967 (1656), 147.
86. Chaadaev 1989, 202. Kennan is inclined to believe that Custine was influenced by Chaadaev’s First Philosophical Letter (1971, 39–40). For a more detailed comparison of Chaadaev and Custine, see Lednicki 1954, 56ff.
87. Masaryk 1955–67, vol. 1, 135.
88. Custine 1989, 21.
89. Ibid., 234.
90. Ibid., 16.
91. Ibid., 205.
92. Ibid., 171.
93. Lermontov 1961–62, vol. 1, 524. The poem was apparently written in April of 1841 on the occasion of Lermontov’s last exile from Russia to the Caucasus (Viskovatyi 1891, 379).
94. As translated by Liberman 1983, 556.
95. For a psychoanalytic study of this poem, see Rancour-Laferriere 1993b. It is worth noting that Lermontov’s poem is still offensive to many in Russia. For example, when filmmakers El’dar Riazanov and Grigorii Gorin attempted to include the poem in a film they were making about Lermontov in 1980, officials from Gosteleradio forced them to delete it (see Tucker 1991, 39).
96. For more on the multifarious connections between these writers (excluding Radishchev), see Lednicki 1954, 21–104. I wish to thank David Brodsky for bringing Lednicki’s book to my attention.
97. Kolakowski 1992, 5.
98. Custine 1989, 195, italics added; 1843, vol. 2, 46.
99. Custine 1989, 361. Cf. 274.
100. Ibid., 362.
101. Dostoievsky 1949, vol. 1, 186. For the Russian originaclass="underline" Dostoevskii 1972–88, vol. 22, 29.
102. Dostoievsky 1949, vol. 1, 186; Dostoevskii 1972–88, vol. 22, 29.
103. Custine 1989, 362, italics added.
104. Khomiakov 1955, 115.
105. Leatherbarrow and Offord 1987, 99. For the Russian original, see Brodskii 1910, 78.
106. Leatherbarrow and Offord 1987, 98; Brodskii 1910, 74.
107. Leatherbarrow and Offord 1987, 104; original in Brodskii 1910, 88. Cf. Ivan Kireevsky (Kireevskii 1984, 209), who says that the Tatars, Poles, Hungarians, Germans, and other scourges sent upon the Russians by Providence were not able to change the essential “inner and social life” of the Russians—as if the “inner” and the “social” were the same thing.