This issue of The Bell included another excerpt from Past and Thoughts; although it refers to the year i862, it is evocative of many moments in Herzen's life. The folklore reference to Ilya Muromets had been used before to characterize Alexander II in i858, when he was moving to the right and away from the path toward "development, liberation, construction" (Doc. i8). Here it is Alexander Herzen himself who is unsure about the next step.
Like the knights in fairy tales who have lost their way, we had stopped at the crossroads. If you went to the right, you would lose your horse, but survive. If you went to the left, the horse would be fine but you would perish. If you went straight ahead, everyone would abandon you, and if you went back... but that was no longer possible, that road was overgrown with grass. If only some magician or hermit monk appeared, who could relieve us of the burden of this decision. (Kolokol, 8-9:2002)
Believing that the remaining audience for his journalism was European, a French edition, Le Kolokol, with a Russian supplement, was published from January to December i868. Herzen died in January i870 and was buried beside his wife in Nice on a hill overlooking the sea.
On July i, i857 the first issue of The Bell was published in London. The current issue marks our tenth anniversary.
Ten years! We have stood firm, and, most importantly, we have stood firm for the past five years, which were very difficult.
Now we want to take a breath, wipe away the perspiration, and gather new strength, and, for that reason, we will stop publication for six months. The next issue of The Bell will come out on January i, i868, and with that we will begin a second decade.
Now we wish calmly, without the diversion of urgent work, to take a close look at what is going on at home, where the waves are headed and where the wind is pulling, and we want to check in which areas we were correct and in which we were mistaken.
We have taken a backward glance too often, especially in recent times, to have to repeat yet again our creed and the bases of the view that we have taken in The Bell; they were immutable, and at least our official enemies never doubted this. The Bell was and will be more than anything else an organ of Russian socialism and its development—socialism of the farm and the workers' cooperative, of the countryside and the city, of the state and the province.
For us, everything is subordinate to the social development of Russia: forms and individuals, doubts and mistakes—but since it is impossible without freedom of speech and assembly, without general discussion and counsel, with all our strength we called for and will continue to call for an Assembly of the Land. In it we see no more than a gateway, but an open gateway, and that is most important—until now Russian development has had to secretly come in over the fence, while the watchman was not looking or slept.
All the rest is mud and dust on the road, logs and stones under the wheels; all the rest could be left in the shade to decay on its own, if only these logs and stones did not crush the best people, if they didn't drown in this swamp the intrepid sowers of the early morn as they went out to work. For that reason, together with the "general part" there will again be a section on unmasking abuses.
What our pause will mean to us is that it makes it possible to measure to what extent interest in The Bell is great or weak, alive or dead, and how much its absence will be noticed. However, toward the end of the year we intend once more to remind readers about ourselves, and to publish, ifpos-1857-1867
sible, a series of new articles in a special publication called A Bell Almanac.1 It will also contain a program for our journal in 1868.
Perhaps, by the time we return, or during our home leave, younger and fresher activists will test their strength. It is time for young talents to break their seal of silence. Conditions in Russia for uncensored publication are terrible, the best journals have been crushed, and the best newspapers face the constant threat of warning and suspension. Why is so little published abroad? Our press and several others offer a genuine opportunity. We would happily welcome any Russian publication. We will not feel crowded—there are plenty more fish in the sea.
P.S. If any compelling reasons, events, communications, or corrections cause us to interrupt our silence, we will publish a supplement no later than August 1st.2
Notes
Source: "1857-1867," Kolokol, l. 244-245, July 1, 1867; 19:286-87, 486-88.
Herzen dropped the idea of an almanac later that year as he concentrated his efforts on articles for the periodical itself when it resumed publication.
341
A supplementary leaflet was issued on the occasion of The Bell's tenth anniversary (Let 4:430).
CRITICAL ESSAY
ALEXANDER HERZEN: WRITINGS ON THE MAN AND HIS THOUGHT
Robert Harris
In a number of important aspects, the literary career of Alexander Ivano- vich Herzen (i8i2-i870) gained a renewed impetus with his arrival on British soil in i852, and culminated in the decade from i857 to i867, Herzen's Bell years. His writings during this fifteen-year period exhibit a mixture, and at times a synthesis, of the two major components in his development: the period of roughly fifteen years in Russia during which Herzen studied and wrote on philosophy and social thought, and the following decade during which he lived in the West, where he was exposed firsthand to European culture and practice, people and institutions, popular views and public opinion.
After leaving Russia in early i847 and spending over five stormy and eventful years on the Continent (France, Switzerland, and Italy), Herzen relocated to London in the summer of i852, residing there for the following twelve and a half years. Within six months he had established the Free Russian Press, which would become the focus of his endeavors until his final years.
Many of Herzen's most subtle and intriguing concepts are formulated in The Bell (Kolokol), coedited by Herzen and, after the first two issues, by his close friend N. P. Ogaryov (i8i3-i877). In just over a decade, a total of 245 issues were produced, not great numbers at first blush, but significant for the genre, establishing the publication as one of the longest-running emigre journals in nineteenth-century Europe. This success was in part due to Herzen's established reputation as a writer, his deft skills as an administrator of the press, and, not least, his ability to fund the operation out of his personal fortune. Rising to a peak circulation of 2,500 copies, and passed on to many more than that number, The Bell holds the distinction of being the first revolutionary organ to gain wide distribution within Russia, clandestinely smuggled across its borders, disseminated illegally to intelligentsia and agitators, and, it is rumored, read secretly in the highest offices of government—even the palace.1 Considering the obstacles involved, which included the organization of Russian-language authors and typesetters, the great distance and difficulties in shipping the contraband issues to Russia and evading its border controls and censorship, the controversial and sometimes incendiary nature of the content, and the palpable effect of Herzen's publications on public opinion inside Russia, his printing activities constitute a remarkable, if not singular achievement in the annals of dissident protest in the face of an autocratic and hostile regime. Herzen's flagship journal, The Bell, remains one of the great legacies of Russian social and political thought.