As for the hero of this novel, i.e., Viktor Nikitich [Panin], he immediately began to act like strychnine, inspiring a stupor and a stiffening in every living thing with his numbing formalism and the dead letter of the law. Here is what occupied this head on a pole, who had been summoned to trivialize the great business of emancipation: it ordered "members of the commission to appear in a civil service uniform or in tails, and ordered them to compile a register of all matters resolved and unresolved, those which can be taken up for discussion and those which cannot be discussed."
But the commissions themselves, through the sort of clairvoyance that comes to people just before death or a great calamity, went crazy, anticipating the strychnine-like action of the Ivan the Great of justice. "In the administrative branch Prince Cherkassky again raised the question of birch rods and the number of strokes (it is simply monomania on this man's part!). There was an objection that he had already renounced the birch rod in print, to which he answered that 'it was one thing in print but another in deed, adding in a Karamzinian-Ansillonian style:12 'Those who want popularity can speak against the rod (and against God and Novgorod the Great!), but those who give it serious thought cannot deny its necessity.' " [. . .] It is said that Solovyov13 made a strong objection, and when a ballot was taken on Cherkassky's proposal the votes were divided evenly. A Hamletlike question transposed in a Russian manner—To beat or not to beat, and if to beat, then how many strokes?—was sent to the general assembly, which produced the same split vote. The voice of the chairman Bulgakov (with whose rhetorical style we are familiar) should have tipped the balance.14 The eloquent chair took pity on the fond-of-flogging prince, and he came down on the side of birch rods; they can serve as triumphant palm branches with which the members can appease the gods at the gates of the city of Jacob, when, from the Capernaum of justice, Panin enters, riding on the back of the modest Topilsky.
They say that liberal defenders of birch rods justify themselves by saying that only twenty strokes are permitted (what savage Tatars—let them add up on their abacus 20 + 20 + 20 + 20 = and what does that equal?). However, let the birch rods remain during this whole transitional period as a monument to the vile, disgraceful caste not of aristocrats, but of executioners and plantation owners. Honor and glory to those citizens who do not seek popularity and who upheld the ferocious and bloody appetites of the social class who, except for this, might have been forgiven the past by the people!15
Notes
Source: "Pis'ma iz Rossii," Kolokol, l. 68-69, April 15, i860; 14:256-60, 548.
1. Ivan D. Luzhin held various roles in the Russian government, as chief of police in Moscow, Kursk, and Kharkov, and as both a military and civilian governor.
Andrey M. Unkovsky (1828-1893) was the head of the Tver nobility from 1857 to 1859; Alexander I. Evropeus (1826-1885) was a member of the Petrashevtsy who, after serving his sentence, was, along with Unkovsky, a leader of the Tver gentry's liberal opposition, for which he was sent to Perm in i860. Dmitry I. Kachenovsky (1827-1872) was a professor of international law at Kharkov University. Herzen, who knew and liked Kachenovsky, had announced his arrest in the previous issue of The Bell.
Herzen: "The Times on April 9 again mentions searches and arrests, and, by the way, the fact that papers were confiscated from Professor Pavlov."
Herzen: "Very clever!"
Herzen: "Parlor games."
Count Pavel D. Kiselev (1788-1873) was minister of government property from 1838 to 1856, and ambassador to Paris from 1856 to 1862; Nikolay I. Turgenev (17891871) was a Decembrist, and later an emigre and author of memoirs.
Herzen: "Difficulty in making a choice."
Father and son.
Herzen: "It follows logically."
The measure Herzen uses is the desiatina, which equals 2.7 acres.
Rostovtsev is known to have gained favor by betraying the forces of progress in December i825.
Karamzin had an enormous influence on Russian linguistic style in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; Johann P. Ansillon (1767-1837) was a historian and theologian, and Prussian foreign minister from i832 to i837.
Yakov A. Solovyov (1820-1876), active in peasant reform, was a member of the Editorial Commission.
Petr A. Bulgakov (d. 1883) was a state secretary and, beginning in 1859, served as an expert member of the Editorial Commission on the issue of serfdom.
Herzen: "Two letters that we received disagree over one name. This is no joking matter. The people who voted for the birch rod in i860 should be aware that their name will remain on a pillar of shame no matter what kind of bureaucrats, administrators, or colleagues they are. That is why we sincerely ask people to tell us whether this list on names is accurate:
Against flogging
For flogging
Girs
Pr. Cherkassky
Solovyov
Samarin (?)
Domentovich
Milyutin
Bunge
Galagan
Arapetov
Semyonov
Pr. Golitsin
Semyonov 2
Lyuboshchinsky
Bulgakov
Zablotsky
Tatarinov
Kulchin
Gradyanko
Kalachov
Zalessky
Bulygin
Zheleznov
Another letter says quite the opposite, that Samarin was completely against Cher- kasskian flogging."
This was first published as the introduction to the anthology Five Years Later, and then separately in The Bell, No. 72, June 1, i860. At this point, Herzen shifted his focus from the tsar as the primary agent of change to the progressive intelligentsia. The poet and journalist Alexey Pleshcheev (i825-i893) wrote to a friend that while he had not yet received a copy of the book, judging by recent issues of The Bell, it was likely to assume a hostile tone; however, since the powerful people of the world were unlikely to read it, the consequences would be minimal. Turgenev liked the introduction, but Tolstoy was critical of the scattershot effect and the incredible display of egoism, but he also acknowledged "the broad-mindedness, cunning, kindness, and elegance" as quintes- sentially Russian (Let 3^20-24, i35).
Five Years Later [i860]
Farewell, Alexander Nikolaevich, have a good journey! Bon voyage!.. Our path lies this way!
—The Bell, April i5, i860
The publication of our political articles from the last five years, scattered in The Polestar and The Bell, by chance takes on a particular meaning on account of the gloomy events at the time of the collection's appearance.1 Circumstances are turning it into a signpost. Once more we are entering some kind of new realm of chaos and twilight and again we must change our clothes and our language precisely because we remain unalterably true to our convictions. A certain depth is essential for navigation and the choice of channel depends not on us but on the stream; we will follow all of its twists and turns, provided that we are moving forward to our goal and not coming to a halt on a sandbank. while imagining that we are still in motion. Five years ago, for the first time after seven terrible years spent burying people, nations, hopes, and beliefs, we gazed a little more radiantly at the future and sighed, as people do when recovering from a serious illness.2