Notes
Source: "Zloupotreblenie piatidesiatiletiia," Kolokol, l. 96, April i5, i86i; i5:74-75, 336-39.
The elder Dumas traveled to Russia in i858 and published a book of his impressions; the Third Department kept an account of honors bestowed on him by aristocrats and local officials. Gustave de Molinari, the Belgian editor of Journal des Economistes, contributed to the reactionary journalist Mikhail Katkov's publications; in i860, he traveled to Moscow and was received with great honor by Katkov and his circle.
Nikolay I. Grech's own fiftieth jubilee was celebrated in Й54.
Herzen is referring to Minister of Finance Knyazhevich (i792-i870), whose anniversary was celebrated in the Petersburg assembly of the nobility on January i9, i86i. Grech's speech on the occasion was published in The Northern Bee two days later. Her- zen made his own use of Grech's lofty rhetoric in a number of articles, and publicized Knyazhevich's minority stance against emancipation as a member of the Main Committee. Grech is compared to Nestor, a monk and chronicler from the Kiev Monastery of the Caves (late eleventh to early twelfth centuries).
Prince Peter A. Vyazemsky (1792-1878), a poet and critic and from 1855 to 1858 deputy minister of education, beginning in 1861 was a member of the Main Censorship Committee.
Grand Duchess Yelena Pavlovna (1806-1873), widow of Grand Duke Mikhail Pav- lovich and the tsar's aunt, was famous for her salon, which was frequented by moderately liberal forces at court and in the government. Mikhail P. Pogodin (1800-1875) was a historian and journalist, and professor of history at Moscow University from 1826 to 1844. Count Vladimir A. Sollogub (1813-1882) was a writer.
♦ 35 +
The Bell, Nos. 98-99, May 15, 1861. Herzen was disturbed by violence against the Poles, Russian peasants, and students in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and wrote several essays on this topic. The first letter quoted in this article was sent to Herzen by Stepan S. Gromeka (1823-1877), a journalist and government official in Russia and Poland. The authors of the other two letters are not known.
Russian Blood Is Flowing!
[1861]
Yes, Russian blood is flowing like a river!.. And there are vapid souls and timid minds who reproach us for our pained words of damnation and indignation!
The government could have prevented all of this, both the Polish blood and the Russian blood, but now—because of their unsteadiness, lack of understanding, and inability to carry anything through to the end—they are killing multitudes of our brothers.
The news coming from all quarters fills us with horror and tears. Those poor peasants! In Europe they do not even suspect what is meant in our country by pacification by soldiers, by adjutant-generals, and by aides-decamp. Our only hope lies with soldiers and young officers. It is difficult to carry a weapon with the blood of your dear ones—fathers, mothers, and brothers—clotted on it.
We will stop; it is dark before our eyes, we are afraid to give voice to everything that groans within us, and we are afraid to express everything that is fermenting in our heart.
First we will present the facts.
Here are extracts from letters, without any alterations:
You are aware that the sovereign has sent his aides-de-camp and adjutant-generals to all the provinces.1 The adjutants are carrying out their missions. In several provinces, birch rods and troops are in action and blood is flowing. I know for certain that the day before yesterday three new adjutant-generals (along with the ones already in action) were sent to the Kazan, Tambov—and in addition, it seems— to the Ryazan provinces. These new envoys are provided with the authority to hang and shoot people at their discretion. In Kazan a Pretender has appeared (in the Spassky district) claiming to be Alexander Nikolaevich, having been driven away by the gentry.2 Seventeen villages have dug in and are joining battle with forces under the banner of that gentleman. It is not known who he is. But the clashes were terrible: 70 peasants have already fallen victim, and members of the forces taken prisoner by the peasants include a company commander, a local officer, and a few men of lower rank. No matter how much this resembles a fairy tale, it is a truth that will not be in the newspaper today or tomorrow. Efrimovich, a specialist on pacification, has raced there.
In one place, I don't know whether it is the Kazan or Tambov province, in the midst of a crowd into which the troops were firing, a peasant stood holding a manifesto above his head with his two hands—the rumor spread among the people that he was unharmed, although next to him was a pile of bodies.
From a second letter
The peasants almost everywhere are terribly dissatisfied with the new, temporarily obligatory "Law," and in many places they refuse to believe that the manifesto that has been announced is genuine; thus, for example, the aide-de-camp Count Olsufiev, who was sent to one of the western provinces,3 met with a similar objection, and when— in order to persuade the peasants—referred to the fact that he was an aide to the sovereign, someone in the crowd began to say that they didn't know whether he was a real aide-de-camp or was in disguise. Olsufiev thought that the best argument against this was an order to his soldiers to beat the peasants with rifle butts and then whip them with birch rods.
In the Petersburg province, on General Olkhin's estate, military force was used against peasants generally believed to be in the right, and the unfortunate ones were treated roughly.
In the Chembarsky district of the Penza province there was a rebellion by peasants numbering in the thousands on the ancestral lands of Count Uvarov.4 The military company that was sent to put
them down was forced to retreat; the peasants were holding a representative of the local administration, the chief of police, a cadet, and several soldiers. Two battalions were sent to suppress it.
In the Spassky region of the Kazan province, a prophet who claimed to be the sovereign appeared in the midst of the schismatics; entire districts of up to i0,000 peasants, most of them belonging to the state, were up in arms; nothing came of the military forces that were sent and there was no battle. General Kozlyaninov and Apraksin, a general in the emperor's suite, set off with i2 companies. Apraksin ordered them to shoot as if on the battlefield: 70 bodies lay there, while the prophet remained at some distance from the peasants, kneeling and holding over his head a new "Law." Apraksin acted in this case on the basis of the authority to act in the sovereign's name in the case of disorder and to deal with the guilty according to the military field commander's criminal code, i.e., to shoot and hang at his own discretion.5
In the Perm province there have been powerful instances of dissatisfaction at factories.6
Ivan Gavrilovich Bibikov (the former military governor-general) was sent to Kazan to restore order. Efimovich, already well known for his many achievements in pacification, was sent to Penza. One should not have expected different results; that much was clear to sensible people who rebelled against this transitional era. The flowers and fruit would come when the "Law" was fully applied. It contained so much that was Jesuitical, so many loopholes for the swindling, robbing, and oppression of the peasants! Joint obligations were not mentioned in the section on bringing the "Law" into effect, where only two kinds of obligations were mentioned, quitrent and corvee; referring to that, peasants who had fulfilled joint obligations (i.e., the vast majority of those in the quitrent areas of the northern and central zones) considered themselves freed from everything except quitrent, but landowners referred to art. 70 of the "Law," quietly giving them the right to mixed obligations until the introduction of the statutory document. This alone would cost blood. And there were a lot of ambiguities like that. The wording of many articles was ambiguous, and for that reason Butkov had such power! He is in charge of the entire peasant question and is deceptive, pretending to be a liberal. According to the peasants, the manifesto is such that it will be worse than before for them and that in two years the landowners will ruin them completely. The right to complain far from satisfies them: "Their brother the landowner really likes to complain." In the words of the landowners, the valuation of the estates is terribly high.