Tikhon Zadonsky, keeper of fasts—with Adlerberg-the-elder.7 Mitrofan Voronezhky, the virgin—with Baryatynsky.8 The least talented of soldiers Paskevich—with the even less talented statesman Panin.
Gury and Varsonofy—with Putyatin and Askochensky.9 Rtishchev, who in 1648 organized a group to translate from the Greek— with Pokhitonov, who in 1858 organized a group to translate from all languages.
After five years these could also be discarded and new plaques installed. changed before opinions settle and legal measures for important people are established. Then the Russian people will in turn finally cry out: The front or back of the head!10
Notes
Source: "Iubilei," Kolokol, l. 121, February 1, 1862; 16:30-31, 358-59.
1. Vladimir F. Adlerberg (1790-1884) headed the Postal Department from 1842 to 1856, and then served as minister of the Imperial Court until 1872; Nikolay O. Sukho- zanet (1794-1871) was an adjutant-general who took part in the suppression of the Poles in 1830-31 and later was war minister (1856-61).
Herzen: "Probably taking advantage of the fact that with us la recherche de la pater- nite (the clarification of fatherhood) is not forbidden, as it is in the French law code."
A character in Gogol's Dead Souls.
Alexey P. Yermolov was an artillery general, and in i8i2 chief of staff for the western flank of the army; Count Karl F. Tol was adjutant general in i8i2, and chief of staff during the suppression of the Polish uprising in i83i. Nicholas was believed to be jealous of these two generals due to the distinguished nature of their military service.
Rtishchev (i625-i673) was a government official interested in education in the time of Tsar Alexey; Betskoy (i704-i795) was president of the Academy of Arts and founder of what became the Smolny Institute; Potemkin (i739-i79i) was a favorite of Catherine II; Kochubey (i768-i834) was a diplomat and minister under Alexander I; Vorontsov (i782-i856) headed civilian and military administrations in Bessarabia and the Caucasus; Lazarev (i788-i85i) was an Antarctic explorer; Kornikov (i806-i854) and Nakhimov (i802-i855) were both admirals who took part in the defense of Sevastopol.
Gury was a sixteenth-century bishop who was canonized; Varsonofy was a sixteenth- century monastic leader, later canonized; Feofan Prokopovich (i68i-i736) was a preacher, writer, vice-president of the Holy Synod, and the person Peter I most relied upon in spiritual matters.
Tikhon Zadonsky was an important eighteenth-century bishop canonized in i86i.
Mitrofan was a seventeenth-century bishop canonized in i832; Prince Baryatinsky led Russian military operations in the Caucasus from i856 to i862.
Askochinsky was a reactionary journalist and editor of Domestic Chats for Popular Reading from Й58 to Й77.
Herzen: "The monument's form has really gratified us: a huge bell, placed so that it cannot ring. But all the same a bell! But—which one? The town council [veche] bell, or ours in London? It seems to us that it is neither one nor the other, but a bell that is very sweet [sladkii]; it was plastered over with all kinds of figures in immense quantities, among them one was plastered with wings and so ardently strains to get away that on its head is some sort of lamp. (See The St. P. Calendar for 1862.)"
♦ 44 *
The Bell, No. i25, March i5, i862. The Bell gave extensive coverage to the student disturbances that flared up at Moscow University during September and October i86i in connection with new rules set forth by Minister of Education Putyatin. Students asked that the rise in tuition costs be rescinded along with the ban on the student bank, and that they be allowed to send representatives to talk to university authorities. After several students were arrested, there was a march to the governor-general's home to ask for the students' release and to submit an address outlining their concerns to the tsar. There they were set upon by regular policemen, gendarmes in disguise, and shopkeepers who had been told that the students were opposed to the emancipation. Herzen was troubled by support for the government's repressive measures among university administrators and a number of once-liberal professors like Sergey Solovyov and Boris Chicherin. Understanding that this marked a further break with his former acquaintances in Moscow,
Herzen claimed that he wrote this article with tears in his eyes, but that some things were more sacred to him than any person. Kavelin sent a letter from Paris, saying that the article told the truth and that "for us, Moscow is a cemetery" (Let 3:290, 296).
Academic Moscow [1862]
We have received three additional letters about Moscow University—dark, sad letters... Let them mock us for having a humane heart, but we will not hide the deep pain with which we read these letters. We do not slander ourselves with either feelings or a lack of feelings. The memory of Moscow University and our Moscow circle is very dear to us. We preserve a feeling of reverence for the friends of youth and for our Moscow alma mater. We spent the most sacred moments of youth in its auditoriums, and we endured all the insults of Nicholaevan despotism. [. . .] It is there that the idea of struggle to which we have remained faithful first formed and was strengthened. From there we dispersed to various places of exile and there we gathered a few years later around Granovsky's podium—Granovsky.1 how hard it is to hear his name. It is now our turn to say of him what he said of Belinsky: "Blessed is he who dies in good time!" In i849 the oppression was external; over there, where neither the ear of the gendarme nor the arm of the local police could reach, there things were pure. but now?..
And did friends, colleagues, and proteges of Granovsky really take part in these vile actions?
Who are they?.. Those who blush upon reading our words, those who feel that no matter how much you shout, you cannot drown out something troubling your conscience!
And if such people are not to be found?
Blessed is he who dies in good time!
The letters under discussion were seriously delayed. One of them sets out the complete history of the university business, and it will appear in the next issue; from the two remaining letters we will copy out a few small excerpts.
We hope that the writers are sure of the facts they are reporting to us. And once more we remind our correspondents that each time they supply us with incorrect rumors, news taken from the street and exaggerated by party spirit (as happened quite recently), they do us much greater harm than all the Shuvalovs with their various free and temporary agents.2
From the first letter.
.A few days ago I read an account by Moscow professors of matters relating to the students' address to the tsar. The thought expressed in it is the following: the government itself is guilty of the fact that such incidents, like the one with the address, are possible at the university, and it follows that at the very first signs of university agitation greater attention should be paid to the willfulness of the students and to seriously punishing the instigators.
From the second letter.
. Finally The Bell reached us that talks about university events. Not everything in the story you placed there is correct, and many details are missing. Your correspondent, for example, praised professor Yeshovsky, but on October 11, when students entered the professors' room for an explanation with the trustee, he barred their way, and talked about dissension between students and professors. When the students remarked that they had come not to see the professors but Isakov, he answered: "While Isakov is here, we will not betray him!"3 In general our professors have distinguished themselves. Lents and Nikitenko, the generals of St. Petersburg University, were struck by the zeal for order shown by Solovyov and Babst, who were called before a commission to examine the university statutes.4