A Lament [1863]
Brothers, brothers, what are these Germans doing to us? What are they doing to our soldiers, what are they doing to our fatherland?
Will you really cover this all with faint-hearted silence. after the latest call-up for recruits?
These are arsonists and highwaymen who do not recognize property rights, these are his imperial majesty's own communists! [. . .]
This is how Alexander Nikolaevich decided to become the earthly tsar— the tsar and Stenka Razin rolled into one!1
An imperially approved Jacquerie!2 The beating—organized by the police and the military—of landowners and the confiscation of their homes! [. . .] Well, if you are going to become Stenka Razins, then become Stenka Razins, but then it's no good to play at being a German general and the first nobleman of the land—a beard, a wide sash, an axe in hand, and land and liberty for the Russian people. that makes sense. But to represent at one go, for one's own advantage, Peter I, a serf, and a Moscow landowner— that's an old trick.3
You see that we were right when we said that they lack any moral compass; Nicholas, when he cynically placed autocracy on his banner, was just being naively candid.
A leftover from the history of the Merovingians, it is time either for them to perish, or for Russia to perish. Only the fall of this dynasty of German Tatars can wash away the soot from the fires, the innocent blood, and the guilt-ridden obedience.
For that reason, do not be silent. It will be terrible if you remain silent— one can be silent from fear, from indifference, or from obtuseness, without noticing that our Garrick4 promises with one half of his face privileges and freedom, and with the other half he winks at his troops, a signal for them to burn, steal, and execute .If no one pays for the Polish massacre, then,i853-i863
having at hand "the army in all its glory," steeped in blood and hardened by robbery and murder once again, the Romanovs will teach you a lesson!
There was a time when a high value was placed on a quiet tear in sympathy, a handshake, and a whispered word of concern during a tete-a-tete.
This is no longer enough. [. . .]
A slave is silent when someone speaks. Speech belongs equally to me and to him. Speech belongs to everyone; speech is the basis of freedom. Speak out, speak because you must not remain silent. We await your orations! [. . .]
Notes
Source: "Plach," Kolokol, l. i58, March 8, i863; ^65-69, 377-78.
In i670 the Cossack Stenka Razin mounted a rebellion in the south of Russia against the nobility and the imperial government; he was defeated and executed in i67i.
A general term for a bloody peasant revolt, which stems from an uprising in fourteenth-century France.
Alexander II used the phrase "the first nobleman" (pervyi dvorianin) in a September 4, i859, speech to deputies from the provincial committees that were considering the serf question. In a November 28, i862, speech to noble deputies from Moscow and adjoining regions, the tsar described the honor he felt at being "a Moscow landowner" (Gertsen, Sobranie sochinenii, ^342, 345).
David Garrick (i7i7-i779), English, the best Shakespearean actor of his day.
♦ 52 *
This first appeared as a preface to the volume that marked the tenth anniversary of the Free Russian Press in London; an excerpt was later reprinted in the March i5, i863, issue of The Bell (No. i59). Herzen traces the ideological journey made by the Free Press during its first decade, while emphasizing its "living tie" to progressive opinion in Russia.
1853-1863 [1863]
Ten years ago, at the end of February, an announcement was sent out about the opening of the Free Russian Press in London.1 The first printed material came out in May, and since then the Russian printing press has never stopped working.2
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That was a difficult time: it was as if Russia had died, and entire months went by without any word about it in the magazines. From time to time there appeared news of the death of some decrepit old official, or that oneor another grand duchess had successfully given birth. more rarely a suppressed groan reached as far as London, which made one's heart sink and one's chest ache. There were almost no private letters, as fear caused all contacts to cease.
In Europe it was different, but not better. It was the five-year period after 1848, and there was not even the slightest ray of light. it was shrouded on all sides by a dark, cold night.
I became more and more distant from the milieu into which I had been thrown.
An involuntary force pulled me homeward. There were moments when I regretted having cut off any return trip, a return to that Siberia and to that jail, in front of which marched for the twenty-eighth year a fierce sentry in Hessian boots. [. . .] As a maelstrom and deep waters entice a man in the dark of night toward unknown depths, I longed for Russia.
It seemed to me that so much strength could not be crushed so stupidly, and get used up so absurdly. And, more and more vividly, I imagined the people, sadly standing to the side and alien to everything that was happening, and the proud handful, full of valor and courage, the Decembrists, and our enthusiastically youthful circle, and life in Moscow after exile. Familiar images and views passed before me: meadows, forests, dark huts against the white snow, faces, the sounds of songs, and . and I believed in the near future of Russia, I believed when all others doubted, and when there was no justification for faith.
Maybe I believed because I was not in Russia at that time and did not experience for myself the insulting contact with the whip and with Nicholas, and maybe it was something else, but I held firmly to my belief, feeling that were I to let it out of my hands, I would have nothing left.
With the Russian printing press I returned home, and around it a Russian atmosphere was sure to form. could it possibly be that no one would respond to that first vivos voco?3
However, the "living person" did not rush to respond.
The news that we would be printing in Russian from London frightened people. The free word discomforted people and filled with horror not only people from whom we were distant but also those who were close to us, sounding so sharp to an ear that had grown used to whispering and silence. Uncensored speech caused pain, and seemed like an act of carelessness, almost a denunciation. Many advised us to stop and not publish anything; one person close to us came to London for that purpose.4 It was very difficult. I was not prepared for this.
"Well, if they do not respond, others will!" and I went my own way, without the slightest greeting or a single affectionate word, i.e., without an affectionate word from Russia; in London there was a man who understood the idea of our printing press quite differently, one of the noblest representatives of the Polish exiles.
The prematurely aged and sickly Stanislav Worcell was roused by the news of a Russian printing house, and he helped me with the orders, counted the number of letters, and set up the press in the Polish printing house.5 I remember how he picked up from my desk the first proof sheets, looked at them for a long time, and, deeply moved, said to me: "Oh my God! Oh my God! I've lived to see a free Russian printing press in London! How many terrible recollections from the recent past have been washed away from my soul by this scrap of paper, smeared with ash from the stove!"