1. Perakl E. Argiropulo and Petr G. Zaichnevsky were student leaders in Moscow, arrested in 1861 along with other students, on suspicion of illegally printing forbidden texts and revolutionary decrees. Argiropulo died in a prison hospital in 1862; Zaichnevsky was sent to hard labor for a year, and then into Siberian exile.
♦ 58 *
The Bell, No. 169, August 15, 1863. Herzen cannot rest while journalism in Russia is supporting the bloody work of the state. He wrote to Bakunin that "however vile the government was, journalism and society were even more vile" with dinners and toasts for the worst of the lot, Muravyov and Katkov (Let 3:532).
Gallows and Journals [1863]
We will no longer take note of political killings carried out by the Russian government, nor provide excerpts from Russian newspapers. Executions have become part of the daily routine in our country. Since Peter I practiced doing this with his own hands, there has been nothing like it in Russia, even in the time of Biron1 or Paul I. We turn away in shame and sorrow from the gallows and their daily lists.
The year 1863 will remain noteworthy in the history of Russian journalism and in the history of our development as a whole. The heroic era of our literature2 has ended. Since the university events and the Petersburg fire, it has taken a new turn: it has become official and officious,3 denunciations have appeared along with demands for unheard of punishments, etc. The government, while winning over and encouraging favorable journals by all available means, has, in the French manner, banned all independent organs. Police literature took advantage of this and expressed itself without restraint, since no one in Russia could object. Of the independent journals with a political direction only The Day has held on; its Great Russian patriotism has placed it in a special position. We know the direction of The Day, but, speaking frankly, if anyone had said a year ago that The Day would call honest adversaries who are fighting for the independence of their homeland bandits, and the Polish authorities—who organized the uprising and are steering their entire nation between life and death—a den of thieves and hangmen, we would not have believed it, just as we would not have believed that to the question of what to do with insurgents in the provinces, that same journal would have answered: of course, execute them, and this without any need since they would have been executed anyway, but just to show sympathy and approval.
This patriotic frenzy brought to the surface everything of the Tartar, landowner, and sergeant that in a sleepy and half-forgotten way was fermenting in us; we now know how much Arakcheev4 there is in our veins and how much Nicholas in our brain. This will cause many to think carefully and many to submit. Evidently educated Russia had not run that far away when faced with the government. Neither the French language in days of old, nor philosophy from Berlin, nor England according to Gneist did much of anything. While speaking in a pure Parisian dialect we beat our serfs in the house and field; while discussing Gneist, we demand confiscations by military authorities and executions by secret courts. The Slavophiles have much over which to rejoice: the national, pre-Petrine foundation5 has not changed, at least in our savage exceptionalism, in hatred toward anything foreign, and in the indiscriminate use of courts and harsh punishments. [. . .]
What kind of excerpts and arguments can one have in this case? Having sadly escorted an old acquaintance to the madhouse, we will await his recovery, visiting now and then, and having faith in a healthy organism that can endure anything. The patriotic fury is too fierce to prevail for very long.
Those who have defiled our language will pay for it. Conscience will be awakened—if not theirs, then that of the younger generation, not those noticed by Moscow professors or by the court in Petersburg; they will recoil with horror from those who sings psalms to the hangmen, from the fawning admirers of Muravyov, from all these Kotzebues6 and journalistic Arakcheevs. We do not doubt this and for that reason we will leave them to rage on and finish their unhealthy intellectual ferment.
August 5, 1863
Notes
Source: "Viselitsy i zhurnaly," Kolokol, l. 169, August 15, 1863; 17:235-37, 447-48.
1. Ernst Biron (1690-1772) was close to Empress Anna and the de facto ruler of Russia from 1730 to 1740, a gloomy era that was later referred to as the bironovshchina.
By literature, Herzen clearly means journalism as well as other more artistic writing.
The word ofitsioznyi refers to a morally reprehensible degree of support for government activities, with an eye to currying favor.
Count Alexey A. Arakcheev (1769-1834), a general who served the governments of both Alexander I and Nicholas I, was tasked with organizing military colonies; his influence on the governance of Russia is marked by the use of the word arakcheevshchina to refer to the years during which he was most influential.
Herzen used the French word fond.
General Pavel E. Kotzebue (1801-1884), head of the army general staff until 1862, then governor-general of Novorossiisk and Bessarabia from 1862 to 1874.
♦ 59 *
The Bell, No. 170, September 1, 1863. This essay continues Herzen's polemic with reform-era liberals, especially those like M. N. Katkov, N. F. Pavlov, and B. N. Chicherin who had begun to craft a kind of liberal conservatism, which included strong nationalist sentiments. Herzen saw this as a new stage in Russia's ideological development, which manifested itself in a number of ways, including increased attacks on him, a declining interest in his London publications, and greater difficulty in successfully sending them to Russia. "Literature" for Herzen includes journalism.
At This Stage [1863]
They are kicking us. by the weakness and shape of the hooves it is not difficult to guess what kind of beast is rushing to keep up with police horses of the same color and water-carrying patriotic nags who are frankly convinced that the peasant world will stop eating oats and will lose all the virtues of a stable if they were to remove the fatherland's yoke.1 Their zeal and their enterprising and cavalier spirit demonstrate clearly that we are out of favor not only with the Winter Palace, but with the majority of the readers in Russia.
We have become accustomed to disfavor, we were always in the minority, otherwise, we would not have wound up in London. Up till this point it was state power that persecuted us, but now a chorus has joined them.
The alliance against us of police and ideologues, Westernizers and Slavophiles is a kind of negative affirmation of our "moral citizenship" in Russia. Behind the genuine neighborhood policeman and the fake homespun coat, all that is weak and unsteady, neither one thing nor the other, has pushed away from us—those poor in spirit and weakened in body, hangers-on from literary circles, patients living off crumbs at the tables of ideologues—they have all gone over to the other side and transferred over there the optical illusion of their existence. They represent a false strength: you think those are muscles, but it is really a tumor; that is dangerous during a struggle, which is why they did a good thing by leaving. We candidly admit that we absolutely do not fear being left in the minority, not even in a completely empty room.
Fifteen years ago we were in the same position with European reactionaries; we did not yield an iota, and, having said all that we thought, we withdrew, conscious that truth is on our side.2