A Herzen Reader

The antithesis of Senkovsky, Belinsky was a type of studious Moscow youth, a martyr to his doubts and thoughts, an enthusiast, a poet of dialec­tics, vexed by everything that surrounded him, consumed by torment. This man trembled with indignation and shook with rage at the eternal spectacle of Russian absolutism.

Senkovsky established his magazine as one establishes a commercial enterprise. All the same, we do not share the opinion of those who see a governmental tendency in it. It was read eagerly throughout Russia, which never happened with a journal or book written in the interests of power. The Northern Bee, enjoying the protection of the police, only seemed to be an exception to this rule: it was the sole unofficial political newspaper al­lowed, which explains its success; but as soon as the official newspapers had a tolerable staff, The Northern Bee was abandoned by its readers. There is no fame, no reputation that can withstand the deadly and degrading gov­ernment connection. Everyone who reads in Russia detests power; all who love it do not read or only read French trifles. Russia's greatest celebrity— Pushkin—was at one point abandoned because of the congratulations he sent Nicholas after the cholera epidemic and for two political poems. Gogol, the idol of Russian readers, fell instantly into the most profound disgrace because of a servile pamphlet. Polevoy was eclipsed the day he made an alli­ance with the government. In Russia one does not forgive a turncoat.

Senkovsky spoke with disdain of liberalism and science, but then he had no respect for anything else. He imagined himself eminently practical be­cause he preached a theoretical materialism but, like all theoreticians, he was surpassed by other theoreticians who were much more abstract but had intense convictions, which is infinitely more practical and closer to action than practology.

Ridiculing everything which men hold most sacred, Senkovsky, without wishing it, demolished monarchism in people's minds. Preaching comfort and sensual pleasures, he led people to the simple thought that it is impos­sible to enjoy oneself while constantly thinking about the secret police, de­nunciations, and Siberia, that fear is not comfortable, and that no man can dine well if he does not know where he will spend the night.

Senkovsky was wholly a man of his time; in sweeping near the entrance to a new era, he mixed together valuable objects with dust, but he cleared the ground for another age which he did not understand. He felt this him­self, and as soon as something new and lively broke through in literature, Senkovsky furled his sails and soon completely faded away.

Senkovsky was surrounded by a circle of young men of letters whom he ruined by corrupting their taste. They introduced a style which seemed at first brilliant, but which was, at a second glance, dubious. In the poetry from Petersburg, or rather from Vassilevsky Island,¹⁰ there is nothing liv­ing or real in hysterical images that conjure up Kukolniks, Benediktovs, Timofeevs,¹¹ and others. Such flowers can only bloom at the foot of the imperial throne and in the shadow of the Peter Paul Fortress.

In Moscow, the journal that replaced the suppressed Telegraph was The Telescope; this did not last as long as its predecessor, but its death was most glorious. This was the one that published the celebrated letter by Chaa- daev.¹² The journal was immediately suppressed, the censor pensioned off, and the editor-in-chief exiled to Ust-Sysolsk. The publication of this letter was a momentous event. It was a challenge, a sign of an awakening; it broke the ice after the 14th of December. At last a man appeared whose soul overflowed with bitterness. He found a terrible language with which to express—with funereal eloquence, with an overwhelming serenity— everything acrimonious that had accumulated in the heart of civilized Rus­sia during those ten years. This letter was the testament of a man who gave up his rights not out of love for his descendants, but from disgust; severe and cold, the author demanded an accounting from Russia for all the pain with which it drenched a man who dared to emerge from the savage state. He wanted to know what we had bought at that price, what we had done to merit this situation; he analyzed it with an inexorable, hopeless depth, and, having finished his vivisection, he turned away in horror, cursing the country in its past, in its present, and in its future. Yes, the somber voice sounded only to tell Russia that it had never existed in a normal human way, that it represented "only a gap in human intelligence, only an instruc­tive example for Europe." He told Russia that its past was useless, its pres­ent superfluous, and that it had no future.