A Herzen Reader

And now, true to their great banner on which is written: "For our freedom and yours," they extend a hand to us; they relieve us of three-quarters of the task, and the rest you can do yourselves.

The Polish democratic brotherhood in London, in a sign of its brotherly union with free Russian people, is offering you the means to get books in Russia and send manuscripts to us from there.

It is your job to come up with material and get involved.

Send what you wish, and everything written in a spirit of freedom will be printed, from scientific and fact-based articles on statistics and history to novels, stories, and verse.

We are even ready to print these materials for free.

If you have nothing ready of your own, send forbidden verses by Push­kin, Ryleev, Lermontov, Polezhaev, Pecherin,¹ et al., which are making the rounds.

Our invitation applies just as much to the pan-Slavists as to all free- thinking Russians. We have even more of a right to expect something from them, because they are exclusively involved with Rus and the Slavic peoples.

Our door is open. Whether you want to make use of it or not will be on your conscience.

If we receive nothing from Russia it will not be our fault. If tranquility is dearer to you than free speech—keep silent.

But I don't believe that—up till now no one has printed anything in Rus­sian abroad, because there was no free printing press. From the first of May 1853 the press will be up and running. In the meantime, while waiting in the hope of receiving something from you, I will publish my own manuscripts.

In 1849 I was already thinking of publishing Russian books in Paris; but, driven from country to country, haunted by a series of terrible calamities, I could not carry out this undertaking. And in addition I was distracted; I sacrificed a lot of time, emotion, life, and means to Western developments. Now I feel superfluous in that sphere.

To be your outlet, your free, uncensored speech is my single goal.

I don't want so much to tell you my new ideas as to use my position to give publicity to your unspoken thoughts and your hidden aspirations, to convey them to your brothers and friends, who are lost in the mute dis­tances of the Russian kingdom.

Together we will find the means and the solutions so that the terrible events that are coming in the West do not catch us unawares or sleeping.

At one time you loved my writing. What I will tell you now is not as youthful nor so warmed by that radiant and joyous flame and that clear faith in the near future which broke through the censor's bars. An entire life has been buried between those times and the present; but after so much loss one's thought has become more mature, and though little faith re­mains, what is there is firm.

Meet me, as youthful friends meet a warrior returning from his service, aged, wounded, but who has honorably preserved his standard in captivity and abroad—and with the former boundless affection extends his hand to you in honor of our erstwhile alliance in the name of Russian and Polish

London, 21 February, 1853

Note

Source: "Vol'noe russkoe knigopechatanie v Londone. Brat'iam na Rusi," 1853; 12:62­64, 511-12.

1. Vladimir S. Pecherin (1807-1885) was a poet and professor of Greek philosophy at Moscow University in the 1830s, after which he emigrated, eventually entering a monastery.

♦ 3 +

Written in June 1853, this is the first proclamation issued by the Russian Free Press. It was sent directly to senior government officials in St. Petersburg, who informed the tsar; plans were quickly formulated to prevent its distribution, and to henceforth pay the strictest attention to books and other printed materials brought into Russia. Tsar­ist authorities in Poland received an anonymous letter from a Polish acquaintance of Herzen in London offering to serve as an informant. Nicholas I forwarded a copy of "St. George's Day!" to Count Orlov at the Third Department with a sarcastic note about what "nice" reading it made (Let 2:152-54, 163). Herzen received a letter from actor Mikhail Shchepkin—who was staying in Paris—lamenting that Herzen had summoned the rul­ing class to a sacred deed that they would prove unable and unwilling to perform. Her- zen believed that it was Shchepkin's past life as a serf that made him uncomfortable in the presence of free speech and prone to exaggerate its dangers (Let 2:167).

In Muscovite Russia, St. George's Day (November 26) was the only day of the year when dependent peasants had the right to move from one overlord to another, a right that was gradually restricted until it completely disappeared during the seventeenth cen­tury. This proclamation apparently marks the first time Herzen used the word topor

Together we will find the means and the solutions so that the terrible events that are coming in the West do not catch us unawares or sleeping.