A Herzen Reader

Initially published as a separate sheet, the announcement of The Polestar was reprinted in its first issue, as well in the French newspaper L'Homme, where agents of the Foreign Ministry noticed it and sent it on to St. Petersburg (Let 2:238-41). Originally planned as a journal, the lack of fresh material from Russia in the early years led to its continuation as a series of eight almanacs (1855-59, 1861-62, and 1869), some consisting of sev­eral installments. Its contents included Past and Thoughts, banned poetry by Pushkin, Lermontov, Ryleev, and Ogaryov, and Decembrist memoirs. It was named in honor of the publication edited by Ryleev and A. Bestuzhev from 1823 to 1825, which was closed down by Nicholas; the cover of the revived Polestar bore an engraving by Charles Linton of the five executed Decembrists in profile. Herzen planned for the first issue to come out on the anniversary of their deaths, July 13 (O.S.), but it was delayed until the begin­ning of August 1855.

Herzen believed that readers would be moved by this title; a letter the exiled Decem­brist I. Yakushkin wrote from Siberia (which Herzen evidently never received) said that The Polestar was read with joy and deep emotion; its appearance was a major event for the youth of the mid-i85os. Nikolay Dobrolyubov wrote in his diary for January 13, 1857: "At 10 I began reading the second volume of The Polestar and I didn't stop until five in the morning [. . .] And having closed the book I couldn't sleep for a while [. . .] A lot of heavy, melancholy, but proud thoughts coursed through my head" (Dobroliubov, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 6:451).

An Announcement About The Polestar

[1855]

The Polar Star hid behind the clouds of the reign of Tsar Nicholas.

Nicholas has passed on, and The Polestar has appeared once more, on our Good Friday, the day when five gallows were erected for our five crucifixions.

A Russian periodic publication that appears without censorship and is ex­clusively dedicated to the question of Russian emancipation and spreading liberated thought throughout Russia, is taking this name to demonstrate the continuation of the legend and the work, the internal bond and the blood ties.

Russia has been severely shaken by recent events. No matter what, it cannot return to stagnation; thought will be more active, new questions will arise—must they really fade away and go silent? We do not think so. Official Russia has a voice and will find defenders even in London. And Young Rus­sia, the Russia of the future and of hope, does not possess a single organ.

We offer it one.

Beginning on February 18 (March 2) Russia enters a new phase of its development. The death of Nicholas is more than the death of a person— it is the death of principles which were carried out with great strictness and which had reached their limit. While he was alive they could somehow stand firm, established by habit and resting on an iron will.

After his death it is impossible to continue his reign.

We do not fight the dead. From the moment that Dr. Mandt whispered to the heir: "The carotid artery beats no longer," the passion of our struggle changed to a cold analysis of the past reign.

Two principal thoughts, lacking any unity and interfering with each other, determine the character of Nicholaevan rule.

Continuing Peter's legend in external affairs.

Counteracting the Petrine line of internal development.

Expanding borders and influence in Europe and Asia, while constricting any kind of civil society in Russia.

Everything for the state, i.e., for the throne, and nothing for the people.

To return to the patriarchal-barbaric power of the Muscovite tsars, with­out losing any of the grandeur of the Petersburg emperor—that was the task Nicholas set himself.

The Muscovite tsar, that Byzantine despot, surrounded by priests and monks, dressed in some sort of gilded robe, restricted by exaggerated ori­ental ceremony and a bad government structure—is less than a soldier. The Petersburg emperor, as soon as he rejects the formative principles of Peter, is only a soldier.

From the first day of his accession, Nicholas declared war on every sort of education and every free aspiration. He roused a sluggish Orthodoxy, persecuted the Uniates, destroyed tolerance, forbade Russians to go abroad, imposed an outrageous tax on the right to travel, tormented Poland for its political development, displayed relics which Peter had forbidden, and boldly placed on his flag, as if to mock the great words on the banner of the French Revolution: autocracy, orthodoxy, nationality!

Autocracy as a goal. This is the naive philosophy of history of the Russian autocrat.

Everything went his way. Not because he had exceptional strength, but because the baseness of the world around him was exceptional.