Hope amidst despair
Lord Lambton
The Renaissance did not reach Russia until the beginning of the 19th century; then it exploded in a dazzling outburst of talent and genius, not dissimilar in brilliance, intensity and duration to the age of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama. The extraordinary effects produced by the contrast of civilisation and humanism, with first actual and later economic slavery, were Illuminated with clarity, sensibility and passion. The world stood amazed: Pushkin, Lereriontov, Tolstoy, Turgeniev, Dost°Yevsky, Goncharov, Chekhov, Gogol, became cult figures, subjects of criticism, With their works procurable throughout the World For some reason an equal giant, Alexan(Ler Herzen, is comparatively ignored. 'ItY? His memoirs were published in translation in hardback in 1968. Now comes the Publication in paperback of From the Other Shore and shortly of Childhood, Youth and E,xile, the first two parts of My Past and houghrs. It is regrettable that the order of Pablication could not be reversed, for 15,1'1°A/edge of the author's life is essential or an understanding of his beliefs.
This autobiography is an amazing work of a rt ; grand in the true sense of the word, and as noble a book as appeared in the 19th eleintutY. Written in a conversational style, t erzen seems to lean over the dining-room a bl e . We hear from his lips the weight of l'ePression that overwhelmed the artist unader Tsardom, and his successor today tncler an equally tyrannical regime. We get rerrifYing glimpses of methods of inter eqation and trial, and the stultification of in the dead provinces. Finally, we "ow him out of Russia to Rome, Paris, _and the agony of 1848, and London. His life w...,as the sad odyssey of an idealist, realist rilosopher, poet, doomed in his lifetime to „,IsaPPointment, dying on the eve of the fall Napoleon HI. d Above all, he was a defender of liberty, etesting tyranny under any name, ' PiroPhesying the horrors of Communism, btilough ironically he has been sanctified ,y. the Soviet Union with a 30-volume „-"ttlen of his works. That his belief in the `nteation ) of a happy, untyrannical peasant iti,eialist state is unbelievable matters little. tk's love of mankind and passionate belief i;',at it is the right of man to find happiness sIl's ovvn way is infinitely touching and is rely the basis of all true political progress. u,Of course Herzen was never consistent. Fts nnind was too poetic and too original to A°,11c'w anY mundane policy; his idealism 4t n.as never practical. He believed passionely .tri the Unification of Italy. But to him a2.2 ml, with his endless little plots against any and all authority, was a hero; Cavour, with his deep, subtle, successful schemes, a villain. With all his contradictions he continued throughout his life to hold the fundamental belief and preach the fundamental message that man is born to love life, and to justify oppression in the name of future progress is a snare and a dillusion.
No man could have been more honest. He concealed nothing. His autobiography is ten times as truthful as Rousseau's; his broken marriage, a story 'as piteous as could be thought and made', describes with terrible frankness his breaking heart when his wife loved a close friend. I have never read a sadder love story.
From the Other Shore is a magnificent prose poem of disillusionment, and Miss Moura Budberg's brilliant translation retains its passion and poetry. It was written during the years of disillusionment of 1 847 to 1850, when Europe revolted against the old regimes, before sinking back into the old mould, unbroken again until 1914. To Herzen the effect was heart-breaking. He saw all his hopes wither and die before his eyes. In France he wrote after the failure of the uprising of 1848: And then Rachel sang the Marseillaise. Her song frightened me and I wept and came away broken. Do you remember? It was the knell of death tolling at the wedding feast, it was a reproach, a dread premonition, a moan of despair amidst hope . . . The Marseillaise of Rachel called men to a feast of blood and revenge. Where flowers had been scattered, there she strewed juniper . . .
Do you remember how this woman made her appearance — pensive, wearing a plain white blouse, leaning her head on her hands; she moved slowly, with a sombre air and began to sing, in an undertone . . The agonising sorrow of that sound came close to despair. She was calling men to battle, but she had no faith that they would go . . This was a plea, this was remorse . . . Then suddenly, out of the weak chest a cry bursts forth . . a scream — full of fury and passion.
'Aux armes, citoyens, Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons' she adds with the heartlessness of a hangman. Surprised herself by the ecstasy to which she had surrendered, she begins the second verse even more faintly, more despairingly; and once more calls men to battle, to blood. For a moment the woman in her gains the upper hand; she throws herself on her knees, and the bloody challenge becomes a prayer; love conquers, she cries and presses the banner to her heart . . . Amour sacre de la patrie! But she is suddenly ashamed, she has leapt to her feet and darts away, waving the banner, with the cry:'Aux armes, citoyens!'The crowd did not dare bring her back.
Only a poet could have written these words, and surely Swinburne came under his influence in 'Russia'. But Herzen's is not merely a dramatic gift. He enchants with the unexpected and logical: Christianity at least did not stop at such trifles, but boldly ordered men to love not merely everyone but especially enemies. For eighteen hundred years men found this deeply touching; now it is time to admit that this rule is not absolutely clear . .. Why should we love our enemies? Or if they are so amiable, why be their enemies?
Or he will turn in one of his delightful dialogues between two men, both undisguisedly himself, to humour: Unfortunately such a peaceful corner with its warmth and quiet is now nowhere to be found in Europe.
'I shall go to America.'
It is very boring there.'
'That's true.'
But it is his truthfulness and quality of mercy that above all brings the complete contradictory man before us. Again in Parig in 1848: We glanced at one another, our faces looked agreen. 'The firing squads' we all said with one voice, and turned away from each other. I pressed my forehead to the windowpane. Moments like these make one hate for a whole decade, seek revenge all one's life. Woe to those who forgive such moments!
There is hardly a page in this extraordinary book which does not stimulate and excite. There is the additional pleasure of an introduction by Sir Isaiah Berlin, whose essays on 19th-century Russia are the finest critical writing of this century. Indeed, to understand the ferments of free thought that followed the Russian renaissance without reading Sir Isaiah's criticisms and essays is as sensible as a short-sighted man trying to examine a mountain range without a telescope: he can see the outline of the hills, the varying heights, the snow line; but every crevasse, obscurity and subtlety of scenery remains unseen. Now that the Oxford University Press is producing these reasonably priced publications, they should escape for once from their deep, worn ruts and encourage the public to enjoy,a writer, baffling, delightful, contradictory whose brilliance will shine as long as books are read.
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