Here is a description, by Morgulis, of the struggles and conquests of the new, small, but zealous, group of Maskilim in Russia at about that time:[20]
Those upon whom the sun of civilization and freedom happened to cast a ray of light, showing them the path leading to a new life, were compelled to study the European literatures and sciences in garrets, in cellars, in any nook where they felt themselves secure from interference. Neither unaffiliated Jews nor the outer world knew anything about them. Like rebels they kept their secrets unto themselves, stealthily assembling from time to time, to consider how they might realize their ideal, and disclose to their brethren the fountainhead of the living waters out of which they drank and drew new youth and life. Whatever was novel was accepted with delight. They looked with envy upon the great intellectual progress of their western brethren. Fain would they have had their Jewish countrymen recognize the times and their requirements, but they could not give free utterance to their thoughts. On the contrary, they found it expedient to assume the mask of religion in order to escape the suspicion of alert zealots, and gain, if possible, new recruits. In many places societies were founded under the name of Lovers of the New Haskalah, the members of which observed such secrecy that even their kinsmen and those among whom they dwelt were unaware of their existence. If through the discovery of some forbidden book any of them happened to be detected, he never betrayed his friends. Such a one was usually compelled to marry, so that, being burdened with family cares, he might desist from his unpopular pursuits.
From which it would appear that though the opposition to Haskalah in Russia was by no means as violent as had been the opposition to enlightenment in France, for instance, or even among the Jews of Germany and Austria,[21] it was a bitter and stubborn conflict between parents and children in the adjustment of old ideals to a new environment.
Aside from the hindrances which Haskalah encountered because of Nicholas's conversionist policy, it was greatly hampered by the geographical distribution of the Jews. Here again the czar defeated his own end by segregating the three or four million of his Jewish subjects in certain districts, technically called the Pale, the greatest ghetto the world has ever known. It was a Judea in itself. The Jews there seldom came in contact with outside civilization. The languages they used were Hebrew as the literary tongue, Yiddish among themselves, and the local Slavonic dialect with their non-Jewish neighbors. Russian was strange, not only to the great majority of Jews, but to the Russians themselves. It was merely the State language, and even the Government officials fell back on their mother tongue whenever they were at liberty to do so. It was this that made it very difficult for the Jews to be Russified.
But even if Russification had been a much easier process, Russian civilization was hardly worth the having.[22] To become Russified would have meant not only religious but also intellectual suicide. Whatever was good in the Russia of that day was an importation. The language was scarcely beyond the barbarous state. Its literature possessed neither original nor adopted writings, no profound philosophical systems, no Rousseau or Goethe, no Franklin or Kant, not even any practical information with which to reward the student. The best writers were Kryloff, Pushkin, Zhukovsky, and Dyerzhavin. The prices of books were so high as to make them unattainable. Karamzin's History of the Russian Empire sold at fifty-five rubles per copy. The royal library, which had been founded by the Jewish court physician Sanchez, contained only eight Russian books during the reign of Alexander I, and not many more were added by his successor. The dramatic art developed by the Jewish playwright Nebakhovich remained for a long time in the same state as when he ceased his work.[23] If Russia was the most powerful, it continued to be the most fanatical and uncivilized country in Europe. All who had occasion to visit and study it during the first half of the nineteenth century testify to its deplorable intellectual status. According to a very ingenious and observing writer, quoted by Buckle in his History of Civilization, it consisted of but two ranks, the highest and the lowest, or the nobility and the serfs: Les marchands, qui formaient une classe moyenne, sont en si petit nombre qu'il ne peuvent marquer dans l'état; d'ailleurs presque tous sont étrangers. The higher classes were distinguished for "a total absence of all rational tastes on literary topics."
Here [in Russia]—the same writer continues—it is absolutely mauvais genre to discuss a rational subject—pure pédanterie to be caught upon any topics beyond dressing, dancing, and a jolie tournure. Military prowess is ranked far above scholarly attainment, and a man in a uniform, no matter how depraved, takes precedence of one in plain clothes, whatever his achievements. All the energies of the nation are turned towards the army. Commerce, the law, and the civil employments are held in no esteem; all young men of any consideration betake themselves to the profession of arms. Nothing astonished them more than to see the estimation in which the civil professions, and especially the bar, are held in Great Britain.[24]
How different was the position of the Jews in other countries, especially in Germany! Culture streamed upon them from all sides. As their numbers were small, and as they lived, in most cases, in the larger cities of the empire, their contact with the Christian world was immediate and continuous. And then the irresistible fascination of German literature, and the easy, almost imperceptible transition from the Judeo-German to the Teutonic-German! All this and many minor allurements were potent enough to draw even the heretofore callous German Jews out of their isolation, and their Germanization by the middle of the nineteenth century was an established fact. No wonder, then, that, unlike Russian Jewry, the German Jews experienced an unprecedented revolution; that the difference between the Mendelssohnian generation and the next following was almost as great as that between the modern American Jew and his brother in the Orient. No wonder, also, that when Haskalah finally took root in Russia, it was purely German for fifty years and more; that Nicholas's vigorous attempts, instead of making the Slavonic Jews better Russians, merely helped to make those he "re-educated" greater admirers of Germany. The most puissant autocrat of Russia unwittingly contributed to the downfall of Russian autocracy, and Gregori Peretz, the Dekabrist, son of the financier who became converted under Alexander I, was the first of those who were to endeavor, with book and bomb, to break the backbone of tyranny under Nicholas II.[25]
Till about the "sixties," then, the Russo-Jewish Maskilim were the recipients, and the German Jews were the donors. The German Jews wrote, the Russian Jews read. Germany was to the Jewish world, during the early Haskalah movement, what France, according to Guizot, was to Europe during the Renaissance: both received an impetus from the outside in the form of raw ideas, and modified them to suit their environment. Berlin was still, as it had been during the days of Mendelssohn and Wessely, the sanctuary of learning, the citadel of culture. In the highly cultivated German literature they found treasures of wisdom and science. The poetical gems of Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, and Herder captivated their fancy; the philosophy of Kant and Fichte, Schelling and Hegel nourished their intellect. Kant continued to be the favorite guide of Maimon's countrymen, and in their love for him they interpreted the initials of his name to mean "For my soul panteth after thee."[26]