The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 17

by Unknown

A Valdai Woman

After the year 1815, when the emperor Alexander already appeared as a weary martyr, immersed in mystic contemplation and wavering between the evergrowing influence of Count Araktcheiev and the convictions he had himself formed in the days of his youth, the events of 1812 were reflected in a totally different manner upon the movement of social ideas in Russia. The war of the fatherland was accompanied in Russia by an unusual rising of the spirit of the nation and a remarkable awakening of the public conscience. The continuation of the struggle with Napoleon beyond the frontiers of Russia had led Alexander’s troops to Paris. This enforced military exploit widened the horizon of the Russian people; they became acquainted with European manners and customs, were in closer contact with the current of European thought, and felt drawn towards political judgment. It was quite natural that the Russian people should begin to compare the order of things in their own country with political and public organisation abroad. An unrestrainable impulse to criticise and compare was awakened; thenceforth it was difficult to become reconciled to the former status of Russian life and the traditional order of things.

It will be asked what abuses presented themselves to the gaze of the Russian conquerors, who had liberated Europe, upon their return to their country. An entire absence of respect for the rights of the individual was patent; the forcible introduction of monstrous military settlements, the exploits of Magnitski and others of his kind in the department of public instruction were crying shames; and, finally, the cruelties of serfdom were in full activity. The subtile exactions which then prevailed in service at the front completed the development of general dissatisfaction amongst military circles. There is, therefore, nothing astonishing in the fact that the misfortunes which then weighed upon the Russian people should have found an answering call in the hearts of men who were at that time in the grip of a violent patriotic revival.

The natural consequence of this joyless condition of affairs in Russia was a hidden protest, which led to the formation of secret societies. Under the then existing conditions there was no possibility of carrying on reformatory deliberations with the cognisance of the government. Thus a remarkable phenomenon was accomplished; on the one hand Russian public thought was seeking for itself an issue and solution of the questions that oppressed it; while on the other the emperor Alexander, disenchanted with his former political ideals and standing at the head of the European reaction, had become the unexpected champion of aspirations which had nothing in common with the ideas of which he had been the representative during the best period of his life. This circumstance made a break in the interior life of Russia, which imperceptibly prepared the ground for events until then unprecedented in Russian history. “What has become of liberalism?” is a question that one of the contemporaries of that epoch sets himself. “It seems to have vanished, to have disappeared from the face of the earth; everything is silent. And yet it is just at this instant that its hidden forces have begun to grow dangerous.” The time had come when secret societies were in full bloom. The masonic lodges, which had been allowed by the government, had long since accustomed the Russian nobility to the form of secret societies. Officers’ circles, in which conversations were carried on about the wounds of Russia, the obduracy of the people, the distressing position of the soldier, the indifference of society to the affairs of the country, imperceptibly changed into organised secret societies.

It happened that yet another time the emperor Alexander expressed the conviction that the interior administration of Russia ought to be thought of, that it was necessary that means should be taken for remedying the evil; but the sovereign did not pass from words to deeds. In reference to this, the ideas expressed by Alexander to the governor of Penza, T. P. Lubianovski, on the occasion of his visit to that town in 1824 are worthy of attention. The emperor had inspected the second infantry corps there assembled; the manœuvres had deserved particular praise. Observing signs of weariness on the emperor’s face, Lubianovski ventured to remark that the empire had reason to complain of his majesty.

“Why?” “You will not take care of yourself.” “You mean to say that I am tired?” replied the emperor. “It is impossible to look at the troops without satisfaction; the men are good, faithful and excellently trained; we have gained no little glory through them. Russia has enough glory; she does not require more; it would be a mistake to require more. But when I think how little has been as yet done in the interior of the empire, then the thought lies on my heart like a ten-pound weight. That is what makes me tired.”

The profoundly true thought that fell from the lips of the sovereign in his conversation with Lubianovski was not, however, put into application. At that period it was impossible to count upon the amendment of the state edifice through the administrations of the government. The dim figure of Araktcheiev had definitively succeeded in screening Russia from the gaze of Alexander, and his evil influence was felt at every step. Therefore in the main everything led to the sorrowful result that the emperor, as Viguel expressed it, was like a gentleman who, having grown tired of administering his own estate, had given it over entirely into the hands of a stern steward, being thus sure that the peasants would not become spoiled under him.

A few words remain to be said of the fate that overtook the secret societies after the closing of the Alliance of the Public Good. Benkendorf’s[64] supposition that a new and more secret society would be formed after this, which would act under the veil of greater security, was actually justified. The more zealous members of the alliance only joined together more closely, and from its ruins arose two fresh alliances—the Northern and the Southern.

The leaders of the Northern Alliance in the beginning were Muraviev and Turgeniev. Later on, in 1823, Kondratz Bileiev entered the society, of which he became the leader. The aspirations of the Northern Alliance were of a constitutional-monarchic character. In the Southern Alliance, chiefly composed of members of the second army, the principal leader was the commander of the Viatka infantry regiment, Colonel Paul Pestel, son of the former governor-general of Siberia. Thanks to Pestel’s influence the Southern Alliance acquired a preponderating republican tendency; he occupied himself with the composition of a work which he called Russian Truth, in which he expounded his ideas on the reconstruction of Russia. Many members of this society inclined to the conviction that the death of the emperor Alexander and even the extermination of the entire imperial family were indispensable to the successful realisation of their proposed undertakings; at any rate there is no doubt that conversations to this effect were carried on amongst the members of the secret societies. Soon the active propaganda of the members of the Southern Society called another society into existence—the Slavonic Alliance or the United Slavonians. In it was chiefly concentrated the radical element from the midst of the future Dekabrists. The members of this society proposed insane and violent projects and insisted chiefly on the speedy commencement of decisive action, giving only a secondary importance to deliberations on the constitutional form of government. Sergei Nuraviev Apostol called them mad dogs chained.