The Icon and the Axe

by James Billington

  therlSSS "

  merely tfietsar^^ himsdr=^w^s~m~arisrepute because of defeat in battle.

  TEe^Sew-studditif-geHeration included an unusually large number of former seminarians, who brought with them a certain passion for absolute answers to the "cursed questions" which hypnotized and seduced many of their uprooted and impressionable fellow students. The most important among these were the "two Saint Nicholases," Chernyshevsky and Dobroliu-bov, two former seminarians who dominated an editorial staff known as "the consistory" of the journal with which Belinsky had ended his career, The Contemporary.

  Taking the materialism of Feuerbach and the rationalism of the English utilitarians as their starting point", these influential critics helped lead the young generation into a systematic rejection of all past tradition and of the entire idealistic framework" within which the discussions of the aristocratic centm^ had ???? ????}?

  on "rational egoism*r"and a strict^mlibation of the utilitarian calculusjjf maximizing material pleasure. They imitated Belinsky's iconoclasm and glorified at the same time the art of the "Gogolian period" of Russian literature with its concerns for suffering humanity over that of the more composed "Pushkinians," for whom art did not basically serve a social purpose. They preached the equality of sexes, thg_sancjity of the natural , sciences, a^^^^^^^r^cof^m^u^mdittxiaJL self-interest 1??~????? J everyjdeological pose. They-and even more, their imitators-:

  their com^pe^ensForseparation from the past by adopting bizarre forms*" Ky4

  of dress, practTcTngfree~*ove7and* attem^tirrgToTrvie^d WQrk cojrimuTranYr.

  Medallions of Rousseau were worn in place of Orthodox medals; the stac-*" cato cry "Man is a worm" {chelovek-cherviak) was shouted out at theology lectures;msultingremarks were made about Shakespeare, Raphael, Pushkin, and other artists especially revered by the older generation.

  The waToTTBe generations was d^amaTrze^^y~Tufgenev in his famous Po^^kCS^jg^^'g^r^Jch he pubHsh£d^S]T8e2jug^afterTie, as™a representative of the "fathers' " generation, had left The Contemporary","' denouncii^^he~^sbevslqr^nd_Pobroliubov as "literary Robespierres" "trying to wipe from the face of the earth poetry, the fine arts, all aesthetic pleasures, and to impose in their place mere seminarian principles."31 The

  hero of the novel is Bazarov, the leader of the "sons" and a young medical student who rejects all established aesthetic, moral, or religious ideals and spends his time dissecting frogs. His credo is that "two and two is four and everything else is rubbish." The term Turgenev used to describe Bazarov's philosophy was "nihilism," which accurately suggests the almost totally negative attitude of the "men of the sixties" to all traditional ideas and practices. Chernyshevsky's associates considered Bazarov a caricature, but Pisarev, another rismgj^omig iconoclast, hajfled_BaarovjisJiJ^gllflixiSedel for ihe_!'ne3K-niea" of the sixties. When Dobroliubov died jn_i86i and

  Chernyshevsky was arrested the following year~~PJsarey became the leading apostle of nihilistic materialism and remained so until 1868, when he-like Dobrolrubovandlo many others went tfl_an early death.

  The importance of this spasm of negation would be hard to overemphasize. AlthoujpnrwaTaTrn^

  it ^affected prgjaselythose"talented ISguteTwEISrer^to" projade the leader-ship in almost ewayTIeTdof cuTmTal effiteavor" for the remainder of the century^ Pisarev was correct in saying tEaPTf ???^???^???^?????^?? is the malady of our time."32 No one was ever quite the same again, because the young generation had deliberately broken with the broader humanistic cuiture~oTtHe ansto^liy"'as~*weTl as~tKe"official Orthodox culture "of the tsans~fregiIip~Tne first and perhaps^ mostTnrportaht JesuifoFthe iconoclastic revolution was the opening of a decisrve_split between the newnjhffisg_arjd^ the original moderate Westernizers of the fortSCchSnylnevsky took the lead jn*Brea1ang WffiT^elzeniOTnis friendliness with liberals like Kavelin and Chicherin and his "naive" hope for "reform from above" through Alexander II. "Let your 'bell' sound not for prayer but for the charge," he wrote shortly after breaking with Herzen in 1859.33 The lesson to be learned from the revolution of 1848 was that radicals must avoi3'Trtfflg"4e,atfeT5nTp of revolutionary movements to timid liber

  ^ ?^-v,.j "??? imperfect and hesitant

  natureofthe AlexanarTan reforms-above all their purely formal emancipation of the peasantry, whose actual lot may in fact have worsened-seemed a perfect illustration to the extremist generation of what to expect from

  liberal reformers.

  In addition to encouraging political extremism, the nihilism of the sixties virtululy'promuted tliejewru^a^ew^orthodoxy the new analytic and reaTistjg^approach in science and literature, frose replaced poerry^aV^fe main vehicle of literaryexpression (a change whicrTPetrasnevsky had called indisp^n^abTeTm-flfiSiianprogress at the last meeting of his ill-fated circle in 1849). There was a sudden passion for meticulously realistic presentations of scenes and problems from everyday life. A decade of strident insistenceoTrTnesocial responsibility of the artist-from Chernyshevsky's

  ??? 1U tiHV/ SHORES

  Aesthetic Relations of Art to Reality in 1855 to Pisarev's Destruction ? Aesthetics in 1865-resulted injhe establishment of a kind of "censorship of the left" alongside tW "f fhp tsaiigj ??";??. Subtly_bu,t effectively the realistic story and

  plays of the aristocratic century as the major literary milieu of the new culture in St. Petersburg. Buckle's History of Civilization in England, with its attempts to explain cultures by climate, geography, and diet, was extraordinarily popular; and the beginnings of jLourely materialist_Russian school of physiology can be traced to the publication in 1863 jjQvan

  Sechem^TteJleTeeYTSfThiri^^ the lead of Claude Bernard

  (whose detailed descriptive study of the human heart was written while Sechenov was studying under him in Paris), Sechenov attempted to make a purely physiological study of the brain. He piovid^dJhjsJa amp;s for the famed

  Pavlovian theory of conditioned_£eJex^jwu1^1iis_ia^£njtiQn that all move

  ments traditionaflyjiescnb_eil^jfjalmitar^^^material

  reflexes in the strictest sense of Jh^jvord34

  J ~~B^^^E^^_mQSLla^^JSS^SL^^^Bs was tne emergence of

  P

  tfae intelligentsia as a self-conscious and distinct sociaTgroup and*'ffs~crea-~ tion of the ?^~35??^?^^^?^^??^?1?1??^????^? ideaTn"aTa"haIP hidd^nhigher intelligence rules the world was, as we have seen, a common-* place of higher order Masonry; and Schwarz had actually introduced /'Various forms of the Latin intelligentia and intellectus into the Russian language in this exalted sense in the early 1780's. The Pocket Dictionary of the Petrashevtsy added the word "intellectual" (intellektual'ny) to the Russian vocabulary, suggesting that it had the all-embracing meaning of the Russian word for "spiritual" (dukhovny). This lofty conception of the ruling force of intelligence and the intellect was given a distinctly historical cast by Pisarev in his insistence that "the moving force of history is intelligentsia, the path of history is marked out by the level of theoretical development of intelligentsia."35

  ??? alsoi~a~specific group elt a certain sense of

  But_the striking new feature about the use of the term "intelligentsia'^ in the sixtie^jsjhatitjr^mtjuit^ of^pEopfeTThis grouowas essentially those who

  unity-through^fietiation becaaSe~5T^e»-^ti^ation in the iconoclasm of

  the slxtleirTlteT^sl^^a liaTa"*"g7T~ac-

  cented on the last syllable, and conceived as a member of this intelligentsiia) was used by the novelist Boborykin to describe his own sense of estrangement from the petty concerns of provincial life after returning to Nizhny Novgorod from Tartu, the freest university in the Russian empire in the 1850's. One of ^h5_reasonsJo£th£j;HejQa^ojnofthe intelligentsia frornjhe ordinary folk of Russia was revealed in the verb that was derived from the

  name of this_prolific writer: boborykat' ("to talk endlessly^). But the_eyer-

  prophetic Herzen ????????????????^alienation

  and jjjg_gyCTJLUal fate of thTmtelligentsia in the pages of the Be?TSjulyL 1864. Having been long since rejected by the young g
eneration, Herzen characterizes them as

  . . . non-people^ne;^od}_:_._^Jntell^entsia _. ._. democratic Jojds (shliakhta"commanders, and teachers . . . you ????? nothingr.'. . You have not yet thought about what Holsteln-Arakcheev, PeIelib~u"r^-TsarrsT^erS5c-racy means, soon^ you will feel that it means a redIcaj^jgnj^etrine cudgel. You shall be destroyed lrOhe abysTT'TTandjjgcm _your_grave. . . . there will look on, facing each other: from above a bodyguard the EmperoT^rSseainjjflnsiffo'wers ^????^???????^??^^^^ the worfdT and from below^Jhe^^ojlingj^fenjcjflus-^^eaLof^ the peo£le_ in which^yoSTsBaTl"vanish without a trace.36

  Thus the intelligentsia are the leaders of the coming democracy who are destined to be devoured by it. They are alienated both from the ordinary people and from all the "self-willed" political authorities of the present, transitory world of repression.

  The intelligentsia are not self-willed because they are dedicated men, as Shelgunov-a leading participant in the ferment of the sixties-stresses in his almost simultaneous article of May, 1864.

  The intelligentsia of the XVIII century was purely bourgeois. . . . Only the intelligentsia of the XIX century, schooled in generalization, has posed as the aim of all its efforts the happiness of all . . . equality.37

  That whichdeepened and intensified the sense of common dedications, within this aUenateo^iielllgeuiSTa-trasjtS growing belief that progress'was~an,‹‹l ????????????????. Following Pisarev's articles in 1865 on "The Historical Ideas of Auguste Comte" and several serialized works of the late sixties, such as Mikhailovsky's "What is Progress?" and Lavrov's Historical Letters, the nascent intelligentsia can be said to have found new encouragement and umty in the broad vision' oFprogress presented by Auguste ColmteT* Comte's idea that all of human activity moved" from theologythrough meta-phy"siCs~fo""a positive~or scientiHC stage encouraged them to believe that all sociaT problems would SQonJbfi resolved by the last and most promising of the positive sciences--the science of society^ Thus, the appeal which Comte haU^HdresseaTn'vain to Nicholas I to overleap the West by adopting his new "religion of humanity" elicited, in effect, a belated response a decade later from the alienated intelligentsia. They were excited by his appeal for a new aristocracy of talent rather than privilege, which would hasten the in-

  evitable transformation of society by pledging themselves to the service of humanity and a socialism that was "practical" and "positive" rather than "metaphysical" and revolutionary.

  Newly infused with historical optimism, the intelligentsia required a further sense of identity through its ???^?^?^?~?^1 amp;???/^ policies that predormnated_in^the late yeare_ci^lexajader^J[eigii. They felt obliged to carry on the tradition of uncompromising; protest and strivinpjlor""" sotianjgJie^mentJhaUia^^

  skyjjo carry on the critical traditions of the dead Dobroliubov and Pisarev

  and the journalistic traditions of the newly abolished Sovremennik. Ironically

  enough, the introjhictionoJUrj amp;Tbj!jujyin4£_wjrypatified the intelligentsia's

  thir^lo1ju^tic£:_Ori_Jie_contrary, it hplrj^jJgrjJfyZftgir ‹pt1sfi .gtjlllill^'""

  martyrdomJ3y_j^vMing^for solf-dofense

  through impassioned oration.

  ~ThTrs7]inj5e~^^ radicals had cony^rtedtheiryouthful {attachm.eni.tO} scifiaceinto an optimistic

  Chernyjh£y_skjj^ohad suffered fo£jbejr_beliefs. They viewed themselves as a dedicated elite of intelligentnye, kul'turnye, tsivilizovannye, though they were not necessarily "intelligent," "cultured," or even "civilized" in the usual Western sense of these terms. They thought of themselves as practical rather than "superfluous" people: students ~bTl;cieme,jm.d__servants of history. However much they debated over what the scientific "formula for pro^ess"^mght_be and what the coming 'ftfiird age" of humanity might bring, they all viewed themselves as members of a common group which Pisarev and Shelgunov called the "thinkingprolefanat," Lavrov "critically thinking personalities","" and ethers- '-'cultural pioneers?'"

  In the summer of 1868, the group can be_ amp;aid to have been formally aptm^h^^^^^^^-^^^^^^^01 attbat^Inte^KfiKhailovsky entitled his critical column for the new "thick journal," The Contemporary Review, "Letters on the Russian Intelligentsia." This column was tihecentral one in a journal designed to_rjergetuate the traditions of Chernyshevsky and Dobroliubov (its title being deliberately chosen forTts"resemblaflce-tB-ftat of their Contemporary). Although this journal did not last long, Mikhailov-sky soon joined" the r^we amp;7btmxls~vf-the Fatherland, the old journal of Maikov and Belinsky in the forties, which now became the medium for propagating the.belief that Russian social thought was providing a new elite*" who were theelect of history ?????????1?^

  1870, the Annals increased its circulation from 2,000 to 8,000-the largest monffly^frculatioffattained up to that time by any radicaljcuKar.""Miffiai=~"*-lovsky, aschlefcfitteTof the ]??????????? bSToFBHmsky over his writing

  desk. Other critics on it were Eliseev, a former associate of Chernyshevsky, and Skabichevsky, a former leader of the Sunday-school movement; and the belles-lettres department was dominated by the great satirist and former Petrashevets, Saltykov, and the "civic poet" and former editor of The Contemporary, Nekrasov. The Annals became "the bible of the Russian in-te?^ent,sjaJl?^U?lxJ2gca'?se of its self-conscious pose as heir to the radical traditions of Russian social thought, but alsoberau^e^f^jffijpagatiojLoJ, the nelFoffimistic theory of history. Another former associate_ofjCherny-shevsky_j›ojnted independently in the^ sujmmer-of-x86 amp;Jo.the jirnpOTtanceof the optimistic historical faith for the nascent intelligentsia:

  the union of the heights and depths, of intelligentsia with the people is not an empty dream. This union is an inevitable historical law. It is the path of our progress. . . ,88

  Intelligence mustjkjw into_p£Q_ple, just as the intelligentsia must j›o_out amongjhe people. This was the imperative that Herzen had first presented the young generation_on the pages of the Bell late i" ?^??, gt»g_tbe. University of St. Petersburg was closed because of student riots:

  Whither should you go, youth from whom science has been taken away? . . . Listen-from all corners of the vast fatherland: from the Don and Urals, from the Volga and Dnieper the groans are increasing, the murmur is rising-It 'sJ"2£Jgitbi.liS amp;Jf'ar of an nrfii? WflVP • • • Into the people, to the people (v narod! ? narodu)-there is your destination, banished men of science. . . .39

  Herzen's plea had already been answered to a considerable extent by the extraoniinary^^nchiy-school movement which flourished in Russia bgtgeen 1859-62 and may_£roperT3rbedesc7Ibed as the_first_of the large-scale penitential" effortsof the urbluTintelleHuluTto take the fruits of learnmgto the ordinary people? P. Pavlov, the proiessoTof Russian history at Kiev, was the "pioneer of this movemlmT"t5""providTTree p^irT3imejns4niction for the , indigent.40 He was but 6ne~of~artarge~number of provincial InstonarirTo build an aura of heroic dignity about Russian popular institutions and stimulate the desire of urban intellectuals to rediscover the richness and spontaneity of rural Russia. A. Shchapov and G. Eliseev, two of the most influential populist journalists of the seventies, both began their careers as students of the raskol at the Kazan theological seminary. Kostomarov, a veteran of Ukrainian radical activities and professor of Russian history at St. Petersburg, lent a new glamor to the tradition of peasant revolution and was perhaps the most popular of all lecturers among the radical new men of the sixties. Ivan Prvzhov wrote a History of Taverns, contending that the true commuriaTfeelings and revolutionary spirit of the simple people can

  only be appreciated in their taverns. Herzen paid great attention to the Old Believers and printed up a special supplement for them. Even the rationalistic and utilitarian-minded Chernyshevsky began his journalistic career with an article in praise of the "fools for Christ's sake" and ended it with a defense of the Old Believers. This extraordinary interest in thepecuriarities . of Russian rural life-and particularly in the unique traditions of popular religious dissent-helped convince the urban intdle£tua]5_^iat=Russia hacTa" special destiny to fulfill and untapppd^po
pular_resources for^realizing^it.

  _~'- ii in i *-'

  developing in Russia since the 1840's, the populists believed that a special

  path for Russian social development lay"~Tn" ext^ndin^ the, principles of

  profit sharjng_and cormroinabendeavor still preyjulnigjn_the peasant com

  mune. This peaceful transformation of society could be accomplished only

  by dedicated servants of humanity who had no desire to. aggrandize_w_ealth in

  the English manner or power in the German fashion. They saw little hope in

  working through political media for reform, since European politics was

  dominated by the meaningless parliaments and constitutions of Anglo-

  French liberalism or the brutally centralizing tendencies of German mili

  tarism. They vaguely hoped_for some kind of loose, decentralized federation

  on the American pattern-the Ukrainian populist proup actually calling

  themselves"the Americans." But their basic conviction was that ??????"