Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow

by Irina Reyfman

  9. The life written by Pavel Radishchev, as published in the Biografiia A. N. Radishcheva, amply draws on the documentary sources concerning Radishchev’s case (“delo o Radishcheve”).

  10. In Aleksandr Nikolaevich Radishchev, A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, trans. Leo Wiener, edited with an introduction and notes by Roderick Page Thaler (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1958), vii. Leo Wiener (1862–1939) began teaching at Harvard in 1896 and eventually became the first American professor of Slavic literature. He was a prolific translator (including of the works of Tolstoy). As Thaler reports in the preface to the book, this “translation was first prepared by Professor Leo Wiener of Harvard University, who unhappily did not live to see it published” (vii). Thaler then reports that he “thoroughly revised” Wiener’s translation and supplied the introduction and notes (viii). The Cold War position on Radishchev as a radical and early advocate of “liberal” values, meaning broadly republican or specifically democratic, was a view that took hold in scholarship of which David Marshall Lang, The First Russian Radical. Alexander Radishchev, 1749–1802 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1959) is an example.

  11. Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992).

  12. Radishchev’s interest in Trediakovsky as a stylistic rule giver was genuine, informing his Monument to a Dactylic-Trochaic Knight (Pamiatnik daktilokhoreicheskomu vitiaziu, 1801). A formally heterogeneous work, part dialogue, part treatise, concerning aspects of versification and earlier influential writers such as Trediakovsky and Lomonosov, it can be read as an extension of the exploration of norms of Russian prosody versus prosody adapted from European models to which the chapter in the Journey “Tver” is dedicated.

  NOTE ON THE TEXT

  Our source for this translation is the text published in A. N. Radishchev, Puteshestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu. Vol’nost’, ed. V. A. Zapadov (St. Petersburg: Nauka, 1992). While we have followed this edition’s paragraphing and punctuation, we have departed from its tendency to print certain words (usually religious in meaning, such as “God” and related pronouns) in lowercase and normalized according to standard English practice. In this regard, the first edition as printed by Radishchev has been of somewhat limited use because the book, like many eighteenth-century editions, is typographically inconsistent, although in most instances these words appear in uppercase. While we have also consulted the edition published by Andrei Kostin, generally based on Zapadov’s text, and taken note of his more liberal use of uppercase, we have preferred to follow the usage in the original 1992 publication.

  All notes in the backmatter are by the translators. The footnotes in the text are of two kinds: simple translation glosses, indicated by “—Trans.,” and Radishchev’s own footnotes, some of which include lengthy passages from his source documents. The transliteration of Russian words in English follows house style and in most instances omits the soft-sign and other diacritics. Chapters are not numbered in Radishchev’s original; that numbering is added for the readers’ convenience.

  A monster stout, wicked, huge, with a hundred maws, and barking.

  Tilemakhida, vol. II, book XVIII, verse 514

  A.M.K.

  To my dearest friend

  Whatever my heart and mind should wish to create, O! you who share all my feelings, may it be dedicated to you! While our opinions differ in many respects, your heart beats in tune with my own—and therefore you are my friend.

  I glanced about myself: my soul became lacerated by the sufferings of humanity. I directed my gaze to my inner being and beheld that the woes of man come from man, and often only because we do not inspect closely what surrounds us. Can nature treat its children so meanly, I said to myself, that it has hidden truth forever from a person who strays innocently from the right path? Can it be that this fearsome stepmother has created us to feel woes alone and never bliss? My reason flinched at this idea, and my heart thrust it far away. I found man’s consoler inside himself. “Tear away the veil from the eyes of natural feeling—and I shall be gratified.” This voice of nature reverberated loudly through my constitution. I rose up from the desolation into which empathy and the capacity to feel had cast me. I felt within myself strength enough to resist error; and—unspeakable joy!—I sensed that everyone has the ability to participate in doing good for his equal.—This thought prompted me to write what you are about to read. But if, I told myself, I find someone who approves my intention, who for the sake of this good goal will not fault the unfortunate representation of my thought, who will suffer together with me over the woes of his brethren, who will fortify me in my progress—will not, then, the fruit of the work I have undertaken be greater? … Why, why indeed should I seek far for such a person? My friend! Near my heart do you dwell, and may your name illuminate this beginning.

  DEPARTURE

  After supping with my friends, I settled in the carriage. As was his habit, the coachman drove the horses at full pelt, and within a few minutes I was already outside the city. Parting from one who has become essential to every minute of our existence is difficult, even for a short time. Parting is difficult. But blessed is he who is able to take his leave without smiling: love or friendship secure his comfort. As you pronounce “farewell,” you weep. But remember that you will return and let your tears at this imagining vanish like dew before the face of the sun. Blessed is he who weeps while hoping for a consoler;1 blessed is he who sometimes lives in the future; blessed is he who lives in a reverie. His being is enriched, his joys multiply, and tranquility preempts the gloom of sadness by placing images of rejoicing in the mirrors of the imagination.—I lie in the carriage. At last the din of the postal carriage’s bell, grown wearisome to my ears, summoned beneficent Morpheus. The sorrow of my departure, pursuing me into my deathlike state, represented me to my imagination on my own. I beheld myself in an expansive valley that had lost all pleasantness and variety of greenery owing to the heat of the sun. No source of freshness could be found here, there were no shady trees for the alleviation of the heat. Alone, abandoned, a hermit in the middle of nature! I shuddered. “Wretch,” I cried, “where are you? Where has everything that used to entice you vanished? Where is that which made your life pleasant? Could it be that the enjoyments of which you partook were a dream and fancy?” When the carriage hit the rut that happened to be in the road and woke me up it was a lucky stroke.—The carriage stopped. I lifted my head a bit. I see: in a deserted place stands a house of three stories. “What have we here?” I asked my driver. “The postal station.” “Where then are we?” “In Sofia.” He was meanwhile unharnessing the horses.

  SOFIA

  Silence everywhere. Plunged as I was in my ruminations, I failed to note that my carriage had long been standing without horses. The coachman who took me there drew me out of my pensiveness. “Sir, Master, a tip!” Although such a collection is not legal, everyone pays willingly in order not to travel according to the decrees.2 The twenty kopecks served me well. Anyone who has traveled by post coach knows that а voucher for horses is an indemnifying letter without which there is a cost to every purse (excepting that of a general, possibly). Taking it out of my pocket, I walked with it in the way people sometimes walk holding a cross to protect themselves.

  The stationmaster was snoring when I lightly took him by the shoulder. “Who the devil is pestering me? What an idea it is to travel out of the city at night. There are no horses; it is still very early. Why don’t you go over, then, to the tavern, drink some tea or have a sleep?” Once he spoke, Mr. Stationmaster turned to the wall and again began to snore. What to do? I shook him again by the shoulder.3 “Damn it, as I’ve already said there are no horses,” and Mr. Stationmaster covered his head in the blanket and turned away from me.—“If the horses are all in use,” I reflected, “then it is unfair to be disturbing the sleep of the stationmaster. But if the horses are in the stable….”—I decided to find out whether Mr. Stationmaster was telling the truth. I went out
to the courtyard, found the stable, and there discovered up to twenty horses; and while it is true that their bones were showing, they would have dragged me as far as the next station. From the stable, I returned to the stationmaster, shook him much harder. It seemed to me that I had the right to do so after discovering that the stationmaster had lied. He jumped up hastily and before he managed to force his eyes open asked, “Who has arrived? It isn’t….” But he came to his senses when he saw me and said, “Apparently, young fellow, in the past you acquired the habit of treating drivers this way. They used to be beaten with sticks. Times have changed.” The stationmaster lay down in the bed angrily. I wanted to treat him like those drivers of olden times were treated when they were exposed as liars. But the generosity I had exercised in giving a gratuity to the city driver aroused the drivers of Sofia to harness horses for me as fast as possible, and just as I was planning to take it out on the back of the stationmaster, a little harness bell chimed in the courtyard. I remained a good citizen. That is how twenty copper kopecks spared a peace-loving man from prosecution, my children from the example of intemperance in anger; and from this I learned that reason is a slave to impatience.

  The horses hurry me along. My coachman has launched into song, a mournful one, as usual. Anyone who knows the melodies of Russian folk songs will admit that they contain something that expresses spiritual anguish of the soul. Practically all the melodies of songs of this kind have a soft tone.—One could learn from the people’s ear for music how to govern. You can find the composition of our nation’s soul in these songs.4 Consider the Russian person: you will find him to be thoughtful. If he wants to dispel boredom or if, as he himself calls it, he wants to have good time, he goes to a tavern. When in his cups he is spontaneous, bold, disagreeable. Should something cross him, he will quickly begin an argument or a fight.—The barge-hauler who visits a tavern with his head hanging and returns bloodied from fisticuffs is able to explain a lot of the Russian history that until now was enigmatic.

  My coachman sings.—It was the third hour of the morning. Just like the little bell earlier, now his song effected sleep in me.—O Nature, having wrapped man at birth in the swaddling cloth of bitter sorrow, dragging him through the length of his entire life span across the harsh ridges of fear, grief, and sadness, you gave him sleep as a joy.—One goes to sleep, and everything has ended.—To an unhappy man waking up is unbearable. Oh, how pleasant death is for him. If it truly is an end to bitter sorrow.—All-benevolent Father, would you really avert your gaze from a man who bravely ends a troubled life? To you who are the source of all blessings a sacrifice of this kind is proffered. You alone give strength when one’s nature, shaken, falters. This is the voice of the Father summoning His child to Him. You gave me life, to You I return it, it has already become futile in this world.

  TOSNA

  When departing from Petersburg, I thought the road would be top quality. All who traveled on it following the sovereign thought so.5 And so it truly was, but only for a short spell. In dry weather, the dirt scattered on the road gave it a smooth surface; once soaked by the rains, it produced heaps of mud in the summer that made the road impassable…. Bothered by the bad road, I quit my carriage and entered the postal cabin with the intention of resting. In the cabin, I found a traveler who, seated at the usual sort of long rustic table in the front corner, was sorting papers and asking the postmaster to order that his horses be provided as soon as possible. In response to my question as to who he was, I learned he was solicitor of the old school, heading to Petersburg with a mass of tattered papers that he was reviewing at that moment. I entered unhesitatingly into conversation with him, and this is the talk we had: “Kind Sir! I, your most humble servant, was a registrar in the Service Archive6 and had occasion to use my position for my own advantage. To the best of my modest ability, I compiled genealogies of many Russian lineages, based on clear deductions. I can prove their princely or noble lineage for several hundreds of years. I can restore practically any person’s princely standing, having traced his origin from Vladimir Monomakh or Rurik himself.7 Kind Sir!,” he continued, pointing to his papers, “the entire nobility of Great Russia ought to purchase my work, and pay for it sums not paid for any merchandise. But if your Excellency, your Honor, or Most Honorable—I do not know what your honorific is—will allow, these people do not know what they need. You are aware just how much the pious Tsar Fyodor Alexeyevich of blessed memory offended the Russian nobility when he abolished mestnichestvo. This strict law placed many distinguished princely and royal clans on equal footing with the nobility of Novgorod.8 But then our pious ruler, the Emperor Peter the Great, brought about their total eclipse with his Table of Ranks.9 He opened the path for everyone to the acquisition of a noble title through military and civil service and trampled in the dirt, so to speak, the ancestral nobility. Our Reigning Most Gracious Mother, ruling most kindly, confirmed these earlier ordinances with a supreme regulation on the nobility, that alarmed just about all our lineal nobles since ancient families were ranked lower than all the rest in the register of nobles.10 But a rumor is going round that soon an additional decree will be published and that those families whose noble origins can be proven for either two hundred or three hundred years will be awarded the title Marquess or some other eminence, and that they will enjoy before other families a certain distinction. For this reason, kind Sir, my work ought to be thoroughly agreeable to the entire ancestral nobility. But everyone has his detractors.

  “In Moscow I found myself in the company of some young whippersnapper lordlings and offered them my work in order to recoup, thanks to their generous attention, the paper and ink I had wasted, if nothing else. But instead of a favorable reception I met with mockery and, having out of grief left behind this capital city, I embarked on the road to Piter11 where, as we know, there is much more enlightenment.” Having said this, he bowed deeply from the waist,12 drew himself up and stood before me in an attitude of great reverence. I understood his meaning, got … out of my wallet … and once I’d given that money to him, advised him that when he came to Petersburg he should sell his paper by the weight as wrapping to peddlers, since many would have their heads turned by the imaginary title of Marquess, and he would be the reason for the rebirth in Russia of an evil that had been abolished—bragging of an ancient pedigree.

  LYUBANI

  It is all the same to you, I think, whether I was traveling in the summer or winter. Perhaps it was both winter and summer. This happens not infrequently with travelers: they go out on a sleigh and come back in a cart.—It is summer.—The road paved with logs wore out my sides; I got out of the carriage and continued on foot. While I was lying in the carriage, my thoughts were turned toward the immeasurability of the world. Detaching myself spiritually from earth seemed to alleviate the bumps of the carriage.—But spiritual exercises do not always distract us from corporeality; and for the preservation of my sides I went on foot.—At a distance of several paces from the road I saw a peasant plowing a field. It was hot out. I looked at my watch.—Forty minutes past noon.—I set out on Saturday.—Today is a day of rest.—The peasant at the plow surely belongs to a landowner who does not take quitrent from him.13—The peasant plows with great diligence.—The field is evidently not the landlord’s.—He turns the plow with unbelievable ease. “Godspeed,” I said as I approached the plowman who, without stopping, completed the furrow that had been started. “Godspeed,” I repeated. “Thank you, Master,” said the plowman, shaking out the plowshare and moving the plow over to a new strip. “You must be a Schismatic if you plow on Sundays.”14 “No, Master, I make the sign of the cross in the straight fashion,” he said, showing me three fingers held together.15 “But God is merciful, when one has strength and family, He does not will one to die of hunger.” “But can it be that during the entire week you have no time to work so that you cannot skip Sundays, not even during the hottest period?” “In the week, as it happens, Master, there are six days, and six times a week we go to
work for the master;16 and toward evening we bring the hay left in the forest to the landowner’s courtyard if weather permits; and on holidays the womenfolk and gals go for walks into the forest for mushrooms and berries. May God grant (making the sign of the cross) some rain this evening. Master, if you, too, have peasants then they are praying for the same thing from the Lord.” “I have no peasants, my friend, and that is why no one curses me. Is your family large?” “Three sons and three daughters. Going on ten years is the eldest little one.” “How do you manage to provide their bread if you are free only on holidays?” “Not only the holidays are ours, since the night is ours too. If the likes of me are not lazy, then we will not die of hunger. Do you not see that one horse is resting, and when this one grows tired, I will then take the other; this way the work goes smoothly.” “Do you work this way for your owner?” “No, Master, it would be sinful to work the same way. At the plowing he has a hundred hands for each mouth, while I have two for seven mouths, you know how to count. Why, even if one busted a gut working for the landowner they’ll never say thank you. The landowner will not pay the poll tax17 for you; he will not let you off the hook for a single sheep or chicken; nor a piece of canvas or butter. For us it’s a good life when the master collects the quitrent, even better if he does not have an estate manager. It is true that sometimes even good owners collect more than three rubles per soul; but still, this is better than the corvée. Now a new arrangement has also come into use, it is called letting villages out for rent. But we call this ‘complete betrayal.’ A poor tenant skins the peasants alive, he even helps himself to our best season. In the winter he bars us from the carrier trade and from seeking work in the city. You work no end for him because he pays the poll tax for us. What a diabolical idea it is to lend one’s own peasants to another for work. At least you can complain about a bad estate manager, but to whom do you complain about a renter?” “My friend, you are mistaken, the laws prohibit the tormenting of people.” “Tormenting? This is true; nonetheless, Master, I venture you would not want to be in my skin.” Meanwhile the plowman harnessed the other horse to the plow and, after starting another strip, parted from me.