Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow

by Irina Reyfman

  May such a reproach not fall on us. Having conceived a hatred for flattery from youth, we safeguarded our heart from its poisonous sweetness even to the present day; and now a new effort in our love and loyalty toward you shall be manifest. Today we are eliminating the parity between court-based service and the military and civil service. Let the practice, to our shame having survived for so many years, be eliminated in our lifetime. May genuine merits and qualities, concern for the general good, receive a reward for their labors and be the only ones to be distinguished.

  Having cast from our heart so unbearable a burden, long oppressing us, we shall reveal to you our reasons for the elimination of ranks so offensive to merit and worth.—The assertion is made to you, and our ancestors were of the same views, that the Tsar’s throne, the strength of which resides in the opinions of citizens, ought to be distinguished by its external brilliance in order that the idea of its majesty remain always perfect and unassailable. From this stems the opulent appearance of the rulers of nations, from this stems the troop of slaves surrounding them. Everyone must agree that external trappings may dazzle narrow minds and small souls. But the more enlightened a people, that is the more individuals it has who are enlightened, the less effect external appearance has. Numa was able to convince the still uncouth Romans that the nymph Egeria77 guided him in establishing the laws. The weak Peruvians willingly believed Manco Cápac78 that he was the scion of the sun and that his law descended from the heavens. Mohammed was able to entice the nomadic Arabs with his ravings. They all used trappings, even Moses took up the tablets of the commandments on the mount amidst the flashing of lightning. But now should anyone wish to entice, it is not a brilliant exterior he will need but the appearance of arguments, if one may put it that way, the semblance of persuasions. If anyone now should want to affirm his message from above, he would sooner use the semblance of utility and everybody will be moved by this. But we who are focusing all our energies on what is good for all and for each, what does brilliance of external appearance matter to us? Is it not the usefulness of our resolutions, directed toward the good of the state, that makes our countenance resplendent? Each person considering us will see our good intention, will see his own benefit in our action and for that reason will bow to us not as to one walking in terror but as to one enthroned in goodness. If the ancient Persians had always been ruled generously then they would not have imagined the existence of Ahriman, or the hated origin of evil. But if opulent trappings are of no use to us, how dangerous their upholders are in the state. If in service their only duty is to indulge us how resourceful they will be in all that can please us. Our inclination will be anticipated; not only will no inclination be allowed to be born in us, but not even a thought since its satisfaction will already have been prepared. Look with terror on the effect of these sorts of indulgences. The firmest soul will falter in its principles, will lend an ear to flattering mellifluousness, will fall asleep. And these delicious charms will work round reason and the heart. Others’ despair and injury will scarcely make an impression on us as passing afflictions; to feel grief about them we will consider either unbecoming or repugnant, and we shall forbid even complaining about them. The most biting sorrows and wounds, and even death, will look like the inevitable results of the course of things; and since they appear to us from behind an opaque screen, they can hardly produce in us even the ephemeral effects that theatrical performances produce in us. For it is not in us that the piercing arrow of illness or the prod of evil shudder.

  This is a pale picture of all the detrimental consequences of the conceited actions of kings. Are we not be blessed if we have been able to hide from the perversion of our good intentions? Are we not blessed also if we have put a limit to the contagion of example? Assured of our good-heartedness, assured that there will not be corruption from without, assured of the moderation of our desires, we will flourish again and shall be an example to the most distant posterity of how power and freedom should be conjoined for the common good.

  TORZHOK

  Here in the postal yard I was greeted by a man heading to Petersburg on a quest to submit a petition. This petition was to attain permission to establish in this city a free press. I told him that permission was not needed for this, since freedom has already been granted to all in this regard. But he wanted freedom from censorship and here are his thoughts on the matter:

  “We all have permission to possess printing establishments, and the time when it was feared to grant this to private individuals has already passed; the reason whereby at the time they refrained from introducing a general good and useful institution was that they feared forged passes could be printed on private presses. Now everyone is free to maintain printing tools but what can be printed remains under regulation. Censorship has become a nanny to reason, wit, imagination, all that is grand and exquisite. But where there are nannies it follows that there will be children; they go about in a harness, as a result often their legs are crooked; where there are guardians, it follows that there are young, immature minds unable to control themselves. If nannies and guardians carry on forever, then the child will long go about in a harness and at maturity be a complete cripple. This minor will always be a Mitrofanushka,79 unable to take a step without his tutor, unable to manage his inheritance without a guardian. These are the sorts of things that everywhere are the consequences of routine censorship, and the stricter it is the more damaging the consequences. Let us listen to Herder.80

  The very best way to encourage the good is nonhindrance, license, freedom in thought. An inquisition is damaging in the kingdom of knowledge: it thickens the air and hampers breathing. A book that passes through ten censors before it comes into the world is not a book but the product of the Holy Inquisition, a prisoner often disfigured, beaten with rods and a muzzle in its mouth, and always a slave…. In the spheres of truth, in the kingdom of thought and spirit, no kind of earthly power can give permissions nor should it; the government cannot do this, even less the censor whether wearing a klobuk or a lanyard.81 In the kingdom of truth, the censor is not the judge but the defendant, so too the writer. Improvement can only occur through enlightenment; without a head and brain neither a hand nor leg will stir…. The more principled a state is in its rules, the more ordered, brighter, and firmer it is in itself, the less it can falter and be buffeted by the gust of every opinion, each piece of ridicule from an angry writer; and the more a government exercises benevolence in freedom of thought and freedom of writing, the gain therefrom will be in the end, of course, to truth. Wreckers are suspicious; secret villains are timid. A bold man, one doing right and firm in his principles, will permit any word to be said about him. He walks in the light and turns the calumny of his enemies to his own advantage. Monopolies of opinion are dangerous…. Let the ruler of the state be objective in his views so that he might apprehend the opinions of all and in his kingdom permit, enlighten, and dispose them to the good: here you have why truly great rulers are so rare.

  “Convinced of the usefulness of publishing, the government granted permission to all; but convinced even more that curbs on thoughts would invalidate the good intention of the freedom to publish, it entrusted censorship, or the supervision of editions, to the Department of Public Morals. In this respect, its duty can only be to ban the sale of offensive works. However, even such censorship is superfluous. It only takes one stupid police official to do the greatest harm to enlightenment and for many years bring to a halt the progress of reason: he can forbid a useful invention, a new idea, and deprive all of something great. There is an example in a small thing. A translation of a novel was submitted for approval to the police. Following the author, when speaking about love, the translator dubbed it ‘a crafty god.’ The censor in uniform, imbued with the spirit of piety, blacked out this expression saying ‘it is improper to call a Deity crafty.’ If you don’t understand something then stay right out of it. If you want wholesome air, then place the smokery at a distance from yourself; if you want light, th
en cast aside obscurity; if you want a child not to be cowed, then banish the birch from school. In the house where whips and cudgels are in use servants are drunkards, thieves, and even worse.*

  “Let everyone print whatever comes into their mind. Anyone who finds himself insulted in print should be granted a trial as per the regulation. I am not speaking in jest. Words are not always acts nor are thoughts crimes. These are the rules of the Instruction about the new law code.82 But an insult in speech remains an insult in print as well. It is not permitted by law to insult anyone, and everyone has freedom to make a complaint. But if someone tells the truth about another, whether this should be considered libel or not is not in the law. What harm can there be if there are books in print without the police seal? Not only is there no harm, but there is advantage, advantage from the first to the last, from the smallest person to the greatest, from the Tsar to the last of citizens.

  “The usual rules of censorship are: to underline, black out, forbid, shred, burn everything contrary to natural religion and revelation, everything contrary to government, every personal affront; anything antithetical to morality, order, and public peace. Let us review this in detail. If a madman in his raving, not only to himself in his heart, but in a loud voice says: ‘There is no God,’ in the mouths of all madmen a loud and hasty echo will resound: ‘There is no God, there is no God.’ Well, what of it? An echo is a sound; it will strike the air, cause it to vibrate, and disappear. In the mind it will rarely leave a trace, and a weak one at that; but in the heart, never. God will always be God, sensed even by those who do not believe in Him. But if you think that the Almighty will be offended by blasphemy, how can a clerk in the office of the police be a plaintiff on His behalf? The Almighty does not place His confidence in one who brandishes a rattle or strikes the tocsin to sound an alarm. He who wields thunder and lightning, to whom all the elements obey; He who dwells beyond the boundaries of the universe and shakes all hearts, abhors it if revenge is taken for His sake even if this is by the Tsar himself, who fancies himself His deputy on earth.—Who, indeed, can be the judge of an offence to the Eternal Father?—He gives offence who thinks: I am able to judge about His insult. He will answer to this before Him.

  “The apostates of revealed religion have done more harm to this day in Russia than the deniers of the existence of God, atheists. Of the latter, we have few since there are still few among us who think about metaphysics. The atheist loses his way in metaphysics, but a Schismatic becomes deluded in the matter of three fingers.83 We call Schismatics all Russians who depart in any manner from the general teaching of the Greek church. Of these there are many in Russia, which is why their liturgy is permitted. But is there any reason to prohibit the manifestation of any error? The more apparent it is the sooner it will crumble. Persecutions used to make martyrs, cruelty was a prop of the very Christian religion. Schisms can sometimes have dangerous effects. Prohibit them. They spread by example. Destroy the example. It is not because of a printed book that a Schismatics will immolate themselves, but because of a sly example. To forbid foolishness is tantamount to encouraging it. Give it free rein, everyone will see what is stupid and what is smart. What is forbidden is wanted. We are all the children of Eve.

  “But in banning freedom to publish, timorous governments do not fear blasphemy, they fear having critics. Anyone who in hours of madness does not spare God will in hours of lucidity and reason not spare unlawful power. The one who does not fear the Almighty’s thunderbolts laughs at the gallows. This is why liberty of thought is terrifying to governments. Shaken to his very core, the freethinker will reach out to the idol of power a bold but powerful and unwavering hand, tear off its mask and cloak, and expose its build. Each will see its feet of clay, each will retract the support he granted it, power will return to its source, the idol will fall. But if power does not rest upon a fog of opinions, if its throne stands on a sincere love of the general good, will it not be strengthened by the divulgement of its principles? Will not he who loves sincerely not then be loved? Reciprocity is a feeling from nature, and this urge resides in nature. To a strong and firm building its own foundation should be sufficient: it has no need for supports and buttresses. Only if it totters from dilapidation will it require support. Let the government be truthful, its leaders not hypocritical: then all its spittle, then all its vomitings will throw back their fetidness on their belcher, while truth will forever be pure and fair to see. Whoever stirs things up with speech (so as to please power this is how we name all firm thoughts based in truth that contradict power) is just as mad as one who blasphemes against God. If power should travel on its rightful path, then it will not be troubled by the empty sound of calumny, just as the Lord of Hosts is not rattled by blaspheming. But woe unto power if out of avidity it violates the truth. Then even a sole firm thought troubles it, the word of truth will destroy it, a virile deed will scatter it.

  “A personal attack, if it is damaging, is an offense. A personal attack that is truthful is as permissible as truth itself. If a biased judge rules in favor of a lie and the defender of innocence exposes his ruling to the world as crooked, if he exposes his trickery and falsehood, this is a personal attack but can be condoned. If he should call the judge ‘hired,’ ‘false,’ ‘stupid,’ this personal affront can be condoned. However, if he should take to calling him by the foul nicknames and curse words, as used in markets, this personal affront is malicious and unacceptable. It is not the role of the government, however, to defend a judge even when he has been disparaged for being right. It is not him as judge, but the offended man who will be the plaintiff in this matter. As for the judge, let his deeds alone vindicate him in the eyes of the world and those who named him a judge.* This is how one should think about a personal attack. It deserves punishment, but if it is printed will do more good than harm. When everything is in order, when verdicts always conform to law, when the law is founded on truth and oppression is contained, then and only then, perhaps, can a personal attack corrupt morals. Let us say something about good conduct and to what extent words can damage it.

  “Obscene writings, full of lewd descriptions, breathing debauchery, whose every page and line gape with a titillating nudity, are harmful for the young and those of immature feeling. In fanning an already inflamed imagination, stirring the sleeping feelings and stimulating a heart that was quiet, they instill a precocious maturity, deceiving youthful senses about their resilience and laying the groundwork for their infirmity. Writings of this kind can be harmful; but they are not the root of corruption. If by reading them young men develop a taste for the ultimate satisfaction of amorous passion, they would be able to do nothing about it were it not for those who hawk their beauty. In Russia, such writings are still not in print, yet on every street in both capitals we see harlots garishly made-up. Action more than language corrupts, and example most of all. Itinerant harlots, granting their hearts at a public auction to the bidder, will infect a thousand youths with venereal disease and all this thousand’s progeny. But a book has not yet produced illness. Let the censure of female hustlers stand; it has no bearing on the works of the mind, even if debauched.

  “I shall close with this: censorship of print matter belongs to society. Society will award a laurel crown to the author or will use his sheets for wrapping paper. This is just like the approval the public, rather than the director of the theater gives to a work for theater. Similarly, the censor awards neither fame nor infamy to a work that has seen the light. The curtain has risen, the gazes of all are riveted on the action; it pleases—they applaud, it does not please—they stamp and jeer. Leave stupidity to the discretion of public judgment: it will find a thousand censors. The most severe police are no match for a disgruntled public when it comes to stymying the dregs of ideas. They will listen to these ideas one time, then these ideas will die never to be resurrected. But if we acknowledge the uselessness of censorship and, moreover, its harmfulness in the kingdom of knowledge, then let us recognize the widespread and unlimi
ted benefit of freedom of the press.

  It seems proof of this is not needed. If everyone is free to think and to express his thoughts unhindered, then it is natural that everything that is conceived, invented, should be known; what is great will remain great, the truth will not be hidden. The rulers of nations will not dare to stray from the path of truth and will fear lest their conduct, malice, and cunning be exposed. On signing an unjust sentence, the judge will begin to tremble and will tear it up. Anyone who has power will be ashamed to use it for the satisfaction only of his whims. Theft that is hidden will be called theft, murder that is covered up will be called murder. The wicked, all of them, will take fright at the severe gaze of truth. Tranquility will be genuine in the absence of a grain of fermentation. At present, only the surface appears smooth, but the silt lying at the bottom stirs up and obscures the clarity of the waters.”

  When saying goodbye to me, the critic of censorship gave me a small notebook. If, reader, you are not prone to boredom, read, then, what lies before you. If, however, it should happen that you yourself belong to the censorship committee, then turn down the corner of the page and skip past.

  A Short Account of the Origins of Censorship84

  If we say and confirm with evident proofs that censorship and the Inquisition have one and the same root; that the founders of the Inquisition invented censorship, that is, the mandatory examination of books before they see the light of day, then, while this will be saying nothing new, it does allow us to extract from the obscurity of past times, adding to the many others, clear proof that priests were always the inventors of the chains whereby human reason has at various times been weighed down; and that priests always clipped the wings of reason to hinder its flight toward majesty and freedom.