A Herzen Reader

9. The Bell: A Supplement to The Polestar [1857]

54 A Herzen Reader Notes Source: “Kreshchennaia sobstvennost’. Predislovie k vtoromu izdaniiu,” 1857; 12:94– 96, 516–19. 1. Harun-al-Rashid (763–809), an Arabian caliph. 2. Alexander F. Smirdin (1795–1857), owner of a bookstore, library, and printing press in Petersburg. Ivan I. Glazunov (1826–1889), a bookseller and publisher, grandson of the founder of Russia’s oldest book business. 3. This was the reaction to Herzen’s article “St. George’s Day! St. George’s Day!”  9  The Polestar, Bk. III, 1857. The first separate issue of The Bell in July 1857 included this announcement with additional comments. During the dramatic trial scenes in The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky had the defense lawyer Fetyukovich pull out all the stops, with quotations from the gospels and references to the well-known Schiller epigraph from The Bell: “As a man and a citizen I call out—vivos voco! [. . .] Not in vain is this tribune given us by a higher will—from here we can be heard by the whole of Russia.”1 Herzen did not have great faith in state-run trials either, but for fundamentally different reasons. Dostoevsky is more critical of the liberals and radicals who read The Bell than of its editor, who died a decade before the publication of The Brothers Karamazov.  The Bell A Supplement to The Polestar [1857] “Vivos voco!” The Polestar comes out too rarely—we do not have the means to publish it more frequently. Aside from that, events in Russia are moving quickly, they must be caught on the fly and discussed right away. For this purpose we are undertaking a new periodical publication. Without fixing the exact times of its appearance, we will attempt to issue one sheet, sometimes two, every month under the title The Bell. The success of The Polestar has far exceeded our expectations, and allows us to hope for a positive reception for its traveling companion. Nothing needs to be said about its political tendency; it is the same as The Polestar, the same one that moves with constancy through our whole life. Everywhere, in all matters, to be on the side of freedom against coer- The Bell: A Supplement to The Polestar 55 cion, the side of reason against prejudice, the side of science against fanaticism , and the side of advancing peoples against backward governments. These are our general doctrines. In our attitude toward Russia, we passionately wish, with all the strength of our love, with all the force of our uttermost belief, that at last the old and unnecessary swaddling clothes that hinder her powerful development would fall away. For that purpose, now, as in 1855, we consider as the first necessary, unavoidable, and urgent step: freedom of expression from censorship freedom of the serfs from the landowners freedom from corporal punishment. However, not limiting ourselves to these questions, The Bell, dedicated exclusively to Russian questions, will ring out from whatever touches it— absurd decrees or the foolish persecution of religious dissidents, theft by high officials or the senate’s ignorance. The comical and the criminal, the evil and the ignorant—all of these come under The Bell. For that reason we turn to our fellow countrymen, who share our love for Russia, and ask them not only to listen to our Bell but to take their own turn in ringing it. The first issue will appear around the 1st of June. London, April 13, 1857 It will be sold at Trubner and Co, 60, Paternoster Row, London (Price 6 pence) Note Source: “Kolokol. Pribavochnye listy k Poliarnoi zvezde,” Poliarnaia zvezda, kn. 3, 1857; 12:357–58, 557. 1. “I summon the living!” From the epigraph to Friedrich Schiller’s 1798 “Song of the Bell” (for more on this quotation, see the introduction). The Dostoevsky quote is from the translation of the novel by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (New York: Farrar , Straus and Giroux, 1990), 744.  10  The Bell, No. 1, July 1, 1857. The epigraph was a poem by Nikolay Ogaryov about the years of enforced silence in Russia, which are coming to an end as all its bells sound forth. Ac- ...