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82. The News from Russia [1866]
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Gentry Benefactors 281 Countess Orlova-Denisova, at the time of apportioning the arable land with the peasants, took the best land for herself, and for her peasants in Kolomyagi (in which province?) assigned land consisting of moss and quagmire. In order to smooth this over, she won over several peasants, and, to the most important of them, who had influence on the others, she gave permission to open a shop. Baron Ikskul has been trying for a long time to take away the homes of his former serfs in Gatobari, claiming that these houses belong to the manor: he owns a factory here. The residents had to literally move to a swamp. At first the case went in favor of the peasants, but then he managed the business very cleverly, and it went Ikskul’s way. Now the case is being examined at the highest level. Count Sheremetev had a very large number of house serfs.1 Several of the house serfs had received land as a reward for their service. When the February 19 manifesto went into effect, the count began to take back the land that he had given to the house serfs on the basis that according to the manifesto land was not assigned to house serfs. Several families of house serfs from the famous Ostankino estate began a lawsuit; it has dragged on until now with doubtful prospects of success for the house serfs, since they have no documents verifying the gift. Several peasants of that same Sheremetev acquired land under serfdom in the name of the radiant landowner. When the emancipation’s provisions went into effect, these lands were considered as part of the landowner’s portion. That last operation has already been reported on in The St. Petersburg Gazette. Note Source: “Blagodetel’nye pomeshchiki,” Kolokol, l. 219, May 1, 1866; 19:66–67, 384. 1. This case would seem especially egregious since the Sheremetevs were known to be one of the greatest landowning families in Russia. 82 The Bell, No. 220, May 15, 1866. Herzen offers additional comments on the attempted assassination. In his massive historical series The Red Wheel, Alexander Solzhenitsyn said of the abdication of March 1917 that it “happened almost instantaneously, but had been played out for 50 years, beginning with Karakozov’s shot” (Publitsistika 1995, 481). 282 A Herzen Reader The News From Russia [1866] The news from Russia is endlessly sad. The April 4 shot grows not by the day but by the hour, and by the hour into a general calamity which threatens to grow into more terrible and undeserved misfortunes for Russia. The police fury has reached monstrous dimensions. Like a bone tossed to a savage pack of hounds, the shot once again stirred up the combatants and blew off the faint ash which was beginning to cover the smoldering fire; the dark forces raised their heads yet higher, and the frightened helmsman is steering Russia at full speed to such a terrible harbor that at the thought of it one’s blood turns cold and the head grows dizzy. The shot was insane, but what is the moral condition of a state when its fate can be altered by chance actions, which cannot be foreseen or prevented exactly because they are insane? We absolutely do not believe in a serious or vast conspiracy. [. . .] That kind of action could be the revenge of that which is passing away, or an act of personal despair, but it cannot be the establishment of something new… To whom would its success be useful ? Perhaps to conservative landowners. The shot was understood perfectly among the people. They turned it into a celebration. What kind of ovation, coronation, or anointing with holy oil could have done more to shore up the throne, to strengthen the sovereign’s personal power than this shot, with the peasant’s saving arm, with all the circumstances? If there and then the sovereign would have risen to his full height, in the fullness of his magnanimity… and would have turned the shooter over to an ordinary court, but an open one. He did not do that and could not do that—he is surrounded by a different kind of conspiracy, he is surrounded by a secret Russian cabal. A dark intrigue has turned this shot into a banner of destruction, the kind of banner that in ancient German illustrations we see in death’s hand together with a scythe… Yes, this cabal will strike to the...