“Everything was subjected to this pressure, everything and everyone became dumb” – Weekend – Kommersant
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On March 26, 1848, Nicholas I issued a manifesto “Russia, the bastion of Europe, is not amenable to revolutionary influences” about protecting Russia from the threat of rebellion hanging over it. This document was a reaction to the revolution in Paris and the rebellion in Vienna and opened the era of total enslavement of intellectual life, which went down in history as the “Gloomy Seven Years”. Weekend studied how contemporaries reacted to total censorship, political exile and the fight against Western influences.
1
Brother! I was not discouraged and did not lose heart. Life is life everywhere, life is in ourselves, and not in the outside. There will be people near me, and to be a man among people and to remain one forever, in whatever misfortunes, not to lose heart and not fall – that is life, that is its task.
Fyodor Dostoevsky, letter to his brother, December 22, 1849, Peter and Paul Fortress
2
Your last article on the interregnum was stopped by the censor; now we are submitting it to the Main Directorate of Censorship, since the question is very important and concerns not only the fate of this article, but also the question in general of whether Russian journals can publish articles on Russian history or should refuse this important material. We are fully convinced that our protest in this case will also be useful in the future when publishing essays on Russian history.
Nikolai Nekrasov, letter to Sergei Solovyov, December 20, 1850
3
Thoughts are duty-free, not constrained by any fortress walls, and now they roam all over the world until I fall asleep.
Mikhail Bakunin, letter to Mathilde Reichel, January 16, 1850
4
Wonderful this land of Russia! For a hundred and fifty years we pretended to be striving for education. It turns out that this was a pretense and a falsehood: we are flying back faster than we ever went forward. Wonderful, wonderful land! When Buturlin proposed to close universities, many considered it unrealistic. Simpletons! They have forgotten that the only thing that cannot be closed is that which has never been opened.
Alexander Nikitenko, diary, December 1, 1848
5
The present epoch is the epoch of moral and mental nonentities. It’s funny that everyone understands this, but they also find that so be it.
Alexander Nikitenko, diary, September 19, 1854
6
Krylov came in the evening. We talked about university affairs. About secret and open parties. Damn them. History is a refuge.
Mikhail Pogodin, diary, February 13, 1848
7
After the revolution of 1848, censorship became Nicholas’ mania. Dissatisfied with the usual censorship and the two censorships that he established outside his possessions, in Iasi and Bucharest, where they do not write in Russian, he created another second censorship in St. Petersburg; we are inclined to hope that this double censorship will be more useful than the simple one. It will come to the point that they will print Russian books outside of Russia, they are already doing this, and who knows who will be more dexterous, free speech or Emperor Nicholas.
Alexander Herzen, “On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia”, 1851
8
Finally, Kosheleva was consoled by receiving a letter from her son from Sevastopol. A boy, a little out of baby clothes, he was already standing under the cannonballs and bombs; writes that he would like to say a lot, but it is impossible. As you know, letters from Crimea are actively intercepted. Kalugin told me that someone had received a letter from them, wiped out like foreign newspapers. P. M. Bestuzheva was very frightened when she saw on the letter of her Volodya an inscription made by someone else’s hand: suspicious!
Pyotr Bartenev, diary, November 23, 1854
9
Ivan writes that the article on Konstantin’s verbs, after two years of censoring, has finally been released… What censorship!
Vera Aksakova, diary, April 10, 1855
10
I’m coming back. God knows when I will have to write to you another time; God knows what awaits me in Russia. In the event of some important circumstance, you can notify me by placing in the advertisements “Journal des Debats”, que mr Louis Morisset de Cean, etc. I will read this journal and understand what you want to tell me.
Ivan Turgenev, letter to Alexander Herzen, June 22, 1850
eleven
I was met in Vyatka with open arms, and I ask you to believe that those around me here are not cannibals; they are no more than half as large and therefore cannot eat me whole.
Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, letter to A. Ya. Saltykova, May 8, 1848
12
The Petrashevsky affair reminded us of the need for secret societies where open societies are not allowed. Manuscripts that for a whole decade or almost did not appear, or hid so that it would be all the same if they were not there, manuscripts suddenly began to go from hand to hand, multiplying to the creation of a whole underground literature, turning into nothing all the efforts of censorship.
Nikolai Ogarev, “Russian Hidden Literature of the 19th Century”, 1861, London
13
What can be the use of your printing? With one or two sheets that slip through, you will do nothing, and the third department will read and mark everything, you will destroy the abyss of the people. Kill your friends…
Mikhail Shchepkin, letter to Alexander Herzen, 1855
14
The news that we are printing in Russian in London scared me. Free speech embarrassed and filled with horror not only distant, but also close people, it was too harsh for the ear, accustomed to whispering and silence; uncensored speech produced pain, seemed imprudent, almost a denunciation … Many advised to stop and not print anything.
Alexander Herzen, “Decade of the Free Russian Printing House in London”, 1863
15
Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev passed for printing everything that was sent to him for approval. Due to his great connections, having access to Count Nesselrode and Prince Gorchakov, he allowed much more than an ordinary official of the ministry. Whether Tyutchev received remarks for his censorship liberalism, the editors did not know, because he never appeared at the editorial office with reproaches that he had been let down. This was an eminently noble person.
Pavel Usov, “From my memories”
16
The other day I had some troubles in the ministry – all because of this unfortunate censorship. Of course, nothing very important – and yet, if I were not so poor, with what pleasure I would immediately throw in their face the maintenance they pay me, and openly break with this bunch of cretins who, in spite of everything and on the ruins of a world that collapsed under the weight of their stupidity, they are condemned to live and die in the complete impunity of their cretinism.
Fyodor Tyutchev, letter to his wife, July 23, 1854
17
Apparently, the same thoughtlessness that left its stamp on our political course of action also appeared in our military administration, and it could not be otherwise. Suppression of thought was for many years the guiding principle of the government. The consequences of such a system could not have a limit or limitation – nothing was spared, everything was subjected to this pressure, everything and everyone became dumb.
Fyodor Tyutchev, letter to his wife, May 21, 1855
18
Every expression of a harmful opinion, a dangerous direction, when it is invested with the power of the press, is already a universal attempt, not limited either by space or time. An incomprehensible and unreliable censorship can undermine the security of an entire state. The harm that comes from it affects not only the present generation, but also infects the future. From this it is clear that censorship must be one of the most important branches of the supreme state administration.
Pyotr Vyazemsky, Note on Censorship, 1848
19
While the members of the committee, in the absence of finding anything weighty, had already decided to sacrifice me and my article on the dwellings of the working people, one of the members, P. I. Degai, appeared at the meeting of the committee, with a joyful “Eureka! Eureka!” and declares that in the same issue of Otechestvennye Zapiski he found something even better or worse—I don’t know how to put it—namely, Mikhail Saltykov’s novella The Tangled Case. The members of the committee found that it was impossible not to see in this dream a daring intent – to depict Russia in allegorical form – and that Saltykov’s story should be included in the report being prepared on the harmful trends of journals.
Konstantin Veselovsky, “Echoes of the Old Memory”, 1899
20
Buturlin wanted them to cut out several verses from the akathist to the Protection of the Mother of God, finding them revolutionary. The priest told him that he was thus condemning his own angel, St. Dmitry Rostovsky, who composed this akathist and was never considered a revolutionary. “Whoever wrote it, there are dangerous expressions here!” Buturlin answered.
Antonina Bludova, memories, 1874
21
We need progress in enlightenment and education, great people are precious to us, and we drive out perverse teachings from ourselves like an ulcer, and a strong moral quarantine protects us from this disaster. We are ready to shower gold and surround with all the benefits of some scientist or artist; but we do not advise French talkers to come to us; starve to death because no one will accept them.
Andrey Kraevsky, “Russia and Western Europe at the present moment”, 1848
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