Mikhail N. Katkov: A political biography. 1818–1887 9783111400228, 9783111037387

Table of contents :
Preface
Contents
List of Abbreviations
I. Introduction
II. A Conservative Westerner
III. The “Era of Good Feelings”
IV. The Incipient “Wagner on the Strong”
V. Separatism and Nationalism
VI. Nihilism and Classicism
VII. The Last Years
VIII. Conclusion
Bibliography
Index of Names

Citation preview

STUDIES IN EUROPEAN HISTORY VI

M I K H A I L Ν. KATKOV A Political Biography

1818-1887 by

MARTIN KATZ University of Alberta

& 1966

MOUTON & CO. THE HAGUE · PARIS

© 1966 by Mouton & Co., Publishers, The Hague, The Netherlands No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm, or any other means, without written permission from the publishers

Printed in The Netherlands by Mouton & Co., Printers, The Hague

TO MY MOTHER

PREFACE

This study of the political thought and attitude of Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov (1818-1887) is intended as an introduction to a much-neglected yet important aspect of nineteenth-century Russian intellectual history - conservative Westernism. For the student of Russian thought and politics, this little-known ideological direction has interest because of the dilemma between modernization and traditionalism which rests at its very root. For the economic historian, Katkov's projects provide some striking prototypes of the general plans created half a century later by Stolypin. The student of the Russian revolutionary movement will find that Katkov was one of the first to realize the full implications of the alienated intelligentsia, but he will also find that Katkov's responses to the problem were either unacceptable to the government or later lacked the imagination and vigor necessary to provide a viable alternative to it. Those interested in the question of nationalism will find that a study of Katkov's ideological transformation from an aesthetic individualist to an integral nationalist is of special interest, both with respect to the subject's absence of strong cross-identities and with respect to the question of the necessity of a militant catalyst - war, civil war, or rebellion - to stimulate strong national feelings. I have used a modified Library of Congress system of transliteration, that is without diacritical marks. I wish to express my deepest gratitude to Professor Nicholas V. Riasanovsky for the constructive criticism which he offered throughout. I also am especially thankful to Professor Martin Malia, who gave much of his limited time in Europe to read and insightfully criticize the work. Professor Gregory Grossman deserves my sincere thanks for the helpful advice he offered. This study was largely made possible by a research grant from the Inter-University Committee on Travel Grants, which permitted me to do research in Finland, the Soviet Union, and Western Europe. The offi·

8

PREFACE

cers and staff of the Committee have my sincere thanks for the many services which they rendered. I also wish to express my warmest thanks to Professor George Katkov, Fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford, who provided valuable information on the Katkov family both in correspondence and during personal and cordial interviews. Among the many librarians and bibliographers who deserve my particular appreciation are Dr. Sulo Haltsonen, Magister Elizabeth Takoi and Dr. Maria Widnas, all of the Helsinki University Library's extensive Slavic Department. They rendered many valuable services and made my research in Helsinki most worthwhile. My appreciation is also given to the staff of the Bibliothèque Royale in Brussels, the British Museum, and the French Bibliothèque Nationale, who rendered much valuable aid on relatively short notice. Within the United States, my sincere gratitude is extended to the staff of the Slavic room and the Yudin collection at the Library of Congress, the staff of the New York Public Library's Slavonic Division, and the staff of the Columbia University Library, who offered much valuable assistance during my sojourns in their institutions. Mrs. Kozlov of the Hoover Library on War, Revolution, and Peace was especially helpful in expediting my many requests. Mr. Irwin Mayers, Chief Librarian of Oakland City College, a Slavicist in his own right, gave unstintingly of his time to provide much helpful criticism and encouragement. Dr. Fritz Epstein, an eminent Slavicist as well as a student of German history, continued to provide valuable bibliographic advice, for which I am deeply grateful. The staff of the University of California Library was most helpful throughout, and I wish to express my particular gratitude to three librarians who gave much more of their time and efforts than one would normally expect: Mr. Rudolf Lednicky, Curator of the Slavic Collection, and Mrs. Uridge and Mrs. Niles, both of the Inter-Library Borrowing Service, made extraordinary efforts to obtain materials for me which were certainly not easily available; for their unfailing efforts lam deeply grateful. My editor, Mrs. S. Saunders deserves my sincere thanks for the care and precision demonstrated in her work. Finally, thanks are scarcely adequate to express my feelings for the assistance, encouragement, and patience of my wife, Patricia. This work has been published with the help of a grant from the Humanities Research Council of Canada using funds provided by the Canada Council. Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

MARTIN KATZ

CONTENTS

Preface

7

List of Abbreviations

10

I. Introduction

11

II. A Conservative Westerner

15

III. The "Era of Good Feelings"

44

IV. The Incipient "Wagner on the Strong"

78

V. Separatism and Nationalism VI. Nihilism and Classicism VII. The Last Years

118 142 165

VIII. Conclusion

180

Bibliography

184

Index of Names

192

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

Belinskii, "Pis'ma" - V. G. Belinskii, "Pis'ma", Polnoe sobrante sochinenii, XI (Moscow, 1956). Katkov, Sobrante - Μ. Ν. Katkov, Sobranie peredovykh statei vedomostei.

Moskovskikh

Kalkov-Valuev Correspondence - [V. Mustafin, ed.], "Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov i graf Petr Aleksandrovich Valuev ν ikh perepiske (1863-1879)", Russkaia starino. LOZRV - "Literaturnoe obozrenie i zametki", section of Russkii vestnik. OZ - Otechestvennyia zapiski. RV - Russkii vestnik. SL - "Sovremennaia letopis' " of the Russkii vestnik. M - Moscow. St. P. - St. Petersburg.

I INTRODUCTION

Early nineteenth-century Russian thought was strongly influenced by the literary and philosophical traditions of German romanticism in general and Idealistic philosophy in particular. Westernism, Slavophilism and Official Nationality indicate the three primary directions which this thought has taken.1 While the Russian ideological directions had not the depth, breadth, or seminal ideas of the German philosophical schools, they nevertheless had a profound influence upon the course not only of society, but of politics as well. What the young Russians of the thirties and forties lacked in sophistication, they made up for in their exuberance about and enchantment with the Hegelian and Schellingian heritage, which their German contemporaries already were beginning to view in a more jaded manner. The historiography of the three Russian directions has generally tended, by implication if not explicitly, to group them in terms of a political spectrum with Westernism on the "Left" and Official Nationality on the "Right". While there is admittedly much justification in such an approach as well as valuable insight to be gained from it, still this view of the problem does tend to obfuscate the thought of certain figures, such as Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov (1818-1887). A translator and critic of romantic literature, a student of German Idealistic philosophy, an academician and philologist, his importance remains as an editor and publicist. Katkov was a Westerner, but he was also an incipient "conservative Westerner", whose course of development oscillated between convergence with, and divergence from his more liberal and radical colleagues, who also looked to the West for Russia's inspiration. 1

A renewed interest in this problem by American historians is evidenced by three recent works: Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, Russia and the West in the Teaching of the Slavophiles (Cambridge, Mass., 1952); Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia (Berkeley, 1959); and Martin Malia, Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism (Cambridge, Mass., 1961).

12

INTRODUCTION

Most students of Russian intellectual and political history are accustomed to view Katkov as a symbol of nationalism and reaction rather than as a figure whose own thoughts might be worthy of investigation. This judgment is only half true. Katkov's ideas were very much his own within the Russian context; it would be quite incorrect to consider him as the mouthpiece for this or that group and hence unworthy of serious study because he was not an ideological fountainhead. Some of his more interesting concepts were within the same tradition which Stolypin followed several decades later. As a conservative Westerner, Katkov has much to offer the student of the Octobrist and similar movements at the end of the imperial regime. The political dilemma faced by the members of these movements was not fundamentally different from that encountered by Katkov during the late nineteenth century. The failure of Katkov and those like-minded individuals to cope effectively with the problems of the intelligentsia and the national minorities provided a prelude to the failure of the Right in such magnified problems after the tum of the century. For the student of nationalism, a study of Katkov's thought might prove interesting as a case study in the transformation of aesthetic individualism into integral nationalism, given the proper militant catalyst - war, civil war, or rebellion. The earlier full-length treatment of Katkov, and the only one which can be recognized as a standard work on the man and his activities,2 was composed hastily a year after the subject's death. Tatishchev's work was primarily responsible for the judgment that Katkov was an "opportunist", whose so-called "national direction" could not be taken seriously, but attested to the publicist's political immaturity and shallow convictions. Such a judgment, which Tatishchev at times himself contradicts,3 only tends to obscure the importance of ideas as determinants in Katkov's life. Opportunist, in the sense in which Tatishchev used the word, would indicate that Katkov was interested only in selfaggrandizement at the expense of principles. Such a view, while correctly calling attention to the publicist's inflated ego, neglects his persistence in pursuing principles at the expense of popularity in both state and society. In any case, Nevedenskii's conclusions have had a lasting effect upon later judgments of Katkov, which remain largely distorted. 2

S. Nevedenskii [pseud, for S. S. Tatishchev], Katkov i ego vremia (St. Petersburg, 1888). 3 Nevedenskii, op. cit., pp. 106-107, cf. pp. 51 Iff: in the first instance Katkov's "opportunism" and lack of "ideinosf " is emphasized; in the second a whole chapter is devoted to his change of "convictions".

INTRODUCTION

13

On the other hand, the work of Katkov's friend and editor of the Russian Messenger, which Katkov himself published, while most valuable as a memoir, is a classic apologia and does not continue in detail past 1866, after which time the publicist's popularity rapidly declined.4 Other minor treatments of Katkov tend to be little more than projections of the polemics in which the publicist so vigorously engaged that they were not buried with him: for instance the work of Sementkovskii expresses in essay form the liberal view of a Katkov who was not only an opportunist, but one of the worst kind. Sementkovskii's primary hypothesis is that Katkov never had an idea of his own, not to speak of a direction, but rather made skillful use of those attitudes, trends, and programs which he felt had the best chance of success; according to this extreme view, "he almost always sang another's tune".5 The refutation of this hypothesis will be made clear in the course of this book; let it only be noted at this point that some of Sementkovskii's conclusions are quite mistaken: for instance, the assertion that Katkov developed his antipathy for the intelligentsia by observing Bismarck's reaction belies the whole of Katkov's attitudes and thought. From the period of the late thirties and early forties, he became disenchanted with Belinskii and Bakunin; there is also the evidence of his polemics with Chernyshevskii, Dobroliubov, and Herzen, all of which took place before Bismarck's rise to power.® The classic Polonophile denunciation of Katkov remains Grégoire Liwoff's very witty but unsubstantial biography.7 By the turn of the century, one historian of the Russian intellectual scene found himself in such despair when he tried to understand Katkov, that he dismissed the journalist with the remark: "It will be singularly difficult for the future historian and psychologist to follow the many-sided tergiversations of Katkovian internal and foreign policy, and to determine the principal kernel of his aspirations." 8 More recently, scholars less willing to be satisfied with the conclusion that Katkov was a hopeless "opportunist" or a riddle wrapped in an ineluctable enigma have seized on the argument that the publicist falls within that familiar category of persons who were liberal in youth and conservative 4

N. A. Liubimov, Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov i ego istoricheskaia zasluga (St. P., 1889). R. I. Sementkovskii, M. N. Katkov: ego zhizn' i literaturnaia deiatel'nost' (St. P., 1892), p. 51. • Ibid., p. 68. 7 Grégoire Liwoff, Michel Katkoff et son époque: quelques pages d'histoire contemporaine en Russie, 1855-1887 (Paris, 1887). β Ivan Ivanov, Istorila russkoi kritiki (St. P., 1900), p. 492. 5

14

INTRODUCTION

or even reactionary in dotage. With this hypothesis somehow held valid without proof, they set off to search for the "turning points" - was it the Polish Rebellion that "changed" his thought, or was it the Vera Zasulich affair? This line of reasoning, while useful in explaining certain variations in approach on various political questions of the time, still did not provide convincing explanations for the more basic rationale of his thought and behavior. It was applied and rejected by this student. Rather it was found that a certain kind of logic did in fact run through Katkov's thought: that he was a man guided by certain ideas, which were not easily cast off; that as a conservative Westerner he undertook to an ever-increasing degree to influence not only public opinion, but the government directly, and that his motto - the unity of Russia - cannot be dismissed as a rootless direction because it lacks the "social content" characteristic of Herzen or the religious feeling of Khomiakov. Rather, Katkov's motto must be understood mainly within the more precise context of integral nationalism, which derived largely from the writings of the publicist himself, Ivan Aksakov, Iurii Samarin, Danilevskii, and others. Katkov's nationalism is of special interest to the intellectual historian because it represents the development from an aesthetic individualism (a self-identity) to an integral nationalism (a FoMr-identity) without the conflicting cross-identities of religion, social class or even state that characterized the development of so many others. The only phenomenon of a nature which might have entered Katkov's thought as a challenge to his national identity as Great Russian was his attachment to the locale of Moscow; and this came to be more of a symbol of Russia in Katkov's mind than of a local particularistic identification. The whole of Katkov's thought was inbued with the romantic-idealistic tradition. Even his Westernism, which was manifested by an eagerness to incorporate Western techniques, was characterized by the urge to absorb everything possible within the solvent of the self and the nation. But this organic absorption stopped short of any ideas which were recognized to be predicated fundamentally upon the principles of the Enlightenment. While wishing to see Russia develop as a European nation, Katkov was unwilling to deny that Russia too had a recognized Eigenart which must be preserved. With this tradition of conservative Westernism, Katkov in many respects represents the precursor of that ill-fated conservative Westerner of tsarist Russia's last days - Stolypin.

II

A CONSERVATIVE WESTERNER

"If one looks at the universe and has to choose between one of two extreme attitudes, it is easier to become a mystic than a nihilist. We are everywhere surrounded by miracles." M. N. Katkov, "Sochineniia ν stikhakh i proze grafini S. F. Tolstoi", Otechestvennyia zapiski (1840), Vol. ΧΠ, Bk. 10, Sec. V, p. 17. "Only from Peter's time did Russia arise as a mighty gigantic state; only from Peter's time did the Russian people become a n a t i o n . . . " Μ. N. Katkov, "Pesni russkago naroda, izd. Sakharovym", Otechestvennyia zapiski (1839), Vol. IV, Bk. 6, Sec. VI, p. 8.

Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov was born in Moscow on November 1, 1818, in the same year as Turgenev and Alexander II; in later life, the publicist was to point out the coincidence to his coeval, the Emperor, as if it bore some providential significance.1 The paternal branch of the family was relatively undistinguished, and there is little known about it. Nikifor Vasil'evich Katkov, Mikhail's father, descended from one of those intermediate strata in the Russian social complex known as the kantseliarskie chinovniki, the lay officials who managed the extensive Church properties in the pre-Petrine era. The descendants of this group, who themselves branched off into various pursuits, some unconnected with the Church, were known as arkhiereiskie deti, the children of officials attached to the hierarchy.2 Nikifor Vasil'evich had no official connection with the Church, but was rather a minor functionary in the Moscow provincial administration. He had risen to the ninth position, 1

"Vozhd' reaktsii 60-80-kh godov (Pis'ma Katkova Aleksandru Π i Aleksandru ΠΙ)", Byloe, No. 4 (26), Oct. 1917, p. 4. 2 The oral family tradition was recounted by Mr. George Katkov (the greatnephew of Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov), Fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford. See also Biograficheskii slovar' professorov i prepodavetelei imperatorskago moskovskago universiteta (1755-1855) (Moscow, 1855), Pt. I, 381-3.

16

A CONSERVATIVE WESTERNER

that of titular councillor, in Peter's Table of Ranks, which conferred gentry status only for life, and not upon one's descendants. Hence, Mikhail Nikiforovich was born without noble title. Nikifor Vasil'evich died when his oldest son, Mikhail, was five, and his youngest son, Mefodii, was three. The problem of raising the two children then fell upon their mother, Varvara Ekimovna née Tulaeva; she was forced temporarily to give the younger boy to his aunt, Vera, while retaining custody of her first-born, Mikhail. Such was the poverty of the widowed Varvara Ekimovna that, with the aid of her patroness, she was forced to find employment as wardress of a women's prison.3 Unfortunately, there is very little available material about the childhood of Mikhail Nikiforovich. It is known that his time was divided between his mother's quarters at the prison on the one hand, and the mansions of various noble families, especially that of Princess Anna Borisovna Meshcherskaia, on the other. That there may have been an "identity problem" for young Mikhail is suggested by the many references to the world of escape and fantasy, both in his own recollections and those of a little girl with whom he used to play, and who was later to become the Iakovlev family memorialist, Tatiana Petrovna Passek.4 The relationship between the Princess Anna Borisovna and Mikhail Katkov's mother, Varvara Ekimovna, was especially close, because the Princess was in fact Varvara's foster-mother upon the death of Mikhail's maternal grandparents, the Tulaevs. Indeed, Anna Borisovna performed the same role for the Iakovlev children, including Herzen's father, Ivan Alekseevich Iakovlev. As Mikhail began to grow older, he visited other gentry homes on holidays - the Iakovlevs', the Khovanskiis' and the Golokhvastovs' - as well as that of his future in-laws, the Shalikovs'. Though Prince Peter Ivanovich Shalikov, a minor sentimentalist poet, was the titular head of the poor but noble family, it was not he, but his daughter Natalia Petrovna - Mikhail's future sister-in-law who was best known in the literary salons of Moscow society; her stories and novelettes were written under the nom de plume, E. Narskaia. She herself was several years older than Mikhail and was said to have

3 Vospominaniia T. P. Passek ("Iz dal'nikh lef'), 2nd ed. (St. P., 1906), III, p. 288. 4 Ibid., pp. 287-291. "Iz pisem M. N. Katkova k materi i bratu", Russkii vestnik [hereafter ΛΚ] (Aug. 1897), [art. cited hereafter "Katkov k materi"], p. 161: "I was very unfortunate, remembering our childhood years", he wrote to his brother later, "being separated from people and from real social relationships, uninterrupted reading early led me to play at dream and fantasy".

A CONSERVATIVE WESTERNER

17

found the child "well-read and educated beyond his years." 5 Unfortunately, however, there is no available evidence to indicate which authors most interested the young Katkov before he entered gymnasium. His mother, however, was a well-educated woman by the standards of the day, and gave Mikhail his first lessons in Russian, French, and arithmetic. At the age of eight, he entered the Preobrazhenskii Orphans' Institute; his secondary education was conducted in two of Russia's most distinguished institutions - the First Moscow Gymnasium (before its transformation into the "Moscow Gentry Institute" by the ukaz of February 22, 1833), and the well-known pension of Professor M. G. Pavlov. 6 By the Statute of 1828, the gymnasia throughout Russia assumed a greater classical character, and were limited to the children of the gentry and civil officials; because of his father's official position, Mikhail was eligible to enter the First Moscow Gymnasium, in which he studied Latin and Greek extensively, as well as religion, Russian, mathematics or geography, and the modern languages. Katkov's education at the First Moscow Gymnasium was steeped in the classical tradition; and it may reasonably be assumed he entered gymnasium with a well-developed taste for the romantic literature which bulked large in the libraries of the various gentry families whom he visited.7 However, when he entered the pension of Professor Pavlov, he walked into not an ordinary educational institution, but a "system" in its own right. Pavlov, at the time, was one of the foremost proponents of Schellingian philosophy, which meant a primary emphasis upon his Naturphilosophie, with all of its pantheistic implications. For young Katkov, as for his fellows at Pavlov's, it meant an opportunity to reconcile the whole world of romanticism, with its emphasis upon "feelings", with the world of thought - of science (nauka) - which was then seen in terms of Schelling's system. Schelling's Idealism, first introduced to Katkov through Professor Pavlov, was, as will be seen, reinforced through his experiences in the kruzhok (circle) founded by Stankevich, by his lecture courses at the university, and finally by his sojourn in Germany where he personally attended Schelling's courses at Berlin and where he became personally acquainted with the philoso8 Preface to "Katkov k materi", p. 134. • Biograficheskii Slovak ... moskovskago univ , Pt. I, 381-3. Nicholas Hans, History of Russian Educational Policy (London, 1931), pp. 68-72. V. Rozhdestvenskii, Istoricheskii obzor deiatel'nosti ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniia, 1802-1902 (St. P., 1902), pp. 194-203. Passek, op. cit., p. 291. 7 For a picture of the Moscow gentry around 1825 see M. O. Gershenzon, Griboedovskaia Moskva, 2nd rev. ed. (Moscow, 1916).

18

A CONSERVATIVE WESTERNER 8

pher. Katkov probably became acquainted with Stankevich while they both attended Pavlov's pension, though the latter was several years older than Katkov and was already a university student while Katkov was still a gimnasist. When Katkov actually became affiliated with the Stankevich kruzhok remains in doubt; however, there is some indication that this occured only in the mid-thirties, after Katkov had already entered the university (1834), and after the circle had already become cloyed with Schelling and had moved on to an interest in Hegel. If this were the case, then Katkov's affiliation was contemporary with that of Kavelin, the future liberal Westerner, and Kudriavtsev, Katkov's future colleague in the editorship of the Russian Messenger (Russkii vestnik).» In 1834, Mikhail Katkov successfully passed the university entrance examination and enrolled in the philological faculty. At the university he found a further reinforcement for the Schellingian outlook of Pavlov's system: Davydov, Nadezhdin, Pogodin, and Shevyrëv, all in their own way, and despite the prohibition of philosophy courses per se, were able to introduce the tenor and content of German Idealism into their entire approach to literature, history, philology, and other less related subjects. While Katkov heard their lectures, he became the disciple of none, and indeed developed an implacable enmity toward Shevyrëv and an oscillating relationship with Pogodin, for whom he served as a translator as well as a student. Pogodin commented upon Katkov and his contemporaries in his final year, 1838: "first place is held by Iurii Samarin. He has much knowledge and possesses the means to attain m o r e . . . . " Second place, Pogodin wrote, was held collectively by a few students including Katkov, whom he listed as "first in the love of knowledge" and added that "he possesses much".10 But like many young students of the time, Katkov's main interest centered not in the strictly controlled lecture halls, but in the intimate comaraderie of the kruzhok, whose adherents were not under the watchful eye of the government inspectors, but enjoyed the freedom of the com8

P. V. Annenkov, "Ν. V. Stankevich", in Vospominatiiia i kriticheskiia ocherki (St. P., 1881), vol. ΙΠ. ' For the development of Schellingian thought in early nineteenth-century Russia, see Alexandre Koyré, La philosophie et le problème national en Russie au début du XIXe siècle (Paris, 1929), and V. Sechkarev, Schellings Einfluss in der russischen Literatur der 20er und 30er Jahre des XIX. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1939). The profound influence of romanticism and Idealism (especially Schelling) on the thought of Pogodin and Shevyrëv is indicated in Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, "Pogodin and Shevyrëv in Russian Intellectual History", in Russian Thought and Politics ('s-Gravenhage, 1957). 10 Nikolai Barsukov, Zhizn' i trudy M. P. Pogodina (St. P., 1891), V, 139.

A CONSERVATIVE WESTERNER

19

pany of close friends whom they could trust and with whom they could share their deepest personal as well as philosophical and literary experiences. The Stankevich kruzhok, as opposed to that of Herzen and Ogarev, was characterized by its more purely apolitical and speculative nature. The prevalence of German Idealism in the Stankevich circle was satirized by Turgenev's well-known quip, "ein kruzhok in der Stadt Moskau". The "old timers" in the circle - Belinskii, Bakunin, Botkin, and K. Aksakov - looked upon Katkov as a "junior" disciple of the group even though he was not appreciably younger than the others. This is partly explained by the fact that Katkov remained infatuated with Schellingian philosophy, and especially Schellings' "rationalization of reality" at a time when Belinskii and Bakunin had developed a strong interest in Hegel. Katkov, very much an "aesthetic individualist" and quite a Schellingian at heart, chose as his contribution to the group that aspect of Hegelian thought which was least contradictory to his Schellingian preconceptions - he placed great emphasis upon the aesthetic expression of the individual genius, as well as upon the reconciliation of the subjective and the objective in the highest stage of self-consciousness, the Absolute. Hegelian aesthetics were quite inoffensive to the sensitive youth, and involved little of the concepts of struggle implicit in the Hegelian dialectic. Why Katkov was so averse to follow the lead of the older members of the group toward Hegel, toward the dialectic of struggle, and finally toward the ethos of civic responsibility in art, was never made entirely explicit, either by Katkov or his contemporaries. One can only take note of his recurrent aversion to struggle as an idea, to alienation as a concept, and to his continuous and increasing sympathy for the idea of reconciliation and finally organic unity in the deepest national sense. From the known circumstances of his childhood, spent on the margin of Moscow gentry society, from the loss of his father at a very early age, and the necessity in his youth and manhood to assume the role of "father" toward his mother and younger brother, one might suggest that his proclivity toward Schellingian "reconciliation", and later toward a mania for "unity" was the expression of a deep-seated psychological "identity problem". However, until more evidence concerning Katkov's childhood becomes available, this suggestion must remain very tentative.11 11

Katkov's translation of Hegelian aesthetics is discussed in Herbert E. Bowman, Vissarion Belinskii, 1811-1848 . . . (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), pp. 96, 102. 152. For Belinskii's immediate reaction to Katkov's work see V. G. Belinskii, "Pis'ma", in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (Moscow, 1956), XI [hereafter Belinskii, "Pis'ma"], p. 189.

20

A CONSERVATIVE WESTERNER

Personal relations between Belinskii and Katkov were not all steady, and indeed vacillated more than between most adherents of the kruzhok. Katkov probably resented the inferior position which he was forced to assume as a "junior" member, but it would also appear that he reacted early against Belinskii's "reconciliation with reality", albeit a conservative principle, because it threatened to shatter Katkov's world of Idealism in its most purely speculative form. Unfortunately, the available evidence on the relationship comes from sources other than Katkov. It appears that Katkov had no wish to remember either his childhood or student days and it seems that he was ill-disposed as a diarist; but Belinskii's letters accurately portray the other side of the relationship. As early as 1837, Belinskii recalled how he was at first ill-disposed toward Katkov, how he "took some kind of vile satisfaction should I hear anything against him".12 This was during the time when Katkov was engaged in his translation not only of Hegel's aesthetics, but of the work of a minor Hegelian, also on the same theme - that of H. T. Roetscher, Das Verhältniss der Philosophie der Kunst und der Kritik zum einzelnen Kunstwerk. In the meanwhile, Bakunin, representing the essential direction of the kruzhok, translated Hegel's Gymnasium Lectures, which were farther removed from Schellingian tradition, and even more removed from the earlier ecstatic prekrasnodushie (the Russian equivalent of the Schillerian die schöne Seele), which Katkov still found completely captivating, but which Belinskii felt was not only passé but immature.18 Yet it was in these years that Katkov not only immersed himself in Schellingian Idealism, but demonstrated no mean talent as a translator of romantic literature, which aside from his wellknown translation of Romeo arid Juliet, included Heine's Salamanca, Die Wacht, Die Grenadieren and William Ratcliff, among others. Among other German romantic poets whom Katkov translated was Friedrich Rückert; and together with 1.1. Panaev and M. A. Iazykov, he translated James Fenimore Cooper's The Pathfinder (rendered as Putevoditel' ν pustyne, ili Ozero-more).14 Katkov's literary criticism also expressed his romanticism; and under the influence of such incipient romantic-nationalism as was to be seen in Heine and Rückert, he was inspired to express himself in much the same vein in his criticism of 12

Ibid., p. 189. Ibid., pp. 399, 436, 444, 447, 448, and passim. 14 D . D. Iazykov, "Obzor zhizni i trudov pokoinykh russkikh pisatelei: vyp. 7 russkie pisateli, umershie ν 1887", in Bibliograficheskiia zapiski, N o . 2 (Feb., 1892), pp. 33-36, which includes a complete bibliography of Katkov's works written in the late thirties and early forties. 13

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21

Russian lyricists. Hence, in his long critical article on I. Sakharov's Songs of the Russian People, Katkov's prekrasnodushie found full expression: "oh, these sounds, these songs belong to the Russian soul! in them our Rus' is alive; in them is concealed her fervent heart, with the whole sea of her sensuality . . . in them is reflected the mighty, expressive physiognomy of a great people in all of its natural beauty, as God created it!" 15 Within the kruzhok, personal, philosophical and literary worlds knew no divisions; and it was not uncommon for differences in literary and philosophical interpretations and outlooks to be expressed in very personal terms, and vice versa. The issue of romantic love, the culmination of Katkov's aesthetic individualism which found expression in his deep immersion in German romanticism and Idealism, now became a serious point of conflict between Katkov and the increasingly more skeptical Belinskii. Both were attracted by the daughter of the well-known Moscow actor, Shchepkin. Katkov's behavior was more in keeping with the romantic code of the "ideal", while Belinskii's was characteristically more "carnal" and closer to the "reality" which George Sand would later come to express. That Katkov remained the moral hero in this episode is clearly reflected by Belinskii's own reaction, which betrays a sense of some guilt:16 I feel guilty before him [Katkov]; it is in this sense, that I lie down mentally, sobbing like a slave at his f e e t . . . I was banal before him, low, base, wicked; darkly sensing his superiority over me, I found my defense from his might, which irresistibly pursued me, in rotten, onanistic forms. I did not understand why, but he disturbed me, he was awful to me, and I was prepared to escape from his noble spontaneity anywhere - either in the privy or under the hem of the first peasant woman I m e t . . . .

Katkov, who up till then had published his works primarily under Belinskii's auspices in the Moscow Observer (Moskovskii nabliudateV) (with the notable exception of Romeo and Juliet which was published in the Son of the Fatherland [Sjti otechestvaj), in 1839 began to submit his work to the Annals of the Fatherland (Otechestvennyia zapiski). This change did not correspond to Belinskii's assumption of the role of chief literary critic of the latter journal, but rather occurred before this, while Belinskii was struggling desperately to make a success of the Moscow Observer. A certain Galakhov, the Moscow literary corres15 M. N. Katkov, "Pesni russkago naroda, izd. I. Sakharovym", Kritika, Otechestvennyia zapiski [hereafter OZ] (1839), Vol. IV, Bk. 6, Sec. VI, p. 7. " Belinskii, "Pis'ma", p. 358.

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pondent for the Annals, aided Katkov to make the switch. Katkov's literary disaffection characteristically had repercussions on his personal relations with Belinskii, who was preparing at this time to leave Moscow to assume his new role with the Annals. Belinskii wrote to Stankevich, who had been abroad for some time, "This decidedly turned me against Katkov".17 But with Belinskii firmly established in his new position in St. Petersburg, there was a reconciliation of sorts, and Belinskii, always prone to view the younger man with a certain condescension, passed off Katkov's tenacious aesthetic individualism as the "sickness" of youth through which he as well as the other members of the kruzhok must pass on the road to "civic responsibility". "The cause of your frightful condition", he told Katkov, "is in your essence, but in it also are the possibility and means to find a way o u t . . . . " 18 In Belinskii's terms, however, Katkov did not find a "way out", but only continued to emphasize aesthetic individualism, which he found quite consistent with the concept of Volksgeist, and which he expressed in explicit form in his review of "Songs of the Russian People". Indeed, this was not inconsistent with Hegel's historiosophy, in Katkov's interpretation. Peoples (narody) were divided into two fundamental categories: historical peoples and non-historical peoples. Only the former had an important role to play in the "world-historical process", and made a significant contribution to civilization. Such historical peoples followed a three-stage course of development and maturation: at the first stage the primitive family relationship is established; at the second stage "society" develops and here also the "spiritual organism" begins to appear in embryonic form, which defines the historical purpose of the people; at the third and final stage, characterized by Katkov as the attainment of "self-consciousness", purely theoretical and speculative activity and the "contemplation of life" manifests itself. This latter is reflected within the German romantic tradition by a turning inward which finds expression in the same modes so suited to aesthetic individualism - myths and poetry.19 Such a frame of reference was decidedly out of step with the incipient Left Hegelians - Belinskii and Bakunin - who, while themselves completely within the romanticidealistic tradition also, were nevertheless trying to extricate themselves from this "house of mirrors", in which the ego was reflected in ever more distorted and fantastic forms. Belinskii optimistically looked for" Ibid., p. 399. >8 Ibid., p. 436. 19

Katkov, " P e s n i . . p p . 12-13.

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ward to the day when Katkov would "stop burning, and from a nasty suckling pig, become a respectable hog, like you [Botkin] and me . . .".20 Yet in early 1840, when Belinskii heard a rumor that Katkov had taken a less than platonic interest in Maria Lvovna Ogareva, the wife of Herzen's alter ego, he turned on the younger man all the wrath that he had directed toward himself in the Shchepkina affair: "in this story there is no poetry, but only dirt, carnalism and finally baseness.... Good noble [KJatkov!" 21 Whether this rumor had substance or not, Katkov's captivation with prekrasnodushie, with aesthetic individualism, as well as with its macrocosmic expression in the Volksgeist of a historic people did not disappear, as will be indicated later in this chapter. If aesthetic individualism combined with an interest in the Volksgeist to place Katkov to the "right" of his colleagues Belinskii and Bakunin (who by 1840 were already expressing a strong tendency toward civic responsibility, a feeling which Katkov was to refer contemptuously to as a "civic Weltschmerz"), then the centripetal force of the kruzhok — its Westernism - was still enough to bring its adherents into some kind of common relationship. Katkov's "Western" orientation found full expression in his attitude toward the crucial question of Peter the Great: 22 Only from Peter's time did Russia arise as a mighty, gigantic state; only from Peter did the Russian people become a nation [natsiia], did it become one of the representatives of humanity . . . only from Peter did higher spiritual interests enter into its organism; only from him did it begin to absorb the content and process of humanity. But before Peter, we had neither art, in the proper sense of the word, nor science. We had no Gothic cathedrals, no fine paintings nor sculpture, nor did we have music. The people had not yet matured for such phenomena . . . .

Yet for all his Westernism, and indeed because of his own romantic view of the West, Katkov did not cease to glorify the primitive Russian soul, that nascent voice of an historical people crying out in the wilderness. It was not the Slavic family or tribal unit, it was not the primitive commune, however, which attracted Katkov's interest; rather it was one of the most striking examples of what he considered to be the rudimentary embodiment of aesthetic individualism, and at the same time, the genius of the nation - the bogatyri, those epic heroes of Russian folklore, as fearless as the Argonauts, but with a wilder, more romantically "unfathomable" nature. "The essence of the meaning of bogatyr' ", M tl

"

Belinskii, "Pis'ma", p. 525. Ibid., p. 471. Katkov, "Pesni...", p. 8.

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Katkov wrote, "is s t r e n g t h . . . . The strength of the bogatyr' is strength in its primitive form . . . the whole movement of his strength is contained within his striving to reveal himself, to run wild, to project the spirit itself over an unlimited expanse, the farther, the better."23 Belinskii had increasingly little sympathy for such "foolishness", such prekrasnodushie was far removed f r o m his own mission to bring "utility" and "civic responsibility" into art in general and literature in particular. Katkov, he believed, was "like one of those bogatyri of whom he speaks, overcome and deserted by his own strength". 24 Katkov's enchantment with primitive aesthetic individualism was also expressed in his comparison of the ballads about Ermak with those about the bogatyri: "The distinguishing character of the songs about Ermak is the fact that in them the bare historical element begins to triumph over the epic; their coloration is colder, their colors paler; the folk ideal is not expressed in them with the same plenitude and strength as in the previous songs." 2 5 Hence, the epic would take precedent over the historical, poetry over narrative, art over science; and if a science must be recognized, then it was only to that extent that it placed art and speculative thought on the highest pedestal. It is not surprising that within this context, the romantic-idealist Katkov sharply attacked those "fossils" of eighteenth-century rationalism, who tried to interject the empirical approach even into the realm of philology, Katkov's own formal discipline. His criticism of A . Zinov'ev's Principles of Russian Stylistics . . . characterized his romantic bias and indeed hatred of the ideas of the Age of R e a s o n : 2 e Truth is not something external, to be taken up, examined, and filed under a certain number in a catalog for memory or reason. Truth is sacred, a sacrament; it is a higher life, the internal content of the spirit; it requires the whole person; it yields only to the feelings and is comprehended only by the thoughts of wisdom; it reveals the deepest recesses within man, it enters them and transforms his whole essence. The empirical sciences, or, speaking more generally, the sciences of reason, are far from the "truth", in the noblest and most sacred sense of the word; indeed, they are just as far from the "truth" as is reasoning ability, whioh examines the external characteristics of a subject, from which it abstracts general characteristics, and then composes an abstract generalization... rather truth realizes itself, perceives itself, is in a state of beatitude with itself. »

Ibid., p. 68. Belinskii, "Pis'ma", p. 370. 85 Katkov, "Pesni...", p. 74. M M. N. Katkov, "Osnovaniia russkoi stilistiki po novoi prostoi sisteme", Kritika, OZ (1839), Vol. VI, Bk. 11, See. VI, pp. 57-58. 24

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This does not mean that the natural sciences have no purpose "their utility for those who study them rests, so to speak, in the fact that they polish man, throw his capacities into play, shape them, and provide him with a store of knowledge for practical application".27 But the "truth of all sciences in relation to themselves is contained in philosophy", and by "philosophy" Katkov meant the post-Kantian systems of Idealism.28 Katkov's low evaluation of the inductive method even found expression in his views about historians: he had little regard for the "toilers . . . who find the greatest delight burrowing in dusty MSS" but rather held in high esteem those who approached their problems from a purely speculative position, "who are gifted with the treasure of internal contemplation, [who are] people with a vital life in their soul, which satisfies itself, by virtue of its own content, requiring neither [external] evidence or confirmation of philosophical thought".29 Yet being aware that men of the Age of Reason were also individualists, though of a different kind, Katkov warned of the pitfalls involved if one should strike out on the "wrong" path: "Let man examine himself, but not his individuality, which is weak and depraved, but rather let him examine that which forms the general essence of man, let him study and analyze general human properties, and take careful account of human actions in general."30 This could only be done, Katkov believed, through the medium of German Idealism, which provided a psychological as well as a purely speculative approach to problems. Katkov's emotional affinity for those folk ideals which bear a striking resemblance to the ones held in high esteem by the exponents of a Volksgeist in Germany, did not always find a state of equilibrium with his expressed values of Westernism. But sublimating what was later to become a severe "identity crisis" by his professed desire to "see and feel himself in everything", Katkov was able to ignore the contradictions which arose, at least to his own conscious satisfaction. In any case, his kind of Westernism as well as his kind of Volksgeist were seemingly compatible with aethetic individualism, which was for him an overriding consideration. Thus Katkov was not only able to praise the epics of the bogatyri on the one hand and condemn pre-Petrine Russia on the other, but indeed to do so in increasingly more hyperbolic terms. For instance, in his sharp critique of the History of Russian Philology by » Ibid., p. 58. Loc. cit. » Ibid., p. 59. »» Ibid., p. 57. 28

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the eminent scholar and noted Schellingian, M. A. Maksimovich, the young Katkov created a relationship between "Western" and "Eastern" influences which might almost be considered the antithesis of the Slavophile "We" and "They" dichotomy.31 Katkov categorically and explicitly denied that Russia had a "literature" before Peter the Great, and referred to those elements of Russian "letters" which existed in the pre-Petrine epoch as reflections of "Eastern" infantilism, as opposed to those of the post-Petrine era which were marked by refinement, culture, and communion with the West always representing the highest development of the World Spirit. Only in the post-Petrine era did Russia begin to achieve the "self-consciousness" toward which all postKantian philosophy was directed as the highest state of being, the supreme ontological goal. Decrying Maksimovich's thesis, Katkov declared: "Folk poetry is not the self-conscious word of the soul, but the infantile babble of the spirit just awakening in the people . . . Folk poetry is a land of secret presentiments, of symbolistic forebodings; its force is that of nature, but not of the [world] spirit. In the antiquity of the human species, in the distant depth of the East, that which we now call the folk, the natural element, had its own universal-historical mission, with all of its depth, force and richness." 32 But such an element, Katkov believed, had become atavistic: "The phantoms of the East were dispersed by the rays of the spiritual sun which rose in Europe, and in place of these phantoms, appeared bright, noble, free creations." 33 It is most interesting to observe that at this time, in 1840, Katkov had already rejected the earlier Schellingian Naturphilosophie, even before becoming familiar with the later Schellingian thought, which he would learn from the philosopher himself at Berlin. Katkov's rejection of "romantic naturalism" for more purely mystical and idealistic speculation found a reflection in his rejection of what he considered to be primitive, uncomplicated and hence "Eastern" in the tragedies of classical Greece, as opposed to that which was characterized by the "European spirit"; this element was "illumined by Christianity", and reflected the boundless "plenitude of detail, beauty, and shades of refinement", which were represented by the Shakespearian tragedies. In particular, Katkov held up the "childish simplicity" of Sophocles' al31

M. N. Katkov, "Istorila drevnei russkoi slovesnosti: sochinenie Mikhaila Maksimovicha, kniga pervaia", Kritika, OZ (1840), Vol. IX, Bk. 4, Sec. V, pp. 43ff. Cf. for Slavophile view, Riasanovsky, Russia and the West ..., pp. 91100, passim. »2 Katkov, " . . . sochinenie Mikhaila Maksimovicha...", pp. 43-44. 55 Ibid., p. 44.

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ternatives to the more mature and developed complexity of choices presented by the English bard.34 Certainly such a comparison, in and of itself, does less to testify to his acumen as a literary critic than it does to serve as a valuable historical record of the nature of his romanticism. But the contradiction between his national feelings and his Westernism would not dissolve. Hence, turning to the question of the Slavs, he ridiculed the so-called "golden ages" of Polish and Czech literatures as not genuinely Slavic, but rather Germanic in character; this, he hastened to add, was not bad in itself, because German culture was the superior culture at that time (the Reformation) but it did not contribute to the development of the all-important "self-consciousness" among the Slavic peoples. In the fulfillment of this aim, his own nation had a messianic mission: "No people has had such an enigmatic and unfortunate fate as the Slavic tribes. Having been endowed with the richest gifts of nature, they remained as if undeveloped, until such time as Russia began to justify their existence on earth." 35 At this time Katkov was faced with the prospect of assessing the culture of France. As a direct result of this assessment the problems of paradox and contradiction within the thought of the young romanticist reached colossal proportions. Here was the apotheosis of the Enlightenment; here was the land of endemic revolutions, of the "democratic" leveling of the "individual" genius; here was the country which chose to laugh in the face of history, to defy tradition, to create a new "civilization". And yet, here was one of the most important European peoples, whose state was unquestionably a Power to be reckoned with, and whose cultural heritage could not be easily dismissed. Katkov decided to handle the problem in the following manner: while France was described as a nation motivated by "the moribund mechanism of reason instead of the vital function of the spirit", Katkov hoped to strike a balance by adding, "this very morbidity had a universal-historical mission". He added, "If reason, abstracted from the plenitude of the spirit, formed a moribund reality in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century France, then this was necessary for this very plenitude. The spirit, in its own development, must pass through itself, because that very development includes the spirit. Being all powerful, and having exhausted all of its means, the [spirit] conquers itself, and in so doing, celebrates its victory over itself, within the security of the soul." 36 For Belinskii, it was enough that Kat34

Ibid., pp. 44-45. Ibid., p. 47. »» Ibid., p. 49. 33

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kov had struck a blow for the "West", and he commented upon the younger critic's "fine article on Maksimovich's work" and added that it was "excellent".37 Katkov's anti-skeptical outlook combined with that element of historicism which so often complemented romanticism in the conservative tradition. Hence the young critic greeted the translation of Erasmus' In Praise of Folly into the Russian language with a decided lack of warmth. He caricatured it as a mushroom, which can have no influence upon its environment since the historical conditions under which it was composed were not oulined. Nor were there any other works, presumably opposing Erasmus, to present a more accurate picture of the times.38 Katkov's completion of his candidate's degree at Moscow University was followed by his successful completion of the examination for the magister degree, a necessary prerequisite for one who intended to enter into an academic career. He did not, however, complete his thesis at this time (1840), wishing first to have the opportunity to study German Idealistic philosophy at its source. Katkov's arrival in St. Petersburg, where he spent the autumn before departing for Germany, provided two of the most perceptive memorialists of the time with the opportunity to describe the young man on the basis of personal relationships. Both I. I. Panaev, with whom Katkov stayed while in the Northern Capital, and P. V. Annenkov, with whom he met frequently, have left vivid sketches of the young Katkov in his early twenties: poor but proud, about to set off on a new path which would end his relations with his former kruzhok, and with its literary organ, the Annals of the Fatherland. Katkov's desire to be recognized as something more than an equal by his St. Petersburg colleagues was well recorded. "When I recall Katkov," Panaev wrote, "to this very moment he appears before me somehow with narrowing eyes, hands across his chest, reciting the poetry of Freiligrath, and declaiming in a hushed tone: 'Capitano, Capitano!' " 38 Panaev also elaborated upon Katkov's "fantasies" which the young Moscovite expressed de profundis in the presence of his more sophisticated colleagues. Enchanted by Hoffmann, Katkov insisted upon visiting wineshops in the evening, in the manner of the German romanticist. Panaev, tolerant and good-natured, took pains to explain to Katkov that this was not the custom in St. Petersburg. Katkov, already 37

Belinskii, "Pis'ma", p. 509. M. N. Katkov, "Erasmus Rott. Pokhvala gluposti"', Kritika, OZ (1840), Vol. X, Bk. 5, Sec. VI, p. 27. 38

39

I. I. Panaev, Literaturnyia vospominaniia, 3rd ed. (St. P., 1888), p. 245.

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sensitive about his marginal position in society as well as his unfamiliarity with the mores of the capital, in an unguarded moment let slip some most instructive words, which are perhaps more telling about his personality than much of the verbiage which he spun with careful deliberation: he attacked Panaev's "gentry prejudices and absurd proprieties". 40 What clearer evidence is there for Katkov's keen awareness of his own status as a parvenu? Indeed, such a self-conscious awareness only served to exacerbate his "identity problem" in very personal terms. Katkov did everything in his power to conceal his feelings of inferiority; thus for instance occurred one of many painful moments, when Katkov ordered the "wrong" kind of wine in the company of his St. Petersburg colleagues, and becoming intoxicated, ran onto the Semenovskii Bridge and forced a sizeable part of the carriage trade to detour around him. 41 On the other hand, Katkov was not a reveller by nature, but a hard worker, whose responsibilities as the provider for his mother and younger brother became increasingly painful when he considered the alternative of accepting what amounted to "charity" from their gentry friends. Thus much of what Katkov wrote at this time was scarcely the labor of love, but rather went to the support of his aging mother and younger brother, who was then preparing for the university. P. V. Annenkov's sketch of Katkov is by far one of the best sketches of Katkov's attitudes in his early twenties: 42 During the autumn of 1840, a young man, M. K[atko]v arrived in St. Petersburg from Moscow; the translator of Romeo and Juliet had already established a reputation as a man of sound philosophical knowledge and remarkable abilities in abstract thought and the criticism of ideas. But at this time, he pursued still other goals - striving to show himself, not only as a man of encyclopedic education, but as one with fervent worldly passions, studying philosophical formulations, poetry, art and creativity with the same exactitude as the creation of demonic expressions on his own physiognomy. The desire to be known as a man able to understand and perceive within himself all sides of existence, led him, at times, to unusual attempts, which prompted acts and outbursts of a completely fantastic nature, partly sincere - because he did possess a fervently passionate nature - but partly contrived, with a view toward embellishment as a useful psychological trait. All this tied together badly with his plans for a scholarly and industrious life . . . . Katkov's last "scene" before leaving Russia for Germany in late 1840 was most bizarre. Belinskii and Bakunin had severed relations over a «

41

42

Ibid., p. 246. Ibid., p. 247.

P. V. Annenkov, Literaturnye vospominaniia ([Moscow, I960]), p. 187.

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year before, and what had once been a rather tightly-knit kruzhok had all but disintegrated. Bakunin's arrival in St. Petersburg coincided approximately with that of Katkov's; both men intended to study abroad, and were leaving by way of St. Petersburg. Though Bakunin's position at this time was not as far removed from Katkov's aesthetic individualism as from Belinskii's rationalization of reality, there were wounds from a personal conflict between Bakunin and Katkov which had not healed from the previous winter in Moscow, when Bakunin helped to fan the flames of scandal about Katkov and Maria Ogareva. When the two enemies - Katkov and Bakunin - did meet in Belinskii's quarters, a furious quarrel took place. Mikhail Nikiforovich "thanked" Bakunin sarcastically for helping to spread malicious rumors. Bakunin, hoping to stop the quarrel before it went too far, muttered something about these being the "facts"; Katkov, all the more infuriated, demanded to know what "facts" Bakunin had, and followed up with the charge that Bakunin had torn his reputation to bits. He concluded by calling Bakunin a cad, which insult Bakunin flung back. Then Katkov with all of his pent-up hatred for his adversary, struck out with a remark he knew would sting Bakunin to the quick - "Eunuch", he shouted. There followed slaps and blows with a walking stick, in the midst of which Bakunin exclaimed that it must come to a duel. After the struggle, Katkov reminded Bakunin of his words, and made a direct and calculated challenge. But Bakunin, indicating that the law forbade dueling in Russia, suggested that they had better wait until they reached foreign soil. Time cooled Katkov's passions and the duel was never fought.43 Katkov's departure for Germany served as a reinforcement for his unreconstructed "idealism" which had been seriously challenged by Belinskii's "rationalization of reality". Katkov had already given every indication of his dissatisfaction with Schelling's earlier Naturphilosophie, and now he felt an even greater distaste for Belinskii's interpretation of Hegel, which was leading the older critic paradoxically along a converging path with that of Herzen and Ogarev. Once philosophical thought could be applied to a justification of "reality", it was a short step toward its application in an effort to "change" that very "reality". For Katkov, at this time, such a "debasement" of pure speculative thought was unthinkable. His world of dreams and fantasy appeared to have been very necessary for his psychological requirements, and even his sojourn abroad, during which time he was not able to aid his mother « Belinskii, "Pis'ma", p. 542. Panaev, op. cit., p. 248. E. H. C a n , Bakunin (New York, 1961), pp. 89-93.

Michael

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and brother, was in the nature of an escape from the "reality" of a way of life which seemed unbearably oppressive on the one hand and subversive on the other. Katkov could bring himself to "identify" with neither the State with its doctrine of Official Nationality nor with Society. Both the Westerners and the Slavophiles held that Society was becoming increasingly alienated from the State. Furthermore, there was no immediate prospect of a fusion of the "positive" elements from each direction into a common force against the powers of darkness. Katkov, sensing the dangerous direction in which Herzen and Belinskii were moving in 1840, was keenly aware of the ever-widening chasm between his own aesthetic individualism and the "social criticism" of the latter two. Katkov at this time made a remarkable profession de foi which none of his subsequent thought refuted: "If one looks at the universe, and has to choose one of two extreme attitudes, it is easier to become a mystic than a nihilist. We are everywhere surrounded by miracles." 44 Katkov wrote the foregoing words in a review of the poetry of the child prodigy, Sarrah Tolstoi, whose mysticism Katkov deeply admired and whose work embodied the spirit of aesthetic individualism for him. Katkov's use of the word nihilist at this early date deserves some explanation. He was not the first to use the word in print: F. Jacobi, Jean-Paul Richter and Sébastian Mercier had all employed the word in the eighteenth century; and the Russian Schellingian, Nadezhdin, had used it in 1829 "in a purely negative sense, to mean those who know nothing and understand nothing".45 But as Franco Venturi correctly suggested, "Katkov gave it new meaning, using it to describe someone who no longer believed in anything".48 Katkov did not want to stop believing in miracles; he did not want to compromise his own idealism with the incipient skepticism and materialism that he sensed in his former colleagues. For a short while, he found a haven in Berlin. In one of his last articles for the Annals he described the German philosophical and literary scene in 1841, and at the same time provided some information about his own feelings on the subject: "The German poetgeniuses and intellectual geniuses stemmed from a single root, from a single organic principle, by which creative strength was expressed in the realm of incorporeal thought, and in the flourishing world of fan44

M. N . Katkov, "Sochineniia ν stikhakh i proze grafini S. F. Tolstoi", Kritika, OZ (1840), Vol. XII, Bk. 10, Sec. V, p. 17. See also Nevedenskii, op cit., p. 1; and Franco Venturi, Roots of Revolution (New York, 1960), p. 326. 45 Venturi, op. cit., p. 326. « Ibid.

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tasy. Schiller and Goethe appeared, and could appear, only after the gate to the new world was opened by that stern watchman, K a n t . . . . Who does not feel the deeply binding connection of Schiller with Kant and Fichte, of Goethe with Schelling and partly with Hegel, who, however, still awaits his poet? . . . It stands to reason", he added, "that the whole of philosophy is contained in its newest system. . . . All other systems have meaning, not parallel to it, but within i t . . . if someone takes it into his head to reform philosophy [at the present time], then he must consider the negation of the Hegelian system." 47 And if anyone would undertake this task, they could count Katkov as an ally. He came increasingly to attack the Hegelian system in the same terms in which he had previously attacked the empiricists - they were "dry" and "abstract", "lifeless" rather than "organic" - now the Young Hegelians were also "abstract and dry": "In the field of speculative thought", he wrote from Germany, "there are the toilers, who are taken up with abstract schemes and formulas instead of with old MSS." 48 Katkov reasserted his faith in the Christian religion and romantic nationality against the atheistic cosmopolitanism of the Left Hegelians. Using the analogy of cosmopolitan Rome, Katkov found that the "agglomeration of peoples" which made up the Roman Empire was not related to the Weltgeist because the intermediate stage of "nationality" [natsional'nost'] was negated; hence he added, "the individual was related to the Weltgeist, without the benefit of the intermediate stage of nationality, thus Roman Law produced and confirmed the concept of the individual, the persona, as a being isolated from everything, and therefore reduced to the state of a spiritual atom." 49 It was this very denial of the nation, of the Volksgeist, this atomization of human society through a disregard of what he considered to be a most important element, that characterized Katkov's antipathy for the Left Hegelians, for Belinskii, and Herzen and the rest. It is significant that these thoughts, as well as those about his inclination for mysticism and his rejection of nihilism were written before Schelling's arrival in Berlin; that is, they were inspired by Katkov's reaction against that which he sensed to be the prevailing ideological mood east of the Rhine, and when Schelling did arrive (with his reconciliation of philosophy with religion) Katkov was already prepared to accept a new mystical Weltanschauung. Katkov's insistence upon the equation of the ego with God «

48 48

M. N. Katkov, "Germanskaia literatura", OZ (1841), Vol. XV, Sec. VI, p. 4.

Ibid., p. 6. Ibid., pp. 7, 10, 15.

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was thinly disguised before even Schelling's arrival, for it was such sentiments which he expressed in his letters to his mother and brother at the time: "Personality is the final word in the whole of philosophy, here philosophy ends, but here everything ends, here is the wealth of the past and the future, here is infinity, here is immortality, here is God, and we are within God, as if the whole personality reflects that which is originally divine." 50 And against the background of this extreme solipsism, Katkov cautioned his younger brother against the traps and pitfalls set by the Young Hegelians: "Hegelian philosophy sometimes plays bad jokes: despite, and because of, its complexity, it admits a whole multitude of Hegelians . . . who play at p a r l i a m e n t . . . and just because they are Hegelians, they are farthest from the true spirit of Hegel's philosophy.... They say that personality is only abstract thought, and that the world is finite . . . [that] God, not existing within Himself, perhaps does not exist in the world; this leads to the devil knows what." 51 Such a condemnation of the Young Hegelians did not signify that Katkov in any way reconciled his position with his two former professors, Pogodin and Shevyrëv, exponents of Official Nationality, albeit within the framework of German romanticism. While Katkov could join Pogodin in an encomium of Peter the Great, he could not sympathize with the Moscow professor's attempt to glorify the "Eastern or Greek half" of Russia's heritage.52 Writing to Kraevskii, the publisher of the Annals, from Germany, he could scarcely have been more caustic: "Oh God, the old russopëty envoys of Alexei Mikhailovich to the Florentine court, with all their apathy and stupidity, saw things more intelligently and humanly than these creatures [Pogodin and Shevyrëv], these s[ukini syny]." 53 Katkov reported Schelling's first lecture of his Berlin period to Russia; quoting the philosopher he wrote: "No philosophy, however selfrespecting, can be said to have led other than to irreligiosity. Now philosophy is found in the same situation . . . to wit, its conclusions consider Christian dogma as a patent fraud." 6 4 Against such conclusions, drawn by the Young Hegelians, Schelling introduced his own transcendental 50

"

52

"Katkov k materi", p. 163.

Ibid.

Riasanovsky, Nicholas I..pp. 105-115. 53 Letter of May 21, 1841, Katkov to Kraevskii, cited in Nevedenskii, op. cit., pp. 81-82. 54 M. N. Katkov, "Pervaia lektsiia Shellinga ν Berline 15 noiabria, 1841 goda", OZ (1842), Vol. XX, Bk. 2, Sec. VIII, p. 68.

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philosophy, by which he hoped to reconcile German Idealism with Christianity, and toward which Katkov became profoundly drawn. At the same time, Belinskii was moving ever closer to Herzen. In March of 1841, Herzen wrote to Ketcher that Belinskii was indeed becoming a good friend, but he protested that some of the latter's associates were still standing off at a distance, "à la Katkoff".55 Katkov, for his part, struck out against the whole literary direction which he considered to be increasingly shallow, increasingly within the genre of "realism"; and even the conservative Gogol, whose Dead Souls appeared in Moscow in 1842, was severely criticized for the "future panegyrics" which the book was sure to arouse.86 When Katkov returned to Russia at the end of 1842, he was ill and poverty-stricken. He had taken the cure at several German spas, but his health did not seem substantially improved. He felt the burden of responsibility for his mother and brother pressing upon him increasingly, and there was probably a growing sense of guilt within him for ever having "forsaken" them during his sojourn in Germany. Receiving funds occasionally from Kraevskii and Annenkov, he was in desperation, and contemplated a governmental position on his return.57 When Katkov did return to St. Petersburg on his way to Moscow in late 1842, his relations with Belinskii had already gone beyond the breaking point. Katkov did not "mature" in Belinskii's sense of the term, but "only became ever more himself".58 Belinskii's own post-script to the relationship, aside from the depth of malice which it displayed, also gave some insight into Katkov's personality: "a remarkable subject for psychological examination. . . . [Katkov] is a Khlestakov in the German sense." 5S After first considering a minor governmental position, a sinecure which would permit him to engage in speculative thought, especially that of Schelling, which he now continued to study, Katkov was convinced by the Curator of the Moscow Educational District, Count Stroganov, to prepare for an academic career leading to a university chair. His financial position in February of 1843 was so desperate that he wrote to a friend, the minor Slavophile, A. N. Popov: "Despite all of my endeavors, I could not at this time gather enough money to pay my debts 55

A. I. Gertsen, Polnoe sobrante sochinenii i pisem, ed. Μ. Κ. Lemke (Petrograd, 1920), II, 422. 58 Annenkov, Literaturnye vospominaniia. .., p. 189. 57 Letter of Katkov to Kraevskii, March 17, 1843, in Nevedenskii, op. cit., p. 94. 58 Belinskii, "Pis'ma", XII, 131. 5 » Ibid.

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35

incurred in Berlin. I have not yet sold my fur coat but soon will." ,0 Besides, all of Katkov's earlier contacts with his former kruzhniki were now severed. He drifted, quite alone, from Ogarev (who had forgiven Katkov's purported indiscretion) to the older generation of the Slavophiles, without ever becoming attached to the tenets of either. His disillusionment with the milieu of Russian society was expressed in a letter to Popov at the time: 81 I view with interest those who now rule in St. Petersburg and Moscow, and find that I have little sympathy with them. One hears only about Gogol and Hegel, Homer and George Sand. Here, I am completely without refuge, there is no one toward whom I can turn, no one with whom I may be open; however, I am not fretting about this. While it is good to have a like-minded kruzhok with one goal, it is also good to work alone, and to have more sincere conversations with oneself. Here, I am still and only listen: on the one side you hear that Russia is rotting; on the other that the West is dying like a dog in a slaughterhouse; on the one side that philosophy is now flourishing in Russia, but that its formulas must be kept away from life, in order that the masses not become involved in it; on the other that philosophy is a sea-dog, no more than an expression of German philistinism. And above all this, Gogol rules from an unshakable height.

Amidst all of his difficulties, Katkov was proffered assistance from an unlikely quarter. The old Schellingian professor, Maksimovich, whom Katkov had earlier so severely criticized, now offered the poor scholar a chair at Kiev as soon as Katkov had completed his dissertation (On the Elements and Forms of the Slavonic-Russian Language [Ob elementakh i jormakh slaviano-russkago iazyka]). But this would have meant leaving his native Moscow for Kiev; his answer was a foregone conclusion: to leave his native city was out of the question. During 1843 and 1844, Katkov worked as private tutor for the wealthy gentry families in and around Moscow: the Soimopovs, the Talyzins, the RimskiiKorsakovs,62 and the Golitsyns. The German memorialist, Friedrich Bodenstedt, has provided some information concerning Katkov's abilities and interest during the time when they both lived on the estate of Prince M. A. Nikolskii, not far from Moscow. He found Katkov a highly intelligent and well-read man, whose ability in foreign languages was unquestionable, noting that he spoke German "without so much as a trace «» "Pis'ma M. N. Katkova k A. N. Popovu (1843-1857)", Russkii Arkhiv, 1888, No. 8, p. 481. « Ibid., p. 482. 82 Barsukov, op. cit., VII, 96. Κ. Borozdin, "Pamiati Μ. Ν. Katkova", Novoe vremia, July 27 [Aug. 8.], 1887, No. 4097, p. 1.

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of an accent". Bodenstedt further testified to Katkov's interest in Schelling^ later "positive" philosophy, which the young Russian hoped to fuse with the Orthodox religion.·3 Finally, the long-awaited day came and passed happily; on June 9, 1845, Pogodin made the following comment in his diary: "In the morning to the university for Katkov's defense of the dissertation. A comforting appearance. It was disputed by about ten persons, and [defended] excellently, scholarly and sensibly!"64 The dissertation provided only indirect clues to Katkov's ideological course at the time. It followed very closely the work of Franz Bopp and Jakob Grimm, and as such was very much within the tradition of "philological national sentiment" which so characterized Grimm and other Germanisten at the time.65 Katkov's short-lived academic career began in 1845 when he assumed the position of adjunct in the newly created chair of philosophy at Moscow University. Heretofore, philosophical subjects had been read by professors in other disciplines, and this departure is a noteworthy one.86 Aside from the history of philosophy, Katkov also taught two other subjects which were new to the university curriculum - logic and psychology. One of his former students recalled Katkov's inaugural lecture, part of which is instructive in relation to his cautious conservatism at this period of time, when an active journalistic polemic was being waged between the Slavophiles and the Westerners: using the metaphor of a man with a sling, he indicated that it is better not to hurl a rock at all, than to overshoot one's mark.67 Katkov soon came to feel dissatisfied with his new career: he described the "sinister, ugly faces" of his colleagues, "which like owls peered at me from every corner". One such "bird" was surely Shevyrëv, who reciprocated Katkov's dislike of him. Katkov's own physical and nervous constitution was still not good, and he himself referred to his own "stupidly irritable and nervous character. The more I tried to conceal it, the more I worried within." And as if matters were not already bad enough, Katkov was not a good lecturer, complaining that his early lectures were "outrageously garbled in the 63

Friedrich Bodenstedt, Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben (Berlin, 1888), pp. 218-220. 84 Barsukov, op. cit., VIII, 61. 65 Ibid.; infra, p. 45; R. Hinton Thomas, Liberalism Nationalism and the German Intellectuals, 1822-1847 (Cambridge, 1951), esp. Chap. Ill indicates Grimm's development. M G. Shpet, Ocherk razvitiia russkoi filosofa (Petrograd, 1922), I, 90. 67 Κ. Borozdin, "Pamiati Μ. N. Katkova", Novoe vremia, July 27/Aug. 8, 1887, No. 4097, p. 1.

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37

e8

students' notebooks . . .". That Katkov was a bad lecturer was a point upon which Mends and foes alike could agree. His former student and later close colleague (as managing editor of the Russian Messenger), N. A. Liubimov, sketched the following picture, as he remembereu Katkov in 1849:69 I recall Mikhail Nikiforovich as a professor. In 1849, I quite often went to his lectures which then treated the subject of the philosophical and religious teachings of the East. He then lectured in the auditorium downstairs, which bore the designation, "the little philological". It held about sixty persons and was always full. Mikhail Nikiforovich came to the leoture a bit late, entering the auditorium about twenty-five minutes after the bell; after which, he remained ten or even fifteen minutes longer than the allotted time. He had a somewhat sickly appearance, though essentially he was distinguished by a strong constitution; often he appeared with a white kerchief wrapped around his cheek. The lectures were worked out very carefully, paying attention to polishing phrases, using notes on which evidently were jotted the main points of the lecture. The lectures produced a great impression of philosophical depth, but to the majority, they were hardly intelligible. As a professor, Mikhail Nikiforovich enjoyed great respect, but he was not a captivating lecturer, and did not have popularity like Granovskii, Kudriavtsev and Rul'e.

B. N. Chicherin (also one of Katkov's auditors, who later became first a journalistic colleague and then a bitter rival) came to the same general conclusion about Katkov's teaching ability; but he added an interesting observation which reflected upon Katkov's continued "Westernism" during this period of time when he remained essentially on the sidelines of the great debate between the Westerners and the Slavophiles: Katkov made an attempt to reconcile "mystical pseudo-positive philosophy . . . [probably a reference to Schelling's Berlin period] with the realistic psychology of Beneke".70 Those students who valued Katkov, for example A. I. Georgievskii (later Katkov's confidant as editor of the Journal of the Ministry of Education), did so more for his attraction as a "mystic" than as a lecturer,71 a fact also appreciated by his alter-ego, the professor of classical philology, Pavel Mikhailovich Leont'ev (1822-1875): 72 Today I received Holy Communion . . . dear Mikhail Nikiforovich, and kiss you mentally; you, who were the instrument of my salvation. I do not «β Barsukov, op. cit., IX, 214. ·· Liubimov, op cit., pp. 42-43. 70 B. N. Chicherin, Vospominaniia, Π ("Moskva 40-kh g-v"), 174. 71 A. I. Georgievskii, "Moi vospominaniia i razmyshleniia", Russkaia starino (Oct., 1915), pp. 80-81. 72 Letter dated 1854, cited in Barsukov, op. cit., IX, 219-220.

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know what would have become of me if God had not drawn us together. A happy family was cheerless on my soil.. . my spiritual viewpoint was supressed by the gloom of mental laziness, an internal emptiness seemed to be my normal condition, before I came to know you intimately. Believe this truth, in which there is no shade of exaggeration, you and you alone were placed on earth as an instrument of God, given to me, when all else was lost. In 1850 there occurred an event which was to be momentous for the future career of Mikhail Katkov. As an aftermath of the revolutionary furor in Europe in 1848, the Ministry of Education was transferred from Uvarov to Prince P. Shirinskii-Shikhmatov, who strictly curtailed academic freedom and purged the curricula of certain controversial subjects: constitutional law and philosophy. Logic and psychology were transferred to the jurisdiction of professors of theology. So fundamental was the reaction, Professor Riasanovsky noted, that "in the opinion of some specialists, the universities themselves came close to being eliminated . . .".7S The upshot of the whole affair was that Katkov was left without a position. The university retained him for a semester as an adjunct-at-large, but this was clearly a temporary amenity. Shevyrëv, his old enemy, held both the chairs of literature and pedagogy, thus depriving Katkov of the opportunity to occupy either one. The situation indeed looked dismal for his continued affiliation with Moscow University. Then occurred one of those strange accidents of history, which changed his entire situation. The then editor of the daily Moscow Gazette (Moskovskiia vedomostî), which was published by the University, had the misfortune to compromise himself by pursuing too ardently the Austrian ballerina, Fanny Elssler, and hence brought discredit upon his patron institution. V. I. Nazimov, Curator of the Moscow Educational District at the time, offered the editorship of the paper to Katkov, who assumed control in March 1851. Hence, the misfortune of Khlopov (the former editor) proved to be the beginning of a new career in journalism for Katkov. 74 He seemed very consciously seeking to better his social position which his appointment as editor brought to him. He was said to have been very much in love with a certain M-lle. Delone, the daughter of a doctor (who enjoyed a certain reputation in Moscow, but who, as a professional man, did not possess a title of nobility). Katkov, according to Feoktistov, "was out of his mind about M-lle. Delone and proposed to her, and the proposal was accepted.. ."; but he went on to indicate that shortly thereafter Katkov went somewhere, and after 73 74

Riasanovsky, Nicholas I..., pp. 218-219. Liubimov, op. cit., pp. 44-45. Iazykov, op. cit., p. 37.

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39

a few letters ceased to correspond, thus tacitly severing the relationship. Feoktistov himself confirmed the fact that M-lle. Delone had not caused the rupture. Shortly thereafter, Katkov married the Princess Sophia Petrovna Shalikova. Feoktistov indicated that the "riddle remains unanswered", but admitted that he could not understand Katkov's choice: "Vain, of small stature, she was quite odd; her education went no further than French conversation, but all this would not have been so bad, were she not a model of stupidity. In what way could she attract such a man as Katkov? Her princess' title meant nothing, she had no means: the Shalikovs, without exaggeration, were on the verge of poverty." 75 But here, Feoktistov may perhaps have overlooked the possibility that means were not always necessary to attract a parvenu to a noble title. The poet F. I. Tiutchev, who was always close to Katkov, remarked on his choice: " 'Que voulez-vous, probablement Katkow a voulu mettre son esprit à la diette.' " 76 Katkov's new position as editor of the Moscow Gazette was fraught with all of the censorial restrictions which were then (1851-1855) in effect. Liubimov reported that not only was the editor forbidden to publish any "political" news which was not quoted exactly from St. Petersburg, "without adding anything of his own", but he occasionally received an article "recommended by the authorities" which he was obliged to publish. One such article, No. 40 of 1851, was decidedly contrary to Katkov's conservative Western orientation. The article which contained such references as "the putrid influence of the West" was reluctantly printed by Katkov under the telling by-line - "communicated". 77 When Katkov did attempt to exercise a slight initiative, for example, when he published Professor Rul'e's controversial "geological" lectures which the authorities found contrary to Biblical references, the editor was forced to write an apology explaining his actions. 78 Such restraints, and the relative inactivity of the editorial position, permitted Katkov to continue his scholarly pursuits. In 1851, Katkov's friend and alter-ego to be, P. M. Leont'ev, began to publish a journal on classical antiquity, Propilei, which included among its contributors the Westerners T. N. Granovskii, F. I. Buslaev, P. N. Ku" Vospominaniia E. M. Feoktìstova: za kulisami politiki i literatury, 1848-1896, ed. lu. G. Oksman (Leningrad, 1929), pp. 86-87. n Cited in ibid., p. 87. 77 Liubimov, op. cit., p. 45. 76 N. Barsukov, "Apologia publichnykh lektsii Professore Κ. F. Rul'e, napisannaia Μ. N. Katkovym", Russkii arkhiv, 1895, No. 5, pp. 30-35.

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driavtsev, and I. K. Babst, as well as Katkov himself. Also included among the contributors was the originator of the doctrine of Official Nationality, who had since been replaced as Minister of Education, S. S. Uvarov, a well recognized classicist in his own right. Katkov's contribution of the journal was a long article published in 1851 in two installments entitled "Outlines of the Earliest Period of Greek Philosophy". In the article he treated the question of pre-Socratic Greek philosophy as a subject which can only be understood from an historicist, than a relativistic, point of view. His haughty introductory remarks debunked in rather harsh terms that which he considered to be the presentisi trend in the history of Greek philosophy.7· Aside from the merits, or demerits, in terms of its contribution to the history of philosophy,80 this work offered some indications of Katkov's own thought at the time. In the first place, Katkov was very much within the Idealistic tradition, as opposed to the empirical search for "finite" causes; and a large part of his article was devoted to removing the historical "precedents" of Greek philosophy from the arguments of the empiricists of his own epoch. Not only did Katkov indicate that Democritus (whose materialistic cosmology and hedonistic ethics were accepted by many scholars) did not seek finite causation, but moving into more recent times, he indicated that Francis Bacon himself was a decided opponent of those who sought "finite causes in real [real'nyi] cognition". And he quoted from the author of the Novum Organum to prove his point: " 'Causarum finalium inquisitio sterìlis est et tanquam virgo diis consecrata nihil parif." On the other hand Katkov traced the development of Greek theology from the mythical Orpheus through Dionysius, and indicated that only in the Pythagorean school did Greek theology take the form of "a society within a society", only there did it assume the "character of a religio-political force", only in this case did it assume an aspect analogous "to the priestly castes in the East". Katkov's emphasis upon these aspects of thought in a slightly pejorative tone was clearly within the same Westerner tradition which was observed in his earlier articles, for example, his critique of Maksimovich, as well as in his later editorials of the fifties and sixties.81 However, at this ™ M. N . Katkov, "Ocherki drevneishago perioda grecheskoi filosofii", Propilei, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1856), Bk. I, Sec. 1, pp. 305-306. See D. I. Chizhevskii, Gegel ν Rossii (Paris, [1939]), p. 234; cf. V. Iakovenko, Aus der Geschichte der russischen Philosophie: M. N. Katkov und W. P. Botkin als Hegelianer (Prague, 1935), passim. 81 Katkov, "Ocherki drevneishago perioda...", Bk. ΙΠ, p. 157; ibid., Bk. I, p. 315. 80

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41

time, in 1851, there was more than a trace of Aesopian criticism of Official Nationality in his reference to a "religio-political force" indeed it was such a force which in his eyes ended his own academic career. Another of the many portions of the article which suggest Aesopian criticism of the rigors of Nicholas' Russia was Katkov's treatment of the Doric principle, which also might be interpreted as an attack against the "communal" concept of the Slavophiles. In this article Katkov indicated the then limits of his own conservative attitude as well as his aesthetic individualism:82 The Doric principle consists of the undeviating preservation of that which exists. It is primarily a conservative principle, a principle of immutability and firmness of custom. That which changes is that which indivisibly unites the past with the future; that which stops movement is that which did not know the past and does not know the f u t u r e . . . . With all its higher selfconsciousness and self-constructive character, this unity [of the Doric principle] was guilty however of the instinct of self-preservation, and fought for it. The highest level for the development of an autonomous citizenry must be the autonomy of personal existence. But where was the freedom of the individual so sacrificed for political unity as in Sparta, Whioh was the most extreme manifestations of the Doric ideal? In everything that derived from the Doric principle, the dominance of the collective is evident. Within known limits this gives the phenomena of the Doric spirit that integrity, that moral refinement, which has such power over minds, and which elicits many to see in Dorism, the highest and most noble flower of Greek nationality. But in so far as this flower was seen to be dominant, an envious, pathological force was evident; it assumed a dark negative character and craved an extreme one-sidedness in order to appease itself in the Doric principle and to view everything from its point of view. This interesting citation serves the function of reemphasizing the manner in which, it is suggested, Katkov employed the Aesopian genre to express some of his most pertinent thoughts on such matters as freedom and authority at a time when their open expression was more than limited. In contrast to his approach to the Doric principle, Katkov was unequivocal in his praise for the Eleatic idea, which he believed represented the poetic ideal.88 Several years after its initial publication in 1854, Katkov's Ocherki appeared in monographic form. After a favorable review in the Western-oriented Annals of the Fatherland, it received a most harsh and unfavorable criticism from an anonymous critic,writ« Ibid., Bk. I, pp. 317-318. 8» Ibid., pp. 332-335.

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ing in Pogodin's Moskvitianin. Before considering the polemic between Katkov and Mr. N. of the Moskvitianin, it might be well to take account of Katkov's relationships and ambitions during these years of the early fifties. As early as 1852, disgusted with the tight control which the censorship exercised over him as editor of the Moscow Gazette, he conducted a quiet search for a private paper, which might offer greater freedom of expression. After failing to gain control of the Son of the Fatherland, he turned next to Pogodin's Moskvitianin. Pogodin actually wavered and almost gave in to Katkov's request, but it appears that a letter from the Slavophile S. T. Aksakov put an end to such hesitations: "If you wish the former direction to remain", he wrote to Pogodin on January 20, 1854, "then transfer the journal to no one. Katkov is a very good man, but the direction will be particularly one-sided." 84 This failure set the stage for some personally invidious feelings between Katkov and Pogodin, and it will be remembered that the former already harbored much ill will toward Shevyrëv. The unfavorable review of Katkov's Ocherki appeared in No. 10 of the Moskvitianin for 1854, and was based primarily upon the text of the history of philosophy by Eduard Zeller. Thus it is not surprising that in his rebuttal Katkov systematically attempted to refute Zeller as well as his anonymous critic, point by point. Katkov rejected Zeller's hypothesis that the pre-Socratic period can be characterized solely by an all-consuming interest in Naturphilosophie·, and he repeated a contention that he made in his original work, that he wished to show "not that ancient philosophy was physical, but that ancient physics must be examined as philosophy . . ,".85 The polemic continued over the next several years, with the parting shot fired by Katkov only in 1858, when as editor-publisher of the Russian Messenger he answered his critic by reprinting the original reply of 1854.8«

Katkov's revived Westernism in the early fifties, albeit in Aesopian form, helped to mend his fences with Granovskii, who had broken with Katkov partly as a result of some ideological differences, but largely as a result of the Ogareva scandal; Granovskii's form of Westernism was of a different mold from that of Katkov. And when in the late fifties Katkov went in search of colleagues for a new journal, it was the West84

Barsukov, Pogodin .. ., XII, 303-307. M. Katkov, "Zamechaniia na retsentsiiu 'Ocherkov drevneishago perioda grecheskoi filosofii", pomeshchennuiu ν No. 10 Moskvitianina", Propilei, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1858), Bk. Π, Sec. 2, p. 249. 86 Iazykov, op. cit., p. 37.

85

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43

erners, of liberal persuasion, who provided the bulk of his contributors. This inaugurated a new period in Katkov's relations with his liberal colleagues, a period facilitated in the last analysis by the death of Nicholas, and the ascension to the throne of the Tsar Liberator.87

87

Feoktistov, op. cit., p. 86.

III THE "ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS"

"Let us hope that the philosophical concepts of the men who write in the little by little will become clear . . . already, significant progress is noted in several places. Mr. Chernyshevskii, evidently the prime leader of this host, is already beginning to speak on the subject of political economy in a human language. Il s'humanise, ce monsieur." Contemporary

Katkov, infra, p. 65.

I The relaxation of restrictions and the promise of much needed reforms combined to create a spirit of particular optimism at the death of Nicholas I. Even before the coronation of his successor, there was clear evidence that a "thaw" had occurred. The heightened expectations, which had come to be an almost endemic phenomenon accompanying the ascension of each new monarch to the Russian throne, now soared higher than before, as the possibility of the abolition of serfdom approached realization. Amidst the jubilation which captured all abolitionists - Westerners, Slavophiles, and former exponents of Official Nationality alike - old grievances were partially forgotten, old wounds healed more quickly than would otherwise have been possible, and seemingly irreconcilable opponents were able to find common ground for agreement. Katkov, as has been noted, was for some time searching for a journalistic enterprise of his own, which would be relatively "free" from the restrictions imposed upon the editorship of the university-controlled Moscow Gazette. And thus amidst the exhilaration which followed almost on the heels of Nicholas' death, Katkov intensified his search for an independent organ: "Tell me, what is the censor doing now?" he wrote to his friend and confidant, Nikitenko, in St. Petersburg. "They said that many restraints would be eased. To the point: is not now the

THE "ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS"

45

time to petition about a journal? . . . If the signs are portentious, then I should advance the time of my trip to St. Petersburg!" 1 Receiving an affirmative reply, Katkov rushed to the Northern Capital, and on May 29, 1855, had an interview with the Minister of Education. In a note which he submitted to the Minister, Katkov strove to conceal all indications of his Westernism, seeking rather to convey the depth and selflessness of his national sentiment. In Katkov's thought and feelings, both ideas were equally genuine, but to represent the one without the other was deliberate subterfuge. In the note he referred to the "depth of our nationality", and to the fact that Russian society now spoke Russian, adding: "our society should be preserved in this direction; the Russian view on things should be made ever more lucid; the Russian mind should lift itself from the yoke of foreign thought in the same way that it has lifted itself from the foreign word . . . " . He raised a warning against "disruptive and disturbing agitation" which was directed at "our young mind from all four sides". And, as if in an effort to reconfirm his quite well-intentioned spirit of loyalty (blagonamerennosf) in the concluding days of the Crimean War, he wrote: "the present age is reminiscent of the great epoch of 1812, which in its turn called forth journals of the stature of the European Messenger [Vestnik Evropy] and the Son of the Fatherland, with which so many patriotic memories were b o u n d . . . . It is to be hoped that the noble inspiration, which today reigns in our society, would find its own special organ in Literature." And, a post-script (designed to emphasize the selfless aspect of his petition) was added in the remark: "I did not seek this field of activity; I was called to it by circumstances." 2 The veracity of the last statement remains more than questionable when one recalls that Katkov began to seek an independent organ as early as 1852. Though Katkov's petition was favorably received by the Ministry of Education, it encountered some strong opposition in Moscow University, in the person of the publisher of the Moscow Gazette. The opposition, as might have been expected, centered around the unreconciled Shevyrëv; and the University submitted a formal protest against the petition in July, 1855. While the official reason for the protest was that a new journal with current news reportage privileges would interfere with the monopoly then enjoyed by the Gazette, Granovskii indicated that the protest was directed more at the person of Katkov than 1 2

Barsukov, op. cit., XIV, 255-256. Ibid., pp. 258, 263.

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at the establishment of a competing journal.8 Katkov then resorted to the time-honored device of patronage. The influential State-secretary, Count D. N. Bludov, exercised his good will with the Minister of Education, A. S. Norov, on Katkov's behalf. After some vacillation the petition was approved for two new journals bearing the titles Russian Messenger (Russkii vestnik), with the privilege of current news reportage, and the Contemporary Chronicle (Sovremennaia letopis'). Final approval came from the Emperor's headquarters at Bakhchisarai on October 31, 1855.4 Katkov's list of prospective contributors reflected in large measure the spirit of reconciliation. It included practically the entire gamut of liberal and conservative Westerners, many of whom also contributed to the Annals of the Fatherland and the more radical Contemporary (Sovremennik). These had been the leading journals of the Westerner Left during the early and mid-forties, and continued in the general Westerner direction during the so-called "dark seven years" from 1848 to 1855. The Messenger's preliminary list of contributors ran from Ogarev on the Left to the Aksakovs on the Right, but its center of gravity during its first year or so was squarely between the liberal and conservative Westerner directions. The liberals — E. F. Korsh (who was on the editorial staff), B. N. Chicherin, K. D. Kavelin and P. N. Kudriavtsev among others - were counterbalanced by the conservatives - Katkov (chief editor) and Leont'ev (a co-editor). The belles-lettres' section of the journal offered impressive prospects: a certain "L.N.T." (Tolstoi), the already well-known Turgenev, and the little-known Dostoevskij, led the list of its contributors. Reactions from the competition were varied. Chernyshevskii, the leading critic of the Contemporary, welcomed the new journal as a prospective ally. The Slavophile editor Filippov viewed it warily as "trouble to opponents". Among the exponents of Official Nationality, Shevyrëv expressed only guarded curses, while V. V. Grigor'ev made a more astute observation of the new journal's "lack of character", and asked "how can the convictions of Ogarev be reconciled with those of Aksakov?" S. T. Aksakov, at first suspicious of the new journal, mellowed when he learned that Katkov had included his name among the contributors, and regretted that he could offer little else than an excerpt from his forthcoming Family Chronicle to the Messenger. Ivan Aksakov, writing from Bessarabia in December, 1855, indicated that he also 3 Ibid., p. 268. Liubimov, op. cit., pp. 46-66. Barsukov, op. cit., XIV, 263-264.

4

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47

had not been consulted about being a contributor but acquiesced ex post jacto, though he expressed some displeasure that he did not find the name of Khomiakov (the leading Slavophile ideologue) among the contributors. Pogodin, hoping to use the "good offices" of Katkov and Kavelin to gain a high governmental position for himself, was friendly toward the Messenger, but when the position failed to materialize, his warmth cooled noticeably.5 Politically, the editorial staff as well as the primary political and economic writers for the Messenger found themselves divided into two fundamental camps, which followed the lines of the conservative-liberal division of the Westerners. In essence, the division followed the somewhat misnamed "pro-state" and "anti-state" lines; that is, the prostate element favored a strong central government as the essential source of reform, and found its precedents primarily in the Continental and especially the French tradition; the anti-state faction sought a relatively greater degree of private initiative as a source of reform, and relied more upon the concept of society as the expression of this initiative. Neither element was either completely for or against the state per se, and both recognized the need for social initiative. The differences of the two groups were therefore of a relative, rather than an absolute, character. In the last analysis, the strongest single exponent of the prostate position on the Messenger was Chicherin; for the anti-state position Katkov was without peer. E. F. Korsh and Kudriavtsev were aligned with Chicherin in their sentiments, as was of course his mentor, Kavelin. Leont'ev was the only person of note in support of Katkov.6 To some extent, the "pro-state-anti-state" dichotomy in the Westerner direction reflected the earlier division between the thought of Belinskii and that of Katkov - between civic responsibility and aesthetic individualism. The Slavophiles were also essentially "anti-state", though for different reasons than Katkov. Nevertheless it cannot be doubted that the chief editor and publisher of the new journal wished to maintain the Aksakovs among its contributors as a counterweight against the liberals, and hence prove that Russian society need not be divided against itself. Indeed, Katkov hoped that the Russian Messenger would have a reconciling effect, in order to preserve the spirit of the » Barsukov, op. cit., XIV, 278-282, 341-343. • For a rather informed article on the pro-state basis of Russian liberalism in the formative period, 1855-56, see V. N. Rozental', "Pervoe otkrytoe vystuplenie russkikh liberalov ν 1855-1856", Istorila SSSR, Mar.-Apr. 1958, No. 2, pp. Ι Π ΠΟ.

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"era of good feelings" long after the age itself had passed into history. Yet the participation of the Slavophiles proved to be shortlived. Probably the basic cause for their disaffection was that the Slavophiles had organized a journal of their own, Russian Colloquy (Russkaia beseda) in the same year. The immediate reason was the refusal of the Messenger to publish a review of the Family Chronicle from the Slavophile viewpoint.7 This left the Messenger solidly within the Western direction; but such solidity as there was proved to be illusory. The Russian critic for Le Nord, the Belgian newspaper which helped to bring the Russian literary scene to Western readers, while commenting very favorably on the quality of several articles in the Messenger, added pointedly, "mais, quoiqu'on puisse déjà s'apercevoir du parti littéraire dont il veut se faire l'organe, il est bon d'attendre . . ,".8 The stalemate of the "pro-state" and "anti-state" elements during the first year of publication was intensified by the inability of either group to seize firm control of the editorship. The personality of Katkov dominated his own alter-ego, Leont'ev, and overshadowed the selfeffacing Korsh and the critically ill Kudriavtsev. Korsh was influenced by the relatively strong personalities of B. N. Chicherin and K. D. Kavelin. Furthermore, Katkov was still relatively unfamiliar with the nomenclature and tactics of political polemics; his mind was still turned largely to literary criticism and philosophy in the more purely speculative sense, while Chicherin and Kavelin were students of the law and well prepared for such questions as the decade would bring. In the first issue of the Russian Messenger, Katkov began a long article on the aesthetics of Pushkin, in which he came forth with a characteristic appeal for aesthetic individualism, declaring that this is what Pushkin personified: "Art should have its own internal goal, as does everything in the world; this is a general rule which is determined by nature for every organization as well as for every independent phenomenon and activity. Say what you will," Katkov declaimed, "but do not deny that art has a right to exist, sa raison d'être." 9 The more frankly liberal Annals of the Fatherland found Katkov's article somewhat odd, somewhat quixotic, in an age which it felt to be dominated by questions of "history, statistics and political economy".10 Indeed, Katkov's article '

Barsukov, op. cit., XIV, 352-358. R . . . Ζ . . . "Russie", Le Nord, Aug. 14, 1856, p. 3. • M. Ν. Katkov, "Pushkin", Russkii vestnik [hereafter ÄF], Jan. 1856, Bk. I, p. 159. 10 "Literaturnye i zhurnal'nye zametki", OZ, 1856, Vol. CVI, Sec. 3, pp. 75-82. 8

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reflected his conservatism of the forties and early fifties. His repugnance at the idea of corrupting art and hence the individual genius with "politics" under the slogan of "civic responsibility" was a conservatism not in the static sense of Maistre or the planters of the fifties (Alexis Orlov, Panin, and Gagarin). Katkov's conservatism was squarely within the tradition of Alexis de Tocqueville and Edmund Burke. What were the areas of agreement and the limits of that agreement within the Westerner-oriented Messengert The two factions had little difficulty agreeing on what they were both against — the anti-Western orientation of Slavophilism and the remnants of Official Nationality. But even within the context of their opposition to a common adversary, their respective approaches were essentially different. As an example, the criticisms first by Chicherin and then by Katkov of Iu. F. Samarin, who was the "most important public man and a significant figure of the [Slavophile] movement",11 will be instructive. Samarin exposed himself to criticism in his attempt to relate the concepts of nationality and science. Chicherin's critique rested upon the empirical approach, which derived from the so-called "common sense" philosophy of the Scottish school (of which Thomas Reid was a primary exponent): "It is necessary for science to have an objective approach; the more we reject subjective views, the clearer and more complete truth will be, for truth is the same for a l l . . . . Science is no more than fact and law." 12 And later, citing a disciple of Reid, the empiricist Royer-Collard, Chicherin concluded: " 'Rien n'est brutal comme le fait.' " " Katkov's attack on Samarin, though equally intense, reflected both a different content and tone. Unlike Chicherin, Katkov appealed to the romantic, not the empiricist, tradition. More especially, he appealed to historicism, which was firmly within the former tradition. In this case, Katkov used historicism to justify not an isolated national, but a Western civilization, a Western science, which did not stop at national boundaries; at the same time, he did not deny the importance of the nation: 14 History is the affair of no one people. Nothing is absolute in time except the development of peoples; but this very development derives its meaning from that which is still more general, from that which is higher. Aside from 11 Riasanovsky, Russia and the West..., pp. 55-59. For a detailed study of Samarin see B. Nolde, lurii Samarin i ego vremia (Paris, 1926). « B. N. Chicherin, "O narodnosti ν nauke", RV, May 1856, Bk. Π, p. 63. 13 Ibid., Sept. 1856, Bk. I, p. 23. " [M. Katkov] "Vopros o narodnosti ν nauke", RV, June 1856, Bk. Π, p. 313.

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nationality, there is also in the world the history of mankind, the history of ideas which govern human life, the history of science, of education, of civics. An individual nation receives its meaning, importance, and purpose only to the extent that it corresponds to the accomplishments of these great developments, and reflects them within itself.... Is moral law accidental or conditional; is it bound by some kind of tribal or national peculiarity? Of course n o t . . . . Here is the basis of our primary difference with the defenders of the national direction. Its roots rest in the fact that they see history primarily, if not exclusively, in terms of the development of tribes and peoples: according to their outlook, the Catholic Church is an outgrowth of the Roman tribes, the Protestant of the German Katkov did not attack Samarin on the basis of historicism alone; but as a former teacher of philosophy he soundly drubbed the Slavophile for inconsistencies in "logic".15 Yet, Katkov would have preferred that there be no polemics at all, not only because the Messenger was beginning to come apart at the seams, but because it appears that he really believed that Russian society was too weak to afford internecine strife - including that between as well as within directions. Hence it is not surprising to find Katkov attacking those who exacerbated polemics, the "trouble-makers" who hid behind the rubric - literary criticism: "Criticism! direction! here are the words, which one hears every moment in literary circles, here are the demands, that each person loudly presents to a journal. The bashi-bazouks, who usually occupied (we use the verb in the past tense) the outposts of journalism, have rushed into the sections of criticism, bibliography and journalistic review with whoops and cries . . . the less in the mind, the less on the conscience, and so the bolder to speak o u t . . . " and he added meaningfully, "we still can and should learn from the West. Look what meaning criticism has in a mature, enlightened literature!" 16 And as if to underscore his desire to reconcile the opposing elements of Russian society, Katkov found some warm words of praise for the position taken by K. Aksakov in his article, "On the Russian Viewpoint", which appeared in the Colloquy: "If Slavophilism is expressed herein", wrote Katkov, "then we want to be Salvophiles, despite this long-tailed, misshapen term. We want that Russian nationality should have a character which is common to all m a n k i n d . . . . " 17 But Katkov was fighting a losing battle. The general emphasis within Russian journalism soon changed from that which unites to that which divides Russian society. Bulgarin, whose name had become a synonym « ibid., p. 318. '»

[M. N. Katkov], "Zametki", RV, June 1856, Bk. I, pp. 212-213.

» Ibid., p. 222.

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for compromise with the authorities, in 1856 characterized the threeway split within Russian society as "integralness" itsel'nost'), "reason" (razumnost'), and naturalibus, which reflect the outlooks of the Slavophiles, the Westerners and the materialists - the "new men", sovremenniki — respectively. But Katkov was singled out as one who as yet did not fit into any of these categories, as one who "has not yet had his word".18 This certainly reflected the "lack of direction" which characterized the editorship of the Messenger. The critic for the liberal St. Petersburg Gazette (Sankt-Petersburgskiia vedomosti) struck directly at the paralyzed Messenger with the comment: "there is no direction in the Messenger, there is no character. In its announcement for 1857, the editorship affirms that its slogan is truth and righteousness, but this is a general slogan, to which the Russian Messenger has no exclusive rights. Criticism gives a journal its character: criticism defines for the reader the editorial views on literature, on society and on current questions. There is no such criticism in the Russian Messenger. . . . Nevertheless, we consider the absence of criticism in the Russian Messenger to be only temporary: the editorial staff promised to provide critical and editorial articles in its first program. Let's wait and see." 19 Such remarks as these must have both stung Katkov to the quick and heightened his disappointment at the loss of his Slavophile contributors, who now were also solidly aligned against the "rudderless" Messenger. Writing to his long-time Slavophile confidant, A. N. Popov, in March, 1857, Katkov complained: "You reproached the Russian Messenger for its insulting remarks about the Russian Colloquy . . . if you imply that I am responsible for the indiscreet acts of my colleagues, then permit me to think that these unspeakable accusations did not derive from your voice.... Please, in the name of justice, review all those articles in the Russian Messenger in which we took exception with several articles of the Russian Colloquy. In my remarks can be seen a desire for agreement, for complete good will and readiness to sympathize with much that is essential.... I always spoke about the so-called Slavophiles in this w a y . . . . " And then as if in a mock show of strength, he added: "Chicherin's articles on nationality in science also present nothing which is insulting.... Compare them with Samarin's article on national structure, in which he mocks his opponents." And vacillating between 18 [F. V. Bulgarin?], "Otkrytyia pis'ma", Severnaia pchela, Sept. 27, 1856, No. 214, p. 1089. 19 N . N - v , "Fereton: russkie zhurnaly", St.-Peterburgskiia vedomosti, Dec. 14, 1856, No. 274, p. 1516.

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candor and a desire to present the picture of a united Russian Messenger, Katkov concluded: "I personally am not very sympathetic with Chicherin's articles in particular, but I cannot act despotically in my own journal and drive everything under one measure.... The primary aim of the journalist is to raise questions, to evoke thought to action." 20 At this period of time Katkov indeed had much in common with the Slavophiles, in practical matters as well as in theory. For one thing, he cooperated with Pogodin and the Slavophiles in all of the important preparatory work and organization of the Moscow Slavonic Benevolent Committee, which was approved by the Emperor in January 1858. Prominent on the list of contributors, his name appeared together with those of Khomiakov, Koshelev and Samarin; his contribution was one hundred rubles, only slightly less than the latter's.21 Furthermore, he joined with the Colloquy in a series of articles designed to stimulate sympathy for the Slavic peoples under Turkish and Austrian hegemony, which at the same time were specifically in favor of a Bulgarian Autocephalous Church.82 Such activities conflicted with the official policies of the government and led to difficulties with the censor. It was not surprising to find that Katkov was increasingly disturbed by the direction of the liberal Westerners such as Chicherin, who found more in common with Herzen than with Katkov. Katkov's dream of himself becoming the rallying point for different directions of Russian society faded rapidly as his differences with the liberal Westerners in the Messenger mounted. Attention has already been called to the incipient schism between the conservative and liberal direction of the Messenger in the case of Samarin's vulnerable article on nationality in science. But the gap between Katkov and Chicherin was even more clearly revealed in their different attitudes toward political theory, which were evoked by the writings of Montalembert and Tocqueville. Katkov's position was modeled upon that of English selfgovernment at the local level and was opposed by Chicherin who favored centralization on the French pattern. Referring to a review of Montalembert's work which Chicherin had published earlier in the Messenger, Katkov wrote in January, 1857: "Last year in European publicism, Count Montalembert raised an interesting question in his book On the Political Future of England, which provoked two articles *» "Pis'ma M. N. Katkova k A. N. Popovu (1843-1857)", Russkii arkhiv, [Aug.] 1888, No. 8, pp. 498-499. 21 S. A. Nikitin, Slavianskie komitety ν Rossii ν 1858-1876 gg. (Moscow, 1960), pp. 39-41. 22 Liubimov, op. cit., pp. 72-97.

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in our journal which did not share entirely the same point of view. The question of centralization is, at the present time, a question of the first magnitude in contemporary publicism. Like other important questions, it cannot be decided impulsively, but demands gradual, attentive and perceptive analysis, in the presence of inevitable biases; h e n c e , . . . each side all the more because of its bias, demands a person who will cooperate toward the achievement of a solution which comes closest to the truth, rather than one which evokes fantasies on all sides of the subject." 23 This statement still held out the hope of an eventual reconciliation with Chicherin and company, but when Katkov received no indication of the latter's willingness to meet him half way, the struggle became one à outrance. The appearance of Tocqueville's L'ancien régime et la révolution in 1856 filled Katkov's heart with joy. Here was a thinker, a keen observer of contemporary affairs and a careful student of history whose ethos struck a most sympathetic chord with that of Katkov. And what was more important in the light of the polemics with the "pro-state" element, Tocqueville's work was "heavy artillery" in the hands of the conservative Westerners. Katkov happily wrote that this great work revealed "to what extent the tension within French society was provoked by a coercive and artificial centralization which predominated in the history of that country, and which led to the violent explosion at the conclusion of the last century, not only as a necessary consequence but even as a direct continuation of this system of centralization; this fateful event, according to Tocqueville, was its most extreme expression."24 The break in the Westerner camp widened visibly. By the spring of 1857, the Westerner coalition within the Messenger, already about to dissolve, received a number of seismic jolts, which proved to bring about its end. These were provided by a series of articles entitled "Letters of Accusation" and signed Baiboroda (a pseudonym used by Katkov). While the ostensible purpose of the series was to assail the Slavophile attacks against Chicherin's dissertation, Regional Institutions of Russia in the 17th Century, its actual effect was to underscore Katkov's own disagreement with the liberal Westerner: "The one-sidednses of some of Chicherin's ideas was already mentioned from various sides. Samarin essentially brought out everything, justly or unjustly, that Krylov felt compelled to indicate. But even earlier, the basic 23

[M. N. Katkov], "Zametki", Sovremennaia Ian. 1857, Bk. I, p. 1. " Ibid., p. 2.

Utopie" of the RV [hereafter SL],

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one-sidedness of Chicherin's ideas on centralization was traced with vivid lines in Kavelin's excellent article which appeared in the Annals of the Fatherland."25 By these remarks, Katkov hoped to appeal to Chicherin's more moderate mentor, Kavelin, and perhaps make a wedge in the liberal Westerner element which might rebound to Katkov's advantage. But this was a fruitless venture. Kavelin was clearly behind Chicherin, and moreover he resented Katkov's increasingly vocal "antistate" approach, which as early as January, 1857, pictured the state in the role of an English constable who might tell people "don't touch", but who should never have the power to order "give". Katkov at this time reserved the latter privilege, which he characterized as the "positive" element, for society; the state's function, he then believed, should remain purely "negative".2« Kavelin was further, and more personally, offended by Katkov's refusal to publish the liberal's criticism of V. V. Grigor'ev's "T. N. Granovskii do ego professorstva ν Moskve", which appeared in the Slavophile Colloquy - Kavelin's article against the Slavophiles, provocatively entitled "Lakei", was considered too extreme by the chief editor of the Messenger The final collapse of the Westerner coalition in the Messenger which led to the outright disaffection of the liberals was occasioned by Katkov's refusal to print Chicherin's attack on Tocqueville's L'ancien régime in 1857. In a letter of explanation to Chicherin, Katkov laid bare the roots of their differences:28 Your article on Tocqueville caused me great unrest.... The difference between us is so great that it would be unwise on my part to permit [your article] to adorn a journal whose Editorship holds such essentially different convictions. In your former articles, there was not such a decisive advancement of principles, and therefore, while not agreeing with them in many respects, I printed them out of respect for their scholarly and literary merits, and for the pure spirit of science, which seemed to me to cloak their one-sidedness.... With respect to your article on Montalembert, its own merits, on the one hand, and its direction, on the other, combined to cause me to vacillate; but in this article there was a saving non sequitur the dark form of centralization was cloaked in the beautiful outline of freedom In the article on Tocqueville, on the contrary, the earlier form predominates.... The late Granovskii spoke the truth when he said that the study of Russian History spoiled the very best minds. In fact, having 25

Baiboroda, "Izoblichitel'nye pis'ma", SL, Apr. 1857, Bk. I, p. 241. S. V. Bakhrushin..., ed., Vospominaniia Borisa Nikolaevicha Chicherina: Moskva 40-kh godov ([Moscow], 1929), II, 277. 27 Ibid., p. 268. 29 Barsukov, op. cit., XVI, 124-125. 26

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become used to following the formation o f the state as the only vital interest in Russian History, y o u willy-nilly grow unaccustomed to consider anything else, y o u willy-nilly develop a predilection f o r a dictator, and while paying lip-service t o History, y o u lose faith in it.

Turning thence to the similarities and differences between the two viewpoints, he continued, making reference to Chicherin as the "critic" in the third person: 29 A s criticism, the article o n Tocqueville is not really j u s t . . . . T h e principle to which the Frenoh author is dedicated, has above all else i n the world the right to sympathy and value: that is freedom, to which the future belongs and for w h i c h all History serves only as a gradual r e a l i z a t i o n . . . . In essentials, the critic completely agrees with the author. T o c q u e v i l l e sees in the old regime things w h i c h gravitate toward centralization; the critic sees likewise. Tocqueville finds that in spite o f all efforts at r o y a l absolutism, there still remained many elements of decentralization in the old society, and that the final act of centralization was accomplished b y the revolution; the critic a f f i r m s the same. In what, then, d o they disagree? I n evaluation and sympathy: w h a t one likes, the other does not. T h e concept of centralization is displeasing to T o c q u e v i l l e because he considers it hostile t o the concept of freedom; the critic, o n the other hand, is pleased by the former, because, in 'his opinion, the state rises above everything, and everything bows at its feet. I make bold to think, that in this respect, the author is incorrect and the critic is also incorrect; but the critic is more incorrect than the author

"The true meaning of centralization, in history", Katkov declaimed, "is to gather together all de facto, external, coercive forces under a single lock and seal; to subordinate all that is Caesars to Caesar, but by no means to hand over to Caesar that which in no way can belong to him; by no means to gather this force in order to use it for the enslavement of all other principles of the human world. A s soon as the question of centralization was solved, then perhaps the full liberation of human life from state tutelage would be necessary. But unfortunately, this did not happen." 80 Katkov went on to indicate that amidst the struggle for centralization, amidst the superficialities (melochi) attendant to it, the ultimate principle, freedom, was lost from sight, and he sharply criticized those who "take into their heads the murderous thought that the idea of reason can and should be realized by means of the monarchical scepter or the dictatorial mace", and within his hall of infamy he explicitly placed "Joseph II and many other emperors". 81 This raised » Ibid., p. 127. »o Ibid., p. 128. « Ibid., p. 129.

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the crucial issue of how Katkov, a Westerner, though still a conservative, could reconcile his "anti-state" position with his admiration of Peter the Great; he did not evade the issue: 32 We can sympathize with the reform of Peter the Great, not by virtue of the coercion with which it was accomplished - God forbid! but because it made preparations, though in a remote form and through contact with the educated world, for the future beneficial limitation of that principle, which Peter had derived from ancient R u s ' . . . . Contact with the European state system demanded sacrifices of many interests for the development of external force; it was necessary to raise troops, build a fleet, construct harbors. But that which thus forced the abuse of the popular forces in favor of the state must with time dethrone the state. International law, the principle of the system of states offers a great future New relationships are unfolding between peoples; societies are criss-crossed by new means of communication. There arose and is affirmed the practical knowledge that scientia est potentia. European and world public opinion is arising. Into the multiplicity of states will come the majesty of a state, and it, God grant, will turn into a good constable, a peaceful friend of freedom and order. A further exchange of letters confirmed the severance of relations. Katkov would only publish articles of a "scholarly" character, which meant in effect that Chicherin would no longer be able to voice opinions in the Messenger which differed from Katkov's. This compromised the already weak position of E. F. Korsh. He subsequently (July, 1857) petitioned the government for permission to found a new journal, Atenei (beginning publication in 1858, it ceased in 1859). The liberals all flocked to the new journal, which became an organ for the "pro-state" element. Furthermore, the Atenei was not so scrupulous about its contributors as the Messenger·, hence, it was not surprising to find the exponents of naturalibus also represented - Chernyshevskii published his "Russian Man at the Rendez-vous" in the shortlived journal. However, the failure of the Atenei was caused less by an overextension of direction than by the editorial ineptitude of Korsh. 33 Late in 1857 an event occurred which prompted many in Russian society to feel that perhaps a reconciliation would again be possible. This was the issuance of the Imperial rescript to Governor-general Nazimov on November 20, 1857. The Governor-general of Vilna was instructed to direct landowners to draft proposals for the future organization of the peasantry, and for the betterment of their condition. This seemed to Russian society a preliminary measure to the long-awaited emancipation of the serfs. The publication of the rescript brought Kat32 Ibid., p. 133. 33 ibid., p. 394.

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kov together with Kavelin (who traveled to Moscow) as the joint organizers of a banquet to celebrate the occasion. In a renewed spirit of good will, the two Westerners invited publicists, littérateurs and scholars from all directions of Russian society to join in the celebration at the banquet which was arranged for December 28, 1857. The Slavophiles, however, refused; the reason given by Iurii Samarin and Koshelev was that the Moscow gentry and officialdom were neither invited to the affair nor did they sanction it. Nevertheless, arrangements went ahead without them. The affair was held at the Merchants' Club. The most prominent persons were thus almost entirely from among the Westerners, with the notable exceptions of Pogodin and the merchant V. A. Kokorev. In his speech, Katkov read a eulogy to the Emperor, but also had high praise for the abolitionist position of the Tver gentry, whose sentiments were not generally shared in Moscow province. Then, turning to the question of the need for society to unite, to forget their differences, the editor asked: "Who are we, and why are we here? We are people of different opinions and convictions, who perhaps felt a bottomless discord amongst ourselves, but now we are assembled, obeying one feeling which is common to all of us. Each of us came here, not because of external coercion, but because of internal volition: no one was obliged, but we all came for the expression of a general feeling, to mark the deep, pure, candid devotion to the One in whom our fatherland has discovered its expectations." 34 Katkov's popularity with the university community in Moscow was already evidenced in 1857, when the editor was nominated to the rank of ordinary professor of Russian literature to take the place of Shevyrëv (who had been forced into retirement). But the nomination took place during the university summer recess, and when classes reconvened, Katkov respectfully declined the position, pleading his inability to handle professorial as well as journalistic duties; hence, F. Buslaev received the chair.35 Yet neither his good will with the scholars of Moscow University nor his common expression of hope with Kavelin was enough to mend the seams among the Westerners, not to mention Russian society in general. Katkov's elasticity was indeed remarkable, but he had stretched his position so far to cover as many sides as possible, that in the opinion of some of his contemporaries, as well as biographers (this writer not in84

[M. N. Katkov], Obed 28 dekabria (Moscow, 1858), p. 4. Fedor Buslaev, "Iz dopolnenii k 'Moim vospominaniiam' ", Pochin: sbornik Obshchestva liubitelei rossiiskoi slovesnosti (Moscow, 1896), pp. 8-12.

38

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eluded) he demonstrated his own lack of direction. However, if Katkov tried to reconcile Slavophilism and Westernism, he was less than successful. Still, he was able to maintain lines of communication between the two groups for a longer period of time than might otherwise have been possible. As has been indicated, Kavelin appeared to have been somewhat more conciliatory than his protégé, Chicherin. Furthermore, Kavelin's position at Court proved very useful to Katkov and Leont'ev, and for this reason also they did not wish to lose his cooperation, despite Kavelin's support of the Atenei. But with Kavelin's loss of position at Court in 1858, the conservative editors of the Messenger had no pressing reasons, either theoretical or practical, to continue the old relationship. In a letter dated October 27, 1858, Leont'ev called Kavelin's attention to the fact that the time had come for the Messenger "to strike its colors". This served as notice to Kavelin that he was no longer needed, either as a listening post in St. Petersburg, or as an arbitrator between the Messenger and the Contemporary, which had engaged in a polemic on the peasant question, and more especially on the matter of the rural commune during the spring and summer of 1858. Leont'ev indicated that the theories of Chernyshevskii and company were "heartless and unproductive", that the defender of naturalibus was all too ready to disregard "a thousand years" of Russian history; and in reply to Kavelin's appeal that the Contemporary enjoyed the good will of a large public, a fact which was to be readily deduced from its subscription statistics, Leont'ev answered, "Et n'est pas permis de trafique in matters of conviction for the sake of preserving good relations with people. If such be the case, better that one should not set foot on the field of public life. Captatia benevolentiae leads to fleeting success, but also to inevitable failure. Woe be to him that praises everything. This is the best evidence that his deeds are in vain. No man creates the circumstances of his activity: history provides t h e m . . . . " 36 Thus Katkov's elasticity at this time stopped short of the materialistic direction of the Contemporary, despite Kavelin's attempts to reconcile the Westerners of all shades with the proponents of empiricism. It was a strange tugof-war: Kavelin trying to unite the Westerners and the "new men", and Katkov trying to unite the Westerners and the Slavophiles. But Katkov and Leont'ev did not want to be identified with any given label, despite the fact that they were both conservative and Westerner in the sense that has been indicated: "The Russian Messenger was never ' · "Iz literaturnykh perepisok Kavelina (1847-1884)", Russkaia 1892, pp. 6-7.

my si', March,

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bound to any of the existing literary circles." Leont'ev continued in his letter to Kavelin, "The succès of the Messenger is evidenced by the fact that our literary parties have fallen behind the demands of the time, as well as those of our society. In Russia, society stands above the level of the literary circles; [society] is healthier and more mature... it is completely free of the desire to flirt with the different sides of our literary world...." 3 7 The final break between Katkov and Kavelin occurred as a result of Katkov's refusal to publish Ravelin's article on the rural commune without certain editorial modifications. The difference in their views on the commune was briefly that Katkov was now a much more doctrinaire proponent of private property, which he felt should be freely alienable; while Kavelin assumed a position between that of the proponents of the commune and those of private ownership, with the state occupying the crucial center of gravity. That is, he advocated state ownership of the land, with private usufruct. Ravelin's article did appear in the second issue of the Atenei for 1859.38 The government itself, finding society's vocal expectations dangerous, turned to the right in 1858. Ravelin's dismissal from his position as tutor to the tsarevich was symbolic of the rise to power of the so-called "planters" — those who favored status quo on the peasant question. At the same time, the government adopted a more suspicious attitude toward the press. In that year, the Moscow Governor-general, Count Zakrevskii, sent notes to the Chief of the Third Section, Prince V. A. Dolgorukov, entitled "A Memorandum on Various Ill-intentioned Trends and People" and "A List of Suspicious Persons in Moscow". After referring to the Slavophiles as a "secret political society" in his Memorandum, Zakrevskii called Dolgorukov's attention to the Russian Messenger, the Atenei, and the Moscow Gazette (then edited by V. F. Rorsh, the brother of E. F. Rorsh); Ratkov's name appeared on the List as a Westerner.39 Only the common onus of unreasonable censorship, the government's evident support of the "planter" camarilla, and the rise to some prominence of the reactionary press led by the violently anti-Semitic and obscurantist Illustratsia, edited by Zotov, provided ephemeral rallying points for the abolitionist elements of Russian society during late 1858 and early 1859 when discussion of the peasant question was in effect halted.40 As Katkov himself complained to I. I. « Ibid., p. 7. 38

K. D. Kavelin, Sobranie sochinenii (St. P., [n.d.]), Π, 162-194. *> Mikh. Lemke, Epokha tsenzurnykh reform, 1859-1865 (St. P., 1904), pp. 7-8. K. Kavelin et al., "Literaturnyi protest", Severnaia pchela, Nov. 27, 1858, No. 262, p. 1101. 40

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Rostovtsev (head of the editing commission for the peasant reform), even the use of the word "redemption" was forbidden in the press, and it was thus necessary to resort to various tricks of speech in order to convey the idea. Katkov further complained that after the replacement of the liberal censor, von Kruze, his successor, Aleksander Drashusov, was so timid that everything which even touched on the question was submitted to St. Petersburg, where it went through seven instances before it was returned two, three, or even four months later, when it was no longer of current interest. Katkov argued that literature could be of significant service, as Rostovtsev himself had earlier affirmed, and asked that the governmental "red-tape" be removed by permitting the Messenger's agent in the capital to have direct access to Rostovtsev's committee and the ministries.41 Shortly thereafter, discussion of the peasant question in the press was again eased. In 1859 Katkov went abroad, and it was during this sojourn, especially in England, that certain of the ideas expressed earlier by Tocqueville and others whom he admired began to find a positive and practical expression. But before discussing the influences of his trip, and the course of his activity following his return, this is a convenient place to pause and recall the most salient points of his thought and activity during the first three years of his career as an independent publisher and editor of the Russian Messenger. In the first place, despite a certain political immaturity, Katkov was very quick to catch the significance of a work such as Tocqueville's and to use it to advantage in defense of his so-called "anti-state" approach. Secondly, Katkov fought a hard but unsuccessful struggle to unite the various elements, first within his own Westerner direction, and then within the off-shoots of the German romantic tradition - Slavophilism and Westernism. But this attempt at reconciliation did not extend to the materialists, to the followers of Büchner, Vogt and Moleschott who clustered around Chernyshevskii and the Contemporary. Thirdly, Katkov did find some common ground with the Slavophiles on foreign policy, but this did not extend to the crucial ideological question of "Russia and the West" nor to the immediate problem of private versus communal property. On this isolated problem, the Slavophiles found strange bedfellows among the "new men" of the Contemporary. Katkov's activities and thought during this period would seem to refute both the contention that he was an out41

"Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov: pis'mo ego k Iakovu Iv. Rostovtsevu, [March 21] 1859", Russkaia starino (Jan. 1889), pp. 191-193.

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and-out étatist since the early forties on the one hand, or that he was a constitutionalist on the other. His support for the Tver gentry's position was not in the tradition of "constitutionalism" which in the French sense implies a contractual relationship binding the body politic, but as will be shown in a later chapter, Katkov's support for a zemskii sobor was within the context of an organic union of state and society in the German romantic sense.42

II Attention has already been called to certain points of contact between Katkov and the Slavophiles, despite their more substantial differences, and to this list might be added his similar preference for England of all the Western countries. A good deal of Katkov's sojourn abroad in 1859 was taken up with his interest in English society and institutions. His interest in fact stressed the same organic character of English life which Khomiakov had found so attractive some twelve years before.48 Not only did Katkov make himself familiar with Blackstone and Gneist on English law and local self-government, but he tried to learn as much as possible first-hand during his visit to England. Indeed Katkov's personal sympathy for the Slavophiles at this time found eloquent expression in the guest album of the eminent Czech Slavicist Hanka, whom he visited in Prague; the following inscription appeared in the album dated 18/30 Oct., 1859: "We have never seen each other before, but we met as old friends, who have many common desires and hopes. Speaking with you here in Prague, our racial affinity is felt with a special intensity. Let it not be a dead letter, let it turn finally into a living bond of our races and make possible their resurrection! We meet so many dear names in this book! Some of them have already passed beyond... . We take comfort, together with them, to make known here our feelings toward you. MIKHAIL KATKOV. SOFIA KATKOV." 44 If Katkov's propensities for reconciliation certainly included the Slavophiles, there is some question as to whether or not they included the radical Westerners who were still within the romantic tradition. It " K. P. Petrov, "Publitsist-gosudarstvennik", Istoricheskii vestnik, Nov. 1901, pp. 559-560, suggests Katkov was an étatist. A. Kornilov, Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie pri Alexandre II (1855-1881) (Paris, 1905), p. 68, pictures him as a constitutionalist. « Riasanovsky, Russia and the West..., pp. 100-105. 44 V. A. Frantsev, comp. Pis'ma k Viacheslavu Ganke (Warsaw, 1905), pp. 437, 439.

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has been noted that Katkov did originally envision a journal which would extend from the Aksakovs to Ogarev, but now in 1859, several years after the Aksakovs left the Messenger, and shortly after his break with Chicherin and Kavelin, it would be difficult to believe that Katkov seriously contemplated establishing close relations with Herzen. He did not deign to add his name to the list of Russians (Pobedonostsev's was included) who printed their ideas through Herzen's "Voices from Russia"; yet for reasons which still remain unexplained Katkov did visit Iskander during 1859, and is alleged to have told the radical publicist that his "Bell is power" and that it "rests on Rostovtsev's table for information on the peasant question".45 It also has been indicated that the meeting was surrounded by "misunderstandings" and the parting was attended by "mutual unpleasantness".46 Katkov returned to Russia determined to see the Messenger rather than the Bell grace the tables of high officials, and perhaps even the table of the Autocrat himself. He wasted little time in entering into a polemic with the Bell on the question of private versus communal land tenure, as well as on the issue of local self-government versus democratic centralization. Katkov's position, which will be discussed in detail in the following chapter, was essentially plutocratic, though with some modifications in favor of traditional aristocracy.47 But Katkov's hands were still too tightly tied by the censorship to permit a polemic à outrance with the Bell·, for instance, the name of Herzen was not even permitted in print. Thus the Moscow editor and publicist was restricted to targets closer to home, which indeed were not lacking. The Contemporary had been followed in 1859 by the even more radical Russian Word, and Katkov sallied forth to attack both journals, which represented the "naturalist" direction.48 By 1861, the Messenger had purged itself of all "disloyal" elements, including Evgeniia Tur, who, after charging Katkov with religious obscurantism, defected to the Russian Word,49 A new sharpness and bitterness had cropped up in the polemic between the journals, a polemic which was quite different in tone from the more 45

A. I. Gertsen, Sobrante soch. (Moscow, 1957), XI ("Byloe i dumy"), 300. Passek, op. cit., II, 353. 47 E.g., [M. N. Katkov], "Nevladeiushchie klassy i mirovaia iustitsiia", SL, June 1860, Bk. II, 429-462. 48 For the thought of Pisarev, leading writer of the Russkoe slovo as compared with Chernyshevskii's ideas, see Frederick C. Barghoorn, "Nihilism, Utopia and Realism in the Thought of Pisarev", in Russian Thought and Politics ('s-Gravenhage, 1957), pp. 225-235. « Nevedenskii, op. cit., p. 120. 46

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Aesopian criticism of the forties and fifties. Characteristic of the new tenor of the sixties was the style of Dobroliubov's feuilletons, published under the rubric "Whistle" by the Contemporary. Dobroliubov was by far one of the wittiest satirists of the day, and Katkov's more ponderous, philosophical, and rhetorical manner was scarcely a match for his younger competitor. Bated and tormented, Katkov's rebuttals represented little more than the blind rage of an angered bull, charging hopelessly against a deft torero.50 Katkov reorganized the Messenger: under the rubric "Literary review and notes" ("Literaturnoe obozrenie i zapiski") he created a special section designed to express the most important editorial ideas, to be Katkov's own journalistic sanctum sanctorum, to which he devoted an increasingly great proportion of his time as his interest in the reforms and the intensity of attacks by his opponents increased. The Contemporary Chronicle now began to appear, still under his ultimate direction, as a weekly devoted to political reportage and commentary, while the Russian Messenger proper, with the exclusion of the "Literary review and notes", tended to restrict itself more to broad historical, economic, and political articles as well as to the publication of belles-lettres. But as has been indicated, the "Literary review and notes" held a place of special importance, characterized by Katkov himself in the following terms: it was designed to deal with "a whole field of interests and questions which do not have a direct connection with politics and do not lead directly to practical application, but which nevertheless have great importance".51 This euphemistically meant that it was designed to fight the "bashi-bazouks" with their own tactics. Katkov was under almost constant attack by his more liberal and radical adversaries for purportedly holding to the maxim of "art for art's sake", in the tradition of his earlier aesthetic individualism. Katkov did his best to rebut this charge, but his answers were not very convincing. Denying the charge without further detailed explanation, he immediately countered by charging Chernyshevskii with having engaged in "selfless or selfish exercises in 'art for art's sake' " himself.52 For Dobroliubov, Katkov's remarks were somewhat more caustic: "Will it be advantageous for Russia, if Russian nationality and Russian letters remain behind all other nationalities and letters in Europe? Will 50

[M. N. Katkov], "Neskol'ko slov vmesto sovremennoi letopisi", RV, 1861, p. 479. si Ibid., p. 478. 52 Ibid., pp. 480-481.

Jan.

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it be good for Russia if we should remain eternal child-whistlers [Dobroliubov was then in his twenties], capable only of petty deeds, petty gossip and scandals? Under favorable conditions, the Russian language is destined for a great future in the Slavic world; it could become the indisputable center for the unity of its diverse tribes. And it is obvious that history has prepared our language for this mission. [Russian] itself is amalgamated from diverse elements of the Slavic w o r l d . . . we are concerned not with art for arfs sake, but with the interest of a cause and of honor." 5S Katkov's fury knew no bounds when, after the proclamation of February 19, 1861, the Left not only continued but increased its agitation, its appetite only whetted for further more extreme concessions. In a biting article, entitled "Old Gods and New Gods", Katkov's wrath was unleashed: "The cause has ceased, but the action still continues; the strings are already silent, but the sounds are still h e a r d . . . . Alas, men of struggle, of sword, of sarcasm, you remain without the source of your enthusiasm, without an opponent for your struggle, without meaning for your sarcasm! Find other sources, find other opponents, and let the dead bury the dead, or better heap up your false armor and apply yourself to this modest task [the execution of the reforms]. . . . There was a time when Mr. Blank was a force, when Andrei Murav'ev was a terrible force, but now Ivan Iakovlevich is no longer a force, nor Askochenskii. . . . The old gods are dead and their priests are waning and growing still; the old gods are dead, but did they not give birth to new ones? Le roi est mort, vive le roil"54 Katkov was never one to lose sight of an opportunity to divide and perhaps conquer the opposition. It will be remembered how he cunningly sowed seeds of discord within the liberal Westerner ranks - between Kavelin and Chicherin. Now, in 1861, it would appear that he sought to do the same with the sovremenniki, where he sensed some divergence in tone and direction between Chernyshevskii and the prodigal Dobroliubov. Katkov had read the former's translation of John Stuart Mill's Political Economy, and was genuinely impressed with the work, which he believed did not reflect the former Utopian socialist views of the Contemporary, nor even the philosophical materialism of Büchner and the like. Katkov believed that Mill, himself grounded in the Manchester School, would provide an opening wedge for the introduction of » Ibid., pp. 482-484. M

[M. N. Katkov], "Starye bogi i novye bogi", in 'Literaturnoe obozrenie i zametki' section of RV [hereafter LOZRV] (Feb., 1861), p. 891.

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his own laissez-faire concepts amongst the "new men": "Let us hope that the philosophical concepts of the men who write in the Contemporary little by little will become clear, that they will be able to manage without charlatanism. Yet now, already, significant progress is noted in several places. Mr. Chernyshevskii, evidently the prime leader of this host, is already beginning to speak on the subject of political economy in a human language. Il s'humanise, ce monsieur. In the last issues of the [Contemporary] we read the articles above his signature [Mill's Political Economy] with satisfaction; in them, there is none of that nonsense which he formerly proffered as deep wisdom.... He made sound judgments in accord with the principles of political economy, thus it is no longer necessary to distinguish him from those economists whom he formerly called 'narrow-minded creatures.' " 5 5 Katkov was not inclined toward anything but a summary acquaintance with economics in general and had little head for quantitative relationships; however, he was attracted to the laissez-faire ideas of the Manchester School when presented to him in philosophical terms. Here he found the will of the individual genius seeking self-consciousness - freedom - in what was to him the most prosaic, though by no means the least important aspect of life. Katkov evidently overlooked the egalitarian and utilitarian facets of Mill, preferring to stress the no less important aspect of liberty. After "Old Gods and New Gods", which served to measure the intensity of the differences between Chernyshevskii and Dobroliubov, Katkov came forth with an even more provocative article. It might well have been designed to place what he considered to be the whole "negative direction" - the whole amalgam of ideas which he considered to be adverse to the strength of Russia as a strong, free European state and society - within a common focus. This article was entitled "Our Language and What Are Whistlers", and in it Katkov struck out against what he considered to be two of the most pernicious aspects of the "negative direction" - nihilism and separatism. He placed the Ukrainophiles, especially Kostomarov, and the nihilists, especially Dobroliubov, together in figurative stocks.5" Katkov's proclivity for lumping his opponents together continued in another feuilleton entitled "Berries from the Same Field" (or more proverbially, "Birds of a Feather"). This article purported to show how the short«

Ibid., p. 903. [M. N. Katkov], "Nash iazyk i chtò takoe svistuny", LOZRV, Mar. 1861, pp. 1-37. Chapters 5 and 6 respectively treat the problems of separatism and nihilism, in some detail. M

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comings of the clerical estate were largely responsible for the problems which Russia then faced. These problems related to the growth of a radical intelligentsia, in which sons of the clergy like Chernyshevskii and Dobroliubov provided the nucleus and the failure of the clergy to provide a sound conservative direction for Russian society through theology directed at the needs of laity, in terms of contemporary problems. The result was obvious: the clergy defaulted to such reactionary publications as the Domashnaia Beseda, whose anti-Semitism and antiPolonism Katkov strongly criticized at this time, when he felt that neither the Jews nor the Poles provided a serious divisive threat. On the contrary, Katkov found the real divisive elements to be the reactionary étatists within and outside of the government, who advocated an everstronger degree of centralization as the panacea for all of Russia's ills: "we have no science, no summits of thought, but we do have Khlestakov, a great, all-embracing type. We have Khlestakovstvo in everything, not alone in feuilletonists and beardless youth but in our soi-disant scholars and venerable elders as well.... Even the fact that Khlestakov was a Petersburg bureaucrat is a trait which is deep and essential to this type. Amongst the Khlestakovs there is still a breed which call themselves demonic natures. It is quite impossible not to be fearful of such youths. They won't knife you for the sake of knifing, but keep an eye on your pennies." 57 For his part, Chernyshevskii answered Katkov by indicating that the Contemporary was not divided, and added that Katkov was a fine one to speak about journals being divided, after he had shared the pages of the Annals of the Fatherland with Belinskii in the late thirties and forties. But then, surprisingly, Chernyshevskii called for a truce in the polemics with the Messenger, declaring that this was not a "bid for reconciliation" nor a "sign of timidity", but merely a gesture in the same vein as that of Katkov concerning the translation of Mill.68 Katkov's reply offered little hope of reconciliation. After insulting Chernyshevskii by implying that he himself did not translate Mill, Katkov went on to attack his adversary for failing to share the Messenger's position on Tocqueville - shades of the quarrel with Chicherin - and finally Katkov launched into a bitter excoriation of Chernyshevskii's Anthropological Principle in Philosophy, which had appeared in 1860; " [M. N. Katkov], "Odnogo polia iagody", LOZRV, May 1861, pp. 1-2, 9-11, 20, 26. 58 N. G. Chernyshevskii, "Polemicheskie krasoty", in Polnoe sobrante soch. N. G. Chernyshevskogo (St. P., 1906), VID, 221-243.

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and in a last gesture of defiance, he publicly flung Turgenev's defection from the Contemporary to the Messenger in Chernyshevskii's face.59 As if this were not enough to dissuade his opponent from peaceful overtures, Katkov met the issue head on with a new article entitled "Views on an entente cordiale with the Contemporary". Katkov sarcastically called attention to Chernyshevskii's wish to end the polemics and to discuss problems "in a joint manner"; but the editor of the Messenger added that this would be quite impossible since "we have nothing in common". Then, turning to a recent article by Chernyshevskii on Cavour, in which the author tried to use the Italian analogy of "moderate" and "radical" cooperation - Cavour and Garibaldi Katkov mocked his adversary with indications that Garibaldi had a much more noble mission than the Contemporary. Turning finally to Chernyshevskii's analogy of "moderate-radical" cooperation in the foreign country closest to Katkov's heart, the editor of the Messenger denied that Palmerston had ever needed the services of the Chartists, and queried, "whenever did Bright help to prop up a Palmerstoman cabinet?" Finally, after establishing the fact that Chernyshevskii's analogies were fallacious, Katkov turned to the crucial question of his own relationship with the Contemporary:60 Life, development, well-being, freedom, all that we include within the term "history", in one instance demands the forces of stability, in another of change; one and the same person can in one case be a conservative, in another a progressive.... In general, the farther history advances, the closer and more united are conservative and reforming interests to one another. But where there is no political life, and no political parties, these terms - conservative and progressive - sound like inexpressible banality. What for instance is Mr. Ghernyshevskii? A conservative or a progressive? He must be a progressive. But Mr. Chernyshevskii always stood solidly for communal ownership. The transformation from communal to private ownership is progress, but nonetheless, Mr. Chernyshevskii shows himself, on this point, to be a die-hard conservative, though life itself demands reforms.

And then Katkov broke into a general harangue against Utopian dreamers, who would be better advised to keep their dreams private rather than public: 61 " [M. N. Katkov], "Po povodu 'polemicheskikh krasot' ν Sovremennike", LOZRV, June 1861, pp. 138-158. 60 [Μ. N. Katkov], "Vidy na entente cordiale s Sovremennikom", LOZRV, July 1861, pp. 69-70. " Ibid., pp. 71-72.

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One dreams about the embraces of a houri, or about a hunt on the plains of the Great Spirit; one foretells how after 150 years, all people will live under laws of communal ownership, and how labor will be a delight to the muscles and a balm to the nerves; one predicts how in 1961 aerostats will fly in all directions, and how in 2061 people will build cities in the clouds. The experience of life and science introduces order, truth and reason into a world of ideals, predictions and beliefs. Here antagonism of all kinds, endless struggle and irreconcilable quarrels are possible. But while keeping warm his ideal and the faith within his soul, eaoh man who wishes to act, must not lose sight of present-day reality. Ideals and beliefs must elevate, not injure, the forces of man; it is necessary that man be refreshed and encouraged, but not intoxicated as if by hashish or opium. D o what you will in your dreams; if you wish, walk on the ceiling; but remain sober in real life, and don't take a notion to walk on your head.

An entente cordiale with the Contemporary was clearly out of the question. A conservative journalist, though writing in the relatively liberal St. Petersburg Gazette made the following comments in part on Katkov's attack against the "negative direction" of St. Petersburg: "For a long while, there has prevailed in Moscow journalism the so-called positive direction, and in St. Petersburg, the negative: Westernism. Westernism, whose primary force consisted of negation was oriented toward St. Petersburg. Remember Belinskii's own remarks about the influence of our northern capital on h i m . . . . St. Petersburg constantly strives toward negation, moves closer to the articles of Chernyshevskii. . . . In Moscow, the Orthodox Review, journal of the positive direction, is published; but in St. Petersburg, the Domestic Colloquy, journal of polemics, f u m e s . . . . The struggle against our wild, but negative publications is difficult, but against the Slavophiles it is too easy. . . . The Russian Messenger, embodiment of Moscow, correctly accuses the false Judases of charlatanism." 62 This statement is illustrative of the way many of Katkov's contemporaries misunderstood Westernism by oversimplifLation, viewing the problem simply in terms of the Muscovite Slavophiles versus the St. Petersburg Westerners. Such an interpretation left little room for the phenomenon of a Muscovite Westerner, such as Katkov himself. In the course of 1861 and 1862, in the face of the widening chasms in Russian society, Katkov continued to declaim against what he considered to be the false partiinost' of both sides, but especially of the ea

N. Voskoboinikov, "Zhurnal'nye zametki", Sankt-Peterburgskie July 1, 1861, p. 827.

vedomosti,

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Left. Of the Gorgons which had threatened the Russian Land, nihilism then appeared as the most dangerous, as the true Medusa. Together with the first installment of Turgenev's "Fathers and Sons" in the February book of Messenger for 1862, Katkov published a truly "programmatic" editorial, entitled "To Which Party D o We Belong?": « There was a time (it has still not passed) when the word conservative was used instead of a curse; and the unfortunate one, at whom this sobriquet of chastisement was hurled, trembled, paled and was prepared to be taken by the ear through the streets of town in order to expiate his sins and to be counted among the ranks of the progressives. A conservative, why this was an obscurantist, an advocate of serfdom, a misanthrope, an enemy of his younger brother, a villian and a . . . . A progressive, this was a friend of humanity, prepared for great deeds, for any kind of sacrifice in the interest of enlightenment, of freedom, of prosperity for each and every one. The former [the conservative] had a heart of stone, the latter [the progressive], a broad, beautiful, noble soul, filled with a civic Weltschmerz.... In former times our beau esprits played at philosophical schools, now they play at political parties. Such "play" however, Katkov believed was only as harmless as playing with fire:,4 Uproot the monarchical principle, and it will become the despotism of a dictator; destroy the natural aristocratic element in society, and its place will be taken either by bureaucrats or demagogs, by an oligarchy of the worst kind . . . destroy centralization and not its abuse, but its very root, and you will kill the whole nationality, you will destroy the labor of centuries, you will undermine the basis for future development; but you will not, by so doing, destroy evil, on the contrary, you will strengthen it: instead of one organic center, there will be several false, petty despotisms where the spirit of interference and tutelage will prevail even more jealously and captiously than before, where conditions will be even less favorable for the freedom of the individual.... Defining his own political outlook, without labels, Katkov also attacked the conservatives whose selfishness and opportunism was comparable to that of Talleyrand; this certainly was not his type of conservatism, this certainly did not represent the "dynamic conservatism" of Tocqueville: "B Those conservatives are bad, who have as their motto, statu quo They are contemptuous of the past and cynical about the future. Today they »8 pp. «* «»

[M. N. Katkov], "K kakoi prinadlezhim my partii?", LOZRV, Feb. 1862, 834-835. Ibid., p. 841. Ibid., pp. 843-844.

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praise the conservative offices of the monarchy, tomorrow, they become ardent champions of the republic, and following that they enter the service of the dictator.... They are indifferent to the interests of freedom, which constitute the soul of a good conservative.... God save our fatherland from such [evil] conservatives! It was not so much these statements that afforded the Left with a clear target, as Katkov's explicit refusal to identify himself with one "party" or another: 66 We never sought the honor to belong to any of our political parties; we never agreed to be the organ of any circle whatsoever.... We are cursed and praised by conservatives, liberals, progressives and whatever else there may be. But we make bold to assure our classifiers, that we will endeavor to belong to none. Such a position led not only his contemporaries, but even his most distinguished biographer, to conclude that Katkov was an opportunist.67 But this hypothesis fails in large measure to take into account Katkov's own political thought which parallelled very closely that of Tocqueville and Burke. This type of conservatism was not fully appreciated by Katkov's critics. In any case, the explosive effect of Turgenev's novel, "Fathers and Sons" coupled with Katkov's "To Which Party Do We Belong?" was not soon to be forgotten in Russian society. The question of Katkov's influence on the writing of "Fathers and Sons" is perhaps second only to the issue of his influence in the formation of the Franco-Russian Alliance at a much later date, in the annals of Katkoviana. In neither case was he the éminence grise pictured by some historians, though in both cases he had serious pretensions.68 It cannot be doubted that Katkov wished Turgenev to present the figure of Bazarov in the worst possible light. To what extent, if at all, Turgenev actually modified Bazarov in order to suit Katkov, remains a moot point. Neither Turgenev's letter to Katkov, which suggested that he might have changed Bazarov somewhat in deference to Katkov's initial displeasure with the MS, nor Turgenev's later denial of Katkov's influence on the novel - as stated in the author's memoirs - appear conclusive. More evidence on this matter

M Ibid., pp. 835-836. • 7 Tatishchev's hypothesis of opportunism stemmed largely from Katkov's position at this time; see Nevedenskii, op. cit., p. 106. ω The Franco-Russian Alliance and the question of Katkov's influence on it will be discussed briefly in the final chapter.

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THE "ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS" 6

will be needed before even a tentative conclusion could be reached. ' A second problem, and one which also relates to the Katkov-Turgenev relationship, preceding the publication of "Fathers and Sons", concerns the use of the word "nihilist" and the question of who "stole" it from whom. This question even raised a minor conflict in recent Soviet historiography and was treated briefly by an American historian. The problem, it appears to this writer, was phrased in the wrong terms. Certainly, both Katkov and Turgenev were familiar with the word "nihilist" long before the writing of "Fathers and Sons". Indeed, as has been indicated earlier, Katkov used the term in 1840 to designate a type whose fundamental thought was not very much different from the character of Bazarov - a person who believed in nothing except "science" in the empirical sense. It would appear that this second controversy was little more than an historical "tempest in a teapot".70 At the time of the publication of "Fathers and Sons", Turgenev was marked as turn-coat to the liberal cause. In reply to Herzen's bitter reproach, Turgenev wrote: "Et tu, Brute! You, you blame me for giving my work to the Russian Messenger? But why did I break with the Contemporary, personified by Nekrasov? In their program, they have affirmed that they have rejected me as obsolescent.... [Furthermore] the Russian Messenger is no longer such rubbish, though there is much in it, to which I object ad nauseum." 71 With the death of Dobroliubov in November of 1861, the student movement, which had been gaining momentum since the late fifties, did not collapse, but on the contrary increased. The revolutionary ferment was heightened by the publication of Velikoruss, Young Russia and Letters Without an Address during 1861 and 1862. But the plan of the government to arrest Chemyshevskii, though formulated in April, was not executed until July of 1862. However, the government had earlier given other indications that it intended to take bolder steps to combat radicalism and Katkov, sensing that he would not be censured for attacking his liberal and radical adversaries, opened a campaign of his own against the man whom the government, despite all of its efββ

V. Evgen'ev-Maksimov, ed. Shestidesiatye gody: . . . G.Z. Eliseev-Vospominaniia (Moscow, 1933), p. 272. N. L. Brodskii, ed. I. S. Turgenev: sbornik (Moscow, 1940), pp. 39-40. I. S. Turgenev, "Po povodu 'Otsov i detei' ", in his Polnoe sobr. soch., 3rd ed. (St. P., 1891), pp. 100-113. 70 James H. Billington, "The Intelligentsia and the Religion of Humanity", American Historical Review, July 1960, pp. 810-81 Inn. 71 M. Dragomanov, comp. Pis'ma K. Dm. Kavelina i /v. S. Turgeneva Al. Iv. Gertsenu (Geneva, 1892), p. 145.

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THE "ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS"

forts, was still unable to reach - Herzen. The Russian government had gone to every possible extreme to discredit Iskander, whose Bell once graced Rostovtsev's table. In 1861, it arranged for a certain Baron F. I. Firks, financial attaché of the Russian embassy in Brussels, to prepare two brochures, under the pseudonym D. K. Schédo-Ferroti, with the specific object of discrediting Herzen, as if from abroad.72 Such underhanded tactics of the Russian government did not damage Herzen's reputation with large elements of Russian society to any degree, and if anything, probably caused opinion to swing in his favor. He, to almost the same extent as Turgenev, was also considered little better than a "fossil" by the "new men" of the sixties, who tended more toward harsher democratic radicalism than was possible for Herzen's gentry sensibilities. But despite this, and despite Herzen's earlier break with the liberals at large,78 Katkov nevertheless sought to destroy whatever power Herzen still possessed. Herzen in effect had been sniping at Katkov for some time. In April of 1862, in an article entitled "To the Senators and Privy Councillors of Journalism", Katkov was told by Iskander, "Studiate la matematica, e lasciate le donne!" and in any case stop making life difficult for those "courageous" young men "who are prepared to go to the casemates or even Siberia...". However, he did not mention Katkov by name. This in essence was Herzen's attack against Katkov's "To Which Party Do We Belong?".74 Katkov did not keep Herzen waiting for a reply. In the May book of the Contemporary Chronicle, the Moscow publicist contemptuously referred to his opponent "from the other side" who "still seriously depicts himself as a representative of the Russian people, as a decider of its fate, as a dispensor of its domains, [who] will in fact recruit followers from all corners of the Russian Empire, and then himself sit back in security, behind the shoulders of a London policeman, and for amusement transport [his followers] into various feats, which culminate either in the casemates or Siberia.... Not in vain does he depict himself as a Caesar who suspiciously awaits his Brutus and Cassius, and finally as the 'Messiah in the manger'. It is easy to laugh at 72

Lettre à monsieur Herzen (Berlin, Aug. 19, 1861); Lettre de Mr. Herzen à l'ambassadeur de Russie à Londres avec une réplique et quelques observations de D. K. Schédo-Ferroti (Berlin, Dec. 1861). They were introduced into Russia in 1862. 73 Malia, op. cit., Chap. XVII. Venturi, op. cit., pp. 106ff. 74 A. I. Gertsen, Sóbrame sochinenii ν tridtsati tomakh, 30 vols. (Moscow, 1954-), XVI, 88-95.

THE "ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS"

73

scandal and folly; but the phenomenon to which we referred is not funny but pitiful." 75 Events in Poland, which had become increasingly explosive since 1861, did not provoke Katkov in the course of 1861 and 1862 to come out with articles directly attacking the Poles. Some might argue that Katkov opportunistically had chosen discretion as the better part of valor. But discretion was never one of Katkov's outstanding qualities, and it is difficult to believe that it would have been exercised here, had he in fact believed that the Polish episode could not be settled amicably. Rather, Katkov's attention during the two years in question was directed more toward the questions of nihilism and socialism as Russia's greatest dangers. Thus when the fires broke out in St. Petersburg in the summer of 1862, Katkov blamed not the Poles, but "our foreign réfugiés" meaning Herzen and company. And borrowing a few lines from Louis Napoleon, written when he was still President of the Second Republic, Katkov wrote: "Le meilleur moyen de réduire à l'impuissance ce qui est dangéreux et faux, c'est d'accepter ce qui est vraiment bon et utile.... Hâtons-nous; le temps presse; que la marche des mauvaises passions ne dévance pas la nôtre." 76 Herzen, also well versed in French affairs, struck back with Proudhon's reply to Thiers in the National Assembly: "Speak of finance, but do not speak of morality, I personally can take this, but then I would go to the cartel and carry the fight to you: here, from this tribune, I will tell you my life, fact for fact; anyone can remind me if I should skip or forget anything. And then let my opponent tell his."

77

The Russian government was obviously pleased at the manner in which Katkov had brought Herzen to bay. On June 13, 1862, Golovnin, the Minister of Education, commented: "His Imperial Majesty, having paid attention to the article, bearing the title 'Our foreign réfugiés' in the last issue of the Contemporary Chronicle, was pleased to remark among other things: 'Quite a good article.' " 7 8 Katkov was now to be given full freedom to attack Herzen in any way that he wished. This the Moscow publicist did in a manner which shocked Russian society, Katkov's friends and foes alike. Referring to Herzen for the first time by 75

[M. N. Katkov], "Mirovoi posrednik", SX, May 1862, No. 20, p. 13. Katkov's attack was cloaked in an article concerning the "land arbitrators", a problem with which he was then very much concerned. See Chapter IV. 76 [Katkov], "Nashi innostrannye réfugiés", SL, June 1862, p. 13. 77 Gertsen, op. cit., XVI, 212-213. 78 Lemke, op. cit., p. 160.

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THE "ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS"

name, Katkov launched into a kind of personal abuse which was uncharacteristic of Russian journalistic polemics heretofore. Alluding to Herzen's support for the Polish cause, Katkov quipped: 7 · We welcome the opportunity to speak more openly with Mr. Herzen . . . until quite recently he was ah inviolable saint for Russian Literature. . . . [Referring to Herzen's alleged position as a great national leader, comparable to Mazzini or Kossuth, Katkov continued] Our wit did not mention that in Mazzini there was a positive, not a fanatical, national force; he forgot that the Italian agitator had written on his banner "For God and N a t i o n " . . . . Did not Kossuth stimulate the imagination of our artist? But this agitator also stood for his native land, the restoration of whose historic rights and national independence he sought. But it was Herzen, and not the Poles, whom Katkov proceeded to attack; it was Herzen, and not the Poles, who was guilty of lèse-majesté:80 [Herzen's] country is not divided and is not under a foreign political yoke; a difficult and painful history has made it a great united organism; the Russian people, alone among the Slavs, have attained political might and have become a great power; thanks to it, the Slavic race did not perish from History, like the Chuds and the Letts . . . . Then Katkov turned to the question of what if anything Herzen had done for his country: 81 What did [the Bell] have to say, for instance, with respect to the peasant question, to capital and labor? Nothing, except the obtuse, expansive discourses of Ogarev, and the theatrical shrieks of Mr. Herzen. They cursed in a slovenly manner, and then with a saccharin affection, which was even more abusive than their coarseness, they expressed their sympathy: You have conquered, Galilean [Title of Herzen's article on hearing of the Emancipation intention of Alexander II], cried our Mazzini, standing on one leg, like a ballet-master. By his article against Herzen, Katkov earned the scorn not only of his enemies, but of those with whom he had been close. Pogodin himself remarked to the Countess Bludova: "I do not like Katkov's article: 1) It bears the character of personality. 2) It does not relate to Herzen's chief faults. 3) It consists of foul language." 82 Ivan Aksakov's reaction was summarized by the remark: "Katkov is unjust in much which relates to Herzen: who in spite of everything is a most noble and sympathetic person; Katkov is as coarse and insolent as he can be. But in ™ Barsukov, op. cit., XIX, 186-188. Ibid., p. 188. « Ibid., pp. 189-190. 82 Barsukov, op. cit., XIX, 190. 80

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75

much he is right: thus the upshot of this article will be murderous for Herzen. Instead of Katkov attacking Herzen, he should have given the ace, deuce-trey to the Government, in order that it not rejoice too much about the overthrow of its exposer." 83 The Government itself was temporarily stunned with the severity of Katkov's attack, and Leskov's "enigmatic man", Benni, was able to write an excoriating attack against Katkov and a defense of Herzen, "Grattez (l'anglomane) russe et vous trouvez le tartare", in the Northern Bee (Severnaia Pchela) of July 31, 1862, without censorial restrictions.84 As 1862 wore on, Katkov became increasingly absorbed with the problem of the nihilist element of the negative direction. In what became his most exhaustive analysis of the problem of nihilism to date, Katkov characterized it in the following terms: 1) in the first place, he disagreed with Turgenev's contention that it was the spirit of the age; the Zeitgeist according to Katkov was still essentially positive: it was an age of "freedom and tolerance" in which science and research and criticism have a spirit which "scorns nothing and blames nothing". He continued by indicating that the "spirit of dogmatic negation cannot be the hall-mark of any universal epoch . . .".85 2) Katkov characterized nihilism as a "social disease" which in every period to a greater or lesser degree "dominates certain minds and certain spheres of thought", in which positive interests are weak. 3) At the same time he indicated that it had the character of a religion, albeit a "frustrated religion, filled with internal contradictions and nonsense, but none the less a religion, which can have its own teachers and f a n a t i c s . . . . The religion of negation is directed against all authorities, but is itself based upon the deepest submission to authority. It has its own ruthless idols. Everything that has a negative character is eo ipso indisputable dogma in the eyes of these sectarians...." 4) And turning to the nihilist position on strategy and tactics, he indicated that the nihilist "is in complete accord with the Jesuit fathers, and fully accepts their well-known rule 8»

Ibid. Hugh McLean, "Leskov and his Enigmatic Man", in Russian Thought and Politics ('s-Gravenhage, 1957), p. 211 and 21 In. McLean's contention is that "Katkov was then [1861] still a liberal and Anglophile constitutionalist". Ibid., p. 210 is a recent example of how Katkov's conservative Westernism was misunderstood, following the Kornilov hypothesis. 85 In a letter from Paris of Oct. 30/Nov. 1, 1861, Turgenev wrote to Katkov in part: "Perhaps my view of Russia is more misanthropic than you suggest: [Bazarov] - in my eyes - really is the h e r o of our time. A good hero and a good time, you s a y . . . . But it is so." Brodskii, ed. op. cit., p. 40. 84

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the end justifies any means". 5) Turning to the causes for nihilism Katkov found three: a) the Russian system of education - "We can-

not complain that our civilization was meager. On the contrary, what is there that we do not have? All possible kinds of ideas come into our intellectual environment. We know all languages, and are familiar with all literatures. We study subjects of all fields of knowledge and all spheres of life. But this wealth, as all know, is as false as assignats. The wealth of our education is an illusory wealth: it is the truth trampled under foot a thousand times, from all sides, from the notorious apophthegm: 'grattez le Russe', to the notorious teaching about alienation from the popular soil." b) the bureaucratic tyranny of the State - "the

characteristic feature of our environment is that it stifles the organizing forces which bind people together who have a general interest, which flows through them and lives in t h e m . . . . Such is the historical fate of our civilization. History has smashed all of our social ovaries, and given a negative direction to our artificial civilization.... People thus live a double life - an external one, in which they do not take an intellectual and moral part, and an internal one, which enters more into the world of dreams than reality." c) the cancerous attributes

of the Russian

cleri-

cal estate — the Arkadiis, the "sons of barons", never become serious nihilists. Rather the Bazarovs, who, Katkov indicated, might have been more accurately portrayed as the "sons of a sexton" than as mere nephews, were the serious nihilists. He traced the evil back to the castelike nature of the Russian clergy, to its "Levitism", which was unlike either Roman Catholicism, which enforced strict rules of celibacy, or Protestantism, which was generally subjected to stringent civil control.8« Finally, Katkov came to grips with the problem of what was to be done to cure the Russian Land of this blight:87 Any negative measures against these negative phenomena will not only be useless, but harmful. Any kind of constraint or persecution is only a paliative, which can, in the course of time, strengthen the disease and make it chronic. There is only one true fundamental means to employ against these phenomena - the strengthening of all positive interests of the life of society. The richer our life is developed in all of its normal interests, in all of its positive aspirations - religious, intellectual, political, and economic - the less room will there be left for the negative forces in our society. Under such circumstances, it would be extremely uncomfortable for the Bazarovs: they would be forced to view themselves in a position of contempt and impotence, and for them, this would be the cruelest of deaths. 8 » [M. N. Katkov], "O nashem nigilizme po povodu romana Turgeneva", LOZRV, July 1862, pp. 402-426. 87 Ibid.. pp. 425-426.

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Hence, Katkov believed in all earnestness that a new spirit of a "positive character", if infused into Russian society, was the best antidote for the negative direction in general and nihilism in particular. In the following year, the year of the Polish Rebellion at its full fury, Katkov was to modify these ideas considerably. But to his own way of thinking, he did not foresake his Anglophilism; after all, did the English quibble about habeas corpus with Irish rebels underfoot? In summing up Katkov's thought during what began as an era of good feelings, certain points stand out: Katkov entered the period with the hope that he might reconcile and unite Russian society, by uniting its "literary parties". However, he offered no program substantial enough to compete with the various programs of Chicherin, Chernyshevskii, and others, who were his main opponents. Furthermore, though Katkov preached reconciliation, his own attitude toward his adversaries was anything but tolerant, and indeed became increasingly intolerant in proportion to the growth of the radical movement, which he characterized as nihilistic. There is some indication during this period, 18561862, of Katkov's burgeoning national feeling in the face of Ukrainian philological nationalism, but this was of a secondary importance to the prime problem of combatting nihilism. Katkov's ingrained Westernism was evidenced by the fact that the Russian Messenger, with few exceptions, was a paper supported by Westerners. The fact that a schism developed between himself and the liberal Westerners, for example, Chicherin and E. F. Korsh, was indicative of the greater centrifugal force of the "anti-state-pro-state" quarrel in relation to the centripetal force of Westernism, which by its very nature tended to be amorphous. In large measure, Katkov's dispute with Chicherin was analogous to his earlier quarrel with Belinskii. The move from aesthetic to political individualism was not impossible for Katkov. The enemy remained relatively consistent - Khlestakov, civic responsibility (or a civic Weltschmerz). In short, he would remain opposed to all that prevented the individual from reaching a sublime state of romantic self-consciousness.

IV THE INCIPIENT "WAGER ON THE STRONG"

"Only people who have some means, who have received an education and who possess some leisure can serve well by election. Only from such people is it possible to expect the desire to toil for the benefit of society, whose general welfare is combined with their own personal interests..." "Vybornoe nachalo", Sovremennaia Mar. 1860, Bk. I, p. 97.

letopis',

I Much confusion has arisen among historians of nineteenth-century Russian political and intellectual developments because they glossed too lightly over the difference between Katkov's ultimate political goals and the temporary means he employed to achieve them. This is a complex question and cannot be explained in simple terms. Katkov desired that the Russian Land, which he understood to embody both state and society, should be both strong and free. By strength, Katkov meant not only physical strength in terms of the ultimate arbiter - armed might but also moral strength, which he considered of even greater importance. Freedom as a concept for Katkov was somewhat ambiguous, but in essence he viewed it in the often contradictory senses of German romanticism and Millite liberalism. In his own mind there was no contradiction: using his favorite model - England - he saw both the political manifestation of the social organism as well as an amazing degree of individual freedom, limited only by a highly developed sense of responsibility.1 Neither state nor society should cannibalize the other, but both should live in harmonious coexistence as equally necessary for mutual 1 In the course of time, it became apparent that he appreciated Mill's philosophy much less than the German romantic concept of organic unity, which also fulfilled his peculiar "identity" requirements, in the psychological sense.

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strength and freedom: "It is true that human society could not exist without the mediation of the state principle", Katkov wrote in 1857, "Society only flourishes and human life only unfolds in all of its fullness and variety where the state is a decisive force, where it exists indisputably. But nevertheless, the state, in its proper narrow sense, is nothing more than that which was acquired for the life of the people, for a good price. As we see in history, the establishment of the state resulted from warring and internal disturbances; from the war of all against all, in the expression of Hobbes; or as our Chronicler put it, from the rising of family against family." 2 Katkov's conclusion was to the point: "in life itself, political interests are primarily inferior to the interests of society." 3 In the same way that Katkov found Tocqueville useful to attack the dangers of over-centralization, he found the philosopher and "social historian" Wilhelm Heinrich Riehl useful to express the positive attributes of "society" as the proper expression of the Volk. Riehl indicated that viewing the Volk as an object of art is the only way to approach the question of statesmanship and political writing. "If the politician has not familiarized himself with the essence of the Volk, then he will not know how to shape the individualities of the Volk plastically as true objects of art, then he will still be groping in the fog, despite all of his political wisdom." 4 Katkov's admiration for Riehl reflected the fact that the German idealist struck a sympathetic chord for the Russian publicist, who was schooled in the same tradition: "His heart is completely turned to the past and completely dedicated to history; he often forgets our contemporary interests and future demands but what life his sketches breathe! Within him, the scholar lives in close harmony with the artist. In many respects, Riehl is even more an artist than a thinker." 5 Within Katkov's lexicon, this was the highest encomium which he could bestow. Riehl's emphasis upon the Volk was largely within the incipient nationalist tradition of Ernst Moritz Arndt, whose hatred of the cosmopolitan Napoleonic Imperium stimulated a type of emphasis which was wholly within the German romantic tradition. Riehl's own emphasis upon the cultural aspect of Volksgeist, however, was largely a pioneering effort which preceded that of Burckhardt, Friedlander, Buckle, and Symonds. *

[M. N. Katkov], "Zametki", SL, Jan. 1857, Bk. I, p. 2. Ibid., p. 3. 4 W. H. Riehl, Die Naturgeschichte des Volks als Grundlage einer Sozial-Politik (Stuttgart, 1854), Vol. I ("Land und Leute"), p. 22. » [Katkov], "Zametki", SL, Jan. 1857, Bk. I, p. 3. 3

deutschen

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Katkov insisted that both society and the state had separate but complementary functions, the confounding of which could result in dire consequences: "Society would be deprived of life, human activity would be unable to reveal itself independently and productively, there could be no science, no art, even no industry; and the human personality - not being ennobled, not being elevated in its own best interests - would either be attracted by animal inducements, or else remain the unconscious organ of tradition." " What then should be the proper relationship between society and the state? Katkov believed that they must "co-exist harmoniously, without interference in the other's proper sphere". He defined their respective spheres of activity in the following terms: 7 The positive interests of life become the obligation of society, while the negative interests of life become the obligation of the state. Both positive and negative interests exist in life. The latter comprise what is called the conditio sine qua non of human life: that is, those rights and obligations whose destruction or abuse is a crime. The sword of the state should not perish from the life of society, in order that one man should not harm another, in order that one should not interfere with the legitimate development of another, who himself contributes to the sum of human nature's positive interests, in order that each activity might follow its own path, in accordance with its own internal law of development, without fear of any interference. It is impossible to force man to love, it is impossible to force him to sacrifice, otherwise we would have neither true love nor true sacrifice, but only the despoliation of man; but if it is, or at least Should be, impossible to command man to give, then it is at least possible to tell him do not touch, when he lays hands on his neighbor's things. This was Katkov's view of the relationship between state and society at the dawn of a new era, an era which promised only an abundance of happiness from the cornucopia of reform. His ideas on this subject, however, were by no means static, but to a large degree reflected what Katkov believed to be the imbalance between the two. Thus, at the conclusion of the reign of Nicholas I, it was clearly the state which had crowded society out of its proper sphere of activity, and hindered the proper development of the latter. When the Russian Land was in danger, for example, at the time of the Polish rebellion of 1863, Katkov did not suggest the quashing of society, as he understood it, but rather 1) the silencing of its dissident elements, and 2) the organic union of society with the state. « Ibid. ι Ibid., pp. 3-4.

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Because of Katkov's emphasis upon society as the source for the positive initiative within the Russian Land, many came to view Katkov as a "liberal" if not indeed a "constitutionalist". Certainly, as has been indicated in the previous chapter, he was not a "liberal" in the Russian sense of the word, if one accepts this to mean the Granovskii-KavelinChicherin tradition. This tradition came to place increasing emphasis upon 1) the state rather than society as the impetus for political, economic, and social reform, and 2) the French model of centralization to an ever increasing degree (especially in the case of Chicherin), and 3) a view of the body politic in essentially the terms of a Rechtsstaat, with legalistic contractual, rather than romantic "organic" premises. The problem of Katkov's alleged "constitutionalism" is further confounded by his support for a zemskii sobor. As will be indicated later in this chapter, this support was certainly not a reflection of "constitutionalism" (which was quite alien to his outlook), but rather was intended to be a national rally in the face of a severe "time of troubles", the Polish Rebellion. Katkov, even more than Aksakov, hated the concept of democracy in either the Western or Russian communal sense: "To spread political privilege without limit means to accept only one principle for the basis of government - that of numbers - which means in effect to destroy all other interests with one s t r o k e . . . . According to the instinctual pattern of national life, it is necessary to behave in such a way, that by giving something to one, it is not denied from those who already possess i t . . . in granting political rights to those parts of the people who do not already exercise them, it is necessary to assure that these rights not be taken away from those who already enjoy them." 8 And with respect to constitutionalism, Katkov had the following to say, at this period of time: "We never anywhere came out in favor of parliamentarianism... this was done by the French liberals of the twenties, and in general by those superficial people with whom we debate. In our opinion, the most sophisticated constitution, taken of and by itself, independent of the bases of social life, is only an empty form, which produces nothing and offers nothing." 9 But even before society could undertake to cooperate with the state in political affairs, there were certain important prerequisites: "society, even if not divided into hostile camps, can furnish the only substance for the formation of public opin8

[M. N. Katkov], "Politicheskaia pogoda i vnutrenniia reformy", SL, June 1860, Bk. I, p. 235. • SL, Dec. 1861, No. 51, p. 18.

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ion; but this substance must still pass the test of many-sided debate, for refutation or verification, in order that what is called public opinion be based upon clear, sound convictions. There can be no public opinion or public convictions, if private convictions do not precede them. The only demand which can be placed upon both public and private convictions is that they be sincere and that they be expressed not under the influence of fear, egoistic expectations or servile obsequiousness.... In England, more than anywhere, these conditions are met, and hence this is why we are always so disposed to say a good word about England." 10 Katkov was now ready to expand his journalistic activities; and in his desire to do so, he encountered none of the severe obstacles which faced him in 1855. His attacks on Herzen, his "linking" of the Russian "emigres" with the fires of 1862, his general attack on nihilism, all found favor with the Emperor, and more especially with the influential Empress. Katkov and Leont'ev were publicly thanked by the Imperial pair on November 30, 1862, during a ball at the Great Kremlin Palace. Katkov's opponents were naturally less than pleased. They viewed the ascension of their self-righteous rival as the beginning of a new dark era for Russian journalism, which they compared to that of the "sycophancy of Grech and Bulgarin" to the state. In this fear they were quite mistaken. But in christening the new era as Katkovshchina, they were completely vindicated.11 Katkov himself assumed the major editorial responsibilities for the Moscow Gazette, which he acquired by lease in 1863. The paper was still owned by Moscow University, but the lease permitted the editorpublisher complete latitude in all aspects of its operation. The Gazette continued as a daily. Katkov also continued as editor-publisher of both the Russian Messenger and the Contemporary Chronicle. The former came to be distinguished by the works of Dostoevskii ("Crime and Punishment", "The Idiot", "The Brothers Karamazov", et al.) and Tolstoi ("The Cossacks", "Anna Karenina", et al). The Chronicle, which ceased publication in 1871, became a mere political echo of the Moscow Gazette, but its content was broadened to include "Zapiski teatrala" and "Teatral'naia khronika" ("Notes of the Theater" and "Theatrical Chronicle"), which reviewed in particular the plays pre10

Ibid. I. M. Bodianskii, former manager of the University typography, which Katkov leased together with the Gazette, refused to turn over the keys to the new lessee until the stroke of the appointed hour, saying he refused to be a party to the establishment of Katkovshchina. Barsukov, op. cit., XIX, 440-448. 11

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sented at the Malyi Teatr. Katkov's editorship of the Messenger and the Chronicle was, however, only nominal from 1863 (except when the Messenger received his special attention again after 1882). The Messenger was delegated to N. A. Liubimov, whose reminiscences of Katkov are among the most basic for the period. Katkov's relationship with his "family" after 1863 reflected the same dictatorial manner which he demonstrated toward colleagues. His "family" came to include his wife and their eleven children besides his brother Mefodii and his wife and their thirteen children. Leont'ev also shared quarters in the same building with Katkov. The family table, according to the accounts of Cyon (Katkov's "man" in Paris in the eighties) sometimes was set for as many as thirty people. While Katkov was able to make "suitable" marriages for his daughters, for example, with the princes Shakhovskoi, Zvenigorodskii and Count Tolstoi, and for his sons with the princesses Lobanova and Shcherbatova among others, his most serious problem was his brother, Mefodii, who, after an unsuccessful attempt to murder Leont'ev in 1874, was confined. 12 Leont'ev was so devoted to Mikhail Nikiforovich that he had fought a duel to preserve the latter's honor, in 1864. 13 The impact of the Polish rebellion upon Katkov's ideas with respect to state and society was tremendous. In the first place, "freedom" must be sacrificed for "security": "Freedom of conscience and religious freedom are good words", he wrote in August, 1863, but he added, "Freedom - religious or any other - does not mean to arm the enemy. . . . " 1 4 The shock of the rebellion can best be gathered from Katkov's own words: 1S Let us remember the year 1612, let us also remember that after two hundred years there was 1812 W e remembered 1612: but what an infinite difference there is between the Russian state then and now! Formerly, there was internecine strife, which tore the country asunder; pretenders appeared one after another, foreigners still held the crown of Monomakh in their hands; the Poles controlled the Moscow Kremlin, this vital center of the 12 Élie de Cyon, Histoire de l'entente franco-russe (Paris, 1895), pp. 118, 118n. Russkie vedomosti (1874), No. 197 gives a full account of the "attentat" at the Lyceum of the Tsarevich Nicholas, in which Mefodii also tried to murder two of his sons. 18 V. Rosenberg, Iz istorii russkoi pechati... 'Russkiia Vedomosti' (Prague, 1924), pp. 17-32. His opponent was S. N. Goncharov. Barsukov, op. cit., XXI, 137-142. 14 Μ. Ν. Katkov, Sobrante peredovykh statei Moskovskikh vedomostei [hereafter, Katkov, Sobranie] 1863, No. 168, p. 420. 15 Ibid., No. 83, pp. 175-176.

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Russian Land . . . from the other side, the Swedes invaded us. We were beset with dissension, troubles, treachery, internal and external enemies.... Two hundred years later, the Russian Land already represented a significant European state; and again it was subjected to a great trial. The conqueror, before whom all Europe fell, directed all of his forces against us. Poland opened the way for him into our land, it fought against us under his eagles, and together with him was present at the burning of M o s c o w . . . . We know the outcome of this trial; we know how the Russian people emerged from it; we know that from this epoch the internal forces of our nationality were tested and gave account of themselves in action, that namely from this epoch our national self-consciousness and productive activity in all spheres of social life b e g a n . . . .

And turning in the same breath to the present crisis, Katkov's prescription was unequivocal: "The passive position of our society and the conviction that there is no continuous inter-action between it and the government opens a wide area for all kinds of plots, machinations and intrigues by the internal enemies of Russia, and deprives it of the means to wage a completely successful straggle against them." 18 What Katkov meant as a national rally, a closing of ranks, albeit a "crowning of the edifice", some historians appear to have viewed mistakenly in constitutional, rather than integral national, terms. Katkov's conservatism in this venture was quite explicit: "Our Russian progress from the times of Peter the Great was so wobbly and unproductive, because the conservative forces of society were excessively restrained by the external political development of the state. Innovation followed innovation, all of them were brought from without, did not flow from one another, and were not valued by one another." 17 Thus in the year of peril, Katkov did not suggest that Russian society should yield to the state, but rather that the luxury of harmonious coexistence, each within its own designated sphere - which was to be preferred when the Russian Land was not in danger - could no longer be afforded. This would not seem to suggest the "change of convictions" on Katkov's part which some historians hypothesize. Above all, Katkov never ceased to emphasize that the state must have its roots in a conservative landed proprietorship. It was Katkov's belief that only "interests" and not "ideas" could provide the solid foundations for the Russian Land. And these interests were represented not by the service gentry, but by those pomeshchiks who had proved their capability within the non-state sector of the economy, by those » "

Ibid. Ibid., No. 138, p. 333.

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"Horatio Algers" who had risen by their own means and ingenuity. Ideally, the web of state control over the economy should be gradually removed until the "natural laws" of supply and demand had a chance to push to the top those individuals who were most talented. However, largely under the impact of the Polish Rebellion and the crescendo of nihilism, Katkov's concept of "freedom" - in economics as elsewhere - was sharply modified. He turned toward integral nationalism, toward the romantic concept of the aesthetic freedom of the individual immersed in and organically united with the Volksgeist. His flirtation with Millite "liberty" was a transitory thing, and passed out of his thought forever.

II Thus the Katkovian concept of the "dialogue" of state and society, of the harmonious "coexistence" of the "negative" and "positive" sides of the Russian Land, came to be altered largely as a result of the permanent danger which faced Russia. The concept of organic unity of state and society replaced the former concepts, and Katkov's search for "integral interests" led him to try to discard a number of political institutions, until before his death only two remained - the Autocrat and Katkov (the conscience of Russia). A personally fearful and ideologically solipsistic Katkov had nowhere else to turn but within. In 1863 the fundamental task of Russia, Katkov believed, was to present a united front to its "enemies" both internal and external. This could be best accomplished by providing a direct and indivisible "umbilical cord" between society and the Autocrat - a link which would not be interrupted by bureaucratic formalism, by legalistic formulations, or by rationalistic formulae. Content rather than form was important in the search for interests. Before society could enter into such a close relationship with the Autocratic Power, society itself would have to undergo further ablution. The Emancipation of the peasants in 1861 was a step in the right direction of "freedom", but a society worthy of undertaking such an organic union with the Autocrat would have to be a society "free" in a much more integral sense. Internal economic and social freedom were necessary for Russia's more important moral integrity. Collective responsibility (krugovaia poruka), which restricted the mobility of the peasantry, was an artificial barrier; it was a stumbling block to this needed integrity. The very Europeanness of Russia was at stake. Civil

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freedom must be complete; but civil responsibility came to have an increasingly important function for Katkov as the Rebellion wore on. Time scarcely permitted the "creation" of a new class of free proprietors. The best people must be sought where they existed. And these, Katkov felt, could be found only among the pomeshchiks. Everyone should enjoy civil liberty, but only the wealthy and the experienced should have the privilege as well as the duty of political responsibility. In his vigorous debate with Ivan Aksakov over the question of who should enjoy political rights, Katkov's position was much more restrictive than that of his Slavophile adversary: "Does the Newspaper Den' stand in defense of the French theory of universal suffrage . . .?" And though Katkov himself answered his rhetorical question in the negative, he felt that Aksakov's opposition to a property qualification based on wealth was unreasonable. He argued that he too was opposed to a division of the country on the French model (that of a pays legal as opposed to the remainder of the people), but he protested that he asked for a graduated property qualification (tsenz) which would extend the vote not to the voters qua persons, but to the landed wealth which they possessed.18 Coupled with his attack upon Aksakov, who thought in terms of the middle gentry as the bulwark of local government, and hence was opposed to a tsenz which would place the center of gravity with the large landowners, Katkov also used the type of persuasion which might appeal to his opponent's sensibilities: "Not only Western Europe, which is our contemporary, but the voice of all times, which saw the development of political life, tells us that the people of a middle condition [srednie liudi] are best suited for this aim [to receive political rights] - not too strong and not too weak, those who are able to safeguard their freedom without having the possibility to abuse it. Where there are no such people, or where they are too few, there are insufficient guarantees for freedom; there only arbitrary rule is possible. But where they do exist, the mark of their class is always a well-known degree of material self-sufficiency - a material tsenz - and when the legislator seeks these srednie liudi in order to grant them political rights, he by necessity turns to the tsenz as the most valid mark of their capability to hold political rights. Thus it always was, and thus it always shall be." " 19 11

SL, Feb. 1862, No. 8, p. 15.

Ibid. For Katkov's polemic with Chicherin, who was in favor of a political and social division of Russia on the French model, i.e., according to estates, see Barsukov, op. cit., XIX, 35-46.

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Katkov was even less "democratic" than the avowedly undemocratic Slavophiles, such as Ivan Aksakov. Katkov argued that if all people were equal then a tsenz would not be necessary, but since there were well-known differences it was the practical way of designating the "chosen": "Political rights cannot be inherent in man; they are not the same as the right to [civil] freedom, based on the fact that man by nature is essentially free, but are based on a right to power, to command, as the Greeks said. All people are equal among themselves in their right to [civil] freedom; this is a fundamental right, the source of any right. The natural limitation to this right is included in the obligation of each to respect the freedom of the other; from the necessity to impose this obligation upon people authority derives; to guard this fulfillment of this obligation is the duty of authority, it is its very meaning. Therefore, the right to authority is sharply distinguished from the right to freedom. The latter is a pure right; it is not based on any obligation, and has as its only requirement the duty to respect the freedom of another. The right to authority, on the contrary, is preceded by an obligation (the obligation to protect freedom), in this obligation is c o n t a i n e d . . . its raison d'être."20 If political power were then an obligation, Katkov continued, then it should be granted only to those who would be in a position to fulfill it, only to those persons whose very own interests, material as well as moral, coincided with the interests of the community in which they lived. And as has been indicated, he felt that the best measure of one's capacity to assume this obligation was a tsenz calculated according to the value of real property. 21 Katkov agreed with Aksakov that the Russian gentry did not correspond to a West European aristocracy, but beyond this superficial agreement they fell into discord over the desirability for Russia to have an aristocracy. Katkov felt that Aksakov was completely wrong to think of the meaning of aristocracy in only a negative sense as a "braking force", adding that when it had real political weight it functioned in a much more positive capacity. "The great significance of an aristocracy in political life", Katkov wrote, "rests not on its conservative instincts, but on its independence. Independence to what is above and below, here is the worth of a true aristocracy. We have already stated many times that the Russian gentry cannot be called an aristocracy. By virtue of its overwhelming majority, it constitutes primarily srednie liudi and *· SL, Feb. 1862, No. 8, p. 15. »» Ibid., pp. 16-17.

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can be summoned only to fulfill its political role. But it cannot accomplish that service which befalls noblesse oblige. Even the most superficial acquaintance with the Russian gentry shows that this mass of 600,000 who belong to different classes of society is not at all distinguished by an aristocratic independence of position; only an unintentional or intentional confusion of ideas could suggest this statement heard so often - that the gentry constitutes an aristocratic element in Russian society." 22 Katkov thence introduced a philological argument to substantiate his hypothesis: "The word aristocracy, nobilitas, corresponds to our common word ztiat' [to know], but who would dream of calling any dvorianets [member of Russian gentry] a znatnyiT'23 Yet, Katkov was not content to let the matter rest here. An aristocratic element could be produced if his prescription were followed: "In order to derive this znatnyi [aristocratic] element, a very high landowning tsenz is necessary." 24 His equation was not dissimilar to the Hamiltonian. But here Katkov was faced with a problem which to the Slavophiles and the more orthodox liberals of Chicherin's persuasion might have appeared as verging on a dilemma. How was it possible at one and the same time to propose a high tsenz and not to alienate the middle and lower classes? Katkov's solution again derived largely from the English model. Instead of dividing the nation into a pays legal and a discontented remainder, Katkov proposed to give virtually everyone a stake in local self-government. But the stake was to be graduated on essentially plutocratic lines. His thoughts on the matter in 1862 were still not as well formulated as they appeared to be in the following year; nevertheless they expressed the same fundamental principle: Russia must in effect be divided for the purpose of local self-government into several tsenz categories. The lower categories would participate in local selfgovernment indirectly through a representative. The middle-taenz category, which Katkov visualized as the rough equivalent of the "onehundred soul" qualification for participation in pre-Reform gentry assemblies, would be distinguished by personal participation in the volost', uezd and provincial zemstvo assemblies. Finally, the members of the highest tsenz category could serve "by virtue of their ability to fulfill 22

Ibid. Ibid., p. 17. The term "znat" was used in Russia as an idiom to identify those families that had attained high rank in State or Society. See Anatole Leroy-Beaulieu, L'empire des Tsars et les Russes (Paris, 1881), II, 320. 24 Ibid. 23

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the obligations which are concomitant with an aristocracy". 25 Katkov added that the tsenz need not be the sole criterion for political ability: "Together with the tsenz, public law gives significance to kinds of occupation, to upbringing, and finally to heredity (the latter is designated as one of the conditions of the aristocratic element), but the primary significance belongs, all the same, to the tsenz, as the most convenient designation, and the most harmless criterion of one's ability to enjoy political rights." 28 Katkov had formulated his "wager on the strong" gradually and in increasingly more articulate form, but his fundamental ideas were not essentially different in 1863, when he made his final sophisticated proposal on the organization of the zemstvo tsenz, from those which he voiced as early as 1860 shortly after his return from England. In the earlier period he rejected reliance upon the estate-principle, primarily because he believed it would shift the center of political gravity to the peasantry whose vision was too narrow, he thought, to make them effective leaders in local affairs. He recognized that an estate organization would mean that peasant leaders would in effect control the weight of the peasant estate with all of the dangers pursuant thereto. He did not necessarily agree with the Slavophiles that the peasantry represented a docile, conservative, apolitical element, but felt that it could perhaps be swayed by demagogs in its own midst, who if not politically radical would at least be interested in a relatively narrow sphere of interests which would in the long run retard Russian economic, social and political progress. His Hamiltonian formula (although there is no evidence that he was directly acquainted with the ideas of the American statesman) was quite succinctly summed up in 1860: "Only people who have some means, who have received an education and who possess some leisure can serve well by election. Only from such people is it possible to expect the desire to toil for the benefit of society, whose general welfare is combined with their own personal interests; only such people will approach that noble ambition of society, not for indirect gain, but for honor, or for a more far-reaching, though no less significant advantage." This was perhaps Katkov's way of saying that that which benefits the "strong" benefits Russia. His thinking was a curious mixture of the romantic ideal of "honor" and the earthly Interessenpolitik, which was characteristic of English experience. To over-

's »

Ibid. Ibid.

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state either side of the case would be to misinterpret Katkov's thought. He was always prepared to adopt a "concept" from the West, as long as he was firmly convinced that it would serve to unite Russian Society, and at the same time modernize the Russian Land. His willingness to amalgamate Schellingian Idealism with the empirical psychology of Beneke in the early fifties, while an instructor at Moscow University, found some parallel in his interest in Millite and Manchester liberalism with strong Tocquevillian underpinnings in the late fifties and early sixties. Still, in 1860, Katkov wanted earnestly to insure that the scope of local self-government would be broad and challenging enough to attract the best people, once it had been determined who they would be. Thus he set forth four principles which expressed his general thought in this respect: 27 1) The positions for which people are elected must have such scope and significance for the electorate that the best people of society would not consider them beneath their dignity.... 2) The scope of activities of elected members of the lowest instance must be both judicial and administrative [on the model of the English Justice of the Peace]. 3) The lower classes must not be obliged to elect persons for service solely from among themselves; the electoral principle cannot be successful if applied on a estate basis: only persons who have means, education and leisure can serve well if elected [This implied unsalaried positions, a point which he made explicit elsewhere, hence precluding all but the wealthy from running for office. The provision was designed to operate two ways against the poor and unschooled peasantry, and against a professional bureaucracy]. 4) Elected persons must not be so burdened by service that they cannot continue to manage their own private affairs. Therefore, their number must be sufficiently large so that each of them may feel free to increase or diminish his public responsibilities in accordance with domestic circumstances. The fourth point is of special interest because it is indicative of Katkov's thinking concerning the amateurism of local self-government, a distinctly English characteristic as opposed to the Continental Polizeistaat bureaucracies. As he also denoted in this point, there should be a "sufficiently large" number of persons participating in local governmental affairs, which would indicate a certain flexibility between the srednie liudi and the "znatnye", and more especially the possibility of the upward mobility of the former into the latter. This thought was »

"Vybornoe nachalo", SL, Mar. 1860, Bk. I, pp. 97, 100.

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made somewhat more explicit in June of I860, when he mentioned as a model of the ideal Russian zemstvo representative, not the English aristocrat, who, like the Russian, was not especially close to the events in his locality, but rather, the English squire, the member of the English country gentry - as a model which deserved emulation. He rather pointedly noted that these country squires were parvenus; as he said, they had "coarse hands" and were at first little differentiated from the "incomparably more coarse masses" which in the seventeenth century surrounded them. Yet, in Katkov's eyes, this was a mark of distinction. Was he not also a "parvenu" whose origins were scarcely higher than those of a seventeenth-century Midlands' squire? The publicist went on to indicate how from these humble beginnings the squire rose first in wealth and then acquired leisure and education; coupled with travel abroad and some acquaintance with affairs in the capital, how he returned to his estate where he dispensed the King's justice and meted out punishment as well as supervising local health, education, and welfare in his capacity as Justice of the Peace, and above all lived a cultured life of refinement; "his refined social manners are thence imparted to the rural countryside. Hardly anywhere in the world are there such charming residences as those of the English country gentry." Katkov's approach was not that of a Russian liberal of the sixties, either Slavophile or Westerner, whose Kulturträger populism, to borrow Professor Fischer's expression, was always directed downward to "the people".28 On the contrary, Katkov's thought was at one and the same time elitist, and without caste-like barriers; at one and the same time conservative, and with the very modern concept (in Russia if not in Western Europe) of respect for wealth per se. The polemic which raged between Chicherin's Our Times and Katkov's Contemporary Chronicle on the question of estates and their future was scarcely less intense than that which took place between the two publicists earlier on the question of centralization. For Katkov, as well as for Ivan Aksakov, who tacitly sided with Katkov in the controversy, the gentry qua gentry had lost its raison d'être. Katkov, a Westerner to the end and hence unwilling to blame Peter the Great, saw the cancerous element of officialdom in the gentry stemming essentially from the period of the Oprichmna, where the gentry was cast away from the remainder of the Russian people as less than its "living member". 88

"Nevladeiushchie klassy i mirovaia iustitsiia", SL, June 1860, Bk. 2, pp. 439440. Cf. George Fischer, Russian Liberalism from Gentry to Intelligentsia (Cambridge, Mass., 1958), pp. 14-17.

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«vatkov viewed the transition from oprichniki to chinovniki as carrying forward the spirit of officialdom, which thus came to pollute Russian Society. No question of public life, of Society, he asserted, was begun without its "dash" of officialdom. It was this pall of the official mood which deprived Society of its vital energy: "We regret that everywhere we have shallow flowers, they have no roots. . . . They say: if nothing is done from above, then nothing could be done at all." 29 Such roots, he believed, could and should be sunk into the Russian soil, but the process must not be obscured by sentimental idealization of the Russian peasant and his commune, nor by the sanctity of collective responsibility. Instead these roots must be tended and nurtured on a modern Western basis, which would foster both the agricultural and industrial wealth and the moral human resources necessary to make Russia a truly great European power. In the spirit of independence, as he indicated earlier, "love" and "sacrifice" would be given by Society to the Autocracy in a purely voluntary, not coercive, manner. Katkov realized very early that his wager on the strong was beset with real risks, especially from the institutions of its political expression - from the institutions of local self-government. One of the risks had already been indicated in the danger of a struggle between the estates if a plan similar to that proposed by Chicherin should be adopted. The other risk, which will be discussed in detail in the following chapter, concerned the possibility of local self-government being converted into a vehicle for separatism among the national minorities, from the Baltic to the Ukraine. Hence, while the new institutions should be free from state tutelage, they should nevertheless be "protected" by the State: "Local self-government", he wrote in March, 1862, "can only develop without harm under the protection of public state institutions, where the voice of the estates will of necessity speak with ever increasing compromise, and where the fortress of state unity, with all of its advantages, will be felt more strongly. Only under this condition will local selfgovernment not become a cloak for the struggle between the estates and for the passions of various fantasies of local patriotism." 80 However, just how the State was to implement this idea was a point which Katkov did not make explicit. Certainly, it was not to be accomplished 29

"Neskol'ko slov po povodu odnogo ironicheskago slova", RV, March 1862, p. 452. For the position of Ivan Aksakov see S. Lukashevich, Ivan Aksakov ... (Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1961), pp. 62f. Barsukov, op. cit., XIX, 37-46. 30 SL, March 1862, No. 13, p. 13.

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in a bureaucratic manner; on the other hand there is an indication that Katkov was thinking in terms not of a parliament, but a zemskii sobor. What had become the "political" organ of Society within Russia, the press, might undertake to inform the Emperor of the needs of local selfgovernment, and he in turn would reply to those needs. Hence, first the "well-intentioned" Russian press, which increasingly in Katkov's eyes had shrunk to a few periodicals which were relatively close to his own direction, and then the "chosen" in a zemskii sobor, would replace the bureaucracy as the only channel of communications between State and Society. Public opinion, with its force of moral suasion, would replace arbitrary bureaucratic coercion.31 During the period immediately preceding the zemstvo and legal reforms of 1864, Katkov's thoughts on the structure and role of the new, strong landowning class were being crystallized. He was able to find a rather convenient, though new, domestic prototype for his key man in district (uezd) affairs - the arbitrator (mirovoi posrednik) who had been created by virtue of the Peasant Reform to settle disputes between former serf-owners (pomeshchiki) and their former serfs. The arbitrator appeared to Katkov as the ideal Russian prototype for the English Justice of the Peace, combining all of the administrative and judicial functions which Gneist had so painstakingly described.32 Katkov was quite insistent that local self-government should thus be brought down to the uezd level with full force, that the arbitrational committees (themselves composed of the district arbitrators sitting together) should form the prototype for a conference of Justices of the Peace (acting as an appelate instance) and a zemstvo board handling local administrative, health, educational and welfare problems. At the uezd level Katkov saw the possibility of personal reconciliation and understanding among persons whose estate ties would gradually disappear, and hence the possibility of nipping in the bud any potential class antagonism. Thus Katkov, always anxious to emphasize gradualism and "transformation" (preobrazovanie) as opposed to legalistic "reform" (reforma), found the arbitrational institution most opportune for his cause. He characteristically responded to the question of "continuity and 81

Ibid., V. V. Garmiza, Podgotovka zemskoi reformy 1864 (Moscow, 1957), pp. 88, 102-103. For Katkov's earlier views, viz. [M. N. Katkov] "O glasnosti ν krestianskom voprose", SL, July 1858, Bk. I, pp. 39-44. Dnevnik P. A. Valueva ... C1861-1864), I, 252: entry of October 26, 1863, Katkov allegedly convinced Prince Gorchakov of the need for "some representation" - a reference to zemskii sobor. « SL, March 1862, No. 13, pp. 13-14.

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change" in the following terms: generally speaking, the creation of new institutions is not desirable, as long as a satisfactory transformation of the old is possible. Again his French bugaboo found expression: he cautioned against permitting some type of provincial assembly like the French conseils généraux, which might tend to become bureaucratic; the "legal zemstvo" and the "actual zemstvo" must coincide, that is, the delegation of authority and responsibility to others at the level of local government must be cut to the bare minimum. It was as if Katkov presaged the "negative" direction which was to be engendered among the "zemstvo people" of the nineties, shortly after his death, when a professional and technical bureaucracy of teachers, agronomists, veterinarians and the like would be motivated by that very civic Weltschmerz which he explicitly detested. Therefore, two paths were open for the correct "transformation" of the instruments of local government: (1) the scope and competency of existing provincial and district institutions (i.e., the pre-Reform bureaucracy) should be reduced simultaneously with the gradual assumption of authority and responsibility by the zemstvo bodies; (2) the arbitrational apparatus should serve as a transitional force providing for social tranquility, while at the same time serving as a prototype and testing ground for the Justice of the Peace institution and the uezd zemstvo board in general. In his debate with Chicherin on the question of the estates and of their role in local self-government, Katkov was accused of desiring to see Russians organized on a "vertical" basis rather than the "horizontal" estate basis proposed by Chicherin. By vertical, it was meant that Katkov thought in terms of well-intentioned differenecs of approach to important problems which would be founded not on social, estate, or even class lines, but rather on individual, intellectually independent circumstances. Here again, he was thinking in terms of the English way of life, of the twoparty system, of a loyal opposition. But these thoughts were meant only to express a vague, amorphously shifting vertical line of public opinion, and certainly not an English-type parliament. But more important than the rather vague analogy with English political life respecting political parties, was Katkov's idea of a vertical division of society as a purely symbolic antithesis to Chicherin's stratified estate principle (which precluded the plutocratic type and rate of social mobility that Katkov believed to be necessary).33 The fact that the estate principle in Russia was created by the State, 33

Ibid., pp. 14-15; SL, April 1862, No. 17, p. 10; Barsukov, XIX, op 37-41.

cit.,

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in a way which Katkov compared to Junkertum in Germany, made it even more vulnerable to his attacks. As an instrument of the State, it was not "organic", it did not stem from the living force of the nation; it was, like the State itself, a convenience to prevent the inevitable Hobbesian chaos, or the more Russian rising of "family against family". The artificial estates were created by Caesar and could be altered by Caesar. Katkov believed that they constituted the same assemblage whose beards Peter had cut, the same element which turned to European languages, which took turns at court and upper society, while at the same time taking turns at "farthingales, robrony, uniforms of various kinds, kaski and furazhki, always changing, always bowing to the law of progress", and he added: "Here is why our breeds [porody] or, as we usually say, our estates [sosloviia] do not manifest a strong organization or any kind of organic spirit." 34 In the question of the estates and their political aspect - local self-government, before 1864 - Katkov never hesitated to make a sharp distinction between the de facto proprietors, the pomeshchiki, and the de jure gentry estate, the dvorianstvo. In November, 1862, he wrote: "the administration of local affairs . . . should be found primarily in the hands of the pomeshchiki" ,35 but as individuals, not as an estate. Interestingly, he posed a parallel relationship between the landowners and local self-government and the clerics and education. While each group should be the dominant one in its respective sphere, in no case should this dominance become a monopoly, as was the case in France: "The French aristocracy fell in its struggle against the administration, on the one hand, and democracy, on the other, but all the same it fell only after a struggle. But how easily accomplished was the victory which the French administration achieved over the clergy on the question of public schools"; thence after condemning Prussian bureaucratic interference in education without the clerical estate, Katkov came finally to the land of "milk and honey": "But on the other side, what collossal force would be needed in order to remove the clergy from matters of public education in England, where the clergy [qua clergy] was not granted any political privileges in this respect. Felix quern faciunt aliena pericula cautumV'36 By the summer of 1863, Katkov was prepared to set forth his plan for the new zemstvo, a plan which incorporated his outlook on the gentry and peasant questions, as well as on the question of the estates in " « »·

SL, April 1862, No. 17, p. 10.

SL, Nov. 1862, No. 47, p. 15. Ibid.

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general. His rapid rise to fame, largely as a result of his articles on the Polish Rebellion, placed Katkov in a position of even greater importance as a voice to be reckoned with on almost every question. The Minister of the Interior, P. A. Valuev, though ideologically closer to the position of Chicherin, found it expedient to keep in close touch with Katkov during the debates which preceded the promulgation of the Zemstvo Statute in January 1864. 37 Katkov seldom proposed a positive course of action which had not been carefully preceded by a whithering journalistic barrage, with the intent of completely discrediting the opposition. A n d such characteristic preparation was evident throughout 1862 and the early portion of 1863; one of the most forceful attacks of this kind was leveled against Chicherin and Valuev, who continued to defend the estate principle of zemstvo organization against Katkov and Ivan Aksakov. T o feel fully the vindictive tone in Katkov's statements, one must read his words directly: 88 The defamers of the [zemstvo] plan find that the administration of zemstvo affairs must be concentrated in the hands of the gentry, and that the preeminent right to participate in the zemstvo administration must be confirmed and guaranteed by law. But towards what will such legislated security lead? Will it not generate jealousy against the rights of the gentry, would it not become the unavoidable cause of antagonism between the estates, and implant the pernicious element of estate hostility into the future history of Russia? When legislation secures some kind of right for this or that class, it at the same time alienates other estates from the enjoyment of this right. But all estates are interested in the zemstvo, and hence the alienation of some of them from participation in zemstvo affairs would be received by them as an injustice. It would thereby provoke a great clamor for the admittance of all estates into the zemstvo institutions by law. Furthermore, the gentry, governing the zemstvo in the capacity of an estate, would not be considered as the representatives of general zemstvo interests. . . . Sooner or later the time would come when dissonance would be manifested in full force, and this would mark the end of the aristocratic element in Russia. Only those who do not consider the aristocratic element as a necessary one in the political structure and who see democracy as the final goal of political development can view such a course of events with equanimity. Only people with this frame of reference can calmly observe the struggle for power between the lower and upper estates, a struggle which will inevitably lead to the political death of the upper classes. " [V. Mustafin, ed.], "Mikhail Nikiforovich Katkov i graf Petr Aleksandrovich Valuev ν ikh perepiske (1863-1879)", Russkaia starino [hereafter cited as KatkovValuev Correspondence], July-Aug.-Sept. 1915, pp. 294-300. Barsukov, op. cit., XIX, pp. 42-43. »» Katkov, Sobranie, 1863, No. 143, pp. 344-349.

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Thus, as has been noted earlier, Katkov believed that all elements of the population should ideally have a feeling of belonging to the zemstvo, which would not institutionalize frictional barriers. Finally, on July 1, 1863, Katkov came forth with an eight-point program for participation in the zemstvo, a program which definitively confirmed the plutocratically oriented tsenz which he had suggested several years before. 1) All members of the gentry who formerly enjoyed rights of participation in gentry assemblies, that is, who exercised local govermental rights, should receive the privilege of life-time participation in the newly created zemstvo assemblies. (As a source for this proposition, Katkov referred to the English custom of equity, which did not deprive one of political rights which were formerly enjoyed, even in cases of abuse, for example, the scandal of the "forty-shilling freeholders", by which wealthy landowners de facto controlled land which had been divided de jure for political purposes. Katkov took his stand with tradition.) 2) The right to participate in zemstvo assemblies shall be of two kinds: personal and collective (that is plenipotentiary), and both kinds were to be calculated upon the basis of the assessed valuation of one's land according to the zemstvo tax rate. Thus Katkov turned the republican motto "no taxation without representation" almost upside down, almost because there were some exceptions. 3) The right of personal participation in the zemstvo assemblies shall be granted to all local landowners, without distinction of estate to all whose landed property is assessed at between 40,000 and 50,000 rubles. 4) The right of personal participation in the zemstvo assemblies should also be granted to merchants, who can produce evidence of membership in the first guild (pervyi razriad), in effect, those who had formerly enjoyed the right of self-government within the kupechestvo (merchantry). 5) The right of collective participation in zemstvo assemblies at the ratio of one representative per portion of collective property (not communal property, but the aggregate of private property) with an assessed valuation at between 80,000 and 100,000 rubles should be granted: (a) to all whose individual landed property is assessed at a maximum of 40,000 to 50,000 rubles and a minimum of 2,000 to 2,500 rubles(b) to merchants, who can produce evidence of membership in the setond guild (vtoroi razriad). 6) The right of collective participation in zemstvo assemblies at the ratio of one representative per portion of collective property with an

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assessed valuation of 120,000 to 150,000 rubles should be granted to: (a) all persons whose private landed property is assessed at less than between 2,000 to 2,500 rubles; (b) petty tradesmen (torguiushchie meshchane), master artisans (khoziaevyremeslenniki); (c) peasant proprietors who own land on a communal basis, as a concession to the Slavophiles. 7) The right of collective participation in zemstvo assemblies at a ratio of one representative per portion of collective property with an assessed valuation of 240,000 to 300,000 rubles should be granted to all persons who enjoy the right of hereditary usufruct to either state or private manorial (pomeshchich'ia) land. 8) Art. 80, Vol. Ill of the Code of Laws, the Regulation (Ustav) about the service of elected persons should remain in full force. This Regulation defined the conditions of work in the pre-Reform provincial and district institutions.39 One of the most recent and interesting small monographs about the Zemstvo Reform is written from the Soviet viewpoint. Although it contains much valuable information, and analyses of the position of the press on the question, it unfortunately makes two rather sweeping statements which are generally unconvincing. In the first place, the author, V. V. Garmiza, attempts to substantiate the position which Dobroliubov adopted in his Whistle (Svistok) - that there is no real difference between the positions of Katkov and Chicherin since both in effect supported the upper gentry.40 While it may be true that in the short run the proposals of the two publicists had the effect of supporting this element, the long-run effects of their respective proposals were quite different. As has been noted, Katkov's plan would establish a vertical ladder of social mobility based primarily upon landed wealth which would be freely alienable, while Chicherin's proposal would have the effect of creating estate-based chambers of government from the lowest to the highest echelons, on the French model.41 Garmiza's second important overstatement is based upon Lenin's contention that Katkov was "liberal" because he "even proposed the convocation of an all-Russian [vse-rossiiskii] zemskii sobor [ancient Russian equivalent of a parliament]".42 As added support for this contention, Garmiza refers indirectly 38

Katkov, Sóbrame, 1863, No. 143, pp. 344-349. V. V. Garmiza, Podgotovka zemskoi reformy 1864 goda (Moscow, 1957), pp. 88, 102-103. 41 Barsukov, op. cil., XIX, 37-46. 42 Garmiza, op. cit., p. 103. 40

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to Tatishechev's statement that though in 1861 Katkov explicitly denounced "parliamentarianism", by 1862 he "was already sympathetic to the idea of central representation, considering that 'in our time, it is impossible to expect other than harm from local representative bodies if they are not counterbalanced by central ones' ".4S Tatishchev essentially reaches the same conclusion by stating that Katkov shared the thoughts of the "liberal intelligentsia" in 1862 with respect to the forthcoming zemstvo and legal reforms as "a preparatory link for a further transformation of the state structure".44 Tatishchev also moderates his evidence by indicating that the article which Katkov wrote in No. 26 of the Contemporary Chronicle of 1862, concerned plans "of the feudal party and drafts of representative bodies in Prussia".45 It is difficult to understand how Tatishchev could have expanded Katkov's ideas to include "crowning the edifice" in the sui generis liberal sense, when in fact Katkov's article (according to Liubimov, as Tatishchev himself acknowledges) was designed specifically to curb separatist tendencies in Warsaw.49 If Katkov did in fact seriously consider "crowning the edifice", it was only in the context of curbing the "negative direction" when the solid, conservative landowning class (of loyal Russians) came to prove itself. This "key" article, which in fact provoked the censor because of its close parallels with the Russian situation, nevertheless must be viewed in the perspective of the separatist threat. It would seem, as Liubimov stated, that this threat was the overriding consideration for Katkov, rather than any alleged parliamentary proclivities. Hence, Garmiza, Lenin, and by implication, Tatishchev, were in varying degrees overstating Katkov's position. It was thus not from the "senseless dreams" or even the "small deeds" of a liberal civic Weltschmerz that Katkov felt moved to propose a central representation, nor was it from any tendencies which characterized the Rechtsstaat National-Liberals of Germany. The latter when the time came to choose between nationalism and liberalism made the difficult decision by opting for the former (such a position was more akin to that of Chicherin); on this point, Katkov's view of the zemskii sobor was closer to that of the Slavophiles, who thought of it, not in a legalistic "French" sense, but rather as a rallying point when Russia was in danger. Katkov, like the Slavophiles, was to hark back to the year 1612 «

44

« "

Ibid. Nevedenskii, op. cit., p. 159. ¡bid. Ibid., pp. 159-160.

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and to emphasize the "homogeneous, harmonious and organic" character of Russia, which doomed those dissonant elements, from without as well as from within, which threatened both State and Society. 47 Katkov's efforts to see his final plan of July 1863 accepted, led to a vigorous journalistic campaign as well as to pressure on the government itself. 48 In an especially important letter to P. A. Valuev (then Minister of the Interior) of September 16, 1863, Katkov indicated how his incipient wager on the strong might be translated from thought into political action: 4 · . . . Right now, I pray that you pay special attention to the question of taking immediate measures with respect to landholding in the Western and Southwestern regions. [Katkov was to reproach the "bureaucratic" administration of Governor-general Annenkov for permitting Polonism and (Jkrainophilism to creep into the area]. It is necessary to hurry, while the matter is still hot. The pomeshchiks there are ruined and even ready to sell their estates; it is necessary that our capital be quickly drawn there: the pomeshchiks are now giving up their lands to the Jews by virtue of overdue mortgages; it is essential by all means to stop this The pomeshchiks involved in the insurrection must be compelled to s e l l . . . . I pray to God, that in the present time of troubles no misunderstandings should arise between us which can be turned to use only by s c o u n d r e l s . . . . I cannot tell you how sad it is that there is a misunderstanding between us concerning the zemstvo institutions. God knows what I would do in order that it be cleared up. For God's sake don't stake your pride on this plan [of the Drafting Committee]. It is necessary that you should stand above i t . . . the view stated by us on the matter is closer to your own general direction. I make bold to say that you would faithfully fulfill your obligation to state affairs if you would decide to review the bases of the plan, r r h e plan] developed under the influence of the opinion that the zemstvo assembly must have an exclusively economic character. But much has changed since then. Now after those events which were concluded, and with the direction that the matter has obviously taken, these institutions obviously must become elements of our whole political life. Indeed, never could the "economic" in similar institutions be strictly separated from the "political". The present gentry assemblies certainly must serve as a basis for the zemstvo. Here, that which exists is that which must be preserved. Personal and collective representatives, this already exists, it must not be d e s t r o y e d . . . . In our scheme, there is retained from the present, that which must enter into combination with that of the future, upon this [combination] will depend the course and rhythm of our political development. 47

Riasanovsky, Russia and the West..., p. 77. Nevedenskii, op. cit., pp. 159-160. "» Katkov-Valuev Correspondence (Oct. 1915), pp. 92-94. 48

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Katkov's somewhat ambiguous statement concerning "the events which were concluded" and "the direction that the matter has obviously taken" probably refers to the course of events in the areas of separatism, and most especially to the Polish Rebellion, which was the major topic of the correspondence and of Katkov's general interest in 1863. Elsewhere in the letter was the somewhat less cryptic statement: "Representation is necessary, it is necessary without delay. No kind of false charter, published for effect, but a continuous, active, healthy representation is an urgent necessity!"60 According to Tatishchev, the term "representation" (predstavitel'stvo), as used by Katkov, was an Aesopian term which meant "crowning the edifice" - that is, creating a zemskii sobor.u If such indeed is the case, it would be used in the Katkov-Valuev correspondence in the same sense as in the Contemporary Chronicle of the previous year, that is, its underlying motivation would be national, not liberal. Relations between Katkov and Valuev degenerated rapidly in the course of 1863; despite Valuev's protestations of overwork and likemindedness with the Moscow publicist, Katkov's instinctive distrust of the minister reached exaggerated proportions, and at last found its way into both journalistic and personal incriminations.52 Katkov took himself very seriously on every question that appeared in print; and when he received indications that his plans were not gaining the support which he felt that Valuev should give to them, he used every possible means to influence the State Council." It will be remembered that the whole underlying spirit of the editor's plan was that of local selfgovernment, in the non-bureaucratic English sense of the word. Thus objecting first on the basis of what Katkov termed the "large number of complaints from the 'uezds' in connection with the appointment of uezd leaders", he turned next to the whole question of "local autonomy" and of Valuev's attitude toward it, in a letter addressed to the minister on December 2, 1863: 54 »· Ibid., p. 92. 51 Nevedenskii, op. cit., p. 159. 52 Katkov, Sobranie, 1863, Nos. 162, 205, 218, 219, 220, 232, passim. »s Entry for July 8, 1863, in Dnevnik P. A. Valueva ... (1861-1864), I, 236-237: "Prince Gagarin, the Moscow provincial marshall of the gentry, opened his mouth only once and this one time only to introduce an excerpt from an article of Katkov in the Moscow Gazette, and in order to present it on the same basis as if it were said in the Northern Post, as if literary articles are to be discussed in the State Council." 54 Katkov-Valuev Correspondence, Dec. 1915, pp. 418-419.

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Much more important than parade appearances, which are only a pretense of local autonomy, much more important than all of the proposed zemstvo institutions (from which as organs of local autonomy nothing good can be expected) [i.e., those proposed in the Drafting Committee], much more important is the spirit, the true reality of this principle. And what do we see now? The first agents of authority, derived from the gentry elections, nominated by the government, are the living negation of the spirit of local life and autonomy. T h e y . . . for the most part are not taken from the local inhabitants. And as if this were not bad enough, as if for spite, in many provinces the majority of them are Poles. And now this! No comparable system more deeply and decisively disjoints government and society. Instead of using the best people in each post, and relying upon them, they permit a dead, bureaucratic mechanism - for the most part office supervisors and section chiefs - to come under the conventional title of government; they dispatch executors to various posts, who are unaccustomed to exercising authority. And Katkov continued, his anxiety unabated: "Where indeed is the trust between government and society, from whence is taken that living bond which must unite them, closely, indivisibly in the roots and elements of state life? Here [instead] is their disjointing! Here is the organized distrust of the government towards the people, which isolates them, and is comparable primarily to a military bodyguard. The true spirit of autonomy demands that the government should find all of its agents, beginning with the governor [down] among the local elements." 55 And though the letter closed cordially, there can be little doubt of the intent of its drafter or of its effect upon the recipient. The final Zemstvo Statute was promulgated in the beginning of January 1864, and despite heated polemics in the Russian press between Mikhail Katkov and Ivan Aksakov regarding the traditional SlavophileWesterner debate on the peasant commune, and the then more heated polemic between the opponents and proponents of the estate principle (Katkov and Ivan Aksakov against Chicherin), despite all of the correspondence between Katkov and Valuev, public opinion as represented by the non-governmental press had little if any effect upon the final provisions of the statute. It was a classic product of Kabinetpolitik. Still there were enough provisions closely related to Katkov's ideal of local self-government to hold his interest in the zemstvo institutions after their creation. In the first place, the concept of abolishing the political rights of estates qua estates (vsesoslovnosf as a minimum and bessoslovnost' as a maximum) was found in the formation of the first electoral college (of individual landed proprietors, irrespective of social 55 Ibid., p. 419.

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origin). Secondly, the application of a monetary tsenz to the urban population was in keeping with Katkov's essentially plutocratic feelings on the matter. And a monetary tsenz was partially applied to uezd assemblies as well, but the system was extremely complex, using an aggregate land-area tsenz combined with a monetary one. During the period 1864-1866, Katkov continued to battle for the principle of local self-government by his support of the zemstvo institutions against bureaucratic interference, of course always subject to the overriding consideration of separatism.56 But during the same period of time, this very overriding consideration coupled with that of the increasing display of nihilistic agitation led the "Thunderer of Strastnyi Bul'var" in the direction of a more positive attitude toward the gentry estate as a social force. 67 Thus to an ever increasing degree, Katov's attitude toward the zemstvo and gentry questions, which he at first appeared to consider essentially one and the same, became increasingly distinct under pressure from the "negative direction". The zemstvo, made largely ineffectual by governmental restrictions, became a haven for disgruntled liberals, and hence "infected" with the "negative" spirit. The gentry, however, which Katkov had previously viewed with jaundiced eyes as a vestige of the anachronistic "estate principle", now assumed the heroic role of champion of the state in its hour of need, defender of the Russian Land at its most pressing trial of history.

ΠΙ

If Katkov's interest toward the zemstvo institutions began to wane after their curtailment by the central government in the late sixties, his interest in another important aspect of local self-government - the Legal Reform - was more lasting. Though the government only announced its intention to replace the old legal system in early October 1862, the agitation for legal reform in the Russian press dates from the relaxation of censorship which 56

See Fischer, op. cit., pp. 12-13. By 1865, Katkov was held in such high esteem by the Moscow Gentry Assembly that it actually delivered an address to him, something usually reserved for the Emperor, and together with this presented him with an exquisite inkstand with a bogatyr' holding aloft a banner inscribed Edinstvo Rossii (The Unity of Russia), Liubimov, op. cit., p. 287. See also Le vote de la noblesse de Moscou (Paris, 1865), pp. 9-10, 45-46, verbatim account of confidence expressed toward Katkov in face of heavy governmental attack (led by Valuev and Golovnin [Minister of Education]). 57

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Alexander II introduced upon his accession. Katkov, as has been noted, was alien to things "legalistic", but not to the concept of Law in the German romantic tradition as an integral part of the development of an "historic" people.68 It may be assumed that what direct thoughts Katkov did develop on the legal question were more strongly influenced by his direct and indirect acquaintance with the legal system of England, gained from his trip to England in 1859 and his readings in Blackstone and Gneist, rather than by the Russian jurists, for example, Pobedonostsev, who published treatises on the technical aspects of legal reform, and emphasized the need for order in the legal system.69 While he agreed generally with what Pobedonostsev wrote on such subjects as civil law and court processes, and indeed repeated many of the hitter's technical concepts in his leading articles, it would appear that such an interest was only secondary to his English experience, especially for Katkov's thought in the late fifties, sixties and most of the seventies. For Katkov, the legal system, like the zemstvo institutions, and for that matter like any instruments of government, should be made to reflect the great changes in Russian Society which resulted from the abolition of serfdom. In this belief, Katkov was not dissimilar from Kavelin or even Chicherin on the one hand, or Ivan Aksakov on the other. But in his desire to see the local aspects of the legal system reflect his "wager on the strong", in his wish to see the Justice of the Peace drawn not from the bar, but from the wealthy landowning element on a non-estate basis, he differed, in one aspect or another, from his colleagues. Indeed, in this respect, he perhaps came closer to Pobedonostsev. He also placed little faith in the estate system, in the gentry qua gentry, but preferred to place a "high-value on self-made men" and "constantly praised middle-class virtues", as Professor Byrnes indicated.·0 The legal institution to which Katkov gave the most attention, and the one upon which his highest hopes were staked, was the Justice of the Peace, the key man in the entire system. In 1860, following his return from England, Katkov wrote: "All sound publicists in England as 68

See Chapter II, supra, for a discussion of Katkov's romantic orientation in general. In this sense he was not dissimilar from his Slavophile contemporary, Ivan Aksakov; see Lukashevich, op. cit., pp. 106-111. But on many of the particulars, they were sharply divided. 59 K. P. Pobedonostsev, "O reformakh ν grazhdanskom sudoproizvodstve", RV, June and July 1859; also his indictment of Panin published in Herzen's Golosa iz Rossii noted in R. F. Byrnes, "Pobedonostsev on the Instruments of Russian Government", in Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought (Cambridge, Mass., 1955), p. 114. w Byrnes, op. cit., pp. 113-115. Here two "parvenus" found common ground.

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well as in our country agree that the whole system of English liberty is based on the principles of local self-government, that the Justice Court is not by nature some kind of petty detail which can be introduced and abolished arbitrarily; but on the contrary, thanks only to the system of local self-government does the English parliament itself have a significance, which despite all our efforts, Continental parliaments cannot approach. . . . " 8 1 Katkov turned to a contemporary English observer to substantiate further his estimation of the Justice of the Peace; quoting directly from Lord Broom, he wrote: " 'On the Queen's Bench, the name of the judge who pronounces a decision is known, and the respected magistrate stands before the country as a private person and is always before the bar of public opinion. But in cases tried in Quarter Sessions, they stand only before the Quarter Sessions, which is nobody's name . . . where there is no responsibility, there is always the possibility of injustice as long as people remain people.' In the whole world, Lord Broom indicates, there are no courts which are higher [in responsibility] than those in the form of the Justice Courts...." 6 2 Turning thence to Gneist, Katkov also quoted directly: " 'Serving without salary, Justices of the Peace constitute a class of persons who render to their country services as great as those ever rendered to a country by its citizens.' " 8 3 As was indicated in the previous section, Katkov wished that the responsibilities of the Justice of the Peace, would be both administrative and legal, and he enumerated the most important ones: justice, police, prisons; urban supplies, accounting of expenditures; street, canal, and sewage repairs, grounds and buildings; supervision of charitable institutions and the like." But Katkov's primary interest in the Justice institution was in its idea, the spirit of the phenomenon, which to him represented the embodiment of organic, personalized government on the lowest level in quite the same sense that the Autocrat did on the highest.®5 61

[M. N. Katkov], "Nevladeiushchie klassy i mirovaia iustitsiia", SL, June 1860, Bk. II, p. 437. - Ibid., pp. 448-449. ω Ibid., p. 449n, which cites Rudolf Gneist, Die heutige englische Communalverfassung und Communalverwaltung oder das System des Self-government in seiner heutigen Gestalt Vol. II of Das heutige englische Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsrecht (Berlin, I860), p. 187. 84 SL, May 1862, No. 19, pp. 11-16. •5 Katkov, Sobranie, 1863, No. 79. The whole article expresses this feeling with respect to the Emperor. Katkov, Sobranie, 1864, No. 70-A, p. 187, is one very explicit statement for this feeling with respect to the Justice of the Peace: "[In

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Conservative by nature, Katkov preferred to transform an existing institution rather than to transplant an alien one, albeit as respectable as the English Justice of the Peace. He satisfied his "conservative Westernism" by happily turning to the institution of arbitrators (mtrovye posredniki) - created to arbitrate disputes arising from the emancipation of the serfs - which he hoped would serve as a prototype for the forthcoming Justice institution. The individual arbitrators would serve as prototypes of the Justices of the Peace, while the arbitration conferences (mirovye s"ezdy) would do the same for the forthcoming zemstvo boards (zemskie upravy). In both cases, Katkov hoped to see legal and administrative functions combined: in the individual case of the Justice of the Peace, he followed the English model described above; in the case of the zemstvo boards, Katkov had hopes that they would not only handle uezd administrative functions, but would serve as courts of second instance in which all of the justices of the Peace within a given uezd would sit as a body.66 Yet Katkov, ever concerned about overburdening the relatively "new" transformed bodies, did not expect all of his hopes to be achieved at once; even more than the zemstvo assemblies, did he cherish the Justice institution (both first and second instance, especially) as a "jewel", as an embryo, whose prenatal prototype, the arbitration institution, must not be aborted. Katkov wrote in October 1863, not knowing when the Legal Reform would be finally promulgated: 87 It is impossible to doubt that time and again in the future, we will turn from other institutions - in which we will see, or want to see, organs of future self-government - to the arbitration institution. These experiments will probably be o n a broad scale. In almost every uezd we expect to see a collegium of arbitrators; definitely in each uezd w e will see a collegium of administrators, under the title of zemstvo board [zemskaia uprava]. One need not have penetrating insight in order to predict that these institutions will have little success, in and of themselves, and hence to foresee the urgent necessity for them [the zemstvo boards] to unite with the arbitration conferences [mirovye s"ezdy[. This course of development is inescapable, England] As a mark of special respect for his dignity, the Justice of the Peace received the designation, not of judge, but of justice, . . . the highest judge (justitiarus)." See also the quote from Gneist and the quote from Lord Broom supra this section. 68 Cf. Gneist, op. cit., p. 187 supra. 67 Katkov, Sobranie, 1863, No. 232, p. 634. Katkov used the term mirovoe uchrezhdenie to mean the arbitration institution as a prototype of the justice institution. The Russian word mirovoi refers both to "arbitration" and to "justice".

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but in order that it not lead us back to the same place from whence we came [i.e., bureaucracy], we must guard our arbitration institutions as the apple of our eye [zenitsa oka]. It is not unreasonable for one to question the consistency of Katkov's political theory and practice with respect to the issue which Montesquieu had raised in the previous century - the problem of the division of power, of checks and balances. Katkov quite explicitly came face to face with the question, and perhaps to a greater degree than he had heretofore demonstrated, showed that English pragmatism was not beyond the intellectual realm of a Russian romanticist. How, for instance, could he reconcile the purely deliberative zemskii sobor, which he dared not mention by name, with the absolute power of the Autocrat? How could he justify those intermediate judicial instances, for example, the Sudebnaia Palata, with their respective administrative counterparts? In the English model, Katkov found a haven: the House of Lords, like the Russian Senate, exercised the functions of cassation, while at the same time having legislative responsibilities. While the two are quite different in many fundamental respects, the ideal of the English institution attracted the Moscow editor.68 Yet this haven still did not include the intermediate instances mentioned above. Was there no way out of the dilemma? Did he not take particular pleasure in attacking his opponents for inconsistency either as individuals or as "schools of thought"? The die was cast in May 1862, following Valuev's proposal for certain divisions of power, legalistic checks and balances, and the like in the municipal administration. In answer to such legalistic proposals made by the Ministry of the Interior's Northern Post (Severnaia pochta), Katkov wrote in a manner which expressed again both his "harking-back" to domestic Russian institutions and his simultaneous proclivity to borrow from England: "In olden times, who did not know the meaning of a prikaz or an izba [early Russian offices which combined many unrelated functions, for example, the Posolskii prikaz, which combined diplomacy with handling disputes between Muscovites and foreigners]? But now, who is not confused by the terminology of our institutions? Division of powers, interlocking dependence, various «β [M. N. Katkov], "Vybornoe nachalo", SL, March 1860, Bk. I, p. 92: "Many find strange the structure of the English House of Lords, which, at one and the same time is a legislative corporation and the supreme court of Great Britain. But if the matter is investigated, then it is easy to detect the reason for such a union of two allegedly opposed functions. The English House of Lords, as an assembly of people, is the most independent in the world, independent from government and from the p u b l i c . . . . "

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brakes and checks, as the English say, all this is alright above, but loses its meaning below, and leads only to confusion..." and pre-dating Parkinson by a century, he questioned whether it "makes sense to use fifty men for a job which can be successfully done by ten".®· Katkov reaffirmed his position in this respect in October 1862: "Englishmen are practical people, and very clearly understand that one thing may be good above, and another below." 70 Underlying the entire structure of the Justice institution was again the concept that those who serve in it must necessarily come from the wealthiest elements of the community, having thus the greatest stake in it. The fact that he held hope that they would serve without salary - as is indicated in his quote from Gneist above - was reaffirmed by his desire to see the Russian legal system free from graft, which he believed was a vestige from the "alien" institution of kormlenie (tax farming). In October 1862, he wrote: "Not more than ten years ago the need for a basic legal reform was almost unconscious in Russian society; the lack of justice, it was felt, was seen as an inescapable and incorrectable evil, which had its roots in human nature, or at least in the Russian national character. The first idea was especially prevalent, and the majority of the Russian people, not the common people alone, but even those who belonged to the educated classes, denied in fact that such lands could exist on earth, where judges were not run entirely by graft, and where the public did not fear the court, but actually respected it and was even proud of its justices." 71 The wealthy would presumably be above temptation. Indeed, Katkov even went so far as to propose property qualifications for jurors, again on the basis of wealth, and again probably for the same reasons.72 But, as was the case in his thoughts concerning the zemstvo institution, he was intent upon preventing that class conflict upon which certain elements of the "negative direction" fed. Thus, "all local inhabitants who satisfy the conditions established by law should exercise the right to stand for Justice of the Peace . . . " to which statement he had previously inserted the condition that the Justice of the Peace should be free of any estate character.73 Katkov's efforts to impress upon Valuev the need for self-government «» SL, May 1862, No. 21, p. 12. ™ SL, Oct. 1862, No. 42, p. 16. 71 SL, Oct. 1862, No. 40, p. 14. 72

[M. N. Katkov], "Nevladeiushchie klassy...", pp. 456-458.

™ SL, Oct. 1862, No. 40, p. 17.

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at the local level found expression not only in the zemstvo question, but in the question of the Justice of the Peace as well. The publicist alternately used "the carrot and the stick" in order to goad the increasingly insecure Minister into favoring his own schemes. Especially disturbing to Katkov, as has been noted, was the Minister's "festina lente", blaming the powers that be, overwork, shortage of personnel, anything in fact, in order to keep the "Thunderer of Strasnoi Bul'var" temporarily appeased. In March, 1864, Katkov came out with a stinging rebuke of Valuev for the Minister's underhanded efforts to subvert the arbitration institution, which was followed by a letter indicating that he in no way intended to be offensive to the Minister. He closed with the hope "of preserving your former good will toward me". 74 Indeed, Katkov's suspicion that the Minister was little better than an agent provocateur of the "negative direction" persisted until the Minister was replaced in the winter of 1866-1867. In general, Katkov approved of the Legal Statute of November 1864. He was disappointed, however, that the reform did not extend to the peasantry, which still retained so-called "peasant courts". Katkov, unlike Ivan Aksakov, viewed such institutions as cloaked in an estate character, which was intensified by the fact that the peasantry had narrow horizons (krugozor ikh tesen).75 With respect to the legal reform, Katkov's views were influenced largely by the English model; but in some particulars they also reflected the influence of Pobedonostsev, who was Katkov's friend and a collaborator on the Messenger. Pobedonostsev's influence was seen especially with respect to the institutional organization of the intermediate appellate instances and the creation of a new "estate" of jurists - a concept which one might expect would be contrary to Katkov's views. Katkov's direct and indirect (through Gneist) English experience was reflected in his concept of the combination of administrative and judicial functions at the lowest instance in the person of the Justice of the Peace, and in the general concept of "amateurism" as opposed to formalism in the legal procedure. That there was a theoretical difference between the Pobedonostsev concept and the Gneist concept, there can be little doubt; but characteristically, Katkov was less interested in institutions than in the goals which they would achieve. Besides, the English themselves did not always achieve theoretical reconciliation of institutions: 74

Katkov-Valuev Correspondence [letter of April 2, 1864], Dec. 1915, pp. 428, 430. 75 Katkov, Sobranie, 1863, No. 82, p. 174. For I. Aksakov, see Lukashevich, op. cit., pp. 107, 109.

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what was good above was not necessarily good below. Katkov did have ambivalent feelings about the inauguration of a new "legal estate"; his anxiety did not preclude his support of the new class: 78 Amidst our society will appear a new numerous estate, which until now we did not have, the legal estate - the estate of lawyers, of jurists. The court will be administered publicly, and with the participation of jurors, it will become a living social force; the idea of legality and law will become a mighty symbol of national life. The court will be independent, not subject to administrative control; it will grow and ennoble society, because through it, this character of independence and self-reliance will little by little be communicated to all manifestations of national life. Thanks alone to this innovation [the new legal system in general], what is called "judicial freedom" and "protection of the law" will become a reality, and not just words a l o n e . . . .

This was written in 1866, after the Karakozov affair. It is indicative of the fact that Katkov was reluctant to part with the idea of uniting state and society through institutions which were Western in tone as well as content. In fact, the legal system was the very last of the Great Reforms with which Katkov parted company, and then only after the sensational Vera Zasulich acquittal of 1878. Especially with respect to the zemstvo reform, and more particularly with respect to the institution of the Justice of Peace, which spanned both zemstvo and legal transformations, Katkov was seen to equate "essential interests" with economic interests. Was this a basic idea or a secondary concept deriving from his romantic ideology? To what extent was Katkov a homo economicus'i This question deserves special attention within the context of his wager on the strong.

IV

In the late fifties, Katkov was an avowed exponent of the doctrines of the Manchester School of economics. That this was a fact, he did not deny in his later years when he had already become a fierce exponent of autarky: "Everyone paid tribute to the dominant economic theories which recognized no other forces in the life of peoples and states beside the ruling principle of supply and demand, and taught that only laissez faire and laissez passer would provide for the so-called 'harmony of 78

Katkov, Sóbrame, 1866, No 86, p. 234.

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interests'. While reproaching others, we should also reproach ourselves for learning this doctrine and carrying it out from school...." Katkov continued, however, by indicating that his support for Free Trade was not unqualified: "We expressed our misgivings in 1857, when our old credit institutions were shaken. We came out against the operations of the exchange in 1863-1864. But we recognized, and we always found, that our market was inflated with paper currency, though instead of a withdrawal, we were given to the thought of fixing the credit ruble to the exchange rate, which at that time was quite high." 77 The Polish Rebellion marked a watershed which was sharper for Katkov's economic thought than for his political schemes. He became a strict economic nationalist, and as his colleague in economic matters, L. Voronov, noted, he took as his motto: "Russia for the Russians." 78 That his economic nationalism did derive from the period of the Polish Rebellion was indicated not only by his articles, but by his private correspondence with Valuev as well. For instance in 1863, Katkov wrote on the necessity to stop State Bank transactions in foreign cities, and in the following year he criticized "foreign" theories and economic laws - meaning, of course, Free Trade.79 His correspondence with Valuev in 1863 indicates some areas of agreement and others of disagreement. For instance, the Minister of the Interior pointed out that Katkov had drawn strong criticism from the Minister of Finance, Reutern. The cause of this criticism was the publicist's strong attack against the "excessive" extension of credit without metallic security.80 However, with respect to the proposal of Katkov to close the stock exchange ante factum, Reutern had only warm praise.81 Though the cosmopolitan Valuev did not agree with Katkov's desire to boost the ruble through an internal loan, he nevertheless permitted the article advocating such a measure to pass censorship.82 There can be little doubt that Katkov was privy to governmental plans in the economic field, even though he did not always agree with them. In a confidential letter of November 21, 1864, Valuev wrote to Katkov: 88

77

L. N. Voronov, "Finansovo-ekonomicheskaia deiatel'nost M. N. Katkova", RV, Aug. 1897, p. 104, which cites Sobrante, 1886, No. 56. 78 Ibid., p. 102. 7 » Sóbrame, 1863, No. 254. 8 » Sobranie, 1864, No. 145. 81 Katkov-Valuev Correspondence, Nov. 1915, p. 251. o* Ibid., Dec. 1915, pp. 426-427. 83 Ibid., June 1916, pp. 357-358.

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As I remember, you repeatedly mentioned in the Moscow Gazette the possibility of an internal loan as well as the necessity for a Southern railroad. The Minister of Finance and I believe that it would be useful and interesting for you to learn in advance what is impending . . . with respect to the means of the State Bank for the construction of the railroad as well as for the promotion of trade in general. I am sending a copy of the papers prepared on this subject to you. I ask you to keep not only the text, but the content of these papers in complete secrecy. But you would oblige the Minister of Finance as well as me, if you would say something in general about the advantages of an internal loan, in order to prepare your readers for a favorable view on the subject. The announcement will probably be made next Friday, the 27th [November 1864] There is nothing to fear in relation to foreign policy as a result of the Nice meeting [Alexander II and Napoleon III], nor in internal affairs as a result of the return of the Grand Duke [Constantine from Poland] or of the influence of persons close to him [Golovnin (Minister of Education) and Reutern (Minister of Finance)]. Before the "deadline" of the 27th of November, a strong article appeared in the Moscow Gazette in support of an internal loan and the pegging (fiksatsiia) of the ruble as a means for the improvement of Russian finance.84 Katkov's economic thoughts were entirely dominated by his overriding concern for the national interest. Autarky, he believed (at the time of the Polish Rebellion and of the threat of a European coalition against Russia), could be the only "safe" course for Russia to pursue. In 1865, worried about Russia's over-dependence upon the international grain market, he wrote a penetrating article on the financial position of the United States and its connection with the financial position of Russia.85 By 1867 Katkov was writing serious articles against the principle of Free Trade, and the "sacrifice" of Russian trade to Prussian interests.8' But internally, Katkov was not an unqualified opponent of the principle of "freedom" in economics. Thus in 1869 he could still come out strongly against the communal custom of collective responsibility (krugovaia poruka) in taxation, which he understood as a hindrance to the labor mobility necessary for an industrial economy.87 Largely as a result of the "humiliation" of the Congress of Berlin, Katkov betrayed an even more fearful skein in his economic "thought". He came especially to fear the high cost of war, particularly during the 84 85

«· 87

Sobranie, Sobranie, Sobranie, Sobranie,

1864, 1865, 1867, 1869,

No. No. Nos. No.

259. 274. 280, 281-A. 243.

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time of the dreaded plague in Russia.88 Recalling the financial difficulties of the United States after the Civil War, and of England after the American Revolution, he expressed a real fear that Russia would experience similar difficulties.89 But later in the same year Katkov, not bound to any firm economic theory, made a statement which indicated his truly "national direction" in economics: "Something was accomplished which it is permissible to call a miracle. An evident evil for Russia was transformed into a still more obvious good. The threat of war dissipated the spiritually oppressive economic atmosphere in which our agriculture, industry and trade were suffocating. The economic crisis did not occur. American competition stopped being a fear for our agriculture, which received the possibility to sell its products, and at a profit, in foreign markets, with prices guaranteed by the state. Industry, paralyzed by the crisis, came to life with the appearance of an internal demand for labor in factories and transportation, in other industries and agriculture. All this began to be reflected in the increase of fiscal income from the sale of bonds. This is the bottomless pit of evils from which we were saved...." ,0 When called a turncoat on economic theory, Katkov could answer with conviction "vek zhivi, vek uchis" (the older the wiser). Always pointing to the national or separatist threat against Russia, Katkov now made the economic liberals appear as traitors to the fatherland: "It would scarcely be impossible to doubt that Prince Bismarck's impression . . . of what is occurring in Russia gave rise to his decision to destroy it with free traders and sharply alter its economic policy." 91 He had a desire to extricate Russia from the Bismarckian web after the "honest broker" snatched away not only a military prize but Russian pride as well. There can be little doubt that in as much as Katkov viewed Moscow as the "political heart" of Russia, his romantic view extended to economic matters as well. In 1872 Katkov complained about the unfavorable tariff situation of the Moscow industrialists; and by 1880, in an even stronger article, he called Moscow the commercial and industrial center of Russia. But it would be a mistake to believe that he was the "pawn" of the Moscow industrialists, as some historians tend to in88

Hans Heilbronner, "The Russian Plague of 1878-79", Slavic Review, Mar. 1962, pp. 88-112, makes many references to Katkov's leaders on the plague. 8 » Sobranie, 1878, No. 284.