Complete Works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky (844 page)

First of all you question me and even reprove me, asking why I did not show more clearly whence the ‘ wanderers ‘ came of whom I spoke in my ‘ Speech ‘? Well, that is a long story; one would have to go back too far. Besides, whatever answer I made to that question, you would not agree, because you have already preconceived and prepared your own solution of the question whence and how the ‘ wanderers ‘ came.   ‘ From weariness of living with Skvoznik-Dmuhanovskys,1 and from the social yearning after the as yet unliberated serfs.’ A conclusion eminently worthy of a modern liberal-minded man, for whom everything that has to do with Russia has been settled and signed long ago, with the extraordinary ease peculiar to the Russian Liberal alone. Nevertheless the question is more complicated than you think, far more complicated, in spite of your very final solution. I will speak elsewhere of ‘ Skvozniks and Yearning,’ but first of all permit me to take hold of one most characteristic word of yours, spoken with a lightness that is already on the border of playfulness, a word which I cannot pass by in silence. You say:

‘ Whether this be so or no, two centuries have already passed since we have been under the influence of European enlightenment, which acts extremely strongly upon us by reason of the “ universal sensitiveness “ of the Russian, which M. Dostoyevsky acknowledged to be our national trait. There is no way of escape from this enlightenment; neither is there any need to escape. It is a fact, against which we can do nothing for this simple reason, that every Russian who desires to be enlightened, must get this enlightenment from a western European source, because of the absolute lack of sources in Russia.’

Certainly it is playfully expressed, but you have also uttered an important word: enlightenment. Let me ask you then what you mean by it. The sciences of the West, the useful sciences and crafts, or spiritual enlightenment? The former, the 1 A type of cunning, petty swindler, taken from Gogol.

 sciences and crafts, must not pass by us unheeded: assuredly we must not avoid them, neither is there any need. I also agree fully that there is no source whence we may obtain them save in Western Europe, for which our praise and gratitude to Europe shall be eternal. But by enlightenment I understand (I think that every one is bound to understand) that which is literally expressed in the very word: enlightenment — a spiritual light which shines upon the soul and illumines the heart, which directs the mind and reveals to it the way of life. If this be so, then allow me to observe that for this enlightenment we have no need to go to Western European sources because of the absolute sufficiency (not the absolute lack) of sources in Russia. You are surprised? You see, in discussion I love to begin with the very substance of the matter, and at once to grapple with the most disputable point.

I assert that our people became enlightened long ago, by taking into its essential soul Christ and His teaching. I may be told it has no knowledge of Christ’s teaching, for no sermons are preached to it. But this is an empty objection. It knows indeed everything that it needs to know, though it cannot pass an examination in the catechism. It came to know this in temples where for centuries it had heard prayers and hymns which are better than sermons. The people repeated and sang these prayers while they were still in the forests, in hiding from their enemies; perhaps as long ago as the invasion of Batu-Khan they sang: ‘ Lord of Powers, be with us!’ and then perhapsjdiey won a firm knowledge of that hymn, because nothing was left to them but Christ, and in that one hymn is all the Christian truth. What of it that the people hear no sermons and the clerks mumble indistinctly, which is the greatest accusation levelled against our Church, an accusation invented by the Liberals together with the inconvenience of the ecclesiastical Slavonic language, which is supposed to be incomprehensible to the common people? What of it? Instead, the priest stands forth and reads: ‘ Lord Sovereign of my life ‘ — in this prayer is the whole essence of Christianity, all its catechism, and the people know this prayer by heart. They also know by heart many Lives of the Saints; they tell them over and over again and listen to them with deep emotion. But the greatest school of Christianity through which they have passed are the centuries of innumerable and unending sufferings which they have endured through their history when, deserted by all, trodden down by all, working in all places and for all men, they remained with Christ alone, Christ the Consoler whom they had taken into their soul for ever, and who in return had saved their souls from despair! But why do I tell you all this? Do I desire to convince you? My words will assuredly appear to you childish, almost indecent. But for the third time I say: it is not for you that I am writing. And the matter is important. Concerning it I must speak particularly and at length, and so long as I can hold a pen in my fingers, I will speak. But now I will only express the fundamental basis of my thought. If our people have already been enlightened long ago by having received into their essential soul Christ and His teaching, then with Him, with Christ, they assuredly have received the true enlightenment also. Combined with such a deep store of enlightenment the sciences of the West will of course become a true blessing to the people. Christ Himself will not be eclipsed by the sciences, as in the West, where, however, He was not eclipsed by the sciences, as the Liberals assert, but long before the advent of science, when the Western Church herself distorted the image of Christ, changing herself from a Church into a Roman State, and again incarnating the State in the form of the Papacy. Yes, in the West Christianity and the Church truly exist no longer, though there are still many Christians, nor will they ever disappear. Catholicism is truly Christianity no longer; it degenerates into idolatry: and Protestantism with giant strides runs down the steep into Atheism and into a wavering, fluid, fickle, instead of an eternal, morality.

Oh, of course, you will instantly reply that Christianity and the worship of Christ does by no means comprise in itself and by itself the whole cycle of enlightenment, that it is only one rung of the ladder, that there is need besides of science, of social ideals, of progress and the rest. To that I have nothing to reply; moreover it would be indecent to reply, for though you are right in part, concerning science, for instance, you will never agree that the Christianity of our people is and must for ever remain the chiefest and most vital basis of its enlightenment. In my ‘ Speech ‘ I said that Tatiana, by her refusal to follow Onyegin acted like a Russian, according to the Russian national truth. One of my critics, offended at finding that the Russian people has a truth of its own, replied with the ques-

 tion: * What about promiscuity? ‘ Can such a critic be answered? The chief cause of his taking offence is that the Russian people should have a truth of its own, and therefore should be really enlightened. But does promiscuity exist throughout the whole of our people, and does it exist as a truth? Does the whole people take it for a truth? Yes, the people are coarse, though by no means all, by no means all. This I can swear upon oath, because I have seen the people and known them. I have lived with them years enough, I have eaten and slept with them and I myself have been ‘ reckoned with the transgressors ‘; with them I worked real work and hard, while others ‘ whose hands were washed in blood,’ playing the liberal and sniggering at the people, settled in lectures and magazine articles that our people is of’ the likeness and the seal of the Beast.’ Don’t tell me, then, that I do not know the people! I do know them. From them I received Christ into my soul once more, whom I knew in the home of my childhood, and whom I all but lost when in my turn I changed into ‘ a European Liberal.’ But let us grant that our people is sinful and coarse, let us grant that his likeness is still the likeness of the Beast.

The son rode his mother,

His young wife the trace horse. . . .

There must be a reason for this people’s song? All Russian songs are built upon some actual event, you have observed that? But be just, only for once, you liberal minds. Remember what our people has endured through so man}’” centuries! Remember who is chiefly to blame for the likeness of the Beast, and do not condemn! But it is ludicrous to condemn the peasant because he does not have his hair cut by the coiffeur on the Great Morskaia. Yet to sueh heights of accusation do our European Liberals almost reach when they rise up against the Russian people and begin to deny them. They have not developed an individuality. They have not even a national character. And in the West, by God, wherever you will, in whatever nation you choose — is there less drunkenness and robbery, is there not the same bestiality, and into the bargain an obduracy which is not to be found in our people, and a true and veritable ignorance, a real unen-lightenment, because it is often connected with a lawlessness whieh is there no longer considered as sin, but has begun to be held for truth? Let there be bestiality and sin among our people, but what there is ineontestably within them is that they, at least as a whole, and not only in the ideal, but in the very real reality, neither accept nor desire to accept their sin for truth! Our peasant may sin, but he will always say sooner or later: ‘ I did falsely.’ If the sinner will not say it, then another will say it for him, and the truth will be fulfilled. Sin is a steneh, and the stench will pass away when the sun shines fully. Sin is passing, Christ is eternal. The people sins and defiles itself daily, but in its best moments, in its Christian moments, it will never mistake the truth. It is indeed important, in what the people believes as its truth, in what it finds her, how it represents her to itself, what it holds for its best desire, what it has come to love, what it asks of God, for what it prays and weeps. And the ideal of the people — is Christ.   And surely with Christ is en-

 lightenment; and in its highest and most crucial moments our people always decides and always has decided every matter of their commonweal absolutely according to Christ. You will jeer and say: ‘ It is not enough to cry, neither to sigh; one must also do, one must also be.’ And among yourselves, you Russian enlightened Europeans, are there many righteous? Show me your righteous, whom you prefer before Christ? But know that among the people there are righteous. There are positive characters of unimaginable beauty and power whom your observation has not yet touched. These righteous and martyrs for truth do exist, whether we see them or not. He who has eyes to see, he will see them; but he who has eyes only for the likeness of the Beast, he of course will see nothing. But our people at least knows that there are righteous and martyrs among them, and believes that they are there. The people is strong with this knowledge and with the hope that in the moment of common need they will save them. And how many times has the people saved the country? And but lately, defiled in sin, drunkenness and depravity, the spirit of the people, of all the people as one whole, rejoiced at the recent war for the faith of the Christian Slavs which had been trampled underfoot by the Turks. The people embraced the war, and took it as a sacrifice in expiation for its unrighteousness and sin; it sent its sons to die for a sacred cause, and did not wail because the rouble was falling and the price of food was rising. I know the elevation of the spirit of our people in the last war; but the Liberals do not recognise the causes of that elevation, they laugh at the idea: ‘ This canaille with a collec-

 tive ideal, a social sense, a political idea — impossible!’ And why, why is our European Liberal so often the enemy of the Russian people? Why is it that in Europe those who call themselves democrats always stand for the people, or at any rate always rely on the people, while our democrat is often an aristocrat, nearly always supports that which oppresses the power of the people and ends by becoming a despot. Oh, I do not assert that they are consciously the enemies of the people; the tragedy is that it is not conscious. You will be exasperated by these questions? Well, all these things are axioms to me, and of course I shall go on demonstrating and proving them so long as I can write and speak.

Let me finish thus: sciences, certainly, but enlightenment we have no need to imbibe from any Western European source, or we may imbibe such social formulae as, for instance, Chacun pour soi ct Dieu pour tous or Apres moi, le deluge. Oh, it will be said instantly: ‘ Haven’t we such sayings of our own: “The taste of a man’s salt is always forgotten,” and hundreds of other proverbs of that kind? ‘ Yes, there are a host of sayings of all kinds among the people. The mind of the people is broad, its humour too; the developed consciousness always whispers a negation. But all these are only sayings: our people does not believe in their moral truth, it laughs at them and mocks them, and as a body, at least, it denies them. But will you venture to assert that Chacun pour soi et Dieu pour tous is only a saying, and not an established social formula, accepted by everybody in the West, which all Westerners serve and in which they all believe?

 At least, all those who stand above the people, who keep the people in check, who are masters of the land and the proletariat, and who stand sentinel over ‘ European enlightenment.’ Of what use to us is that enlightenment? Let us search for a different enlightenment among ourselves. Science is one thing; enlightenment another. By hope in our people and its powers we will perhaps at some time develop in fulness, in perfect radiance and illumination, this Christian enlightenment of ours.

You will of course tell me that this long discourse of mine is not an answer to your criticism. Granted. I myself consider it only a preface, but a necessary one. Just as you discover and indicate in me, in my ‘ Speech,’ the points wherein I differ from you, which you consider the most important and paramount, so have I first of all indicated and displayed the point in you where I consider our most fundamental discord lies, which more than all else prevents our coming to an agreement. But the preface is over. Let me proceed to your criticism, henceforward without digressions.

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ALEKO   AND   DERZHIMORDA.    ALEKO’S  YEARNINGS AFTER THE SERFS.    ANECDOTESYOU WRITE IN CRITICISM OF MY * SPEECH ‘: