Herzen and Ukraine’s liberties

April 6 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Herzen. The editors organized a roundtable last Friday and invited Ukrainian intellectuals to discuss its topic: “Herzen and Ukraine’s Liberties.”

Alexander Herzen harbored the ideal of individual freedom, something that singled him out from Russia’s liberals at the time. According to Lilia Shevtsova, Ph.D. (History), a leading expert with the Carnegie Center, Moscow, Herzen was a personality totally unthinkable in Russia at that period; he sincerely believed that his personal freedom was impossible without that of the other communal members.

The Herzen roundtable was primarily an attempt to share his intellectual heritage which is also important for Ukraine. According to Academician Mykola Zhulynsky (director of the Institute of Culture), one of the roundtable participants, Herzen, using the pen name of Iskander, made public his respect for the Ukrainian people’s freedom-loving spirit.

In fact, the Herzen subject was broached by the editors eight years ago.

The Day’s Library Series book Dvi Rusi asks how Ukraine can help Russia. At the time this question sounded exotic, considering Ukraine’s domestic situation that left much to be desired, yet this topic was upheld and then history answered this question. Russia has problems with its national identity; this explains its desire to absorb the Ukrainian one, Larysa Ivshyna, editor-in-chief of Den/The Day, said addressing the roundtable (that would last for three hours) as its moderator, adding, “I’m convinced that the notions of empire and Russia aren’t identical. There is a handful of Russians rooted in the Herzen tradition. Incredibly, we believe we can cooperate with these people. This roundtable is a natural sequel to the theme of Ukraine’s relations with an imperial and democratic Russia.”

This roundtable gathered Mykola Zhulynsky; Serhii Hrabovsky, James Mace Prize winner, journalist; Ivan Dziuba, full-fledged member of the National Academy of Sciences (NANU), literary critic and journalist; Volodymyr Panchenko, Ph.D., literary critic; Myroslav Popovych, philosopher, NANU member. They discussed Alexander Herzen as a harbinger of the dissident movement in Russia and Ukraine, his ideas in the context of Ukraine’s national liberation movement at the turn of the 20th century, Herzen’s heritage on today’s political agenda, especially his statement about Russians like him supporting a free Poland because he and the like-minded people were supporting the idea of a free Russia, because both nations were shackled alike.

Alexander Herzen and Taras Shevchenko constituted another unavoidable roundtable issue, particularly how the noted Russian thinker could foretell the Ukrainian poet’s political role for another hundred years.

More on the roundtable’s topics in the next issue. Below is what Dr. Oxana Pachlovska (lecturer of the Sapienza University of Rome and Taras Shevchenko Institute of Culture under the aegis of the National Academy of Science of Ukraine) and Dr. Lilia Shevtsova (Ph.D. in History, leading expert with Carnegie Center, Moscow) had to say on the subject.

Alexander Herzen personified the kind of Russia that wasn’t destined to exist at the time and which isn’t likely to ever exist. That kind of European Russia emerged several times, only to destroy itself every time, precisely because it wanted to become European-like without changing its Eurasian nature. Peter I made his reforms by importing progressives technologies from Europe, never progressive ideas. What was borrowed from Europe was aimed against it. He built St. Petersburg, naming the capital city in German. Alexander Pushkin would later compose his Bronze Horseman poem with these lines: “From here, indeed / Shall we strike terror in the Swede; / And here a city by our labor / Founded, shall gall our haughty neighbor…” Why build a city to gall a neighbor? Why regard this neighbor as a haughty one? So many complexes, with the haughty-neighbor one topping the list (considering that Sweden ranks with the world’s leading living-standard countries). To quote further from Pushkin’s Bronze Horseman, “The Finnish fisherman, sole creature, / And left forlorn by stepdame Nature, / Cast ragged nets…” Ragged nets were about all he had under Russia’s regime. Finland currently has the latest of information technologies, including Nokia, modern architecture, and Europe’s best [grade] schools.

Russia’s history is a non-stop battle against Europe, a dream about having the European living standard without implementing the European [human rights and] freedoms standard. Since one standard can’t exist without the other one, this gives rise to outbursts of undisguised hatred. The brilliant Russian poet, Alexander Blok, foretold this in The Scythians: “We shall abandon Europe and her charm. / We shall resort to Scythian craft and guile. / Swift to the woods and forests we shall swarm, /And then look back, and smile our slit-eyed smile.”

This was a prophetic poem back in 1918. Marxist ideas were being implemented by all that Russian-Mongolian barbarian community which Marx had openly scorned and regarded as a threat to European civilization. I might also quote from Marx and Engels’s devastating critique of Russia’s mismanagement of raw materials, absence of morale in the armed forces, rampant corruption, uncaring and irresponsible [top-level bureaucrats]. Nothing has changed, except that Europe, once divided, tormented by inner armed conflicts and culturally differentiated, has created a single democratic space where, despite all shortcomings and crises, man can live in conditions of freedom, dignity, and respect for human rights. As for the uniform “Russian world” that has been formed over centuries and which is supposed to be rooted in fraternity and equality, it is actually living hell; it is made up of peoples that hate each other, with each driven by memories of millions of victims [of the totalitarian system]. There is no catharsis; these people appear to be unable to meet each other halfway. There is no way to make progress, upgrade [the existing system] or work out a project of the future.

This is what makes Alexander Herzen a unique figure in Russian history. He was the first to come with a liberal idea in the classical European format, although the parabola of this idea is fragmentary, with up- and downward curves that appear and disappear, then re-appear only to end up in the collective subconscious of Russian society.

Herzen laid the foundations for systemic – in other words, critical – European thinking in Russian culture. Herzen’s prominent predecessor was Pyotr Chaadayev. Osip Mandelstam believed that his [Chaadayev’s] very existence justified that of Russia. Chaadayev. “I believe that this country, this people, has justified its existence by producing a single absolutely free individual who wanted to and succeeded in using his freedom,” he wrote in his essay “Pyotr Chaadayev.” Chaadayev was the first to foretell the fiasco of Russia’s concept of its exclusiveness and abstract grandeur. He wrote that Russia was a gap in the history of civilization, but then he wrote the Apology of a Madman after his Philosophical Letters were banned and after the Russian emperor proclaimed him insane. As it was, Herzen consistently built the ethics of critical thinking, relying on Chaadayev’s heritage, albeit in a lower key, without mysticism and theocentricism.

Has anyone followed in Herzen’s footsteps in Russia? Gogol and his Dead Souls? Saltykov-Shchedrin and his History of a Town? Perhaps several Russian philosophers at the turn of the 20th century, like Georgii Fedotov? Soviet dissidents like Sakharov (but not Solzhenitsyn)? Afanasiev today? Possible, but this isn’t tradition or trend. These are separate figures with their works, there is no way to regard them as the mainstream of European thought.

Herzen went further than criticizing Russia. He exposed certain phenomena and destroyed certain stereotypes. While supporting the French Revolution, he criticized the radicalism of the events of February 1848. He revered British democracy while ruthlessly exposing the poverty-stricken part of London. Being half-German, he exposed the negative role of Germans in Russian history. His brilliant treatise on Russian Germans and German Russians shows exactly how Germans went about building the Russian state, with Russians unquestionably exposing themselves to despotism a la Arakcheyev [general and statesman under the reign of Alexander I of Russia, known for his violent temper] or that of Russianized Germans like Ernst Johann von Biron [Duke of Courland and Semigallia (1737), regent of the Russian empire (1740)] and Count Andrei Osterman [who came to prominence under Czar Peter I, ranking as General Admiral, until the accession of Elizabeth of Russia; dismissed in 1741].

Despite his European critique, Herzen was friends with Giuseppe Mazzini, Garibaldi, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Victor Hugo. He visualized Europe as the homeland of human liberties. He wrote to his friends in Russia that there was no home, no turf there for a freedom-loving individual. [In his From the Other Shore] one finds these lines: “No, my friends, I cannot cross the border of this kingdom of darkness, lawlessness, silent death, mysterious disappearances, gagged and tortured prisoners.” He said that Russia’s attitude to the West had been like that of a village kid to a town fair. Doesn’t this remind one of the current Ukrainian political elite?

Herzen showed a unique approach to the notion of nation; this was the result of his progressive critical thinking. Previously, Russia’s intellectuals reduced the Slavs and the Caucasus to the status of “historical material” for the expansion of Russia. Pushkin wondered about Slavic brooks flowing into a single Russian sea and Lermontov called Russia a country of slaves and lords. He wrote about Chechnya, that Chechen mothers threatened their children with Russian names; that Russia would pay a dear price for conquering that land. Herzen consistently defended the right of the peoples of Russia to freedom, ethnic culture, language, and self-determination. He believed that the Russian empire should allow Ukraine to use its mother tongue. Kostomarov thanked Herzen for his approach. Shevchenko revered the Kolokol. Hrushevsky wrote an article in commemoration of Herzen’s centennial. Petliura analyzed Herzen’s works in Ukrainskaia zhyzn (The Life of Ukraine, No. 5, 1912)…

Herzen is often referred to as a great exile. True enough, considering that the tsarist government made him leave Russia and settle in the West. Herzen remains a great exile in regard to the Russian cultural domain. The Soviets would’ve made him into a revolutionary centaur changing heads with Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov. In today’s Russia he has a handful of downtrodden liberal supporters.

In Ukraine, the situation appears to be similar to that in Russia… All this stands to logic. Russia and Ukraine are offering increasing proof of their non-European essence, not in terms of politics or economy (for both are rooted in mentality). Ukraine shows the same model of corruption, indifference, uncivic thinking, social egotism, and servile attitude to injustice as Russia. [Ukraine may have] a bigger protest potential, but there is the lack of consolidation, [innovative] ideas, and strategy. All this results in an up-and-down curve [of political activity].

No time left for illusions. [Ukraine’s] loss of the European prospects would be its fatal choice, reducing this country to a [Third World] status, with even fewer communal members being potentially prepared to implement these prospects. We’re paying too much attention to those currently “upstairs” and appear to forget lessons from history. All these current Arakcheyevs, Birons, Benkendorffs, and Saltychikhas in Ukraine and Russia remain true to their political nature, be it in Ukraine or Russia. They come and they go, only to be replaced by their likes. The biggest problem is that nothing is actually changing for the better. Russia’s history is hair-raising because it forms a vicious circle, complete with universalist abstraction. It is tormenting its peoples and itself in the name of such abstractions; it keeps falling apart, with a new worldwide project in mind that spells further manpower losses, another round of [self-]destruction, finally getting to where everything got started, a blind alley. He was convinced that the revolutionary road Russia had passed could only help despotism. He couldn’t see truly free individuals anywhere. He wanted everyone to stop and think of a way to free himself. He said he could agree to anything but the demand that he double deal; he wouldn’t act as a loyal subject because he wanted his individual freedom to be respected.

European homeland – including Ukraine – would be the best homage to Herzen. Unfortunately, this is impossible. Poland with its rebellions – a germane national trend – is currently a member of the European community of nations.

Therefore, the road to Europe will open only after every communal member can repeat to him/herself Herzen’s words about respect for the human liberties.

Larysa Ivshyna, a friend of mine, came up with a very good idea when she suggested a feature on Alexander Herzen, in the context of his ideas and current realities. To me, Herzen is more than a politician, writer, and philosopher who tried to awaken Russia and make it understand the meaning of freedom. Other prominent public figures before him – Chaadayev and Ogaryov, to mention but a few – had tried to do so while being persecuted. All of them were truly free individuals, even if living in a country that was actually a prison for all ethnic groups.

Herzen emerged as a public figure that was absolutely unacceptable in the Russian empire. He sincerely believed that his own freedom, as well as that of other individuals, was impossible without all the peoples being free. He was a unique thinker in Russia at the time. Herzen was a European individual and Russia’s first anti-imperial politician and philosopher. Too bad he did not give rise to tradition, but that wasn’t his fault. Obviously, Russian society and political elite at the time harbored that fear of change (which is still there), of losing political turf, sphere of influence, which they regarded [and still do] as the loss of the state.

In his My Past and Thoughts Herzen reveals his love of Poland when writing about Alois Bernacki, Stanislaw Worcell, all those who led the rebellion and, when defeated, went to Europe and made it respect them. His attitude to Ukraine is similar: Herzen held this country in esteem and believed that Ukrainians would have their say one of these days. Needless to say, Herzen was especially concerned about peoples who were deprived of their liberties. This made him feel deprived, as well.

He was right when realized what was the foundation of Russia’s autocracy: imperial spirit, rather than centralized governance or the alliance between those in power and those with large estate. This imperial spirit can’t be discarded even by current Russia’s liberals, not after learning all the shades of the meaning of freedom – or its semblance. Many appear to have stopped in the last phase, the understanding of the need to reject this imperial spirit. This stoppage continues to dominate our mentality and worldviews. A Russian liberal stops being one when confronted with the Ukrainian issue.

Nevertheless, I hope for the best. I disagree with Oxana [Pachlovska] who writes that Russia has no future as that conceived by Herzen. Few would have predicted Russian citizens to take part in last year’s December protest rallies. In fact, I doubt that any of them had expected such public activity. But then they walked out of their homes and took part in those rallies. They will do so again, if necessary. Perhaps the younger generation, with their inherently skeptical attitude toward all those “upstairs” will make Herzen’s cherished dream come true. Perhaps one day they will make the motto “For Our Freedom And Yours!” a reality.