Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/139

Rh "Revue des décabristes" was in the end suppressed by Uvarov. I record, not in jest but in earnest, that this minister for education and president of the academy of sciences expressed a strong desire that Russian literature should cease to exist. Almost all notable authors suffered during the reign of Nicholas. I have previously referred to Čaadaev and Ševčenko. Bělinskii was unable to print his first drama. Puškin was informed of the tsar's exalted disapproval.

Puškin's aristocratic inclinations led him astray not infrequently. and he experienced a shortsighted pleasure when Polevoi's newspaper was suppressed, for he regarded the Moscow journalist as "unduly jacobin." Polevoi was one of the non-aristocratic raznočincy (unclassed, plebeian—§ 22). In 1845 the tsar seriously thought of having obstacles imposed to the entry of the raznočincy into the higher schools.

The events of 1848 caused intense anxiety to Nicholas, and a regular witches' sabbath of reaction was inaugurated. The members of the Petraševcy group (the two Dostoevskiis, Pleščeev, Durov, etc.) were all prosecuted; measures were taken against Saltykov; Ostrovskii, Turgenev, Kirěevskii, Homjakov, and Herzen, successively fell into disfavour—Turgenev's offence being an obituary notice of Gogol! It was forbidden to mention the very name of Bělinskii, and those who wished to refer to him had to employ circumlocutions!

Censorship was developed to an almost incredible extent. There were twenty-two distinct censorships. Criticism of the government and of ofﬁcial proceedings was absolutely prohibited. Even those who at a later date were considered pillars of reaction, even such men as Bulgarin, were now suspect as revolutionaries; Pogodin suffered the same fate; to the ultra-reactionaries, Uvarov actually seemed insufficiently reactionary, and he had to resign his position as minister for education. Upon a ministerial report which concluded with the word "progress," Nicholas wrote the comment, "Progress? What progress? This word must be deleted from official terminology."

Such intensity of reaction was only possible because society ("society" still meaning the aristocracy alone) had completely abandoned the enlightened and humanitarian ideas that culminated in the decabrist revolt. Nicholas I was possible because such men as Prince Vjazamskii and Puškin had become Rh