Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 1.pdf/153

Rh apparent, as is evidenced by the case of Kurbskii. Reaction during the eighteenth century induced many Russians to emigrate, whilst in the nineteenth century the suppression of the decabrist rising was followed by a great increase in emigration. By its repressive measures (which failed to pay, even in the economic sense) the Russian government induced legions of Russians to take refuge in Europe, where they became Europeanised and were educated to be instruments of the revolution.

Atter the suppression of the decabrist revolt, constitutional government and the liberation of the peasantry remained the political ideals of the liberal opposition. N. J. Turgenev may be considered a representative of this political liberalism. Born in 1789, Turgenev was educated at Göttingen university and completed his political and administrative culture under Stein, to whom he had been recommended by the government. His Attempt to Formulate a Theory of Taxation, published in 1818, attracted wide attention. Judgment was passed on him by default for participation in the Welfare Society and in the decabrist movement, a death sentence subsequently commuted to one of imprisonment for life being passed upon him. Restored to civil rights by Alexander II, he paid two brief visits to Russia, but spent the rest of his life in Europe, dying in 1871. He advocated the constitutionalist ideas of the decabrists in countless French and Russian writings. Of his detailed memoirs the greater part remains unpublished. His relationship to the decabrists and his share in the movement requires further critical investigation.

His principal work, La Russie et les russes, was published in three volumes in 1847. Here Turgenev gives a history of his participation in the decabrist movement, writes a detailed criticism of the Russian administration, and formulates a scheme of essential reforms. He displays intimate knowledge of western literature and institutions, those of England, France, and Prussia. We note his familiar acquaintance with the plans of Speranskii, and we observe that he is in advance of that statesman in that be vigorously advocates the liberation of the peasantry. Turgenev pleads for the summoning of the zemskii sober, which is to be granted legislative authority. The liberated peasants are to be given small plots of land. Living in Paris from 1833 onwards, he had become acquainted with the socialist or communist movement, and was unfavour-