Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/218

192 he lost this position during the reaction that followed 1848.

Taking up the work of publicist in 1851, he was appointed editor of the official periodical ‘"Moskovskija Vědomosti" (Moscow News), subsequently notorious, and held the post until 1855. In 1856 he founded the "Russkii Věstnik" (Russian Messenger), and under his editorship this review soon became the most noted organ of moderate liberalism. In the early days of his public career, Katkov was an enthusiastic admirer of England and English institutions; he paid a visit to England, and studied the English constitution, reading the works of Blackstone and Gneist. The "Moskoyskija Vědomosti" became the standard-bearer of constitutionalism. But his political anglomania was already of a perfectly innocent character, as is shown, for example, by his admiration for the English landed gentry. By now in essentials Katkov was a conservative, and therefore in his newspaper he had taken sides against the early slavophils. The slavophil theory of nationality; and slavophil burrowings into the foundations of Russian nationality, were uncongenial to him. The French, he said, are not so terribly concerned about their nationality, nor is such concern needful, for if nationality be healthy it will assert itself spontaneously. Homjakov, of course, held a different view, and could appeal to Klopstock, Fichte, and Schiller.

As late, nevertheless, as 1858, Katkov took part with Košelev in organising a demonstration and a collection of funds on behalf of Kruse, who had been deprived of his office of censor on account of liberal views, but after 1861 Katkov moved notably towards the right.

In his view, the liberation of the peasantry and the ensuing reforms gave undue scope to the forces of progress, and opened undesirable channels for these forces. He detested in the progressive and democratic movement its negation of the principles of monarchy, aristocracy, and centralism, which he regarded as essential to true progress. The problem was, he considered, to allot to these principles their proper position and to assign to them their due boundaries in the organism of the state as a whole. "Interest in freedom,"’ he wrote in 1862, "constitutes the soul of conservatism"—vague and indefinite phraseology was characteristic of Katkov's utterances. It is possible to quote passages from his essays wherein he accepts the new reforms and speaks of their splendid mission.