Aleksandr Radishchev, excerpts from Journey From St. Petersburg To Moscow
Aleksandr Radishchev (1749-1802), a Leipzig-educated Russian revolutionary, published the remarkable A Journey From St. Petersburg To Moscow in 1790. In it he crusaded for Enlightenment values in Russia, especially for responsible government, social justice, the rule of law, and the freedoms of speech and press. The book is composed of a number of set pieces assigned to various locales between St. Petersburg and Moscow. Radishchev uses critical observations at these locations, plus the thoughts of "travelling companions" who may or may not have been literary devices, as launching pads for indictments of prominent features of contemporaneous Russian society. His concrete targets include the service bureaucracy, the Church, serfdom, and (not least) the autocracy itself. More abstractly, Radishchev also takes after such practices as forced marriages, military recruitment, and (as in the excerpt here), censorship and religious intolerance. Arrested for sedition, Radishchev saw a death sentence commuted by Catherine II to exile in Siberia. He was able to return to European Russia after her death in 1796. Republication of his book, however, was banned for over a century.
1. According to Radishchev, does the lifting of restrictions on printing presses in Russia equal genuine freedom of the press?
2. What argument in favor of freedom of expression does he borrow from Herder?
3. According to Radishchev, how does censorship in Russia operate in practice?
4. What does Radishchev imply will happen to Russia if it continues to suppress freedom of expression, and why?
In Torzhok (1)
At the post station here I met a man who was on his way to Petersburg to present a petition. It consisted of a request for permission to set up a free printing press in this town. I told him that no such permission was necessary, since this freedom had been granted to all. But what he really wanted was freedom from censorship, and here are his reflections on the subject.
Everyone in our country is now permitted to own and operate a printing press, and the time has passed when they were afraid to grant this permission to private individuals.... Now anybody may have the tools of printing. However that which may be printed is still under watch and ward. Censorship has become the nursemaid of reason, wit, imagination, of everything great and enlightened. But where there are nurses, there are babies and apron strings.... Where there are guardians, there are minors and immature minds unable to take care of themselves. If there are always to be nurses and guardians, then the child will walk with apron strings for a long time and will grow up to be a cripple. Mitrofanushka (2) will always be a minor, will not take a step without his valet, and will not manage his inheritance without a guardian. Everywhere these are the consequences of the usual censorship, and the sterner it is, the more disastrous are its consequences. Let us listen to Herder: (3)
'The best means of promoting good are noninterference, permission to work for a good cause, and freedom of thought. Any inquisition is harmful to the realm of learning. It makes the air stifling and smothers the breath. A book that has to pass through ten censorships before it sees the light of day is no book, but a creature of the Holy Inquisition, very often a mutilated unfortunate, beaten with rods, gagged, and always a slave. In the province of truth, in the kingdom of thought and spirit, no earthly power can or should pass judgment. The government cannot do it, much less its hooded censor. In the truth he is not a disinterested judge, but an interested party like the author.... All improvement can take place only through enlightenment. Neither hand nor foot can move without head and brain.... The better grounded a state is in its principles, the better ordered and the brighter and stronger in itself, the less danger it incurs of being moved and swayed by the winds of shifting opinion, by any satire of an overwrought writer. All the more readily, then, it will grant freedom of thought and (with some allowance for its situation and condition) freedom of writing, through which truth will ultimately be victorious. Only tyrants are suspicious, only secret evildoers fearful. An open-hearted man, who does good and is firm in his principles, lets anything be said about himself. He walks in the light of day and turns to his own advantage even the worst lies of his enemies…. All monopolies of thought are harmful.... The ruler of a state must be almost without any favorite opinion of his own in order that he may be able to embrace, tolerate, refine, and direct toward the general welfare the opinions of everyone in state. Hence great rulers are so rare.'
Having recognized the usefulness of printing, the government has made it open to all. Having further recognized that control of thought might invalidate its good intention in granting freedom to set up presses, it has turned over the censorship or inspection of printed works to the Department of Public Morals. Its duty in this matter can only be the prohibition of the sale of objectionable works. But even this censorship is superfluous. A single stupid official in the Department of Public Morals may do the greatest harm to enlightenment and may for years hold back the progress of reason. He may prohibit a useful discovery or a new idea, and may rob everyone of something great. Here is an example on a small scale. A translation of a novel is brought to the Department of Public Morals for its imprimatur. The translator, following the author, in speaking of love calls it "the tricky god." The censor in uniform and in the fullness of piety strikes out the expression, saying, "It is improper to call a divinity tricky." He who does not understand should not interfere. If you want fresh air, remove the smoky brazier. If you want light, remove that which obscures it. If you do not want the child to be timid, throw the rod out of the school. In a house where whips and sticks are in fashion, the servants are drunkards, thieves, and worse.
Let anyone print anything that enters his head. If anyone finds himself insulted in print, let him get his redress at law. I am not speaking in jest. Words are not always deeds, thoughts are not crimes. These are the rules in the Instruction for a New Code of Laws. But an offense in words or in print is always an offense. Under the law no one is allowed to libel another and everyone has the right to bring suit. But if one tells the truth about another, that cannot, according to the law, be considered a libel. What harm can there be if books are printed without a police stamp? Not only will there be no harm;. there will be an advantage, an advantage from the first to the last, from the least to the greatest, from the Tsar to the last citizen.
The usual rules of the censorship are: to strike out, blot out, prohibit, tear, burn everything that is opposed to natural religion and Revelation; everything in opposition to the government; every personal reflection; everything contrary to public morality, order, and peace. Let us examine this more closely. When a fool in his raving says, not only in his heart, but with a loud voice, "There is no God", there is heard upon the lips of all the fools a loud and fleeting echo, "There is no God, there is no God." But what of it? The echo is a sound that strikes the air, sets it vibrating, and disappears. It seldom leaves a mark upon the mind, and then only a faint one, and never any trace upon the heart. God will always be God, perceived even by those who do not believe in Him. But if you think that the Supreme Being will be offended by blasphemy, can an official of the Department of Public Morals be His chosen attorney? The Almighty will not give a power of attorney to one who shakes a rattle or sounds the alarm bell. The hurler of thunder and lightning, Whom all the elements obey, the agitator of hearts beyond the limits of the universe, will disdain to be avenged even by the king himself (who imagines himself to be His vicegerent upon earth). Who can be the judge in an offense against the Eternal Father? The real offender against God is the person who imagines that he can sit in judgment on an offense against Him. It is he who will be answerable-- before Him.
Dissenters (raskol'niki) from the revealed religion have so far done more harm in Russia than athiests who do not acknowledge the existence of God. There are not many of the latter among us, because few among us are concerned about metaphysics, The atheist errs in metaphysics; the dissenter in crossing himself with only two fingers. Dissenters is our name for all those Russians who depart in any way from the common doctrine of the Greek Church. There are many of them in Russia; thus they are allowed to hold divine services. But why should not every aberration be permitted to be out in the open? The more open it is, the quicker it will break down. Persecutions have only made martyrs.... The consequences of schisms are sometimes harmful. Prohibit them, for they are propagated by example. Destroy the example. A printed book will not cause a schismatic to throw himself into the fire, but a moving example will. To prohibit foolishness is to encourage it. Give it free rein so that everyone will see what is foolish and what is wise. We are all Eve's children: what is prohibited is coveted.... (4)
But in prohibiting freedom of the press, timid governments are not afraid of blasphemy, but of criticism of themselves. He who in moments of madness does not spare God, will not in moments of lucidity and reason spare unjust power. He who does not fear the thunders of the Almighty laughs at the gallows. Hence freedom of thought is terrifying to governments. The freethinker who has been stirred to his depths will stretch forth his audacious but mighty and fearless arm against the idol of power, will tear off its mask and veil, and lay bare its true character. Everyone will see its feet of clay; everyone will withdraw the support which he had given it. Power will return to its source; the idol will fall. But if power is not seated in the fog of contending opinions, if its throne is founded on sincerity and true love of the general welfare, will it not rather be strengthened when its foundation is revealed? And will not the true lover be loved more truly? Mutuality is a natural sentiment, and this instinct is deeply implanted in our nature. A solid and firm building needs only its own foundation, it has no need of supports and buttresses. Only when it is weakened by old age does it have need of lateral support. Let the government be honest and its leaders free from hypocrisy; then all the spittle and vomit will return their stench upon him who has belched them forth. However the truth will always remain pure and immaculate. He whose words incite to revolt (in deference to the government, let us so denominate all firm utterances which are based on truth but opposed to the ruling powers) is just as much a fool as he who blasphemes God. Let the government proceed on its appointed path. Then it will not be troubled by the empty sound of calumny, even as the Lord of Hosts is not disturbed by blasphemy. But woe to it if in its lust for power it offends against truth. Then even a thought shakes its foundations; a word of truth will destroy it; a manly act will scatter it to the winds....
(1) Torzhok = a small town roughly 200 km northwest of Moscow.
(2) Mitrofanushka = a diminutive verson of the traditional given name Mitrofan. Radishchev uses it here to imply something on the order of "Little Johnny" or "Little Mikey."
(3) Herder = Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803), a German philosopher and writer. His advocacy of intuition over rationality formed the basis for German Romanticism. Radishchev apparently paraphrases the paragraph that follows from Herder's musings on censorship.
(4) An allusion to the Garden of Eden story from the Biblical book of Genesis, in which Eve is tempted by Satan to eat a prohibited apple from the Tree of Knowledge.
Source: Non-attributed translation from Radishchev, Puteschestvie iz Peterburga v Moskvu (St. Petersburg, 1790). Revised (syntax simplifications, re-punctuation, and other emendations) by Jon Bone.