everywhere and upon all occasions wrote and printed and recited by rote at dinners such strong speeches, that the guardians of the peace had to take repressive measures against the dram-shopkeeper’s eloquence—when in the very English club a special room was set aside for the discussion of public matters—when periodicals sprang up under the most diversified standards—periodicals that evolved European principles on a European basis, but with a Russian world conception, and periodicals on an exclusively Russian basis, but with a European world conception—when suddenly there appeared so many periodicals that all names seemed to be exhausted— The Messenger , and The Word , and The Speaker , and The Observer , and The Star , and The Eagle , and many more, and, in spite of it, there appeared ever new names; that time, when the constellation of philosophic writers made its appearance to prove that science was national, and not national, and non-national, and so forth, and the constellation of artistic writers, who described a grove, and the sunrise, and a storm, and the love of a Russian maiden, and the indolence of a certain official, and the bad conduct of many officials; that time, when on all sides appeared questions (as in the year ’56 they called every concourse of circumstances, of which no one could make any sense), questions of cadet corps, universities, censorship, oral judicature, finance, banking, police, emancipation, and many more:—everybody tried to discover ever new questions, everybody tried to solve them, wrote, read, spoke, made projects, wanted to mend everything, destroy, change, and all Russians, like one man, were in indescribable ecstasy.
That is a state of affairs which has been twice repeated in the Russia of the nineteenth century—the first time, when in the year ’12 we repulsed Napoleon I , and the second time, when in the year ’56 we were repulsed by Napoleon III . Great, unforgettable time of the regeneration of the Russian people! Like the Frenchman who said that he has not lived who has not lived through the great French Revolution, I venture to say that he who has not lived through the year ’56 in Russia does not know what