1879 год

I am glad that the “Nizhny Novgorod” set off to its destination. “God grant him a safe voyage.” Now we have received news that the Nizhny Novgorod left Odessa for its destination yesterday, Thursday, at 8 o’clock in the evening, safely: all difficulties have been resolved. I read it with interest. “We had the same absolutely hot days in Bulgaria, and sometimes in the shade it reached 40 degrees or more.” “Thank God that there is no epidemic among the convicts.” “It’s very annoying that in. book Mikhail Nikolaevich could not go on our cruiser, but I am sure he would have liked it very much. I hasten to present to your Highness the report from the Treasury from Aden. Perhaps it was easier for them during the transition to Singapore than in the Red Sea. The quick passage to Singapore surprises everyone: they arrived on the 15th day, while mail ships make this passage in 20 to 25 days. It's a pity that we can't take you to. book Mikhail Nikolaevich on “Russia”. This would be desirable for us also in view of the possible operation of our ships for the Caucasian army. And one might think that he would have been both more comfortable and more confident on “Russia” than on “Eriklik”. Mark of Alexander II: I read both with curiosity and found much to be true. I am sending you back this letter with the sovereign’s handwritten note after reading it - in addition to this note, I sent the sovereign to read Samarin’s speech in Moscow. lips zemstvo assembly. The Emperor also verbally told me several times that he read it with pleasure and that there was a lot of truth in this letter. Dear Sir, Konstantin Petrovich. The times are such that it is impossible to write a book, even the most lively one, for the sake of the topic of the day, but one cannot be satisfied with that for now. I've lived here for a long time; first around, now in the town of Voskresensk itself; I know all sorts of people. The people here don’t hide from me, an old-timer, not a government official, but not a liberal either. I, like many of us, of course, hillbillies, see and hear, know a lot; which is what it should be, but those in power cannot know; but what we cannot tell them, either in print, or orally, or face to face, or in peace, we cannot, we have neither the way nor the right. So it lies in vain in us, in the Earth; and between knowledge and ignorance, terrible evil is happening in her face. Allow me, from what we know, and having chosen what, for the sake of the day, it seems more necessary, to convey this to you, because it may not remain in vain in your hands. The tension among the people is unprecedented. I am not saying this unfoundedly. I will cite living, uncomposed words and facts as proof. Firstly, all of us, all the people, the whole Russian Land, live from day to day, from news to news, in every minute fear: God forbid, they will encroach on the sovereign again; God forbid, both for the heir, and... it’s terrible to think what’s possible here... They know (for example, from telegrams on April 2) about security guards, disguised policemen, supposedly watching the sovereign everywhere. - What, they say, is it like for a king to endure this? and who can guarantee us that in this hired guard, recruited from the same spies, there is no new killer, bribed or sent by the main villains? Propagandists, promoters to the people, like peasants: troublemakers, wandering among the weaker people, among the factory workers, for example, they boast, as proof of their omnipotence and omnipresence, that they scattered proclamations in the palace itself, with which they forbade and forbade the sovereign to take Christ. The people, and some of them weaker, believe and are worried: what has become of them, the traitors are not far from the sovereign, from the heir... And the people are all the more worried because all these troublemakers, apparently (he says), are intruders: they are talking about empty things; just to confuse you and yourself for nothing; but it’s their own head that gets into the noose first; what is it for, for money; and for considerable, tea; one's own head is cheap; who buys them; Who needs them so much and for what? What do they interpret and how do they respond? Starting next year (a leap year, always, according to the people, a significant year, and also the year of the 25th anniversary), they say, we will all be equal (says the bad drunk carpenter to the good carpenter, the local head). - It has become, they will divide everything (the head asks); They’ll take half of the rosewood from me and give it to you.” “It became so.” - OK; I’ll make a couple of tables, take them to Moscow, they’ll give me 40, or even 45 rubles; you will do: just mess up the material; take you; whatever they give you, in the neck. How do you even it out so that 40 rubles comes out the same? Also from the words of the person who answered, obviously not made up: he pestered me from one of those people, interpreting as usual: everyone will be leveled off. “How so?” “Just take a knife and go to the master; it will be that it’s not his, tomorrow is yours. – Whose day after tomorrow? Since I am not a thief, not a robber, I will get it with a knife; How can you, you unbaptized baptism, from me, so that you don’t end up with a knife.” There are much more troublemakers, both those who are among the people and those who are sedentary, than the police can keep track of, even if they wanted to. The people know them all. Why is this so? Firstly, because they preach to the people, but hide from the police. Secondly, because the man, the strong for the weak, the old for the small, etc., is very partial to this misfortune; the police... Thirdly, because a man, in addition to ears and eyes in a smart head, also has a sense of smell; with the police... And finally, let me say this: the facts of troublemaking are sometimes so petty and boring (intimate) that one would not want the police to intervene even there, God forbid: the last life of honest people would not have happened. But no matter how small, these are still facts that relate to large facts, like millions of raindrops to a tub of water splashed out at once. Why there is more mud and deeper gullies, this is to be learned by experience - God save the Russian land. Ask the peasant, why don’t you grab them, at least the most annoying ones, and don’t drag them to the police officer? - We tried, father. - And then a series of anecdotes, supposedly genuine, but it seems that they were always just heard: how the police officer or police officer shouted at the peasants for this, did not accept troublemakers, or soon released them (maybe precisely because of the pettiness of the facts); how the men began to hand them over to the authorities only on receipt of receipt; and how the same authorities gave these receipts to the peasants during the first collection of taxes or on other occasions. It’s a stretch, let’s say, a vain arbitrary comparison, but the peasants are sure that it is so, that a rebel receives 2000 rubles for going to the people. per year; How can he, and even more so those who can pay him such, not pay off the authorities, who are especially greedy for a large bribe. Moscow legends are also told as proof, but - remarkably - without the usual legendary inconsistencies in setting and details; The characters are listed by name and rank. Whether the stories are true or not is not the point, the point is that they are believable and incredibly, sometimes, outrageous. And then there are newspapers in all the shops, taverns, front halls, in villages, as well as in cities; every footman, clerk, sexton, soldier, cabman, carrier, and so on. to list who and where today does not read or hear: and with what triumph Vera Zasulich was acquitted “and taken out, and how Sazhka the engineer was released (he cleverly dug into the bank, go and dig a mine under the Tsar), and how at almost every trial, all the very villains, like Deitch, every now and then, no, no, and was taken, but let go. And believe people, that all this is happening for nothing, all due to the stupidity of the authorities. But the Russian people, who are generally smart and not shy, have little faith in stupidity, and are still stubborn to recognize it as an attribute of their superiors; he has a nickname for it: treason, in a man, like in a soldier. And then there’s the brotherhood of these gangs of troublemakers: lowlifes and mazuriki, and for every layman, also of that kind, three Jews... disinterested. How can people not think, how can they not understand these unheard of things in Rus'? And he wonders, and he has already come up with something: this is how they answer the question: who needs them? - They have a lot of voyage, but not their own, but from large ships; If only I could get to these, their sluggish boats would sink on their own. “It’s a family matter; where brother plays tricks on his brother, it’s impossible to make out the seven-generalism. So here's who; and for what? To imprison the king, and to seize power (the constitution) from him. Or, God forbid, and even worse, to destroy the direct root of the king and, in the same order, regency, or, in the case of another, dictator. Really, it would be necessary to at least dissuade and reassure the people of these terrible suspicions. But in what way? A circular from Mr. Minister of Internal Affairs? Of course not; and nothing printed. All ordinary, and even more so all kinds of extraordinary official methods would only confuse things even more. There is only one way: a Zemsky Sobor, at which the whole earth would hear the Tsar himself. So, our first national fear: for those who are so dear to all of us in the Winter and Anichkov Palace. The second fear is the constitution. After April 2, we, the Resurrectionists, were cut off all around by the immemorially strong flood; mail could not pass through, only pilgrims made their way to us in New Non-Rusalim on the Holy Day; They heard the first telegrams and rumors. They began to ask me to draw up an address from the city: we don’t want a constitution, we’ll lay down our heads for the Tsar. And the rumors are true: the Moscow nobility is asking for a constitution in the address. Dolgorukov did not send the address; they dressed up the deputation; he let Petersburg know; The Tsar ordered not to let them leave Moscow. There was nothing to dissuade; I persuaded him to wait for the newspapers, at least. A day or two later there are rumors again: the Tver nobles and some Little Russians are demanding a constitution; and the Germans and Poles are not just nobles, but all of them. Write the address. However, they waited for the newspapers: you can’t trust the newspapers, they hide it. Write, for God’s sake, before it’s too late; ours will be read, others will write, and that’s it. I wrote. I emphasize what I have to say: Sovereign. If God had brought us at that moment, with what joy each of us would have rushed to stand between you and your villain. The Lord himself saved you. Truly, national prayer does not disappear behind him. May he heed her from now on and may he protect you and yours forever. The people's prayer for the king cannot be understood by one in whose heart there is neither God, nor the king, nor the people; but plotting against you, our Tsar-Liberator, and against your royal power, they should all remember that whoever is for you or your power is a villain for us and for the entire Holy Russian land; that both for you, sovereign, and for your power, the autocrat of all Rus', as our fathers stood, so we stand and will stand: with the breast of the whole Earth. During the reading, before the signature, in the Duma all the adjacent rooms were full of people, all on foot. However, this is where they reasoned, more than the Duma members themselves: everyone’s chest is against the murderer; the whole earth is breasted, good, but against whom; Wouldn't it be better to say it directly? Is it clear that if they all remembered, that means those who shoot at the Tsar and those who want a constitution? Wouldn't it be better too straight away? - The Duma members did not tut in public, but after listening to everyone and everything, they unanimously said: With the breast of the whole Earth... for your power, the autocrat, the words are clear even without that; and each began to sign, first crossing himself; everything (except maybe two or three out of two or three pages) is illiterate and scribbled. High-ranking experts in Russia seem to consider these addresses exaggerated. After the signature, there is a debate in a small group: they turn to me: after all, then (not like now: they swear allegiance to the sovereign), he, the sovereign, will swear allegiance; But is it not possible that he should not swear an oath for his descendants, for his heir? It was not I who decided the question, but the old cook: whether the king should swear an oath or not, he should keep the oath to whomever he finds: our heads will be torn off to these reigning kings and the Sabbath. The heads will be torn off, but not the Sabbath. The rebels are just waiting for it. Their goal, of course, is not a constitution, but a commune, they say; but in their own program - in Kyiv, I remember, or in Kharkov - it was read at the trial: the rebels are promoting the constitutional party, whose goal is a means for them to further rebellion. And there is only one, true remedy; for whether they are communes, or simply for the sake of unrest, to fish in troubled waters, but their immediate goal is why they call themselves rebels: to rebel, to rouse the people. It is impossible to raise the people against the king; but against the constitution it is very easy: just let the word out: take a note from the tsar (that’s what we call the constitutional charter from Shuisky), now he will swear allegiance. When you say an oath, according to the people, you don’t ask: to what, abstract, charter, constitution, but certainly to whom and in what. To whom and what will the sovereign swear allegiance? - To the masters, to whom more, in that it is no longer his, but their power... Well, that's enough. Who these gentlemen are: students, ministers, police officers, landowners, there is no time for analysis... According to the reasoning of our Europeans in St. Petersburg and others, the royal power is not limited, and that’s all. According to our people, not everything: it will not be limited; for, as the power of God’s anointed, it is sacred before the church, and therefore before people, each and every one, and above all before the king himself. The shrine is inviolable and has become indivisible. Therefore, royal power is indivisible between the anointed of God and anyone else, between the Russian Tsar and the parliament, even the most insignificant one, like the Prussian one. The autocrat himself has no power to touch the sacred, to limit his power, to destroy the autocracy. If, nevertheless, such a crime were committed against God, the people and the tsar, then, of course, not by the tsar himself, but only perhaps on his behalf, or, at least, not voluntarily, but either under a trick or through coercion, no matter who the villain is. How can we, the whole people, not stand up for him, the Tsar, not deal with his and our villains throughout the Earth, not cut off their heads? And let the guardians of order here refer to newspapers, to the manifesto. - Newspapers are published by villains, and Pugachev’s manifestos were read in churches. - But it was sent from the authorities, from the sovereign’s government. - Wasn’t it the same authorities who released Sashka the engineer? But Vera Zasulich was not acquitted by a government court, but was taken somewhere in a government carriage? About whom the tsar established the seven-general rule, about these Sashas and Verok, or about these judges and bosses. And trust this boss? What kind of royal servants they are, such traitors. So we are afraid how they will finally drive him out of patience, and how he will cry out a cry for us, the people, for all of them, idlers; Well, they took an oath from him so that they would be completely free to sell the king to both their own and others, the treasury and houses, and steal in war, and first of all, the land and the will of the people. With God for the Tsar, Orthodox! At first, of course, the people will rush at the rebels themselves, where they sense them: they will destroy universities and gymnasiums. All this is not a contradiction: how can rebels raise people on their own heads? - But who will pay with their heads? Those without guilt are those who are guilty (from high school students, students), and those who are guilty are stupid and obedient. Who do they listen to, who are they, where are they? These, just as they come out of the water dry now, so it was then. But how will they doom their own people to destruction? - As usual. For horse breeders in a revolutionary, always selfish, deed done for their sake, those who do it are only unpleasant after they are done: smart ones are burdensome, like rivals; stupid people are dangerous, just like those who are deceived. Let them, from the first hour, when things have already boiled over, both of them, together with the innocent, under anyone’s blows, even if they all die. That's where they go. If only the porridge was brewed; if only from places where Latin is hammered or frogs are gutted, and Russian is taught nothing, empty and unbaptized foreheads are prepared; the people rushed at the indulgers, at the patrons, at the exploiters of trouble, at those who took the constitution from the tsar: they would go to destroy the courts, ministries, palaces... Willy-nilly, the government would have to withdraw an army against the people. But the army is not the same people; Isn’t every soldier happy to lay down his bones for the Tsar and ready to shoot... in students and other traitors to the king; and he will be led to shoot at the butchers of Okhotny Ryad, who are beating these traitors; what then? The soldiers themselves, too loyal servants of the Tsars, are shot by other soldiers, if they are found so pliable. Isn’t all this good for the troublemakers, and even the main ones, who in fact are not God knows who: the same immaturities of realism and classicism, and squandered and stolen jacks of hearts, perhaps, and queens, but hardly aces. Idealism can still be tolerated in trouble-making sheep, but certainly not in shepherds. These people know that you can’t break through the Kremlin wall with a forehead, no matter how copper. But they also know that, thanks to the order of state-owned Russia, you can create as much disorder as you want in our country, you can stir up all of Russia, catch fish in troubled waters, have fun to your heart's content, and then, come what may, you can sneak away. Yes, they, both their government and their subjects, benefit not only from a popular uprising (it is impossible otherwise: for the Tsar, no matter what) but also this: will they be afraid of the inevitable consequence of all Russian state unrest - impostor? On the contrary, it is unlikely that this inevitability is taken into account in their calculations. After all, no matter what it comes to, the tsar will remain pure in the hearts of the people: is it really he who ordered to shoot and shoot us, his soldiers, his people, who were ready through fire and water for him? No, of course; It was the officers and generals who commanded and gave orders, serving their brothers and masters. The Tsar and the Tsarevich, God willing, miraculously escaped from St. Petersburg, and now they have appeared to the people: the Tsar is somewhere in the Volga region, the Tsarevich is in the Urals. And it began to buzz again, not from street to street, but from region to region: with God for the king against the lords. After all, why do people so easily believe impostors? From the fact that he loves his hope-king so deeply, but to whom he is far, far away, as high as God; How can people know the truth about the Tsar? And the Tsar about the people... since then, that, now, two centuries without two years, they, the Tsar and the Earth, do not have the former direct communication with each other, complete communication: in love and in advice. It did not happen since May 6, 1682, since the dashing day on which, on behalf of the young Tsar Peter, a letter of release was signed to the last Zemstvo Sobor, convened by Tsar Feodor Alekseevich for advice on his great sovereign and zemstvo business, on the equalization of services and taxes. But this whole second fear is terrible only from the assumption that there will be a constitution in Russia. – Why would it be and where would it be from? – All of Europe is in constitutions. – But you never know what kind of leprosy Europe is in because of the sins of its Pharisees and scribes? Don’t graft Russia into, thank God, a healthy body: instead of Orthodoxy, papism and nihilism, instead of the community, majorat and proletariat, instead of autocracy, a constitution and a commune, only because in Europe there is no God, no tsar, no people. Well, let there not be any Romania in Europe without a parliament; We are not Romania, we are Russia. Russia: the Tsar and the people. And in Europe, in order to remove the crown from the monarch and make it into a coiffure for a constitutional dummy, the British had to first remove the head from Charles I, France from Louis XVI; without this, schoolteachers take constitutions only from German princes, and only the kings of the Sandwich Islands give constitutions, on the advice of their European valets. How can the crown of a monarch, from the head of the Russian Tsar-autocrat, end up on the top part of the constitutional abstract? After all, in fact, how can a tsar - not the boyar creature Shuisky, but the chosen one of God, for the descendant of the tsar and autocrat of all Rus', for generations and generations, the council was not elected unanimously by the whole earth; The voice of the people, according to the apostle, is the voice of God, and not man (the original words of the chosen charter of Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich) - can this king really give a constitution? There was nothing, then, for the people to be afraid of, and for the rebels to count and candidates for the ancestors of Russian peers to hope that someday a descendant of Monomakh would suddenly take off that eight-hundred-year-old cap, unscrew it and throw half of it: catch it, whoever wants power. The Moscow lords and the St. Petersburg Social Democrats are squabbling over her; Whoever he takes, he will turn over Holy Russia, as they turn over, England, Austria, France, some kind of Jewish scribbler of novels, a rebel, a tomboy from the gallows, an aeronautics lawyer. From now on, my royal business is the same as that of Her Majesty the Empress of India: to confirm the phrases that the prime minister prescribes for the opening and closing of the chambers, and to declare war in whichever he pleases to involve my people. One time, whether, despite the church, the tsar and the people, they will not demand and take the constitution, and even the half of the Decembrists, but will they take it? In fact, it seems like this: we have a lot of speeches about it, and in the press as much as possible, and from the pulpit as much as possible, and in salons, and in restaurants, and in departments and, in a word, in all the conversational places of our Europeans. But it’s not just speeches, we also need people. I’m not asking entire classes, generation after generation, seeking power, but only people who consciously desire a constitution, i.e. who fully, no worse than real Europeans, understand what a constitution is: what it means to the people, especially when it is perfect, for example, in England; and what is it like for the state under all kinds of monarchical and republican constitutions in France, but also what it’s like, not life, but Maslenitsa, here in England for some classes, what revelry is like for all kinds of parties in France; and most importantly, what is the career of zeros who want to be ones and move England and France in their own way; and why, therefore, and who exactly needed a constitution so that they sought it from monarchs with sword and axe, rubbed it into the peoples with ink and blood. Such a thing, obviously, nowhere except the Sandwich Islands is impossible without such, if not entire classes, then at least without a very strong party, without a multitude of such prophetic and powerful people penetrating everywhere and operating in everything. So, how many of them, these necessary augurs and praetorians of the constitution, do we have? Isn’t everyone that crowds here just monkeys, adopting not the thought or intent of a generation, but only the very execution of somersaulting before the fashionable deity of parliamentary despotism? But these people, firstly, only know that it is fashionable: all of Europe is in constitutions, even the big-headed intelligentsia imitates England, how can we not be ashamed of autocracy? And secondly, they all just crowd here in plain sight, at the very centers of our civilization: they love to see their own people and show themselves off; So I wonder, since there are so many of them here, how many are there throughout Rus'? And all over Rus' and all of them together, those Pharisees and these whippersnappers of the constitution, where the name is not legion. But if you think about it carefully, the question in general is how many there are and what kind, isn’t it just a habit of reasoning in a European way? After all, where, as with us, is the numerical and moral strength of the peasantry, and where aren’t the rowdies from other classes the same people, in chorus of the whole Earth praying to God for the Tsar-Liberator; there, whether there are dozens of these, both malicious and innocent, in the end everything is one: phrasesters, or hundreds, or thousands, through a hundred million heads, after all, all the same, they cannot reach the Monomakh’s cap, they cannot constitutionalize it, their hands are short. So, God be merciful, we will not have a constitution, and therefore there will be no popular uprising. It won’t be indispensable and universal if that’s the case. But outbreaks for the sake of reprisals, and quite important ones, are possible, even very probable, even without a constitution; from a constant, unbearably intense fear of the constitution, after all, and most importantly, fear for the Tsar and for the direct root of the Tsar. Is it true or not, on April 2, near Moscow, in the village of Vsesvyatsky, there was a secular gathering until nightfall. Walkers were dispatched to Moscow to find out for sure whether the sovereign was really wounded; and it is necessary: ​​if, God willing, you are not wounded, you should serve a prayer service; and wounded, go to the (neighboring) Petrovskaya Academy. In the evening the walkers returned, the world sent for the priest. Luckily, the police missed the whole incident; otherwise she would have appeared and restored order so, perhaps, that she herself would not have left unharmed. On November 21, I was driving along Mokhovaya, my cab driver looked at the university: “He survived, God willing for a long time.” - (This “God willing” did not refer to the university, of course). You and I, master, wouldn’t be able to get through. But it seems that our third fear is not a national fear: war. Although many, even very Russian (in the sense: simple) people, interpret that, they say, what if our external enemies or friends help, deigning to call us to war now? Here, in what position will we find ourselves, with the same quartermasters, financiers, diplomats, administrators, and even with these villains who are supported by us? Yes, even if only to call for this, so that we must evade, resign ourselves, ask for mercy at all costs, like France after Sedan, like Turkey on the eve of St. Stefano. The people seem to realize that there are troublemakers here and it’s no longer a problem; Why then just take it and deal with them in your own way; and the government will remain silent, and the tsar will also say thank you. For the hour will be great; and at one or another great hour, after all, it is inevitable, after all, God will put it in the mind of the king to know that without the people, without the entire Earth itself, neither our old German bureaucratic government machine, nor the deliberate seven-generalism, will still not be able to cope with the troublemakers, or with our many other disorders. But it would be better, of course, to call upon the Earth in time; and calmly, calmly and menacingly with judgment and punishment (in the old way): a council of the beloved of the whole Earth, all Orthodox peasants, every rank of people, from each city with volosts so many good, reasonable, persistent people with whom the sovereign could talk and provide for all the good of all people: to put an end to, first of all, this misfortune, with the unrest and with the troublemakers. We will overcome the devil with peace and cathedral. This proverb, perhaps from Kozma Minich, is still alive among the people to this day, not without reason. But it’s not for real, or not all that devilry we have is influx, but purchased. Weeds grow from the fallow. To finish, here, does not mean plucking the leaves, or tearing up the stems, but it’s not enough to pull out the roots: you need to raise the deposit itself, yes, in the Gospel, to the entire depth of the earth and sow it with good seed. This is the end of the weeds: the beginning of the bread. And from which wedge and what to sow, the Earth itself also knows more accurately than people, and at the same Zemstvo Council it will say if the Tsar asks. And what is the main – historical and logical – essence of the Zemsky Sobor; and how much will it be necessary to change in it, against the old days; and that, without yielding to any prejudices of the century, it must be sacredly preserved, so that the Zemsky Sobor, as it was at the time, will continue to remain a natural connection between the Tsar and the Earth, and a stronghold faithful to both of them from any records; All this, dear sir, allow me to retell and prove, to the best of God’s ability, in the second letter; unless you find the first one superfluous. Please accept, dear sir, the assurance of true and sincere devotion and commitment to you. Moscow. December 10th, 1879.