Wednesday, February 20, 2019

Making of a Russian censor

‘The minister of education summoned me for a talk. I arrived at 1 o’clock. “The matter of your appointment to the Press Committee,” the minister said to me, “has taken a rather serious and delicate turn. The emperor has expressed his desire for your appointment [. . .] “Yes,” I replied, “this really puts me in an awkward position. I am prepared to undertake any kind of work which would offer at least some hope for a cause which means so much to me as learning and literature. But if this committee was created for the moral supervision of literature, as its members claim it was, there are no grounds for its existence and it doesn’t have a leg to stand on. If it is going to turn into a secret committee, it is standing on muddy ground and I don’t want to soil myself on it.” ’ This is the Ukrainian, Aleksandr Nikitenko, writing in his diary, exactly 160 years ago today, about being offered a top posting as a central committee censor - all the more remarkable an achievement since he had been born into serfdom. The diary was published in English, some 100 years after his death, as The Diary of a Russian Censor.

Nikitenko was born in Sloboda, Ukraine, in 1804 or 1805, a serf and the property of Count Nikolai Sheremetev, for whom his educated father acted as an estate manager. By 1822, he was working in Ostogozhsk scraping a living as a private tutor. In 1924, he came to the notice of several educated and influential individuals, who then helped him, first, to become a free man, to take up residence in the household of E. P. Obolensky (a future Decembrist), and to study history and philosophy at the Saint Petersburg University. In 1826, he published his first article ‘On Overcoming the Misfortunes’, and was subsequently hired as secretary by the district superintendent of education, K. M. Borozdin. In that position, he compiled a commentary for the new censorship code. He married in mid-1833.

By 1834, Nikitenko had been appointed professor of philology at the university, and in 1837, he was awarded his Doctor of Philosophy (with a dissertation ‘On Creative Power of Poetry or Poetic Genius’). From 1833 to 1848, Nikitenko was a member of the local censorship committee, and a liberal one it seems, since he was arrested on more than occasion for allowing certain literary works to be circulated. From 1853, he worked for the Ministry for People’s Education as extraordinary commissioner; and from 1859 until 1865 he served as a member of the Central Censorship Department, ardently promoting the importance of literature. Otherwise, he acted as editor for several publications, such as Sovremennik (1847-1948) and Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniya (1856-1860), and Severnaya Pochta (1862). He died in 1877. A little further - though not much - biographical info can be gathered from Wikipedia, the Saint Petersburg Encyclopaedia, or H-Net. In 2001, Yale University Press published Nikitenko’s Up from Serfdom. My Childhood and Youth in Russia, 1804-1824 as translated by Helen Saltz Jacobson. Some pages of this can be read at Amazon.

A dozen of so years after Nikitenko’s death, in 1888-1992, a diary he had kept throughout his adult life was published in three volumes. An English edition, abridged, edited and translated by Jacobson, was brought out in 1975 by University of Massachusetts Press as The Diary of a Russian Censor. This can be previewed at Googlebooks. The Saint Petersburg Encyclopaedia says of the diary that it provides ‘a unique and valuable source for the study of the history of Russian society, literature and culture’. Here are two extracts, from the English translation, written as Nikitenko was reflecting on whether to accept an offer to join the central censorship department.

20 February 1859
‘The minister of education summoned me for a talk. I arrived at 1 o’clock.

“The matter of your appointment to the Press Committee,” the minister said to me, “has taken a rather serious and delicate turn. The emperor has expressed his desire for your appointment, and now I am conveying his wish to you. Count Adlerberg has informed me about it.”

“Yes,” I replied, “this really puts me in an awkward position. I am prepared to undertake any kind of work which would offer at least some hope for a cause which means so much to me as learning and literature. But if this committee was created for the moral supervision of literature, as its members claim it was, there are no grounds for its existence and it doesn’t have a leg to stand on. If it is going to turn into a secret committee, it is standing on muddy ground and I don’t want to soil myself on it.”

We talked about it for a long time and finally I promised Evgraf Petrovich that I would try my best to change this whole situation for the better.

While we were discussing this, Mukhanov arrived, and I immediately got involved in a conversation with him on this issue.

Mukhanov tried to prove to me that the committee had no reactionary intentions; that it did not have anything in common with the Committee of April 2; that the emperor was certainly not interested in creating a similar apparatus.

“Personally, Your Excellency,” I replied, “I am not worried about it becoming another Committee of April 2, because I think that’s impossible. I consider the very thought of it repugnant to the spirit of our times as well as an insult to our enlightened emperor. But I can’t hide the fact from you that the public is very prejudiced against this new committee.” ’

26 February 1859
‘All week I’ve been busy thinking about the proposal to join the committee and have been involved in discussions with them about it. I was invited to a meeting on Monday, the 23rd, where I came face to face with Count Adlerberg, Timashev and Mukhanov.

I was received very courteously, particularly by Count Adlerberg. I had made up my mind to express frankly both my convictions and my views on the committee, so they could decide for themselves whether I could participate in their affairs. They listened to me very attentively.

I told them of the public’s negative attitude toward the committee; that it considered it another April 2nd committee; that I personally considered it an impossibility today and thought their committee could not be either repressive or reactionary; that its sole function was to serve as an intermediary between literature and the emperor and to influence public opinion by getting the government’s views and aims across via the press in much the same way as literature did by bringing its ideas to the public.

They took all this very well. Then I added that if I were to sit on the committee, it would have to be with the right to vote. It was decided that I would give them a memorandum containing the gist of my remarks and that I would bring it with me on Thursday.

Today, Thursday, I read my memorandum to them in which I outlined my ideas in greater detail. Enlarging upon the thesis that literature did not nurture any revolutionary schemes, I took the position that there wasn’t the slightest reason to take repressive measures against it; that ordinary censorship measures were completely adequate; that literature couldn’t and shouldn’t be restrained by administrative measures; and that, perhaps, the committee should limit itself, according to the emperor’s wishes, to keeping a watchful eye on the mood of the public and to guiding public opinion, rather than literature, on to the right path.

I forgot to mention that, on Monday, after my discussion with the committee, I went to see the minister and told him that I was demanding voting rights. He completely supported my demand and tried to persuade me to accept the position of administrative director of the committee on that condition, since the voting right would put me in a position where I could undoubtedly be a force for good.

He also told me that, on Sunday, at the ball, he had spoken to the emperor about me and referred to me as one, who, in his opinion, could be more useful on the committee than anyone else. The emperor turned to Adlerberg and said: “Hear that, Aleksandr?” Earlier, too, while the committee was being formed, the minister had proposed my name for membership along with the names of Vyazemsky, Tyutchev, Pletnyov, and E. P. Kovalevsky (his brother).

After all this my memorandum was accepted, and tomorrow a report goes to the emperor. The die is cast. I am now embarking on a new career in public service. I shall certainly encounter difficulties - and enormous ones, too. But it would be wrong and dishonest of me to evade them, to refuse to do my part. There will be a great deal of gossip. Perhaps many will reproach me because I, with my spotless reputation, have decided to sit on a tribunal which is considered repressive. But that’s exactly the point, gentlemen. I want to stifle its appetite for repression. If I can work effectively - fine. If I can’t. I’ll leave.

In any case, I am absolutely determined to fight to the bitter end against repressive measures. But, at the same time, I am convinced that literature ought not to sever all its ties with the government and assume a hostile stance. If I am right, then it is incumbent on one of us to hold on to this tie and to assume the role, so to say, of a connecting link. I shall try to be that link.

Perhaps I shall succeed in convincing the committee that it must approach this sort of business in broad statesmanlike fashion; that it should not war with ideas, with literature, or with anything at all, because it is not a clique but a public figure; that it should not irritate people; that it has an enormous responsibility toward Russia, the emperor and posterity, and that because of this responsibility, it must not get involved in petty literary squabbles, but should look beyond all that and view literature as a social force which can do a great deal of good for society. Yes, I shall assume this new responsibility, if I am given the right to vote. Tyutchev, Goncharov, and Lyuboshchinsky warmly endorse my decision.

I think even the committee understood the purity of my intentions. Not a word was mentioned there about any kind of benefits or rewards. As far as salary is concerned, I shall be satisfied with the first figure to be named. As far as my other activities are concerned, it goes without saying that I shall have to curtail them.’

No comments: