a privy committee, but recognising the futility of this method, upon the first move made by the Lithuanian landowners on behalf of the liberation of the peasantry, Alexander issued a rescript recommending the formation of "preparatory committees" in the various administrative districts, publicity for the question being thus at length secured. The progressive press was not slow to seize its opportunity; in 1858 a central committee was appointed to settle the question; and on February 19, 1861, the manifesto of liberation was issued.[1]
The Russian aristocratic system, the work-shyness whose organisation was centuries old, had been broken down, and the struggle between light and darkness had ended in the triumph of light. The darkness had confused the intelligence of so great a man as Puškin, and had confused even that of Gogol; but speaking generally it redounds to the honour of Russian literature that the leading spirits of that literature were the most efficient adversaries of slavery. Modern literature combated slavery within the depths of the Russian soul. Towards the close of the forties, village life and the mužik became leading topics. The Village, 1846, Anton Goremyka (Anthony the Unlucky), 1848, both by Grigorovič, and A Sportsman's Diary, 1852, by Turgenev, belong to this period.
In his Literary Memories Turgenev tells us how he plunged out of his depth into the "German sea" to emerge purified and reborn, for he could no longer endure home life in Russia. "I had to move to a distance from my enemy, so that I might be able from a distance to hurl myself upon him with greater impetus. My enemy had a definite configuration, a known name: the enemy was serfdom. Under this name I subsumed everything which I should have to fight against to the day of my death, everything I had sworn never to make terms with. . . . Such was my Hannibal's oath, nor was I the only one to make it. I took my way to the west to enable myself to fulfil it better." Alexander II declared that the reading of A Sportsman's Diary had convinced him that serfdom must be abolished. In such matters Alexander was often a prey to self-created illusions, but the act was in itself of no less value even if he and his advisers were impelled
- ↑ Serfs acting as domestic servants had to be liberated within two years of the proclamation. The peasants were ordered to pay their lords the compensation due for emancipation in instalments spread over forty-nine years. The government, however, paid off the totals to the landlords in its own bonds, and collected the instalments from the peasants.
