B e r I. s a 1 a h. I n

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1 'These essays, by possibly the most brilliant and engaging intellect of our time, illuminate dazzlingly both the Russian mind and the role of ideas in history'- Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. s a 1 a h B e r n

2 PENGUN BOOKS RUSSAN THNKERS Sir saiah Berlin OM is a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford. n the course of his academic career he has been President of the British Academy, Professor of Social and Political Theory at the University of Oxford and the first President of Wolfson College, Oxford. He is an Honorary Fellow of four Oxford Colleges, and has received Honorary Doctorates from a number of universities around the world. His work covers a wide variety of subjects and apart from his work in the fields of philosophy and political studies he has made some notable contributions to Russian studies; some of his most acclaimed essays are to be found in this volume. His superb translations of Turgenev's First Love and A Month in the Country are both published in Penguin Classics. Among his many other publications are Kart Marx (1939), The Age of Enlightenmmt (1956), Four Essays on Liberty (1969), Vico and Herder (1976), Against the Current (1979), Personal mpressions (1980), The Crooked Timber of Humanity (1990), The Magus of the North (1993), on J. G. Hamann, and The Sense of Reality (1996). His latest book is The Proper Study of Mankind (1997), an anthology of essays drawn from previous volumes. Russian Thinkers was first published as a collection in n 1977 Sir saiah received the Jerusalem Prize for his defence of human liberty. He has also been awarded the Erasmus Prize (1983) for his contribution to European culture, and the Agnelli Prize (1987) for his writings on the ethical aspects of modem industrial societies. Henry Hardy, in addition to co-editing this volume, has edited seven other books by saiah Berlin: Concepts and Categories, Against the Current, Personal mpressions, The Crooked Timber of Humanity, The Magus of the North, The Sense of Reality and The Proper Study of Mankind (co-edited with Roger Hausheer). From 1985 to 1990 he was Senior Editor, Political and Social Studies, at Oxford University Press. He is now a Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, where he is working on a collection of saiah Berlin's letters. Aileen Kelly, introducer and co-editor of this volume, received her D.Phil. in Russian Studies from Oxford and is now a Lecturer in Slavonic Studies at Cambridge University and a Fellow of King's College. She is the author of Mikhail Bakunin: A Study in the Psychology and Politics of Utopianism, and is currendy working on a study of Alexander Herzen.

3 SAAH BERLN 'R.!!Jsian Thinkers Edited by Henry Hardy and Aileen Kelly With an ntroduction by Aileen Kelly PENGUN BOOKS

4 PENGUN BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London w8 5TZ, England Penguin Books USA nc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V JB2 Penguin Books (NZ) Ltd, Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England First published in Great Britain by The Hogarth Press Ltd 1978 First published in the United States of America by The Viking Press Published in Pelican Books 1979 Reprinted in Penguin Books Copyright 1948, 1951, by saiah Berlin Copyright saiah Berlin, 1955, 1956, 1960, 1961, 1972, 1978 'Herzen and Bakunin on ndividual Liberty' copyright President and Fellows of Harvard College, 1955 This selection and editorial matter copyright Henry Hardy, 1978 ntroduction copyright Aileen Kelly, 1978 All rights reserved LBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGNG N PUBLCATON DATA Berlin, saiah, Sir. Russian thinkers. ncludes bibliographical references and index. 1. Russia-ntellectual ife Addresses, essays, lectures. 2. ntellectuals- Russia-Addresses, essays, lectures.. Hardy, Henry. 11. Kelly, Aileen. ll. Title. [DK189.2.B ) 947' SBN X Printed in England by Clays Ltd, St ves plc Set in Caslon Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

5 Contents Author's Preface Editorial Preface ntroduction: A Complex Vision hy Aileen Kelly Russia and 848 The Hedgehog and the Fox Herzen and Bakunin on ndividual Liberty A Remarkable Decade The Birth of the Russian ntelligentsia 11 German Romanticism in Petersburg and Moscow ll Vissarion Belinsky V Alexander Herzen Russian Populism Tolstoy and Enlightenment Fathers and Children page vii X xiii lnde~ V

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7 Author's Preface The essays collected in this volume, the first of four, were written, or delivered as lectures, on various occasions over almost thirty years, and therefore possess less unity of theme than if they had been conceived in relation to one another. am naturally most grateful to the editor of these collected papers, Or Henry Hardy, for his conviction that they are worth exhuming, and for the meticulous and unremitting care with which he has seen to it that some of their blemishes, in particular inaccuracies, inconsistencies and obscurities, have been, so far as possible, eliminated. Naturally, continue to be solely responsible for the shortcomings that remain. owe a great debt also to Or Aileen Kelly for furnishing this volume with an introduction: in particular, for her deep and sympathetic understanding of the issues discussed and of my treatment of them. am also most grateful to her for the great trouble to which, in the midst of her own work, she has gone in checking and, on occasion, emending, vague references and excessively free translations. Her steady advocacy has almost persuaded me that the preparation of this volume may have been worthy of so much intelligent and devoted labour. can only hope that the result will prove to have justified the expenditure of her own and Or Hardy's time and energy. A number of these essays began life as lectures for general audiences, not read from a prepared text. The published versions were based on transcripts of the spoken words, as well as the notes for them, and, as am well aware, they bear the marks of their origin in both their style and their structure. The original texts remain substantially unaltered: rio attempt has been made to revise them in the light of anything published subsequently on the history of Russian ideas in the nineteenth r.entury, since nothing, so far as know, has appeared in this (somewhat sparsely cultivated) field to cast serious doubt on the central theses of these essays. may, however, be mistaken about this; if so, should like to assure the reader that this is due to ignorance on my part rather than unshakeable confidence in the validity of my own opinions. vii

8 RUSSAN THNKERS ndeed, the entire burden of these collected essays, so far as they can be said to display any single tendency, is distrust of all claims to the possession of incorrigible knowledge about issues of fact or principle in any sphere of human behaviour. July 1977 SAAH BJ!R.LN viii

9 Editorial Preface This is one of five volumes in which have brought together, and prepared for reissue, most of the published essays by saiah Berlin which had not hitherto been made available in a collected form. 1 His many writings were scattered, often in obscure places, most were out of print, and only half a dozen essays had previously been collected and reissued. 2 These five volumes, together with the list of his publications which one of them (Against the Current) contains, 3 and a new volume on J. G. Hamann, 4 have made much more of his work readily accessible than before. The present volume comprises ten essays on nineteenth-century Russian literature and thought. The details of their original publication are as follows. 'Russia and 848' appeared in the Slavonic Review 26 (948); 'The Hedgehog and the Fox' first appeared, in a shorter form, as 'Lev Tolstoy's Historical Scepticism' in Oxford Slavonic Papers 2 ( 9 5 ), and was reprinted with additions under its present title in 953 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in London, and by Simon and Schuster in New York; 'Herzen and Bakunin on ndividual Liberty' was published in Ernest }. Simmons (ed.), Continuity and Change in Russian and Soviet Thought (Cambridge, Massachusetts, 9 55: Harvard University Press); the four esays collectively entitled This volume was first published in London and New York in 978. The other volumes are Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays (London, 197 8; New York, 979), Against the Current: Essays in the History of deas (London, 979; New York, 98o), Personal mpressions (London, 98o; New York, 98 ) and The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of deas (London, 990; New York, 99 ). z Four Essays on Liberty (London, 969; New York, 970) and Vico and Herder: Two Studies in the History of deas (London and New York, 976). Other collections have appeared only in translation. 3 ts currently most up-to-date version appears in the 99 impression of the Oxford University Press paperback edition. 4 The Magus of the North: J. G. Hamann and the Origins of Modern rrationalism, edited by Henry Hardy (London, 993; New York, 994). X

10 RUSSAN THNKERS 'A Remarkable Decade', reprinted here from the version published as 'A Marvellous Decade' in Encounter 4 No 6 (June 955), 5 No (November 955), 5 No 2 (December 955) and 6 No 5 (May 956), originated as the Northcliffe Lectures for 954 (delivered at University College, London), which were also broadcast later that year on the Third Programme of the BBC; 'Russian Populism' is the introduction to Franco Venturi, Roots of Revolution (London, 960: Weidenfeld and Nicolson; New York, 96o: Knopf), and also appeared in Encounter 5 No (July 960); 'Tolstoy and Enlightenment', the P.E.N. Hermon Ould Memorial Lecture for 960, was published first in Encounter 6 No 2 (February 96), and subsequently in Mightier Tlzan Tlze Sword (London, 964: Macmillan); 'Fathers and Children', the Romanes Lecture for 970, was published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in 972 (reprinted with corrections, 1973), and has also appeared in the New York Review of Books (8 October, and 5 November, 973) and as the introduction to lvan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons, translated by Rosemary Edmonds (Harmondsworth, 975: Penguin). am grateful to the publishers concerned for allowing me to reprint these essays. 'A Remarkable Decade', 'Russian Populism' and 'Tolstoy and Enlightenment' have been left without references, as they originally appeared. A few passages - chiefly translations - were rewritten by the author for this volume. Otherwise, apart from necessary corrections, and the addition of missing references, the essays are reprinted essentially in their original form. Those who know the author's work in this field will notice that two important items are missing. The first is the introduction to an English translation of Alexander Herzen's From tlze OtlzerShore and Tlze Russian People and Socialism (London, 956; revised edition, Oxford, 979); the second is the introduction to Constance Garnett's translation of Herzen's memoirs, My Past and Thoughts (London and New York, 968). Both of these pieces overlap to some extent with the two essays on Herzen in this volume. The first does not appear in any of the five volumes; the second is included in Against the Current, where it is equally at home. t 1 Readers may like to have a list of other pieces in this area which do not appear here. There are three radio talks: 'The Man Who Became a Myth' (Belinsky), Listener 38 (1947); 'The Father of Russian Marxism' X