Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow by Irina Reyfman (top 10 novels of all time .txt) 📕

it and themselves were renowned for their sermons. It is true that they existed, but their language was not Russian. They wrote the way it was possible to write before the Tatar invasion, before Russians entered into contact with the European peoples. They wrote in the Slavonic language. But you who saw Lomonosov himself, and perhaps learned eloquence from his works, shall not be forgotten by me. When in defeating the proud Ottomans the Russian army surpassed the expectations of everyone who cast an indifferent or envious eye over its exploits—you, summoned to give solemn thanks to the God of war, the God of strength, O! you, in the rapture of your soul, invoked Peter at his grave that he come to contemplate the fruits of his planting: “Arise, Peter, arise!” When you charmed my hearing, and my hearing then enchanted my sight, that was when it seemed to everyone that in coming to Peter’s grave you, invested with higher powers, wanted to resurrect him. That would be the moment when I, too, would have declared to Lomonosov: “Look, look, even here we see your cultivation.” But if he could teach you language…. In Platon there is Plato’s soul, and how to charm and to understand us his own heart taught him.130

Servile gestures are incompatible not only with what may arouse our veneration but even when we love. While doing justice to the great man, we shall, therefore, not consider him God the creator of all, we shall not cherish him as an idol to be worshipped by society, and we shall not collude in implanting any kind of prejudice or false assumption. Truth is the highest divinity to us, and if the Almighty should want to change its image by revealing Himself not through truth, our face will be averted from Him.

Consonant with the truth, we shall not search in Lomonosov for a great historian, we shall not compare him to Tacitus, Raynal, or Robertson; we shall not put him on the level of Marggraf or Rüdiger since he worked in chemistry.131 If he liked this science, if he spent many days of his life in studying the truths of natural science, his pathway was but the pathway of a follower. He roamed along well-worn ways and in the innumerable riches of nature found not a single blade of grass that eyes better than his had not looked at. He did not scrutinize even the crudest catalyst in matter that his predecessors had not discovered.

Can we juxtapose him with someone who merited the most flattering inscription that a man can see beneath his portrait? The inscription, etched not in flattery but a truth daring to be powerful: “Here is one who wrested thunder from heaven and the scepter from the hand of tyrants.” Do we place Lomonosov next to him because he researched the power of electricity in its effects; and that he was not repelled from its study after seeing how his teacher was mortally struck down by its power?132 Lomonosov knew how to produce electrical power, knew how to deflect thunderbolts, but in this science the architect is Franklin, Lomonosov just a craftsman.

But if Lomonosov did not achieve greatness in his investigations of Nature, he depicted its magnificent works in a style both pure and articulate. And while we do not find in his works about the natural sciences a graceful teacher of natural philosophy, we nonetheless find a teacher of language and a permanent model worthy of imitation.

And thus, by giving the great man his due, by placing Lomonosov’s name in an aura worthy of him, we do not seek to arrogate for him merit for what he did not do and what he did not influence; or only to get carried away by frenzy and enthusiasm by using uninhibited language. This is not our goal. We want to show that in the domain of Russian literature the one who blazed a path to the temple of fame is the prime mover in the achievement of glory, even when he could not enter the temple. Is not Bacon of Verulam worthy of remembrance solely because he was able to say how to multiply branches of learning? Are brave writers who rise up against ruin and dominion not deserving of appreciation even if they were unable to deliver humanity from chains and captivity? And we do not reverence Lomonosov because he could not understand the rules of theatrical poetry and languished in epic; because he was out of his depths in the poetry of sensibility; because he was not always discerning in his judgment; and because even in his odes he sometimes put more words than thoughts. But listen: before the beginning of time when existence had no foundation and everything was lost in eternity and immeasurability, everything was possible for the Source of power, all the beauty of the universe existed in His thought since there was no action, no beginning. And then when the all-powerful hand intruded matter into space set it in motion. The sun shone forth, the moon took light, and rotating celestial bodies formed on high. The first jolt of creation was omnipotent. All the wonders of the world, all its beauty are only consequences. This is how I understand the action of a great soul upon the souls of contemporaries or descendants; this is how I understand the action of mind upon mind. In the trajectory of Russian literature, Lomonosov is the first. Envious crowd, be gone; it is for posterity to judge him, it is not hypocritical.

But, dear reader, I have got carried away chatting with you…. Here already is Vsesvyatskoye…. If I have not bored you, wait for me by the city boundary and we can see each other upon my return journey. For now, farewell.—Coachman, drive on.

MOSCOW! MOSCOW!!! …

* Ozerki

† June

NOTES

DEDICATION

The line is adapted by Radishchev from the narrative poem Tilemakhida by V. K. Trediakovsky (1703–1769), a poetic version of the French writer