War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy [733]
Historians call this activity of historical figures the reaction.
Describing the activity of these historical figures, who were, in their opinion, the cause of what they call the reaction, historians severely condemn them. All the well-known people of that time, from Alexander and Napoleon to Mme de Staël, Photius, Schelling, Fichte, Chateaubriand, and others, pass before their severe judgment and are either acquitted or condemned, depending on whether they contributed to progress or the reaction.
In Russia, according to their descriptions, a reaction was also going on in that period of time, and the chief perpetrator of this reaction was Alexander I—the same Alexander I who, according to their own descriptions, was the chief perpetrator of the liberal initiatives of his reign and of the salvation of Russia.
In present-day Russian literature, from the schoolboy to the learned historian, there is not a person who does not cast his little stone at Alexander I for his wrong actions during this period of his reign.
“He should have acted thus and so. In this case he acted well, in that badly. He behaved himself splendidly at the beginning of his reign and during the year twelve; but he acted badly in granting Poland a constitution, forming the Holy Alliance, giving power to Arakcheev, encouraging Golitsyn and mysticism, and then encouraging Shishkov and Photius. He did badly in occupying himself with the frontline units of the army; he acted badly in disbanding the Semyonovsky regiment, and so on.”1
One would have to fill ten pages with writing in order to enumerate all that the historians reproach him with, on the basis of that knowledge of the good of mankind which they possess.
What do these reproaches mean?
The very actions for which the historians approve of Alexander I, such as the liberal initiatives of the reign, the struggle with Napoleon, the firmness he showed in the year twelve, and the campaign of the year thirteen—do they not all come from the same sources, from the conditions of blood, upbringing, life that made the person of Alexander what he was, and from which also come the actions for which the historians blame him, such as the Holy Alliance, the restoration of Poland, the reaction of the twenties?
In what consists the essence of these reproaches?
It is that a historical figure such as Alexander I, a figure who stood on the highest possible step of human power, as if at the focal point of the blinding light of all the historical rays concentrated upon him; a figure subject to the strongest influences in the world—of intrigues, deceptions, flattery, self-delusion—which are inseparable from power; a figure who felt upon himself at every moment of his life the responsibility for all that was happening in Europe; and not an invented figure, but a living one, and, like every man, with his personal habits, passions, strivings for goodness, beauty, truth—that this figure, fifty years ago, was not so much not virtuous (the historians do not reproach him for that), but did not have those views of the good of mankind now possessed by a professor who from his youth has been taken up with learning, that is, reading books, attending lectures, and copying things from these books and lectures into a notebook.
But even if we suppose that Alexander I was mistaken fifty years ago in his views of what the good of the peoples was, we must involuntarily suppose that the historian judging Alexander will in the same way, after the passing of some time, turn out to be incorrect in his view of what the good of mankind is. This supposition is the more natural and necessary in that, as we