In modern Russian literature there is no one, from the schoolboy essay writer to the learned historian, who would not throw his stone at Alexander for the unprincipled acts of this later period of his reign.
‘He should have acted in such and such a way. On that occasion he acted well, and on that other he acted ill. He behaved splendidly in the
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eginning of his reign and during 1812; but he did ill in giving a con- ;itution to Poland, in making the Holy Alliance, in letting Araktcheev ave power, in encouraging Golitsin and mysticism; and later on, in en- Duraging Shishkov, and Foty. He acted wrongly in interfering with the rmy on active service; he acted wrongly in cashiering the Semyonovsky jgiment, and so on.’
One might cover ten pages in enumerating all the faults found in him y the historians, on the assumption that they possess a knowledge of rhat is for the good of humanity.
What do these criticisms mean ?
Do not the very actions for which the historians applaud Alexander 1., uch as the liberalism of the early part of his reign, the struggle with Napoleon, the firmness showm in 1812, and the campaign of 1813, pro- eed from those very sources—the circumstances of birth and breeding nd life that made Alexander’s personality what it was—from which •roceed also the acts for which he is censured by the historians, such as he Holy Alliance, the restoration of Poland, the reaction from 1820 inward ?
What is the substance of the charge brought in these criticisms? It is a charge brought against an historical personage standing at the highest >ossible pinnacle of human power, as it were, in the focus where all the ays of history concentrated their blinding light upon him; a personage ubjected to the strongest influences of intrigue, deceit, flattery, and self-- leception, inseparable from power; a personage who felt himself at every noment of his life responsible for all that was being done in Europe; md a personage, not an invented character, but a live creature, like any >ther man, with his own personal idiosyncrasies, and passions and mpulses towards goodness, beauty, and truth. And the charge brought against this personage is not that he was not virtuous (the historians lave no reproach to make against him on this score), but that he. living lfty years ago, had not the same views as to the good of humanity a? ;hose held to-day by a professor who has, from his youth up, been engaged in study, i.e. in reading books, listening to lectures, and making lotes of those books and those lectures in a note-book.
But even if we assume that Alexander 1., fifty years ago, was mistaken n his view of what was for the good of peoples, we can hardly help assum- ng that the historian, criticising Alexander, will, after a certain lapse of time, prove to be also incorrect in his view of what is for the good of pumanity. It is the more natural and inevitable to assume this because, watching the development of history, we see that with every year, with jvery new writer, the view of what is for the good of humanity is somewhat shifted; so that what did seem good, after ten years, is regarded as harmful, and vice versa. That is not all. We even find in history the views of contemporaries as to what was good, and what was harmful, utterly opposed to one another. Some regard the giving of a constitution to Poland, and the Holy Alliance, as highly to the credit of Alexander; while others regard the same actions as a slur on his name.
1064 WAR AND PEACE
It is impossible to say of the careers of Alexander and of Napoleoi I that they were beneficial or harmful, seeing that we cannot say whereii the benefit or harm of humanity lies. If any one dislikes the career o either, he only dislikes it from its incompatibility with his own limite( conception of what is the good of humanity. Even though I regard a: good the preservation of my father’s house in Moscow in 1812, or thi glory of the Russian army, or the flourishing of the Petersburg or sotru other university, or the independence of Poland, or the supremacy 0 Russia, or the balance of European power, or a special branch of Euro pean enlightenment—progress—yet I am bound to admit that the activity of any historical personage had, apart from such ends, other ends mon general and beyond my grasp.
But let us suppose that so-called science has the power of conciliating all contradictions, and has an invariable standard of good and bad b> which to try historical personages and events.
