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If you ever plan to write about Russian cultural figures in London, get in line behind Sarah J. Young. She’s already written about it, no matter what you want to say. And there is also this guarantee: She has done it really well.
Today I pick on a topic she has fingerprints all over: the plaque honoring a location where Alexander Herzen ran his Free Russian Press for the years 1854 to 1856. You see, when the plaque was unveiled on June 26, 2013, at 61 Judd Place, Young was invited to aid in the ceremony. She had done much of the research leading to the choice of this address as the place where a plaque would be hung. It was a no-brainer (the choice, not the research) because previous and subsequent locations were no longer of use – they had long been torn down. Necessary fact: what is now 61 Judd Place was 82 Judd Place when the Free Press was there.
The Free Russian Press began its work, according to Russky London, “in the spring of 1853 on the premises of the already established Polish Democratic Press at 38 Regent Square (since demolished). In December 1856 the press moved to 2 Judd Street, directly opposite number 61 (since demolished and now the site of a dog-walking area).” Sarah J. Young, as always, offers clarification here in her exhaustive blog about the Press: she tells us that Herzen moved the Press from Regent Square to Judd St. in December 1854. Wikipedia misses the first address at Regent Square, but provides all the other various locations from which the Press worked in its London years of 1853-1865.
- Judd Street, 82; Brunswick Square
- Judd Street, 2; Brunswick Square
- Thornhill Place, 5; Caledonian Road
- Thornhill Place, 136 and 138; Caledonian Road
- Elmfield House, Teddington, Middlesex
- Jessamine Cottage, New Hampton, Middlesex
Herzen ultimately moved the Press to Geneva in April 1865, but turned the workings of it over to a colleague. It closed in August 1867, having spent time at two Geneva locations: Pre l’Eveque, 40, and Place Bel-Air, Ancient Hotel des Postes.
The early years at the location shown here were important for Herzen and the Free Press. It was here in August 1855 that he began publishing his famous Polyarnaya Zvezda (The Polar Star) periodical. The second issue came out only in May 1856. The Press remained at the first Judd St. location until the middle of December, 1856.
During the two years at this address, Herzen was busy attempting to engage Russians all over the world in contributing to his brainchild. He understood that if only London-based Russians, or even, European-based Russians, were to support and contribute to his press, it would remain a marginal enterprise. His first two major undertakings after moving from this location to the one across the street were the ones that would fix his Press in history. In July 1856 he began publishing Voices from Russia, which did bring him the contributions he needed from his former homeland. A year later, on June 22, 1857, on the fourth anniversary of the founding of the Press, he began publishing The Bell (Kolokol), which would become one of the most important political publications in Russian history. Here is how Sarah J. Young describes it in one of her blogs:
“Thousands of copies were smuggled in to Russia through Herzen’s various contacts, and it was read not only by the intelligentsia or the radicals, but by everybody in authority, including the Tsar. In Herzen’s wonderful memoirs My Past and Thoughts, we read, ‘”The Bell is an authority,”‘ I was told in London in 1859 by, horrible dictu, Katkov’, referring to the arch-conservative journalist and publisher of Dostoevsky’s novels. If such a notoriously reactionary figure was prepared to admit this, it can only mean that The Bell was indeed highly significant.”
More proof of the importance of Herzen’s work is to be found at the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg. They have a collection called the Free Russian Press, which includes much more than just publications issued by Herzen. But it is telling that they would use Herzen’s Press as the name for their entire collection of political, news and banned publications from the 19th and early 20th centuries. Here is the library’s own description of its holdings:
“The National Library possesses one of Russia’s most complete collections of 15,000 banned and illegal publications which were produced both at home and abroad between 1853 and 1917. They were originally stored in the holdings of the Secret Department which existed in the Library until the 1917 Revolution. Grouped together under the title ‘The Free Russian Press,’ this collection contains many books, newspapers and periodicals which have already become bibliographical rarities. Among them are such noted publications as Alexander Herzen’s Kolokol (The Bell) of the 1850s-60s and Lenin’s Iskra (The Spark) of 1900-03, as well as leaflets which caused a stir in their time…”
Young writes about the activities of the Press when it was at its first address: “It was at this address that the work of the Free Russian Press really took off. In 1855, Herzen published the first volume of Poliarnaia zvezda [Polar Star]. Much of the first volume was written by Herzen himself, although there were also letters by Michelet, Proudhon, Mazzini, and Hugo, and the correspondence between Belinsky and Gogol. In the following year, in addition to the second volume of Poliarnaia zvezda, the first volume of the collection Golosa iz Rossii [Voices from Russia], which featured articles by Konstantin Kavelin and Boris Chicherin, was also published at the same address…”
In addition to journalism, the Free Russian Press published numerous works banned in Russia, including poetry by Alexander Pushkin, Mikhail Lermontov and others. It reprinted Alexander Radishchev’s seminal Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow.
Edith W. Clowes writes about the importance of Herzen and his publishing activities in an article in Encyclopedia of the Essay. First she quotes Herzen’s own description of what he intended The Bell to do: “The Bell will resound with whatever touches it – the absurd decree, or the senseless persecution of Old Believers, grandee’s thievery or the ignorance of the Senate. The comic and the criminal, the malicious and the crude – all will play to the sound of The Bell.” Clowes then adds: “Here for the first time in Russian history was a consistent, long-term assault on the internal politics of the tsarist regime. It is not by chance that Herzen became known as a ‘second government.’”
For the record, Françoise Kunka published a book in 2011 entitled Alexander Herzen and the Free Russian Press in London: 1852 to 1866.
Russian Culture in Landmarks 