From the Other Shore

XX

we were deformed under a hopeless oppression, and we survived as best we could. But is this not enough? Is it not time to untie our hands and speech for action, for an example; is it not time to awaken the slumbering consciousness of the people? And can one truly awaken them by whispering and through distant hints, when a shout and a direct word are barely audible? Open, frank actions are necessary; December 14th The Decembrist revolt of 1825 shook all of young Rus' so powerfully because it took place on Senate Square original: "Исакіевской площади"; the text refers to the Decembrist uprising. Now, not only the square, but the book and the lecture hall—everything has become impossible in Russia. What remains is personal labor in silence, or a personal protest from afar.

I remain here not only because it is repulsive to me, upon crossing the border, to put on shackles again; but in order to work. One can live with folded arms anywhere; here, I have no other task but our task.

Whoever has carried a single thought in his breast for more than twenty years, whoever has suffered for it and lived by it, wandered through prisons and exiles, whoever has acquired the best moments of life and the brightest encounters through it, will not abandon it. He will not make it dependent upon external necessity or a geographical degree of latitude and longitude. Quite the contrary, I am more useful here; I am your uncensored speech, your free organ, your accidental representative. All of this seems new and strange only to us,