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Page 48
G�nzburg was different from most of his contemporaries in another
respect. He was a voluminous writer, but only a few of his books and
essays bear on what we now call Jewish science. Zunz, Geiger, and Jost,
seeing that Judaism was gradually losing its hold upon their Jewish
countrymen, resorted to exploring and narrating, in German, the
wonderful story of their race, in the hope of renewing its ebbing
strength. Levinsohn, living amid a different environment, deemed it best
to convince his fellow-Jews that secular knowledge was necessary, and
religion sanctioned their pursuit thereof. G�nzburg, the man of letters,
determined to teach through the vehicle of Hebrew the true and the
beautiful wherever he found it. He felt called upon to reveal to his
brethren the grandeur of the world beyond the dingy ghetto, to tell them
the stories not contained in the Midrash, _Josippon_, or the biographies
of rabbis and zaddikim. He translated Campe's _Discovery of the New
World_, compiled a history of ancient civilization, and narrated the
epochal event of the nineteenth century, the conflict between Russia and
France. He taught his fellow-Jews to think correctly and logically, to
clothe their thoughts in beautiful expressions, and revealed his
innermost being to them in his autobiography, _Abi'ezer_. As a writer he
appears neither erudite nor profound. We cannot apply to his works what
we may safely say of Elijah Vilna's and Levinsohn's, that "there is
solid metal enough in them to fit out whole circulating libraries, were
it beaten into the usual filigree." But he was elegant, cultured,
intelligent, honorable; one who joined a feeling heart to a love for
art; a Moses who struck from the rock of the Hebrew tongue refreshing
streams for those thirsting for knowledge; a most amiable personality,
and an altogether unusual character during the century-long struggle
between light and darkness in the Jewry of Russia.
[Illustration: PEREZ BEN MOSHEH SMOLENSKIN, 1842-1885]
(Notes, pp. 318-322.)
CHAPTER V
RUSSIFICATION, REFORMATION, AND ASSIMILATION
1856-1881
The year 1856 will always be remembered as the _annus mirabilis_ in the
history of Russia. It marked at once the cessation of the Crimean war
and the accession of the most liberal and benevolent monarch Russia ever
had. On January 16, the heir apparent signified his consent to accept
Austrian intervention, which resulted in the Treaty of Paris (March 30),
granting the Powers involved "peace with honor"; and in August, in the
Cathedral of the Assumption at Moscow, amidst unprecedented rejoicing,
the czarevich placed the imperial crown upon his head. From that time
reform followed reform. The condition of the soldiers, who had virtually
been slaves under Nicholas I, was greatly improved, and a proclamation
was issued for the emancipation of the peasants, slaves not for a
limited time only, but for life and from generation to generation. It
cost the United States five years of fratricidal agony, a billion of
dollars, and about half a million of lives, to liberate five or six
millions of negroes; Russia, in one memorable day (February 19, 1861),
liberated nearly twenty-two millions of muzhiks (peasants), and gave
them full freedom, by a mere stroke of the pen of the "tsar
osvobodityel," the Liberator Czar, Alexander II (1856-1881).
Other innovations, of less magnitude but nevertheless of far-reaching
importance, were introduced later. Capital punishment, which still
disgraces human justice in more enlightened states, was unconditionally
abolished; the number of offences amenable to corporal punishment was
gradually reduced, until, on April 29, 1863, all the horrors of the
gauntlet, the spur, the lash, the cat, and the brand, were consigned to
eternal oblivion. The barbarous system of the judiciary was replaced by
one that could render justice "speedy, righteous, merciful, and
equitable." Railway communication, postal and telegraph service, police
protection, the improvement of the existing universities, the opening of
many new primary schools, and the introduction of compulsory school
attendance, told speedily on the intellectual development of the people.
In the words of Shumakr, Russia experienced "a complete inward revival."
Old customs seemed to disappear, all things were become new. New life,
new hope, new aspirations throbbed in the hearts of the subjects of the
gigantic empire, and better times were knocking at their doors. _Joli
tout le monde, le diable est mort!_
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