Isaiah Berlin - Russian Thinkers

of Igor, the snake which bit Oleg-what is all this but old wives'

tales? Who wants to know that Ivan's second marriage, to Temryuk's

daughter,, occurred on 2.1 August 1 562., whereas.his fourth, to Anna

Alekseevna Koltovskaya, oa:urr� in 1 572.

?'2

• • .

History does not reveal causes; it presents only a blank succession

of unexplained events. 'Everything is forced into a standard mould

invented by the historians: Tsar Ivan the Terrible, on whom Professor

Ivanov is lecturing at the moment, after 1 560 suddenly becomes

transformed from a wise and virtuous man into a mad and cruel

tyrant. How? Why? -You mustn't even ask . . . '1 And half a century

later, in 1 908, he declares to Gusev: 'History would be an excellent

thing if only it were true.'' The proposition that history could (and

should) be made scientific is a commonplace in the nineteenth century;

but the number of those who interpreted the term 'science' as meaning

1 ibid.

• V. N. Nazariev, 'Lyudi bylogo vremeai', L. N. TolsiiJ 11 1101/fJiflifllllliytllA

s�lfltllllilflll (Moscow, I9§ S), vol. r, p. 52.

1 ibid., pp. §2·3·

' N. N. Guaev, D11t1gDU s L. N. TolsiJIII (Moecow', 1973), p. 188.

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R U S S IAN T H I N K E R S

natural science, and then asked themselves whether history could be

transformed into a science in this specific sense, is not great. The most

uncompromising policy was that of Auguste Comte, who, following

his master, Saint-Simon, tried to turn history into sociology, with

what fantastic consequences we need not here relate. Karl Marx was

perhaps, of all thinkers, the man who took his programme most

seriously; and made the bravest, if one of the least successful, attempts

to discover general laws which govern historical evolution, conceived

on the then alluring analogy of biology and anatomy so triumphantly

transformed by Darwin's new evolutionary theories. Like Marx (of

whom at the time of writing War and Peau he apparently knew

nothing) Tolstoy saw clearly that if history was a science, it must be

possible to discover and formulate a set of true laws of history which,

in conjunction with the data of empirical observation, would make

prediction of the future (and 'retrodiction' of the past) as feasible as it

had become, say, in geology or astronomy. But he saw more clearly

than Marx and his followers that this had, in fact, not been achieved,

and said so with his usual dogmatic candour, and reinforced his thesis

with arguments designed to show that the prospect of achieving this

goal was non-existent; and clinched the matter by observing that the

fulfilment of this scientific hope would end human life as we knew it:

'if we allow that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility

of life (i.e. as a spontaneous activity involving consciousness of free

will] is destroyed'.1 But what oppressed Tolstoy was not merely the

'unscientific' nature of history-that no matter how scrupulous the

technique of historical research might be, no dependable laws could

be discovered of the kind required even by the most undeveloped

natural sciences-but he further thought that he could not justify to

himself the apparently arbitrary selection of material, and the no less

arbitrary distribvtion of emphasis, to which all historical writing seemed

to be doomed. He complains that while the factors which determine

the life of mankind are very various, historians select from them only

some single aspect, say the political or the ..:conomic, and represent

it as primary, as the efficient cause of social change; but then, what of

religion, what of 'spiritual' factors, and the many other aspects-a

literally countless multiplicity-with which all events are endowed?

How can we escape the conclusion that the histories which exist

represent what Tolstoy declares to be 'perhaps only o·OOI per cent of

1 Wtlr tl11d Pttlct, epilogue, part 1, chapter 1 .

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T H E H E D G E H O G AND T H E F O X

the elements which actually constitute the real history of peoples'?

History, as it is normally written, usually represents 'political' - public

-events as the most important, while spiritual-'inner'-events are

largely forgotten; yet prima facie it is they-the 'inner' events-that

are the most real, the most immediate experience of human beings;

they, and only they, are what life, in the last analysis, is made of;

hence the routine political historians are talking shallow nonsense.

Throughout the 5os Tolstoy was obsessed by the desire to write

a historical novel, one of his principal aims being to contrast the 'real'

texture of life, both of individuals and communities, with the 'unreal'

picture presented by historians. Again and again in the pages of War

and Peace we get a sharp juxtaposition of 'reality' -what 'really'

occurred-with the distorting medium through which it will later be

presented in the official accounts offered to the public, and indeed be

recollected by the actors themselves-the original memories having

now been touched up by their own treacherous (inevitably treacherous

because automatically rationalising and formalising) minds. Tolstoy is

perpetually placing the heroes of War and Peace in situations where

this becomes particularly evident.

Nikolay Rostov at the battle of Austerlitz sees the great soldier,

Prince Bagration, riding up with his suite towards the village of

Schongraben, whence the enemy is advancing; neither he nor his

staff, nor the officers who gallop up to him with messages, nor anyone

else is, or can be, aware of what exactly is happening, nor where, nor

why; nor is the chaos of the battle in any way made dearer either in

fact or in the minds of the Russian officers by the appearance of

Bagration. Nevertheless his arrival puts heart into his subordinates;

his courage, his calm, his mere presence create the illusion of which

he is himself the first victim, namely, that what is happening is somehow connected with his skill, his plans, that it is his authority that is in some way directing the course of the battle; and this, in its turn,

has a marked effect on the general morale all round him. The dispatches

which will duly be written later will inevitably ascribe every act and

event on the Russian side to him and his dispositions; the credit or

discredit, the victory or the defeat, will belong to him, although it is

clear to everyone that he will have had less to do with the conduct

and outcome of the battle than the humble, unknown soldiers who

do at least perform whatever actual fighting is done, i.e. shoot at each

other, wound, kill, advance, retreat, and so on.

Prince Andrey, too, knows this, most dearly at Borodino, where

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h e i s mortally wounded. H e begins to understand the truth earlier,

during the period when he is making efforts to meet the 'important'

persons who seem to be guiding the destinies of Russia; he then

gradually becomes convinced that Alexander's principal adviser, the

famous reformer Speransky, and his friends, and indeed Alexander

himself, are systematically deluding themselves when they suppose

their activities, their words, memoranda, rescripts, resolutions, laws

etc. to be the motive factors which cause historical change and determine the destinies of men and nations; whereas in fact they are nothing: only so much self-important milling ia the void. And so