Isaiah Berlin - Russian Thinkers

sparsely cultivated) field to cast serious doubt on the central theses of

these essays. I may, however, be mistaken about this; if so, I should

like to assure the reader that this is due to ignorance on my pan rather

than unshakeable confidence in the validity of my own opinions.

VII

RUSSIAN THINKERS

Indeed, the entire burden of these collected essays, so far as they can

be said to display any single tendency, is distrust of all claims to the

possession of incorrigible knowledge about issues of fact or principle

in any sphere of human behaviour.

ISAIAH BERLIN

July I977

viii

Editorial Preface

This is one of five volumes in which I have brought together, and

prepared for reissue, most of the published essays by Isaiah Berlin

which had not hitherto been made available in a collected form.1 His

many writings were scattered, often in obscure places, most were out

of print, and only half a dozen essays had previously been collected

and reissued.2 These five volumes, together with the list of his

publications which one of them (Against the Current) contains, 3 and a

new volume on j. G. Hamann, 4 have made much more of his work

readily accessible than before.

The present volume comprises ten essays on nineteenth-century

Russian literature and thought. The details of their original publication are as follows. 'Russia and I 848' appeared in the Slavonic Review 26 (I948); The Hedgehog and the Fox' first appeared, in a shorter

form, as 'Lev Tolstoy's Historical Scepticism' in Oxford Slavonic

Papers 2 (I95I), and was reprinted with additions under its present

title in I953 by Weidenfeld and Nicolson in London, and by Simon

and Schuster in New York; 'Herzen and Bakunin on Individual

Liberty' was published in Ernest j. Simmons (ed.), Continuity and

Change in Russian and Soviet Thought (Cambridge, Massachusetts,

I 9 55: Harvard University Press); the four esays collectively entitled

I This volume was first published in London and New York in 1978. The

other volumes are Concepts and Categories: Philosophical Essays (London, 197 8;

New York, 1979), Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas (London,

1979; New York, 1980), Persona/Impressions (London, 1980; New York,

198 1) and The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas

(London, 1990; New York, 1991).

z Four Essays on Liberty (London, 1969; New York, 1970) and Vico atld

Herder: Two Studies in the History of Ideas (London and New York, 1976).

Other collections have appeared only in translation.

3 Its currently most up-to-date version appears in the 1991 impression of

the Oxford University Press paperback edition.

4 The Magus of the North: J. G. Hamann and the Origins of Modern Irrationalism, edited by Henry Hardy (London, 1993; New York, 1994).

R USS IA N T H I NKERS

'A Remarkable Decade', reprinted here from the version published

as 'A Marvellous Decade' in Encounter 4 No 6 (June I955), 5 No I 1

(November 1955), 5 No 12 (December 1955) and 6 No 5 (May 1956),

originated as the Northcliffe Lectures for 19 54 (delivered at U niversity College, London), which were also broadcast later that year on the Third Programme of the BBC; 'Russian Populism' is the

introduction to Franco Venturi, Roots of Revolution (London, 1960:

Weidenfeld and Nicolson; New York, 1960: Knopf), and also

appeared in Encounter 15 No 1 (July 1960); 'Tolstoy and Enlightenment', the P.E.N. Hermon Ould Memorial Lecture for I960, was published first in Encounter I 6 No 2 (February 1961 ), and subsequently in Mightier Than The Sword (London, 1964: Macmillan);

'Fathers and Children', the Romanes Lecture for I 970, was published by the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in 1972 (reprinted with corrections, 1973), and has also appeared in the New York Review of

Books ( 1 B October, 1 and 15 November, 1973) and as the introduction to Ivan Turgenev, Fathers and Sons, translated by Rosemary Edmonds (Harmondsworth, 197 5: Penguin). I am grateful to the

publishers concerned for allowing me to reprint these essays.

'A Remarkable Decade', 'Russian Populism' and 'Tolstoy and

Enlightenment' have been left without references, as they originally

appeared. A few passages- chiefly translations- were rewritten by

the author for this volume. Otherwise, apart from necessary corrections, and the addition of missing references, the essays are reprinted essentially in their original form.

Those who know the author's work in this field will notice that two

important items are missing. The first is the introduction to an

English translation of Alexander Herzen's From the Other Shore and

The Russian People and Socialism (London, 1956; revised edition,

Oxford, 1979); the second is the introduction to Constance Garnett's

translation of Herzen's memoirs, My Past and Thoughts (London and

New York, 1968). Both of these pieces overlap to some extent with

the two essays on Herzen in this volume. The first does not appear in

any of the five volumes; the second is included in Against the Current,

where it is equally at home.1

1 Readers may like to have a list of other pieces in this area which do not

appear here. There are three radio talks: 'The Man Who Became a Myth'

(Belinsky), Listener 38 (1947); 'The Father of Russian Marxism'

X

EDI T ORIAL PREFACE

I have many debts of gratitude, and can mention only the weightiest here. First and foremost, the great bulk of the detailed editorial work on this volume was undertaken by Dr Aileen Kelly, without

whose specialist knowledge of the Russian language and of

nineteenth-century Russian culture my task would have been impossible. During an unusually busy time she devoted many hours to the search for answers to my queries, and my obligation and gratitude to her are very great. Isaiah Berlin himself was unfailingly courteous, good-humoured and informative in response both to my

persistent general advocacy of the whole project, which he regarded

throughout with considerable, and mounting, scepticism, and to my

often over-meticulous probings into points of detail. Lesley

Chamberlain gave valuable help with 'Herzen and Bakunin on

Individual Liberty'. Pat Utechin, Isaiah Berlin's secretary, was an

indispensable source of help and encouragement at all stages.

HENRY HARDY

February 1994

P OSTSCRIPT 1997

Since the above Preface was written I have edited two further volumes

of essays by Isaiah Berlin: The Sense of Reality: Studies in Ideas

and their History (London, 1996; New York, 1997), which mainly

comprises previously unpublished work; and The Proper Study of

Mankind: An Anthology of Essays, co-edited with Roger Hausheer

(London, 1997), a selection drawn from previous volumes which aims

to represent the best of Berlin's work, across its whole range.

H.H.

(Piekhanov), Listmer 56 ( 1956); and ' The Role of the Intelligentsia', Listmer

79 ( 1968). There are three contributions to Foreign Affairs on modern Russia,

which, though they do not strictly belong in this company, have many points

of contact with the essays included here: these pieces are 'Generalissimo

Stalin and the Art of Government', Foreign Affairs 30 ( 1952), and two articles

in Foreign Affairs 36 ( 1957), ' The Silence in Russian Culture' and ' The Soviet

Intelligentsia'. 'Meetings with Russian Writers in 1945 and 1956', mainly