In this chapter, Tolstoy talks about why he thinks many people unfairly criticize Alexander’s actions during the historical period known as the reaction. Tolstoy’s basic argument here is that the critics shouldn’t assume they could have made any better choices.
First Epilogue Chapter 1
In this chapter, Tolstoy talks about why he thinks many people unfairly criticize Alexander’s actions during the historical period known as the reaction. Tolstoy’s basic argument here is that the critics shouldn’t assume they would have made any better choices than Alexander did under the circumstances, especially since opinions about what should have been done at that time are always changing.
Summary:
In this point of the book, Tolstoy jumps ahead in time seven years from the year 1812 to the year 1819. Now, the focus of history has shifted from warfare moving across distances to stationary turmoil in the arenas of politics, law, diplomacy and treaties. Historians, he says, refer to this activity as the reaction, and they condemn any historical figures whose actions they think led more to reaction than to progress. Many historians condemn what certain political leaders of the reaction did. The chief culprit, they say, was Alexander, the same man who at the commencement of his reign they say was the chief cause of the liberal movement and the savior of Russia. Everyone today reproaches Alexander for one thing or another they believe he did wrong during this period of his reign, such as the Holy Alliance, the restoration of Poland, and the reaction of 1820 and later. It would take many pages just to list all the reproaches people now pour down upon Alexander’s head. But Tolstoy points out that, at bottom, whenever anyone reproaches Alexander for something he did during the reaction, they are essentially just claiming that this or that action by Alexander was not the best thing for humanity in the long run. But, Tolstoy says, no one can really know any better than Alexander what would have been best for humanity in the long run. So, who can say whether any particular thing Alexander did or didn’t do so long ago will in the long run turn out to have been a good or bad thing? And history works through competing voices, after all. If it were otherwise, if some one person could always dictate exactly how everything went or what tendency would always prevail in government, this would be just as though the lives of those in the opposition had never existed.
quote from the chapter:
But even if we assume that fifty years ago Alexander I was mistaken in his view of what was good for the people, we must inevitably assume that the historian who judges Alexander will also after the lapse of some time turn out to be mistaken in his view of what is good for humanity. This assumption is all the more natural and inevitable because, watching the movement of history, we see that every year and with each new writer, opinion as to what is good for mankind changes; so that what once seemed good, ten years later seems bad, and vice versa. And what is more, we find at one and the same time quite contradictory views as to what is bad and what is good in history: some people regard giving a constitution to Poland and forming the Holy Alliance as praiseworthy in Alexander, while others regard it as blameworthy.
The activity of Alexander or of Napoleon cannot be called useful or harmful, for it is impossible to say for what it was useful or harmful. If that activity displeases somebody, this is only because it does not agree with his limited understanding of what is good.
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