perceptible.

But in the period of peace following upon the close of the Crimean
War the soul of the Russian people was deeply stirred by the spirit of
Progress, and hope rose high on the accession of Alexander II.

The emancipation of the serfs was only one among a number of projected
reforms which engaged men's minds. The national conscience awoke and
echoed the cry of the exiled patriot Herzen, "Now or never!" Educational
enterprise was aroused, and some forty schools for peasant children
were started on the model of that opened by Tolstoy at Yasnaya Polyana
(1861). The literary world throbbed with new life, and a brilliant
company of young writers came to the surface, counting among them names
of European celebrity, such as Dostoevsky, Nekrassov, and Saltykov.
Unhappily the reign of Progress was short. The bureaucratic circle
hemming in the Czar took alarm, and made haste to secure their
ascendancy by fresh measures of oppression. Many schools were closed,
including that of Tolstoy, and the nascent liberty of the Press was
stifled by the most rigid censorship.

In this lamentable manner the history of Russia's internal misrule
and disorder has continued to repeat itself for the last sixty
years, revolving in the same vicious circle of fierce repression and
persecution and utter disregard of the rights of individuals, followed
by fierce reprisals on the part of the persecuted; the voice of protest
no sooner raised than silenced in a prison cell or among Siberian
snow-fields, yet rising again and again with inextinguishable
reiteration; appeals for political freedom, for constitutional
government, for better systems and wider dissemination of education, for
liberty of the Press, and for an enlightened treatment of the masses,