Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow

Radishchev (1749–1802) crafts a masterly fictional travelogue, combining philosophy, poetry, and the political ideals of the Enlightenment in an unequivocal condemnation of serfdom, censorship, and corruption. The unnamed narrator travels via horse-drawn carriage between St. Petersburg and Moscow, making many stops at post stations and villages. In vignettes named after these points (“Novgorod,” “Bronnitsy,” “Zaitsovo”), he records the scenery, overheard conversations, and encounters with friends and strangers. Some of the book’s most heartrending accounts include, in “Gorodnya,” that of a serf educated along with his master’s son who is then denigrated and regularly beaten on orders from the son’s new wife, and a man trapped by his escalating debts in” Spasskaya Polest,” which lead to the premature deaths of his wife and newborn child. The travelogue also includes sketches like the story of the town of Valdai, where unmarried women sell pretzels and seduce travelers. Various, engaging, and deeply affecting, the book was a source of trouble for the nobleman Radishchev, who despite an accomplished career as a civil servant was banished to Siberia by Catherine the Great in 1790 for writing this protorevolutionary work, which was suppressed in Russia until the early 20th century. Kahn and Reyfman’s attentive new translation is a boon for English-language readers. (Nov.)