On Yury Samarin

And the steadfast men of conviction are passing away. Yury Samarin, a man of immense talent and unshakeable convictions, a man who did most useful work, has died. There are people who command the respect of everyone, even of those who do not agree with their convictions. The New Times printed a very characteristic story about him. Not that long ago, at the end of February, while passing through St. Petersburg, Samarin read the article by Prince Vasilchikov, "The Black Soil Lands and Their Future," in the February issue of Notes of the Fatherland. This article made such an impression on him that he did not sleep the whole night: "It's a very fine and true article," Samarin said to a friend the next morning. "I read it yesterday evening, and it made such an impression on me that I could not get to sleep. All night long I kept seeing a terrible picture of the arid, treeless wasteland into which our central black soil region is being transformed because of continuous and unhindered deforestation."

"Are there many among us who lose sleep worrying about their motherland?" New Times adds. I think that we still will find some, and, who knows, perhaps now, judging by our alarming situation, there will be even more of them than before. We have always had enough worriers, in every sense imaginable, and we are certainly not asleep, as some would have it. The point, however, is not that we have worriers; it lies in the manner in which they think, and in Yury Samarin we lost a steadfast and deep thinker; that is a loss indeed. The old forces are departing, and we are still too bedazzled by the new ones, the people of the future, to make out what they are...

Dostoevsky tribute to Samarin