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During the months of May and June, 1890, he succeeded under great difficulties to collect for his protest sixty-six signatures in Moscow and over fifty signatures in St. Petersburg, including those of Leo Tolstoi, Vladimir Korolenko, and other literary celebrities. Despite its mild tone, the protest which had been framed by Solovyov was barred from publication by the Russian censor.
Vladimir Solovyov, "the Christian philosopher," a friend of the Jewish people, who had familiarized himself thoroughly with its history and literature, conceived the idea of issuing a public protest against the anti-Semitic movement in the "Russian Press," to be signed by the most prominent Russian writers and other well-known men.
Tolstoy could not help getting soaked through with hatred for medicine while he was writing his thick novel.... MOSCOW, November 18, 1891. ... I have read your letter about the influenza and Solovyov. I was unexpectedly aware of a dash of cruelty in it.
So you publicly expatiate on your sinfulness from pique of Solovyov, who has the impudence to call himself orthodox. But does a word like orthodoxy, Judaism, or Catholicism contain any implication of exceptional personal merit or virtue? To my thinking everybody is bound to call himself orthodox if he has that word inscribed on his passport.
"He knows a Tula cardsharper, but ask him whether he knows Semiradsky, Tchaykovsky, or Solovyov the philosopher he'll shake his head.... It swinish!" Three minutes passed in silence. "Allow me in my turn to ask you a question," said the vis-a-vis timidly, clearing his throat. "Do you know the name of Pushkov?" "Pushkov? H'm! Pushkov.... No, I don't know it!"
Solovyov's teacher of Jewish literature, F. Goetz, was publishing an apology of Judaism under the title "A Word from the Prisoner at the Bar." Solovyov wrote a preface to this little volume, and turned over to its author for publication the letters of Tolstoi and Korolenko in the defence of the Jews.
Solovyov addressed an impassioned appeal to Alexander III., but received through one of the Ministers the impressive advice to refrain from raising a cry on behalf of the Jews, under pain of administrative penalties. In these circumstances, the plan of a public protest had to be abandoned. Instead, the following device was resorted to as a makeshift.
Whether you believe or not, whether you are a prince of this world or an exile in penal servitude, you are, for practical purposes, orthodox. And Solovyov made no sort of pretension when he said he was no Jew or Chaldean but orthodox....
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