2.2 Mark Vishniak

Mark Vishniak, who was trained in government law, was one of numerous highly educated Russians who joined the opposition to the monarchy. The events of 1905 pushed him into the camp of the Social Revolutionaries, an affiliation he was to maintain. However, his opposition to the Bolsheviks and the Russian Revolution of 1917 ultimately forced him into exile. As part of the Russian diaspora in Paris, where he arrived in 1919, Vishniak became a publicist and writer, helping to found and edit one of the more prominent journals there, the Sovremennye zapiski (Contemporary Notes). He authored a number of books, including a study of Lenin.³

I cannot determine precisely what made the problem of personal guilt and responsibility primary in my consciousness. I was interested in this question for a long while. All the philosophers, legal philosophers, and criminologists with whom I became acquainted touched on this issue. The social side and the sociological school in criminal law and external conditions, wherein responsibility was not an issue, interested me less. But imputation and responsibility, guilt and misfortune were internally linked with morality and law as well as a human’s biology and psychopathology. My attention was drawn to what, in pre-Freudian times, was referred to as moral insanity, i.e., the inability to distinguish right from wrong and resist amoral action. This was irrespective of whether one was conscious or not of the amorality of the deeds. A practical conclusion derives from this: philosophical speculation and jurisprudence were not enough to solve this basic problem. It was also necessary to know the nature of man, be it healthy or ill. But in order to “master” psychopathology, it was essential to take a course in medicine.

My legal studies did not take up much time or effort and I came up with the idea of combining jurisprudence with the simultaneous study of medicine in order to save time. But such a circumstance had been anticipated by the administration. The university office to which I went for the required paperwork explained that to be concurrently registered in two academic divisions was impermissible. The only solution was to continue the study of law in Moscow, and medicine – abroad. A romantic affair that had already commenced with my cousin Mania, my future wife, helped me to arrive at that decision. She had also chosen medicine as her field of education. She had no chance of entry into a Russian medical school without a medal [of academic excellence] and decided to go to Heidelberg. In three months, with my help, she was prepared for a supplemental exam in Latin. This was accomplished in approximately the same rapid-fire fashion that was used during World War II in the

United States to train officers of the army and navy in Russian, Chinese, Malaysian and other languages.

Despite qualms, my parents nevertheless agreed to send me abroad and finance my trip. I was given only one mandatory condition: the university in which I was to enroll could not be the same one in which my cousin was to study. “Draper-Spencer” instilled the belief that marriages between close relatives did not lead to any good. And mother had good reason to fear that the event, which she definitely did not wish for me, might occur. I accepted the condition without hesitation, aware that the other university could well be close to mine. Let my cousin go to Heidelberg; I would go to Freiburg, only a three-hour ride away.

In the autumn of 1903, while still a third-year student in law school in Moscow, I left for Freiburg, in Baden, to study medicine. We left together with my cousin and my friend Boris Lunts, the son of a Moscow doctor to whom my family went in the event of a serious illness. I parted with my friends in Heidelberg, not without sorrow and sadness, and continued on the same train to Freiburg. It was not difficult to find a room and get set up – the charming town lived off its university and students. I set off for the post office to register my address in case I should get letters for general delivery. The clerk immediately gave me a telegram that was already waiting. It was from Heidelberg: my cousin informed me that she was leaving for Freiburg. I was amazed, happy, and saddened. It was unclear as to what had happened. The forthcoming meeting was gladdening while the cognizance of a broken promise was troubling.

The matter was a simple one. Heidelberg’s medical school felt itself to be overburdened with female students and rejected the new entrants. My cousin had no choice other than to come to Freiburg, at least for mutual consultation as to what to do. Ultimately, it was not difficult to convince myself that a promise made under a set of totally different conditions cannot be considered binding. I kept my word honorably, but external circumstances proved stronger than I. I did not yet know the multi-leveled excuse of “rebus six stantibus” [given the current circumstances]. But I was already familiar with “force majeure,” and that it was imperative to distinguish between “form” and “content” or essence.

It was much harder to convince my parents, to make them understand and believe everything had happened in precisely this way, that it was not the result of a plan worked out in advance.⁴