“The Polar Star: A Pocket Book for Lovers of Russian Literature” is a literary almanac published by Kondraty Ryleyev and Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky, two participants of the Decembrist Revolt. The latter explained that the aim of the almanac was to “introduce the Russian public to its heritage, literature, and writers.” Kondraty Ryleev was responsible for the poetry section of the almanac, while Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky handled the compilation, selection, and proofreading of materials, as well as organizational matters and negotiations with government censors.

In total, three issues of “The Polar Star” were published — in 1823, 1824, and 1825. Another smaller almanac “The Little Star” was published partially and was not available for purchase. “The Polar Star” was composed of short poems and excerpts from poetry and prose. Among the texts that the editors managed to publish during the existence of the almanac, there were excerpts from “The Gypsies”, “The Robber Brothers”, and “From a Letter to Alekseyev” by Alexander Pushkin, as well as poems by Yevgeny Baratynsky and Pyotr Vyazemsky.

It was not a coincidence that Herzen had this issue of “The Polar Star”. For him, the Decembrists were moral compasses who inspired him to engage in political struggle. In his book “My Past and Thoughts”, he wrote,

When Alexander Herzen moved to London and founded the Free Russian Press publishing house, apart from the famous magazine “The Bell”, he also started publishing his own almanac under the same title, “The Polar Star”. In a letter to the French historian Jules Michelet, the writer explained,

Alexander Herzen appealed to “all freedom-loving Russians” and offered a platform for free speech on the pages of his magazine, ready to publish texts that would be censored in Russia. He wrote, “Send what you wish, and everything written in a spirit of freedom will be printed, from scientific and fact-based articles on statistics and history to novels, stories, and verse. We are even ready to print these materials for free. If you have nothing ready of your own, send forbidden verses by Pushkin, Ryleyev, Lermontov, Polezhaev, Pecherin, et al., which are making the rounds.”