Alexander Herzen

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The Russian author and political agitator Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870) developed a socialist philosophy that was the ideological basis for much of the revolutionary activity in Russia.

Aleksandr Herzen, whose real surname was Yakovlev, was born on March 25, 1812, in Moscow. He was the illegitimate son of a wealthy Moscow aristocrat, Ivan Alexeevich Yakovlev, and a German woman of humble birth. Herzen was 13 when the Decembrist rising took place, and he was present at the thanksgiving service in the Kremlin after the hangings. The scene made a lasting impression on him. His foreign tutors exposed him to radical ideas, and in his early teens he dedicated himself to the fight for freedom. In 1829 Herzen entered the University of Moscow to study natural sciences and became the leader of a small group of like-minded students. The news of the fighting on the barricades in Paris in July 1830 and the November rebellion in Warsaw profoundly moved them.

Influence of Saint-Simon

During his university years Herzen and his friends discovered the writings of the Comte de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier. Socialist teachings were just beginning to take root in Russia. What impressed Herzen most was Saint-Simon's vision of mankind totally regenerated by a new Christianity, a faith that exalted both the individual and the community. He was fascinated by Saint-Simon's doctrines that denounced the failings of the existing order and promised to stop the exploitation of man by man. He was somewhat repelled by Saint-Simon's emphasis on the role of government and was inclined to accept Fourier's plan for phalansteries that relied on private initiative and the free cooperation of the workers. The French Revolution, the Polish uprising, and the teachings of Saint-Simon made him feel that the time was ripe for change.

Arrest and Deportation

Herzen completed his studies in 1833, and his circle broke up the following year, when he and his lifelong friend Nikolai Ogarev were arrested. The charge against them was that they sang songs containing "vile and ill-intentioned expressions against the oath of allegiance to the monarch." The official investigators considered Herzen to be "a bold free thinker, very dangerous to society." Herzen and Ogarev were suspected of having founded a secret organization aiming to overthrow the existing order through the propagation of revolutionary ideas permeated with Saint-Simon's pernicious doctrine. The two friends were deported to the provinces, where Herzen remained until 1842.

Toward the end of his confinement and afterward Herzen studied the works of G. W. F. Hegel. He perceived in the Hegelian dialectical conception of history a sanction for political and social change. If, as Hegal maintained, everything real is rational, Herzen then thought that rebellion against the order of things grown oppressive is also justified by reason. Herzen concluded that the "philosophy of Hegel is the algebra of revolution."

Protagonist of Westernism

Moscow was the Slavophile center, and Herzen participated in the endless disputations that raged in the literary salons there. He found Slavophile theories extremely dangerous, seeing in them "fresh oil for anointing the Czar, new claims laid upon thought." By 1845 the relations between the Slavophiles and the Westerners were severed. Nevertheless, Herzen retained a certain predilection for some ideas of the Slavophiles. He shared the Slavophiles' partiality for everything Russian and their faith in the common people, and he was impressed by the Slavophile emphasis on the collectivist spirit of the Russian folk, as it was embodied in the obshchina (village commune).

Travel Abroad

Herzen went abroad with his family in 1847 to escape the suffocating atmosphere of despotism of Nicholas I. He never returned to Russia. His first experience with life in western Europe was disheartening. Herzen discovered that France was dominated by the bourgeoisie, the segment of the population that had appropriated all the gains of the Revolution. He thought the bourgeoisie had all the vices of the nobleman and the plebeian and none of the virtues, and he rarely wavered in his dislike of the European middle class.

As Herzen's disillusionment with the West deepened, his country appeared to him in a different light. He came to believe that the Slavophiles were right: unlike effete Europe, Russia was full of vigor, self-confidence, and courage. Like most Slavs, Russians "belonged to geography, rather than to history." Above all, Russia possessed the village commune, "the life-giving principle of the Russian people." Herzen argued that the commune was in effect the seed of a socialist society because of its tradition of equality, collective ownership of land, and communal self-government. The Russian muzhik (peasant) was the man of destiny. Since the Russian muzhik's whole existence was keyed to a collective way of life, Russia, or rather Slavdom, was in a position to assure the triumph of socialism. Taking advantage of Russian backwardness and European experience, Russia might indeed bypass capitalism and middle-class culture on its way to socialism.

In 1852 Herzen arrived in London. He was a bereaved and heartbroken man; one of his small sons and his mother had been drowned, and his wife had died in childbirth afterward. He desperately needed work in which he could submerge himself, and he used a portion of his considerable inheritance to set up the Free Russian Press in 1853.

The first pages produced were an appeal to the gentry to take the initiative in liberating the serfs. Otherwise, Herzen held that the serfs would be emancipated by the Czar, strengthening his despotism, or else abolition would come as the result of the popular uprising. He went on to tell the landlords that Russia was on the eve of an overturn, which would be close to the heart of the people living out their lives within the commune. Herzen concluded, "Russia will have its rendezvous with revolution in socialism."

The "Bell"

On July 1, 1857, Herzen with Ogarev's help launched Kolokol (the Bell), first as a monthly, then as a biweekly. The Bell summoned the living to bury the past and work for the glorious future. It spoke for freedom and against oppression, for reason and against prejudice, for science and against fanaticism, for progressive peoples and against backward governments. Specifically, the Bell was dedicated to the "liberation of Russia."

Since Herzen had the privilege of freedom from censorship, his office at the Bell was flooded with communications from Russia, and there was a constant stream of Russian visitors. With their help and that of scores of correspondents scattered through Russia, the Bell conducted a most successful muckraking campaign. It cited particulars and named names. Minutes of secret sessions of the highest bodies appeared in its columns. The journal was read by all literate Russia. Fear of exposure in the Bell became a deterrent to administrative corruption, and there was talk in high government places of buying Herzen off, perhaps with an important post.

After the failure of the Polish rebellion of 1863 Herzen continued to berate the administration and to preach "Russian socialism," stemming from the muzhik's way of life and reaching out for that "economic justice" which is a universal goal sanctioned by science. But the Bell was now reduced in readership and influence. Herzen antagonized the many who had drifted to the right, as well as the few who had moved to the left. In 1868 the Bell was silenced for good, and on Jan. 9, 1870, Aleksandr Herzen, a crusading journalist possessed of a powerful pen, died in Paris.

Further Reading

Herzen's My Past and Thoughts (trans., 6 vols., 1924-1927), is a classic autobiography and an unsurpassed source of information and insight into the life of the Russian intelligentsia in the reign of Nicholas I. Martin E. Malia, Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism, 1812-1855 (1961), is a biographical study and an examination of the western European intellectual sources of Herzen's thought. Recommended for general historical background is Thomas G. Masaryk, The Spirit of Russia: Studies in History, Literature, and Philosophy, translated from the German by Eden and Cedar Paul (2 vols., 1919; 2d ed. 1955), a comprehensive survey of Russian spiritual culture that is significant for exploration of values of Russian culture. Franco Venturi, Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth Century Russia, introduction by Isaiah Berlin (trans. 1960), is focused upon a single aspect of the development of 19th-century Russian thought. The treatment begins with Herzen and ends with the assassination of Alexander II.

Additional Sources

Acton, Edward, Alexander Herzen and the role of the intellectual revolutionary, Cambridge Eng.; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

Carr, Edward Hallett, The romantic exiles: a nineteenth-century portrait gallery, New York: Octagon Books, 1975; Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1981.

Herzen, Alexander, Childhood, youth, and exile: parts I and II of My past and thoughts, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.

Herzen, Alexander, Letters from France and Italy, 1847-1851, Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1995.

Herzen, Alexander, The memoirs of Alexander Herzen, parts I and I, New York: Russell & Russell, 1967; Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976.

Herzen, Alexander, My past and thoughts: the memoirs of Alexander Herzen, New York: Knopf; distributed by Random House, 1973; New York, Vintage Books 1974, 1973.

Partridge, Monica, Alexander Herzen, 1812-1870, Paris: Unesco, 1984.

Zimmerman, Judith E., Midpassage: Alexander Herzen and European revolution, 1847-1852, Pittsburgh, Pa.: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989.

Herzen, Alexander Ivanovich (1812-70) Russian writer and social philosopher, who lived in exile in Europe from 1847. Herzen was an early fugitive from Hegelianism, expressing antipathy to all teleological and future-orientated philosophies of society, and, anticipating Dostoievsky, stressing the contingent and muddled human mess that gives them their seductive hold. A revolutionary and ally of Proudhon and Bakunin he published a radical Russian newspaper, The Bell, from his base in London. His translated works include My Past and Thoughts (1866, trs. 1979) and From the Other Shore (1850, trs. 1956).

(1812 - 1870), dissident political thinker and writer, founder of Russian populism.

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen was born in Moscow, the illegitimate son of a Russian aristocrat and his German-born mistress. His family name, derived from the German herz ("heart"), was given to him by his father. In 1825 Herzen was deeply affected by the Decembrist revolt that fueled his rejection of the Russian status quo. His early commitments were developed in the companionship he formed with a young relative, Nikolai Ogarev. In 1828 on the Vorobyevy Hills, they took a solemn oath of personal and political loyalty to each other.

While a student at Moscow University, Herzen became the center of gravity for a circle of critically-minded youth opposed to the existing social and moral order; in 1834 both Herzen and Ogarev were arrested for expressing their opinions in private. Herzen was exiled to Perm and later to Vyatka, where he worked as a clerk in the governor's office. A surprise encounter with the future tsar Alexander Nikolayevich (later Alexander II) led to his transfer to the city of Vladimir. There he found work as a journalist, and later received permission to reside in St. Petersburg. This, however, was soon followed by another period of exile that lasted until 1842. Meanwhile, Herzen's study and propagation of Hegelian philosophy became the cornerstone of his debates and intellectual alliances with radical Westernizers such as Vissarion Grigorievich Belinsky, moderates such as Timofey Nikolayevich Granovsky, and the early Slavophiles. He established himself as a prolific writer on issues such as the perils of excess specialization of knowledge, the promises and defaults of utopian socialism exemplified by Robert Owen (1771 - 1858) and Charles Fourier (1772 - 1837), the libertarian anarchism of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809 - 1865), and, most of all, the purportedly socialist promise of the Russian peasant commune. This latter subject became the centerpiece of his thought and worldview; as set forth in his key work, From the Other Shore (1847 - 1848, coinciding with the appearance of Marx's Communist Manifesto), Herzen laid out the key arguments of Russian populism, arguing that the primordial collective morality of the commune must be preserved against the inroads of capitalism, and extolling Russia's opportunity to overtake the West on the path of social progress toward a just and equitable organization of society, without having to pass through the capitalist stage. Populism, as envisioned by Herzen, was to become one of the two main currents of Russia's revolutionary thought, alongside with Marxism. Each of these philosophical strains cross-fertilized and competed with the other.

In 1847, urged by Ogarev from abroad to escape the dictatorial regime of Nicholas I, Herzen managed to overcome political obstacles to his emigration and leave Russia, as it later turned out, forever. He traveled across continental Europe, witnessed the failure of the French Revolution of 1848, and invested in a radical newspaper edited by Proudhon that was soon to be shut down. He developed a bitter critique of European capitalism, which he denounced for its Philistine depravity and wickedness. In his view, even the promise of socialism was hardly a cure for corruption of what one would call today the consumer society. This new outlook reinforced the Russo-centric element of his populism (although never reconciling him with Russian domestic oppression), and was reflected in his major writings of the period, including Letters from France and Italy, published over the period from 1847 to 1854; On the Development of Revolutionary Ideas in Russia, published in 1851; and Russian People and Socialism, published in 1851.

In 1852 Herzen moved from Nice to London, which became his home until the end of his life. He set up the first publishing house devoted to Russian political dissent, printing revolutionary leaflets, his journal Polyarnaya zvezda (Polar Star), and, finally, his pivotal periodical, Kolokol (The Bell), which he published between 1857 and 1867. This brought Herzen great fame in Russia, where the liberal atmosphere of Alexander II's Great Reforms allowed Herzen's works to be distributed, albeit illicitly, across the country. Kolokol's initial agenda advocated the emancipation of the serfs and played a major role in shaping social attitudes such that emancipation became inevitable.

Although living in London, Herzen often spoke out publicly on key issues of the day, addressing his remarks directly to Tsar Alexander II, at times positioning himself as a mediator between the authorities and the liberal and radical elements of Russian society, but identifying firmly with the latter. After 1861, however, his émigré politics were rapidly overtaken by growing radicalism within Russia, and he was increasingly treated with condescension by the younger activists as being out of touch with the new realities. The crackdown on the Polish rebellion by tsarist troops in 1863 and the ensuing conservative tilt in Russia marked the twilight of Herzen's public career. He died in Paris in 1870, and was buried in Nice. Over time he became a symbolic founding figure of Russia's democratic movement, broadly conceived to include its different and often widely divergent ideological and political traditions. In this, his reputation is similar to Pushkin's standing within Russian literature. He is best remembered for his ability to synthesize a variety of anti-authoritarian currents, from liberal and libertarian to revolutionary-socialist and Russophile populist, whose mutual contradictions were not as clearly evident in his time as they became in later years.

Among his many literary works, which range from fiction to philosophy and politics, the central place is occupied by My Past and Thoughts, which was written between 1852 and 1866. This is a personal, political, and intellectual autobiography, into which he injected a wide-ranging discussion and analysis of the major developments of his time in Russia and Europe.

Bibliography

Herzen, Alexander. (1979). The Russian People and Socialism, tr. Richard Wollheim. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Herzen, Alexander. (1989). From the Other Shore, tr. Moura Budberg. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Herzen, Alexander. (1999). My Past and Thoughts, tr. Constance Garnett. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Herzen, Alexander, and Zimmerman, Judith E. (1996). Letters from France and Italy, 1847-1851. Pitt Series in Russian and East European Studies, No 25. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.

Malia, Martin. (1961). Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism, 1812 - 1855. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Venturi Franco. (2001). Roots of Revolution, revised ed., tr. Francis Haskell. London: Phoenix Press.

Walicki, Andrzej. (1969). The Controversy over Capitalism: Studies in the Social Philosophy of the Russian Populists. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

—DMITRI GLINSKI

Quotes:

"Every man who has lived for fifty years has buried a whole world or even two; he has grown used to its disappearance and accustomed to the new scenery of another act: but suddenly the names and faces of a time long dead appear more and more often on his way, calling up series of shades and pictures kept somewhere, just in case, in the endless catacombs of the memory, making him smile or sigh, and sometimes almost weep."

"We could hardly believe that after so many ordeals, after all the trials of modern skepticism, there was still so much left in our souls to destroy."

"Education at school continues what has been done at home: it crystallizes the optical illusion, consolidates it with book learning, theoretically legitimizes the traditional trash and trains the children to know without understanding and to accept denominations for definitions. Astray in his conceptions, entangled in words, man loses the flair for truth, the taste for nature. What a powerful intellect must you possess, to be suspicious of this moral carbon dioxide and with your head swimming already, to hurl yourself out of it into the fresh air, with which, into the bargain, everyone round is trying to scare you!"

"It is possible to lead astray an entire generation, to strike it blind, to drive it insane, to direct it towards a false goal. Napoleon proved this."

"People who have realized that this is a dream imagine that it is easy to wake up, and are angry with those who continue sleeping, not considering that the whole world that environs them does not permit them to wake. Life proceeds as a series of optical illusions, artificial needs and imaginary sensations."

"Liberalism, austere in political trifles, has learned ever more artfully to unite a constant protest against the government with a constant submission to it."

See more famous quotes by Alexander Herzen

"Herzen" redirects here. For the university, see Herzen University

Alexander Herzen

Western Philosophers 19th century philosophy
Alexander Herzen in 1867
Full name	Alexander Herzen
Born	April 6, 1812 Moscow, Russia
Died	January 21, 1870 Paris, France
School/tradition	Agrarian Collectivism, co-operative
Main interests	Russian Politics, Economics, class struggle
Notable ideas	Agrarianism, Collectivism, Populism, Socialism
Influenced by Proudhon, Hegel, Rousseau
Influenced Lenin, Trotsky, Mao, Guevara, Sartre, Berlin, Frankfurt School

Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen (Алекса́ндр Ива́нович Ге́рцен) (April 6 [O.S. 25 March] 1812 — January 21 [O.S. 9 January] 1870) was a Russian pro-Western writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism", and one of the main fathers of agrarian populism (being an ideological ancestor of the Narodniki, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trudoviks and the agrarian American Populist Party). He is held responsible for creating a political climate leading to the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. His autobiography My Past and Thoughts, written with grace, energy, and ease, is often considered the best specimen of that genre in Russian literature.

Contents 1 Life 2 Writings 3 Free Russian Press 4 British Exile 1852 - 1864 5 Views of Russian Radicals and Liberals on Herzen 6 Influence in the 19th and 20th century 7 Works 8 Notes 9 See also 10 External links

Life

Herzen was an illegitimate child of a rich Russian landowner, Ivan Yakovlev, by a young German Protestant woman, Henriette Wilhelmina Luisa Haag from Stuttgart, who gave her son the German surname stemming from the word Herz, i.e., heart. He was born in Moscow shortly before Napoleon's invasion of Russia and brief occupation of the city. His father, after a personal interview with Napoleon, was allowed to leave Moscow after agreeing to bear a letter from the French to the Russian emperor in St. Petersburg. His family accompanied him to the Russian lines.

A year later the family returned to Moscow, remaining there after Herzen completed his studies at Moscow University, until 1834, when Herzen was arrested and tried on charges of having attended a festival during which verses by Sokolovsky that were uncomplimentary to the tsar, were sung. He was found guilty, and in 1835 banished to Vyatka, now Kirov, in north-eastern Russia. He remained there until the tsar's son, Alexander (later to become Alexander II) visited the city, accompanied by the poet Zhukovsky; Herzen was allowed to leave Vyatka for Vladimir, where he was appointed editor of the city's official gazette.

In 1840 he returned to Moscow, where he met literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, who was strongly influenced by him. He then obtained a post in the ministry of the interior at St Petersburg; but as a consequence of complaining about a death caused by a police officer, was sent to Novgorod, where he was a state councillor until 1842. In 1846 his father died, leaving him a large amount of property. In 1847 he eloped with Natalya Zakharina (Letters from France and Italy, 1847-1851), his cousin, secretly marrying her. She accompanied his emigration abroad in 1847, never returning to Russia. She bore him four children, before succumbing to tuberculosis in 1852 (Letters from France and Italy, 1847-1851). Herzen was eventually joined in France by his lifelong friend Nikolay Ogarev. By then Natalya was in the final stages of tuberculosis, and soon died. Ogarev was in poor health, having suffered a number of strokes. Herzen began an affair with Ogarev's common-law wife Natalia Tuchkova, the daughter of the general Tuchkov (the hero of the War of 1812). Tuchkova bore Herzen 3 more children. His assets were frozen because of his emigration, however Baron Rothschild with whom his family had business relationship, negotiated the release of Herzen's assets which were nominally transferred to Rothschild.

From Italy, on hearing of the revolution of 1848, he hastened to Paris, and then to Switzerland. He supported the revolutions of 1848, but was bitterly disillusioned with European socialist movements after their failure. In 1852 he left Geneva for London, where he settled for many years. He promoted socialism and individualism, arguing that the full flowering of the individual could best be realized in a socialist order. In 1864 he returned to Geneva, and after some time went to Paris, where he died on the 21st of January 1870 of tuberculosis complications.

Writings

His literary career began in 1842 with the publication of an essay, in Russian, on Dilettantism in Science, under the pseudonym of Iskander, the Turkish form of his Christian name. His second work, also in Russian, was his Letters on the Study of Nature (1845-46). In 1847 appeared his novel Kto Vinovat? (Who is to blame?), and about the same time were published in Russian periodicals the stories which were afterwards collected and printed in London in 1854, under the title of Prervannye Razskazy (Interrupted Tales). In 1850 two works appeared, translated from the Russian manuscript, From Another Shore and Lettres de France et d'Ilalie. In French appeared also his essay Du Developpement des idées revolutionnaires en Russie, and his Memoirs, which, after being printed in Russian, were translated under the title of Le Monde russe et la Revolution (3 vols., 1860-1862), and were in part translated into English as My Exile to Siberia (2 vols., 1855).

His Who is to blame? is a story about how the domestic happiness of a young tutor, who marries the unacknowledged daughter of a Russian sensualist of the old type, dull, ignorant and genial, is troubled by a Russian sensualist of the new school, intelligent, accomplished, and callous, with there being no possibility of saying who is most to blame for the tragic ending.

Alexander Herzen

Free Russian Press

It was as a political writer that Herzen gained his reputation. Having founded in London his Free Russian Press, the fortunes of which he gave an interesting account in a book published (in Russian) in 1863, he published a large number of Russian works, all against the system of government prevailing in Russia. Some of these were essays, such as his Baptized Property (1853), an attack on serfdom; others were periodical publications, the Polyarnaya Zvyezda (or Polar Star), the Kolokol (or Bell), and the Golosa iz Rossii (or Voices from Russia). The Kolokol soon obtained an immense circulation, and exercised an extraordinary influence.

As the first independent Russian political publisher Herzen began publishing The Polar Star, a review which appeared infrequently and was later joined by The Bell in 1857, a journal issued between 1857 and 1867 at Herzen's personal expense. Both publications acquired great influence via an illegal circulation in Russian territory; it was said the Emperor himself read them. Both publications gave Herzen influence in Russia reporting from a liberal perspective about the incompetence of the Tsar and the Russian bureaucracy.

Writing in 1857 Herzen became excited by the possibility of social change under Alexander II, “A new Life is unmistakably boiling up in Russia, even the government is being carried away by it”.^[1] Herzen used his skill for popular writing to expose the injustices of the ruling elite.

Herzen fought a propaganda war through the journals that had the goal of attaining individual liberty for Russians. Herzen understood the competing claims to power, and was aware of the failings of the doctrines that guided the 1848 revolutionary failures. Herzen wrote of the inhumanity of the ruling monarchies of Europe but also the excesses perpetrated by revolutionary governments. Herzen constantly fought for social change and felt his journals would contribute to the winds of change,

“The storm is approaching, it is impossible to be mistaken about that. Revolutionaries and Reactionaries are at one about that. All men's heads are going round; a weighty question, a question of life and death, lies heavy on men's chests”^[2]

Herzen refused to trust any government, and he believed in the right to make your own choices, with minimal state intervention.

For three years the Russian Free Press went on printing without selling a single copy, and scarcely being able to get a single copy introduced into Russia; so when at last a bookseller bought ten shillings worth of Baptized Property, the half-sovereign was set aside by the surprised editors in a special place of honor. But the death of the emperor Nicholas in 1855 led to a complete change. Herzen's writings, and the journals he edited, were smuggled wholesale into Russia, and their words resounded throughout the country, as well as all over Europe. Their influence grew.

1855 gave Herzen reason to be optimistic; Alexander II had ascended the throne and reforms seemed possible. The Bell broke the story that the government was considering serf emancipation in July 1857, adding that the government lacked the ability to resolve the issue. Herzen urged the Tsarist regime 'Onward, onward' towards reform in The Polar Star in 1856, yet by 1858 full serf emancipation had not been achieved. Herzen grew inpatient with reform and by May 1858 The Bell restarted its campaign to comprehensively emancipate the serfs. Once Serf emancipation was achieved in 1861 The Bell's campaign changed to 'Liberty and Land', a program that tried to achieve further social change in support of serf rights. Alexander II granted serfs their freedom, the law-courts were remodelled, trial by jury was established, and liberty was to a great extent conceded to the press. When the Polish insurrection of 1863 broke out however, and Herzen pleaded the insurgents' cause, his reputation in Russia declined.

British Exile 1852 - 1864

In 1852 Herzen arrived in Britain where he would reside until 1864. Herzen was disillusioned with the 1848 revolutions but not disillusioned with revolutionary thought. Herzen had always admired the French Revolution and broadly adopted its values. In his early writings he viewed the French Revolution as the end of history, the final stage in social development of a society based on humanism and harmony. Through his early life Herzen saw himself as a revolutionary radical called to fight the political oppression of Nicholas I of Russia. Essentially Herzen fought against Christian hypocrisy and in favour of individual self-expression.

Revolutionary failures coupled with the tragedies of his wife, children's and mother's deaths drove Herzen to Britain, as Herzen fell into emotional despair for several years. From London he found his despair had revived new energy for political and literary work to help the Russian peasantry he idolised. Herzen became critical of those 1848 revolutionaries who were “so revolted by the Reaction after 1848, so exasperated by everything European, that they hastened on to Kansas or California”.^[3] Herzen found a new desire to influence and win the appreciation of his countrymen as he established the Russian Printing Press.

In London he hired Malwida von Meysenbug to give an education to his daughters. In 1862, Malwida von Meysenbug went to Italy with Olga, his daughter. Meysenbug would later become an acquaintance of Friedrich Nietzsche, while Olga married Gabriel Monodin 1873.

Views of Russian Radicals and Liberals on Herzen

Herzen drew criticism from both liberals who were against violence and from radicals who thought Herzen was too soft.^[4] Liberals led by Chicherin and Kavelin believed individual freedom would be achieved through the rationalisation of social relations. Their 'etatist' variety of liberalism was opposed by Herzen as it supposed that Russian society would magically evolve to an ideal state based on a Hegelian view of reason. They believed the revolutionaries would merely postpone the establishment of the ideal state, while Herzen thought that, on the contrary, they were blind to historical reality. Herzen would always reject grand narratives such as a predestined position for a society to arrive at, and his writings in exile promoted small-scale communal living with the protection of individual liberty by a non-interventionist government.

Herzen aggravated Russian radicals by appearing too moderate. Radicals such as Chernyshevsky and Dobrolyubov wanted more commitment towards violent revolution from Herzen, and to withdraw from any hope in the reformist Tsar. Radicals asked Herzen to use The Bell as a mouthpiece for violent radical revolution, however Herzen rejected these requests. He argued that the Russian Radicals were not united and strong enough to seek successful political change, stating “You want happiness, I suppose? I dare say you do! Happiness has to be conquered. If you are strong, take it. If you are weak, hold your tongue”.^[5] Herzen feared the new revolutionary government would merely replace the dictatorship with another dictatorship.

The radicals describe Herzen as a liberal for not wanting immediate change, but Herzen rejects their pleas arguing for change at a pace that will ensure success. Herzen briefly joined with other Russian liberals such as Kavelin to promote the peasant 'awakening' in Russia.^[6] Herzen continued to use The Bell as an outlet to promote unity with all sections of the Russian society behind a demand for a national parliament. However his hope as acting as a uniting force were ended by the Polish revolt of 1863, when the liberal support for Tsarist revenge against the Poles ended Herzen's link with them. This breach resulted a declining readership for The Bell', which ceased publication in 1867. By his death in 1870 Herzen was almost forgotten.

Influence in the 19th and 20th century

Herzen opposed the aristocracy that ruled 19th Century Russia.^[7] A rise in populism by 1880 led to a favorable re-evaluation of his writings. Herzen sided with the agrarian collectivist model of social structure.

Alongside populism Herzen will be remembered for his rejection of corrupt government of any political persuasion, and for his support for individual rights. A Hegelian in his youth, this translated into no specific theory or single doctrine dominating his thought.^[8] Herzen came to believe the complex questions of society could not be answered and Russians must live for the moment and not a cause, essentially life is an end in itself. Herzen found greater understanding by not committing himself to an extreme but rather lived impartially enabling him to equally criticise competing ideologies. Herzen believed that grand doctrines ultimately result in enslavement, sacrifice and tyranny.

Herzen was a hero of the 20th century philosopher Isaiah Berlin. The words of Herzen that Berlin repeated most insistently were those condemning the sacrifice of human beings on the altar of abstractions, the subordination of the realities of individual happiness or unhappiness in the present to glorious dreams of the future. Berlin, like Herzen, believed that ‘the end of life is life itself’, and that each life and each age should be regarded as its own end and not as a means to some future goal.

Tolstoy declared that he had never met another man "with so rare a combination of scintillating brilliance and depth". Berlin called his autobiography "one of the great monuments to Russian literary and psychological genius.….a literary masterpiece to be placed by the side of the novels of his contemporaries and countrymen, Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky ..."

Russian Thinkers (The Hogarth Press, 1978) a collection of Berlin's essays in which Herzen features, was the inspiration for Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia, a trilogy of plays performed at London's National Theatre in 2002 and at New York's Lincoln Center in 2006-2007. Set against the background of the early development of Russian socialist thought, the Revolutions of 1848 and later exile, the plays examine the lives and intellectual development of, among other Russians, the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, the literary critic Vissarion Belinsky, the novelist Ivan Turgenev and Alexander Herzen, whose character dominates the plays.

Works

• The Russian People and Socialism (Русский народ и социализм, 1848)
• From the Other Shore (1848 - 1850)
• Letters from France and Italy (1852)
• My Past and Thoughts: The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen (1868)

Notes

1. ^ A. Herzen., “Another Variation on an Old Theme, A Letter to X (I.S. Turgenev”. (1857). in The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen. Vol IV. Chatto and Windus. London (1968). pp 1561.
2. ^ A. Herzen., “The Russian people and Socialism. A Letter to Michelet” (1851). in The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen. Vol IV. Chatto and Windus. London (1968). pp 1649.
3. ^ A. Herzen., “Ends and Beginnings: Letter to I.S. Turgenev”. (1862). in The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen. Vol IV. Chatto and Windus. London (1968). pp 1683.
4. ^ Kelly, “A Glowing Footprint”: Herzen Proudon, and the role of the Intellectual Revolutionary, Modern Intellectual History. (2005), 2: 179-205.
5. ^ A. Herzen., “Bazarov Once More. Letter I”. (1868). in The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen. Vol IV. Chatto and Windus. London (1968). pp 1753.
6. ^ D. Offord., Portraits of Early Russian Liberals. (1985). Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. p. 200.
7. ^ Venturi, F., Roots of Revolution. A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth Century Russia. (1960). Weidenfeld and Nicolson. London. p. 4.
8. ^ I. Berlin., Russian Thinkers. (1979). The Hogarth Press. London. p. 189.

See also

• Illegitimacy in fiction
• Illegitimacy
• List of coupled cousins
• Malwida von Meysenbug
• Pluralism

External links

• Herzen is the lead character in Tom Stoppard's 2002 trilogy of plays The Coast of Utopia.
• Tom Stoppard's article on Herzen in the London Observer
• ALEXANDER II AND HIS TIMES: A Narrative History of Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky (with several chapters on Herzen)
• Herzen : The revolutionist by Keith Gessen (The New Yorker)
• Alexander Herzen and Russian (spiritual) Landscape (in Japanese)

Persondata
NAME	Herzen, Alexander
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Herzen, Aleksandr Ivanovich
SHORT DESCRIPTION
DATE OF BIRTH	April 6, 1812
PLACE OF BIRTH	Moscow, Russia
DATE OF DEATH	January 21, 1870
PLACE OF DEATH	Paris, France

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