Russian history is full of ascetics, ready to lay down their lives for their idea.
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870) was the first Russian socialist to preach the ideas of equality and fraternity. And although he did not take a direct part in revolutionary activity, he was among those who set the stage for its development. One of the leaders of the Westerners, he later became disillusioned with the ideals of the European path of development of Russia, moved to the opposite camp and became the founder of another movement significant for our history - populism.
The biography of Alexander Herzen is closely connected with such figures of the Russian and world revolution as Ogaryov, Belinsky, Proudhon, Garibaldi. Throughout his life, he constantly tried to find the best way to equitable society. But it is precisely ardent love for his people, selfless service to the chosen ideals - this is what Herzen Alexander Ivanovich won the respect of his descendants.
A brief biography and an overview of the main works will allow the reader to get to know this Russian thinker better. After all, only in our memory can they live forever and continue to influence the minds.
Herzen Alexander Ivanovich: biography of the Russian thinker
A.I. Herzen was the illegitimate son of the wealthy landowner Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev and the daughter of a manufacturing official, 16-year-old German Henrietta The Hague. Due to the fact that the marriage was not officially registered, the father came up with a surname for his son. Translated from German, it means "child of the heart."
The future publicist and writer was brought up in the uncle's house on Tversky Boulevard (now it houses the Gorky Literary Institute ).
From an early age, “freedom-loving dreams” began to overwhelm him, which is not surprising - the literature teacher I. E. Protopopov introduced the student to the poems of Pushkin, Ryleyev, and Busho. The ideas of the Great French Revolution were constantly in the air of Alexander’s study room. Already at that time Herzen made friends with Ogaryov, together they hatched plans for transforming the world. The unusually strong impression on the friends was made by the Decembrist uprising, after which they fired up revolutionary activity and vowed to uphold the ideals of freedom and brotherhood until the end of their lives.
The books of the French Enlightenment constituted Alexander's daily book ration — he read a lot of Voltaire, Beaumarchais, Kotzebue. He did not pass by early German romanticism - the works of Goethe and Schiller set him in an enthusiastic spirit.
University circle
In 1829, Alexander Herzen entered Moscow University at the Physics and Mathematics Department. And there he did not part with his childhood friend Ogaryov, with whom they soon organized a circle of like-minded people. It also included the famous historian writer V. Passek and translator N. Ketcher. At their meetings, members of the circle discussed the ideas of sensimonism, the equal rights of men and women, the destruction of private property - in general, these were the first socialists in Russia.
"Little history"
Education at the university was lethargic and monotonous. Few teachers could introduce lecture students to the advanced ideas of German philosophy. Herzen was looking for a way out of his energy, participating in university pranks. In 1831 he was implicated in the so-called "Malovskaya history", in which Lermontov also took part. Students expelled from the audience professors of criminal law. As Alexander Ivanovich himself later recalled, Malov M. Ya. Was a stupid, rude and uneducated professor. The students despised him and openly laughed at him at lectures. For their trick, the rebels escaped relatively easily - they spent several days in a punishment cell.
First link
The activities of Herzen's friendly circle were rather innocent, but the Imperial Chancellery saw in their beliefs a threat to the tsarist government. In 1834, all members of this association were arrested and exiled. Herzen was first in Perm, and then he was assigned to serve in Vyatka. There he arranged an exhibition of local works, which gave Zhukovsky an occasion to petition for his transfer to Vladimir. Herzen took his bride from Moscow there. These days were the brightest and happiest in the turbulent life of the writer.
The split of Russian thought into Slavophiles and Westerners
In 1840, Alexander Herzen returned to Moscow. Here, fate brought him to the literary circle of Belinsky, who preached and actively imposed the ideas of Hegelianism. With typical Russian enthusiasm and intransigence, the members of this circle perceived the ideas of the German philosopher about the rationality of all reality somewhat one-sidedly. However, Herzen himself from Hegel's philosophy made completely opposite conclusions. As a result, the circle broke up into Slavophiles, whose leaders were Kirievsky and Khomyakov, and Westerners, who united around Herzen and Ogaryov. Despite the extremely opposite views on the further path of development of Russia, both of them were united by true patriotism, based not on blind love for Russian statehood, but on a sincere belief in the strength and power of the people. As Herzen later wrote, they looked like a two-faced Janus, whose faces were turned in different directions, and one heart beat.
The collapse of ideals
Herzen Alexander Ivanovich, whose biography was already full of frequent travels, spent the second half of his life outside of Russia. In 1846, the father of the writer died, leaving Herzen a large inheritance. This gave Alexander Ivanovich the opportunity to travel around Europe for several years. The trip radically changed the writer's mindset. His Western friends were shocked when they read Herzen's articles in Letters from the Fatherland entitled Letters from Avenue Marigny, which later became known as Letters from France and Italy. The clear anti-bourgeois mood of these letters testified to the fact that the writer was disappointed in the vitality of revolutionary Western ideas. Having witnessed the failure of the chain of revolutions that swept through Europe in 1848-1849, the so-called "spring of peoples", he begins to develop the theory of "Russian socialism", which gave life to a new trend of Russian philosophical thought - populism.
New philosophy
In France, Alexander Herzen became close to Proudhon, with whom he began to publish the newspaper "Voice of the People." After the suppression of the radical opposition, he moved to Switzerland, and then to Nice, where he met Garibaldi, the famous fighter for the freedom and independence of the Italian people. The publication of the essay “From the Other Side” belongs to this period, in which new ideas were identified, with which Herzen Alexander Ivanovich was carried away. The philosophy of a radical reorganization of the social system no longer satisfied the writer, and Herzen finally said goodbye to his liberal beliefs. He begins to be visited by thoughts about the doom of old Europe and the great potential of the Slavic world, which must realize the socialist ideal.
A. I. Herzen - Russian publicist
After the death of his wife, Herzen moved to London, where he began to publish his famous newspaper "Bell". The newspaper enjoyed the greatest influence in the period preceding the abolition of serfdom. Then its circulation starts to fall, the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863 affected its popularity especially. As a result, Herzen's ideas did not find support either from the radicals or from the liberals: for the former they were too moderate, and for the latter too radical. In 1865, the Russian government persistently demanded from Her Majesty the Queen of England that the editors of the Bell should be expelled from the country. Alexander Herzen and his associates were forced to move to Switzerland.
Herzen died of pneumonia in 1870 in Paris, where he came for family affairs.
Literary heritage
The bibliography of Herzen Alexander Ivanovich has a huge number of articles written in Russia and emigration. But books brought him the greatest fame, in particular the final work of his whole life, “The Past and Thoughts.” Alexander Herzen himself, whose biography sometimes made unthinkable zigzags, called this work confession, which caused a variety of "thoughts from thoughts." This is a synthesis of journalism, memoirs, literary portraits and historical chronicles. Over the novel "Who is to blame?" The writer worked for six years. He suggests solving the problems of equality of women and men, relations in marriage, and upbringing in this work with the help of high ideals of humanism. He also penned the highly social novels The Forty-Thief, Doctor Krupov, The Tragedy over a Glass of Grog, Boredom for the Sake and others.
There is probably not a single educated person who at least knew firsthand who Alexander Herzen is. A brief biography of the writer is contained in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, but you never know in what other sources! However, it is best to get acquainted with the writer from his books - it is in them that his personality rises to the full.