The Russian revolutionary, philosopher, writer A. I. Herzen was born in Moscow on March 25, 1812. He was born from an extramarital affair between a wealthy landowner Ivan Yakovlev and a young German woman of bourgeois blood Louise Haag, originally from Stuttgart. They came up with the surname Herzen for their son (translated from German as “heart”).
The child grew up and was brought up in the Yakovlev estate. They gave him good home education, he had the opportunity to read books from his father's library: the writings of Western enlighteners, poems of forbidden domestic poets and Ryleeva. As a teenager, he became friends with the future revolutionary and poet N. Ogarev. This friendship lasted a lifetime.
Youth of Herzen
When Alexander was thirteen years old, it happened in Russia, the events of which forever affected the fate of Herzen. So from the very young years he had eternal idols, patriotic heroes who went to Senate Square to deliberately die for the sake of a future new life younger generation. He swore an oath to avenge the execution of the Decembrists and continue their work.
In the summer of 1828, on Sparrow Hills in Moscow, Herzen and Ogarev swore an oath to devote their lives to the struggle for the freedom of the people. Friends kept the loyalty to the oath for life. In 1829 Alexander began his studies at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University. In 1833 he graduated from it, receiving the degree of candidate. IN student years Herzen and Ogarev grouped around themselves progressive youth from like-minded people. They were occupied with questions of freedom, equality, education. The university leadership considered Herzen a dangerous freethinker with very daring plans.
Arrest and exile. Herzen's marriage
A year after graduating from the university, he was arrested for active propaganda and exiled to Perm, then transferred to Vyatka, then to Vladimir. The harsh conditions of exile in Perm and Vyatka changed during his stay in Vladimir towards improvement. Now he could travel to Moscow, meet friends. He took his fiancee N. A. Zakharyina from Moscow to Vladimir, where they got married.
1838 - 1840 were especially happy years for young spouses. Herzen, who had already tried his hand at literature before, was not marked by creative achievements during these years. He wrote two romantic dramas in verse ("Licinius", "William Pen"), which have not survived, and the story "Notes of a young man". Alexander Ivanovich knew that creative imagination was not his element. He was better able to realize himself as a publicist and philosopher. Nevertheless, he did not leave classes in the field of literary creativity.
Philosophical works. The novel “Who is to blame?”
After serving his exile in 1839, he returned to Moscow, but soon showed negligence in correspondence with his father and spoke sharply against the tsarist police. He was arrested again and sent into exile again, this time to Novgorod. Returning from exile in 1842, he published his work, on which he worked in Novgorod, - "Amateurism in Science", then - a very serious philosophical study "Letters on the Study of Nature".
In his years of exile, he began work on the novel "Who is to blame?". In 1845 he completed the work, devoting five years to it. Critics consider the novel "Who is to blame?" Herzen's greatest creative achievement. Belinsky believed that the strength of the author is in the "power of thought", and the soul of his talent is in "humanity".
"Thieving Magpie"
Herzen wrote The Thieving Magpie in 1846. It was published two years later, when the author was already living abroad. In this story, Herzen focused his attention on the particularly difficult, disenfranchised position of the serf actress. Interesting fact: the narrator in the story is " famous artist", the prototype of the great actor M. S. Shchepkin, who for a long time was also a serf.
Herzen Abroad
January 1847. Herzen and his family left Russia forever. Settled in Paris. But in the autumn of that year he went to Rome to participate in demonstrations and engage in revolutionary activities. In the spring of 1848 he returned to Paris, engulfed in revolution. After her defeat, the writer suffered an ideological crisis. About this is his book of 1847 - 50 years "From the Other Bank".
1851 - tragic for Herzen: a shipwreck claimed the lives of his mother and son. And in 1852 his beloved wife died. In the same year, he left for London and began work on his main book, Past and Thoughts, which he wrote for sixteen years. It was a book - a confession, a book of memories. In 1855 he published the almanac "Polar Star", in 1857 - the newspaper "The Bell". Herzen died in Paris on January 9, 1870.
In the family of a wealthy Russian landowner I. A. Yakovlev.
Mother - Louise Gaag, a native of Stuttgart (Germany). The marriage of Herzen's parents was not formalized, and he bore a surname invented by his father (from Herz - "heart").
early spiritual development Alexander Ivanovich was facilitated by his acquaintance with the best works of Russian and world literature, with the forbidden "free" poems of Russian poets of the 10-20s. The "hidden" poetry of Pushkin and the Decembrists, the revolutionary dramas of Schiller, romantic poems Byron, works of leading French thinkers of the 18th century. strengthened Herzen's freedom-loving convictions, his interest in the socio-political problems of life.
Young Alexander Ivanovich witnessed a powerful upsurge in the social movement in Russia, caused by Patriotic War 1812. The uprising of the Decembrists had a huge impact on the formation of his revolutionary outlook. “The execution of Pestel and his comrades,” Herzen later wrote, “finally awakened the childish dream of my soul” (“The Past and Thoughts”). Herzen from childhood felt hatred for serfdom, on which the autocratic police regime in the country was based.
In 1827, together with his friend N.P. Ogarev, on Sparrow Hills, he took an oath to sacrifice his life to fight for the liberation of the Russian people.
In October 1829, Alexander Ivanovich entered the Physics and Mathematics Department of Moscow University. Here, around him and Ogarev, a revolutionary circle of students was formed, deeply upset by the defeat of the December uprising. The members of the circle followed the revolutionary movement in the West, studied the socio-utopian theories of Western European socialists, “but most of all they preached hatred for any violence, for any governmental arbitrariness” (“Past and Thoughts”). Herzen devoted much attention at the university to the study of the natural sciences; in his student years he wrote several works on natural science topics
"On the place of man in nature", 1832;
"Analytical presentation solar system Copernicus", 1833;
in the journal "Bulletin of natural sciences and medicine" (1829), "Ateney" (1830) and others. Herzen A.I. published his translations and abstracts of the works of Western European scientists devoted to the problems of natural science. In these articles, he sought to overcome idealism, asserted the idea of the unity of consciousness and matter; at the same time, he could not be satisfied with the limited, metaphysical materialism of the eighteenth century. Philosophical searches of Herzen in the 30-40s. were aimed at creating such a materialistic system that would meet the revolutionary liberation aspirations of the advanced circles of Russian society.
In July 1833 Alexander Ivanovich graduated from the university with a Ph.D. Together with friends, he made broad plans for further literary and political activities, in particular the publication of a magazine that would promote advanced social theories. But the tsarist government, frightened by the Decembrist uprising, mercilessly suppressed any manifestation of freedom-loving thought in Russian society.
In July 1834 Herzen, Ogarev and other members of the circle were arrested.
In April 1835, Herzen was exiled to Perm and then to Vyatka under strict police supervision. Prison and exile aggravated the writer's hatred for the autocratic-feudal system; the exile enriched him with knowledge of Russian life, vile feudal reality. Close contact with the life of the people had a particularly profound effect on Herzen.
At the end of 1837, at the request of the poet V. A. Zhukovsky, Alexander Ivanovich was transferred to Vladimir (on the Klyazma).
In May 1838 he married N. A. Zakharyina.
(“First meeting”, 1834-36;
"Legend", 1835-36;
"Second meeting", 1836;
"From Roman scenes", 1838;
"William Pen", 1839, and others), he raised the question of the reorganization of society on a reasonable basis that deeply worried him. In romantically elevated, sublime images, sometimes in a naive, conditional form, they were embodied ideological life, passionate philosophical and political searches of the advanced noble youth of the 30s. Permeated with the emancipatory ideas of their time, the works of the young Herzen, for all their artistic immaturity, developed the civic motifs of Russian literature of the 1920s, affirmed "life for ideas" as "the highest expression of society."
In the summer of 1839, police supervision was removed from Alexander Ivanovich, at the beginning of 1840 he returned to Moscow, and then moved to St. Petersburg.
In 1840-41 in " Domestic notes» Herzen published autobiographical story"Notes of a Young Man". As far as censorship conditions allowed, the story revealed wide circle spiritual interests of the advanced Russian intelligentsia, its final chapter in a sharp satirical form denounced the “patriarchal customs of the city of Malinov” (meaning Vyatka), the vulgar life of the provincial bureaucratic-landlord environment. The story opened new period in the literary activity of Herzen, it marked the entry of the writer on the path critical realism.
In 1841, for "spreading unfounded rumors" - a sharp review in a letter to his father about the crimes of the tsarist police - Herzen was again exiled, this time to Novgorod.
In the summer of 1842 Alexander Ivanovich returned to Moscow. He took an active part in the ideological struggle of the 40s, in exposing the ideologists of the landowner-serf reaction and bourgeois-noble liberalism, showed himself a worthy ally of the great revolutionary democrat Belinsky. Relying in all his activities on the traditions of Radishchev, Pushkin, the Decembrists, deeply studying the outstanding works of advanced Russian and foreign literature and social thought, he defended the revolutionary path of Russia's development. He defended his views in the fight against the Slavophiles, who idealized the economic and political originality of tsarist Russia, and Western liberals, who bowed to the bourgeois system in the countries of Western Europe. Outstanding philosophical works of Herzen
"Amateurism in Science" (1842-43),
"Letters on the Study of Nature" (1844-46) played a huge role in the substantiation and development of the materialist tradition in Russian philosophy.
Herzen's materialism had an active, active character and was imbued with a militant democratic spirit. Alexander Ivanovich was one of the first thinkers who managed to understand Hegel's dialectic and evaluate it as the "algebra of revolution", at the same time he accused the German idealists and Russian Hegelians of being isolated from life. Together with Belinsky, Herzen put his philosophical searches at the service of the liberation struggle of the masses.
According to the characteristics of V. I. Lenin, Herzen in serf Russia in the 40s. 19th century “managed to rise to such a height that he stood on a level with the greatest thinkers of his time ... Herzen came close to dialectical materialism and stopped before - historical materialism ”(Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 21, p. 256). Herzen's articles provided a profound substantiation of the basic principles of materialistic philosophy. history human world he characterizes as a continuation of the history of nature; spirit, thought, Herzen argues, are the result of the development of matter. Defending the dialectical doctrine of development, the writer asserted contradiction as the basis of progress in nature and society. His articles contained an exceptionally vivid, polemically sharp exposition of the history of philosophical doctrines, the struggle between materialism and idealism. Herzen noted the independence of Russian philosophy, the critical perception by Russian thinkers of the advanced philosophical trends of the West. Herzen's struggle with idealistic philosophy as an ideological stronghold of feudal reaction, it had a definite political character. However, in the conditions of backward, feudal Russia, he was unable to give a materialistic explanation of the struggle between ideological and materialistic philosophical systems as one of the manifestations of the class struggle in society.
The materialistic ideas developed in Herzen's articles had a great influence on the formation of the worldview of Russian revolutionary democracy in the 1960s.
The active participation of Alexander Ivanovich in the liberation struggle of the Russian people served as a powerful source of artistic power for his literary work.
From 1841-46 he wrote the novel "Who is to blame?" (full edition - 1847) he raised the most important questions of Russian life in the 40s. Herzen gave a devastating critique of serfdom and the landlord-autocratic system, which suppressed human personality. The sharpness of his protest against the serfdom acquired a truly revolutionary sound in the novel.
1846 story "Forty-thief" (published in 1848) told about the inexhaustible creative forces and talents of the Russian people, about their desire for emancipation, about the consciousness of personal dignity and independence inherent in a simple Russian person. With great force the story unfolded common tragedy Russian people in the conditions of the autocratic-feudal system.
1846 story "Doctor Krupov" (published in 1847), written in the form of a doctor's notes, painted satirical pictures and images of Russian serf reality. Deep and penetrating psychological analysis, philosophical generalizations and social sharpness of the story make it a masterpiece artistic creativity Herzen.
In January 1847, persecuted by the tsarist government, deprived of the opportunity to conduct revolutionary propaganda, Herzen and his family went abroad. He arrived in France the day before revolutionary events 1848. In the series of articles "Letters from Avenue Marigny" (1847, later included in the book "Letters from France and Italy", 1850, Russian edition- 1855) Herzen subjected sharp criticism bourgeois society, came to the conclusion that "the bourgeoisie has no great past and no future." At the same time, with great sympathy, he wrote about the Parisian "blouses" - workers and artisans, expressed the hope that the impending revolution would bring them victory.
In 1848 Herzen witnessed the defeat of the revolution and the bloody revelry of reaction. "Letters from France and Italy" and the book "From the Other Shore" (1850, Russian edition - 1855) captured the spiritual drama of the writer. Failing to understand the bourgeois-democratic essence of the movement, the writer misjudged the revolution of 1848 as a failed battle for socialism.
The hard feelings caused by the defeat of the revolution coincided with the personal tragedy of Herzen: in the autumn of 1851, his mother and son died during a shipwreck, and in May 1852, his wife died in Nice.
In August 1852 Alexander Ivanovich moved to London. The years of London emigration (1852-65) - the period of active revolutionary and journalistic activity of Herzen.
In 1853 he founded the Free Russian Printing House.
In 1855 he began to publish the almanac "Polar Star".
In 1857, together with Ogarev, he began publishing the famous newspaper The Bell.
In the 60s. Alexander Ivanovich Herzen finally came to the camp of Russian revolutionary democracy. Convinced by the experience of the liberation struggle of the Russian peasantry during the revolutionary situation of 1859-61 in the strength of the revolutionary people, he "fearlessly took the side of revolutionary democracy against liberalism" (Poln. sobr. soch., vol. 18, p. 14). Herzen exposed the predatory nature of the "liberation" of the peasants in Russia. With great force he called the masses to revolutionary activity and protest (articles in the Bell: “The giant is waking up!”, 1861;
Fossil Bishop, Antediluvian Government and Deceived People, 1861, and others).
In the early 60s. Herzen and Ogarev took part in the activities of the secret revolutionary-democratic society "Land and Freedom", conducted revolutionary propaganda in the army.
In 1863 Alexander Ivanovich strongly supported the national liberation movement in Poland. Herzen's consistent revolutionary-democratic position on the Polish question evoked fierce attacks from reactionary and liberal circles that had joined them.
In 1864, Alexander Ivanovich angrily branded the reprisal of tsarism against the leader of the Russian revolutionary democracy, Chernyshevsky.
Herzen was one of the founders of populism, the author of the so-called theory of "Russian socialism". Without understanding the real social nature of the peasant community, he proceeded in his teaching from the emancipation of the peasants with land, from communal land ownership and the peasant idea of "the right to land." The theory of "Russian socialism" in reality did not contain "not a grain of socialism" (Lenin), but in a peculiar form it expressed the revolutionary aspirations of the peasantry, its demands for the complete abolition of landownership.
In the first years of emigration and in London, Herzen continued to work hard in the field of artistic creativity. He defended the inextricable link between art and life and considered literature a political platform used to propagate and defend advanced ideas, to address revolutionary preaching to a wide range of readers. In the book "On the development revolutionary ideas in Russia” (in French, 1851), he noted how feature Russian literature, its connection with the liberation movement, the expression of the revolutionary, freedom-loving aspirations of the Russian people.
On the example of the work of Russian writers of the XVIII - 1st half of XIX V. Herzen showed how literature in Russia became an organic part of the struggle of advanced social circles. The themes and images of Russian serf life continued to occupy the main place in the works of art by Herzen (the unfinished story Duty First, 1847-51, published in 1854; Damaged, 1851, published in 1854).
At the same time, Herzen, an artist and publicist, was deeply concerned about questions of bourgeois reality in the countries of Western Europe. In his works of the 50-60s. he repeatedly addressed the life of various circles of bourgeois society
(essays "From the letters of a traveler in the interior of England", "Both are better", 1856;
cycle "Ends and Beginnings", 1862-63;
story "The Tragedy over a Glass of Grog", 1863, and others).
From 1852-68 he wrote memoirs "The Past and Thoughts" which occupy a central place in the literary and artistic heritage of Herzen. Herzen devoted over 15 years of hard work to the creation of a work that has become an artistic chronicle. public life and revolutionary struggle in Russia and Western Europe- from the uprising of the Decembrists and Moscow student circles of the 30s. before the eve of the Paris Commune. Among the artistic autobiographies of all world literature of the XIX century. "The Past and Thoughts" has no equal work in terms of the breadth of coverage of the depicted reality, the depth and revolutionary courage of thought, the utmost sincerity of the narration, the brightness and perfection of the images. Alexander Ivanovich appears in this book as a political fighter and a first-class artist of the word. The narration organically combines the events of the author's personal life with phenomena of a socio-political nature; memoirs captured the living image of the Russian revolutionary in his struggle against autocracy and serfdom. Born out of a writer's passionate desire to tell the truth about his difficult family drama, "Past and Thoughts" went beyond original intention and became an artistic generalization of the era, in the words of Herzen, "a reflection of history in a person who accidentally fell on its path." Herzen's memoirs were among those books from which Marx and Engels studied the Russian language.
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen was an artist-publicist. The articles, notes and pamphlets in Kolokol, full of revolutionary passion and anger, are classic examples of Russian democratic journalism. The artistic talent of the writer was characterized by sharp satire; in caustic, destroying irony, in sarcasm, the writer saw an effective tool of social struggle. For a fuller and deeper disclosure of the ugly phenomena of reality, Herzen often turned to the grotesque. Drawing images of his contemporaries in his memoirs, the writer used the form of a sharp plot story.
A great master of portrait sketches, Alexander Ivanovich was able to succinctly and accurately define the very essence of character, to outline the image in a few words, grasping the main thing. Unexpected sharp contrasts were the writer's favorite technique. Bitter irony alternates with a funny anecdote, sarcastic mockery is replaced by angry oratorical pathos, archaism gives way to bold gallicism, folk Russian dialect is intertwined with an exquisite pun. In these contrasts, Herzen's characteristic striving for the credibility and clarity of the image, the sharp expression of the narrative, was manifested.
Artistic creativity of Herzen A.I. had a great influence on the formation of the style of critical realism and the development of all subsequent Russian literature.
In 1865 Herzen moved the publication of Kolokol to Geneva, which in those years was becoming the center of Russian revolutionary emigration. Despite all the differences with the so-called "young emigrants" on a number of significant political and tactical issues, Alexander Ivanovich saw in the raznochintsy intelligentsia "young navigators of the future storm", the mighty force of the Russian liberation movement.
The last years of the writer's life were marked by the further development of his worldview in the direction of scientific socialism. Herzen reconsiders his previous understanding of the prospects for the historical development of Europe. In the final chapters of "Past and Thoughts" (1868-69), in his last story "The Doctor, the Dying and the Dead" (1869), he raises the question of "the modern struggle of capital with work", new forces and people in the revolution. Persistently freeing himself from pessimism and skepticism in questions of social development, Herzen approaches the correct view of the historical role of the new revolutionary class - the proletariat.
In a series of letters "To an old comrade" (1869), the writer turned his eyes to the labor movement and the International led by Marx.
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen died in Paris, was buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery, then transported to Nice and buried next to the grave of his wife.
After Herzen's death, a sharp political struggle unfolded around his ideological heritage. Democratic criticism consistently considered Herzen among the great teachers of the revolutionary intelligentsia of the 1970s and 1980s. Reactionary ideologists, convinced of the futility of trying to denigrate Herzen in the eyes of the younger generation, began to resort to falsifying his image. The struggle against the writer's ideological heritage took on a more subtle form of the hypocritical "struggle for Herzen". At the same time, the works of Alexander Ivanovich continued to be in tsarist Russia under a strict and unconditional ban.
The first posthumous collected works of the writer (in 10 volumes, Geneva, 1875-79) and other foreign editions of Herzen A.I. ("Collection of posthumous articles", Geneva, 1870, ed. 2 -1874, and others) were little available Russian reader.
In 1905, after 10 years of persistent efforts, the first Russian edition of the Collected Works was obtained (in 7 volumes, St. Petersburg, ed. Pavlenkov), but it was mutilated by numerous censorship omissions and gross distortions.
The bourgeois-gentry press of the late 19th century, and especially during the period of reaction after the defeat of the first Russian revolution, repeated endless variations of the false interpretation of Herzen's views, his ideological and creative path. They found an extremely cynical expression in the "Vekhi" legend about Herzen as an implacable opponent of materialism and all kinds of revolutionary actions. Bourgeois ideologists belittled the role of the great thinker and writer in the development of Russian and world science and literature. Having carefully emasculated the revolutionary essence of the writer's activity, the "knights of the liberal Russian linguistic promiscuity," as Lenin called them, tried to use the distorted image of a democratic writer in their fight against the revolutionary movement and advanced social thought in Russia.
Much credit for exposing the reactionary and liberal falsifiers of Herzen belongs to G. V. Plekhanov. In a number of articles and speeches (" Philosophical views A. I. Herzen”, “A. I. Herzen and serfdom”, “Herzen-emigrant”, “About the book of V. Ya. Bogucharsky “A. I. Herzen”, speech at the grave of Herzen on the hundredth anniversary of his birth, and others) Plekhanov gave a deep and versatile analysis of the worldview and activities of Herzen, showed the victory of materialism over idealism in his views, the closeness of many of Herzen’s philosophical positions to the views of Engels. However, in Plekhanov's assessment of Herzen, there were many serious errors arising from his Menshevik conception of the driving forces and character of the Russian revolution. Plekhanov was unable to reveal Herzen's connection with the growing revolutionary movement of the broad masses of the peasantry. Disbelief in the revolutionary nature of the Russian peasantry and a lack of understanding of the connection between the peasantry and the raznochintsy revolutionaries of the 60s deprived Plekhanov of the opportunity to see the class roots of the worldview of Herzen and all of Russian revolutionary democracy.
In the Capri course of lectures on the history of Russian literature (1908-1909), M. Gorky paid great attention to Alexander Ivanovich. Gorky emphasized the importance of Herzen as a writer who raised the most important social problems in his work. At the same time, having singled out the "drama of the Russian nobility" in Herzen's worldview as his leading feature, Gorky considered him outside the main stages in the development of the Russian revolution and therefore could not determine the true historical place of Herzen as a thinker and revolutionary, as well as Herzen as a writer.
Articles and speeches by A. V. Lunacharsky played a significant role in the study of the writer's ideological legacy. Lunacharsky correctly emphasized the interrelationship between the various aspects of Herzen's activity and creativity, the organic unity in his works as an artist and a publicist. The weak side of Lunacharsky's work was the underestimation of the continuity of Russian revolutionary traditions, as a result of which he exaggerated the importance Western influences on ideological development Herzen Erroneously considering Herzen and Belinsky as spokesmen for a certain “Westernizing” trend of the Russian intelligentsia of the 1940s, Lunacharsky did not disclose deep meaning struggle of Russian revolutionary democracy with bourgeois-landowner liberalism. Lunacharsky mistakenly brought the writer's worldview closer to the anarchist views of Bakunin and the liberal ideology of the later Narodniks.
Only in the articles and statements of V. I. Lenin did Herzen's revolutionary legacy receive a truly scientific understanding. Lenin's article "In Memory of Herzen" (1912) became the most important historical document in the struggle of the Bolshevik Party for the theoretical arming of the masses on the eve of a new upsurge in the labor movement. On the example of Herzen, Lenin called for learning "the great significance of revolutionary theory." Lenin recreates the image of the true Herzen, the revolutionary writer, whose historical place, along with Belinsky and Chernyshevsky, is among the glorious predecessors of Russian social democracy. In Lenin's article, the writer's worldview, creativity, and historical role are subjected to a concrete and comprehensive analysis; Lenin investigates the questions of Herzen's ideological evolution in inseparable unity with his revolutionary political activity. Lenin deeply revealed the path of Herzen, a revolutionary, the direct heir of the Decembrists, to revolutionary peasant democracy. The article contained a remarkable characterization of the universal significance of Herzen's philosophical searches.
Great October socialist revolution for the first time opened up the opportunity for an in-depth study of the life and work of Herzen. In difficult conditions civil war and economic ruin, the 22-volume edition of the complete collection of his works and letters, edited by M. K. Lemke, was continued and successfully completed. This edition, despite serious shortcomings, was a major event in the life of a young Soviet culture. The general upsurge of Marxist-Leninist literary thought, achieved on the basis of the guiding and guiding instructions of the Party, had a vital effect on further development Soviet Herzenology.
The 125th anniversary of the birth of Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, widely celebrated in our country in the spring of 1937, marked the beginning of serious research work in the field of studying the writer's heritage.
In subsequent years, Soviet researchers of Herzen made a valuable contribution to literary science. A number of large monographs about Herzen were created; in 1954-65 the Academy of Sciences of the USSR issued scientific publication works of the writer in 30 volumes. Significant work on the study and publication of Herzen's archival materials stored in Soviet and foreign collections was done by the editors of the Literary Heritage.
The Soviet people highly appreciate the rich legacy of Herzen, "the writer who played a great role in the preparation of the Russian revolution" (V. I. Lenin, Complete Works, vol. 21, p. 255).
Died 9 (21) January 1870 in Paris.
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen(March 25 (April 6), Moscow - January 9 (21), Paris) - Russian publicist, writer, philosopher, teacher, one of the most prominent critics of the official ideology and policy of the Russian Empire in the 19th century, a supporter of revolutionary bourgeois-democratic transformations .
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✪ Lecture I. Alexander Herzen. Childhood and youth. Prison and exile
✪ Lecture III. Herzen in the West. "Past and thoughts"
✪ Herzen Alexander Ivanovich "Who is to blame? (ONLINE AUDIOBOOKS) Listen
✪ Herzen and the Rothschilds
✪ Lecture II. Westernizers and Slavophiles. Small prose of Herzen
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Biography
Childhood
Herzen was born into the family of a wealthy landowner Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev (1767-1846), who was descended from Andrey Kobyla (like the Romanovs). Mother - 16-year-old German Henrietta-Wilhelmina-Louise Haag (German. Henriette Wilhelmina Luisa Haag), the daughter of a petty official, a clerk in the Treasury in. The parents' marriage was not formalized, and Herzen bore a surname invented by his father: Herzen - "son of the heart" (from German Herz).
In his youth, Herzen received the usual noble upbringing at home, based on reading the works of foreign literature, mostly late 18th century. French novels, comedies by Beaumarchais, Kotzebue, works by Goethe, Schiller from an early age set the boy in an enthusiastic, sentimental-romantic tone. There were no systematic classes, but the tutors - the French and Germans - gave the boy a solid knowledge of foreign languages. Thanks to his acquaintance with the work of Schiller, Herzen was imbued with freedom-loving aspirations, the development of which was greatly facilitated by the teacher of Russian literature, I.E. Bouchot, a participant in the Great French Revolution, who left France when the "lecherous and rogues" took over. This was joined by the influence of Tanya Kuchina, Herzen's young aunt, "Korchevskaya cousin" Herzen (married Tatyana Passek), who supported the childish pride of the young dreamer, prophesying an extraordinary future for him.
Already in childhood, Herzen met and became friends with Nikolai Ogaryov. According to his memoirs, a strong impression on the boys (Herzen was 13, Ogaryov was 12 years old) was made by the news of the Decembrist uprising on December 14, 1825. Under his impression, their first, still vague dreams of revolutionary activity; during a walk on Sparrow Hills, the boys vowed to fight for freedom.
University (1829−1833)
Herzen dreamed of friendship, dreamed of struggle and suffering for freedom. In this mood, Herzen entered the Physics and Mathematics Department of Moscow University, and here this mood intensified even more. At the university, Herzen took part in the so-called "Malov story" (a student protest against an unloved teacher), but got off relatively lightly - a short imprisonment, along with many comrades, in a punishment cell. Of the teachers, only Kachenovsky, with his skepticism and Pavlov, who managed to acquaint listeners with German philosophy at lectures on agriculture, awakened young thought. The youth was set, however, rather violently; she welcomed the July Revolution (as can be seen from Lermontov's poems) and other popular movements (the cholera that appeared in Moscow contributed a lot to the revival and excitement of students, in the fight against which all university youth took an active and selfless part). By this time, Herzen's meeting with Vadim Passek, which later turned into friendship, the establishment of friendly relations with Ketcher, etc., dates back. A handful of young friends grew, made noise, seethed; at times she allowed small revels, of a completely innocent, however, character; diligently engaged in reading, being carried away mainly by public issues, studying Russian history, mastering the ideas of Saint-Simon (whose utopian socialism Herzen considered then the most outstanding achievement of contemporary Western philosophy) and other socialists.
Link
Despite mutual bitterness and disputes, both sides had much in common in their views, and above all, according to Herzen himself, the common thing was "a feeling of boundless love for the Russian people, for the Russian mindset, embracing the whole existence." Opponents, "like the two-faced Janus, looked in different directions, while the heart beat one." “With tears in their eyes”, embracing each other, the recent friends, and now the principal opponents, went in different directions.
In the Moscow house, where Herzen lived from to 1847, since 1976 the House-Museum of A.I.Herzen has been operating.
In exile
Herzen arrived in Europe more radically republican than socialist, although the publication he began in Otechestvennye Zapiski of a series of articles entitled Letters from Avenue Marigny (subsequently published in a revised form in Letters from France and Italy) shocked him friends - Western liberals - with their anti-bourgeois pathos. The February Revolution of 1848 seemed to Herzen the fulfillment of all his hopes. The subsequent June uprising of the workers, its bloody suppression and the ensuing reaction shocked Herzen, who resolutely turned to socialism. He became close to Proudhon and other prominent figures of the revolution and European radicalism; together with Proudhon, he published the newspaper "Voice of the People" ("La Voix du Peuple"), which he financed. The beginning of his wife's passion for the German poet Herweg dates back to the Parisian period. In 1849, after the defeat of the radical opposition by President Louis Napoleon, Herzen was forced to leave France and moved to Switzerland, and from there to Nice, which then belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia.
During this period, Herzen moved among the circles of radical European emigration, who had gathered in Switzerland after the defeat of the revolution in Europe, and, in particular, became acquainted with Giuseppe Garibaldi. Fame brought him an essay book "From the Other Shore", in which he made a calculation with his past liberal convictions. Under the influence of the collapse of the old ideals and the reaction that came throughout Europe, Herzen formed a specific system of views about the doom, "dying" of old Europe and the prospects for Russia and the Slavic world, which are called upon to realize the socialist ideal.
After a series of family tragedies that befell Herzen in Nice (the betrayal of his wife with Herweg, the death of his mother and son in a shipwreck, the death of his wife and newborn child), Herzen moved to London, where he founded the Free Russian Printing House for printing prohibited publications and from 1857 published a weekly newspaper "The bell".
The peak of Kolokol's influence falls on the years preceding the emancipation of the peasants; then the newspaper was regularly read in the Winter Palace. After the peasant reform, her influence begins to decline; support for the Polish uprising in 1863 drastically undermined circulation. At that time, for the liberal public, Herzen was already too revolutionary, for the radical - too moderate. On March 15, 1865, under the insistent demand of the Russian government to the British government, the editors of The Bell, headed by Herzen, left London forever and moved to Switzerland, of which Herzen had become a citizen by that time. In April of the same 1865, the Free Russian Printing House was also transferred there. Soon people from Herzen's entourage began to move to Switzerland, for example, in 1865 Nikolai Ogaryov moved there.
On January 9 (21), 1870, Alexander Ivanovich Herzen died of pneumonia in Paris, where he had arrived shortly before on his family business. He was buried in Nice (the ashes were transferred from the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris).
Literary and journalistic activity
Herzen's literary activity began in the 1830s. In the "Atheneum" for 1831 (II vol.), his name is found under one translation from French. First article signed with a pseudonym Iskander, was published in the "Telescope" for 1836 ("Hoffmann"). The “Speech delivered at the opening of the Vyatka public library"and" Diary "(1842). In Vladimir, the following were written: “Notes of a Young Man” and “More from the Notes of a Young Man” (“Domestic Notes”, 1840-1841; Chaadaev is depicted in this story in the person of Trenzinsky). From 1842 to 1847, he published articles in Otechestvennye Zapiski and Sovremennik: Amateurism in Science, Romantic Amateurs, The Workshop of Scientists, Buddhism in Science, and Letters on the Study of Nature. Here Herzen rebelled against learned pedants and formalists, against their scholastic science, alienated from life, against their quietism. In the article "On the study of nature" we find philosophical analysis various methods of knowledge. At the same time, Herzen wrote: “About a Drama”, “On Different Occasions”, “New Variations on Old Themes”, “A Few Remarks on the Historical Development of Honor”, “From the Notes of Dr. Krupov”, “Who is to Blame? "," Magpie-thief", "Moscow and St. Petersburg", "Novgorod and Vladimir", "Edrovo Station", "Interrupted Conversations". Of all these works, the story “The Thieving Magpie”, which depicts the terrible situation of the “serf intelligentsia”, and the novel “Who is to blame?”, stand out especially. dedicated to the issue about freedom of feelings, family relations, the position of a woman in marriage. The main idea of the novel is that people who base their well-being solely on the basis of family happiness and feelings, alien to the interests of public and universal, cannot ensure lasting happiness for themselves, and it will always depend on chance in their life.
Of the works written by Herzen abroad, of particular importance are the letters from Avenue Marigny (the first published in Sovremennik, all fourteen under the general title: Letters from France and Italy, 1855 edition), representing a remarkable characterization and analysis of events and the moods that worried Europe in 1847-1852. Here we meet a completely negative attitude towards the Western European bourgeoisie, its morality and social principles, and the author's ardent faith in the future significance of the fourth estate. A particularly strong impression both in Russia and in Europe was made by Herzen's work "From the Other Bank" (originally in German "Vom anderen Ufer", Hamburg,; in Russian, London, 1855; in French, Geneva, 1870), in in which Herzen expresses complete disillusionment with the West and Western civilization - the result of that mental upheaval that determined Herzen's worldview in 1848-1851. It should also be noted the letter to Michelet: "The Russian people and socialism" - a passionate and ardent defense of the Russian people against those attacks and prejudices that Michelet expressed in one of his articles. “The Past and Thoughts” is a series of memoirs, partly of an autobiographical nature, but also giving a number of highly artistic paintings, dazzlingly brilliant characteristics, and Herzen's observations from what he experienced and saw in Russia and abroad.
All other works and articles by Herzen, such as: "The Old World and Russia", "The Russian People and Socialism", "Ends and Beginnings", etc. - represent a simple development of ideas and moods that were completely determined in the period 1847-1852 in the writings above.
Philosophical views of Herzen during the years of emigration
The attraction to freedom of thought, "free-thinking", in the best sense of the word, was especially strongly developed in Herzen. He did not belong to any, either explicit or secret party. The one-sidedness of the "people of action" repelled him from many revolutionary and radical figures in Europe. His mind quickly comprehended the imperfections and shortcomings of those forms of Western life, to which Herzen was initially attracted from his unbeautiful far away Russian reality of the 1840s. With astonishing consistency, Herzen gave up his enthusiasm for the West when in his eyes it turned out to be below the ideal he had previously drawn up.
Herzen's philosophical and historical concept emphasizes the active role of man in history. At the same time, it implies that the mind cannot realize its ideals without taking into account the existing facts of history, that its results constitute the “necessary base” for the operations of the mind.
Quotes
“Let’s not invent a god if he doesn’t exist, because of this he still won’t exist.”
Pedagogical ideas
There are no special theoretical works about education. However, throughout his life, Herzen was interested in pedagogical problems and was one of the first Russian thinkers and public figures middle of the 19th century, who touched upon the problems of education in their works. His statements on issues of upbringing and education indicate the presence thoughtful pedagogical concept.
Herzen's pedagogical views were determined by philosophical (atheism and materialism), ethical (humanism) and political (revolutionary democracy) convictions.
Criticism of the education system under Nicholas I
Herzen called the reign of Nicholas I a thirty-year persecution of schools and universities and showed how the Nikolaev Ministry of Education stifled public education. The tsarist government, according to Herzen, “was in wait for the child at the first step in life and corrupted the cadet-child, the schoolboy-boy, the student-boy. Mercilessly, systematically, it etched out human germs in them, weaned them, as from a vice, from all human feelings, except for humility. For violation of discipline, it punished juveniles in the same way that hardened criminals are not punished in other countries.
He resolutely opposed the introduction of religion into education, against the transformation of schools and universities into an instrument for strengthening serfdom and autocracy.
Folk Pedagogy
Herzen believed that the simple people have the most positive influence on children, that it is the people who are the bearers of the best Russian national qualities. Young generations learn from the people respect for work, selfless love to the homeland, disgust for idleness.
Upbringing
Herzen considered the main task of education to be the formation of a humane, free person who lives in the interests of his people and strives to transform society on a reasonable basis. Children should be provided with conditions for free development. “The rational recognition of self-will is the highest and moral recognition human dignity". In daily educational activities important role plays the "talent of patient love", the disposition of the educator to the child, respect for him, knowledge of his needs. A healthy family environment and the right relationship between children and educators are a necessary condition for moral education.
Education
Herzen passionately sought to spread enlightenment and knowledge among the people, urged scientists to bring science out of the walls of offices, to make its achievements public. Emphasizing the enormous upbringing and educational significance of the natural sciences, Herzen was at the same time in favor of a system of comprehensive general education. He wanted the students secondary school along with natural science and mathematics, they studied literature (including the literature of ancient peoples), foreign languages, and history. A. I. Herzen noted that without reading there is not and cannot be any taste, style, or many-sided breadth of understanding. Thanks to reading, a person survives centuries. Books influence the deep spheres of the human psyche. Herzen emphasized in every possible way that education should correspond to the development of independent thinking in students. Educators should, relying on the innate inclinations of children to communicate, develop in them social aspirations and inclinations. This is served by communication with peers, collective children's games, general activities. Herzen fought against the suppression of children's will, but at the same time gave great importance discipline, considered the establishment of discipline a necessary condition for proper education. “Without discipline,” he said, “there is no calm confidence, no obedience, no way to protect health and prevent danger.”
Herzen wrote two special works in which he explained natural phenomena to the younger generation: "The experience of conversations with young people" and "Conversations with children." These works are wonderful examples of a talented, popular presentation of complex worldview problems. The author simply and vividly explains the origin of the universe to children from a materialistic point of view. He convincingly proves the important role of science in the fight against wrong views, prejudices and superstition and refutes the idealistic fabrication that in a person, apart from his body, there is also a soul.
Family
In 1838, in Vladimir, Herzen married his cousin Natalya Alexandrovna Zakharyina, before leaving Russia they had 6 children, of whom two survived to adulthood:
- Alexander(1839-1906), famous physiologist, lived in Switzerland.
- Natalya (b. and d. 1841), died 2 days after birth.
- Ivan (b. and d. 1842), died 5 days after birth.
- Nikolai (1843-1851), was deaf from birth, with the help of the Swiss teacher I. Shpilman, he learned to speak and write, died in a shipwreck (see below).
- Natalia(Tata, 1844-1936), family historiographer and curator of the Herzen archive.
- Elizabeth (1845-1846), died 11 months after birth.
In exile in Paris, Herzen's wife fell in love with Herzen's friend Georg Herweg. She confessed to Herzen that “dissatisfaction, something left unoccupied, abandoned, was looking for a different sympathy and found her in friendship with Herweg” and that she dreams of a “threesome marriage”, moreover, spiritual rather than purely carnal. In Nice, Herzen with his wife and Herweg with his wife Emma, as well as their children, lived in the same house, forming a "commune" that did not involve intimate relationships outside couples Nevertheless, Natalya Herzen became Herweg's mistress, which she hid from her husband (although Herweg opened up to his wife). Then Herzen, having learned the truth, demanded the departure of the Herwegs from Nice, and Herzen blackmailed Herzen with the threat of suicide. The Gerwegians have left. In the international revolutionary community, Herzen was condemned for subjecting his wife to "moral coercion" and preventing her from connecting with her lover.
In 1850, Herzen's wife gave birth to a daughter Olga(1850-1953), who in 1873 married the French historian Gabriel Monod (1844-1912). According to some reports, Herzen doubted his paternity, but never declared it publicly and recognized the child as his own.
In the summer of 1851, the Herzens reconciled, but a new tragedy awaited the family. On November 16, 1851, near the Giersky archipelago, as a result of a collision with another ship, the steamer "City of Grasse" sank, on which Herzen's mother Louise Ivanovna and his deaf son Nikolai and his tutor Johann Shpilman were sailing to Nice; they died and their bodies were never found.
In 1852, Herzen's wife gave birth to a son, Vladimir, and died two days later, the son also died soon after.
Since 1857, Herzen began to cohabit with Nikolai Ogaryov's wife Natalya Alekseevna Ogaryova-Tuchkova, she raised his children. They had a daughter Elizabeth(1858-1875) and the twins Elena and Alexei (1861-1864, died of diphtheria). Officially, they were considered the children of Ogaryov.
In 1869, Natalya Tuchkova received the surname Herzen, which she bore until her return to Russia in 1876, after Herzen's death.
Elizaveta Ogareva-Herzen, the 17-year-old daughter of A. I. Herzen and N. A. Tuchkova-Ogaryova, committed suicide because of unrequited love for a 44-year-old Frenchman in Florence in December 1875. Suicide had a resonance, wrote about him
The illegitimate son of a wealthy landowner Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev and a German woman, Louise Ivanovna Gaag. At birth, the father gave the child the surname Herzen (from the German word herz - heart).
He received a good education at home. From his youth, he was distinguished by his erudition, freedom and breadth of views. The December events of 1825 had a great influence on Herzen's worldview. Soon he met his distant paternal relative Nikolai Platonovich Ogarev and became his close friend. In 1828, being like-minded and close friends, they took an oath of eternal friendship on Sparrow Hills in Moscow and showed their determination to devote their whole lives to the struggle for freedom and justice.
Herzen was educated at Moscow University, where he met with a number of progressive-minded students who formed a circle in which a wide range of issues related to science, literature, philosophy and politics were discussed. After graduating from the university in 1833 with a PhD and a silver medal, he became interested in the teachings of the Saint-Simonists and began to study the works of the socialist writers of the West.
A year later, A.I. Herzen, N.P. Ogarev and their other associates were arrested for freethinking. After spending several months in prison, Herzen was exiled to Perm, and then to Vyatka, to the office of the local governor, where he became an employee of the Gubernskiye Vedomosti newspaper. There he became close to the exiled architect A.I. Witberg. Then Herzen was transferred to Vladimir. For some time he was allowed to live in St. Petersburg, but soon he was again exiled, this time to Novgorod.
Since 1838 he has been married to his distant relative Natalya Aleksandrovna Zakharyina. Parents did not want to give Natalya to the disgraced Herzen, then he kidnapped his bride, married her in Vladimir, where he was in exile at that time, and confronted his parents with a fait accompli. All contemporaries noted the extraordinary affection and love of the Herzen spouses. Alexander Ivanovich more than once turned in his works to the image of Natalya Alexandrovna. In marriage, he had three children: a son, Alexander, a professor of physiology; daughters Olga and Natalia. Latest joint years the lives of the spouses were overshadowed by the sad passion of Natalya Alexandrovna for the German Georg Gerweg. This ugly story, which made all its participants suffer, ended with the death of Natalya Alexandrovna from childbirth. The illegitimate child died with his mother.
In 1842, Herzen received permission to move to Moscow, where he lived until 1847, studying literary activity. In Moscow, Herzen wrote the novel "Who is to blame?" and a number of stories and articles concerning social and philosophical problems.
In 1847, Alexander Ivanovich left for Europe, living alternately in France, then in Italy, then in Switzerland and working in various newspapers. Disillusioned with revolutionary movement Europe, he was looking for a different from the Western path of development of Russia.
After the death of his wife in Nice, A.I. Herzen moved to London, where he organized the publication of a free Russian press: the Polar Star and the Bells. Speaking with a freedom-loving and anti-serfdom program for Russia, Herzen's Bell attracted the attention and sympathy of the progressive part of Russian society. It was published until 1867 and was very popular among the Russian intelligentsia.
Herzen died in Paris and was buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery, then his ashes were transferred to Nice.
(pseudonym - Iskander) (1812-1870) Russian prose writer and publicist
Herzen's father was I.A. Yakovlev, who belonged to a noble family, his mother was G.L. Haag, the daughter of a petty official from Stuttgart. But the marriage of the parents was not formalized, and the child received fictitious surname. In the future, Herzen was considered a pupil of Yakovlev.
At the age of 14, Alexander swore to avenge the executed Decembrists. A year later, he repeated this oath with his friend N.P. Ogarev on Sparrow Hills. They dreamed of continuing the work of the Decembrists.
In 1829, Alexander Ivanovich Herzen became a student at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at Moscow University. At that time, the university was distinguished by the spirit of freethinking. Around Herzen and Ogarev like-minded people with pronounced political interests gather.
In 1833, Herzen graduated from the university with a Ph.D. and a silver medal for his essay Analytical Exposition of the Solar System of Copernicus. A year later, Herzen, Ogarev and their friends were arrested. After being imprisoned, "as a bold freethinker, very dangerous to society," he was exiled first to Perm, then to Vyatka, and after the petition of Vasily Andreevich Zhukovsky, to Vladimir. Just six months after returning from exile to Moscow and a short service in St. Petersburg, Alexander Herzen was assigned to serve in Novgorod, but in fact it was another exile. These years played an important role in Herzen's spiritual life and tempered his character.
In January 1847, he and his family went abroad, not thinking that he was leaving Russia forever. Alexander Herzen believed in his own strength, in the future, and hoped that the approaching revolution would liberate not only the peoples of Europe, but also his country.
Events french revolution 1848 and its defeat were reflected by Herzen in the famous book "Letters from France and Italy" (1847-1852), where the author appears as one of the most witty and profound critics of bourgeois society.
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen became disillusioned with the revolution, lost faith in the revolutionary West, he painfully parted with his illusions and tried to find a way forward. He was sure of only one thing for sure: that man is “not an autocratic master” in history; "the laws of historical development ... do not coincide in their ways with the ways of thought"; it is necessary to deal seriously with history "as a truly objective science."
Ideological disappointment coincided with family tragedy. In November 1851, Herzen's mother and youngest son died during a shipwreck, and in May 1852, the writer's wife died. "Everything collapsed - the general and the particular, the European revolution and domestic shelter, the freedom of the world and personal happiness", he later wrote. Only faith in his people, in the future of his country saves him from despair. One of the ways of spiritual revival was the work on the book of memoirs "The Past and Thoughts" (1852-1868). Herzen began work on it in London, where he moved after the death of his wife.
The idea of this book and its creative embodiment was subordinated to one of the main tasks - "to conclude an account with personal life ... the rest of the thoughts - to work, the rest of the strength - to fight." In order to understand everything, it was necessary to return to childhood, repeat the “past” in “thoughts” and try to figure out what is true and what is false. In this work, the author combines all types of prose: confession, artistic portraits, diaries, letters, theoretical and journalistic articles. All previous experience of Herzen as a philosopher, novelist and publicist is embodied in this book.
In 1853, Alexander Herzen opened the Free Printing House in London. In 1855, the almanac "Polar Star" began to appear. The writer repeats the name of the edition of K.F. Ryleeva and A.A. Bestuzhev and places profiles of five executed Decembrists on the cover. Radishchev's Journey from Petersburg to Moscow, the forbidden poems of Pushkin, Ryleev, Lermontov, Chaadaev's first Philosophical Letter, Belinsky's letter to Gogol were published here, the works of Herzen and Ogarev and many other materials were printed.
Since 1857, the Kolokol newspaper began to appear, the main task of which was the struggle for the liberation of the peasants. The newspaper existed for almost ten years, Alexander Herzen believed that the "Bell" played a role in the history of the liberation movement in Russia and now it is necessary to develop a revolutionary theory.
In addition to numerous revolutionary, philosophical, theoretical and journalistic works, Herzen created remarkable works of art: the novel “Who is to blame?” (1841-1846), the story "The Thieving Magpie" (1846), the novel "Doctor Krupov" (1847).
In the spring of 1869, Alexander Ivanovich Herzen moved to Paris, but a month later he died. He was buried in the Pere Lachaise cemetery, and later his ashes were transferred to Nice and buried next to the grave of his wife.
The significance of Alexander Herzen's work for the development of Russian literature is significantly reflected in the review of the French translation of the book "The Past and Thoughts": "Everything that he does and creates for Russia, at the same time becomes the property of the rest of Europe, and all of Europe with great interest and sympathy looks at the ever-increasing energy of his activity.
