Alexander Ivanovich Herzen - Russian revolutionary, writer, philosopher.
The illegitimate son of a wealthy Russian landowner I. Yakovlev and a young German bourgeois woman Louise Haag from Stuttgart. He received the fictitious surname Herzen - son of the heart (from German Herz).
He was brought up in Yakovlev's house, received a good education, became acquainted with the works of French enlighteners, read the forbidden poems of Pushkin and Ryleev. Herzen was deeply influenced by his friendship with his talented peer, the future poet N.P. Ogarev, which lasted throughout their lives. According to his memoirs, the news of the Decembrist uprising made a strong impression on the boys (Herzen was 13, Ogarev was 12 years old). Under his impression, their first, still vague dreams of revolutionary activities; During a walk on the Sparrow Hills, the boys vowed to fight for freedom.
In 1829, Herzen entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University, where he soon formed a group of progressively thinking students. His attempts to present his own vision of the social order date back to this time. Already in his first articles, Herzen showed himself not only as a philosopher, but also as a brilliant writer.
Already in 1829-1830, Herzen wrote a philosophical article about Wallenstein by F. Schiller. During this youthful period of Herzen’s life, his ideal was Karl Moor, the hero of F. Schiller’s tragedy “The Robbers” (1782).
In 1833, Herzen graduated from the university with a silver medal. In 1834, he was arrested for allegedly singing songs defamatory in the company of friends. royal family. In 1835, he was sent first to Perm, then to Vyatka, where he was assigned to serve in the governor’s office. For organizing an exhibition of local works and the explanations given to the heir (the future Alexander II) during its inspection, Herzen, at the request of Zhukovsky, was transferred to serve as an adviser to the board in Vladimir, where he got married, having secretly taken his bride from Moscow, and where he spent the happiest and bright days own life.
In 1840, Herzen was allowed to return to Moscow. Turning to artistic prose, Herzen wrote the novel “Who is to Blame?” (1847), the stories “Doctor Krupov” (1847) and “The Thieving Magpie” (1848), in which he considered his main goal to expose Russian slavery.
In 1847, Herzen and his family left Russia, going to Europe. Watching life Western countries, interspersed personal impressions with historical and philosophical research (Letters from France and Italy, 1847-1852; From the Other Shore, 1847-1850, etc.)
In 1850-1852, a series of Herzen’s personal dramas took place: the death of his mother in a shipwreck and youngest son, death of wife from childbirth. In 1852, Herzen settled in London.
By this time he was perceived as the first figure of the Russian emigration. Together with Ogarev, he began to publish revolutionary publications - the almanac "Polar Star" (1855-1868) and the newspaper "Bell" (1857-1867), the influence of which on the revolutionary movement in Russia was enormous. But his main creation of the emigrant years is “The Past and Thoughts.”
“The Past and Thoughts” by genre - a synthesis of memoirs, journalism, literary portraits, autobiographical novel, historical chronicles, short stories. The author himself called this book a confession, “about which stopped thoughts from thoughts were collected here and there.” The first five parts describe Herzen's life from childhood until the events of 1850-1852, when the author suffered difficult mental trials associated with the collapse of his family. The sixth part, as a continuation of the first five, is devoted to life in England. The seventh and eighth parts, even more free in chronology and theme, reflect the life and thoughts of the author in the 1860s.
All other works and articles of Herzen, such as, “ Old world and Russia”, “Le peuple Russe et le socialisme”, “Ends and Beginnings”, etc. represent a simple development of ideas and sentiments that were fully defined in the period 1847-1852 in the works mentioned above.
In 1865, Herzen left England and went on a long trip to Europe. At this time he distanced himself from the revolutionaries, especially from the Russian radicals. Arguing with Bakunin, who called for the destruction of the state, Herzen wrote: “People cannot be liberated in external life more than they are liberated internally.” These words are perceived as Herzen’s spiritual testament.
Like most Russian Westernized radicals, Herzen went through a period of deep fascination with Hegelianism in his spiritual development. Hegel's influence can be clearly seen in the series of articles “Amateurism in Science” (1842-1843). Their pathos lies in the approval and interpretation of Hegelian dialectics as a tool for knowledge and revolutionary transformation of the world (“algebra of revolution”). Herzen severely condemned abstract idealism in philosophy and science for its isolation from real life, for “apriorism” and “spiritism”.
Further development these ideas were received mainly philosophical essay Herzen - “Letters on the Study of Nature” (1845-1846). Continuing his criticism of philosophical idealism, Herzen defined nature as “the genealogy of thinking,” and saw only an illusion in the idea of pure being. For a materialistically minded thinker, nature is an ever-living, “fermenting substance”, primary in relation to the dialectics of knowledge. In the Letters, Herzen, quite in the spirit of Hegelianism, substantiated consistent historiocentrism: “neither humanity nor nature can be understood without historical existence,” and in understanding the meaning of history he adhered to the principles of historical determinism. However, in the thoughts of the late Herzen, the old progressivism gives way to much more pessimistic and critical assessments.
On January 21, 1870, Alexander Ivanovich Herzen died. He was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery. His ashes were later transported to Nice and buried next to his wife's grave.
Bibliography
1846 - Who is to blame?
1846 - Passing by
1847 - Doctor Krupov
1848 - Thieving Magpie
1851 - Damaged
1864 - Tragedy over a glass of grog
1868 - Past and thoughts
1869 - For the sake of boredom
Film adaptations
1920 - Thieving Magpie
1958 - The Thieving Magpie
Interesting Facts
Elizaveta Herzen, the 17-year-old daughter of A.I. Herzen and N.A. Tuchkova-Ogareva, committed suicide because of unrequited love for a 44-year-old Frenchman in Florence in December 1875. The suicide had a resonance; Dostoevsky wrote about it in his essay “Two Suicides.”
Illegitimate son of a wealthy landowner Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev and a German woman, Louise Ivanovna Haag. At birth, the father gave the child the surname Herzen (from German word herz – heart).
Received a good home education. From his youth he was distinguished by his erudition, freedom and open-mindedness. 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, they, being like-minded people and close friends, took an oath on Vorobyovy Gory in Moscow. eternal friendship and showed determination to devote their whole lives to the struggle for freedom and justice.
Herzen was educated at Moscow University, where he became friends with a number of progressive-minded students who formed a circle in which wide circle issues relating to science, literature, philosophy and politics. After graduating from the university in 1833 with a candidate of science degree and a silver medal, he became interested in the teachings of the Saint-Simonists and began to study the works of socialist writers of the West.
A year later A.I. Herzen, N.P. Ogarev and their other comrades 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 newspaper Gubernskie Vedomosti. There he became close to the exiled architect A.I. Vitberg. Then Herzen was transferred to Vladimir. For some time he was allowed to live in St. Petersburg, but soon he was exiled again, this time to Novgorod.
Since 1838 he has been married to his distant relative Natalya Aleksandrovna Zakharyina. The parents did not want to give Natalya to the disgraced Herzen, so 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 to the image of Natalya Alexandrovna in his works. In marriage he had three children: a son, Alexander, a professor of physiology; daughters Olga and Natalya. The last years of the couple's life together were overshadowed by Natalya Alexandrovna's sad infatuation with the German Georg Herwegh. This ugly story, which made all its participants suffer, ended with the death of Natalya Alexandrovna from childbirth. The illegitimate child died along with his mother.
In 1842, Herzen received permission to move to Moscow, where he lived until 1847, pursuing literary activities. In Moscow, Herzen wrote the novel “Who is to Blame?” and a number of stories and articles dealing with social and philosophical issues.
In 1847, Alexander Ivanovich left for Europe, living alternately in France, Italy, and Switzerland and working in various newspapers. Disappointed in revolutionary movement Europe, he was looking for a different path of development for Russia from the Western one.
After the death of his wife in Nice, A.I. Herzen moved to London, where he organized the publication of the free Russian press: Polar Star and Kolokol. 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 Père Lachaise cemetery, then his ashes were transported to Nice.
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen. Born on March 25 (April 6), 1812 in Moscow - died on January 9 (21), 1870 in Paris. Russian publicist, writer, philosopher.
Herzen was born into the family of a wealthy landowner Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev (1767-1846), descended from Andrei Kobyla (like the Romanovs). Mother - 16-year-old German Henriette Wilhelmina Luisa Haag (German: Henriette Wilhelmina Luisa Haag), the daughter of a minor official, a clerk in the state chamber in Stuttgart. The parents' marriage was not formalized, and Herzen bore the surname invented by his father: Herzen - “son of the heart” (from German Herz).
In his youth, Herzen received the usual noble education at home, based on reading works foreign literature, mainly from the end of the 18th century. French novels, comedies, Kotzebue, works, with early years set the boy in an enthusiastic, sentimental-romantic tone. There were no systematic lessons, but the tutors - French and Germans - informed the boy solid knowledge foreign languages. Thanks to his acquaintance with Schiller’s work, Herzen became imbued with freedom-loving aspirations, the development of which was greatly facilitated by the teacher of Russian literature I. E. Protopopov, who brought Herzen notebooks of poems: “Odes to Freedom”, “Dagger”, “Thoughts” by Ryleev, etc., as well as Busho , a participant in the French Revolution who left France when the “depraved and rogues” took over. Added to this was the influence of Tanya Kuchina, Herzen’s young “Korchev cousin” (married Tatyana Passek), who supported the childish pride of the young dreamer, predicting an extraordinary future for him.
Already in childhood, Herzen met and became friends with Nikolai Ogarev. According to his memoirs, the news of the Decembrist uprising on December 14, 1825 made a strong impression on the boys (Herzen was 13, Ogarev was 12 years old). Under his impression, their first, still vague dreams of revolutionary activity arise; During a walk on the Sparrow Hills, the boys vowed to fight for freedom.
Already in 1829-1830, Herzen wrote a philosophical article about “Wallenstein” by F. Schiller. During this youthful period of Herzen’s life, his ideal was Karl Moor, the hero of F. Schiller’s tragedy “The Robbers” (1782).
Herzen dreamed of friendship, dreamed of struggle and suffering for freedom. In this mood, Herzen entered Moscow University at the Department of Physics and Mathematics, and here this mood intensified even more. At the university, Herzen took part in the so-called “Malov story” (student protest against an unloved teacher), but got off relatively lightly - with a short imprisonment, along with many of his comrades, in a punishment cell. Of the teachers, only Kachenovsky with his skepticism and Pavlov, who managed to manage his lectures Agriculture to acquaint listeners with German philosophy, awakened young thought. The youth were, however, quite stormy; she welcomed the July Revolution (as can be seen from Lermontov’s poems) and other popular movements (the cholera that appeared in Moscow contributed greatly to the revival and excitement of students, in the fight against which all university youth took an active and selfless part). At this time, Herzen met with Vadim Passek, which later turned into friendship, the establishment of a friendly connection with Ketcher and others. The group of young friends grew, made noise, seethed; from time to time she allowed small revelries, of a completely innocent nature, however; I read diligently, being interested mainly in social issues, studying Russian history, assimilating the ideas of Saint-Simon ( utopian socialism whom Herzen then considered the most outstanding achievement of contemporary Western philosophy) and other socialists.
In 1834, all members of Herzen's circle and he himself were arrested. Herzen was exiled to Perm, and from there to Vyatka, where he was assigned to serve in the governor’s office.
For organizing an exhibition of local works and the explanations given to the heir to the throne (future) during its inspection, Herzen, at the request of Zhukovsky, was transferred to serve as an adviser to the board in Vladimir, where he got married, having secretly taken his bride from Moscow, and where he spent his happiest and brightest years. days of your life.
At the beginning of 1840, Herzen was allowed to return to Moscow. In May 1840, he moved to St. Petersburg, where, at the insistence of his father, he began to serve in the office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. But in July 1841, for a harsh review in one letter about the activities of the police, Herzen was exiled to Novgorod, where he served in the provincial government until July 1842, after which he settled in Moscow.
Here he had to face the famous circle of Hegelians Stankevich and, who defended the thesis of the complete rationality of all reality.
Most of Stankevich’s friends became close to Herzen and Ogarev, forming a camp of Westerners; others joined the Slavophil camp, with Khomyakov and Kireevsky at their head (1844).
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, all-existence love for the Russian people, for the Russian mentality.” The opponents, “like a two-faced Janus, looked in different directions, while the heart beat alone.” “With tears in our eyes”, hugging each other, recent friends, and now principled opponents, went in different directions.
Herzen often traveled to St. Petersburg for meetings of the Belinsky circle, and soon after the death of his father he went abroad forever (1847).
In the Moscow house where Herzen lived from 1843 to 1847, the A. I. Herzen House Museum has been operating since 1976.
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” (later published in revised form in “Letters from France and Italy”) shocked him friends - Western liberals - with their anti-bourgeois pathos. February Revolution The year 1848 seemed to Herzen the fulfillment of all his hopes. The subsequent June workers' uprising, its bloody suppression and the ensuing reaction shocked Herzen, who decisively 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 “The Voice of the People” (“La Voix du Peuple”), which he financed. His wife's sad infatuation with the German poet Herwegh 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; from Switzerland he moved to Nice, which then belonged to the Kingdom of Sardinia.
During this period, Herzen moved among the circles of radical European emigration that gathered in Switzerland after the defeat of the revolution in Europe, and, in particular, became acquainted with Giuseppe Garibaldi. He became famous for his book of essays “From the Other Shore,” in which he reckoned with his past liberal convictions. Under the influence of the collapse of old ideals and the reaction that occurred throughout Europe, Herzen formed a specific system of views about the doom, the “dying” of old Europe and the prospects for Russia and the Slavic world, which are called upon to realize the socialist ideal.
Literary activity Herzen began back in the 1830s. In the Athenaeum for 1830 (II volume) his name is found under one translation from French. The first article, signed under the pseudonym Iskander, was published in Telescope in 1836 (“Hoffmann”). The “Speech Delivered at the Opening of the Vyatka Public Library” and “Diary” (1842) date back to the same time. In Vladimir it is written: “Notes of one young man" and "More from the notes of a young man" ("Notes of the Fatherland", 1840-1841; in this story Chaadaev is depicted in the person of Trenzinsky). From 1842 to 1847, he published articles in Otechestvennye Zapiski and Sovremennik: “Amateurism in Science”, “Romantic Amateurs”, “Workshop of Scientists”, “Buddhism in Science”, “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 one drama”, “On various occasions”, “New variations on old themes”, “A few notes 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?”, dedicated to the issue of freedom of feeling, especially stand out. family relationships, 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 social and universal humanity, cannot ensure lasting happiness for themselves, and in their lives it will always depend on chance.
Of the works written by Herzen abroad, the following are especially important: letters from “Avenue Marigny” (the first published in Sovremennik, all fourteen under the general title: “Letters from France and Italy”, edition of 1855), representing a remarkable description and analysis of events and the moods that worried Europe in 1847-1852. Here we encounter 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. Herzen’s work “From the Other Shore” (originally in German “Vom anderen Ufer”, Hamburg, 1850; in Russian, London, 1855; in French, Geneva, 1870) made a particularly strong impression both in Russia and in Europe. in which Herzen expresses complete disappointment with the West and Western civilization - the result of that mental revolution that determined Herzen’s worldview in 1848-1851. It should also be noted the letter to: “The Russian people and socialism” - a passionate and ardent defense of the Russian people against the attacks and prejudices that Michelet expressed in one of his articles. “The Past and Thoughts” is a series of memories that are partly autobiographical in nature, but also give whole line 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”, “Le peuple Russe et le socialisme”, “Ends and Beginnings”, etc., represent a simple development of ideas and sentiments that were fully defined in the period 1847-1852 .
Attraction to freedom of thought, “freethinking”, in best value This word was especially strongly developed in Herzen. He did not belong to any one party, either open or secret. The one-sidedness of “men of action” alienated 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 drawn from his ugly, distant Russian reality of the 1840s. With amazing consistency, Herzen abandoned his passions for the West when it turned out in his eyes to be lower than the previously drawn up ideal.
As a consistent Hegelian, Herzen believed that the development of humanity proceeds in steps and each step is embodied in a certain people. Herzen, who laughed at the fact that Hegel’s god lived in Berlin, essentially transferred this god to Moscow, sharing with the Slavophiles the belief in the impending replacement of the Germanic period by the Slavic. At the same time, as a follower of Saint-Simon and Fourier, he combined this belief in the Slavic phase of progress with the doctrine of the upcoming replacement of the rule of the bourgeoisie with the triumph of the working class, which should come thanks to the Russian community, just discovered by the German Haxthausen. Together with the Slavophiles, Herzen despaired of Western culture. The West has rotted, and new life cannot be injected into its dilapidated forms. Faith in the community and the Russian people saved Herzen from a hopeless view of the fate of humanity. However, Herzen did not deny the possibility that Russia too would go through the stage of bourgeois development.
Defending the Russian future, Herzen argued that there is a lot of ugliness in Russian life, but there is no vulgarity that is rigid in its forms. Russian tribe- a fresh virgin tribe that has the “aspiration of the future century”, an immeasurable and endless supply vitality and energies; “a thinking person in Russia is the most independent and most open-minded person in the world.” Herzen was convinced that the Slavic world was striving for unity, and since “centralization is contrary to the Slavic spirit,” the Slavs would unite on the principles of federations. Having a free-thinking attitude towards all religions, Herzen recognized, however, that Orthodoxy had many advantages and merits in comparison with Catholicism and Protestantism.
Herzen's philosophical and historical concept emphasizes the active role of man in history. At the same time, she recognizes that reason cannot realize its ideals without taking into account existing facts history, that its results constitute the “necessary basis” for the operations of the mind.
In July 1849, Nicholas I arrested all the property of Herzen and his mother. After this, the seized property was pledged to the banker Rothschild, and he, negotiating a loan to Russia, achieved the lifting of the imperial ban.
After the death of his wife in 1852, Herzen moved to London, where he founded the Free Russian Printing House to print prohibited publications and, from 1857, published the weekly newspaper Kolokol.
The peak of the influence of the Bell occurs in the years preceding the liberation of the peasants; then the newspaper was regularly read in the Winter Palace. After the peasant reform, its influence begins to decline; support for the Polish uprising of 1863 sharply undermined circulation. At that time, Herzen was already too revolutionary for the liberal public, and too moderate for the radical one. On March 15, 1865, under the persistent demand of the Russian government to the British government, the editorial board of Kolokol, headed by Herzen, left London forever and moved to Switzerland, of which Herzen had by that time become a citizen. In April of the same 1865, the “Free Russian Printing House” was also transferred there. Soon people from Herzen’s circle began to move to Switzerland, for example, in 1865 Nikolai Ogarev moved there.
On January 9 (21), 1870, Alexander Ivanovich Herzen died of pneumonia in Paris, where he had recently arrived on family business. He was buried in Nice (the ashes were transferred from the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris).
Herzen family:
In 1838, in Vladimir, Herzen married his cousin Natalia Alexandrovna Zakharyina. In 1839 their son Alexander was born, and in 1841 a daughter was born. In 1842, a son, Ivan, was born, who died 5 days after birth. In 1843, a son, Nikolai, was born, who was deaf and mute. In 1844, daughter Natalya was born. In 1845, a daughter, Elizabeth, was born, who died 11 months after birth.
While emigrating to Paris, Herzen's wife fell in love with Herzen's friend Georg Herwegh. She admitted to Herzen that “dissatisfaction, something left unoccupied, abandoned, was looking for another sympathy and found it in friendship with Herwegh” and that she dreams of a “marriage of three,” and more spiritual than purely carnal. In Nice, Herzen and his wife and Herwegh and his wife Emma lived in the same house. Herzen then demanded the Herwegs' departure from Nice, and Herwegh blackmailed Herzen with the threat of suicide. The Herwegs left anyway. In the international revolutionary community, Herzen was condemned for subjecting his wife to “moral coercion” and preventing her from uniting with her lover. In 1850, Herzen's wife gave birth to a daughter, Olga.
On November 16, 1851, near the Giers archipelago, as a result of a collision with another ship, the steamer "City of Grasse", on which Herzen's mother and his deaf-mute son Nikolai were sailing to Nice, sank, and they both died.
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 Ogarev’s wife, Natalya Alekseevna Ogareva-Tuchkova, she raised his children. They had a daughter, Elizabeth. In 1869, Tuchkova received the surname Herzen, which she bore until her return to Russia in 1876, after Herzen’s death.
Elizaveta Herzen, the 17-year-old daughter of A.I. Herzen and N.A. Tuchkova-Ogareva, committed suicide because of unrequited love for a 44-year-old Frenchman in Florence in December 1875. The suicide had a resonance; he wrote about it in the essay “Two Suicides.”
Works of Herzen:
"Who is guilty?" novel in two parts (1846)
"Passing by" story (1846)
"Doctor Krupov" story (1847)
“The Thieving Magpie” story (1848)
"Damaged" story (1851)
"Tragedy over a Glass of Grog" (1864)
“For the sake of boredom” (1869).
Herzen Alexander Ivanovich (1812-1870)
Russian prose writer, publicist, critic, philosopher. Nickname - Iskander. Born on March 25, 1812 in Moscow. Was illegitimate son a wealthy Russian landowner I. Yakovlev and a young German bourgeois woman Louise Haag from Stuttgart. The boy received the fictitious surname Herzen (from the German word for “heart”).
He was brought up in Yakovlev's house, received a good education, became acquainted with the works of French educators, and read the forbidden poems of Pushkin and Ryleev. Herzen was deeply influenced by his friendship with his talented peer, the future poet N. Ogarev, which lasted throughout their lives.
The event that determined future fate Herzen, there was a Decembrist uprising. In the summer of 1828, he and his friend Ogarev on the Sparrow Hills, in front of the whole of Moscow, swore allegiance to the great cause of the struggle for the liberation of the people. They remained faithful to this oath until the end of their lives.
His youthful love of freedom was strengthened during his years of study at Moscow University, where he entered in 1829. to the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, graduating with a candidate's degree in 1833. Within the walls of the university, a circle of progressive youth who were seriously involved in politics and sociology grouped around Herzen and Ogarev. In the eyes of his superiors, Herzen was known as a brave freethinker, very dangerous to society.
In the summer of 1834, he was arrested and exiled to a remote province: first to Perm, then to Vyatka and Vladimir. The first year in Vyatka he considered his life “empty”; he found support only in correspondence with Ogarev and his fiancée N. Zakharyina, whom he married while serving exile in Vladimir.
In 1840 he returned to Moscow, but was soon sent into exile in Novgorod, from where he returned 2 years later. In 1842-1847 publishes in Otechestvennye zapiski a series of articles, “Amateurism in Science,” begun in Novgorod (1842-1843). Herzen's second philosophical cycle, “Letters on the Study of Nature” (1844-1846), occupies an outstanding place in the history of not only Russian, but also world philosophical thought.
In 1845, the novel “Who’s to Blame!”, begun in Novgorod, was completed. In 1846, the stories “The Thieving Magpie” and “Doctor Krupov” were written. In January 1847 goes abroad with his family, not expecting that he is leaving Russia forever.
In the fall of 1847 in Rome, he took part in popular processions, demonstrations, and visited revolutionary clubs. In May 1848 he returned to revolutionary Paris. Later, the book “Letters from France and Italy” will be written about these events. In the June days of the same year, he witnessed the defeat of the revolution in France and the rampant reaction, which led him to an ideological crisis, expressed in the book “From the Other Shore.”
In the fall of 1851, he experienced a personal tragedy: his mother and son died during a shipwreck. In May 1852, his wife died. “Everything collapsed - the general and the particular, the European revolution and home shelter, the freedom of the world and personal happiness.”
At this time he moved to London, where he began work on a book of confession, a book of memoirs, “The Past and Thoughts.”
In 1853, Herzen founded the Free Russian Printing House in London. In 1855, he began publishing the almanac “Polar Star”; in the summer of 1857, together with Ogarev, he began publishing the newspaper “Bell”. Last years Herzen's life was spent mainly in Geneva, which became the center of revolutionary emigration. In 1865, the publication of “The Bell” was moved here. In 1867, he stopped publishing, believing that the newspaper had played its role in the history of the liberation movement in Russia. Herzen now considered his main task to be the development of revolutionary theory. In the spring of 1869 he decided to settle in Paris.
Here on January 9, 1870 Herzen died. He was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery. His ashes were later transported to Nice and buried next to his wife's grave.
April 6 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of the Russian prose writer, publicist and philosopher Alexander Ivanovich Herzen.
Russian prose writer, publicist and philosopher Alexander Ivanovich Herzen was born on April 6 (March 25, old style) 1812 in Moscow in the family of a wealthy Russian landowner Ivan Yakovlev and a German woman, Louise Haag. The parents' marriage was not officially registered, so the child was illegitimate and was considered a pupil of his father, who gave him the surname Herzen, derived from the German word Herz and meaning “child of the heart.”
The future writer spent his childhood in the house of his uncle, Alexander Yakovlev, on Tverskoy Boulevard(now house 25, which houses the A.M. Gorky Literary Institute). Since childhood, Herzen was not deprived of attention, but the position of an illegitimate child gave him a feeling of orphanhood.
WITH early age Alexander Herzen read the works of the philosopher Voltaire, the playwright Beaumarchais, the poet Goethe and the novelist Kotzebue, so he early adopted a free-thinking skepticism, which he retained until the end of his life.
In 1829, Herzen entered the physics and mathematics department of Moscow University, where soon, together with Nikolai Ogarev (who entered a year later), he formed a circle of like-minded people, among whom the most famous were the future writer, historian and ethnographer Vadim Passek, and translator Nikolai Ketcher. Young people discussed the socio-political problems of our time - the French Revolution of 1830, the Polish Uprising (1830-1831), were carried away by the ideas of Saint-Simonism (the doctrine French philosopher Saint-Simon - building an ideal society through the destruction of private property, inheritance, classes, equality of men and women).
In 1833, Herzen graduated from the university with a silver medal and went to work in the Moscow expedition of the Kremlin building. The service left him enough free time to engage in creativity. Herzen was going to publish a magazine that was supposed to unite literature, social issues and natural science with the idea of Saint-Simonism, but in July 1834 he was arrested for singing songs discrediting the royal family at a party where a bust of Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich was broken. During interrogations, the Investigative Commission, without proving Herzen’s direct guilt, considered that his beliefs posed a danger to the state. In April 1835, Herzen was exiled first to Perm, then to Vyatka with the obligation to remain in public service under the supervision of local authorities.
Since 1836, Herzen published under the pseudonym Iskander.
At the end of 1837, he was transferred to Vladimir and was given the opportunity to visit Moscow and St. Petersburg, where he was accepted into the circle of critic Vissarion Belinsky, historian Timofey Granovsky and fiction writer Ivan Panaev.
In 1840, the gendarmerie intercepted a letter from Herzen to his father, where he wrote about the murder of a St. Petersburg guard - a street guard who killed a passerby. For spreading unfounded rumors, he was exiled to Novgorod without the right to enter the capital. The Minister of Internal Affairs, Stroganov, appointed Herzen as an adviser to the provincial government, which was a promotion.
In July 1842, having retired with the rank of court councilor, after the petition of his friends, Herzen returned to Moscow. In 1843-1846 he lived in Sivtsev Vrazhek Lane (now a branch Literary Museum- Herzen Museum), where he wrote the stories “The Thieving Magpie”, “Doctor Krupov”, the novel “Who is to Blame?”, the articles “Amateurism in Science”, “Letters on the Study of Nature”, political feuilletons “Moscow and St. Petersburg” and other works. Here Herzen, who led the left wing of Westerners, was visited by history professor Timofey Granovsky, critic Pavel Annenkov, artists Mikhail Shchepkin, Prov Sadovsky, memoirist Vasily Botkin, journalist Evgeny Korsh, critic Vissarion Belinsky, poet Nikolai Nekrasov, writer Ivan Turgenev, forming the Moscow epicenter of the Slavophile polemics and Westerners. Herzen visited the Moscow literary salons of Avdotya Elagina, Karolina Pavlova, Dmitry Sverbeev, and Pyotr Chaadaev.
In May 1846, Herzen's father died, and the writer became the heir to a significant fortune, which provided the means to travel abroad. In 1847, Herzen left Russia and began his many-year journey through Europe. Observing the life of Western countries, he interspersed personal impressions with historical and philosophical research, the most famous of which are “Letters from France and Italy” (1847-1852), “From the Other Shore” (1847-1850). After the defeat of the European revolutions (1848-1849), Herzen became disillusioned with the revolutionary capabilities of the West and developed the theory of “Russian socialism”, becoming one of the founders of populism.
In 1852, Alexander Herzen settled in London. By this time he was perceived as the first figure of the Russian emigration. In 1853 he. Together with Ogarev, he published revolutionary publications - the almanac "Polar Star" (1855-1868) and the newspaper "Bell" (1857-1867). The newspaper's motto was the beginning of the epigraph to the "Bell" of the German poet Schiller "Vivos voso!" (Calling the living!). At the first stage, the "Bells" program contained democratic demands: the liberation of peasants from serfdom, the abolition of censorship, corporal punishment. It was based on the theory of Russian peasant socialism developed by Alexander Herzen. In addition to articles by Herzen and Ogarev, Kolokol published various materials about the situation of the people, social struggle in Russia, information about abuses and secret plans of the authorities. The newspapers Pod Sud (1859-1862) and General Assembly (1862-1864) were published as supplements to the Bell. Sheets of "Bell" printed on thin paper were illegally transported across the border to Russia. At first, Kolokol's employees included the writer Ivan Turgenev and the Decembrist Nikolai Turgenev, the historian and publicist Konstantin Kavelin, the publicist and poet Ivan Aksakov, the philosopher Yuri Samarin, Alexander Koshelev, the writer Vasily Botkin and others. After the reform of 1861, articles sharply condemning the reform and texts of proclamations appeared in the newspaper. Communication with the editorial office of Kolokol contributed to the formation of the revolutionary organization Land and Freedom in Russia. To strengthen ties with the “young emigration” concentrated in Switzerland, the publication of “The Bell” was moved to Geneva in 1865, and in 1867 it practically ceased to exist.
In the 1850s, Herzen began to write main work of his life “The Past and Thoughts” (1852-1868) - a synthesis of memoirs, journalism, literary portraits, an autobiographical novel, historical chronicles, and short stories. The author himself called this book a confession, “about which the stopped thoughts from thoughts gathered here and there.”
In 1865, Herzen left England and went on a long trip to Europe. At this time he distanced himself from the revolutionaries, especially from the Russian radicals.
In the fall of 1869, he settled in Paris with new plans for literary and publishing activities. In Paris, Alexander Herzen died on January 21 (9 old style) 1870. He was buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery, and his ashes were subsequently transported to Nice.
Herzen was married to his cousin Natalya Zakharyina, the illegitimate daughter of his uncle, Alexander Yakovlev, whom he married in May 1838, taking him secretly from Moscow. The couple had many children, but three survived - the eldest son Alexander, who became a professor of physiology, daughters Natalya and Olga.
The grandson of Alexander Herzen, Peter Herzen, was a famous scientist-surgeon, founder of the Moscow School of Oncologists, director of the Moscow Institute for the Treatment of Tumors, which currently bears his name (Moscow Research Oncology Institute named after P.A. Herzen).
After the death of Natalya Zakharyina in 1852, Alexander Herzen was married in a civil marriage to Natalya Tuchkova-Ogareva, the official wife of Nikolai Ogarev, from 1857. The relationship had to be kept secret from the family. The children of Tuchkova and Herzen - Lisa, who committed suicide at the age of 17, the twins Elena and Alexei, who died at a young age, were considered Ogarev's children.
Tuchkova-Ogareva carried out the proofreading of The Bell, and after Herzen’s death she was involved in the publication of his works abroad. From the late 1870s she wrote “Memoirs” (published as a separate edition in 1903).
The material was prepared based on information from RIA Novosti and open sources.