Alexander Herzen: biography, literary heritage

Russian history is full of devotees ready to lay down their lives for their idea.

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870) was the first Russian socialist to preach the ideas of equality and brotherhood. And although he did not take direct part in revolutionary activity, he was among those who prepared the ground for its development. One of the leaders of Westerners, later he became disillusioned with the ideals of the European way of development of Russia, moved to the opposite camp and became the founder of another significant movement for our history - populism.

The biography of Alexander Herzen is closely connected with such figures of the Russian and world revolution as Ogaryov, Belinsky, Proudhon, Garibaldi. Throughout his life, he constantly tried to find the best way to equitably organize society. But it is the ardent love for one's people, the selfless service to the chosen ideals - this is what the descendants of Herzen Alexander Ivanovich have won respect for.

A brief biography and a review of the main works will allow the reader to become more familiar with this Russian thinker. Only in our memory they can live forever and continue to influence the minds.

Herzen Alexander Ivanovich: biography of the Russian thinker

AI Herzen was illegitimate son of the rich landowner Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev and the daughter of the official producer, the 16-year-old German woman Henrietta The Hague. Due to the fact that the marriage was not officially registered, the father made the name of his son. In German, it means "child of the heart".

A future writer and writer was brought up in his uncle's house on Tverskoi Boulevard (now it houses the Gorky Literary Institute ).

From an early age, "freedom-loving dreams" began to take on him, which is not surprising - the teacher of literature IE Protopopov acquainted the student with the poems of Pushkin, Ryleev, Busho. Ideas of the Great French Revolution were constantly hovering in the air of Alexander's study room. Already at that time, Herzen befriended Ogaryov, together they were nurturing plans for the transformation of the world. An unusually strong impression on friends was made by the Decembrist uprising, after which they caught fire with revolutionary activity and vowed to uphold the ideals of freedom and brotherhood until the end of their lives.

The books of the French Enlightenment were the daily book diet of Alexander - he read a lot of Voltaire, Beaumarchais, Kotzebue. He did not pass by and early German romanticism - the works of Goethe and Schiller set it up in an enthusiastic spirit.

University circle

In 1829, Alexander Herzen entered the Moscow University in the physics and mathematics department. And there he did not part with his childhood friend Ogarev, with whom they soon organized a circle of like-minded people. It also included well-known writer-historian V. Passek and translator N. Ketcher. At their meetings, the members of the circle discussed the ideas of sensitism, the equality of men and women, the destruction of private property - in general, they were the first socialists in Russia.

"The Malovsky story"

Education at the university was lethargic and monotonous. Few teachers could introduce lecturers to the advanced ideas of German philosophy. Herzen was looking for a way out of his energy, participating in university jokes. In 1831, he was implicated in the so-called "Malov history," in which Lermontov also took part. The students were expelled from the audience by a professor of criminal law. As Alexander Ivanovich later recalled, Malov M. Ya. Was a stupid, rude and uneducated professor. His students despised him and openly laughed at him in lectures. For their trick, the rebels got off relatively easily - spent several days in the punishment cell.

First link

The activity of the friendly circle of Herzen was quite innocent, but the Imperial Chancellery saw in their beliefs a threat to the tsar's power. In 1834 all members of this association were arrested and exiled. Herzen was first in Perm, and then he was appointed to serve in Vyatka. There he arranged an exhibition of local works, which gave Zhukovsky an opportunity to solicit his transfer to Vladimir. There, Herzen took his bride from Moscow. These days were the brightest and happiest in the turbulent life of the writer.

The split of Russian thought into Slavophiles and Westerners

In 1840 Alexander Herzen returned to Moscow. Here fate brought him to the literary circle of Belinsky, who preached and actively implanted the ideas of Hegelianism. With typical Russian enthusiasm and intransigence, the members of this circle perceived the ideas of the German philosopher about the reasonableness of all reality somewhat unilaterally. However, Hertzen himself from the philosophy of Hegel made quite the opposite conclusions. As a result, the circle disintegrated into the Slavophiles, led by Kirievsky and Khomyakov, and Westerners, who united around Herzen and Ogaryov. Despite the extremely opposite views on the further development of Russia, both of them united real patriotism, based not on blind love for Russian statehood, but on sincere belief in the strength and power of the people. As Herzen later wrote, they were like a two-faced Janus, whose faces were turned in different directions, and the heart was beating one.

The collapse of ideals

Herzen Alexander Ivanovich, whose biography was already full of frequent moves, spent the second half of his life outside of Russia. In 1846, the writer's father died, leaving a large legacy to Herzen. This gave Alexander Ivanovich several years to travel around Europe. The trip radically changed the way the writer thinks. His Western friends were shocked when they read the articles of Herzen, published in the journal Otechestvennye Zapiski, entitled "Letters from Avenue Marigny", which later became known as "Letters from France and Italy". The obvious anti-bourgeois sentiment of these letters indicated that the writer was disillusioned with the viability of revolutionary Western ideas. Having witnessed the failure of the chain of revolutions that swept across Europe in 1848-1849, the so-called "spring of the peoples", he began to develop a theory of "Russian socialism" that gave life to a new trend of Russian philosophical thought - populist.

New philosophy

In France, Alexander Herzen became friends with Proudhon, with whom he began publishing the newspaper "The Voice of the People." After suppressing the radical opposition, he moved to Switzerland, and then to Nice, where he met Garibaldi, the famous fighter for the freedom and independence of the Italian people. To this period belongs the publication of the essay "From the Other Bank", in which new ideas emerged, with which Herzen Alexander Ivanovich was carried away. The philosophy of a radical reorganization of the social system no longer satisfied the writer, and Herzen finally said goodbye to his liberal beliefs. He begins to visit the thought of the doom of old Europe and the great potential of the Slavic world, which must realize the socialist ideal.

AI Herzen - Russian publicist

After the death of his wife, Herzen moves to London, where he begins to publish his famous newspaper "The Bell". The newspaper enjoyed the greatest influence in the period that preceded the abolition of serfdom. Then its circulation begins to fall, especially strongly affected by its popularity suppression of the Polish Uprising of 1863. As a result, Herzen's ideas were not supported either by the radicals or by the liberals: for the first they were too moderate, and for the latter they were too radical. In 1865, the Russian government insistently demanded from Her Majesty the Queen of England that the editorial staff of the "Bell" be expelled from the country. Alexander Herzen and his companions were forced to move to Switzerland.

Herzen died of pneumonia in 1870 in Paris, where he came for family business.

Literary heritage

The bibliography of Herzen Alexander Ivanovich includes a huge number of articles written in Russia and emigration. But the greatest fame he brought books, in particular the final work of his whole life "Past and Thoughts". Alexander Herzen, whose biography made sometimes inconceivable zigzags, called this work a confession, which caused a variety of "thoughts from the thoughts". It is a synthesis of journalism, memoirs, literary portraits and historical chronicles. On the novel "Who is to blame?" The writer worked for six years. The problems of equality between women and men, relations in marriage, education, he proposes in this work to solve with the help of high ideals of humanism. Also his pen belong to the sharply social stories "Soroka-thief", "Doctor Krupov", "Tragedy for a Glass of Grog", "Boredom for the sake of" and others.

No, probably not a single educated person who at least hearsay did not know who Alexander Herzen is. A brief biography of the writer is contained in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron, and whether there are many other sources! However, it is best to get acquainted with the writer by his books - it is in them that his personality grows full-length.