Herzen Alexander Ivanovich works. A. I. Herzen. Philosophical works. The novel "Who is to Blame?"

Years of life: from 04/06/1812 to 01/21/1870

The fate of this man, who stood at the origins of populism, was connected with the great dramatic moments of Russian and European history. He witnessed and took part in a number of significant events: the formation of Marxism, the French Revolution of 1848, the social upsurge in Russia in the 60s.

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen was born on March 25 (April 6), 1812. His father, Ivan Yakovlevich, was closely related to the envoy to the Westphalian court - A. A. Yakovlev. And the mother was a young German woman, Henrietta - Louise Haag, who was almost thirty years younger than her lover. The parents’ marriage was not formalized, the baby began to be officially called a “pupil” and bear the surname invented by his father: Herzen - “son of the heart,” from the German herz.

He spent his childhood, which was not cloudless, in his parents' house. It was difficult for him to get along with his father, whose character was of the “not a gift” category. Alexander had an older brother, Yegor. But he grew up in complete obscurity in the village of Pokrovskoye, where his mother, a serf peasant, was exiled.

As a child, little Herzen loved to listen to stories about the times of the French Revolution of the late 18th century. And he never missed an opportunity to listen and learn something new. He received the usual noble upbringing at home, based on reading foreign literature of the late 18th century. The novels and comedies of Beaumarchais, Kotzebue, Goethe, and Schiller aroused awe and delight in him from an early age.

Thanks to his desire to learn new things and interest in Schiller’s work, Herzen was imbued with freedom-loving aspirations, the development of which was greatly facilitated by the teacher of Russian literature I. E. Protopopov. This was also facilitated by the influence of Tanya Kuchina, Herzen’s cousin (married Tatyana Passek), who supported the childish pride of the young dreamer, prophesying an extraordinary future for him.

At the age of 13, Herzen met the future poet and publicist Nikolai Ogarev, who was only 12 years old at the time of the meeting. After the news of the Decembrist uprising on December 14, 1825, Herzen, together with his friend Nikolai, began to dream of revolutionary activity for the first time, and during one of their walks they vowed to fight for freedom.

Herzen dreamed of friendship, dreamed of fighting for freedom. In such a rather gloomy mood, in 1829 he entered Moscow University to study physics and mathematics. At the university, he takes part in the so-called “Malovsky story” - a protest of students against teachers. This protest ended with the imprisonment of the young rebel along with his comrades in a punishment cell. The youth were in a stormy mood: they welcomed the July Revolution and other popular movements. The group of young rebel friends grew, and from time to time they indulged in small revelries, of an innocent nature, of course.

But of course, all these protests and the struggle for freedom did not go unnoticed by the authorities. In 1834, members of Herzen's circle and he himself were arrested. The punishment was exile. Herzen was first exiled to Perm, and then to Vyatka, where he was assigned to serve in the governor’s office.

By organizing an exhibition of local works, Herzen got a chance to distinguish himself before the future Emperor Alexander II, and soon, at the request of Zhukovsky, he was transferred to serve as an adviser to the board in Vladimir. In 1838 he got married, secretly taking his bride, Natalya Aleksandrovna Zakharyina, from Moscow.

At the beginning of 1840, Herzen was allowed to return to Moscow. In May of this year, 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. Already here he encountered the famous circle of Stankevich and Belinsky, who defended the thesis of the useful rationality of all activities. Most of Stankevich’s friends became close to Herzen and Ogarev, and a camp of Westerners was formed.

Herzen came to Europe with a radical republican character rather than a socialist one. The February Revolution of 1848 seemed to him the fulfillment of all his hopes and desires. The subsequent June workers' uprising and its suppression shocked Herzen, who decisively turned to socialism. He became close to Proudhon and other prominent figures of the revolution and European radicalism. 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.

Under the influence of the collapse of old ideals and the reaction that occurred throughout Europe, Herzen formed a specific system of views about doom. By decree of Nicholas I, in July 1849, all the property of Herzen and his mother was seized. After the death of his wife in 1852, Herzen moved to London, where he founded the Free Russian Printing House to print prohibited publications. In 1857 he began publishing the weekly newspaper Kolokol.

The peak of Kolokol's influence occurred in the years preceding the liberation of the peasants, when the newspaper was regularly read in the Winter Palace. After the peasant reform, her popularity begins to decline. At that time, Herzen was already too revolutionary for the public. On March 15, 1865, under the insistent demand of the Russian government, the editorial board of Kolokol, headed by Herzen, left London forever and moved to Switzerland. In April of the same year, the “Free Russian Printing House” was also transferred there. Soon people from Herzen’s circle, such as Nikolai Ogarev, began to move to Switzerland.

On January 21 (according to the new calendar), Alexander Ivanovich Herzen died of pneumonia in Paris, where he had recently arrived on family business. He was buried in Nice, his ashes were transferred from the Père Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

Circumstances of personal life.
They were practically not mentioned in those days when Herzen’s personality was considered only from the point of view of social significance in the revolutionary reorganization of Russian and European society. While some facts of his personal and family life may be shocking...

Despite all the “storms” that happened in his life with his first wife, they were happy. And already in 1839 their son Alexander was born, and two years later - a daughter. 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. Nicholas lived only 10 years and died along with Herzen’s mother during a sea voyage to Nice as a result of a ship collision. In 1844, daughter Natalya was born. In 1845, a daughter, Elizabeth, was born, who died 11 months after birth. In 1850, Herzen's wife gave birth to a daughter, Olga. The year 1852 brought Herzen a series of tragic losses: his wife gave birth to a son, Vladimir, and died two days later; his son also died soon after.

In 1857, Herzen began cohabiting with Nikolai Ogarev’s second wife, Natalya Alekseevna Ogareva-Tuchkova, who took care of Herzen’s children. They had a daughter, Elizabeth, who lived a short life. At the age of 17, she committed suicide due to unrequited love (in Florence in December 1875). In 1869, Tuchkova received the surname Herzen, which she bore until her return to Russia in 1876, even after Herzen’s death.

Russian revolutionary, philosopher, writer A. I. Herzen was born in Moscow on March 25, 1812. He was born from the extramarital affair of 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 on Yakovlev’s estate. He was given a good education at home, he had the opportunity to read books from his father’s library: works by Western educators, poems by banned Russian poets Pushkin and Ryleev. While still a teenager, he became friends with the future revolutionary and poet N. Ogarev. This friendship lasted a lifetime.

Herzen's youth

When Alexander was thirteen years old, the December Uprising took place in Russia, the events of which forever influenced Herzen's fate. Thus, from a very young age, he had eternal idols, patriotic heroes who came out to Senate Square to consciously die for the sake of the future new life of the younger generation. He swore an oath to avenge the execution of the Decembrists and continue their work.

In the summer of 1828, on the Sparrow Hills in Moscow, Herzen and Ogarev swore an oath to devote their lives to the struggle for the freedom of the people. The friends remained faithful to their oath for the rest of their lives. In 1829, Aleksandr began his studies at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of Moscow University. In 1833 he graduated from it, receiving a candidate's degree. During their student years, Herzen and Ogarev gathered around themselves progressive young people of like-minded people. They were interested in issues of freedom, equality, and education. The university management 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 activities 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 for the better. Now he could travel to Moscow and meet with friends. He took his bride N.A. Zakharyina from Moscow to Vladimir, where they got married.

The years 1838 - 1840 were especially happy for the young couple. Herzen, who had already tried his hand at literature before, was not noted for his 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”. Aleksandr Ivanovich knew that creative imagination was not his element. He was better able to realize himself as a publicist and philosopher. But nevertheless, he did not abandon his studies in the field of literary creativity.

Philosophical works. The novel "Who is to Blame?"

Having served his exile in 1839, he returned to Moscow, but soon showed imprudence in correspondence with his father and spoke harshly to the tsarist police. He was arrested again and again sent into exile, this time to Novgorod. Returning from exile in 1842, he published his work, which he had worked on in Novgorod, “Amateurism in Science,” then a very serious philosophical study, “Letters on the Study of Nature.”

During the 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's to Blame?" Herzen is his greatest creative achievement. Belinsky believed that the author’s strength is in the “power of thought,” and the soul of his talent is in “humanity.”

"The 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, powerless position of the serf actress. Interesting fact: the narrator in the story is a “famous artist,” the prototype of the great actor M. S. Shchepkin, who was also a serf for a long time.

Herzen Abroad

January 1847. Herzen and his family left Russia forever. Settled in Paris. But in the fall of the same 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. His book of 1847-50 “From the Other Shore” is about this.

1851 was 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 “Bell”. Herzen died in Paris on January 9, 1870.

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. 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 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.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 activity arise; 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 discrediting the royal family in the company of friends. 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 of your life.
In 1840, Herzen was allowed to return to Moscow. Turning to fictional 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. Observing the life of Western countries, he 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 and youngest son in a shipwreck, the death of his 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 is a synthesis of memoirs, journalism, literary portraits, autobiographical novel, historical chronicle, and 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 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 years 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 affirmation and interpretation of Hegelian dialectics as an instrument of 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.”
These ideas were further developed in Herzen’s main philosophical work, “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 - 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.”

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 policies of the Russian Empire in the 19th century, supporter of revolutionary bourgeois-democratic transformations .

Encyclopedic YouTube

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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. Westerners 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), descended from Andrei Kobyla (like the Romanovs). Mother - 16-year-old German Henrietta-Wilhelmina-Louise Haag (German). Henriette Wilhelmina Luisa Haag), the daughter of a minor official, a clerk in the treasury chamber in. 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 of foreign literature, mainly from the 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 - French and Germans - gave the boy a solid knowledge of foreign languages. Thanks to his acquaintance with Schiller’s work, Herzen was 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 Pushkin’s poems: “Odes to Freedom”, “Dagger”, “Thoughts” by Ryleev, etc., as well as Bouchot, a participant in the Great French Revolution, who left France when the “depraved and rogues” took over. Added to this was the influence of Tanya Kuchina, Herzen’s young aunt, “Korchevskaya cousin” (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 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 Vorobyovy Gory, 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 Moscow University in the physics and mathematics department, 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 M.T.  Kachenovsky with his skepticism and M.G. ] [ ] . The youth were, however, quite stormy; she welcomed the July revolution (as can be seen from Lermontov’s poems) and other popular movements (the excitement of students was facilitated by the cholera that appeared in Moscow, in the fight against which all university youth took an active part) [ ] . The meeting of Herzen with Vadim Passek dates back to this time, 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; She read diligently, being carried away mainly by social issues, studying Russian history, assimilating the ideas of Saint-Simon (whose utopian socialism Herzen then considered the most outstanding achievement of contemporary Western philosophy) and other socialists.

Link

After the 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 mentality, embracing the entire existence.” 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.

In the Moscow house where Herzen lived from 1847 to 1847, the A. I. Herzen House Museum has been operating since 1976.

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 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 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. The beginning of his wife's passion for 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, 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 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.

After a series of family tragedies that befell Herzen in Nice (his wife’s infidelity with Herwegh, the death of a 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 to print prohibited publications and, from 1857, published a weekly newspaper "Bell".

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 demands 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 entourage 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).

Literary and journalistic activities

Herzen's literary activity began in the 1830s. In the Athenaeum for 1831 (II volume) his name is found under one translation from French. The first article signed by 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) date back to the same time. In Vladimir the following were written: “Notes of a young man” and “More from the notes of a young man” (“Otechestvennye zapiski”, 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 a philosophical analysis of 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? "", "The Thieving Magpie", "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, family relationships, and the position of women in marriage, especially stand out. 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. A particularly strong impression both in Russia and in Europe was made by Herzen’s essay “From the Other Shore” (originally in German “Vom anderen Ufer”, Hamburg,; in Russian, London, 1855; in French, Geneva, 1870), in 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 is also worth noting the letter to Michelet: “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 memoirs that are partly autobiographical in nature, but also provide a whole series of highly artistic pictures, dazzlingly brilliant characteristics, and observations of Herzen from what he experienced and saw in Russia and abroad.

All other works and articles of Herzen, such as: “The Old World and Russia”, “Russian People and Socialism”, “Ends and Beginnings”, etc., represent a simple development of ideas and sentiments that were fully defined in the period 1847-1852 in his writings mentioned above.

Philosophical views of Herzen during the years of emigration

The attraction to freedom of thought, “freethinking,” in the best sense of the 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 passion for the West when it turned out in his eyes to be lower than the previously drawn up ideal.

Herzen's philosophical and historical concept emphasizes the active role of man in history. At the same time, it implies that reason cannot realize its ideals without taking into account the existing facts of history, that its results constitute the “necessary basis” for the operations of reason.

Quotes

“Let’s not invent a God if he doesn’t exist, because this still won’t exist.”

“At every age and under various circumstances I returned to reading the Gospel, and each time its content brought peace and meekness to my soul.”

Pedagogical ideas

There are no special theoretical works on education in Herzen's legacy. However, throughout his life Herzen was interested in pedagogical problems and was one of the first Russian thinkers and public figures of the mid-19th century to address the problems of education in his 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) beliefs.

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 Nicholas Ministry of Education stifled public education. The tsarist government, according to Herzen, “laid in wait for the child at the first step in life and corrupted the cadet-child, the high school student, the student-boy. Mercilessly, systematically, it eradicated the human embryos in them, weaned them, as if from a vice, from all human feelings except obedience. It punished minors for violation of discipline in a 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 a tool for strengthening serfdom and autocracy.

Folk pedagogy

Herzen believed that the simplest people have the most positive influence on children, that it is the people who bear the best Russian national qualities. Young generations learn from the people respect for work, selfless love for their homeland, and aversion to idleness.

Upbringing

Herzen considered the main task of education to be the formation of a humane, free personality who lives in the interests of his people and strives to transform society on a reasonable basis. Children must be provided with conditions for free development. “Reasonable recognition of self-will is the highest and moral recognition of human dignity.” In everyday educational activities, an important role is played by the “talent of patient love,” the teacher’s disposition towards the child, respect for him, and knowledge of his needs. A healthy family environment and correct relationships between children and teachers are a necessary condition for moral education.

Education

Herzen passionately sought the spread of education and knowledge among the people, called on scientists to take science out of the classroom walls and make its achievements public domain. Emphasizing the enormous educational importance of the natural sciences, Herzen was at the same time in favor of a system of comprehensive general education. He wanted secondary school students, along with natural science and mathematics, to study literature (including the literature of ancient peoples), foreign languages, and history. A. I. Herzen noted that without reading there is and cannot be either taste, style, or multifaceted breadth of understanding. Thanks to reading, a person survives centuries. Books influence the deepest areas of the human psyche. Herzen emphasized in every possible way that education should contribute to the development of independent thinking in students. Educators should, relying on children’s innate inclinations to communicate, develop social aspirations and inclinations in them. This is achieved through communication with peers, collective children's games, and general activities. Herzen fought against the suppression of children's will, but at the same time attached great importance to discipline, and considered the establishment of discipline a necessary condition for proper upbringing. “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 talented, popular presentation of complex ideological problems. The author simply and vividly explains to children the origin of the Universe from a materialistic point of view. He convincingly proves the important role of science in the fight against incorrect views, prejudices and superstitions and refutes the idealistic fabrication that a soul also exists in a person, separate from his body.

Family

In 1838, in Vladimir, Herzen married his cousin Natalya Alexandrovna Zakharyina, before leaving Russia they had 6 children, two of whom lived 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 learned to speak and write, died in a shipwreck (see below).
• Natalia(Tata, 1844-1936), family historiographer and keeper 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 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, ​​as well as their children, lived in the same house, forming a “commune” that did not involve intimate relationships outside of couples. Nevertheless, Natalya Herzen became Herwegh’s mistress, which she hid from her husband (although Herwegh revealed himself to his wife). Then Herzen, having learned the truth, 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(1850-1953), who in 1873 married the French historian Gabriel Monod (1844-1912). According to some reports, Herzen doubted his paternity, but never stated this publicly and recognized the child as his own.

In the summer of 1851, the Herzen couple reconciled, but a new tragedy awaited the family. On November 16, 1851, near the Giera archipelago, as a result of a collision with another ship, the steamship “City of Grasse” sank, on which Herzen’s mother Louise Ivanovna and his son Nikolai, deaf from birth, with their teacher Johann Shpilman sailed 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 Ogarev’s wife, Natalya Alekseevna Ogareva-Tuchkova, she raised his children. They had a daughter Elizabeth(1858-1875) and twins Elena and Alexey (1861-1864, died of diphtheria). Officially, they were considered Ogarev’s children.

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-Ogareva, committed suicide because of unrequited love for a 44-year-old Frenchman in

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 the 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 relative on his father’s side, Nikolai Platonovich Ogarev, and became his close friend. In 1828, they, being like-minded people and close friends, 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 became friends with a number of progressive-minded students who formed a circle in which a wide range of issues relating to science, literature, philosophy and politics were discussed. 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. Disillusioned with the revolutionary movement of Europe, he sought a different path for the development of Russia than 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.