2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25
Russian history is full of devotees who are ready to lay down their lives for their idea.
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870) was the first Russian socialist who preached the ideas of equality and brotherhood. And although he did not take a direct part in revolutionary activities, he was among those who prepared the ground for its development. One of the leaders of the Westernizers, later he became disillusioned with the ideals of the European path of Russia's development, moved to the opposite camp and became the founder of another significant movement in 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 organize society justly. But it is precisely the ardent love for one's people, selfless service to the chosen ideals - this is what Alexander Ivanovich Herzen won the respect of the descendants of.
Brief biography anda review of the main works will allow the reader to get to know this Russian thinker better. After all, only in our memory can they live forever and continue to influence the minds.
Gerzen Alexander Ivanovich: biography of a Russian thinker
A. I. Herzen was the illegitimate son of a we althy landowner Ivan Alekseevich Yakovlev and the daughter of a manufacturing official, 16-year-old German Henrietta Haag. Due to the fact that the marriage was not officially registered, the father came up with the name of his son. It means "child of the heart" in German.
The future publicist and writer was brought up in his uncle's house on Tverskoy Boulevard (now it houses the Gorky Literary Institute).
From an early age he began to be overwhelmed by "freedom-loving dreams", which is not surprising - the teacher of literature, I. E. Protopopov, introduced the student to the poems of Pushkin, Ryleev, Busho. The ideas of the French Revolution were constantly in the air of Alexander's study room. Already at that time, Herzen became friends with Ogaryov, together they hatched plans to transform the world. The Decembrist uprising made an unusually strong impression on the friends, after which they caught fire with revolutionary activity and swore to uphold the ideals of freedom and brotherhood until the end of their lives.
Books of the French Enlightenment were Alexander's daily book ration - he read a lot of Voltaire, Beaumarchais, Kotzebue. He did not pass by early German romanticism either - the works of Goethe and Schiller set him up in an enthusiastic spirit.
Universitycircle
In 1829, Alexander Herzen entered Moscow University in the department of physics and mathematics. And there he did not part with his childhood friend Ogaryov, with whom they soon organized a circle of like-minded people. It also included the well-known future writer-historian V. Passek and translator N. Ketcher. At their meetings, the members of the circle discussed the ideas of Saint-Simonism, equality of men and women, the destruction of private property - in general, these were the first socialists in Russia.
Malovskaya story
Teaching at the university was sluggish and monotonous. Few teachers could introduce lecturers to the advanced ideas of German philosophy. Herzen sought an outlet for his energy by participating in university pranks. In 1831, he became involved in the so-called "Malov story", in which Lermontov also took part. The students expelled the professor of criminal law from the audience. As Alexander Ivanovich himself later recalled, Malov M. Ya. was a stupid, rude and uneducated professor. Students despised him and openly laughed at him in lectures. The rioters got off relatively easy for their trick - they spent several days in a punishment cell.
First link
The activities of Herzen's friendly circle had a rather innocent character, but the Imperial Chancellery saw in their convictions a threat to the royal power. In 1834, all members of this association were arrested and exiled. Herzen ended up first in Perm, and then he was assigned to serve in Vyatka. There he arrangedan exhibition of local works, which gave Zhukovsky a reason to petition for his transfer to Vladimir. There Herzen took his bride from Moscow. These days turned out to be 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 together with the literary circle of Belinsky, who preached and actively propagated the ideas of Hegelianism. With typical Russian enthusiasm and intransigence, the members of this circle perceived the ideas of the German philosopher about the rationality of all reality somewhat one-sidedly. However, Herzen himself, from the philosophy of Hegel, drew completely opposite conclusions. As a result, the circle broke up into Slavophiles, whose leaders were Kirievsky and Khomyakov, and Westerners, who united around Herzen and Ogaryov. Despite the extremely opposite views on the future path of development of Russia, both of them were united by real patriotism, based not on blind love for Russian statehood, but on sincere faith in the strength and power of the people. As Herzen later wrote, they looked like a two-faced Janus, whose faces were turned in different directions, and the heart beat the same.
The collapse of ideals
Gerzen 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 Herzen a large inheritance. This gave Alexander Ivanovich the opportunity to travel aroundEurope. The trip radically changed the writer's way of thinking. His Western friends were shocked when they read Herzen's articles published in Otechestvennye Zapiski, titled "Letters from Avenue Marigny," which later became known as "Letters from France and Italy." The obvious anti-bourgeois attitude of these letters testified that the writer was disappointed in 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 peoples", he begins to develop the theory of "Russian socialism", which gave life to a new trend in Russian philosophical thought - populism.
New Philosophy
In France, Alexander Herzen became close friends with Proudhon, together with whom he began to publish the newspaper Voice of the People. After the suppression of the radical opposition, he moved to Switzerland, and then to Nice, where he met Garibaldi, the famous fighter for the freedom and independence of the Italian people. The publication of the essay “From the Other Shore” belongs to this period, in which new ideas were identified, which Alexander Ivanovich Herzen was carried away by. The philosophy of a radical reorganization of the social system no longer satisfied the writer, and Herzen finally said goodbye to his liberal convictions. He begins to think about the doom of old Europe and the great potential of the Slavic world, which should bring the socialist ideal to life.
A. I. Herzen - Russian publicist
After the death of his wife, Herzen moves toLondon, where he began publishing his famous newspaper The Bell. The newspaper enjoyed the greatest influence in the period preceding the abolition of serfdom. Then its circulation began to fall, the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863 had a particularly strong effect on its popularity. As a result, Herzen's ideas did not find support among either the radicals or the liberals: for the former, they turned out to be too moderate, and for the latter, too radical. In 1865, the Russian government insistently demanded from Her Majesty the Queen of England that the editors of The Bell be expelled from the country. Alexander Herzen and his associates were forced to move to Switzerland.
Herzen died of pneumonia in 1870 in Paris, where he came on family business.
Literary heritage
Bibliography of Alexander Ivanovich Herzen has a huge number of articles written in Russia and abroad. But books brought him the greatest fame, in particular the final work of his whole life, Past and Thoughts. Alexander Herzen himself, whose biography sometimes made unthinkable zigzags, called this work a confession that caused a variety of "thoughts from thoughts." This is a synthesis of journalism, memoirs, literary portraits and historical chronicles. Over the novel "Who is to blame?" the writer worked for six years. The problems of equality of women and men, relationships in marriage, education, he proposes to solve in this work with the help of high ideals of humanism. He also wrote the acutely social novels "The Thieving Magpie", "Doctor Krupov", "The Tragedy fora glass of grog”, “Boredom for the sake of” and others.
There is probably not a single educated person who, at least by hearsay, did not know who Alexander Herzen was. A brief biography of the writer is contained in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the Brockhaus and Efron dictionary, and you never know what other sources! However, it is best to get acquainted with the writer through his books - it is in them that his personality rises to his full height.
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