Alexander Herzen illustrated in the Presidential Library’s materials

Alexander Herzen, an outstanding Russian writer, philosopher and revolutionary, was born on April 6, 1812. The digital collections of the Presidential Library contain many copies of rare materials - belonging both to the pen of Herzen himself and to the researchers of his career and personality. A significant part of these publications is available on the institution's portal.

The future socialist, the creator of the Free Russian printing house, was born in Moscow in the family of a rich landowner Ivan Yakovlev. The child's mother was a 16-year-old German woman. The circumstances in which the future world-famous writer got his last name are available in the book of the historian V. Y. Bogucharsky "Alexander Ivanovich Herzen" (1912).

The author also notes that the status of an illegitimate had a most serious influence on little Sasha. Moreover, invented name suited Herzen. His life views were depended on the dictates of the heart, on the slightest fluctuations of his mood or of anyone's convictions, which for one reason or another captured Alexander Ivanovich.  

The choice of future education was not made by Herzen. To enter the Physics and Mathematics Department of Moscow University, which the writer graduated from in 1833, Herzen was convinced by cousin, completely enthusiastic about the natural sciences, for which he even received the corresponding name - “chemist”. This is reflected in the above-mentioned book by Bogucharsky: "The influence of the chemist and the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics, which Herzen chose under the influence of the same chemist, played a big role in the further fate of Alexander Ivanovich, having accustomed his brain to exact thinking".  

It was at Moscow University that Herzen, together with several associates, organized a circle of followers of utopian socialism. For illegal activities of the association in 1834, Alexander Ivanovich was arrested and sent into exile in Perm followed by Vyatka, Vladimir. Only in 1839, Herzen was able to return to Moscow. But he did not stay there for long - his father insisted on moving to Petersburg and working in the office of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, in the summer of 1841, the writer was sent to Novgorod for harsh remarks about the police.

In the first part of the publication “Russian Revolutionaries” (1927), its authors claim that, while in exile, Herzen’s anti-state spirit grew stronger by the day: “Close acquaintance with people's life (Herzen had to go around the provinces where he was deported), about which he had only a vague idea about it, hardened his negative attitude to the existing order of things - to the “order of authority” with the arbitrariness and bribery of ignorant officials, lawlessness and oppression of the people”.  

In 1842, Alexander Ivanovich returned to Moscow again, and there he was captured by the movement of Westerners. He becomes the actual head of the left wing of this movement. “It’s not the humility of a Slavophil, but the pride of a Westerner who humbly bends only before the past of Europe with the riches accumulated in it, sounds in the words of Herzen, connecting his faith in Russia with the belief in socialism”, - writes T. Ya. Ganzhulevich in the study “Dostoevsky and Herzen in the history of Russian self-consciousness" (1907), which is available on the Presidential Library’s portal.

In the late 40s of the XIX century, the writer moves to Europe, and now the heart of Herzen belongs to the fate of France, namely, the next revolution which is reported in the rare edition of the magazine “European Herald” (1870).

But Herzen's hobbies changed - very soon he again thought about the path of the motherland. Only now his look was refracted through the prism of values, which had little in common with the realities that took place in the life of our country.

Another feature of the character that distinguished the famous writer, perhaps, from all other Westerners is the sudden flashes of longing for his native land and Russian people. There were moments when Herzen, being in Europe, understood: despite all his cosmopolitanism, he is a stranger here. Here is an excerpt from the memoirs of Alexander Ivanovich, which can be fully read in the book The Prison and the Reference: from Iskander’s Notes (1858).

The writer's inexorable longing for Russia is also well traced in his other book, available on the Presidential Library's portal The Movement of Social Thought in Russia (1907).

Herzen obviously condemned nostalgia and believed that clinging to the past was to impose a death warrant upon oneself that is reflected in aforementioned edition of Prison and Exile: Iskander's notes.

Nevertheless, Alexander Herzen was popular. His works and the magazines “Polar Star” and “The Bell” created by him were read by the whole world - even if the writer's work was outlawed. Herzen's style, his literary style, was truly unique - because it came from the heart. So, it was clear to every person - regardless of whether he shared the position of the author.

Alexander Herzen died on January 21, 1870 in Paris from pneumonia. The writer left behind him an impressive legacy to humanity, but it creates the feeling that he did not have time to do something truly great, overshadowing everything he had created earlier. Standing on the verge of death, Herzen was simultaneously on the verge of a new rise which is reflected in the lines of obituary from the magazine "European Herald".

The writer was buried initially in the Pere Lachaise cemetery - the last refuge of many great figures of the world. Then his ashes were transferred to Nice.

The memory of the famous writer is immortalized in the names of streets in many cities of Russia and the countries of the former USSR, many Russian libraries and the Russian State Pedagogical University in St. Petersburg bear the name of Alexander Herzen. In Moscow, the house where the writer came into the world still exists - the Gorky Literary Institute is now located there. A monument to Alexander Ivanovich Herzen has been erected on its territory.