ALEKSANDR HERZEN (1812-1870) was a Russian political thinker, activist, and author who became one of the most important revolutionary and intellectual figures of his time and originated the theory of a unique Russian path to socialism known as peasant populism. Fifty years after his death, Lenin revered him as the father of Russian revolutionary socialism. Tolstoy declared he had never met another man "with so rare a combination of scintillating brilliance and depth."
Herzen emigrated to Paris in 1847, never to return to Russia. He supported the revolutions of 1848, but was bitterly disillusioned with European socialist movements after their failure, resulting in the meditative and polemical essays collected in FROM THE OTHER SHORE (1848-50) . He moved to London in 1852 where he launched a series of periodicals designed to be smuggled back to Russia in order to influence the government and public opinion toward emancipation of the peasants and the liberalization of Russian society. With characteristic irony, Herzen addressed such issues as freedom of speech, a nonviolent path to socialism, and corruption and paranoia at the highest levels of government. He condemned the destructive power of ideological abstractions over human lives, believing that grand doctrines ultimately result in enslavement, sacrifice and tyranny. But his ideas drew criticism from both liberals, such as Ivan Turgenev, who argued against his utopian recklessness, and from young radicals who thought Herzen was too soft.
Herzen's autobiography, MY PAST AND THOUGHTS (1861-67) , was his greatest contribution to Russian and world literature. A loosely constructed personal narrative, interspersed with sharp vignettes of both Russian and Western political figures and with philosophical and historical digressions, provides a masterful fresco of contemporary European radicalism. At times witty, irreverent, and playful in style, and at other times lyrical, passionate, and rhapsodical, it is one of the most original and powerful examples of Russian prose, indeed of the modern era. Isaiah Berlin deemed the memoirs "a profound and living masterpiece ... worthy to stand beside the great novels of Turgenev and Tolstoy."
The following books are in PDF format unless otherwise noted:
* Childhood, Youth and Exile (Oxford Worlds Classics, 1980). J. D. Ruff, trans.
* From the Other Shore (Hyperion, 1981). M. Budberg and R. Wollheim, trans.
* Herzen Reader, A (Northwestern, 2012). Kathleen Parthé, ed. and trans.
* My Exile in Siberia (Hurst & Blackett, 1855). 2 vols.
* My Past and Thoughts (California, 1982). Abridged. Garnett and Higgens, trans.
* Selected Philosophical Works (FLPH, 1956). L. Navrozov, trans.
* Who Is to Blame? (Progress, 1978). Margaret Wettlin, trans.
Also included here is The Discovery of Chance: The Life and Thought of Alexander Herzen (Harvard, 2016) by Aileen Kelly. -- ePUB
With thanks to AeryShade for his kind assistance (and patience)!
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