A Herzen Reader

Herzen believed a fitting vehicle for both individual freedom and so­cial equality should be searched for not in the decadent West but in a spe­cifically Russian institution and structure. Ensconced deep in the Russian countryside, immune to the maladies of the West, was the peasant com­mune. Instead of the West providing solutions for Russia, Russia would provide for itself, and perhaps even suggest a model for the West as well. Herzen's views coalesced into a doctrine that combined the romantic, folk, communal image of the mir with a program of advancing the people to a state of conscious recognition so that they could take hold of their own destiny.⁹⁷ In 1861, at the height of the influence of The Bell, Herzen first ut­tered the catchphrases which became the battle cries of the next generation, "zemlia i volia" ("land and freedom") and "V narod!" ("To the people!"). During Herzen's English period he also adopted the biological, evolution­ary theory that was just beginning to influence modern patterns of thought.

During Herzen's years in England he significantly modified his earlier views and integrated his personal observations on English society, the theory of English philosophers and social thinkers—especially Mill and Owen— and new scientific paradigms. In England, with his new set of liberal con­tacts, and under the influence of a socialism that was evolving in a public forum, Herzen fully developed a custom-made theory for progress and de­velopment in Russia, one that influenced the narodniki (populists) of the following decades.

After a series of painful and stormy years on the European continent, Herzen arrived at a new and profound understanding of his life and the world around him in England. This period, essentially the last major chap­ter of both literary and practical achievement in his life, represents the consummation and fulfillment of all parts of his character, an integrated Herzen who, for the first time, was able to bring his idealist, utopian visions closer to the ground, and who managed to complement his writings with concrete activity in the West, establishing a landmark publishing enterprise which had a profound impact on Russia itself. Gurvich-Lishchiner main­tains that Herzen strove "to reconstruct a harmonious integrity of vision of the person and the world."⁹⁸ For Herzen, this was both a literary endeavor, in the form of an original style of memoir, Past and Thoughts, begun in earnest almost immediately upon his arrival in England, and a practical effort to engage with the world and the movement of history, as was done through the Free Russian Press. Both enterprises mark a new and impor­tant phase in Herzen's varied and winding career, and both projects are in­extricably entwined. In his mature years (post 1852), Herzen moved closer to the view that real social change begins first with individual development, inner strength, and the construction of character, Bildung."

His experience of England only served to strengthen this notion, particularly in regard to Mill's inner aesthetic, which sought to defend individuality and the "integ­rity of self against the homogeneity of Western industrial democracies."¹⁰⁰

Herzen's extended exposure to English life, culture, and thought, a so­journ on English soil which comprised the longest amount of time he was to spend in any foreign land,¹⁰¹ may be regarded as the culmination of a lifelong search for a harmony between one's inner, spiritual life, practical deeds in the world, and the relationship with one's community and nation. The fruits of this search are expressed most clearly and eloquently in The Bell, essays and articles of a particular era that address the eternal questions of self and humanity.

Notes

Rambaud writes of issues of The Bell "spread out" on the emperor's table: "Les numeros proscrits penetraient cependant par milliers en Russie et, etales sur la table de l'empereur, lui denon^aient les iniquites les plus cachees." Alfred Rambaud, Histoire de la Russie depuis les origines jusqu'a l'annee 1877

(Paris: Hachette, 1878), 677.

S togo berega (From the Other Shore), widely regarded as Herzen's chef d'oeuvre, first appeared in German as Vom anderen Ufer: Aus dem Russischen Manuskript (Hamburg: Hoffmann und Campe, 1850); in 1855 Herzen's London press published the Russian text under his pseudonym Iskander. Herzen wrote "letters" of his experiences in the West, beginning with his "Letters from Avenue Marigny," published in Nekrasov's Contempo­rary in 1847. These and other such letters from the 1847-52 period were published as Pis'ma iz Frantsii i Italii (Letters from France and Italy) (London: Trtibner, 1855).