My Past and Thoughts

My Past and Thoughts

by Alexander Herzen, Dwight Macdonald (Editor), Constance Garnett (Translator)

Alexander Herzen's own brilliance and the extraordinary circumstances of his life combine to place his memoirs among the greatest works of the modern era. Born in 1812, the illegitimate son of a wealthy Russian landowner, he became one of the most important revolutionary and intellectual figures of his as theorist, polemicist, propagandist, and political actor. Fifty years after his death, Lenin revered him as the father of Russian revolutionary socialism. Tolstoy said he had never met another man "with so rare a combination of scintillating brilliance and depth." His monumental autobiography is an unparalleled record of his—and his century's—remarkable life.

Herzen's story of his privileged childhood among the Russian aristocracy is lit with the insight of a great novelist. With a trained historian's sense of the interaction of people and events, he limns the grand line of revolutionary development from the earliest stirrings of Russian radicalism throughthe tumultuous ideological debates of the international. His close friends and enemies—Marx, Wagner, Mill, Bakunin, Garibaldi, Kropotkin—are brought brilliantly alive. Dwight Macdonald's knowledgeable and fluent abridgment makes this great work readily available to the modern reader.

Genres: Russia, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Memoir, Russian Literature, Philosophy

752 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1870

About the author

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (Russian: Александр Иванович Герцен) was a Russian pro-Western writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism", and one of the main fathers of agrarian populism (being an ideological ancestor of the Narodniki, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trudoviks and the agrarian American Populist Party). He is held responsible for creating a political climate leading to the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. His autobiography My Past and Thoughts, written with grace, energy, and ease, is often considered the best specimen of that genre in Russian literature. He also published the important social novel Who is to Blame? (1845–46).

Reviews

[Andrew]

Pro tip on alienating your friends: say you're reading an 800 page 19th Century Russian memoir.

Pro tip for living better: read said 800 page 19th Century Russian memoir, and realize how un-stodgy it is, how vibrant it is with life and history, how like Henry Adams (who's also been pretty much forgotten) Herzen tries to find a way to live and think more gracefully, and finds more dead ends than anything else.

I spent two weeks with Alexander Herzen by my side, talking about equally forgotten thinkers like Proudhon and Barbes and Robert Owen were titans of their own time, and now are footnotes in old textbooks, some historical oddity for a professor to bring up in an Introduction to Marx course. Read this one along with Edmund Wilson's "To the Finland Station." Both will help you understand how we came to be where we are today a little better, and how different people sought paths out of the mires they were in.

[AiK · Rating 5 out of 5]

Вся жизнь Герцена проходит перед нашими глазами – детство, студенческие годы, восстание декабристов, эпидемия холеры, жжёнка, пожары в Москве 1834 года, тюрьма, Вяткинская и Нижегородская ссылки, женитьба, кружки, эмиграция, судьбы тех, кто встречался ему на жизненном пути – Огарев, Полежаев, Зубков, Витберг, Белинский, Бакунин, Грановский - и многое другое. Огромный эпический труд, который несмотря на огромный объем, интересно читать.

[Arthur Robbins · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most endearing and remarkable books I have ever read. I own the original four volumes of his memoirs, not the one volume abridged version. I was so sad when the journey came to an end. Herzen and I had become close friends. I miss him.

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read some of this in Russian in the 70s. Must check my notes before reviewing …Do recall his imprisonment in the 1830's, and Paris around the 1848 revolution. Peasants were placed under police instead of Gogol's assessors: police who were "predatory, carnivorous, corrupt" (223, '82 ed). After reviewing, some notes here.
On Proudhon bringing out Voix du Peuple from prison: Few subscribers, but up to 60,000 in street sales, 30 times more expensive the next day. Fines questioned, for ex for an account of Lord Alton-Shée,
"Why, are you not a Catholic?" Alt-Sh, "No! And what's more, I am not a Christian at all, and maybe not a deist."
AH: "Men have grown no wiser since the days of Socrates, no wiser since the days of Galileo; they have only become more petty." (425)
Later, in England which disliked foreigners, he recalls Roman revolutionaries calling Russian women, honoring stranieri onto the balconi. England ignored Robert Owen's discovery of behaviorism, not spanking,
over genes.
And AH regrets the destruction of Owen's town, New Lanark, Scotland. The Quakers were horrified little Scots boys wore no trousers.AH blames the Quaker takeover for the new model town's failure, starting in schools: children should not be taught to sing and dance, while for Owen singing and movement were important in education.
When the Quakers "entered on managing New Lanark, they began by lowering pay and increasing work hours"[as Gov Romney did in MA Comm Colleges--more classes than H.S.-- so I retired early]. "New Lanark collapsed." [So has my comm coll, but since all of US ed has, like idiot-politician producing Princeton, Yale Law and Harvard Biz, no-one notices.]
These, just tidbits from a wealth of international and inter-cultural chapters. "The English and the French are full of prejudices, while a German is free from them; but both the French and the English are more consistent in their lives--the rule they follow is perhaps absurd, but it is what they have accepted"(376).
In Paris at the American ambassador Buchanan's--a "diplomatic dinner to the enemies of all existing governments"--Mazzini, Kossuth, Garibaldi, Worcell, the Englishman Wolmsley M.P., Herzen, a few others, and the host Buchanan (479). "The sly old man Buchanan, who was then already dreaming, in spite of his seventy years, of the presidency, and therefore was constantly talking of the happiness of retirement.." cautiously forbid discussing the future white republic. One proposed singing the Marseilleise in chorus, but only Worcell knew the tune properly, with his "extinction" of voice, and Mazzini knew it slightly. So the American Mrs Saunder (wife of the chef) played it on the guitar.
Meanwhile her spouse poured out teacups of Bourbon concoction, AH said, "I am a Russian, and even so I scorched my palate; Punch in Kentucky must be made from red pepper with an infusion of oil of vitriol...I was the only one who held out my empty cup and asked for more. The chemical affinity with alcohol raised me terribly high in the consul's eyes." "'Yes, yes,' he said:'it's only in America and Russia that people know how to drink'"(481).

Thanks to Ryan Diezi, I have some Herzen in Russian,
Когда священник начал мне давать уроки, он был удивлен не только общим
знанием евангелия, но тем, что я приводил тексты буквально. "Но господь бог, - говорил он, - раскрыв ум, не раскрыл еще сердца". И мой теолог, пожимая плечами, удивлялся моей "двойственности", однако же был доволен мною, думая, что у Терновского сумею держать ответ.
Вскоре религия другого рода овладела моей душой. [But I'm unsure what it was, this "other religion" that took over his thoughts.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I find Herzen a most personable and approachable man. I admire his great personal confidence and independence of mind, one entirely unafraid of confronting shop-worn ideas and contradicting the pious of whatever faith. And through it all - and I do mean all - a close observer of revolutionary Europe and European revolutionaries and socialists. I now understand fully his vaunted rejection of abstractions and disembodied notions of "freedom" and "justice." And I can read books such as Venturi's "Roots of Revolution" with a keen sense of the person behind and beyond the analysis of his political journalism.

It is quite easy for me - a historian - to forget the contents of each publication in the flood of writing he produced, but I will say that once I have even a finger-tip grasp of the man. I can form a mental image of him, and can imagine his conversation and his endless diatribes as if he were actually present. It's exactly that sort of "net" that I need to catch and hold even a small fraction of all the information about him that other biographers and analysts have collected in thousands and thousands of pages of historical narrative.

Just a few more words upon finishing this book. Herzen clearly represented a "third" way to socialism. As I wrote, he rejected all abstractions and disembodied laws of history. "Liberty, equality, fraternity," abstract human rights and the laws of historical materialism were so many excuses for yet more and different varieties of autocracy. As far as I can tell in my early study of this man, he may well have drawn upon or created Russian anarchism. Now in the Russian sense, anarchism did not imply no government or the absence of regulated behavior. It meant, however, a complete de-centralization of authority and allocation of all authority to forms of government and regulation that are the product of the most localized forms of "national life," the Russian village and commune in the country-side, for example, workers soviets in urban areas, with the possibility of association of highly localized authorities, i.e. All Russian Soviets of This, That and the Other, the All-russian Congress of All and Sundry. It also connoted the continuing and continuous accountability of elected authority to its electorate. The Kronstadters must have drawn much of their "constitution" from Herzen, or conversely perhaps Herzen merely codified peasant traditions that most Kronstadters knew from their lives as peasants.

Toward the middle of the book I finally detected the strand of thought, a vitalism, I suppose, that became progressively central in Herzen's memoirs (He wrote them over many years.) - namely his thoughts about human life - in general - whatever that may be, "national life," in particular, and the highly multiform and very untidy instantiations of culture that "life" generates. I suspect that if I read the book again, I would collect all this material and attempt to make sense of them in some more or less systematic fashion - most likely in direct contradiction to Herzen's defense of the particular and the individual. But it seems to me that his approach to socialism rejected the dictates of "reason," which created the terror of the French Revolution, the results of "analysis," e.g. Marx's "scientific" laws of history and historical change that ultimately generated Bolshevism and the one-party state, which Herzen would have cursed with every charged particle in his body had he lived to see it. He appears to have thought that each nation or ethnic or cultural collective generated forms of society and government by some undefined "natural" process fueled by local "life" in one form or another. In Russia in particular and perhaps elsewhere that process created a form of socialism - the peasant commune - quite appropriate for the people of that time and place. No international revolution of workers and peasants for him.

Of course the book is well worth a second or third reading, and I suspect that I've only noticed the bleeding obvious about which scores of graduate students have covered thousands of pages with their citations and comments. I just might try to find one or two hundred.

Throughout it all, Herzen remained a "mensch," apparently sociable, approachable, generous, even club-able - if that's a word - a way of life facilitated, I suspect, by his ownership of vast inherited wealth. I would very much have like to have known the man - in his day or any other.

A final word on the translation. I can't see how one could ask for clearer, more fluent English prose. I think the world owes Ms. Garnett a great debt of gratitude for this book as for so many others.

[Asim Bakhshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beyond doubt, the most beloved literary monument among all genres in my library. Going through this 700 page abridgement from the original four tomes can only leave you with the desire to read the original Constance Garnett translation of complete four volumes. Its so unfortunate that Dwight MacDonald decided not to include that long essay, 'A Family Drama' in this abridgement for editorial reasons.

Its very hard that something socio-politically meaningful and interesting can be uttered about Herzen's memoirs by a South-East Asian reader in 21st century. However, from the perspective of an ardent lover of Russian literary tradition and an admirer of that peculiar milieu, Herzen, at times, comes out as deeply disquieted, hot and bothered reactionary; at other times he is a genius social critic, questioning reactionary zealousness and republicanism with the equal force. But overall, his characterization of bourgeois mentality is the strongest part of contemporary interest that protrudes out of the narrative, with capability to even hook a reader who is not that much aware of Turgenev's Bazarov — the superfluous man —, Bakunin, Belinsky, or even Mazzini or Garibaldi.

The whole Western-Europe of middle of 19th century comes alive in these memoirs and at times, stares at your face not letting you blink your eyes. There are passages which have unsurpassable literary force in whole classic modern literature; for instance, the angst laden ones such as,

All Italy was awakening before my eyes! I saw the King of Naples tamed and the Pope humbly asking the alms of people's love - the whirlwind, which set everything in movement carried me, too, off my feet; all Europe took up its bed and walked - in fit of somnambulism which we took for awakening. When I came to myself, it had all vanished; la Sonnambula, frightened by the police, had fallen from the roof; friends were scattered or were furiously slaughtering one another...And I found myself alone, utterly alone, among graves and cradles - their guardian, defender, avenger, and I could do nothing because I tried to do more than was usual.

have the kind of old school nihilistic tinge, which Herzen characterized more fully in his famous letters to Turgenev and the essay titled, The Superfluous and the Jaundiced (1860). However, its in the later years when Herzen developed, and displayed, his true literary and critical acumen beyond just the art of blending the personal with the historical. His musings on relationship between art and bourgeois life are so confounding, as well as accurate that one is forced to pause, reflect and perspire in the process. Here is a passage:

Decorum, that is the real word. The petit bourgeois has two talents and he has the same ones, Moderation and Punctuality. The life of middle class is full of small defects and small virtues; it is self-restrained, often niggardly, and shuns what is extreme and what is superfluous. The garden is transformed into a kitchen garden; the thatched cottage into a little country-town house with an escutcheon painted on the shutters; but everyday they drink tea and eat meat in it. It is an immense step forward, but not at all artistic. Art is more at home with poverty and luxury than with crude prosperity or with comfort when it is an end in itself; if it comes to that, it is more at home with a harlot selling herself than with the respectable woman selling at three times the cost of the work of the starving seamstress. Art is not at ease in the stiff, over-neat thrifty house of the petit bourgeois, and in his house is bound to be such; art feels instinctively that in that life it is reduced to the level of external decoration such as wall paper and furniture, to the level of hurdy-gurdy; if the hurdy-gurdy man is a nuisance he is kicked out, if they want to listen they give him a halfpenny and that's that. Art which is pre-eminently elegance of proportion cannot endure the yard-measure; a life self-satisfied with its narrow mediocrity is stigmatised in the eyes of art by the worst of blots — vulgarity.

But that does not in the least prevents the whole cultured world from passing into petit bourgeois, and the vanguard has arrived their already. Petit bourgeois is the ideal to which Europe is striving, and rising from every point on the ground. It is the 'chicken in the cabbage soup,' about which Henri Quatre dreamt. A little house with little windows looking into the street, a school for the son, a dress for the daughter, a servant for the hard work—all that makes up indeed a haven of refuge—Havre de Grace!...

Bourgeoisie, the last word of civilisation, founded on the despotism of property, is the 'democratisation' of aristocracy, the 'aristocratisation' of democracy. In this environment Almaviva is the equal of Figaro—from below everything is straining up into bourgeoisie, from above everything is sinking down into it through the impossibility of maintaining itself. The American States present the spectacle of one class—the middle class—with nothing below it and nothing above it, the petit bourgeois manners and morals have remained. The German peasant is the petit bourgeois of agriculture; the working man of every country is petit bourgeois of future. Italy, the most poetical land in Europe, was not able to hold out, but at once forsook her fanatical lover, Mazzini, and betrayed her husband, the Hercules Garibaldi, as soon as Cavour, the petit bourgeois of genius, the little fat man in spectacles, offered to keep her as his mistress.

And with such kind of incessant, untiring, almost magnetic prose, he continues to take notes around the dying old world and its emerging new forms. As he himself says in a rejoinder to one of his critical interlocutors, he has no solutions to speak of. He was like a man sitting beside a patient on his death bed describing him his disease.

As Isaiah Berlin observes elsewhere, the chief reason for these memoirs being a supreme masterpiece is that the writer does not commit himself to any single thesis with a clear purpose, rejecting all general solutions of his time, may it be the optimism of Bakunin or Marx, or pessimism of Burckhardt or Tocqueville; thereby grasping,

...as very few thinkers have ever done, the crucial distinction between words that are about words, and words that are about persons or things in the real world. Nevertheless, it is as a writer that he survives. His autobiography is one of the great monuments to Russian literary and psychological genius, worthy to stand beside the great novels of Turgenev and Tolstoy.

[Dmitriy Slepov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Не надо думать, что это скучная классика. Прекрасная книга, раскрывающая подробности интересной жизни интересного человека, дающая увлекательное и при этом простое описание революционного движения тех времён изнутри, т.е. совсем не так, как рассказывали в школе. Спокойная, умная и увлекательная книга, весьма рекомендуется к прочтению.

[Nicoletta]

собираю коллекцию того, что буду читать в 72 года на пенсии 😭

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me this was two books, the first half about someone born into Russian higher society during the 19th century and who grew up to agitate authorities already leery or revolutionary activity, and the second half about the man in Europe watching the revolutions of other nations as an outsider. But through it all is one man, Alexander Herzen, who oddly, I never felt as if I got to know even though we read quite a few of his thoughts.

To be fair this book is an abridgment of the larger, 4 volume set that comprises the complete work, and though there were times I felt as if I was missing out on personal information, such as his wife, I am pretty sure what was cut was longer, more in depth thoughts about the state of civilization and his own personal philosophy.

The biggest problem I had with the book is that once he leaves Russia I really had no idea what was going on. Even events that take place in Russia can be obscure since most of the people are dead and are hardly known through history, but once we leave Russia for France, Italy, and England I just couldn't keep up. And While I was at first interested as just a passive observer to go along the ride and do my best to infer the events of his day, I did find it rather tedious.

More tedious, however, were his thoughts. On some issues I agreed totally, especially his views on Russia concerning corruption, graft, and the Russian character. Less interesting were his internal philosophies on how he believed man and society should function. Add that to a cast of characters who are probably little known to most scholars but whom he assumes you've heard of and it's no wonder this book never caught on in the west despite it being very, very well written.

And the sections that are well written, the sections that have a definite narrative are wonderful, in fact they are so good they could easily be appended to an additional epilogue to Tolytoy's 'War and Peace' to give readers an idea of what happened to the Decembrists (the events that the novel had been leading up to and to what Tolstoy had initially set out to write). Most incisive are his observations on how the government functioned at every level, and especially in the provincial regions of Siberia that were governed by inept and corrupt exiles. These sections read like a combination of Kafka, Gogol, and Dostoyevsky; they are funny, absurd, terrifying, and offer an insight into why Russia became the nation she is now (and was, and always will be for that matter). These are a people who will put up with a great deal of insanity just to be left alone to get on with their lives.

Perhaps a better historian than I would find this book far more useful and if I were to revisit this book it would be with a few encyclopedias of Russian history at my fingertips to assist my understanding. But for as much as I love learning everything about Russian history, this book proved to be a bit beyond my ability to take in without treating it as scholarly research. Yet even with all the pieces put together, I still don't feel Herzen would emerge from the pages as a fully formed person. The book is so far inside his mind at times that it's impossible to really see the man (to see the forest through the trees, as it were). He is continually justifying his decisions with no thought for giving us any weakness of character. He paints a very positive image of himself for us and from that I can only gather that he was probably quite full of himself and a bit insufferable to be around.

But even with all that I didn't enjoy about the book, it's still a valuable insight into the Russian mind, heart, and soul of the 19th (and really beyond, too) century. And for the scholar this book would lay out an excellent road map of Russian thinking that led all the way to the revolutions of Lenin. And knowing where Russia was headed makes what Herzen went through all the sadder because by throwing of the insanity and brutality of the Tsar, they took up something even worse and quite similar.

[Maxim Gaydovskiy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Былое и думы будет стоить вам много времени и энергии.

Первые 4 части о Николаевской России и поколении, впуганном в раздумья, читать интересно: дворянский дом, дворовые, Московский университет, Гегель, третье отделение, ссылка, чиновники. Но с пятой части начинается эмиграция, семейная драма, Георг Гервег, февральская революция 1848, июньское восстание - это уже откровенно на любителя. Особенности итальянских, немецких, французских характеров середины 19ого века в лондонской эмиграции пойдут для выпуска еженедельной газеты Колокол 1860ых годов, но сейчас переложение разговоров Герцена с Джузеппе Гарибальди читать нудно.

Но с точки зрения изучения русской литературы книга бесценная. Это набор ключей для понимания целого ряда шедевров нашей классики. Как минимум "Кто виноват" заходит как если бы это был роман не 19ого века, а вчерашнего дня.

[Willy Marz Thiessam · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I had had my own people once in Russia. But I was so completely cut off in a foreign land; I had at all costs to get into communication with my own people; I wanted to tell them of the weight that lay on my heart. Letters were not allowed in, but books would get through of themselves; writing letters was impossible: I would print; and little by little I set to work upon My Past and Thoughts, and upon setting up a Russian printing-press." page 448

With these words in the above quote Alexander Herzen describes his great work "My Past and Thoughts". In this book the world of the 19th century Europe, of reaction and of revolution, comes alive. The great figures of the age are parts of a personal drama that Herzen lays out before the reader. What hope is there for Russia, for Europe, and for the world in developing a society that is answerable to the people, that holds up the ideals of justice and is free of tyranny?

Although Herzen searches, debates and publishes about the ideals he held so dear he never finds satisfaction. A restless soul that not only went to the heart of Europe's revolutions, in particular those of 1848, but he also analyzes the depths of the malaise which created those upheavals.

In particular for Russia he looks to Western Europe for an example of the way forward. "We need Europe as an ideal, a reproach, a good example; if she were not these things it would be necessary to invent her. " (page 458) In saying this Herzen was well aware of the inadequacy of Europe in giving any guidance to Russia and the world.

Few books have been so influential to Russia and few are still so relevant to her trials and destiny. This is a great work of literature as well as an important political document that sheds essential light upon modern political history.

[Derek · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful prose, written at a time when liberal and revolutionary sentiments were not antithetical. Hopefully still assigned in all Russian history survey courses.

[Illiterate · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tour of nineteenth century radicalism: Moscow, Paris, London; Hegel, Proudhon, Owen. Good on 1848 & its aftermath (eg. “A Lament”).

[Hryuh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Тут я даже что-то не знаю... Идеи Герцена мне очень близки, что по русскому, что по европейскому вопросу, на цитаты его растащила, ��ое в чем ответила на свои вопросы. Очень созвучно моим собственным наблюдениям. Однако как литературное произведение Былое и думы слишком фрагментарны, слишком публицистичны, иногда пафосны и напыщены. На середине устала я, тщедушная.
Про Россию и про ссылку мне понравилось больше всего - стало понятно, откуда растут уши у всей русской государственности и социальности вообще. Так-то грустненько, конечно, этого не отнять.
Сам Герцен мужчина в собственных описаниях очень достойный, и как мне кажется, единственный муж в русской литературной среде, от которого не противно. Его любовь к жене трогательна и не отдаёт самостройным лаптем (как у некоторых, не будем показывать пальцем).
Галерея описанных характеров прекрасна, он очень четко ловит людей, зрит их насквозь. В общем, Герцен мужик хороший, я бы с ним подружилась!

[Dylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

read sections for a grad class and found some of his critiques of autocracy and tsarist rule very interesting, and his experience of exile in siberia too, but other parts were just hard to comprehend without having a background in what was happening

[Domenico Fina · Rating 5 out of 5]

"L'arte e i lampi estivi della felicità individuale, sono gli unici beni che abbiamo".

[AHW · Rating 3 out of 5]

He was fond of some absolutely intolerable ideas - those of Proudhon & J.S. Mill - and seems to have worn theoretical eclecticism as a safety blanket. This is sort of the inverse of the person who takes on a sealed ideological system and practices it as a religion. But if you’ve been over-exposed to the failings of dogmatists and under-exposed to the insights of eclectics, this might be 700 pages of fresh air.

Re: the “Marx vs Herzen” framing, do keep in mind that Marx became an enthusiastic *supporter* of the Russian Populists in his last years, and he learned Russian & studied Russia with great enthusiasm. This of course doesn’t mean that his ideas ended up aligning with Herzen’s - he was for one thing *extremely* more rigorous than Herzen, and his ideas manage to ascend to something qualitatively different. - but Marx’s shift towards Populism is often left out of his popular image.

Herzen has *breadth*, and it’s in that breadth that communists can find his insights. That breadth provides a texture of the lives and hopes of 19th-century socialists & democrats that can hopefully provide something useful for communists today. He gives a good sense of how one can live one’s life well through jail and internal exile, international wandering, bourgeois revolution, depression, triumphal activity. This is a sense lacking today, I think, when many radical-minded young people in the Anglophone world see no future ahead of them.

Reading these 19th Century European socialist books often brings back the same thudding beat of Euro-bourgeois stupidities: how Herzen can go a hundred pages without mentioning that he’s going through everything he’s describing not alone but *with his wife*; how he resorts continually to explaining differences as matters of ethnicity or race (which Marx & Engels did also - but M & E charted a theoretical road out of that, and he didn’t); how he can refer over and over again to America as a new nation full of freshness and promise, ignoring the mass murder of colonialism in a manner that accords awfully well with the unacknowledged imperialism implicit in his pan-Slavic sympathies. The Russia he loved-and-hated so much was after all being actively *created* by the tsars he despised, through projects of internal colonialism in the Central Asian steppe, in the East, and so on which Stalin picked up & completed with maximum bloodshed.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me several months to get through this book. I kept putting it aside, but as hard as it was to read, it was irresistable, so I kept picking it up again and again until I finally got through it. It was a big slog, and this was the abridged edition (at 700 pages). Sometimes Herzen is turgid, sometimes he is fooled by ethnic stereotypes, he is always diffuse and disorganized -- his prose filled with digressions, parentheticals and asides, but sometimes colorful and insightful, and always his noble soul shines through. Herzen had a keen eye for injustice and a willingness to risk his life and freedom and to live in exile from his beloved country to serve the causes of freedom and justice and the revolution, which he saw as the only path to salvation for Russia, though his revolution would have ended the autocracy without the bloodshed and suffering that happened when the actual revolution actually came.

Herzen was first and foremost a humanist. He never let ideology get in the way of his care for people, and this was not just an abstraction. He was a man with a big heart, who lived his convictions in his personal relationships. Herzen was the true heir of the Decembrists in ways that his successors in the Russian revolutionary movement were not. It is a shame that the Russian revolutionary movement devolved into terrorism, assassination and violent revolution, though in many ways the tsarist government had only itself to blame.

[Maria Zakruchenko · Rating 5 out of 5]

Как повезло им не дожить до того, что было дальше...

[Anastasia · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Россия будущего»
«Учители, книги, университет говорили одно – и это одно было понятно уму и сердцу. Отец с матерью, родные и вся среда говорили другое, с чем ни ум, ни сердце не согласны – но с чем согласны предержащие власти и денежные выгоды».
И пр., и пр.
Доколе?..

[Terss · Rating 4 out of 5]

Storytel üzerinden gece uykuya geçmeden önce okuduğum bir kitap oldu. O yüzden okuma çok uzun sürdü. Rus siyasi tarihine meraklıysanız, komünizm, sosyalizm üzerinde okumalar yapmayı seviyorsanız kesinlikle size göre bir kitap. Özellikle olayları ilk ağızdan anlatması benim için çok kıymetliydi.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Russian exile that ran in the same circles, but did not like, the progenitors of communism and socialism.

[Nor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have yet to read the entirety of Herzen's masterwork, but from what I've read, I consider him a friend.

[Andrew Noselli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Truthfully, I didn't learn anything as to why Herzen is considered the father of Russian socialism. Apparently he was antipathetic to Karl Marx, whom he seems to have never met directly.

[Alessandro Fasanaro · Rating 4 out of 5]

Populismo: oggi tale termine viene usato in accezione spregiativa ma in origine designava un movimento intellettuale, politico e sociale di tutt’altro tenore. Nacque in Russia nella prima metà del secolo XIX con l’obiettivo di sollevare le masse dei contadini dalla proverbiale miseria in cui versavano, verso un’idea di progresso le cui coordinate avrebbero dovuto essere il ritorno alle radici della tradizione per alcuni, per altri l’adozione di misure ispirate all’allora giovanissimo socio-comunismo. La solita Russia che non conosce mezze misure. Sarà la seconda delle due anime a prevalere. E come succede sempre dopo un fallimento come la deriva stalinista dell’URSS, le fantasie intellettuali si cimentano nel gioco del ‘what if‘: sarebbero le cose andate diversamente, se a suo tempo avesse vinto l’altra parte? ovvero quella moderata e tradizionalista il cui elemento di punta fu Aleksandr Herzen? A domande retoriche non si risponde neppure. Però è un peccato che la figura e l’opera di questo personaggio straordinario vengano recuperate solo in funzione della crisi di coscienza della sinistra internazionale.

‘Il passato e i pensieri‘, pubblicato a puntate tra il 1853 e il ‘63 e unitariamente nel ‘67, è l’autobiografia di un mondo più che di un solo uomo. Herzen racconta i natali e l’infanzia nella bambagia della sua casa nobiliare; la nascita della sua coscienza politica; le lotte politiche, le vittorie e gli esilii in Europa (fu espulso dalla Russia nel 1834); gli incontri, interessantissimi, con gli intellettuali più in vista del tempo (tra cui Mazzini); ma anche le piccole cose, gli incontri, gli aneddoti e le riflessioni di una vita vissuta spesso pericolosamente.

Il grande storico Isaiah Berlin fu il primo sponsor di quest’opera, che considerava “un monumento alla cultura russa” paragonabile a ‘Guerra e pace‘. Sin dalle prime pagine si ha in effetti l’impressione di aver incontrato un grande classico della letteratura. Ciò che però davvero affascina in quest’opera resta la personalità stessa di Herzen, raro esempio di umanitarista genuino, non spinto dall’ideologia ma da un profondo senso di comunione con il prossimo. Con una lucidità di analisi che alcuni – sbagliando – accosterebbero a doti profetiche, il filosofo moscovita prevede il pericolo di una rivoluzione socialista destinata a fallire se dimenticasse la centralità dell’uomo e delle sue passioni contro le teorie economiche. Riflessioni di grande attualità e certamente in controtendenza rispetto all’aria che si respirava ai tempi di Herzen: messo a confronto con Bakunin o anche con il nostro Mazzini, egli appare un rivoluzionario ben strano. Non avrebbe mai potuto attecchire come loro sulle menti del tempo: sono i folli a guidare i popoli, i moderati possono semmai stabilizzarli.

Herzen rappresenta quindi per gli storici del marxismo la prova e diciamo pure la speranza di un’alternativa. Una volta si sarebbe parlato di un “comunismo dal volto umano“. Purtroppo queste considerazioni tendono a ignorare le radici vere del pensiero del filosofo. Il suo modello di socialismo, a ben guardare, non si fonda infatti su un’applicazione ragionata delle nuove idee ma su un “aggiornamento” di quelle vecchie ovvero dei valori a suo dire esistenti nella società rurale russa; la comunione dei beni, la fratellanza, l’uguaglianza dei diritti sarebbero quindi presenti in nuce già fra i muzik.

Qui abbiamo il solito mito della purezza popolare, invenzione dell’intellettualismo militante. Ovviamente il modello di Herzen non potrebbe mai essere esportato fuori dalla Russia, e per questa ragione egli stesso venne via via sempre più marginalizzato da quanti già allora preconizzavano la sollevazione mondiale. Attraverso le forche caudine del fraintendimento (anche postumo), quello che ci viene consegnato dalla storia è comunque un libro magnifico, frutto di una intelligenza viva, profonda e di grande umiltà. Peccato per i 104 euro da spendere per avere in casa l’unica edizione presente sul mercato.

“Sì, l’uomo è crudele, e solo molti cimenti lo possono ammansire; è crudele, nella sua ignoranza, il fanciullo, è crudele il giovane, fiero della propria purezza, è crudele il pope, fiero della sua santità, ed è crudele il dottrinario, fiero della sua scienza: siamo tutti quanti spietati, in particolar modo quando abbiamo ragione”

[catinca.ciornei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful historical reading! I took advantage of numerous free resources put up during unhappy COVID-19 lockdown and read "My Past And Thoughts" by Alexander Herzen free on archive.org (they have amazing old books, few nowhere to be found otherwise; it's usually free at all times, but one must borrow a book for not longer than 14 days, and cue for it if it's not available - just like in a regular library; Mr. Herzen's biography cannot be passed through is a couple of week, I've found, and it was always leased before - probably because it's dense and brimming with wonders).
Mr Herzen, born in 1812, was a Russian nobleman and intellectual, popularly known as the "father of Russian socialism". Him and Marx were on different sides of the philosophical debate about socialism - if only for this and one must read this book! This is Mr. Herzen's autobiography, written in flowing meandering essay-style, throughout decades.
It is a narrow book, in that it likely proves interesting for those curious about Russian history, the many boiling years that preceded the Bolshevik revolution, and the evolution of thought in Europe during the 1800's.
It is amazing to see how new is old and old is new, how ideas circulate and reverberate for hundred of years, how history evolves seemingly in patters, repetitions directly linked to our humane specific repetitive character.
Mr. Herzen tells us his life, from his upbringing (the book's beginning is magical, foretelling of its author's great powers of storytelling: "Vera Artamonovna, come tell me once more how the French came to Moscow" - Napoleon's entry into Moscow took place the same year, 1812, that the author was born) to his studies, his banishment inside and outside Russia, his clandestine newspaper undertakings in Western Europe. We see his life unfold, his thinking crystallise, and it is a magical road to walk on. I really recommend this to anyone interested in Russian and/or European history.

[Петко Ристић · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rein von der unglaublichen Breite des Panorama's, welches Alexander Iwanowitsch Herzen seinem Leser bietet, sind seine Memoiren und Reflexionen für jeden Geschichtsinteressierten von unschätzbarem Wert. Hier wird nicht nur die Biografie eines außergewöhnlichen Mannes erzählt, welches in einer wirklich offenherzigen, ehrlichen Form geschrieben wurde, sondern man erhält eine Brille, mit der man die Vergangenheit sehr detailliert betrachten kann.
Freilich, für mich, der so viele Geschichtsbücher vertilgt hat, stand in seiner Beschreibung der sozialen Zustände Russland's und Westeuropa's nicht so viel neues, aber da seine eigene Geschichte so viele verschiedene Menschentypen zur Sprache bringt, erhält man auch viel Stoff für einen Psychologie-interessierten.

Herr Herzen, ein idealistischer Mensch, mit viel Mitgefühl, Ideen und Mut, hatte weiß der Teufel ein sehr ereignisreiches Leben, aus der man viele gewinnbringende Schlüße ziehen kann. Hier haben wir ein Individuum, wie man es heutzutage im kleinbürgerlichen Deutschland sehr selten findet. Er gilt unter vielen als Vater des Sozialismus, und gewiß haftete er sich selbst linken Ideologien an, doch für mich, der aller Politik und Ideologie entflohen ist, zählt viel mehr der tiefere Mensch hinter seinen Ideen. Und der ist, trotz einiger mir entgegensetzten Moralvorstellungen, sehr lobenswert.

[John Gillis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm stealing the copy from the goodreads blurb:

"Born in 1812, the illegitimate son of a wealthy Russian landowner, he became one of the most important revolutionary and intellectual figures of his time: as theorist, polemicist, propagandist, and political actor. Fifty years after his death, Lenin revered him as the father of Russian revolutionary socialism. Tolstoy said he had never met another man 'with so rare a combination of scintillating brilliance and depth.' His monumental autobiography is an unparalleled record of his—and his century's—remarkable life."

Uh, Lenin AND Tolstoy? It took me all summer to read this book. I read it because Isaiah Berlin raved about it. It was worth the effort, and it was an effort...so rich that one can only handle a few pages at a time. The stunning thing to me was that Herzen's mindset, understanding, view of the world, weltanschauung, etc. was so far superior to, for example, any American living at the time.

A rich view of Russia from 1812 through the world crisis period around 1848 and on to 1872, and the underpinnings and groundwork of the events that preceded the revolution of 1917. And of course, he was not far removed from the French and American revolutions of the late 1700s. Stunning.

[Philippe Bogdanoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Читал я эту книгу по изданию 1979 года (Москва, издательство "Правда"), именно по тому, по которому меня заставляли читать это произведение Герцена в 7 классе.
Я помню, что смог вымучить только несколько глав, и на протяжении жизни, видя на полке у мамы в квартире эту книгу, все хотел вернуться к этому произведению.
И вот, наконец-то, 40 лет спустя взял эту книгу в руки. Конечно сразу проверил тираж, и он оказался 300 000!!! просто невообразимый тираж на сегодня!
Читал я Герцена глазами подростка 14-ти лет, и мне было ясно, что подростку все эти перипетии из прошлого века просто неинтересны, может немного быт "помещика", но в общем и целом детям такое произведение читать рановато.

Что же понравилось мне сейчас в этой книге? А я читал в основном "Былое", а вот думы мне было откровенно скучно. И на самом деле, интриги одного кружка против другого, отношения внутри этого кружка - события давно минувших лет, для историков больше, чем для меня сегодняшнего.
А вот байки из провинциальной жизни в ссылках - это прям шло влет, эти рассказы запомнились и будут жить со мной еще долго ))))))))

[Boris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Большая книга во всех смыслах. Читается тяжело, но крайне интересно.
Не получится описать 'былое и думы' коротким отзывом, там слишком много всего, там целая жизнь. И написано это в разные жизненные периоды, сам Герцен менялся.
В любом случае труд монументальный и открывает многое о России, о Европе, о людях, об отношениях.

'Былое и думы' добавит очень много контекста к русской классической литературе, образу жизни и реалиям того времени.

Также не избежать параллелей между Россией Николая Первого и нынешней, а возможно и любого другого периода. Из сегодняшнего дня страна предстаёт матрицей, в которой борьба за 'прекрасную Россию будущего' это просто часть матрицы, и выбраться из этого уробороса не получается.

'Былое и думы' это конечно мета-картина, посмотрев на которую, можно лучше увидеть как русская интеллигенция и в целом русские смотрят на мир, увидеть свои собственные глубинные убеждения и рамки, в которых мы мыслим и живём.