The availability in English of Herzen's texts of the 1850s and 1860s fills a significant void. Despite the duration of Herzen's stay in England, and the influence of The Bell and its parent publication, The Polestar (Poliar- naya zvezda), this later period in Herzen's life has not received sufficient attention, particularly in comparison with Herzen's pre-1852 activity and thought. There are several reasons for this lacuna. Herzen's first forty years have attracted a good deal of research. In the 1830s Herzen became deeply engaged in German philosophy and French social thought, and intellectual historians take much interest in this early period, when a young, idealistic Herzen passionately sought answers to life's complexities in grand philosophical systems. More poignantly, in the late 1840s and early 1850s Herzen crystallized his doctrine of revolutionary socialism, considered to be his monumental contribution to Russian history, and one which was decisive in influencing the path of Russia's political development through to the 1917 revolution and beyond. For many historians, these years comprise the "useful" Herzen, at least in terms of the impact of his doctrine on the course of world history.
Biographers also tend to focus on the same period, beginning with Herzen's departure from Russia in early 1847, his arrival in Paris in late March, and his witnessing of the i848 revolts and the reactions and disillusion that followed, culminating in Louis-Napoleon's coup d'etat in i85i and ar- rogation of the title emperor in 1852. Herzen produced a number of classic essays and several cycles of "letters" reporting these extraordinary events and his travels during this time, and these were gathered in popular volumes that set forth his doctrine of Russian socialism.2 The early 1850s also brought a series of personal crises and tragedies, Herzen's "family drama," which has sparked much interest in Herzen's personal life. In sum, Herzen's 1847-52 period, years of Sturm und Drang, of exuberant hopes and shattered ideals, has been a magnet for writers and academics.
When, in mid-1852 Herzen left for the foggy calm of England, it appeared that the most fascinating and productive years of his life were behind him. Moreover, it is generally held that Herzen did not take warmly to London and he did not develop many contacts there.3 In his memoirs,
Herzen only encourages this perception, writing of his "hermit's life" in one of the town's more remote areas.4 A review of Herzen scholarship from the late nineteenth century to the current day is instructive in tracing the changing understanding of the significance of his life and thought.
Until the last decade of the twentieth century, Russian scholars had to overcome a number of impediments and obstacles in their writing on the man and his thought. Generally, there has hardly been a time when these scholars could write about Herzen in an entirely unhindered way. Twice arrested and banished within his homeland because of his alleged political views and orientation, Herzen finally left Russia and was forced to remain in exile. During most of the tsarist period, his works were banned outright, though some secondary literature on the man, comprising mainly non- ideological, biographical sketches, was published.5 In i900 this injunction was removed, though it took a few years for the effects of the ban to dissipate and for serious Herzen scholarship in Russia finally to emerge.6 In i905 Herzen's works began to be printed in Russia, and by i9o8 Vetrinsky, who had been arrested and exiled for his participation in a student circle, published a substantial monograph tracing Herzen from childhood to his last days, with the text divided between Herzen's life in Russia and his years abroad.7
As a historian, journalist, and pedagogue, P. N. Milyukov (i859-i943) was notable among the pioneering Russian scholars of Herzen. Regarded as a "Moscow liberal with leftward aspirations,"8 Milyukov, like Herzen, could not be pigeonholed into standard rubrics and categories. Steering clear of nationalistic conservatives and doctrinaire socialists, he maintained a distinct ideological tension, attempting to blend liberalism and socialism without being dragged into the camp of either nationalistic conservatives or doctrinaire socialists. In i900 Milyukov published a short essay, "In Memory of Herzen,"9 on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of his passing. Milyukov regarded Herzen as Russia's greatest writer,10 and he, in turn, was compared to Herzen in terms of the importance of his publicistic endeavors on behalf of Russia's opposition movement.11 On the centenary of Herzen's birth, Lenin, in his own "In Memory of Herzen" tribute, claimed Herzen for the cause of the revolution.
From i907 to i920, Ivanov-Razumnik12 (i878-i946) produced over fifteen major studies, including an eight-part history of Russian social thought that includes a fine chapter on Herzen.13 During roughly the same period, he wrote a series of small but valuable essays on Herzen, beginning with his i905 article on Herzen and the Russian populist Mikhailovsky.14
In On the Meaning of Life, Ivanov-Razumnik describes two "objectivist" doctrines—positivist and religious, both with a fixed historical "aim" or grand vision—and a third doctrine, "immanent subjectivism," of which Herzen is presented as founding father and most exemplary exponent.15
Despite the burst of essays and monographs on Herzen that appeared during the first two decades of the twentieth century, in his 1918 monograph K. Levin complained that this scholarship had generated more misunderstandings than accurate appraisals, and was riddled with conflicting images and portrayals of the man.16 This assessment can be attributed in part to the relative newness of Herzen research in Russia, and to the fact that a complete critical edition of his writings was still not available.17 Scholarly efforts were significantly facilitated by the 22-volume edition of Herzen's collected works, edited by Mikhail Konstantinovich Lemke (18721923), and issued as a foundation of the revolution's noble heritage and intellectual pedigree by the People's Commissariat for Education. This work, completed in 1925, remained the principal point of departure for all Herzen scholarship for the next forty years. Other works appearing in this period include Bogucharsky's running biography, virtually devoid of notes or supporting material, which covers the last thirteen years ofHerzen's life in less than forty pages,18 and a pamphlet-sized popular biography by Steklov first published in 1920.19
As the new Soviet order was established, Herzen scholarship was forced to take a sharp turn. Formerly the bete noir of the tsarist regime, Herzen was now accorded a central position on the podium of Russian socialist ideologues and elevated to the pantheon of national heroes. While this encouraged writing on Herzen, it also meant that interpretation was made to conform to strict guidelines and received understanding; a figure of such importance was to be defined within the tight ideological framework that Lenin had imposed.20
The typical Soviet-era study begins with Lenin's famous dictum, his epi- graphic image ofHerzen as dissident voice and peasant advocate.21 The main body of such research is replete with quotations from Herzen, frequently laid out in a cut-and-paste fashion,22 interlaced with fact-filled commentary, and thickly cross-referenced with Lenin's writings (it is not unusual to find pages that include more Lenin than Herzen). Analysis is often couched in Soviet ideological terminology, premised on a causal relationship between economic structures and literary and intellectual phenomena, as well as aesthetics and values. Herzen's democratic ethos is reduced to having paved the way for the vanguard of Russian Marxism23—quite an irony, considering Herzen's profound dislike for much of Marx's writings—and his teaching is viewed as an intermediate stage on the path of Marxist-Leninist aesthetics.24 One author somewhat anachronistically reads this alleged in- termediacy back into Herzen's own understanding, attributing his personal or "spiritual" tragedy to his being caught in the middle of "the revolutionism of bourgeois democracy, which was already dying in Europe, and the revolutionism of the socialist proletariat, which had not ripened."25 These studies often draw to a close not with the author's considered thoughts or findings, but with several more quotations from Lenin which are seen to sum up all that can (or should) be derived from Herzen's work.