One of the few Russian monographs specifically to treat Herzen's Bell closely follows this formula, quoting Lenin so often that on some pages the author no longer bothers to supply a reference. Indicative of the general gist of such scholarship, the first page of the bibliography guides the reader interested in understanding more about Herzen to two works by Marx and seventeen by Lenin.26 Another monograph expands this list somewhat to include Engels.27
Tatarinova's volume on Herzen, published in a series on "revolutionary democratic publicists," contains a section on the Free Russian Press, though the interpretation relies heavily not only on Lenin but on Plekha- nov, who views Herzen as an early contributor to the stream of socialist materialism.28 Monographs on Herzen's social philosophy29 and historical views30 follow a similar approach. Overall, much of Soviet scholarship on Herzen tends to be descriptive—often painstakingly so, with great effort on detail and documentation—but with a restrictive or circumscribed analytic or critical range.
The above does not in any way suggest that the literature of the Soviet period should be dismissed or ignored. Over the course of seven decades, a considerable corpus of studies on a wide variety of aspects and angles of Herzen and his works was produced. A number of literary projects were carried out that would have been difficult to orchestrate and finance in the West. The most significant of these is the definitive thirty-volume edition of his collected writings, with extensive notes and critical apparati.31 This opus, which took over a decade to complete, remains the standard reference work in the field. Also of note is the five-volume chronology of Herzen's life, which provides a detailed diary-like account of Herzen's movements and activities.32
There is another intriguing aspect to Soviet Herzen scholarship. Among some writers, the choice of Herzen as a subject may indicate something other than simple endorsement of Leninist doctrine. As the theme of one work, entitled Herzen Against Autocracy,33 suggests, Herzen set a model for the expression of free thought against the background of a repressive regime—a luxury not easily afforded the Soviet author documenting this very topic.34 The irony of this circumstance could not entirely have been lost among readers. The subversive aspect of Herzen scholarship in Soviet secondary literature is a worthy topic in itself.35
In the resurgence of essays and monographs on Herzen emanating from Russia during the last two decades one can detect new approaches with innovative methods and means of analysis employed to elucidate the man and his doctrine in a fresh light.36
Growing interest in Herzen in the West may be seen in the context of the broader fascination with Russia during the first decades of the twentieth century. This was marked by a spurt of publications that ventured into a creative arena situated somewhere between romance and scholarship, in which a search was conducted for the "soul" or "spirit" of Russia as represented by its great nineteenth-century literary figures and its innovative Silver Age poets and artists. In England, attention turned to Russian art and literature, while Continental studies included T. G. Masaryk's tour de force Russland und Europa (i9i3), a wide-ranging survey of Russian history, literature, and philosophy. Masaryk allocates several important subchapters to Herzen, depicting him with much admiration and empathy. The author, however, worked from the limited corpus of Herzen's texts available before the First World War.
The upheavals of i9i7-i9 and the assumption of power by Lenin, who, as noted above, accorded Herzen a central role as the ideological progenitor of Russian socialism, piqued the curiosity of those wishing to better understand the monumental events taking place.
In part a result of Russia's dramatic political and ideological transformation and in part due to the production of Lemke's important reference work, Herzen scholarship began to move forward with quickening pace. In France, Labry produced two in-depth studies in the :920s, with the majority of the research focused on Herzen's ideological development within Russia and the impact of French thought upon his doctrine.37 In the English-speaking world, the publication of Garnett's pocketbook translations of My Past and Thoughts (Byloe i dumy), Herzen's most popular work, helped bolster interest in the man and his thought.38 By the early 1930s, E. H. Carr (i892-i982) was working on the first significant English-language study of Herzen. Based in part on My Past and Thoughts, Carr's work, The Romantic Exiles,39 is largely biographical. It is well written, engaging, and entertaining, but it does not attempt to grapple with the intellectual streams of Herzen's doctrine.
By the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union had reestablished itself as a major power, and as the Cold War emerged and intensified, the
Eastern bloc became a significant focus of concern in the West. With scholars and commentators expressing polarized views on the Soviet regime and communist doctrine, discussion extended to the influences that led to the current situation, one which pitted Western democracies against an ideological system whose antecedents stretched back into the previous century. It was only natural, given Herzen's important role in Russia's intellectual heritage, socialist doctrine, and revolutionary movement, that scholarship in the West on this important figure should launch in earnest.
The fortuitous constellation of man and moment occurred when a rising academician of Russian origin, with a specialty in philosophy and a penchant for the history of ideas, was appointed to serve at the British embassy in Moscow for a brief spell in autumn 1945. With his keen interest in Russian thought and literature, and having written a significant monograph on Marx, Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) was well apprised of the historical pillars on which modern Russia rested. However, in his brief encounter with the grim, stark reality of Stalin's regime, Berlin became acquainted firsthand with a wholly different Russia than that which he had come to admire through its literature. He was deeply touched by his conversations with Russian intellectuals, and these exchanges contributed to his desire to promote an alternative vision of Russia that had strong roots in the past and offered hope for the future.
In a Foreign Office memorandum entitled "A Note on Literature and the Arts in the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic in the Closing Months of 1945,"40 Berlin distinguishes between two visions of Russia. One was manifest in revolutionary Leninist doctrine and Stalin's autocratic rule; the other, stifled to a trembling silence, was the underlying "Russian genius" which had long sought to be liberated from the oppressive grip of state control and censorship. While it was the totalitarian image that was gaining hold in the West, Berlin was a devotee of an entirely different vision of Russia, a liberal, humanist current that he would chronicle and examine in some of his most famous essays.