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).
"He did not like London. He spoke English very badly; he made few acquaintances there; and he writes with some asperity of the people and their habits." J. D. Duff, foreword to The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1923), xiii. These contentions persisted. "As for the English, he met few among them . . . On the whole, little attention was paid to him in England, and he responded with mingled admiration and dislike for his hosts." Isaiah Berlin, introduction to Alexander Herzen, From the Other Shore, trans. M. Budberg (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1956), xii.
"Takogo otshel'nichestva ia nigde ne mog naiti, kak v Londone." A. I. Gertsen, Sobranie sochinenii v tridtsati tomakh (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii nauk SSSR, 195466), 11:10.
In 1894 Milyukov delivered six public lectures, which included mention of the Decembrists and Herzen. Within months he was dismissed from teaching and sent into exile for two years. Undeterred, Milyukov set to work in Ryazan and published a series of sympathetic feuilletons on the romantic and emotional life of the "idealists" of the 1830s: Stankevich, Belinsky, and Herzen. See P. Miliukov, "Liubov' u idealistov tridtsatikh godov," Russkiia vedomosti 34 (issue numbers 276, 282, 289, 305, 335, 345) (1896).
As late as 1904, Boborykin, in his article on the Russian intelligentsia, still does not allow himself to mention Herzen by name, but instead refers to him as the "publisher of The Bell and From the Other Shore." P. Boborykin, "Russkaia intelligentsiia," Russkaia mysl' 25, no. 12 (1904): 82.
Ch. Vetrinskii (Vasilii Evgrafovich Cheshikhin-Vetrinskii), Gertsen (St. Petersburg: Svetoch, 1908).
P. N. Miliukov, Vospominaniia (1859-1917), ed. M. M. Karpovich and B. I. El'kin, vol. 1 (New York: Izdatel'stvo Imeni Chekhova, 1955), 145.
P. Miliukov, "Pamiati Gertsena," Mir Bozhii, 9, no. 2, section 2 (February i900): i7-2i.
Paul N. Miliukov, Russia To-Day and To-Morrow (New York: Macmillan, i922),
359.
See Iv. Il. Petrunkevich, Iz zapisok obshchestvennogo deiatelia: Vospominaniia, ed. A. A. Kizevetter (Prague, i934; Berlin: Petropolis-Verlag), 337.
His real name was Razumnik Vasil'evich Ivanov.
Ivanov-Razumnik, Istoriia russkoi obshchestvennoi mysli ^907), 3rd ed. (St. Petersburg: M. M. Stasiulevich, i9ii), 365-4:4.
Ivanov-Razumnik, "Gertsen i Mikhailovskii," in A. I. Gertsen ^905; Petrozavod: Kolos, i920), 46-76. Ivanov-Razumnik exemplifies the hazards of the scholar who dared write in a free and unhindered way during the first years of the Bolshevik regime. He published studies on Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Lavrov, and Mikhailovsky, and favored populism over Marxism. With the consolidation of the new order, he soon found himself blacklisted, and then incarcerated for periods between i92i and i94i.
See Ivanov-Razumnik, "O smysle zhizni," 2nd ed. (St. Peterburg, i9i0). For more on Ivanov-Razumnik's writings on Herzen, see N. V. Kuzina, "A. I. Gertsen v sochineniiakh i tvorcheskom soznanii R. V. Ivanova-Razumnika i9i0-i920 gg.," in Gertsenovskie chteniia (Kirov: Dept. kul'tury i iskusstva Kirovskoi oblasti, 2002), i2-i7.