Herzen was an outstanding revolutionary democrat, a famous political commentator and writer in Russia in the 19th century. He was born on April 6, 1812 in the Yakovlev family, an ancient Russian aristocratic family. He was an illegitimate child and could not inherit his father’s surname, but his father loved him so much that he gave him the surname “Herzen,” which is a transliteration of the German “heart,” meaning “beloved son.” Under the influence of progressive-minded governesses, Herzen yearned for freedom and hated autocracy from an early age.
The Juvenile Oath
The Decembrist uprising broke out in Russia in 1825. This event had a great impact on Herzen. It can be said that the fearless sacrifice of the Decembrists led Herzen to embark on the revolutionary road. When the tsarist authorities hanged the five leaders of the Decembrists, Herzen was only a teenager, but like the most conscientious intellectual at the time, he felt the deepest shame, hatred and pain. After the execution, the authorities held a huge prayer ceremony in the Moscow Kremlin. Thirty years later, Herzen wrote in his memoirs: “I attended prayer, I was only 14 years old, hidden in the crowd, and there, in front of the altar defiled by the bloody ritual, I swore. To avenge those who were put to death, to fight this throne, this altar, and these cannons to the end.” The entire spiritual life of the young Herzen was almost completely occupied by this major event, and his heart was always stirring for the light The urge to fight for justice. He told his governess “Old Bushau” about this feeling, and the teacher couldn’t help hugging him and saying, “I did not think you would be worth anything, but your noble feeling will save you.” One evening in 1827 , 15-year-old Herzen and his friend Ogalev came to the Sparrow Hills next to Moscow. The sun is slowly setting in the west, the domes are gleaming, the beautiful Moscow is spread out on the endless ground below the mountain, and the fresh breeze is blowing on the face, full of poetry. The teenagers thought about the fate and happiness of all mankind, and the present and future of Russia. They stood in the sunset breeze, leaning on each other, and suddenly embraced warmly, and they vowed to fight for their mission to the end, until they gave their lives. On Sparrow Hills, the two teenagers shouted out the declaration from the bottom of their hearts.
exile
In 1829, Herzen entered the Department of Mathematics and Physics of Moscow University. He and Ogalev organized a study group. They read banned books, criticized current affairs, and tried to study the thoughts of Fourier and Saint-Simon. In 1833, Herzen graduated with honors from Moscow University, and Tsar Nicholas I arrested him for “spreading extremely dangerous ideas”. He was exiled. The life of exile made him witness the corruption of the tsarist bureaucracy and the cruelty of serfdom, which strengthened his revolutionary stance against feudal dictatorship and serfdom. He returned to Moscow in 1842, but his operations remained under the surveillance of the tsarist government. The debate between “Slavic” and “Western European” dominated Moscow thought at that time. During the period 1842-1846, Herzen was very close to the Slavs and Western Europeans, joining them in their polemics while constructing his own ideas. Herzen opposed the monarchy thought of the Slavic faction, and did not agree with the Western European faction that Russia must follow the path of a Western European country. Between 1844 and 1846, he broke with the Slavs and then the Western Europeans.
Exile Disagreement
with friends made Herzen very painful. The harsh censorship and surveillance of the tsarist government prevented him from expressing his thoughts and activities freely. Under the oppression of the domestic political environment, Herzen decided to leave the country. In 1846, he applied to travel abroad on the grounds of his wife Natalia’s medical treatment, and obtained permission to travel to Europe for six months. In 1847, Herzen came to Paris with his mother, children and wife, and left France for Italy at the end of the year. Herzen has both a strong literati temperament and a revolutionary character, and every revolution around the world affects his heart. In February of the following year, Herzen returned to Paris, inspired by the French Revolution, and at the same time became a witness to a bloody history. The reality that the “June Uprising” in Paris was brutally suppressed gave him a very heavy mental blow. “Awakened Italy” and “Revolutionary France” are places where he can pin his hopes, which were dashed on the gallows of the Tsar in the past, and are now buried in the ruins of the whole city of Paris. However, for Herzen, who had been imprisoned, exiled and expelled by the tsarist authorities, the real suffering was just beginning.
bereavement
”The days of June and beyond were terrible; they were the turning point of my life,” Herzen later wrote. The tragic end of the French Revolution seemed vaguely to herald the darkest years of his life. That month, an uninvited guest broke into his life, and he lived in Herzen’s house and tricked Natalia into sympathy with rhetoric. He was Helwig, a German poet and anarchist. For two years, the quiet life of the Herzens was completely disrupted by him, and the two fell into a relationship crisis. Even after his departure, shameless slanders and rumors still haunt the family. In 1851, Herzen’s mother and eldest son were suddenly killed in a shipwreck. The grief-stricken Herzen went to the funeral home to claim the remains, but never found his relatives. After that, Natalia also became ill.
When the inner sadness and the external insults poured out together, Herzen stubbornly endured the unimaginable pain, and silently accompanied his wife’s sickbed until she passed away peacefully among the flowers. Recalling the various misunderstandings that occurred during the family crisis, Herzen reproached himself bitterly: “Although I love her infinitely, I myself participated in the crime of killing her!”
The Bell of Liberty
At the end of 1849 Herzen returned from Geneva Paris participates in some editorial work. When the French government closed the journal in May 1850, Herzen suffered financially but gained a very rewarding editorial experience.
In January 1853, with the support of Polish exiles led by Walzel, Herzen established the “Free Russian Printing Office” in London, and a long-cherished wish for many years became a reality. The publication of the first article, entitled “To the Russian Brothers,” solemnly announced the opening of the “Free Russian Press”, whose task was to publish the works of revolutionary political commentators, and whose publications were not subject to the censorship of Russian books. Herzen wrote: “As early as 1849 I intended to publish a Russian journal in Paris, but, being troubled by poverty, I had to travel to various countries and have been unable to realize my vision. However, I was determined not to do so. Yu. In order to realize my vision in Western Europe, I have spent a lot of time, effort, experience and money. Now, I don’t have to worry about this anymore. I will do my best to make the printing office your speech agency and publish it for you A free, uncensored publication.” In the dead silence of the Nicholas Empire, only Herzen’s “Polaris” and “The Bell” magazines were secretly shipped in one after another, and not only the radical intellectuals of the time regarded it as a blessing Rain and dew, members of revolutionary groups and groups that have sprung up like mushrooms in Russia, who hasn’t secretly read this magazine in the corner of Nikolai’s gendarmerie? Herzen’s name will always be a model for later Russian revolutionaries to emulate. Herzen’s voice awakened the awakening of the whole of Russia.
Herzen died of pneumonia in January 1870. In a turbulent life in exile, after disillusionment with Western Europe and a devastating blow to his personal life, Herzen did not sink. He devoted his life to Russia, to the cause of its liberation.
Herzen’s cemetery is on a hill, and his headstone is inscribed with the words: His mother Louisa Haag and his young son Coria drowned in a boat; his wife Natalia suffered from tuberculosis Died; his 17-year-old daughter Lisa committed suicide; his 3-year-old twin girls died of diphtheria. He only lived to be 58 years old! But suffering does not destroy a person in vain. He left behind 30 volumes. He left behind many articles that still burn like fire.
