MY PAST AND THOUGHTS
The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen
TRANSLATED BY Constance Garnett REVISED BY Humphrey Higgens
INTRODUCTION BY Isaiah Berlin
ABRIDGED, WITH A PREFACE AND NOTES
by Dwight Macdonald
MY PAST
AND
THOUGHTS
The Memoirs of
Alexander Herzen
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFONIA PRESS
Berkeley and Los Angeles and London
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
BERKELEY AND LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
Abridged version copyright © 1973 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
Introduction copyright© 1968 by Isaiah Berlin.
Revised translation copyright © 1968 by Chatto and Windus Ltd.
All rights reserved under International
and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
University of California Press Edition published by arrangement with Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
First California Printing 1982
ISBN 0-520-04210-7 paper
0-520-04191-7 cloth
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 73-15933
Printed in the United States of America
Who is entitled to write his reminiscences?
Everyone.
Because no one is obliged to read them.
In order to write one's reminiscences it is not at all necessary to be a great man, nor a notorious criminal, nor a celebrated artist, nor a statesman-it is quite enough to be simply a human being, to have something to tell, and not merely to desire to tell it but at least have some little ability to do so.
Every life is interesting; if not the personality, then the environment, the country are interesting, the life itself is interesting. Man likes to enter into another existence, he likes to touch the subtlest fibres of another's heart, and to listen to its beating
. . . he compares, he checks it by his own, he seeks for himself confirmation, sympathy, justification . . . .
But may not memoirs be tedious, may not the life described be colourless and commonplace?
Then we shall not read it-there is no worse punishment for a book than that.
Moreover, the right to indite one's memoirs is no relief for the chagrin of this. Benvenuto Cellini's Diary is not interesting because he was an excellent worker in gold but because it is in itself as interesting as any novel.
The fact is that the very word 'entitled' to this or that form of composition does not belong to our epoch, but dates from an era of intellectual immaturity, from an era of poet-laureates, doctors'
caps, corporations of savants, certificated philosophers, diploma'ed metaphysicians and other Pharisees of the Christian world. Then the act of writing was regarded as something sacred, a man writing for the public used a high-flown, unnatural, choice language; he 'expounded' or 'sang'.
We simply talk; for us writing is the same sort of secular pursuit, the same sort of work or amusement as any other. In this connection it is difficult to dispute 'the right to work'.
Whether the work will find recognition and approval is quite a different matter.
A year ago I published in Russian part of my memoirs under the title of Prison and Exile. l published it in London at the beginning of the [Crimean] war. I did not reckon upon readers nor upon any attention outside Russia. The success of that book v
exceeded all expectations: the Revue des Deux Mondes, the most chaste and conceited of journals, published half the book in a French translation; the clever and learned Athenaeum printed extracts in English; the whole book has appeared in German and is being published in English.
That is why I have decided to print extracts from other parts.
In another place I speak of the immense importance my memoirs have for me personally, and the object with which I began writing them. I confine myself now to the general remark that the publication of contemporary memoirs is particularly useful for us Russians. Thanks to the censorship we are not accustomed to anything being made public, and the slightest publicity frightens, checks, and surprises us. In England any man who appears on any public stage, whether as a huckster of letters or a guardian of the press, is liable to the same critical examination, to the same hisses and applause as the actor in the lowest theatre in Islington or Paddington. Neither the Queen nor her husband are excluded. It is a mighty curb!
Let our imperial actors of the secret and open police, who have been so well protected from publicity by the censorship and paternal punishments, know that sooner or later their deeds will come into the light of day.
ALEXANDER HERZEN, The Pole Star, 1 855
CONTENTS
PREFACE by Dwight Macdonald
x1
INTRODUCTION by Isaiah Berlin
x1x
DEDICATION (to Nicholay Platonovich Ogarev) xlv
NURSERY AND UNIVERSITY
(1812-1834)
Childhood
3
Youth
19
Political Awakening
39
Nick and the Sparrow Hills
58
My Father
65
The University
79
After the University
107
Appendix: A. Polezhayev
117
PRISON AND EXILE
122
(1834-1838)
Ogarev's Arrest
125
My Arrest
132
Imprisonment
137
Krutitsky Barracks
145
Investigation and Sentence
152
Perm
166
Vyatka
170
Misgovernment in Siberia
185
Appendix: Alexander Lavrentevich Vitberg
199
The Tsarevich's Visit
210
The Beginning of My Life at Vladimir
219
MOSCO\V, PETERSBURG AND
NOVGOROD (1840-1847)
Return to Moscow and Intellectual Debate
229
Petersburg and the Second Banishment
253
Councillor at Novgorod
269
Our Friends
284
Our 'Opponents'
287
To Petersburg for a Passport
305
PARIS-ITALY -PARIS
(1847-1852)
The Journey
319
The Honeymoon of the Republic
324
Western European Arabesques, I
330
1. The Dream
330
2. The Reality
333
The Revolution of 1848 in France
340
In Geneva with the E.-riles of 1848
358
Western European Arabesques, II
384
1. A Lament
384
2. Postscript on Petit Bourgeois
391
Money and the Police
398
P.-1. Proudhon
414
Appendix: Second Thoughts on the Woman
Question
431
EKGLAND (1852-1858)
The Fogs of London
445
The Emigrants in l,ondon
448
John Stuart Mill and His Book on Liberty 458
German Emigrants
467
Robert Owen
485
THE FREE RUSSIAN PRESS
AND THE BELL (1858-1862)
Apogee and Perigee
529
The Younger Emigrants: The Common Fund
554
M. Bakunin and the Cause of Poland
565
THE LATER YEARS ( 1860-1868)
Fragments
591
Swiss Views
591
Beyond the Alps
594
Zu Deutsch
596
Living Flowers-The Last
of the Mohican Squaws
599
The Flowers of Minerva
606
Venezia la bella
609
Byzantium
613
France, Germany ... and America
615
The Superfluous and the Jaundiced (1860)
619
Bazarov Once More (1868)
628
Letter 1
628
Letter 2
639
A Relevant Chrestomathy from the Later Years
(Selected by the Abridger)
643
APPENDix: Marx v. Herzen
(the Soviet Academy's History,
with Notes by Dwight Macdonald
677
INDEX OF PERSONS
follows page 684