In the draft of history

It cannot be said about Herzen that he is "forgotten." Rather - it seems to be a figure that has finally departed in history. This can be seen, among other things, because of the fact that none of the modern influential political or public groups are trying to symbolically appropriate it.

But the centenary of Herzen, in 1912, caused precisely a competition of various forces that defended the right to list him among their own, from the Cadets to the Bolsheviks - and the “Memory of Herzen’s Memory”, known to any person with the Soviet past, was just one of the moves in the languor, the consequence of Lenin’s decision to “not give” Herzen to the opponents, to defend his place precisely in the revolutionary pantheon - And in the end, almost to bring it to the banners of the first international (which is connected with a peculiar Leninist interpretation of “letters to the old comrade”, which then became mandatory for decades).

The Lenin decision played a large role in the posthumous fate of Herzen-by the end of the 1930s he finally entered the Soviet canon to become, along with the Decembrists, for the Soviet intellectuals of subsequent years “permitted by others”. Just as, painting the Decembrists and Pushkin, it was possible to admire the noble culture with legal grounds and to sing aristocracy, the principles of honor, etc., so Herzen turned out to be a kind of possibility of dissocation without a radical protest.

True, this peculiar status also entailed its consequences - with the end of the Soviet era faded and interest in Herzen. He turned out to be part of the heritage of “revolutionary thought”, which excited with its semi -caused dissent - and which was still part of the “Soviet” heritage as part of the collapse of the latter.

If Herzen's two hundredth anniversary has passed quite quietly, limited to several conferences and a collection of works, then 150 years from the date of his death, which came in January of this year, remained almost unnoticed. Actually, we are not at all surprised by the lack of noticeable anniversary celebrations around the memorable dates of the Pisemsky or, for example, Boborykin - so Herzen invisibly, if not in the same row, then next to him.

However, this relative silence, perhaps, is good for him - this is an opportunity to move away from recent common images and then return to Herzen as a new, unfamiliar interlocutor.

Reflecting on the reasons for the fall of the popularity of Herzen among Russian radical youth, the remarkable Russian literary critic Nestor Kotor Kotlyarevsky noted, among other things, and the unwillingness of the publisher of the “bell” to become a leader, a teacher - in the sense of giving simple and clear instructions, where to move, what to strive for, how to live.

Indeed, simplicity and certainty were inherent in the exclusively negative goals of Herzen: the destruction of serfdom, public and fair court, freedom of speech. The same thing that went down in history called “Russian socialism” and the successors of which the Narodniks became, for Herzen retained the remarkable uncertainty of both the image of the future and specific means leading to the goal. So, it is noteworthy that in 1864, in an interview with Samarin, he agreed to see his desired ideal of agrarian transformations in Russia in agrarian reform declared in the Kingdom of Poland. And in 1865, he until some extent seriously reflected on the possibilities of transferring his activities to Russia in connection with the expected abolition of preliminary censorship.

Of course, this is not about presenting Alexander Ivanovich in the form of a supporter of “moderation and progress”: if sometimes he spoke in a similar spirit, it is much easier to choose a large collection of judgments of the exact opposite plan. Tolstoy spoke of Herzen in 1905: “ How Herzen wrote half a century ago about what is now needed! < ... > by the “socialist” he understood not something definite, like the current Social Democrats, but a person who sees the injustice of an economic situation and wants equality ” 1 .

Here it is worth dwelling in the nature of Herzen's protest to the “West”, his indignation about the “bourgeois” and “tradesman”. Neding arises and remains in force until the end of Herzen’s life, not so much about the existing egregious social inequality - he did not only know well about him long before he ended up in France, but could well observe him in Russia - how much about spiritual self -specificity. In the "bourgeois", in the "small shopkeeper", as in the respectable French orator or publicist, he was outraged by peace; Not only the lack of anxiety of conscience about social injustice, but also the willingness to sing this state of affairs precisely as fair - and animal anger, waking up in the same peaceful bourgeois at the slightest shadow of the opportunity to shake his position.

And at the same time, in the ranks of the “socialists” themselves, Alexander Herzen was rather the Enfant Terrist - after all, for contemporaries and closest descendants of his “main” book was a collection of the essay “From that shore”, highly valued, for example, Konstantin Leontyev. Valued for the apparent “paradox”: a refusal to attempt to declare the story “on your side”, the assertion of the openness of the future - and that it does not give any guarantees of hope.

And now, returning to the beginning of the conversation, - it seems to me that it is difficult to find the author, in the very being of his thoughts closer to our time than Alexander Herzen. Not believing in “big ideas” and ready to critically review his own views - and at the same time completely free from any impurity of cynicism. Ironic, to which irony does not serve as self -defense of the perception of injustice - and at the same time for which the key, uneasy from everything else, remains precisely personal, human decency. For which personal honesty and sincerity are not an excuse, but an indispensable condition. As they said in the old days - “a man with a living moral feeling” who saved him from moralizing. Living in a draft of history.

Andrey Tesl, cand. Philos. sciences, Art. scientific. sotr.
Scientific adviser to the Center for Research of Russian Thought
Institute of Humanities of the Baltic Federal University
them. Immanuel Kant (Kaliningrad)

1 Makovitsky D.P. Yasnopolian notes. Record of October 22, 1905 Cit. by: Gusev N. Herzen and Tolstoy // Literary inheritance. T. 41–42. M., 1941. S. 518.