A Herzen Reader

Zenkovsky observes that Herzen lacked any formal system and did not expound his doctrine in a purely philosophical manner. He points out that it is this feature of Herzen's discourse that complicates the task of the scholar, who must sift and separate passages of pure abstract thought and speculation from off-the-cuff comments, artistic expressions, and simple opinion. However, he does see a fair amount of internal cohesiveness in Herzen's thought, and devotes a section to investigating his doctrine. While most scholars have considered Herzen an atheist, or at least agnostic,⁶⁶ Zenkovsky identifies another Herzen who, in the 1830s, departed from analysis and rationalism and gave free rein to religious passion. Influenced by Saint-Simon's Nouveau Christianisme, Herzen saw in this doctrine the basis of moral renewal, a "new order" in Europe and Russia. While Herzen, ever the iconoclast, was a critic of the church as an institution, according to Zenkovsky's reading he espoused particular aspects of the Christian ethos as represented in scripture, and even gravitated toward aspects of mysti­cism. This aspect of Herzen's life and thought—Zenkovsky goes so far as to call Herzen an "essentially religious figure"—has yet to be explored in any depth.⁶⁷

Sergei Vasilievich Utechin (1921-2004), who also came under the in­fluence of Berlin during his time at Oxford, considers Herzen "the father of the modern Russian political emigration."⁶⁸ He recognizes that Herzen moderated his radical revolutionary position during his later years, and at­tributes matters of revolutionary strategy and tactics more to Ogaryov than to Herzen himself.

The Jesuit priest Frederick Copleston (1907-1994) wrote one of the great histories of Western philosophy of the last century. His Philosophy in Russia benefits greatly from his comparative perspective. Tracing Her­zen's movement from Schelling to Hegel, Hegel to Feuerbach, and on to positions akin to positivism, Copleston notes that the writings of Herzen and most other Russian thinkers belong more properly to the category of ideological thinking, social theory, or practical philosophy, rather than pure philosophy; however, any attempt to untangle and rationalize these vari­ous strands would be artificial, providing only a "caricature of his thought." Herzen was aware of discrepancies between his personal beliefs and those of the schools he studied and sometimes adopted.⁶⁹ He had to live with such inconsistencies, but live with them he did, rather than trying artificially to reconcile them in a perfect and complete philosophical system. Along these lines, which recognize Herzen's complex interweaving of rational and in­cisive thought with his personal experience and constitution, Copleston does acknowledge the changes in Herzen's beliefs and positions in his later years, that is, during the Bell period.

Most significantly, and counter to the many accounts of Herzen as the committed revolutionary (a moniker which was true, of course, in his ear­lier days), Copleston notes what appears to be a fundamental change in Herzen's understanding of the progress of history. Man has limited ability to affect history, which has its own pace and direction. Regime change, in today's vulgar terminology, is a shallow, ill thought-out concept. The devel­opment of the consciousness of the people will do more to move society forward than a sudden, radical overthrow of the existing order, which may only result in external, cosmetic alterations. Real change must come from within. It is perhaps in part Herzen's profound emphasis on the inner life, the human spirit, that Copleston, a man of the cloth, finds so appealing (de­spite Herzen's critique of organized religion), leading him to laud Herzen as "one of the most attractive figures among the Russian radical thinkers."⁷⁰