A Herzen Reader

Most notably, there have been serious literary examinations of his Past and Thoughts. Earlier research recognized that there was more to this work than meets the eye, allowing for several layers of analysis and interpreta­tion. Chukovskaya's small monograph suggests that Herzen's great work is "to no less degree a self-portrait than an autobiography."⁸¹ The best studies are those that detect Herzen's subtle but complex interweaving ofbiograph- ical details with world history. Hoffler-Preissmann's monograph asserts that Herzen aimed to construct a narrative in which contemporary history is embodied within literary portraits, resulting in "a perfect fusion of life with his artistic imagination."⁸² Schmid focuses on the personal dimen­sion of Past and Thoughts, arguing that Herzen's intention was to represent "Weltgeschichte als Familiendrama," a skilled interlacing of global events and autobiography.⁸³ In a modern paraphrase of Herzen's own comments, Ginzburg notes that Past and Thoughts eludes the usual categories of clas­sification. Neither pure literature, nor straight history or autobiography, it is rather a distinctive fusion of several genres, a memoir imbued with a de­liberate, studied, and conscious historicism.⁸⁴ Along similar lines, Paperno examines how Herzen links "intimacy" and "history" by employing liter­ary structures and Hegelian models.⁸⁵ Other investigations have considered Herzen in terms of the literary schools that influenced his writing,⁸⁶ as well as his relationship with other authors.⁸⁷ Aside from literary studies, general works on nineteenth-century Russian journalism invariably include a sec­tion on Herzen.⁸⁸

It may be argued from the above survey that there are, broadly speaking, three major trends in Herzen scholarship. The biographical genre is fu­eled by material from Herzen's celebrated memoirs, his correspondence, and archival documents which include the observations of those who met or knew Herzen. Works of intellectual history attempt to trace influences and tease a coherent philosophy or worldview out of Herzen's largely topi­cal, publicistic writings. Literary studies explore Herzen's transition from romanticism to naturalism in the :830s and :840s, and finally to the devel­opment of his own groundbreaking style of confessional prose in the :850s.

Beyond the above rubrics, an intriguing parallel developed between Her­zen scholarship in Soviet Russia and, mutatis mutandis, in the West after World War II. Both were dominated for some time by a larger-than-life, authoritative commentator who has influenced much of later scholarship. During the Soviet era, Lenin's interpretation had to be heeded or, at the very least, cunningly worked around, even while quoting him de rigueur at every possible juncture. Admittedly of a different nature and degree, it may be argued that a fair amount of Herzen scholarship in the West has been inspired by Berlin's interpretation and approach, not only by dint of the essays which treat Herzen and his circle,⁸⁹ but in a much subtler yet more pervasive sense. In the last sixty years, a number of key Western scholars who wrote some of the most important studies on Herzen's thought were directly influenced by Berlin, and corresponded with him on the subject throughout his life. ⁹⁰ Berlin's influence was not restricted to those in the

West. Russian scholars such as Elsberg have considered Berlin's analysis of Herzen as emblematic of the contemporary "ideological battle over Her­zen's legacy."⁹¹ To Elsberg, as Berlin, an "authentic" understanding of Her­zen could be used to support or critique contemporary worldviews, political systems, and regimes. The debate over the interpretation of Herzen went beyond mere literary analysis.

There have been studies that have examined Herzen in regard to particular years or stages in his life,⁹² or the cities in Russia in which he resided.⁹³ A number of monographs have been based on Herzen's nexus of interactions and associations with certain European nations.⁹⁴ Herzen's English period has still to attract comparable dedicated studies, and the publication of a selection of his essays, with commentary and explanation, is a long-awaited and significant contribution to Herzen scholarship which will allow English readers for the first time to appreciate Herzen's landmark essays and subtle discourse. A study of Herzen's writings during his Bell years shows him in all his brilliance, complexity, and, indeed, inconsistencies, as an idealistic, non-compromising, engaged emigre, straddled between the immaculate structures of pure philosophy, the soaring ideals of a lofty social, egalitarian morality, and the exigencies and limitations of a terribly imperfect world.