Romanov Riches: Russian Writers and Artists Under the Tsars

On the contrary, in the West Herzen’s money not only made him accepted even in the democratic milieu, but it also allowed him to launch his revolutionary activity: he founded the Free Russian Press in London, which printed antigovernment leaflets, brochures, and books, and subsequently the dissident almanac Polar Star and then the first Russian revolutionary newspaper, The Bell (1857–1867).

The Bell’s circulation was 2,500, some of which reached Russia, where the paper was read with trepidation and acute attention, even in the tsar’s court. They said that Alexander II sometimes asked close friends, “Have you read the eighth issue? How about the tenth?”⁴ Everyone knew he meant The Bell. It was a historic breakthrough for Russian dissident literature.

The tumultuous cosmopolitan life in the West transformed Herzen’s wife, Natalie, too, and it led to a family drama. In an ordinary family it would probably have remained a private affair, but it prompted Herzen to write a masterpiece of the Russian memoir genre, his magnum opus, My Past and Thoughts.

Natalie was his cousin. Like Herzen, she was illegitimate, and she was brought up by a wealthy aunt, which created psychological issues. Beautiful and intelligent, she imagined that everyone was mocking her, humiliating her, keeping her illiterate, while her calling was to astonish the world: “My cheeks burned, I was hurrying somewhere, I could see my paintings, my students—but they wouldn’t give me a piece of paper or a pencil … My desire to get out into a different world grew stronger and stronger and along with it grew my scorn for my prison and its cruel sentry.”⁵

When she married Herzen, he and his friends put her on a romantic pedestal: they all tried “to prove to her that she was immaculate in every action.” One friend kept telling Herzen, “You are a pig before your wife.”⁶

Belonging to the “fasting girl” type, fashionable in mid-nineteenth-century Europe—thin, small, and introverted creatures, whom many found to be incredibly spiritual—Natalie Herzen made it a habit to lecture her female friends in a smooth, quiet voice on the lofty purpose of women, annoying them no end.

It was his wife who pushed Herzen out into Europe once he got his inheritance. In Paris, Natalie Herzen, according to friends, changed from a “quiet, thoughtful romantic lady” into a “brilliant tourist.”⁷

Among the new admirers of the Herzen family were the German émigré poet Georg Herwegh and his wife. Herwegh was famous for his passionate political poems and pamphlets, which received the approval of Karl Marx himself. The great Heinrich Heine called Herwegh the “iron lark” of the revolution. He was very attractive, with a dusky face and fiery eyes, soft, long hair, and a silky beard.

At first relations between the Herzens and the Herweghs were idyllic: the men called each other “my double,” “my twin,” and the women discussed the possibility of communal living, both families with their children. The inspiring works of Rousseau and George Sand were reread and discussed. It ended with Herwegh and Natalie becoming lovers, although she did not want to leave Herzen.

Feeling a “revulsion for bourgeois virtues,” as an observer put it, Natalie Herzen imagined that this situation would work out well and that they would create a great new model of family relations (as some now assume, on a bisexual basis) before which “one day people will prostrate themselves, blinded by our love, as if by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.”⁸

But the progressive Herzen, who readily recognized the right of every woman to enjoy free love in theory, somehow recoiled from this prospect. The duality of his position was later described ironically by Dostoevsky: “He rejected the foundations of the previous society, denied family, and still was, I believe, a good father and husband. He denied private property, and while waiting for its abolition managed to arrange his affairs and enjoyed his prosperity abroad. He fomented revolutions and incited others but at the same time loved comfort and family peace.”

Dostoevsky was unduly sarcastic. It is easy to accuse Herzen of inconsistency or even hypocrisy, but the letters and diaries of the couple show how sincerely and strongly they believed in new, elevated forms of family life and how terribly they suffered when their fantasies were shattered.

At first Herzen and Herwegh planned to solve the conflict with a duel. But instead Herzen imprudently decided to make the affair public, wanting Jules Michelet and Pierre Proudhon, whom he called the “generals of democracy,” and the great George Sand, for Herzen and his circle “the highest authority on everything to do with women,” to rule on the situation.