Vivos Voco: Herzen's Past, Present, and Future

Authors

  • Kathleen Frances Parthe University of Rochester

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7557/6.2993

Keywords:

Russian, literature, Herzen, The Bell, Past and Thoughts, philosophy of history

Abstract

A close reading of the journalism, correspondence, and memoirs of Alexander Herzen (1812–1870) yields a finely tuned relationship to past, present, and future, but not a complete philosophy of history. Herzen described no system, but repeated key metaphors (e.g., the libretto) and concepts (e.g. contingency) that reflected his understanding of the historical process. For Herzen, history became interesting when it was relieved of predetermined plots and algebraic formulas. However much he studied Russia’s past and planned its future, his preference was for the present, where freedom is most fully experienced in debate and in the need to choose a path forward. He understood the instrumentality of history in how the lives of ordinary people were affected, which remained his measure of progress. Herzen was a “historian of the present,” and his insights are remarkably applicable to twenty-first-century Russia.

Author Biography

Kathleen Frances Parthe, University of Rochester

Dept. of Modern Languages and Cultures and

The Russian Studies Program

University of Rochester

Rochester, NY 14627-0082 USA

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Published

2014-11-13

How to Cite

Parthe, Kathleen Frances. 2014. “Vivos Voco: Herzen’s Past, Present, and Future”. Poljarnyj vestnik 17 (November):36–45. https://doi.org/10.7557/6.2993.

Issue

Section

Articles (peer reviewed)