Alexander Herzen
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (Russian: Алекса́ндр Ива́нович Ге́рцен) (April 6 1812 – January 21 1870) was a Russian pro-Western writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism" and one of the main fathers of agrarian populism (being an ideological ancestor of the Narodniki, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trudoviks and the agrarian American Populist Party). He is held responsible for creating a political climate leading to the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. His autobiography My Past and Thoughts, written with grace, energy, and ease, is often considered the best specimen of that genre in Russian literature. He also published the important social novel Who is to Blame? (1845–46).
Read more about Alexander Herzen: Life, Writings, Free Russian Press, British Exile 1852 - 1864, Contemprary Reputation, Influence in The 19th and 20th Century, Works
Famous quotes containing the words alexander herzen, alexander and/or herzen:
“I am truly horrified by modern man. Such absence of feeling, such narrowness of outlook, such lack of passion and information, such feebleness of thought.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)
“I thought when I was a young man that I would conquer the world with truth. I thought I would lead an army greater than Alexander ever dreamed of. Not to conquer nations, but to liberate mankind. With truth. With the golden sound of the Word. But only a few of them heard. Only a few of you understood. The rest of you put on black and sat in chapel.”
—Philip Dunne (1908–1992)
“Never was Catholicism, never were the ideas of chivalry, impressed on men so deeply, so multifariously, as the bourgeois ideas.”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)