Alexander Herzen

@Father of Russian Socialism, Birthday and Life

Alexander Herzen was a Russian author and political activist, popularly known as the ‘Father of Russian socialism’

Apr 6, 1812

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Biography

Personal Details

  • Birthday: April 6, 1812
  • Died on: January 21, 1870
  • Nationality: Russian
  • Famous: Father of Russian Socialism, Political Activists, Intellectuals & Academics, Philosophers, Non-Fiction Writers
  • Spouses: Natalia Tuchkova, Natalya Zakharina
  • Known as: Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen
  • Universities:
    • Agrarian collectivism
    • Moscow State University

Alexander Herzen born at

Moscow

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Birth Place

In 1837, he secretly married his cousin, Natalya Zakharina, and emigrated abroad with her. They were blessed with four children but she died of tuberculosis in 1852.

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Personal Life

After his wife’s death, he started an affair with his best friend’s wife, Natalia Tuchkova, and she bore him three children.

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Personal Life

On January 21, 1870, he died of tuberculosis in Paris, France at the age of 57.

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Personal Life

Alexander Herzen was born out of a wedlock on April 6, 1812 in Moscow, Russia, to Ivan Alekseyevich Yakovlev, a rich Russian landowner and Henriette Wilhelmina Luisa Haag, a German Protestant woman.

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Childhood & Early Life

He was born shortly before the Napolean’s invasion of Russia and received his early education from French, German and Russian tutors.

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Childhood & Early Life

He got enrolled at the University of Moscow and during his university years, the writings of Comte de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier had a profound impact on him. He was drawn towards Saint-Simon's doctrines that criticized the shortcomings of the existing order and promised to end the exploitation of man by man. He completed his graduation in 1833.

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Childhood & Early Life

He, along with his dear friend, Nikolay Ogaryov, took a strong pledge to devote their lives to continue the Decembrists’ struggle for freedom from Nicholas 1’s rule in Russia.

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Childhood & Early Life

In 1834, he was arrested for attending a festival where verses of Mikhail Sokolovsky that were critical of Nicholas's predecessors were sung. He was proven guilty and faced an exile from his country. He was sent to work in the provincial bureaucracy in Vyatka.

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Career

After few years, Herezen was allowed to leave Vytaka for Vladimir, where he was appointed as the editor of the city's official gazette. In 1840, he returned to Russia and obtained a post in the ministry of the interior at Saint Petersburg.

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Career

But his honesty sent him back in exile, this time to Novgorod, for speaking truthfully about a death caused by a police officer. He served as a state councilor in Novgorod until 1842.

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Career

Upon his return from the second exile, he joined the camp of Westernizers, one of the group of intellectuals who emphasized Russia’s common historic destiny with the Western Europe, as opposed to Slavophiles, who believed Russia should follow a course determined by its own character and history, for its development and modernization.

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Career

In 1842, his first literary work, an essay on Dilettantism in Science, was published under the pseudonym of Iskander. He continued his writing through ‘Letters on the Study of Nature’ (1845-46), ‘Who is to Blame?’ (1847) and few more.

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Career

He developed a socialist philosophy, which provided ideological basis for much of the revolutionary activity in Russia.

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Major Works

One of his greatest literary masterpieces is his autobiography ‘My Past and Thoughts’ which is a source of information and insight into the Russian society under the reign of Nicholas I.

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Major Works