Ends and Beginnings

by Alexander Herzen, Constance Garnett (Translator), Humphrey Higgins (Editor)

An autobiographical selection from the later parts of My Past and Thoughts, the memoirs of Herzen, whose vision of liberty is disturbingly relevant to our own times. This volume tells of his marriage to his cousin, and of his return to Moscow from exile in 1840 to take part in the ferment of discussions between Slavophiles and Westerners about Russia's historical destiny.

This volume is the sequel to Childhood, Youth and Exile. Isaiah Berlin called these memoirs "an autobiography of the first order of genius...a major classic, comparable in scope with War and Peace."

528 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 1985

About the author

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (Russian: Александр Иванович Герцен) 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).

Reviews

[Stephen Varcoe]

The memoires of a Russian 19th C social & political revolutionary and an introduction to some of Isaiah Berlin’s ideas about freedom.

But Herzen could also write, so this also works at the level of social history and biography.

For Herzen, the ends don’t justify the means, yet he maintained friendly relations with contemporaries like Bakunin for whom “The passion for destruction is also a creative passion.”

Hell I almost understood something (anything) about Hegel.

Végre felfedeztem saját korlátaimat.

Well not quite yet. But soon.

[Sinan Öner]

One of the Great Philosophers, Novelists and Politicians of Russia was Alexander Herzen! Alexander Herzen wrote novels, essays, historical notes. Herzen, because of his political thoughts and life, lived in "exile" in European cities. Herzen's "democraticism", "reformism" and "socialism" affected Russian youth, peasants, working class, petty-bourgeiose and intellectuals! Tolstoy, Gorki, Lenin, other Russian intellectual leaders were the readers of Herzen, they practised Herzen's a lot of thoughts in their social, political and intellectual life, Soviet Union published Herzen's books in different Soviet countries, then, Herzen's books were published in the most of the world.