Peculiarities of A. I. Herzen’s Historical Autobiographism in From the Other Shore

Abstract

This article examines one of the most stressful and difficult periods in Herzen’s life associated with the writer’s ideological crisis of the late 1840s, which was reflected in his journalistic works of the 1850s. This research is an attempt to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the book From the Other Shore as an autobiographical text in order to trace the formation of a new concept of the author’s personality and ways to overcome his ideological crisis. The article examines the nature of autobiographism in Herzen’s creative writing of the 1850s, which L. Ya. Ginzburg defined as historical autobiographism. Romantic autobiographism of the 1830s and socio-psychological autobiographism of the 1840s were replaced by historical autobiographism (definition by L. Ginzburg). Issues of historical order become part of the writer’s personal life. Moreover, Herzen personifies the principles of historiosophy: he regards the experience of an individual as the experience of humanity at large. However, Herzen’s uncertain position in European democratic social circles was responsible for the crisis as well. That is why Herzen formulated and chose for himself the position of an outside observer. The method of historical analogies (definition by R. Нestanov) highlights this new view — Herzen compares the events of Europe with the events of the end of Ancient civilization and juxtaposes himself with Roman philosophers. Furthermore, he uses the technique of dramatising the present, and, consequently, history itself, which leads to the effect of double reflection (reflection of reflection or meta-reflection), and helps him distance from the present and overcome the emotional drama of the late 1840s — early 1850s.