Leonid Andreev days of our lives summary. Oryol State Academic Theater named after I.S. Turgenev

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Alexander Ivanovich Herzen
Collected works in thirty volumes
Volume 6. From the other shore. Duty comes first

A. I. Herzen. From a daguerreotype, 1850–1852.

From that shore *

To my son Alexander *

My friend Sasha,

I dedicate this book to you because I have never written anything better and probably will not write anything better; because I love this book as a monument to a struggle in which I sacrificed much, but not the courage of knowledge; because, finally, I am not at all afraid to put into your adolescent hands this, at times daring, protest of an independent personality against the view of an outdated, slavish and full of lies, against absurd idols that belong to another time and senselessly live out their lives among us, disturbing some, frightening others.

I don’t want to deceive you, know the truth as I know it; Let this truth come to you not through painful mistakes, not through deadening disappointments, but simply by right of inheritance.

Other questions, other conflicts will come in your life... there will be no shortage of suffering, no shortage of work. You are 15 years old - and you have already experienced terrible blows.

Do not look for solutions in this book - they are not in it, modern man does not have them at all. What is decided is over, but the coming revolution is just beginning.

We do not build, we break, we do not proclaim a new revelation, but we remove old lies. Modern man, sad pontifex maximus 1
Here: the great bridge builder (lat.). – Ed.

He only creates a bridge - another, unknown, future one will cross it. You might see him... Don't stay for old shore... It is better to die with him than to be saved in the almshouse of reaction. The religion of the coming social re-creation is one religion that I bequeath to you. She is without heaven, without reward, except her own consciousness, except her conscience... Go preach it to us in due time home; they once loved my language there and maybe they will remember me.

...I bless you on this path in the name human mind, personal freedom and brotherly love!

Your father

Introduction

"Vom andern Ufer" 2
“From the other shore” (German). – Ed.

– the first book I published in the West; a number of articles that make up it were written in Russian in 1848 and 49. I myself dictated them to the young writer F. Kapp in German.

Now much is not new in it 3
I have added three articles published in magazines and assigned to second a publication that German censorship did not allow; these three articles are: "Epilogue", "Omnia mea mecum porto" and "Donoso Cortes". I replaced them with a short article about Russia, written for foreigners.

Five terrible years have taught the most stubborn people, the most unrepentant sinners, something. our shores. At the beginning of 1850, my book made a lot of noise in Germany; she was praised and scolded with bitterness, and next to reviews, more than flattering, from people like Julius Froebel, Jacobi, Fallmereyer - talented and conscientious people attacked her with indignation.

I was accused of preaching despair, of ignorance of the people, of dépit amoureux 4
love's annoyance (French). – Ed.

Against the revolution, in disrespect to democracy, to the masses, to Europe...

The second of December answered them louder than me.

In 1852 I met in London with my most witty opponent, Solger; - he was packing up to go to America as soon as possible, in Europe, it seemed to him, do nothing. “Circumstances,” I remarked, “seem to convince you that I was not entirely wrong?” “I didn’t need so much,” answered Zolger, laughing good-naturedly, “to guess that I was writing great nonsense then.” Despite this sweet consciousness - general conclusion judgments, the remaining impression were rather against me. Doesn't this express a feeling of irritability - the proximity of danger, fear of the future, the desire to hide one's weakness, capricious, petrified old age?

Here is what one of our compatriots wrote much earlier than me:

“Who more than ours glorified the advantage of the 18th century, the light of philosophy, the softening of morals, the universal spread of the public spirit, the closest and friendliest ties of peoples, the gentleness of government? ... We considered the end of our century to be the end of the main disasters of mankind and thought that it would be followed by the combination of theory with practice, speculation with activity... Where is this consoling system now? It collapsed at its foundation; The 18th century is ending, and the unfortunate philanthropist takes two steps to his grave in order to lie down in it with his deceived, torn heart and close his eyes forever.

Who could have thought, expected, foreseen? Where are the people we loved? Where is the fruit of science and wisdom? Age of enlightenment, I don’t recognize you; in blood and flame, among murder and destruction, I do not recognize you.

Misosophists triumph. “Here are the fruits of your enlightenment,” they say, “here are the fruits of your sciences; let philosophy perish! - Both the poor, deprived of his fatherland, and the poor, deprived of shelter, father, son or friend, repeat: let him perish!

Bloodshed cannot last forever. I'm sure the hand that cuts with the sword will get tired; sulfur and saltpeter will be depleted in the bowels of the earth, and the thunder will cease, silence will come sooner or later, but what will it be like? - is there dead, cold, gloomy...

The fall of the sciences seems to me not only possible, but even inevitable, even close. When will they fall? when their “magnificent building collapses, the beneficent lamps go out - what will happen? I am horrified and feel trembling in my heart. Let us assume that some sparks will be saved under the ashes; Let us suppose that some people find them and illuminate their quiet, secluded huts with them, but what will happen to the world?

I cover my face!

Has the human race really reached the extreme level of possible enlightenment in our time and must again plunge into barbarism and again little by little emerge from it, like the Sisyphus stone, which, having been lifted to the top of a mountain, rolls down with its own weight and again by the hand of the eternal worker onto the mountain? ascends? - Sad image!

Now it seems to me that the chronicles themselves prove the likelihood of this opinion. We hardly know the names of the ancients Asian peoples and kingdoms, but according to some historical passages one can think that these peoples were not barbarians... Kingdoms were destroyed, peoples disappeared, new tribes were born from their ashes, born in darkness, in flickering, infancy, learned and became famous. Perhaps the Aeons plunged into eternity, and several times the day shone in the minds of people, and several times the night darkened the souls before Egypt shone.

Egyptian enlightenment connects with Greek. The Romans studied in this great school.

What followed this brilliant era? Barbarism for many centuries.

The thick darkness slowly thinned, slowly cleared. Finally, the sun shone, good and gullible lovers of mankind concluded from success to success, saw the imminent goal of perfection and exclaimed in joyful ecstasy: shore! but suddenly the sky smokes and the fate of humanity is hidden in menacing clouds! O posterity! What fate awaits you?

Sometimes unbearable sadness oppresses my heart, sometimes I fall to my knees and stretch out my hands to the invisible... No answer! – my head bows to my heart.

Eternal movement in one circle, eternal repetition, eternal change of day with night and night with day, a drop of joyful and a sea of sorrowful tears. My friend! What do I, you and everyone have to live on? What did our ancestors live on? How will the offspring live?

My spirit is sad, weak and sad!” These hard-won lines, fiery and full of tears, were written in the late nineties - N. M. Karamzin.

The introduction to the Russian manuscript was a few words addressed to friends in Rus'. I did not consider it necessary to repeat them in the German edition - here they are:

Farewell!

Our separation will continue for a long time - maybe forever. Now I don’t want to return, then I don’t know if it will be possible. You were waiting for me, you are waiting now, I need to explain what’s going on. If I blame anyone for my absence, for my actions, then it is, of course, you, my friends.

Irresistible disgust and strong inner voice, prophesying something, do not allow me to cross the border of Russia, especially now, when the autocracy, embittered and frightened by everything that is happening in Europe, is strangling with redoubled cruelty every mental movement and roughly cutting off sixty million people from the liberating humanity, blocking Last light, meagerly falling on a small number of them, with his black, iron hand, on which Polish blood was caked. No, my friends, I cannot cross the line of this kingdom of darkness, tyranny, silent dying, death without a trace, torment with a handkerchief in my mouth. I will wait until the tired government, weakened by unsuccessful efforts and excited opposition, recognizes anything worthy of respect in the Russian man!

Please make no mistake; It was not joy, not distraction, not rest, not even personal security that I found here; and I don’t know who can now find joy and rest in Europe - rest during an earthquake, joy during a desperate struggle. – You saw the sadness in every line of my letters; life here is very difficult, poisonous anger is mixed with love, bile with tears, feverish anxiety wears away the entire body. The time of old deceptions and hopes has passed. I don’t believe in anything here except a handful of people, a small number of thoughts, and the impossibility of stopping the movement; I see imminent death old Europe and I do not regret anything that exists, neither its highest education, nor its institutions... I love nothing in this world except what it persecutes, I respect nothing except what it executes - and I remain... I remain to suffer doubly, to suffer from his grief and from his grief, to perish, perhaps, in the defeat and destruction towards which he is rushing at full speed.

Why am I staying?

I stay then that fight Here, that, despite blood and tears, public issues are resolved here, that suffering here is painful, burning, but vowels, The fight is open, no one is hiding. Woe to the vanquished, but they are not defeated before the battle, they are not deprived of their tongue before they have uttered a word; the violence is great, but the protest is loud; fighters often go to the galleys, shackled hand and foot, but with their heads raised and speech free. Where the word has not perished, the deed has not yet perished. For this open struggle, for this speech, for this publicity - I remain here; I’ll give everything for her, I’ll give you for her, part of my property, and maybe I’ll give my life in the ranks of the energetic minority, “persecuted, but not deposed.”

For this speech, I broke or, better said, suppressed for a while my blood connection with the people, in whom I found so many responses to the bright and dark sides my soul, whose song and language are my song and my language, and I remain with the people, in whose life I deeply sympathize with the bitter cry of the proletarian and the desperate courage of his friends.

It cost me a lot to decide... you know me... and believe me. I drowned out the inner pain, I suffered through the struggle and decided not like an indignant youth, but like a person who has thought about what he is doing, how much he is losing... For months I weighed, hesitated and finally sacrificed everything:

Human dignity

Free speech.

I don’t care about the consequences, they are not in my power, they are rather in the power of a willful whim, which was forgotten before it outlined arbitrary compass not only our words, but also our steps. It was in my power not to obey - and I did not listen.

To obey contrary to your conviction when there is an opportunity to disobey is immoral. Suffering submission becomes almost impossible. I was present at two coups, I lived too much as a free person to allow myself to be shackled again; I have experienced popular unrest, I am accustomed to free speech, and I cannot become a serf again, not even to suffer with you. If it were still necessary to moderate oneself for the common cause, perhaps the strength would be found; but where is our common cause at this moment? You don't have any soil at home to stand on. free man. Can you call after this?.. Let’s go to fight; to dull martyrdom, to fruitless silence, to obedience - under no circumstances. Demand everything from me, but do not demand double-mindedness, do not force me to represent a loyal subject again, respect human freedom in me.

Freedom of person is the greatest thing; on it and only on her the real will of the people can grow. In himself, a person must respect his freedom and honor it no less than in his neighbor, as in the whole people. If you are convinced of this, then you will agree that staying here now is my right, my duty; This is the only protest that an individual can make in our country; he must make this sacrifice to his human dignity. If you call my departure an escape and excuse me only with your love, it will mean that You not yet completely free.

I know everything that can be objected from the point of view of romantic patriotism and civic tension; but I cannot allow these Old Believer views; I survived them, I came out of them and it is against them that I fight. These warmed-up remnants of Roman and Christian memories hinder the establishment most of all true concepts about freedom - healthy, clear, mature concepts. Fortunately, in Europe morals and long development make up for their share of absurd theories and absurd laws. The people living here live on soil fertilized by two civilizations; the path traversed by their ancestors over two and a half millennia was not in vain; a lot of humanity was developed regardless of the external structure and official order.

At the very worst times European history we find some respect for the individual, some recognition of independence - some rights ceded to talent, genius. Despite all the vileness of the German governments of that time, Spinoza was not sent to settle, Lessing was not flogged or given up as a soldier. In this respect not only for the material, but also for moral strength, in this involuntary recognition of personality is one of the great human principles European life.

In Europe, anyone living abroad was never considered a criminal and someone who moved to America was considered a traitor.

We don't have anything like it. Our face was always depressed, absorbed, and did not even strive to speak out. In our country, free speech has always been considered impudence, originality – sedition; a person disappeared in the state, dissolved in the community. The coup of Peter I replaced the outdated, landowner government of Russia with the European clerical order; everything that could be rewritten from Swedish and German legislation, everything that could be transferred from municipally free Holland to a communal autocratic country, everything was transferred; but the unwritten, morally curbing power, instinctive recognition of the rights of a person, the rights of thought, the truth could not and did not pass. Slavery among us increased with education; the state grew, improved, but the person did not benefit; on the contrary, the stronger the state became, the weaker the person. European forms of administration and court, military and civil structure have developed in our country into some kind of monstrous, hopeless despotism.

If Russia were not so vast, if the foreign structure of power were not so vaguely structured and so chaotically executed, then without exaggeration we can say that not a single person who had any understanding of his own dignity would be able to live in Russia.

The spoiling of power, which did not meet with any opposition, several times reached the point of unbridledness, which has nothing like it in any history. You know the extent of it from the stories about the poet of his craft, Emperor Paul. Take away the capricious, fantastic from Paul, and you will see that he is not at all original, that the principle that inspired him is the same not only in all reigns, but in every governor, in every quarter, in every landowner. The intoxication of autocracy takes possession of all degrees of the famous fourteen-step hierarchy. In all the actions of the authorities, in all the relations of the highest to the lowest, one can see impudent shamelessness, insolent boasting of one’s irresponsibility, an offensive consciousness that a person will endure anything: a triple set, the law on foreign species, correctional rods at an engineering institute. Just like Little Russia endured serfdom in the 18th century; just as all of Rus' finally believed that people could be sold and resold, and no one ever asked on what legal basis all this was being done - not even those who were being sold. Our government is more confident in itself, freer than in Turkey, rather than in Persia, nothing stops it, no past; she abandoned her own, she doesn’t care about European things; She doesn’t respect the nationality, she doesn’t know about universal human education, and she struggles with the present. Previously, at least, the government was ashamed of its neighbors and learned from them; now it considers itself called upon to serve as an example for all oppressors; now it teaches.

You and I have seen the most terrible development of the empire. We grew up under terror, under the black wings of the secret police, in its claws; we were crippled under hopeless oppression and somehow survived. But is this not enough? Isn’t it time to free your hands and words for action, for example, isn’t it time to awaken the dormant consciousness of the people? Is it really possible to wake up, speaking in a whisper, with distant hints, when a cry and a direct word are barely audible? Open, frank action is necessary; December 14th shocked all of young Rus' so much because it was on Isaac's Square. Now it’s not just a square, but a book, a pulpit – everything has become impossible in Russia. What remains is personal work in silence or personal protest from afar.

I stay here not only because I hate having to put on the pads again when crossing the border, but in order to work. You can live with your hands folded everywhere; I have nothing else to do here except our affairs.

Who carried one thought in his chest for more than twenty years, who suffered for it and lived by it, wandered through prisons and exiles, who acquired it best moments life, the brightest meetings, he will not abandon her, he will not bring her into dependence on external necessity and the geographical degree of latitude and longitude. Quite the contrary, I am more useful here, I am your uncensored speech here, your free organ, your random representative.

All this seems new and strange only to us; in essence, there is nothing unprecedented here. In all countries, at the beginning of the revolution, when thought was still weak and material power unbridled, devoted and active people moved away, their free speech was heard from afar, and that’s all from afar gave words their strength and power, because behind the words actions and sacrifices were visible. The power of their speeches grew with distance, just as the force of throwing grows in a stone thrown from a high tower. Emigration is the first sign of an approaching revolution.

For Russians abroad there is another matter. It's time to really introduce Europe to Russia. Europe doesn't know us; she knows our government, our facade and nothing else; the circumstances are excellent for this acquaintance, now it somehow doesn’t suit her to be proud and majestically wrap herself in the mantle of disdainful ignorance; Europe does not suit das vornehme Ignorieren 5
arrogant disregard (German). – Ed.

Russia since it experienced the petty-bourgeois autocracy and the Algerian Cossacks, since it has been in a state of siege from the Danube to the Atlantic Ocean, since the prisons and galleys are full of those persecuted for their beliefs... Let her know closer people, whose youthful strength she appreciated in the battle, where he remained victorious; Let's tell her about this powerful and mysterious people who quietly formed a state of sixty million, who grew so strongly and amazingly without losing the communal principle, and who were the first to carry it through the initial upheavals state development; about a people who somehow miraculously managed to preserve themselves under the yoke Mongol hordes and German bureaucrats, under the corporal's stick of barracks discipline and under the shameful Tatar whip; who retained his majestic features, lively mind and wide revelry rich nature under the yoke of serfdom and in response to the tsar's order to form - answered a hundred years later with the enormous phenomenon of Pushkin. Let the Europeans recognize their neighbor, they are only afraid of him, they need to know what they are afraid of.

Until now, we have been unforgivably modest and, aware of our dire situation of lack of rights, we have forgotten all the good things, full of hope and development, that our country represents. folk life. We waited for the German to be recommended to Europe. - Aren't you ashamed?

Will I have time to do what?.. I don’t know, I hope!

So, goodbye, friends, for a long time... give me your hands, your help, I need both. And who knows what we didn’t see in Lately! Perhaps not so far as it seems, the day on which we will gather, as we used to, in Moscow and fearlessly move our bowls while shouting: “For Rus' and the holy will!”

The heart refuses to believe that this day will not come, it freezes at the thought of eternal separation. As if I wouldn’t see these streets that I walked so often, full of youthful dreams; these houses, so closely associated with memories, our Russian villages, our peasants, whom I remembered with love in the very south of Italy?.. It can’t be! - Well, what if? “Then I will bequeath my toast to my children and, dying in a foreign land, I will retain faith in the future of the Russian people and bless them from the distance of my voluntary exile!”

A.I. Herzen "Letters from France and Italy. From the other shore."
This book lies in front of me in a rather rare “paper” version. 1931 edition "edited with introductory article and comments" the same one L.B.Kameneva. This is not about antique and second-hand book delights, but about the fact that this book needs to be read with good notes. Notes can occupy up to a third of the volume and should not be dryly encyclopedic, but detailed, connecting the object of explanation with the surrounding time. I have no doubt that many of our noble contemporaries know the names of Rachel, Lemaitre and Talma and they will not confuse Mazzini with Garibaldi, or Cavaignac with Cassagnac. For people of a proletarian bent, comments alone will reveal an entire era in the life of Europe.

And it was a great era! The era of 1848, when the next revolutionary impulse of the Parisians shook and sent crowns all over Europe. The frightened Prussian monarch bought himself off with the constitution, Metternich’s Austrian Empire ended, the “eternal” died Triple Alliance Prussia, Austria and Russia. In Italy, which had raised its head, Pope Pius IX, by a miracle of God, was transformed into liberals and by the grace of God granted a constitution. Everywhere revolutions were bloodily and brutally suppressed, but, unlike in previous years, complete restoration became impossible. Europe crossed the Rubicon, leaving the monarchy as a relic and gaining socialism as a visible prospect.

What people put their talented hand (or rather, head) to this! Georges Sand and Beranger in Paris overthrew the monarchy, and the seriously ill Heine there welcomed this as a death sentence to Friedrich's Prussianism. Richard Wagner fought on the barricades in Germany, denounced capital with the rage of a radical Bolshevik, planned to anathematize the “golden calf” with music, and later sentenced him to destruction in his “Ring of the Nibelungs.” The Marseillaise sounded on the streets and in the theater performed by Rachel, sweeping away the mediocre loyal plays of Dumas (father) and the bourgeois plays of Scribe. Inspired by the music of the revolution, Verdi rushed from Paris to Italy to liberate it with his “resistance” opera.

In the era of “sturm und drang”, when social creativity poured out into the streets (otherwise called revolution), several people came from the mute and muzzled Russia beaten by Nicholas with sticks. Last thing significant word Belinsky managed to say from Paris and Rome to his famous letter Gogol. At the end of 1847, he returned to Russia to die. Turgenev paid visits to his eternal Viardot in Paris. Finally, blind chance or a higher unknown pattern brought one of our greatest compatriots, Alexander Ivanovich Herzen, to the epicenter of the European earthquake.

To describe the form of this book, choosing words is long, difficult and unnecessary. For those who read it or have already read it, the words “this is Herzen” are enough for complete clarification. Herzen's form and style are unique; no other Russian wrote like this. The very critical Leo Tolstoy put Herzen in the first rank of Russian writers, on a par with Pushkin, Lermontov, Gogol and Dostoevsky (the rest below). “Herzen will not yield to Pushkin. Whatever you discover, everything is excellent!” Originality, Russian breadth, intelligence, grace, humor, passion - this is Herzen.

The contents of the book consist of Herzen's letters from Paris in 1847, from Italy, where he stayed until May 1848, again from France until Herzen was expelled and left for Nice. The last three letters of the letter were written later and appeared in the first Russian (foreign, of course) edition of 1854. The title of the “letter” should not be confusing - this was the usual form of presentation in journalism of those years. "From the Other Shore" - collection artistic journalism Herzen regarding the events that took place. The book “Letters... From the Other Shore” was first published in German in 1850 in Hamburg.

And it sounded like a bomb explosion in Europe. The first significant, “pan-European” Russian voice - and what a voice! The book was discussed by all the leading minds of Europe, it (the book) created a whole critical literature. Herzen was compared to Goethe and Spinoza. In a surprising way the book fell into working hands, where the unknown Russian was immediately considered “one of their own.” In his ardent and insightful criticism of Europe, Herzen anticipated Nietzsche and Spengler and, it can be safely assumed, had a significant influence on them. With Herzen, the Russian voice and the Russian mind begin not only to learn from Europe, but also to teach it.

In Russia, things were worse. There were a pitiful handful of people who were developed and free (at least relatively) in their judgments. The book, of course, could not appear in print. It was impossible to conduct open polemics, it was even impossible to scold, and from 1857 the mention of Herzen’s name was prohibited, old magazines in which his articles were published were confiscated from second-hand booksellers and libraries. Liberals, in private correspondence, scolded Herzen for denouncing Europe and bourgeoisism, for “Russian socialism.” The populists reinterpreted the book in their own way, making it their bible.

Herzen to liberals. ...all of you are unhappy with my assessment of France. You want France and Europe as opposed to Russia, just as our Christians wanted heaven on earth. The world of the opposition, the world of parliamentary fights, liberal forms - the same falling world. There are differences: for example, in Switzerland publicity has no limits - print what you want; in England there are enclosing forms, but if we rise a little higher, then the difference between Paris, London and St. Petersburg will disappear, and one fact will remain - the crushed majority by an educated, but not free, crowd, precisely because it is associated with a certain form of social life. This is still news for many today.

Herzen to the Slavophiles. “But if this is so, then, therefore, you became a Slavophile?” - No. Do not order execution, order the truth to be told. From the fact that Europe is dying, it does not in any way follow that the Slavs are not childish. And childishness is no more suitable for a healthy adult, just like decrepitude. Europe, dying, bequeaths to the future world, as the fruit of its efforts, socialism. The Slavs have in them all the savagery social elements... The nature of the Slavs in developed specimens is rich in strength... but reality is poor. Yes, reality is definitely not rich.

Herzen always considered “Letters... From the Other Shore” his best book. All the more surprising is her fate. IN Tsarist Russia- prohibited, in Soviet - inconvenient and difficult, asks more questions than answers, does not fit into concrete walls state communism. Today, Herzen’s anti-bourgeoisism is generally a sharp knife. As a result, Herzen remains the most unread and underestimated writer and thinker in Russia.

I read Herzen’s “From the Other Shore” and admired it. It would be worth writing about him so that people of our time would understand him. Our intelligentsia has degenerated so much that it is no longer able to understand him. He is already waiting for his readers ahead. And far above the heads of the present crowd he conveys his thoughts to those who will be able to understand them. L. Tolstoy, 1905.

My friend Sasha,

I don’t want to deceive you, know the truth as I know it; Let this truth come to you not through painful mistakes, not through deadening disappointments, but simply by right of inheritance.

Other questions, other conflicts will come in your life... there will be no shortage of suffering, no shortage of work. You are 15 years old - and you have already experienced terrible blows.

Do not look for solutions in this book - they are not in it, modern man does not have them at all. What is decided is over, but the coming revolution is just beginning.

We do not build, we break, we do not proclaim a new revelation, but we remove old lies. Modern man, the sad pontifex maximus, only builds a bridge - another, unknown, future one will pass over it. You might see him... Don't stay for old shore... It is better to die with him than to be saved in the almshouse of reaction. The religion of the coming social re-creation is one religion that I bequeath to you. She is without heaven, without reward, except her own consciousness, except her conscience... Go preach it to us in due time home; they once loved my language there and maybe they will remember me.

...I bless you on this path in the name of human reason, personal freedom and brotherly love!

Your father

“Vom andern Ufer” is the first book I published in the West; a number of articles that make up it were written in Russian in 1848 and 49. I myself dictated them to the young writer F. Kapp in German.

Now much is not new in it. Five terrible years have taught the most stubborn people, the most unrepentant sinners, something. our shores. At the beginning of 1850, my book made a lot of noise in Germany; she was praised and scolded with bitterness, and next to reviews, more than flattering, from people like Julius Froebel, Jacobi, Fallmereyer - talented and conscientious people attacked her with indignation.

I was accused of preaching despair, of ignorance of the people, of dépit amoureux against the revolution, of disrespect to democracy, to the masses, to Europe...

The second of December answered them louder than me.

In 1852 I met in London with my most witty opponent, Solger; - he was packing up to go to America as soon as possible, in Europe, it seemed to him, do nothing. “Circumstances,” I remarked, “seem to convince you that I was not entirely wrong?” “I didn’t need so much,” answered Zolger, laughing good-naturedly, “to guess that I was writing great nonsense then.” Despite this sweet consciousness - the general conclusion of the judgments, the remaining impression was rather against me. Doesn't this express a feeling of irritability - the proximity of danger, fear of the future, the desire to hide one's weakness, capricious, petrified old age?

Here is what one of our compatriots wrote much earlier than me:

I cover my face!

Now it seems to me that the chronicles themselves prove the likelihood of this opinion. We barely know the names of the ancient Asian peoples and kingdoms, but from some historical passages we can think that these peoples were not barbarians... Kingdoms were destroyed, peoples disappeared, from their ashes new tribes were born, born in darkness, in flickering, infancy, learned and became famous . Perhaps the Aeons plunged into eternity, and several times the day shone in the minds of people, and several times the night darkened the souls before Egypt shone.

Egyptian enlightenment connects with Greek. The Romans studied in this great school.

What followed this brilliant era? Barbarism for many centuries.

Sometimes unbearable sadness oppresses my heart, sometimes I fall to my knees and stretch out my hands to the invisible... No answer! – my head bows to my heart.

My spirit is sad, weak and sad!” These hard-won lines, fiery and full of tears, were written in the late nineties - N. M. Karamzin.

Below is an excerpt from the Introduction. Herzen explains why he left for Europe. Why am I quoting this? To show that we, today's liberals, did not emerge from a vacuum. Behind us long tradition. We stand on the shoulders of giants. What is Putin’s tradition? Monarchist Ilyin? Or Stolypin? So Stolypin to the Duma empty place he had no intention of transforming it; he, after all, was one of the creators of Russian freedom. At least, not such an outspoken enemy as the current tandem.

In the worst times of European history we find some respect for the individual, some recognition of independence - some rights ceded to talent, to genius. Despite all the vileness of the German governments of that time, Spinoza was not sent to settle, Lessing was not flogged or given up as a soldier. This respect not only for material, but also for moral force, in this involuntary recognition of the individual, is one of the great human principles of European life.
In Europe, anyone living abroad was never considered a criminal and someone who moved to America was considered a traitor.
We don't have anything like it. Our face was always depressed, absorbed, and did not even strive to speak out. In our country, free speech has always been considered impudence, originality - sedition; a person disappeared in the state, dissolved in the community. The coup of Peter I replaced the outdated, landowner government of Russia with the European clerical order; everything that could be rewritten from Swedish and German legislation, everything that could be transferred from municipally free Holland to a communal autocratic country, everything was transferred; but the unwritten, morally curbing power, instinctive recognition of the rights of a person, the rights of thought, the truth could not and did not pass. Slavery among us increased with education; the state grew, improved, but the person did not benefit; on the contrary, the stronger the state became, the weaker the person. European forms of administration and court, military and civil structure have developed in our country into some kind of monstrous, hopeless despotism.
... In all the actions of the authorities, in all the relations of the highest to the lowest, there is an impudent shamelessness, an insolent boasting of one’s irresponsibility, an offensive consciousness that a person will endure anything: a triple set, a law on foreign species *, correctional rods at an engineering institute *. Just as Little Russia endured serfdom in the 18th century; just as all of Rus' finally believed that people could be sold and resold, and no one ever asked her on what legal basis all this was being done - not even those who were being sold. Our government is more confident in itself, freer than in Turkey, rather than in Persia, nothing stops it, no past; she abandoned her own, she doesn’t care about European things; it does not respect the nationality, it does not know universal human education, it struggles with the present. Before, at least, the government was ashamed of its neighbors and learned from them; now it considers itself called upon to serve as an example for all oppressors; now it teaches.
You and I have seen the most terrible development of the empire. We grew up under terror, under the black wings of the secret police, in its claws; we were crippled under hopeless oppression and somehow survived. But is this not enough? Isn’t it time to free your hands and words for action, for example, isn’t it time to awaken the dormant consciousness of the people? Is it really possible to wake up, speaking in a whisper, with distant hints, when a cry and a direct word are barely audible? Open, frank action is necessary; December 14th shocked all of young Rus' so much because it took place on St. Isaac's Square. Now it’s not just a square, but a book, a pulpit—everything has become impossible in Russia. What remains is personal work in silence or personal protest from afar.

ALEXANDER IVANOVICH HERTZEN (ISKANDER) (1812-1870) - an outstanding Russian thinker, writer, publicist and public figure, ideologist of revolutionary democratic transformations in Russia, champion of socialist ideas, founder of populism. In the 30-40s. leads an active struggle against the ideology of the official nationality and Slavophilism, is arrested several times and expelled from Moscow. Embarrassed by censorship and police surveillance, Herzen in 1847 decided to leave Russia with his family in order to be able to speak openly and fight the autocracy. “For this open struggle, for this speech, for this publicity - I remain here; I give everything for her, I give you for her, part of my property,” he writes in an address to friends in the work “From the Other Shore.” Abroad, Herzen launched revolutionary agitation, organized the Free Russian Printing House in London, published the Polar Star almanac since 1855, and from 1857 to 1867, together with Ogarev, published the first Russian revolutionary newspaper, Kolokol. Herzen theoretically comprehends and practically works out the forms of preparation for the socialist revolution in Russia. This edition publishes a dedication to his son from the book “From the Other Shore,” which was read by Herzen to his son on December 31, 1854 at the New Year’s Eve in the presence of European revolutionary emigrants. The text of the dedication (draft version of the manuscript) is published based on the book: Herzen A.I. Works in 2 volumes. T. 2. M., 1986. P. 3.

Questions and tasks for the text.

1. Reconstruct the system of values and principles of A.I.’s worldview. Herzen.

3. Compare Herzen’s will with that of Socrates (see Text 6). What is the fundamental difference between one will and another?

4. What is the meaning of a father’s will to his son? Is the son responsible for carrying out the will of the father?

TO MY SON ALEXANDER

My friend Sasha,

I don’t want to deceive you, know the truth as I know it; Let this truth come to you not through painful mistakes, not through deadening disappointments, but simply by right of inheritance.

Other questions, other conflicts will come in your life... there will be no shortage of suffering, no shortage of work. You are 15 years old - and you have already experienced terrible blows.

Do not look for solutions in this book - they are not in it, modern man does not have them at all. That. what is decided is over, and the coming revolution is just beginning.

We do not build, we break, we do not proclaim a new revelation, but we remove old lies. Modern man, the sad pontifex maximus (here: “great bridge builder”), only builds a bridge - another, unknown, future one will pass over it. You might see him... Don't stay for old shore... It is better to die with the revolution than to be saved in the almshouse of reaction.

The religion of revolution, of great social re-creation is one religion that I bequeath to you. She is without heaven, without reward, except her own consciousness, except her conscience... Go preach it to us in due time home; they once loved my language there and maybe they will remember me.

I bless you on this path in the name of human reason, personal freedom and brotherly love!

Leonid Andreev days of our lives summary. Oryol State Academic Theater named after I.S. Turgenev

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen Collected works in thirty volumes Volume 6. From the other shore. Duty comes first

From that shore *

To my son Alexander *

Introduction

Farewell!

Questions and tasks for the text.

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen
Collected works in thirty volumes
Volume 6. From the other shore. Duty comes first