HERZEN, ALEXANDER IVANOVICH Russian author, was born in Moscow on March 25, 1812, the ille gitimate son of Ivan Yakovlev, a noble. A year later the family returned to Moscow, where Herzen attended the university. In 1834 he was arrested with other youths suspected of revo lutionary tendencies, and in 1835 he was exiled to Viatka and worked as a clerk in the civil service. There he remained for seven years, at the end of which he was allowed to exchange to Vladimir, where he edited the official gazette. In 184o he was allowed to return to Moscow, where he became one of the leaders of the westerners, but he was again arrested, and sent to serve in the Government offices at Novgorod until his retirement in 1842. In 1846 his father died, leaving him by his will a very large prop erty. Early in 1847 he left Russia, never to return. From Italy, on hearing of the revolution of 1848, he hastened to Paris, whence he afterwards went to Switzerland. In 1852 he quitted Geneva for London, where he settled for some years, and established a Rus sian press for the publication of works which could not be printed in Russia. In 1864 he returned to Geneva, and after some time went to Paris, where he died on Jan. 9, 187o.
In 1847 appeared his novel Kto Vinovat? (Whose Fault?), and about the same time were published in Russian periodicals the stories which were afterwards collected and printed in London in 1854, under the title of Prervannuie Razskazui (Interrupted Tales). In 185o two works appeared, translated from the Russian manuscript, V om anderen U fer (From another Shore) and Lettres de France et d'Italie. Vom anderen Uf er is perhaps his greatest work. It is the bitter fruit of disillusion after the failure of the revolution of 1848; in it he seeks to destroy the romanticism of the revolutionaries and to replace it by the will to revolution. In French appeared also his essay Du Developpement des idles revo lutionnaires en Russie, and his Memoirs. Herzen's Memoirs are indispensable in the history of the revolution in Europe for the portraits of the revolutionary leaders; and they give a true and vivid picture of his own personality and upbringing. From his "Free Russian Press" in London he issued a great number of Rus sian works, all levelled against the system of government prevail ing in Russia. Some of these were essays, such as his Baptized Property, an attack on serfdom ; others were periodical publica tions, the Polyarnaya Zvyezda (or Polar Star), the Kolokol (or Bell), and the Golosa iz Rossii (or Voices from Russia). The Kolokol soon obtained an immense circulation, and exercised an extraordinary influence. For three years, it is true, the founders of the "Free Press" went on printing, "not only without selling a single copy, but scarcely being able to get a single copy intro duced into Russia"; but after the death of the emperor Nicholas in 1855 Herzen's writings, and the journals he edited, were smug gled wholesale into Russia, and their words resounded throughout that country, as well as all over Europe. For some years his influ ence in Russia was a living force; the circulation of his writings was a vocation zealously pursued. When the Polish insurrection of 1863 broke out, and he pleaded the insurgents' cause, his reputa tion in Russia received its death-blow. From that time it was only with the revolutionary party that he was in full accord.