Aleksandr Ivanovič Gercen Papers

Period (1796-) 1834-1887 (-1924)
Total size  0.35 m.
Consultation  Not restricted

Biography

Full name: Aleksandr Ivanovič Gercen (Herzen); born in Moscow 1812, died in Paris 1870; writer, famous critic of the Russian government; greatly influenced both the government and the political emigrés; gathered a circle of friends around him at Moscow University; their seditious opinions led to his exile; pardoned in 1839, again arrested in 1841; left Russia for Paris in 1847; after suppression of the June Days uprising in 1848 went to Italy; lost his wife in 1852 and, overcome by misfortune, fled to London; his house became a Mecca for political emigrés; founded the Free Russian Press in 1853, which brought out the first antitsarist publications like Poljarnaja Zvezda and Kolokol; supported the Polish rebellion in 1863 which antagonized the Russian public.

Content

Letters to Gercen from several correspondents, including Louis Blanc, Jules Michelet and Giuseppe Mazzini; album, containing drawings, a letter from Tsar Alexander I to Gercen's father, and letters to Gercen from Giuseppe Garibaldi, Victor Hugo, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Thomas Carlyle and others; letters from Gercen to several correspondents, including his son Alexander A. Herzen and his friend Nikolaj P. Ogarev; notes by Gercen and the manuscript (handwritten) of part V of `Byloe i Dumy'; personal documents of Gercen. Correspondence by Gercen's relatives and by Nikolaj Ogarev; manuscripts (handwritten) of poems, etc., by Ogarev; articles by and on Alexander A. Herzen; printed material.

User restriction

Only microfilms can be consulted

Alternate Form of Material

Security microfilms 1994 Partly published in: Nicolas Ogarev, lettres inédites à Alexandre Herzen fils. Introduction, traduction et notes par Michel Mervaud. Paris, 1978.