ON CONTEMPORARY INTERPRETATIONS OF THE LIFE AND WORKS OF A. I. HERZEN
The article offers a critical analysis of the representation of the image of Herzen in various sources: scientific articles, textbooks and journalism. The author notes that the source of Herzen’s negative representation is certain changes in our country, which changed the mood of the post-Soviet intelligentsia. Modern researchers in fact repeat the arguments of the conservative-minded part of the Russian society of the second half of the XIX century. The subject of criticism is still the biography and political activity of Herzen, not his texts. The disadvantage of this approach is that it does not allow us to see the social rootedness of the ideas that Herzen advocated: an attempt to consider Herzen’s worldview through his biography essentially devalues his thoughts. Herzen is credited with Russophobia, defeatist sentiments during the Crimean war, the fact that his revolutionary propaganda, undermining the state foundations of Russia, he led to the money of Rothschild, the betrayal of Russian interests during the Polish uprising, in the “call to the axe” from London (when himself was not threatened) and even support Nechayev…