{"id":48547,"date":"2025-10-01T20:40:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T20:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=48547"},"modified":"2025-10-01T20:40:00","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T20:40:00","slug":"alexander-herzen-past-and-thoughts-an-annotated-critical-edition-translated-by-kathleen-f-parthe-edited-and-translated-by-robert-n-harris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/?p=48547","title":{"rendered":"Alexander Herzen, \u201ePast and Thoughts: An Annotated Critical Edition\u201c (translated by Kathleen F. Parth\u00e9, edited and translated by Robert N. Harris)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>An annotated translation of Alexander Herzen\u2019s monumental memoir&nbsp;Past and Thoughts\u2014the first new English-language edition in a century\u2014captures the tumultuous life and penetrating cultural and political insights of the writer widely regarded as the founder of Russian socialism.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Isaiah Berlin called Alexander Herzen\u2019s magnum opus, Past and Thoughts, \u201ca literary masterpiece worthy to be placed by the side of the novels of . . . Tolstoy, Turgenev, Dostoevsky.\u201d It was the most influential memoir published in nineteenth-century Russia, and its impact extended far beyond the tsarist era and the empire\u2019s borders, inspiring generations of thinkers, leaders, and dissidents struggling against authoritarian regimes. The first English-language translation in a century, thoroughly annotated with a new introduction, this volume shows why Past and Thoughts is considered a great classic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Against a dramatic backdrop of war, revolution, and exile, Herzen tells a stirring story of political agitation, marital scandal, betrayal, and despair. Past and Thoughts begins with Napoleon\u2019s invasion of Moscow during Herzen\u2019s infancy, then follows the author\u2019s central role in Russia\u2019s emerging intelligentsia, his imprisonment and exile in the frozen north, his adventures across a mid-century Europe undergoing the turbulence of revolution and unification, and his founding of the first uncensored Russian-language press. We see the Paris revolts of 1848 and the flamboyant swashbucklers of Italy\u2019s Risorgimento through Herzen\u2019s sharp eyes, alongside his bold journalism, which reached both the tsar\u2019s prisoners and the Winter Palace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This edition restores a key section on the tragic denouement of Herzen\u2019s marriage\u2014omitted from previous abridged versions\u2014and includes notes offering critical insight into Herzen\u2019s historical sketches, travelogues, satire, poetry, philosophical excursions, and polemics. Tolstoy remarked that \u201cHerzen awaits his readers in the future.\u201d A piercing investigation of the human spirit and its enemies, Past and Thoughts is indeed a work for our time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Reviews<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201ePast and Thoughts is perhaps the greatest autobiography in Russian literature, a classic worth placing in company with Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. This new translation captures, as never before, Herzen\u2019s anecdotal brilliance, wit, and inimitable essayistic style, with its layers of irony on irony.\u201c \u2013 Gary Saul Morson, Northwestern University<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201eThis magnificent exercise in self-writing founded the art of political witnessing for nineteenth-century Russia. At last, Herzen\u2019s acclaimed mega-text receives the critical English edition it deserves, expertly pruning out and eloquently filling in this world for today\u2019s readers.\u201c \u2013 Caryl Emerson, Princeton University<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>About the Authors<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Robert N. Harris<\/strong> specializes in nineteenth-century Russian intellectual history at the University of Oxford. He has lectured at numerous universities, including Barcelona, Cambridge, and LMU Munich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Kathleen F. Parth\u00e9 <\/strong>is Professor Emeritus of Russian at the University of Rochester. She is the author of A Herzen Reader, Russian Village Prose, and, with James H. Billington, The Search for a New Russian National Identity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>416 pages\/ Harvard University Press<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hup.harvard.edu\/books\/9780674495104\">https:\/\/www.hup.harvard.edu\/books\/9780674495104<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48548,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-knjige","category-novosti"],"acf":{"facebook_opis":""},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/historiografija.hr\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Herzen.jpeg?fit=600%2C906&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48547"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48549,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48547\/revisions\/48549"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/historiografija.hr\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}