Литературный факт (Dec 2020)
In Memory of Herzen. On the Margins of the Magazine “Russkoye Bogatstvo”
Abstract
The paper examines the history of the phrase “in memory of Herzen”, which became the title of a number of journalistic and poetic works. The origin of this formula and the reasons for its transfer from the days of memory (anniversaries of death) to the birthdays of A.I. Herzen are found out. The study of this story allows determining the historical significance of the article by the founder of this tradition, A.G. Gornfeld, whose legacy has not yet received an adequate assessment in the literary history. In the course of the study, the author clarifies and refines the literary biographies of other authors who also used this formula: the practically unknown “populist” poet S. Ivanov-Raikov and the “social democratic” publicist N.N. Kuzmin. The reconstruction allows seeing the real role of the article “In Memory of Herzen” by V.I. Ulyanov-Lenin, the value of which in the 1940 –1970s was unlawfully exaggerated, as a result of which the historical perspective in the study of many literary phenomena and, first of all, the assessment of A.I. Herzen’s activities were distorted. All this leads to an adequate interpretation of N. Korzhavin's poem dedicated to the topic, which for many generations has been the ideological key to describing the place of A.I. Herzen in the social and literary movement of the 19th century. At the end of the paper, it is concluded that the historical, cultural and literary heritage acquires significance only in the context of modernity, but politics and journalism seek to unfold the legacy of the past in their specific pragmatic interests, and even history seeks to see a lesson in the past, although addressing it not to a particular group of people, but to the modernity as a whole. Literature does not have such pragmatic interests, but it attracts modern human with the charm of the personality of past centuries, and that’s what makes its irreplaceable significance.
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