My Past and Thoughts, Vol 1 (of 6): The Memoirs of Alexander Herzen

A memoir written in the mid-19th century. It recounts the author’s early life and intellectual formation against the backdrop of imperial Russia, from the Napoleonic invasion through the stirrings of political dissent, with keen portraits of family life, serfdom, and the culture that shaped him. The opening of the memoir moves from a nurse’s vivid tale of the 1812 fire of Moscow to the author’s father securing protection from Marshal Mortier, meeting Napoleon, and carrying a letter to Alexander—followed by the family’s rough journey amid French prisoners and the father’s detention by Arakcheyev. Returning to a ruined Moscow, the child grows up on war stories and visiting generals, while the household’s fortunes shift: the beloved valet Calot, a grotesque elder uncle, a quarrelsome division of estates, and the contrast between a sociable Senator-uncle and a severe, reclusive father. Herzen’s loneliness and education take center stage—odd tutors (including an actor who dies of charcoal fumes), two hapless German minders, and a voracious, unsupervised reading life—alongside sharp, compassionate sketches of the servants’ hall and the degradations of serfdom (from the proud footman Bakay to the ruined cook Alexey and the tragic secretary Tolotchanov). He reflects on patriotism, rejects a military path, and describes tepid formal religion versus his genuine attachment to the Gospels. This opening culminates with the shock of Alexander I’s death and the uncertainty that foreshadows the December crisis.