Alexander Herzen

Alexander Herzen
Portrait of Herzen by Nikolai Ge (1867)
Born	Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen 6 April 1812 (1812-04-06) Moscow, Moskovsky Uyezd, Moscow Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	21 January 1870 (1870-01-22) (aged 57) Paris, France
Alma mater	Moscow University
Era	19th-century philosophy
Region	Russian philosophy
School	Westernizers Agrarian populism
Main interests	Politics, economics, class struggle
Notable ideas	Agrarianism
Signature

Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (Russian: Алекса́ндр Ива́нович Ге́рцен, romanized: Aleksándr Ivánovich Gértsen; 6 April [O.S. 25 March] 1812 – 21 January [O.S. 9 January] 1870) was a Russian writer and thinker known as the precursor of Russian socialism and one of the main precursors of agrarian populism (being an ideological ancestor of the Narodniki, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trudoviks and the agrarian American Populist Party). With his writings, many composed while exiled in London, he attempted to influence the situation in Russia, contributing to a political climate that led to the emancipation of the serfs in 1861. He published the important social novel Who is to Blame? (1845–46). His autobiography, My Past and Thoughts (written 1852–1870),^[1] is often considered one of the best examples of that genre in Russian literature.