Introduction: Intimacy and History. The Gercen Family Drama Reconsidered
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- 关键词：Herzen ; Family Drama ; Herwegh
- 刊名：Russian Literature
- 出版年：2007
- 出版时间：1 January 2007-15 February 2007
- 年：2007
- 卷：61
- 期：1-2
- 页码：1-65
- 全文大小：566 K
文摘
In her Introduction to this special issue, Irina Paperno lays the conceptual and empirical foundations for this collective project that reexamines the notorious story of the Herzen family drama of 1848–1852 – its role in the making of Alexander Herzen's memoirs, My Past and Thoughts (Byloe i dumy), and in the creation of a far-reaching cultural tradition. The Introduction outlines Herzen's efforts to turn intimate life into a historical narrative by way of literary structures, which were underwritten by Hegelian philosophical paradigms. The introduction tells the story of the love affair itself, focusing on the convergence of the intimate and the historical. It also describes how the story of the family drama was written and published, between 1852 and 2001, by Herzen, members of his immediate circle, and distant scholars, some of whom became emotionally involved in the Herzen family drama. Paperno argues that, in the end, the story of the Herzen family drama turned into a paradigmatic text, or institution, of Russian intelligentsia culture: the intimacy-history connection became both publicly observable and reproducible.