Alexander Herzen Quotes
No one is to blame. It is neither their fault nor ours. It is the misfortune of being born when a whole world is dying.
Herzen, Alexander. From the Other Shore. Translated by Moura Budberg, Oxford University Press, 1979.
Alexander Ivanovich Herzen was a Russian writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism" and one of the main fathers 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), is often considered one of the best examples of that genre in Russian literature.
