The former and the thoughts. Children's and university. Prison and link. Herzen A.I.

“Past and Duma” - an autobiographical chronicle, on which Herzen worked for many years, from 1852 to 1868, a chronicle, recognized by literary critics and historians of Russian prose, the main work of the author and one of the key literary works of the XIX century in the memoir genre. Herzen himself compared this large -scale work with a house, which is constantly increasing “a combination of extensions, add -ons, outbuildings.”

This book includes the first two parts of the “past and thoughts”, which tells about the child’s childhood and adolescence The house of his father is a brilliantly educated aristocrat with a heavy character, about the first acquaintance with N. Ogarev, the friendship with which Herzen has to be carried through his whole life, about entering the circle of liberal intelligentsia, arrest, imprisonment and a link to Vyatka, and later in Vladimir.