Творчество Герцена в немецком сознании его эпохи (по новым материалам)
Creativity of Herzen in the German consciousness of his era (for new materials)

Summary/Abstract: The author researches the esthetic reception of Herzen’s creative work in Germany including new discovered press, archives and correspondence of his contemporaries. Starting from the first publications in Germany of Herzen’s lyric-philosophical prose and translation of the novel Kto Vinovat? (1850, 1851) the progressive reader immediately sensed the affinity between Herzen and the artistic tradition of the German Enlightenment, the Weltanschauung of Goethe, the imagery of Heine on the one hand and the originality of the spiritual experience of the writer. Herzen’s works subsequently made an organic contribution to the German literary stream—„enriching” it with new esthetic potential. The article analyzes the dialogue in the German criticism, which conservative school did not accept the uncompromising nature of Herzen’s poetic world. It examines the role of literary mediators: translators, publishers, journalists, who sensed, more acutely than others, Herzen’s innovative significance for Germany and Europe (e.g., M. Meysenbug, V. Wolfson, U. Rodenberg), the influence of his esthetic on the creative activity of these and others literary figures. The Herzen’s poetics of intellect was extensively broadening the spiritual horizons of German literature and preparing the way for a new rise of „intellectual prose” in the 20th century.

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