Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (1812-1870) was a political thinker, writer and activist who was one of the founders of peasant populism. Born in Moscow, the illegitimate son of a wealthy nobleman and a German protestant, Herzen studied at Moscow University where he became interested in Friedrich Schelling. Herzen was exiled from Moscow in 1834 for his political activism and during this period he eloped with his cousin, Natalya Zakharina, with whom he would have eight children.
In 1846 Herzen left Moscow for Paris and later moved to London where he set up the 'Free Russian Press in London'. Herzen was a supporter of the revolutions of 1848 and promoted socialism and individualism in his writings. He died in Paris in 1870.
Keith Gessen is a Russian-born American author, journalist and co-editor of n+1, a cultural and political magazine. Gessen has written articles on Russia for The New Yorker, The London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books.
His first novel, All the Sad Young Literary Men, was published in 2008.
