Introduction

Lecture on Alexander Herzen, philosopher and founder of Russia’s first free press. Berlin discusses Herzen’s passionate belief in individual liberty and his distaste for the new violent radicalism in the Russia of his time. The last of four Northcliffe Lectures delivered at University College London in October–November 1954 as 'A Marvellous Deacde: Literature and Social Criticism in Russia 1838–48' and published as 'A Remarkable Decade' in Berlin's collection 'Russian Thinkers' (1978; 2nd ed. 2008); re-recorded for the BBC 16 December 1954 – the only recording surviving from the series