А. И. Герцен о католичестве: мемуарный и художественный дискурсы

Abstract

Herzen’s attitude to religion, faith, and church proves to be difficult, and quite often contradictive. This, as well, applies to his attitude to the Christian confessions. Herzen’s assessment of Catholicism (and also the Orthodoxy) is quite detached and appears in the context of philosophical-journalistic discussions (scientific works, and articles) or in his diaries and memoirs. The first type of discourse, as a rule, gives a critical pathos of Herzen’s opinion about Catholicism; the second one is more sympathetic. The diaries show this through the attempt to explain the sense of Occidental and Eastern Christianity for the author himself; My Past and Thoughts shows it in the portraits of two famous representatives of the Russian intelligentsia, whose beliefs and fates were connected with Catholicism: P. Chaadaev and V. Pecherin.