Description
United Kingdom, Alexander Herzen, ‘First Decenium of the Free Russian Press in London 1853 – 1863’. Bronze medal (50.5mm./42.93gm.) by G Wiener. Bearded bust of Herzen r. rev. Bell between dates. (Eimer 1568; Diakov 713.1). Good Extremely Fine, attractively bronzed. Rare.
Alexander Iwanowitsch Herzen, born 1812 in Moscow, was the son of Luise Haag from Stuttgart and the Russian nobleman Ivan Alexejewitsch Jakowlew. His parents were not legally married, so their son was given the surname Herzen because he was a “child of the heart.”
Herzen moved to London in August 1852, where he met fellow political emigrees such as Louis Blanc, Gottfried Kinkel, Lajos Kossuth and Giuseppe Mazzini. Moved by these influencers Herzen started to become more politically active and committed himself to publicising the democratic movements in Russia and Poland. In 1853 he founded the Free Russian Press which reported on these developments in politics in a true and uncensored form. In 1855 he started to publish the almanac Polyarnaja Zvezda (“The North Star”) and two years later he founded the magazine Kolokol (“The Bell”), which appeared between 1857 and 1867 – and to which the reverse of this medal refers.
