russian history; 1796-1881

The Russian Revolution1815-1924

Session IINineteenth Century Russia

1796-1881

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Major Points of This Session

• Tsar Paul, 1796-1801--A Question of Madness

• Alexander I, 1801-1825--Reform and Reaction

• Nicholas I, 1825-1855--Reaction, Plain and Simple

• Alexander II, 1855-1881--Reform, then Reaction


IntroductionInternal Instability: 1796-1825


IntroductionInternal Instability: 1796-1825

The Battle of Borodino1812


During the period of the Napoleonic Wars and in the decade following them, Russia began to show signs of internal strain; the system of society and government bequeathed by Catherine II was beginning to lose its equipoise. Basic to the growing imbalance was the continuing peasant unrest, now becoming so extended that the institution of serfdom itself was being questioned…. Before long, wider attention was to be focused on the emerging question: could the existing system...be maintained indefinitely without fundamental change.

Sidney Harcave, Russia, A History. p. 205


The fatal flaw of enlightened despotism--everything depends upon the despot.

RR Palmer


Tsar Paul--A Question of Madness


Tsar Paul--A Question of Madness

1754-1796-1801


Tsar Paul’s Childhood

• Catherine suggested that his father was her lover, Prince Saltykov

• her court, with its intrigues and her sexual acting-out, was not a healthy place

• his pug-nosed facial features in later life are attributed to an attack of typhus, from which he suffered in 1771

• he believed, with some basis, that his mother intended to murder him

Paul I as a child


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhus

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhus

Па́вел I Петро́вич -- 1754-1796-1801

• at Catherine’s death, he undid many of her measures

• his positive accomplishments are forgotten because of the opprobrium over his eccentricities

• he was fiercely hostile towards the nobility and their privileges. He publicly humiliated them.

• during his five year reign he became more and more capricious and vindictive

• his diplomacy during the Napoleonic Wars became increasingly erratic

Statue before the Pavlovsk PalaceTuesday, September 29, 2009

the tsar’s Prussian militarisma parade before the Mikhailovsky Palace


resentment leads to a crisis • the nobility became increasingly bitter and concerned as Paul seemed

to become irrational and arbitrary. He alternated draconian punishments and lavish gifts.

• the tsar’s fear of conspiracies helped produce them

• Count Pahlen, military governor of St Petersburg, led a circle who planned to force Paul to abdicate in favor of his son Alexander

• the twenty-three year old Tsarevich joined the conspirators

• 23 March 1801, Paul suspected them and ordered his sons arrested

• that night the conspirators went to the tsar with their demand that he abdicate

• they were received, a quarrel followed, and Paul was strangled to death


Alexander I--Reform and Reaction

(1777-1801-1825)Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Alexander’s Upbringing

Frédéric-César de La Harpe

(1754-1838)Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Alexander’s Upbringing

• his grandmother, Catherine II, took charge of his and his younger brother Constantine’s education

• there was talk that she planned to remove his father, Paul, from the succession

• his Swiss republican tutor, La Harpe, implanted the philosophies of Plato, Descartes, Locke, and Rousseau

• Catherine did permit Alexander contact with his parents. So he was torn between the two warring parties.

• “he learned to ride with the hounds and run with the hares”--Harcave

Frédéric-César de La Harpe

(1754-1838)Tuesday, September 29, 2009

His Character

• he had earned Catherine’s praise by assimilating La Harpe’s instruction and Paul’s by displaying a love of Prussian military drill

• “half a citizen of Switzerland and half a Prussian corporal”

• “a weak and sly man”--Pushkin

• “too weak to rule, too strong to be ruled”--Prince Speransky

• “No one knew his mind, and apparently he himself didn’t always know it”--Harcave


Napoleon


“Sword of the Revolution”or its destroyer?


Wars of Napoleonic France



• Napoleon’s Italian campaigns (1797-99)




• Egyptian campaign & coup of 18 Brumaire(1798-99)





• Third Coalition (1805) ends at Austerlitz






• “...even I will be good at [war] for only another five or six years”







• Fourth Coalition (1806-07) ends with Russia’s defeat at Friedland








• Fifth Coalition (1809) Britain’s Peninsular Campaign begins, Austria is beaten once again









• Sixth Coalition (1812-14)--Napoleon’s hubris









• Sixth Coalition (1812-14)--Napoleon’s hubris

• Seventh Coalition (1815)--the Hundred Days & Waterloo


Alexander wavers


Alexander wavers

• 1800-1801-hero worship, then scorn and hostility

• LaHarpe first praised, then denounced


Alexander wavers



• 1803-1805-allies with Austria & Prussia against Napoleon

• Austerlitz(1805) and Friedland (1807)


Alexander wavers





• 1807-treaties of Tilsit--Alexander and Napoleon now allies

• unequal alliance with France, crushing peace for Prussia


Alexander wavers





• 1807-treaties of Tilsit--Alexander and Napoleon now allies

• unequal alliance with France, crushing peace for Prussia

• 1812-invasion!--> unrelenting hostility toward the “greatest tyrant of the world” and “disturber of the peace of Europe”


scenes from the wars


Alexander and the Concert of Europe


Alexander and the Concert of Europe

Tsar AlexanderKaiser Franz I

Congress of Verona, 1822Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Count Mikhail Speransky (1772-1839)



• Alexander’s liberal advisor




• 1809-his constitutional plan, based on a series of dumas, never came to be





• 1812-a conspiracy of conservative aristocrats and clergy forced his dismissal






• 1815-however he influenced the constitutions granted to Finland and Poland






• 1815-however he influenced the constitutions granted to Finland and Poland

• 1826-Nicholas I recalled him to codify Russia’s law codes, a task completed in 1833 with 35,933 enactments!


Post-war Domestic Policy



• at the beginning of his reign Alexander had promised a codification of laws and a liberal constitution, neither was delivered




• new bodies, the State Council and Imperial Senate, theoretically powerful, “became slavish instruments of the tsar and his favorites of the moment”





• 1818-a foolish plot to kidnap him on the way to the Congress of Aix- la-Chapelle by his own officers began his conversion to reaction






• other influences: personal contacts with Metternich, the liberal revolutions of the 1820s, especially the Greek War for Independence






• other influences: personal contacts with Metternich, the liberal revolutions of the 1820s, especially the Greek War for Independence

• stirrings among the Russian peasantry, a constant theme which provoke an authoritarian response


Count Alexey Andreyevich Arakcheyev

(1769-1834)general, War Minister

“That which ceases to grow begins to rot.”

wartime reformsmilitary settlements(1816)

symbol of repression


Beginnings of liberal aristocratic dissent

• junior officers during the last years of the war and especially during the occupation of France came in contact with western ideas

• 1816-a secret society arose in the Imperial Guards Regiment calling itself the Union of Salvation

• a charter member, Col. Pavel Pestel, even drew up a republican constitution modeled on that of the United States

• 1820-after a misfired uprising, most drifted away

• the “hard core’ formed the Northern Society in St. Petersburg and the Southern Society in Tulchin, Ukraine


a strange death


a strange death

• 1825-Alexander travelled south for his wife’s health


a strange death


• he caught typhus and died in the seaport of Taganrog. His body was shipped back for burial in the fortress of Petropavlovsk


a strange death



• almost immediately rumors began, he hadn’t really died

• he had staged his death, retired incognito to a Siberian monastery

• a soldier was buried in his place or the grave was empty (Soviets in 1925!)

• the British ambassador had seen him board a ship


a strange death



• almost immediately rumors began, he hadn’t really died

• he had staged his death, retired incognito to a Siberian monastery

• a soldier was buried in his place or the grave was empty (Soviets in 1925!)

• the British ambassador had seen him board a ship

• confusion regarding the order of succession

• Nicholas was younger than Alexander’s more liberal brother, Constantine

• liberal army officers, the Dekabristi, tried to stage a coup


“The Decembrists on Senate Square”Picture by painter Karl Kolman (1786-1846).


Nicholas I--Reaction, Pure and Simple


December 14--Nicholas puts in the cavalryPicture by painter Vasily F. Timm (1820-1895)


Aftermath of the Dekabristi Revolt• December 14--the afternoon’s demonstration of the Northern

Society was quelled by loyal army troops (9,000 vs 3,000) The ringleaders were arrested.

• when many fled across the frozen Neva River, artillery fired at them and opened up the river. Dead and wounded met their end that way.

• 3 January 1826--the Southern Society suffered a significant defeat in its effort to raise a rebellion. By January 10 all resistance was overcome. Ringleaders were sent to the capital for trial.

• 24 July 1826--five were sentenced to be hanged, the remaining 116 were sentenced to katorga in Siberia or reduced to private and sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in the army at that rank.

• Nicholas began his reign with a harsh repression of this abortive attempt to bring constitutional government to the empire.


Gallows Humor

Kondraty Ryleyev, was one of the five sentenced at first to be quartered. Nicholas commuted the sentence to hanging. As the trap dropped all five fell to the ground when the ropes

parted. Bruised and battered, Ryleyev rose and said “In Russia they don’t know how to do anything properly, not even how to make a rope.” An accident of this sort usually resulted in a

pardon, so a messenger was sent to the Iron Tsar to know his pleasure. Nicholas asked “What did he say?”

“Sire, he said that in Russia they don’t even know how to make a rope properly.”

“Well, let the contrary be proved.”


Gallows Humor


Life of the Decembrists in SiberiaPaintings from the online Decembrist Museum


Nicholas was deeply affected


Nicholas was deeply affected“...he dedicated himself to the task of providing lasting protection from the threat of another revolution. As a first step he spent several months investigating the antecedents of the revolt, questioning suspects as to the programs and the membership of the secret societies…. In itself the revolt was petty….It was essentially a movement of young noble officers...who represented neither the nobility nor the lower classes. Its importance lay in the fact that it was the beginning of organized revolutionary protest against the regime.”

Harcave, p.225


“...a round peg in a round hole.”

• in contrast to his older brother Alexander, he had no doubts about himself or his duties

• not raised to be tsar; he, like Kaiser Wilhelm of Prussia, another younger brother, was raised for the army

• his tutors main concern was the inculcation of respect for autocracy, orthodoxy, and military discipline

• at twenty-nine, when he gained the throne, he was a well-integrated person

• “He is stern and severe--with fixed principles of duty which nothing on earth will make him change; very clever I do not think him…” --Queen Victoria, 1844in front of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, 1859

the 1st in the world with only the two back legs connected to the pedestal


Nicholas’ army parading in the capital


Here [in the army] there is order, there is a strict unconditional legality, no impertinent claims to know all the answers, no contradiction, all things flow logically one from the other; no one commands before he has himself learned to obey, no one steps in front of anyone else without lawful reason; everything is subordinated to one definite goal, everything has its purpose. That is why I feel so well among these people, and why I shall always hold in honor the calling of a soldier. I consider the entire human life to be merely service, because everybody serves.

NICHOLAS I

quoted in Riasonovski, vol. i, p. 301


Nicholas reacts to the revolutions of 1830• July--first France, then Belgium, experience real revolution, several

German states attempt to follow their example

• Nicholas’ older brother, Grand Duke Constantine, governor of “Congress Poland,” makes plans to ignore the Polish constitution and use Polish troops to suppress the revolutionary disturbances in central Europe

• liberal Polish officers use this provocation to rebel against Russian rule and seek independence based on the pre-1772 borders

• 29 November 1830--Polish cadets seize Warsaw and the Polish army follows their example

• Lithuania, Belarus (White Russia), and the Western Ukraine join the revolt


The Polish November Uprising1830-1831



Emilia Plater



The Lithuanian Joan of Arc


Sergei Sergeivich Uvarov(1765-1855)

Education Minister(1833-1849)

by Orest Kiprensky, 1815-16


Sergei Sergeivich Uvarov(1765-1855)

Education Minister(1833-1849)

ПРАВОСЛАВИЕ (pravoslavieye)САМОДЕРЖАВИЕ (samoderzhavieye)

НАРОДНОСТЬ (narodnost)

OrthodoxyAutocracyNationality

by Orest Kiprensky, 1815-16


чиновство (chi•NOVST•vuh= bureaucracy)



• beginning as early as Ivan III, while Moscovy was gobbling up other principalities, a new class of nobles was being rewarded with lands




• their titles were conditional , not hereditary, based on service, either military or administrative; hence, service nobility





• Peter I created a table of noble rank with 12 grades (чин-chin)






• Paul, with his admiration for things Prussian, modeled his civil bureaucracy on that of Frederick the Great’s







• Alexander began and Nicholas completed the reform and centralization of the Russian state machinery







• Alexander began and Nicholas completed the reform and centralization of the Russian state machinery

• there was equivalency between civil and military ranks, with a uniform and honorific for each


• the Table of 1834 set up the equivalences among officials of the civil service, the armed forces and the court



• the rank of Privy Councillor in the civil service = Lieutenant General in the army = Master of the Hounds at court. Each was addressed as “Excellency”




• a civil official Actual Councillor of State = major general. Addressed as “High Born”





• Collegiate Secretary = midshipman in the navy (near the bottom of the hierarchy) rating only the address of “Well-born”






• below the officials of the civil service were the numerous rank-and-file personnel, like military enlisted people, also in uniform and hierarchically organized






• below the officials of the civil service were the numerous rank-and-file personnel, like military enlisted people, also in uniform and hierarchically organized

• the чиновники (chi•NOV•ni•ki) had all the evils: arrogance, “red tape,”timidity, rigidity, we associate with the worst bureaucracies today


• given its size it’s remarkable that it did as well as it did, holding together an empire ruling one-eighth the surface of the earth

• however, its defects came from many interacting forces:

• the great expanse of the Russian land, the political immaturity and cultural diversity of its people, and the backwardness of its economy

• the nature of its personnel: they lacked training and a proper interest in ther work. Nicholas expanded the university system, but the majority lacked a good education

• Nicholas tried to control things through reports, “complaints books” and forms for everything

• those who dealt with the public expected “tips” (bribes) for services

• obedience to the state had been created by force and was maintained by force or the threat of force

• there was no tradition of respect for the law apart from fear. Subjects tried to “beat the system”

Defects of the System


Count Alexander von Benckendorff

(1783-1844)

warned of the Decembrists, created the secret police called the Third Section

(Третье Урок)


Censorship

• begun under Alexander, the severity of centralized press censorship expanded after 1826

• several agencies had overlapping power and now the Third Section joined the process

• periodicals which criticized the country or the state were suspended

• one printed an article by Peter Chaadayev comparing Russian development to the west unfavorably:

• the publication was suspended, the editor exiled

• Chaadayev, a nobleman and retired guards officer, was officially declared insane and confined to his home


Autocratic Public Works


Pavel Petrovich Melnikov

(1804-1880)

Minister of Transport Communications,

the St Petersburg-Moscow Railroad

(1842-1851)


The Myth of the Tsar’s Finger



the railroad was constructed in an almost straight line




through swamps, hills, valleys at great cost in human (serf) life





lamented by Nekrasov in his poem “The Railway”





lamented by Nekrasov in his poem “The Railway”

the 17 km bend was [falsely] attributed to the tsar drawing a straight line with a ruler, the bump was caused by his finger


St. Isaac’s Cathedral, St. Petersburg(1818-1858)


TheIntelligentsia

“...not the ‘brain’ of the nation, they are the ‘feces’ of the nation.”

V.I. Lenin


Russia’s long period of intellectual apprenticeship to the West was coming to an end by the middle years of the nineteenth century, and her thinkers and creators were becoming masters in their own right. The attainment of relatively advanced intellectual status among the few served to emphasize the relative backwardness in other aspects of Russian life. And the recognition of that backwardness could not fail to affect the direction and cast of the intellectual activity of the period.

Harcave, p. 243


Alexander Pushkin1799-1837

the Golden Age of Russian PoetryEvgenie Onegin, published serially,

1825-1832

by Vasili Tropinin, 1827


Nikolai Gogol (1809-1852)

• 1830s-both Pushkin and the poet Lermontov try their hands at prose

• Gogol is the premier prose writer of the first half of the century

• a Russified Ukrainian, he uses both traditions

• his two masterpieces:

• The Government Inspector (Revisor) 1835

•Dead Souls 1842by Alexandr Ivanov


Why use the foreign-sounding “intelligentsia” when the English language has the word “intellectuals”? The answer is that one needs different terms to designate different phenomena--in this case, to distinguish those who passively contemplate life from activists who are determined to reshape it. Marx succinctly stated the latter position when he wrote: “the philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it.” The term “intelligentsia” describes intellectuals who want power in order to change the world.

Pipes, p.21


types of inte%igenti

• “repentant nobles”--the Dekabristi were the earliest such

• “persons of various ranks” разночинтси (raznochintsi)--objects of Nicholas’ special wrath

• “circles” кружоки (kruzhoki)

• at Moscow University: the Slavophils

• at various homes in Skt-Peterburg: the Westernizers

• the Petrashevsky circle


The Кружок (kru•ZHOK)


The Кружок (kru•ZHOK)

with its endless discussions over endless glasses of tea, became one of the seminal influences in Russian thought.

Harcave, p.247


Slavophils• the fate of the Dekabristi initiated,

motivated, inspired the first study groups at Moscow University in the 1830s

• German philosophy, Hegel, Kant, and Feuerbach reigned supreme

• both like and unlike Uvarov’s official narodnost

•some parts of their doctrine were useful to both revolutionaries and reactionaries

Aleksey Khomyakov







Ivan Kireevsky







Konstantin Aksakov






•some parts of their doctrine were useful to both revolutionaries and reactionaries Vladimir Solovyov







You wouldn't understand Russia just using the intellect / You couldn't measure her using the common scale / She has a special kind of grace / You can only believe in her.

Fyodor Tutchev


Westernizers (Западники)

• 1830s-at the same time an opposing group was forming

• their hero was Peter the Great

• rationalistic, anticlerical

• Stankevich’s circle--Hegelian

• Herzen’s--French utopian socialist

• Belinsky--a “person[s] of various ranks” (raznochinik)

• exiles and willing émigrés


Russia’s only domestic experience of the

Revolution of 1848


Russia’s only domestic experience of the

Revolution of 1848

Some of thePetrashevsky

Circle

Petrashevsky

Dostoyevskypicture from 1872

Nechayev

“civic execution”a mock execution

in 1849

Count BenckendorffTuesday, September 29, 2009

1850--”The Gendarme of Europe”



• Nicholas was furious at the revolutions in Prussia and Austria




• he feared that they would spread to Poland





• he offered his army and General Paskevich who had crushed the Poles in 1831






• Frederick William declined but the young Franz Josef welcomed Russian aid in subduing the Hungarians






• Frederick William declined but the young Franz Josef welcomed Russian aid in subduing the Hungarians

• liberal forces throughout Europe began to equate Russia with exporting repression


Foreign PolicyStability versus Expansion

The Caucasus War1817-1864


Staunch ConservativeThe Original “Gendarme of Europe”

• 1822-for the next forty years this Baltic German diplomat shaped Russian foreign policy as Foreign Minister or Chancellor to Alexander I, Nicholas I, and Alexander II

• backed the Congress System and the Holy Alliance

• used Russian troops to help crush the revolutions of 1830-31 and 1848-49

• despite his support for legitimacy and cooperation between the Great Powers, he sought to expand Russian influence in the Balkans and the Black Sea

• this put Russia at odds with Britain, France, and Sardinia-Piedmont who all wished to preserve the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire Count Karl Robert Nesselrode

1780-1862Tuesday, September 29, 2009

The Eastern Question

• [Turkey was] “a sick man...gravely ill”--Nicholas I in 1853

• the Balkans

• the Straits

• Transcaucasia

• the Holy Land


Dismembering the Ottoman Empire


“The Great Game”Arthur Conolly, 6th Bengal Light Cavalry

• the British and Russian empires were both expanding into central Asia during the second quarter of the nineteenth century

• Persia and “the Stans”, unlike the Ottoman Empire, were not exactly pushovers for the western imperialists

• Britain was primarily playing “defense” as she had the more to lose from Russia’s awakening expansionism

• Afghanistan, then as now, was tremendously difficult terrain, a severe challenge for conquest

• it was the focal point for British-Russian imperial rivalry


The Russian Bear vs the British Lion


Alexander II--Reform, then Reaction


Alexander II--Reform, then Reaction

1818-1855-1881


the reluctant soldier



• firstborn son of a passionate militarist father




• his mother, Charlotte of Prussia





• educated by the liberal poet Vasily Zhukovsky






• took little personal interest in military affairs






• took little personal interest in military affairs

“gave evidence of a kind disposition and a warmheartedness which were considered out of place in one destined to become a military autocrat”


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocrat

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocrat

CoronationAugust, 1856

at the Dormition Cathedral,Moscow Kremlin


Александр II Николаевич (1818-1855-1881)

his predisposition was that of a reformer

his situation was that of autocrat

his intelligence saved him from utopian advisers

became Tsar in the middle of the Crimean War

Russia’s wretched performance, especially that of their serf conscripts, convinced all of the need for reform

known as the Tsar Liberator for freeing the serfs, after five years of planning, in 1861


Alexander to an assembly of nobles in Moscow, March, 1856

“[announced that] the existing order of ruling over living souls cannot remain

unchanged. It is better to abolish bondage from above than to wait for the time when it will begin to abolish itself from below.”


Чтение Положения 19 февраля 1861 года

Reading of the manifesto of February 19, 1861

(on abolition of serfdom in Russia) by Grigori Myasoedov, 1873


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_serfdom_in_Russia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolition_of_serfdom_in_Russia

the difference between serfdom and slavery



European Serfdom Trans-Atlantic Slavery

• lasts from late Roman Empire to 1861 (Russia)




• lasts from late Roman Empire to 1861 (Russia)•serfs were attached to the land-- could be rented but not sold




• lasts from late Roman Empire to 1861 (Russia)•serfs were attached to the land-- could be rented but not sold•under feudalism there were degrees of serfdom




• lasts from late Roman Empire to 1861 (Russia)•serfs were attached to the land-- could be rented but not sold•under feudalism there were degrees of serfdom•like so many other reforms, the end of serfdom spread eastward beginning in the late Middle ages

•lasts from 16th century to 1888 (Brazil) America (1619-1865)





•lasts from 16th century to 1888 (Brazil) America (1619-1865)•slaves were chattels, personal; could be sold “downriver”





•lasts from 16th century to 1888 (Brazil) America (1619-1865)•slaves were chattels, personal; could be sold “downriver”•slavery varied from country to country, state to state





•lasts from 16th century to 1888 (Brazil) America (1619-1865)•slaves were chattels, personal; could be sold “downriver”•slavery varied from country to country, state to state•the French Revolution began the end of New World slavery


shortcomings of the emancipation edict


shortcomings of the emancipation edictthe nobility was generously compensated with rents collected by the peasant village governments (miri, singular, mir)



the plan was to give individual allotments of land once the nobles were compensated




close to half the allotments were too small to provide subsistence living





former serfs, no longer bound to their lords, were required to get permission from their mir to leave!





former serfs, no longer bound to their lords, were required to get permission from their mir to leave!

state peasants (former serfs to the tsar) had slightly less burdensome terms for repayment and emigration


Sti%


Sti%

“...one writer has called [it] the greatest single piece of state-directed

social engineering in modern European history before the twentieth century…”

Craig, loc. cit


Zemstvo Law, 1864


Zemstvo Law, 1864a step towards representative government



created an elective council (zemskoye sobranye) and appointive board (zemskaya uprava) at the lowest level: mir (village) and volost (rural district)




the voting, of course, was “stacked to ensure upper class control”





74% of the zemstvo members were noblemen, even though nobles were 1.3% of the population





74% of the zemstvo members were noblemen, even though nobles were 1.3% of the population

naturally, this first step didn’t satisfy


Many Other Reforms


Many Other Reforms1864 -a new judicial administration based on the French model



a new penal code & greatly simplified civil and criminal procedure




the second country in the world (after Portugal) to abolish capital punishment





1870-local government for large towns modeled on the Zemstvo Law





1870-local government for large towns modeled on the Zemstvo Law

1874 -army and naval reforms based on Prussia’s


Russia--”Prison House of Nations”--attr. to Lenin

“No dreams” warning to the non-Russian peoples, 1855

Poland, the January Rising, 1863-1864

thousands executed, tens of thousands sent to Siberia

Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian and Belorussian languages outlawed from printed texts

Polish language, oral as well as written, banned from all territories except Congress Poland

there it was limited to private conversations

Finland, loyal during the uprising, was rewarded by generous treatment


Katorga--Precursor to the Gulag

“Farewell to Europe”


Katorga--Precursor to the Gulag

The subject of the painting is the Siberian exile of Poles after their defeated January Uprising (1863) against the Russian Empire. The painting depicts the stop of the exiled convoy by the obelisk that marks the border between Europe and Asia. The artist himself is among the exiled here, near the obelisk, on the right

“Farewell to Europe”

Katorga was a system of penal servitude of the prison farm type in Imperial Russia . Prisoners were sent to remote camps in vast uninhabited areas of Siberia—where voluntary laborers were never available in satisfactory numbers—and forced to perform hard labor. Katorga began in the 17th century, and was taken over by the Bolsheviks after the Russian Revolution of 1917, eventually transforming into the Gulag labor camps.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Uprising

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_Uprising

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_servitude

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_servitude

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_farm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison_farm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshevik

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolshevik

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_of_1917

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Revolution_of_1917

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_camp

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_camp

The Last Years of Alexander II


The Last Years of Alexander IIПервомартовцы

The First of Marchers

(Those who did something

[assassinate Alexander II]

on the first of March) by

Nicolai Kibalchick


From Tsar Liberator to Samoderzhavets

assassination attempts, beginning in 1866, had their effect

the army reforms of War Minister D.A. Miliutin were both needed and progressive--a general staff, merit, length of service reduced from 25 years to 6, compulsory service for all able males, &c.

still, these were a necessary exception to the general turn to the right

Count Dimitry Tolstoy, Education Minister, 1866-1880 ended academic freedom, required professors to give reports to the police, controlled curriculum to eliminate “dangerous” studies

Alexander came to rely upon ultra reactionary advisors


Нихилизм (Ni•hil•EZM-nihilism)

term coined by Turgenev in Fathers and Sons (1861) his anti-hero, Bazarov, was such

this student “extreme realism,” visible throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, did reject the present order

but it hardly constituted a threat to the regime

more serious about reform were the student narodniki (populists)

Ilya Repin. Student-Nihilist. 1883. Oil on canvas. The Far East Fine Arts Museum, Khabarovsk, Russia.


This is the final word of our young camp: What can be broken, we should break. Whatever will stand the blow--is of use; whatever will be smashed to pieces--is rubbish. At any rate smash right and left, no harm may come of this.

Dmitry Pisarova nihilist propagandist


An Uncanny Parallel

unparalleled access to higher education

• more secondary schools& universities• to staff the bureaucracy& the industrial revolution• access for “persons of other ranks”

1840s & ‘50s 1860s 1870snihilistsnarodniki

•upper and middleclass sons and daughters“go to the people” &the countryside•idealized view of the peasantry

NarodnayaVolya

• a hard core of disillusionednarodniki turn to violence•their cause? social justice•their method? assassinations & bombings


An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya


1940s & ‘50s


An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya


1940s & ‘50sunparalleled access to higher education


An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya



• more secondary schools& universities


An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya



• more secondary schools& universities• the G.I. Bill


An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya



• more secondary schools& universities• the G.I. Bill• access for “persons of other ranks”


An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya


1940s & ‘50s 1960sunparalleled access to higher education



An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya




“beatniks” &“hippies”


An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya





•upper and middleclass sons and daughters“go to the people” &the countryside


An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya





•upper and middleclass sons and daughters“go to the people” &the countryside•idealized view of the lower classes


An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya


1940s & ‘50s 1960s 1968-early ‘70sunparalleled access to higher education





An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya






Weather Underground& SLA


An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya







• a hard core ofdisillusioned counterculture types turn to violence


An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya







• a hard core ofdisillusioned counterculture types turn to violence• their cause? social justice


An Uncanny Parallel





NarodnayaVolya







• a hard core ofdisillusioned counterculture types turn to violence• their cause? social justice• their method? assassinations & bombings


Chernishevsky and his “children”

Nikolai Gavrilovich Chernishevsky1828-1889



• born in Saratov, the son of a priest





• became a university professor and inte%igent






• 1862-imprisoned for printing a handbill that blamed the tsar for shortcomings in the emancipation







• while there he wrote What is to be Done?








• profound impact: youthful Lenin read it six times in one summer









• motivated the “new people” to form the Narodnik (Populist) movement









• motivated the “new people” to form the Narodnik (Populist) movement

• for this Chernishevsky experienced “civic execution” and seven years Siberian exile


“I fight for freedom, but I do not want freedom for myself lest it should be said that I am fighting for interested ends."


Portraits of Russian narodniki accused in the Trial of the Fifty (1877)

The upper part of the text says: 'Condemned, after two years of solitary confinement in prison, for social-revolutionary propaganda.'

Underneath is a quotation of the Russian radical poet Nikolai Nekrasov: 'Your crown of thorns outshines the victor's crown.'

In the surrounding chain, the punishments of the condemned: (1) Aleksandra Khorzhevskaya, 5 years katorga; (2) Sof'ya Bardina, 9 years katorga; (3) Ol'ga Lyubatovich, 9 years katorga; (4) Vera Lyubatovich, 6 years katorga; (5) Mar'ya Subbotina, exile to Siberia; (6) Anna Toporkova, 4 years house of correction; (7) Yekatrina Gamkrelidze, 6 weeks prison; (8) Yevgeniya Subbotina, exile to Siberia.


The Trepov Affair, 1878

• “History moves too slowly, it needs a push!”-- Andrei Zhelyabov

• 24 January--Vera, aged 29, stood in line to press a personal civic matter with the military governor of Skt-Peterburg

• she pulled a small pistol from her purse, shot Trepov in the side, and calmly awaited arrest

• the prosecutor bungled; the defense attorney was brilliant; the jury acquitted

• Zazulich emigrated, a radical who’d “made her bones”

A romanticized portrait of Vera Zazulich, who was tried but acquitted for her

attempt to kill General Trepov. (Sketch published in The Graphic, May 4, 1878


From narodnika to Narodnaya Volyauniversity medical student, Kazan & Zurich, became a narodnika (feminine of narodnik)

1876- Russia’s 1st demonstration, 400 gathered in St Petersburg for a speech by Plekhanov

1877-78-working as a doctor’s assistant, she conducted revolutionary propaganda

1879-joined Zemlya i Volya; after it split, Narodnaya Volya,

1880-81-planned assassinations of Alexander II in Odessa (failed) and St. Petersburg (succeeded)

1882-tried to revive Narodnaya Volya after mass arrests

1883-betrayed by police informer, part of “the trial of the 14.” 20 mos in solitary, pre-trial; sentence, 20 years

Vera Figner1852-1942


ASSASSINATION • ”Am I such a beast that they want to kill me?”--Alexander II



1866--D. Karakozov, pistol arm jostled

Karakozov, before his execution




1867--a Pole in France






1879--A. Soloviev, missed with 5 shots!







1879--Narodnaya Volya bomb plot, killed 11, wounded 20, but missed the tsar’s train








1880--same group, bomb in Winter Palace, 67 killed or injured, tsar late for dinner, unscathed









13 March N.S. (1 March O.S.) 1881










1st bomb, under carriage--only damaged











2nd bomb--20 people injured, including Alexander, lost both legs, bled to death











2nd bomb--20 people injured, including Alexander, lost both legs, bled to death

3rd bomber--present but unnecessaryKarakozov, before his execution


two sad footnotes (1) the Katya affair

Princess Katya Dolgorukaya1847-1922



• 1864-the tsar sponsored her to go to Smolny after she was orphaned, at age 16





• she was “of medium height, with an elegant figure, silky ivory skin, the eyes of a frightened gazelle, a sensuous mouth, and light chestnut tresses”



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gazelle





• totally smitten, Alexander made her a lady in waiting to his tubercular wife









• 1866-she resisted becoming his mistress until the death of his older son and the 1st assassination attempt, age 19









• 1866-she resisted becoming his mistress until the death of his older son and the 1st assassination attempt, age 19

• the royal circle was disgusted with her status and blamed Alexander Princess Katya Dolgorukaya

1847-1922Tuesday, September 29, 2009



(2) a tragic missed opportunity

Count Loris-Melikov


(2) a tragic missed opportunity• outstanding scholar, soldier, statesman

Count Loris-Melikov



• Armenian, hero of the Russo-Turk War

Count Loris-Melikov




• capable civil administrator, applied “Petraeus-like” strategy to combat terrorism in provinces of Central Russia

Count Loris-Melikov





• Alexander, dissatisfied with mere repression, summons to Skt-Peterburg to apply to the national effort

Count Loris-Melikov






• 13 March 1881-the very day of the assassination, the ukase including root cause reforms to isolate the terrorists, was scheduled to take effect

Count Loris-Melikov






• 13 March 1881-the very day of the assassination, the ukase including root cause reforms to isolate the terrorists, was scheduled to take effect

• when repression became again the order of the day, Loris-Melikov resigned Count Loris-Melikov


“Propaganda of the Deed”


Russian Romeo and Juliette

Sonia (Sophia)Perovskaya Andrei Zhelyabov


Russian Romeo and Juliette

Sonia (Sophia)Perovskaya Andrei Zhelyabovhigh nobility,

her father a general;age 26 at her execution

born a Ukrainian serf,10 years before the emancipation;

age 30 at his execution


After the assassination of Alexander II, the dominant groups in the ruling class, convinced that Russia was crumbling under the assaults of liberalism, socialism, and other dangerous and insidious forces from the West, felt that only an uncompromising reaffirmation and application of the old principles of autocracy, orthodoxy, and Russian nationality could save the country. They had seen one European nation after another fall before the onslaught of liberalism and observed how even Germany and Austria-Hungary had been compelled to make a compromise with it. In the hope of saving Russia from such a fate, they supported the two succeeding emperors, Alexander III (1881-94) and Nicholas II (1894-1917), in every effort to buttress and sustain the autocracy, efforts as grandiose and costly as they were futile.

Harcave, p.304


russian history; 1796-1881

Education

napoleonic wars

session tsar paul

paul seemedto

question of madness

son alexander

alexander contact

simple alexander

egyptian campaign coup