A Generation of Revolutionaries

Tatiana Saburova, Ben Eklof

Description

Nikolai Charushin's memoirs of his experience as a member of the revolutionary populist movement in Russia are familiar to historians, but A Generation of Revolutionaries provides a broader and more engaging look at the lives and relationships beyond these memoirs. It shows how, after years of incarceration, Charushin and friends thrived in Siberian exile, raising children and contributing to science and culture there. While Charushin's memoirs end with his return to European Russia, this sweeping biography follows this group as they engaged in Russia's fin de siècle society, took part in the 1917 revolution, and struggled in its aftermath.  A Generation of Revolutionaries provides vibrant and deeply personal insights into the turbulent history of Russia from the Great Reforms to the era of Stalinism and beyond. In doing so, it tells the story of a remarkable circle of friends whose lives balanced love, family and career with exile, imprisonment, and revolution.

Preface
Introduction: Remembrances of a Distant Past
1. Beginnings: How to Become a Revolutionary
2. The Seventies Generation: Young Revolutionaries and the Chaikovskii Circle
3. The Male Gaze and Female Profile: Marriage, Family, Populism
4. "Punishment Harsh and Cruel:" The Experience of Incarceration (1874-1878)
5. Seventeen Years in Siberia: Hard Labor, Exile and Photography
6. Return to European Russia: Family Ties, Networks of Exiles, and the Zemstvo
7. After October: The Downward Spiral of Revolution
8. The Revolution Followed its Own Scenario (1917-1919)
9. Memory Wars and the Search for Meaning after the Revolution
10. In Search of the Real Charushin in the Perestroika Era
Conclusion
Biographical sketches
Selected Bibliography
Index

Sujets

• Former Soviet Union
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• URSS
• General officer
• Eastern Europe
• Russian
• Russia
• General
• Russie

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 19 octobre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780253031259
• Langue: English

Extrait

A GENERATION OF REVOLUTIONARIES
A GENERATION
of
REVOLUTIONARIES
NIKOLAI CHARUSHIN
and
RUSSIAN POPULISM FROM THE GREAT REFORMS TO PERESTROIKA

BEN EKLOF TATIANA SABUROVA
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2017 by Ben Eklof and Tatiana Saburova
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition.
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Cataloging information is available from the Library of Congress.
ISBN 978-0-253-02981-2 (cloth)
ISBN 978-0-253-03121-1 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-253-03125-9 (ebook)
1 2 3 4 5 22 21 20 19 18 17
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction: Remembrances of a Distant Past
About the Main Heroes of this Book
Metanarrative and Biography: Lives Obscure and Less So
Generational History and Memory Studies
Examining Russian Populism as a Movement
A Cooperative Endeavor
1 Beginnings: How to Become a Revolutionary
In His Own Words
Untrammeled Childhoods?
School Days in Viatka (1862-1871)
Crossing a Societal Threshold: Salon Culture in Viatka
Last Days and Departure
Searching for the Roots of Radicalism
2 The Seventies Generation: Young Revolutionaries and the Chaikovskii Circle
The Chaikovskii Circle
From Student to Revolutionary
Generational Tropes: Youthfulness and a Debt to the People
Moral Standards
Influences on Young Minds: Chernyshevskii and Pushkin?
Lavrov or Bakunin? Polarities in Populist Thought
On Constitutions and Lassalle
The Impact of the Paris Commune (1871)
Overcoming Backwardness and the Zemstvo
Book Matters: The Cause of the Book
Learning about the Common People
Diverse Views, Intact Networks
3 The Male Gaze and Female Profile: Marriage, Family, Populism
The Male Gaze
Self-Portraits
My Unfailing Partner and Comrade in Life
My Lovey, My Dovey : Authenticity, Mutuality, and Joint Commitment
How Joyful It Is to Have Children !
Domestic Bothers such as Washing Up and Cleaning
We Are Like Siamese Twins: Final Partings
My Husband No Longer Posed an Obstacle
Uniform Life Scenarios? The Woman Question Revisited
4 Punishment Harsh and Cruel : The Experience of Incarceration (1874-1878)
Arrests
Prison Memoirs
A Gray Hospital Robe
New Accommodations : Spatial Dimensions of the Cell
Around Us Reigned the Stultifying Silence of the Grave
The Variety of the Menu Selections Was Surprising
A Hunger Strike Not for Three to Four Days, but Until the Bitter End
Time Dragged on Torturously and Without Purpose
Meaningful Activities
I Yearned to See People and Hear Live Voices
The Potential for Going Mad Terrified Me
Escape
The Great Trial of the 193
5 Seventeen Years in Siberia: Hard Labor, Exile, and Photography
You Are Being Sentenced to Siberia
Perceptions of Siberia
The Road
At the Kara Place Mines and Prison Colony
Charushin and Kononovich: Even the Jailer Weeps at Times
Life as a Penal Colonist: Nerchinsk (1881-1886)
A Revolutionary Turns to Photography
The Call of Our First Homeland Was Stronger Than Attachment to the Second One
6 Return to European Russia: Family Ties, Networks of Exiles, and the Zemstvo (1895-1905)
The Charushin Household: Domesticity and Extended Family
Networks of Exiles Renewed and Expanded
Zemstvo Ties
Book Matters
Nikolai Charushin: Fire-Insurance Agent
Famine Relief: The All-Zemstvo Organization
Encounters with the Peasant World Compared
The Zemstvo on the Eve of 1905
Founding of a Provincial Newspaper
Social Networks in Viatka
7 After October: The Downward Spiral of Revolution
Enter Gorchakov: Liquidation and Renewal Policies
Yumashev, the Zemstvo Executive Board and Its Newspaper Viatskaia Gazeta
Charushin s Newspaper Under Fire: Kuvshinskaia s Exile
Forced Resignation from the Zemstvo
The Urzhum Brothers and Family Matters
The Saltykov Affair and Departure from the Famine Relief Organization
The Viatka Warlord Exits: Accountability and the Press
In the Aftermath: Looking to the Future
8 The Revolution Followed Its Own Scenario (1917-1919)
The New Order
The Joy Was Short Lived Anxiety Overtook Me
Viatskaia Rech and the People s Socialist Party
The Peasant Union and the Old Revolutionary and Freedom Fighter
The Deep Countryside Is Mired in Ignorance
Everyone Is Fed Up with Empty Phrases and Inaction
Surely Not All of Russia Is Infected with Bolshevism!
My Position on the Claimants to Power: A Matter of Conscience
Incarceration Redux: Repeating the Trials and Tribulations of Youth
The Revolution Followed Its Own Scenario
9 Remembrances of a Distant Past
The Thinning Ranks of the Living Among Us
I Withdrew Completely From the Arena of Politics : The Library as Refuge and Outlet
Your Efforts Were All in Vain : The Turn to Writing Memoirs
I Urge You to Write Down Your Recollections
Collective Autobiography and Traveling Narratives
Charushin Lauded and Rewarded
Memory Wars
We Need More Bolshevik Vigilance!
Still, I Am Not Yet Ready to Give Up
10 In Search of the Real Charushin in the Perestroika Era
Emerging from the Dustbin of History
Perestroika Memory Wars
In Search of the Real Charushin
Conclusion
Biographical Sketches
Selected Bibliography
Index
PREFACE
THE SCHOLAR of Russian history always needs to address a number of minor but thorny issues pertaining to transliteration, Russian names, and dates. We have used the Library of Congress system, except for proper names or geographic sites that are already familiar to the reader by another spelling. Thus we have Leo Tolstoy instead of Lev Tolstoi, Moscow instead of Moskva, Yakutsk instead of Iakutsk. Since Russian is an inflected language, the endings of proper names will often, but not always, change depending on whether we are talking about males or females-the spelling of surnames usually changes, depending on which gender we are referring to. Likewise, the forms of address people use with each other depend on social hierarchies and degrees of intimacy and are further complicated by the addition of patronymics in polite social discourse. Just in case the reader has managed to grasp all this, the Russian language has added a bewildering number of diminutive versions of names to express degrees of affection for the person on whom the nickname is bestowed. We have tried to avoid inserting Russian words into the text, but a few whose exact translation is difficult or cumbersome, such as meshchanstvo (roughly: petty bourgeoisie), kustarnyi sklad (cottage industry warehouse), uprava (executive board), zemstvo (local self-government council), kraeved and kraevedenie (local historian and local history), and gosudarstvennost (statism) are unavoidable because they convey a nuance not present in the English-language near-equivalent. Similarly, we have occasionally inserted the word Chaikovtsy from the Russian, designating the members of the Chaikovskii circle. As for the use of italics, to avoid burdening the text any further we note here that all have been added by the authors.
The authors express their gratitude to the following programs and institutions for financial support given during the more than three years they spent on this book: at Indiana University the Office of the Vice President for International Affairs, the College of Arts and Humanities Institute (CAHI), 1 and the Russian and East European Institute (REEI); 2 the Fulbright Program; 3 the Higher School of Economics 4 and the German Historical Institute in Moscow; 5 and the staff at the following archival holdings: RGALI (Moscow), RGIA (St. Petersburg); GAKO, the Herzen Regional Library, the ROSFOTO Museum Exhibition Center, and the Vaznetsov Museum of Fine Arts (Kirov). Padraic Kenney offered helpful insights for our chapter on incarceration. We are especially grateful to Janet Rabinowitch and Larry Holmes, both of whom read most or all of the manuscript at different stages and provided us with sage advice at all times, and to Alex Rabinowitch and Hiro Kuromiya for their unflagging support. We thank the participants at the several sessions of the Midwestern Russian Historians Workshop (MRHW) who read early versions of several chapters. Finally, we thank Dee Mortenson and Jennika Baines, our able, patient, and supportive editors at Indiana University Press and Charles Clark at Newgen North America for superbly shepherding this manuscript through its final stages.
Abbreviations:
MVD-Ministry of the Interior
OPK-Society of Former Political Prisoners and Exiles
NS-the People s Socialist Party
SR-Socialist Revolutio