THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION AS
TRIUMPH AND CATASTROPHE IN
GENERATIONAL MEMORY
Experience and Remembrance of the
Revolutionary Generation of the 1870-s
Tatiana Saburova (Omsk State Pedagogical University,
Russia)
The generational identity in the nineteenth
century Russia
• “…an important way that Russian intellectuals thought
about their own history. …They found in the generation
concept a powerful source of self-definition—more
powerful than class, culture or nationality…The
intelligentsia has tended to present itself as a group of
like-minded contemporaries who cut themselves free from
family ties in order to devote themselves to the cause of
social improvements”.
• (Stephen Lovell, Kritika, 2008, vol.9)
The revolutionary generation of the 1870es: identity and memory
• An “imagined
community” created by
the Populist
movement, a “site of
memory” as the set of
representations about
revolution and the
intelligentsia, as a
symbol of the Russian
youth.
• a real community, an
“age cohort” linked by
participation in populist
organizations, by the
“Going to the People”
movement, the court
trials of the 1870s, and
by the time in prison
and exile.
“The Chaikovsky circle” and the
generation of 70-s
• Nikolai Chaikovsky was
one of the active members
of the circle.
• The Chaikovskists aimed
to spread Socialist ideas,
using of legally printed
books and illegal printing
presses, propagandizing
amidst workers and
peasants in many
provinces of Russia.
• The Chaikovskists can be
called the first large
Populist movement
“AN EMPIRE UNDER
THREAT”
The “Great Reforms” and the Russian Intelligentsia
The Russian Intelligentsia
• Many definitions of the term of intelligentsia (as many authors
writing and discussing about it)
• A symbol of the opposition and revolution and/or the educated
society (“a critical thinking being”, “intellectuals”, etc.)
• 10 universities (16,500 students) in Russia by the end of the
19th century and 20 universities (32,000 students) in Germany.
The “Going to the People” movement of
1874 as a “youth revolution” in Russia
• “Four thousand people were
imprisoned, questioned or at
least harassed, by the police.
Nowhere had the Populists been
able to arouse a revolt or
upheaval. But the government
understood that a new
revolutionary movement had
now been born”. (Franco Ventury, Roots of
Revolution)
The moral principles and ethical qualities
of the revolutionary generation of 70-s
• public service, self-sacrifice, companionate ties, sense of
obligation
• indifference to religion (“we were not imbued with
authentic religious feelings as children and the doings of
the official church rather than inspire us, actually
fomented negative responses”
• a deep faith in the vitality of the ideas of Populism
(“people had undying faith in their mission... This was its
own variant of religious ecstasy, in which reason and
sound judgment had no place” (Nikolai Charushin)
The influence of the Paris Commune
• “Examining the decade of the seventies,
one frequently comes upon the influence
of these events upon the intelligentsia of
that time.” (V. Bogucharskii)
THE SOVIET UNION UNDER
THREAT
A new historical narrative, memory and struggle for
legitimacy of power.
A creation a “usable
past”, a new historical,
triumphalist narrative of
the Soviet coming to
power,
The Bolshevik party after
1917 is in need of legitimacy
The juxtaposition the new,
Soviet Russia to a rotten,
exploitative and
repressive Tsarist
predecessor
A creation of new heroes,
revolutionaries, including
the revolutionary
generation of the 1870-s
An “explosion” of memoirs (1921-1925)
• The Society of Former Political Prisoners and
Exiles (1921-1935)
• A journal “Katorga I ssylka” (“Hard Labor and
Exile”)
• About 1200 memoirs of the revolutionaries were
published in the 1920-es
• A bio-bibliographic dictionary “Members of the
Revolutionary Movement in Russia from the
Decembrists to the Collapse of Tsarism” (19271933)
Vera Figner, The Imprint of Life’s
Endeavors” (Memoir of a revolutionary)
• Figner was an icon of the
Populist movement. Her
beauty, personal dignity,
and resilience during
nearly a quarter century of
imprisonment, much of it in
solitary confinement, were
legendary.
• “The will to struggle is
reinforced by such vibrant
and convincing material”
(Dmitri Furmanov about the Figner’s
memoirs)
GENERATION AND MEMORY
UNDER THREAT
A description of Kara, a well-known prison and hardlabor place in Siberia.
• “An entire generation of revolutionary youth passed through the
Kara political prison, and more dozens of young people just
coming into maturity it was not only a welcoming alma mater, a
university and a public arena.” (Gekker, 1906)
• “Kara was almost like a resort, providing for the restoration of
one’s physical and mental capacities.” (Charushin, 1929)
Сorrespondence in the descriptions of
Kononovich, a governor of Kara prison in the
memoirs of Sinegub and Charushin
Синегуб, Записки чайковца
(1906)
Чарушин, О далеком
прошлом на Каре (1929)
• «Не старый еще человек,
• «Это был высокий
хорошо сложенный, с
умным, интеллигентным
лицом, в военном
мундире...».
• «Кононович был человек
умный и самостоятельный
и прекрасно умел
отгрызаться перед
начальством, пока только
была возможность».
человек, лет 40-50,
с военной
выправкой, умным
и интеллигентным
лицом, одетый повоенному»
• «Кононович был
умный человек, не
трус и умел
отгрызаться».
Nikolai Charushin (1851-1937), member
of the Chaikovsky circle
• “The years pass by and
the bright colors of this
past grow fainter; much
actually escapes from
one’s memory. The danger
always existed that in
reconstructing and
evaluating events of the
past, the telling will be
affected by the mood of a
subsequent time and will
therefore provide a less
than accurate coloration of
the events described”.
The debate over the role of Populism in
the revolutionary movement in the 1930-s
• “It is especially important to explain that Marxism
emerged and evolved in a struggle against Populism as
its primary enemy and by destroying its ideological
postulates, its means and methods of struggle.” (Pravda,
1930)
• The new heroes of Russian history (Peter the Great, Ivan
the Terrible and Alexander Nevsky), embodying and
institutionalizing the memory of Russia as a Great Power
IS HISTORY OF THE
REVOLUTION A NEW THREAT
TO THE POWERS THAT BE IN
RUSSIA TODAY?
Debates over Russian history in contemporary Russia