Nineteenth Century Russia: Opposition to Autocracy

✍ Scribed by Derek Offord

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 159
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This new Seminar Study provides students with a rewarding introduction to nineteenth-century Russia. This period of Russian history is, of course, characterised by the flowering of an enormously rich intellectual and cultural life, the origins of which lie in the intelligentsia¿s opposition to autocratic rule. Here, Professor Offord introduces the reader to the period while focusing particularly on the rise of radicalism.

The book opens with two scene-setting chapters: one looking at the political and social structure peculiar to Russia, and the second looking at the cultural and intellectual background. Then, within a chronological framework, the author examines all the great 'events' in the history of Russian radicalism - from the Decembrist Revolt in 1825, to the 'going to the people' in 1874, and the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. However, throughout the text sustained attention is given to the intellectual dimension of nineteenth-century Russian history. Professor Offord examines all the major schools of thought and looks in detail at all the great thinkers of the day, including Chaadaev, Belinsky, Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Bakunin and Tolstoy.

This new book will provide essential reading for anyone studying nineteenth-century Russia. Lucid, accessible and immensely readable, it is a formidable achievement.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Contents
An introduction to the series
Note on referencing system
Note on dates, transliteration and use of Russian terms
Foreword
Map: Nineteenth-century Russia
PART ONE: THE HISTORICAL SETTING
1. THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE
Autocracy
Nobility and service
Serfdom and social backwardness
2. CULTURAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE
Westernization
The intelligentsia
PART TWO: PHASES OF OPPOSITION
3. THE AGE OF ALEXANDER I (1801-25)
The 'fine beginning of Alexander's days'
The Decembrist Revolt
4. THE AGE OF NICHOLAS I (1825-55)
Russian culture in the age of Nicholas
Chaadaev's 'Philosophical Letter'
Slavophilism
Liberal Westernizers
Belinsky
Herzen
The Petrashevtsy
5. INTELLECTUAL REVOLT (1855-c. 1868)
The effects and aftermath of the Crimean War
Conservative nationalist thought in the 1850s and 1860s
Russian liberalism after the Crimean War
Radical thought: Chernyshevsky
Radical thought: Dobroliubov, Pisarev and the arts
Seditious literature and revolutionary groups in the 1860s
6. THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT IN THE 1870s
Radical literature and thought, 1868-73
Lavrov
Bakunin
Tkachov
The 'going to the people'
Land and Liberty
The People's Will, 1879-81
7. OPPOSITION AFTER 1881
Tolstoy
Plekhanov and the 'Emancipation of Labour' Group
Revolutionary groups in the 1880s
Political movements in the 1890s
PART THREE: ASSESSMENT
PART FOUR: DOCUMENTS
Bibliography
Index