Northumbria Research Link Citation: Green, Lara (2019) Russian Revolutionary Terrorism in Transnational Perspective: Representations and Networks, 1881-1926. Doctoral thesis, Northumbria University. This version was downloaded from Northumbria Research Link: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/id/eprint/39783/ Northumbria University has developed Northumbria Research Link (NRL) to enable users to access the University’s research output. Copyright © and moral rights for items on NRL are retained by the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. Single copies of full items can be reproduced, displayed or performed, and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided the authors, title and full bibliographic details are given, as well as a hyperlink and/or URL to the original metadata page. The content must not be changed in any way. Full items must not be sold commercially in any format or medium without formal permission of the copyright holder. The full policy is available online: http://nrl.northumbria.ac.uk/policies.html Cover Page Russian Revolutionary Terrorism in Transnational Perspective: Representations and Networks, 1881-1926 L Green PhD 2019 Title Page Russian Revolutionary Terrorism in Transnational Perspective: Representations and Networks, 1881-1926 Lara Green A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Northumbria at Newcastle for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Research undertaken in the Faculty of Arts, Design, and Social Sciences April 2019 Abstract Russian revolutionary terrorism was a transnational phenomenon in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This thesis explores how representations of terrorism were influenced by co-operation with foreign sympathisers and how transnational networks enabled Russian revolutionary émigrés to publish pro-terrorist materials. Due to restrictions on publishing activities in Russia and repression carried out by the tsarist secret police, many revolutionaries relocated their publishing operations abroad and founded new publications there. This thesis builds on the rich body of scholarship concerning Russian revolutionary émigrés, drawing out new transnational connections and tracing the networks of publishing activities. This thesis uses new source bases to investigate these representations and networks in transnational perspective. Combining archival collections, it reassesses the political activism of members of the Russian Free Press Fund (RFPF) in this context. It examines how revolutionary terrorists represented terrorists of other nationalities in their writings through a case study using Russian and Irish revolutionary sources. It uses British government documents to explore this issue further. It surveys mainstream media representations of Russian revolutionary terrorism. It examines fiction about Russian revolutionary terrorism as published in English or in English translation, offering new interpretations of the meanings and reception of these works. Russian revolutionary émigrés preserved and perpetuated representations of terrorism from nineteenth-century Russian revolutionary culture by producing literature in emigration depicting terrorists as ethical actors and framing terrorism as liberation from tsarist despotism. In order to appeal to foreign sympathisers, they framed these representations in terms of the rule of law and humanitarian projects and denied the legitimacy of other foreign terrorisms, particularly Irish revolutionary terrorism. Their narratives of Russian revolutionary terrorism often contrasted with hostile representations in the international press, but through their active publishing and propaganda work they were able to establish powerful counter-narratives. The RFPF’s activities in this respect formed the basis of later publishing for Russian audiences in collaboration with the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. Aligning with the themes and representations in their work, fiction by Russians about revolutionary terrorism produced responses which echoed in the early years of the twentieth century and, indeed, across the revolutionary divide. Contents Abbreviations 1 Organisations 1 Archives 1 Journals 2 Note on Transliteration 2 Note on Dates 2 Introduction 3 i Terrorism and the Russian Revolutionary Movement 4 ii The Russian Revolutionary Emigration as a Transnational Phenomenon 14 iii Historiography, Theory, and Russian Revolutionary Terrorism 23 iv The Russian Free Press Fund and its Members 29 iv.i Sergei Stepniak-Kravchinskii (1851-1895) 32 iv.ii Feliks Volkhovskii (1846-1914) 34 iv.iii Lazar Goldenberg (1846-1916) 35 iv.iv Egor Lazarev (1855-1937) 36 iv.v Leonid Shishko (1852-1910) 37 iv.vi Nikolai Chaikovskii (1850-1926) 38 iv.vii Associates of the RFPF in Britain: Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) and Vladimir Burtsev (1862-1942) 39 v Source Material 40 vi Thesis Structure 42 Chapter One: Free Russia and Transnational Terrorist Propaganda Networks, 1890- 1915 44 1.1 Introduction 44 1.2 Building on pre-existing foundations 46 1.3 The Limits and Scope of Transnational Co-operation 65 1.4 Free Russia and Ethical Terrorism 73 1.5 Free Russia and SFRF after 1900 78 1.6 Revival of the SAFRF 80 1.7 Conclusion 82 Chapter Two: Russian and Irish Revolutionary Terrorists in the 1880s 83 2.1 Introduction 83 2.2 Evidence for Co-operation? 88 2.3 ‘Professor Mezzeroff’ 97 2.4 Representing the Other 102 2.5 Conclusion 112 Chapter Three: The Transnational Terrorist Publishing Work of Feliks Volkhovskii and Vladimir Burtsev, 1900-1914 114 3.1 Introduction 114 3.2 Volkhovskii, Burtsev, and the Periodical Legacy of the RFPF 116 3.3 Representing and Remembering Terrorism 125 3.3.1 Historical Consciousness 127 3.3.2 Tyrannicide and Revolutionary Justice 131 3.3.3 Real and Ideal Terrorists 137 3.4 Representing and Negotiating with the PSR 139 3.5 Conclusion 147 Chapter Four: Peter Kropotkin: The Terrorist Who was Not 149 4.1 Introduction 149 4.2 Becoming the ‘Nihilist Prince’ 153 4.3 Kropotkin’s Voice and Terrorism 162 4.4 Kropotkin and the Russian Free Press Fund 168 4.5 Memoirs of a Revolutionist 170 4.6 Sofia Kropotkina 174 4.7 Kropotkin and the Parliamentary Russian Committee 175 4.8 War, Revolution, and Death 177 4.9 Conclusion 180 Chapter Five: Sergei Stepniak, Boris Savinkov, and Leonid Andreev and their English-speaking audiences, 1882-1926 181 5.1 Introduction 181 5.2 Sergei Stepniak 185 5.3 Boris Savinkov 185 5.4 Leonid Andreev 221 5.5 Conclusion 234 Conclusion 236 Bibliography 243 Archival Collections 243 Digital and Microfilm Collections 244 Newspapers and Periodicals 244 Articles, Books, Dissertations, and Reference Works 245 Acknowledgements I owe a great deal to many people who have helped me on the way to completing this thesis. I would like to thank my principal supervisor, Professor Charlotte Alston, for her guidance and encouragement throughout this long process. I am also grateful for the advice of Dr Colin Reid and Dr Laura O’Brien, who both pushed me to develop this work in new directions. I would also like to add my thanks to the examiners, Professor Michael Hughes and Dr Daniel Laqua, for their generous advice and comments on my research. I would like to express my sincerest gratitude for the generous funding I have received that made it possible for me to pursue this research. Northumbria University provided a studentship and grants for research travel and conference attendance. Funding from the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies gave me the opportunity to spend two months at the archives in Moscow. With funding from the Economic History Society and Society for the Study of Labour History, I was able to visit the Hoover Institution and the Houghton Library in the US. I would also like to thank the Royal Historical Society, whose support enabled me to attend the BASEES Annual Conference in Cambridge in April 2018. I feel incredibly lucky to have been a part of an active postgraduate research community at Northumbria and in the North East. Thank you for your friendship and encouragement, particularly during the tough times. My final thanks go to my parents, without whose encouragement and support I would never have set out on this journey, and to Matthew, who has been there every step of the way. Declaration I declare that the work contained in this thesis has not been submitted for any other award and that it is all my own work. I also confirm that this work fully acknowledges opinions, ideas, and contributions from others. Any ethical clearance for the research presented in this thesis has been approved. Approval has been sought and granted by the Faculty Ethics Review Panel on 16 October 2015. I declare that the word count of this thesis is 85,221 words. Name: Lara Green Signature: Date: Abbreviations Organisations ASL Agrarno-Sotsialisticheskaia Liga (Agrarian-Socialist League) BO Boevaia organizatsiia partii Sotsialistov-Revoliutsionerov (Combat Organisation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party) IAPA International Arbitration and Peace Association IPP Irish Parliamentary Party PSR Partiia Sotsialistov-Revoliutsionerov (Socialist-Revolutionary Party) RANL Russian-American National League RFPF Russian Free Press Fund (Fond volnoi russkoi pressy) RSDRP Rossiyskaia sotsial-demokraticheskaia rabochaia partiia (Russian Social Democratic Labour Party) RTAS Russian Treaty Abrogation Society SAFRF Society of American Friends of Russian Freedom SEHS