Ambivalent Reflections— Obshchestvo in the Time of Terrorism

Abstract

Iuliia Safronova, Russkoe vzerkale revoliutsionnogo terrora, 1879-1881 gody (Russian Society in Mirror of Revolutionary Terrorism, 1879-1881). 361 pp. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2014. ISBN-13 978-5444801413. The Russian and Western historiography on Russian revolutionary terrorism has taken a largely unified approach to its subject. Terrorism is a political problem, a challenge posed by revolutionaries to autocracy and by nonstate actors to state sovereignty; for this reason, relationship between state and revolutionaries has taken center stage in literature. Iuliia Safronova's new study Russskoe v zerkale revoliutsionnogo terrora, 1879-1881 gody takes a refreshingly different approach: revolutionary terrorism was a serious ordeal (ser 'eznoe ispytanie) impelled Russian to come to know (poznavat') itself (351). (1) As her title suggests, Safronova turns looking glass so object reflected in mirror is not--or not primarily--revolutionary terrorism, but Russian (obshchestvo) in turbulent years of 1879-81. This is unquestionably a clever conceit, and Safronova is well aware object of inquiry is twofold: Russian and revolutionary terrorism, each in fact reflecting other. In her introduction, Safronova wrangles with these two central and almost equally problematic terms, drawing deftly on Russian and Western scholarship. Obshchestvo has a particular valuation in Russian it does not in English, perhaps because its very existence, as Safronova observes, has been cast so often in doubt. Can as it developed and exists in West be said to exist in Russia, or does term denote something qualitatively different or even simply a mirage? From her musings on Russian and related term obshchestvennost' Safronova concludes that it is possible to come to one conclusion: one can not say anything definite, neither from social nor political point of view, except for fact all same existed and manifested itself through some kind of action (19). Considering thoroughness of her literature review, this is something of an evasion, and it would have been helpful for Safronova to simply state what reader ultimately infers from her exposition. Obshchestvo refers to those actively engaged citizens with varying degrees of education who identified themselves as part of a larger entity called obshchestvo. This includes anyone who articulated their opinion about public affairs, from government ministers to journalists to tradespeople to writers such as Fedor Dostoevskii, but largely excludes those without access to education and a self-conception of citizen, such as women and peasants. In spite or because of society's elusiveness, Safronova reaffirms the of this book is obshchestvo (9, 19), borrowing from her sources trope of as a unitary subject and personified agent. The adoption of this trope and conceit of society as introduce some conceptual static into Safronovas project. As in Russian, so in English, word geroi (hero) has two meanings: of protagonist as a morally neutral term for central figure of a narrative, and hero in classical sense of an individual who performs deeds worthy of admiration and emulation. In context of Russian revolutionary terrorism, word geroi automatically invokes heroic narrative, or mythology, in which terrorist is or heromartyr (podvizhnik). From its inception, terrorism generated this heroic narrative, not only among its supporters in revolutionary underground but among international observers and subsequently even among historians of revolutionary movement. (2) Uninitiated readers may simply assume Safronova means protagonist, but other readers (like this one) will wonder if Safronova is intentionally invoking this narrative with object of advancing her candidate and with it a different model of heroism, in venerable Russian tradition of backing an unlikely against a more conventional contender (e. …