TERRORISM IN THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE: LESSONS OF HISTORY FOR TODAY’S WAR ON TERRORISM Part I: posing the questions for studying terror-ism in Russia

Abstract

This article is the first in a proposed series of articles in English about different aspects of the causes, development, and consequences of political terrorism in the post-reform Russian Empire. The challenges of studying the history of terrorism in Russia are examined in this article. In many ways, Russia was the birthplace of mass political terrorism in the modern world. In the course of 50 years between 1866 and 1916, terrorists, mostly from leftist organizations, committed thousands of terrorist acts against members of the government and society and killed or wounded 17,000 people. The epoch of terrorism in Russia corresponds to the European «epoch of dynamite» before the First World War, when several individuals, mostly anarchists, killed several dozen people, mostly monarchs, presidents and other state figures. Through a comparative analysis of the history of terrorism in Russia and Europe, one can speak about a unique path of the development of terrorism in the Russian Empire. Despite the abundance of primary sources and academic literature on this topic, the fact remains that in the study of terrorism in Russia, many aspects of this prerevolutionary phenomenon even today are still controversial and painful. In both Russian and foreign historiography, from the beginning of terrorism to the present, there are both positive and negative stereotypes about the terrorists, their supporters and opponents along with significant elements of myth making, distortion of facts, and huge blank spots. The topic also has a huge contemporary relevance. Despite the assertion of today’s mass media and politicians, terrorism and government wars against terrorism did not begin with the terrorist attacks committed on September 11, 2011 in the United States. Many tendencies in terrorism and government wars against terrorism first emerged in prerevolutionary Russia.