The Lonely Emigre: Petr Tkachev and the Russian Colony in Switzerland

Abstract

For most of his sojourn in Switzerland in the mid-1870s Petr Nikitich Tkachev remained isolated from the Russian emigre colonists living in Zurich and Geneva. Squabble though they might-and Tkachev arrived in Switzerland in the midst of the impassioned disputes between Bakuninists and Lavrovists-the Russian radical emigres did draw together, and it is valid to speak of the colonies they formed in Western Europe. In Switzerland as in England and France, they strove to keep in touch with each other and maintain their identity in the foreign crowd.' They published radical journals by the dozen, grouping and regrouping around new and usually unenduring editorial banners; that these journals were always published in their native tongue indicates the emigres' intentions to propagandize in their own milieu (or occasionally the homeland) and their strivings to convince not foreigners but each other of the validity of their cause. Russians in Switzerland set up lending libraries to share their supply of Russian-language books and established bookstores specializing in materials published in their native tongue-at least one of these, the shop in Geneva owned by E. L. Elpidin, gained a special reputation as distribution point for