The Year 1905 on the Periphery of the Russian Empire: Between Experience and Memory

Abstract

This article has two dimensions: on one hand, it is part of the discipline of labour history, as in the text I highlight the experience of modernisation among workers in the Northwest Region of the Russian Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the 1905 revolution, one of the most important political events of that time, as far as this can be discerned in autobiographical writings. But because the majority of the sources I use which allow us to talk about the experiences and reflections of the working class in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were written and collected in a completely different, Soviet epoch, the second direction of my research is integrally connected to the theme of memory in the processes of the formation and memories of social movements of the working class, it is also about the policy of Soviet history and the role of history in the creation of a class identity. I admit that these are very different themes; however, separating these research directions does not appear to be productive, while the decision to select one specific theme without mentioning the other would be unfair in terms of the body of primary sources and its problematic integrity.