Derek Offord is Professor of History and Head of the Department of Russian Studies at the University of Bristol.

This concise and accessible introduction to Russia in the nineteenth century, focuses particularly on the rise of radicalism. Derek Offord examines all the major schools of thought and looks in detail at the great thinkers and writers of the day, including Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Bakunin and Tolstoy. Also examined and set in context are the great 'events' in the history of Russian radicalism, from the Decembrist Revolt to the 'going to the people' in 1874.

An introduction to the series Vll
Note on referencing system Vlll
Note on dates, transliteration and use of Russian terms IX
Foreword XI
Map: Nineteenth-century Russia Xlll
PART ONE: THE HISTORICAL SETTING 1
1. THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL STRUCTURE 1
Autocracy 1
Nobility and service 2
Serfdom and social backwardness 3
2. CULTURAL AND INTELLECTUAL LIFE 7
Westernization 7
The intelligentsia 9
PART TWO: PHASES OF OPPOSITION 12
3. THE AGE OF ALEXANDER I (1801-25) 12
The 'fine beginning of Alexander's days' 12
The Decembrist Revolt 13
4. THE AGE OF NICHOLAS I (1825-55) 20
Russian culture in the age of Nicholas 20
Chaadaev's 'Philosophical Letter' 23
Slavophilism 25
Liberal Westernizers 29
Belinsky 33
Herzen 37
The Petrashevtsy 41
VI Contents
5. INTELLECTUAL REVOLT (1855-c. 1868) 44
The effects and aftermath of the Crimean War 44
Conservative nationalist thought in the 1850s and 1860s 48
Russian liberalism after the Crimean War 50
Radical thought: Chernyshevsky 55
Radical thought: Dobroliubov, Pisarev and the arts 59
Seditious literature and revolutionary groups in the 1860s 62
6. THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT IN THE 1870s 66
Radical literature and thought, 1868-73 66
Lavrov 68
Bakunin 70
Tkachov 72
The 'going to the people' 75
Land and Liberty 78
The People's Will, 1879-81 81
7. OPPOSITION AFTER 1881 85
Tolstoy 85
Plekhanov and the 'Emancipation of Labour' Group 88
Revolutionary groups in the 1880s 92
Political movements in the 1890s 97
PART THREE: ASSESSMENT 102
PART FOUR: DOCUMENTS 106
Bibliography 126
Index