Feliks Volkhovskii: A Revolutionary Life - cover image

Copyright

Michael Hughes

Published On

2024-06-28

ISBN

Paperback978-1-80511-194-8
Hardback978-1-80511-195-5
PDF978-1-80511-196-2
HTML978-1-80511-199-3
EPUB978-1-80511-197-9

Language

  • English

Print Length

354 pages (xiv+340)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 19 x 234 mm(6.14" x 0.75" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 21 x 234 mm(6.14" x 0.83" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback501g (17.67oz)
Hardback673g (23.74oz)

OCLC Number

1443867933

THEMA

  • NHQ
  • DNB
  • DS
  • JPS

BIC

  • HBJD
  • BGL
  • DSB
  • JP

BISAC

  • HIS032000
  • BIO000000
  • LIT000000
  • POL011000
  • HIS037040

Keywords

  • Feliks Volkhovskii (1846-1914)
  • Russian revolutionary movement
  • Siberian exile
  • Socialist Revolutionary Party
  • Russian émigrés in England
  • Imperial Russia

Feliks Volkhovskii

A Revolutionary Life

Feliks Volkhovskii (1846-1914) was a significant figure in the Russian revolutionary movement of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He lived through pivotal changes ranging from the rise of ‘nihilism’ in the 1860s and the growth of populism in the 1870s, through to the creation of the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the early 1900s. Imprisoned three times before he turned thirty, he spent ten years in Siberian exile before fleeing abroad to join the fight against tsarist autocracy from western Europe.

Following Volkhovskii’s arrival in Britain in 1890, he played a central role in the campaign to win sympathy for the Russian revolutionary movement, editing newspapers and journals including Free Russia. He also helped to smuggle propaganda into Russia as well as becoming one of the most prominent figures in the émigré leadership of the Socialist Revolutionaries. Throughout his life, Volkhovskii was also a prolific writer of poetry and short stories, and was on good terms with many leading literary figures of the time including Ford Maddox Ford and Edward and Constance Garnett.

Michael Hughes’s groundbreaking new biography provides a vivid history of this notable but hitherto neglected figure of both the political and literary worlds. Based on ten years of research in archives across the world and drawing on sources in multiple languages, this masterful biography explores how Volkhovskii’s life illuminates broader intellectual and historical questions about the Russian revolutionary movement. It is essential reading for anyone interested in late Imperial Russia and the Russian revolution.

Endorsements

Having scoured archives across Europe and North America, Michael Hughes recreates the life and thought of a fascinating Socialist Revolutionary with all his customary verve and insight.

Prof Simon Dixon

Sir Bernard Pares Professor of Russian History, UCL

Contents

1. Introduction

(pp. 1–16)
  • Michael Hughes
  • Michael Hughes
  • Michael Hughes

4. Selling Revolution

(pp. 105–148)
  • Michael Hughes

5. Spies and Trials

(pp. 149–190)
  • Michael Hughes
  • Michael Hughes

7. Final Years

(pp. 231–274)
  • Michael Hughes

8. Conclusion

(pp. 275–290)
  • Michael Hughes

Contributors

Michael Hughes

(author)

Michael Hughes is Professor of Modern History at the University of Lancaster (where he has served in a number of senior management positions). He has published six monographs along with several edited and ‘popular’ books, as well as some sixty scholarly articles and chapters. He has been a Council Member and Treasurer of the Royal Historical Society and was on the History Sub-Panel for the UK Government’s recent Research Excellence Framework.