Circle Of Tchaikovsky
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The Circle of Tchaikovsky, also known as Tchaikovtsy/Chaikovtsy/Tcaycoffsky (), or the Grand Propaganda Society (, ''Bolshoye obshchestvo propagandy'') was a Russian
literary society A literary society is a group of people interested in literature. In the modern sense, this refers to a society that wants to promote one genre of writing or a specific author. Modern literary societies typically promote research, publish newslet ...
for self-education and a
revolutionary A revolutionary is a person who either participates in, or advocates for, a revolution. The term ''revolutionary'' can also be used as an adjective to describe something producing a major and sudden impact on society. Definition The term—bot ...
organization of the
Narodniks The Narodniks were members of a movement of the Russian Empire intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, Narodnism or ,; , similar to the ...
in the early 1870s. It was named after Nikolai Tchaikovsky, one of its prominent members.


Background and origin

The
intelligentsia The intelligentsia is a status class composed of the university-educated people of a society who engage in the complex mental labours by which they critique, shape, and lead in the politics, policies, and culture of their society; as such, the i ...
of mid-nineteenth century
Tsarist Tsarist autocracy (), also called Tsarism, was an autocracy, a form of absolute monarchy in the Grand Duchy of Moscow and its successor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire. In it, the Tsar possessed in principle authority and ...
Russia were dissatisfied with what they saw as social stagnation of the nation and had begun to demand reform. Their attitude was called "
nihilist Nihilism () encompasses various views that reject certain aspects of existence. There have been different nihilist positions, including the views that life is meaningless, that moral values are baseless, and that knowledge is impossible. Thes ...
" by
Ivan Turgenev Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev ( ; rus, links=no, Иван Сергеевич ТургеневIn Turgenev's day, his name was written ., p=ɪˈvan sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ tʊrˈɡʲenʲɪf; – ) was a Russian novelist, short story writer, poe ...
, explained by a character in his novel Fathers and Sons thus: "A nihilist is a man who does not bow down before any authority, who does not take any principle on faith, whatever reverence that principle may be enshrined in." The peak of this social activism gave rise to a number of secret organisations, among them Land and Liberty, People's Revenge, and the Circle of Tchaikovsky. The Circle was founded in
St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...
during student unrest in 1868-1869 as a group opposed to what they saw as the reckless violence of
Sergey Nechayev Sergey Gennadiyevich Nechayev (; – ) was a Russian anarcho-communist, part of the Russian nihilist movement, known for his single-minded pursuit of revolution by any means necessary, including revolutionary terror. Nechayev fled Russia in 18 ...
. A literary society for self-education within the Medical Surgical Academy was the heart of the organization, the initial purpose of which was to share books and knowledge that had been banned in the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...
. It included students Mark Natanson, V. M. Aleksandrov, and Anatoly Serdyukov, who were joined by Nikolai Tchaikovsky and Feofan Lermontov. Besides self-education, the circle's main tasks were to unite students of Petersburg and other cities, and conduct
propaganda Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...
among workers and
peasant A peasant is a pre-industrial agricultural laborer or a farmer with limited land-ownership, especially one living in the Middle Ages under feudalism and paying rent, tax, fees, or services to a landlord. In Europe, three classes of peasan ...
s with the purpose of fomenting a
social revolution Social revolutions are sudden changes in the structure and nature of society. These revolutions are usually recognized as having transformed society, economy, culture, philosophy, and technology along with but more than just the political system ...
. The Tchaikovsky set higher moral standards for their members in the face of Nechayev's unscrupulousness. They had a negative attitude towards struggle for
political freedom Political freedom (also known as political autonomy or political agency) is a central concept in history and political thought and one of the most important features of democratic societies.Hannah Arendt, "What is Freedom?", ''Between Past and ...
s, which, in their view, were only advantageous to the arising Russian
bourgeoisie The bourgeoisie ( , ) are a class of business owners, merchants and wealthy people, in general, which emerged in the Late Middle Ages, originally as a "middle class" between the peasantry and aristocracy. They are traditionally contrasted wi ...
. These principles were formulated in the (''Program for the circles of self-education and practical activity''), put together by the Tchaikovtsy in late 1870 – early 1871.


Activities

One of the first tasks of the Tchaikovtsy was to organize the printing, publishing, and distribution of scientific and revolutionary literature with the help of publishers Nikolai Polyakov, Kozma Soldatyonkov, and others. These literary works included the first volume of ''
Das Kapital ''Capital: A Critique of Political Economy'' (), also known as ''Capital'' or (), is the most significant work by Karl Marx and the cornerstone of Marxian economics, published in three volumes in 1867, 1885, and 1894. The culmination of his ...
'' by
Karl Marx Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
, and books by others including
Nikolai Chernyshevsky Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky ( – ) was a Russian literary and social critic, journalist, novelist, democrat, and socialist philosopher, often identified as a utopian socialist and leading theoretician of Russian nihilism and the N ...
, Nikolai Dobrolyubov,
Alexander Herzen Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (; ) was a Russian writer and thinker known as the precursor of Russian socialism and one of the main precursors of agrarian populism (being an ideological ancestor of the Narodniki, Socialist-Revolutionaries, Trudo ...
, Pyotr Lavrov, Vasili Bervi,
Ferdinand Lassalle Ferdinand Johann Gottlieb Lassalle (born Lassal; 11 April 1825 – 31 August 1864) was a German jurist, philosopher, socialist, and political activist. Remembered as an initiator of the German labour movement, he developed the theory of state s ...
,
Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
, and
John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism and social liberalism, he contributed widely to s ...
. In the summer of 1871, the circle of Natanson merged with a female self-education circle of Alexandra Kornilova and Sophia Perovskaya. Soon, they were joined by
Peter Kropotkin Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist and geographer known as a proponent of anarchist communism. Born into an aristocratic land-owning family, Kropotkin attended the Page Corps and later s ...
, Sergei Stepnyak-Kravchinsky, Dmitry Klements, Sergei Sinegub, Nikolai Charushin, Leonid Shishko, and others. The central Petersburg circle comprised around 60 people. Circles in
Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...
( Nikolai Alexandrovich Morozov, Lev Tikhomirov, Mikhail Frolenko),
Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...
( Felix Volkhovsky, Andrei Zhelyabov),
Kiev Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...
( Yakov Stefanovich, Pavel Axelrod) and other cities sided with the Petersburg cell on a federal basis. Altogether, the Tchaikovtsy numbered around 100 participants. In 1872, the Tchaikovtsy began organizing circles of workers with the purpose of training propagandists for work in the countryside. These activities were most successful in Petersburg and Odessa, where the circles comprised around 400 workers. Some of these workers—including Viktor Obnorsky and Feodor Kravchenko—would later become the founders of the first
proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist philo ...
organizations such as the Worker's Union of Southern Russia (Южнороссийский союз рабочих) and Northern Union of the Russian Workers (Северный союз русских рабочих). The results of this propaganda work were summarized in a report by Peter Kropotkin, which would be discussed in the Petersburg circle of the Tchaikovtsy in late 1873. The final stage of activities of the Tchaikovtsy included the
Going to the People Going to the People was a Populism, populist movement in the Russian Empire. It was largely inspired by the work of Russian theorists such as Mikhail Bakunin and Pyotr Lavrov, who advocated that groups of dedicated revolutionaries could inspire ...
campaign, bringing revolutionary propaganda and organization directly to the peasants of Russia. In 1873/1874, most members of the circle were arrested and were later prosecuted in the trial of the 193. Tschaikovsky joined a religious-communist group and emigrated to the United States in 1874.


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Footnotes


Bibliography

* * * * * * *{{cite book, last=Yarmolinsky, first=Avrahm, author-link=Avrahm Yarmolinsky, title=Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism, year=2014, orig-year=1956, url=http://ditext.com/yarmolinsky/yarframe.html, location=
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, isbn=978-0691610412, oclc=890439998 1868 establishments in the Russian Empire 1874 disestablishments in the Russian Empire Political parties established in 1868 Political parties disestablished in 1874 History of anarchism Nihilism Political parties in the Russian Empire Anarchism in Russia