Mikhail Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (; 1814–1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist, socialist and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major founder of the revolutionary ...

's ''Confession'' is an 1851

autobiographical An autobiography, sometimes informally called an autobio, is a self-written account of one's own life. It is a form of biography. Definition The word "autobiography" was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English p ...

work written by the imprisoned anarchist for clemency from

Russian Emperor The emperor or empress of all the Russias or All Russia, ''Imperator Vserossiyskiy'', ''Imperatritsa Vserossiyskaya'' (often titled Tsar or Tsarina/Tsaritsa) was the monarch of the Russian Empire. The title originated in connection with Russia' ...

Nicholas I.

Background and contents

(1814–1876) was the leading anarchist revolutionary of the 19th century, active from the 1840s through the 1870s. In the 1840s, he moved from philosophical studies to revolutionary agitation. After participating in the 1848 Prague and 1849 Dresden uprisings, he was imprisoned, tried, sentenced to death, and extradited multiple times. Placed in

solitary confinement Solitary confinement is a form of imprisonment in which the inmate lives in a single cell with little or no meaningful contact with other people. A prison may enforce stricter measures to control contraband on a solitary prisoner and use addit ...

in the

Peter and Paul Fortress The Peter and Paul Fortress is the original citadel of St. Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built to Domenico Trezzini's designs from 1706 to 1740 as a star fortress. Between the first half of the 1700s and early 1920 ...

of St. Petersberg, Russia, in 1851, Bakunin wrote his ''Confession'' at the direction of

Nicholas I. The ''Confession'' accounts for Bakunin's political activities throughout the 1840s, from his original departure from Russia to Berlin in 1840 through his arrest in 1849. The work is neither a capitulation nor an act of defiance, but a combination. Bakunin told

Alexander Herzen Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (russian: Алекса́ндр Ива́нович Ге́рцен, translit=Alexándr Ivánovich Gértsen; ) was a Russian writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism" and one of the main fathers of agra ...

it was a combination of fancy and truth.

Publication

Nicholas I read the ''Confession'' carefully, marking the text with marginalia and sharing it with his son, the

tsarevitch Tsesarevich (russian: Цесаревич, ) was the title of the heir apparent or presumptive in the Russian Empire. It either preceded or replaced the given name and patronymic. Usage It is often confused with " tsarevich", which is a di ...

, Alexander II as "very interesting and instructive". The work was held but not forgotten in the political police's archives for seventy years. The government later circulated extracts from the ''Confession'' to embarrass and discredit Bakunin. Its full publication in 1921 was controversial, as some read Bakunin as genuflecting for clemency while others defended his criticism of Russian bureaucracy and silence about co-conspirators. Originally written in Russian, the ''Confession'' has since been published in Czech, French, German, Italian, and Polish, and only received its first English-language publication in its 1977 translation by Robert C. Howes, published by

Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in ...

along with the emperor's annotations.

Legacy

Historian of anarchism

Paul Avrich Paul Avrich (August 4, 1931 – February 16, 2006) was a historian of the 19th and early 20th century anarchist movement in Russia and the United States. He taught at Queens College, City University of New York, for his entire career, from 1961 ...

wrote of the importance of Bakunin's ''Confession'' as both a psychological and historial document, showing the roots of Bakunin's pan-Slavicism, antipathy for parliamentry government, plans for a revolutionary society, and mental state as a prisoner. Avrich said the ''Confession'' is among Bakunin's most interesting writings highlighting both his personality and an insider's account of the revolutionary 1840s. Avrich added that the author's tone of contrition was a "necessary expedient if he was ever to regain his freedom".

Max Nettlau Max Heinrich Hermann Reinhardt Nettlau (; 30 April 1865 – 23 July 1944) was a German anarchist and historian. Although born in Neuwaldegg (today part of Vienna) and raised in Vienna, he lived there until the anschluss to Nazi Germany in 193 ...

and

Vera Figner Vera Nikolayevna Figner Filippova (Russian: Ве́ра Никола́евна Фи́гнер Фили́ппова; 7 July O.S. 25 June">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 25 June1852 – 25 J ...

both wrote responses to the ''Confession''.

References

Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * https://books.google.com/books?id=2ob3KKRKt7wC&pg=PA236

External links

* {{Portal bar, Anarchism, Books, Europe, Russia 1851 works Autobiographies Russian-language books