Hello!
I'm writing a paper on politically motivated violence and crime in Russia leading up to the October revolution. I want to ask if somebody here has some good literature tips on the topic.
On a somewhat similar theme I found that personal writings and diaries of revolutionaries were a great source. Does somebody know of translated diaries etc. of Russian revolutionaries?
Thanks in advance!
You might be interested in reading Sergei Stepniak-Kravchinskii's Underground Russia. Kravchinskii was a Russian revolutionary who assassinated the head of the secret police at the end of the 1870s.
This isn't an area I'm an expert in and I don't know of any other translated diaries, etc - but I can recommend some secondary material on political violence. Susan Morrissey has published this pretty good article in the Journal of Modern history on the moral economy of terrorism in Late Imperial Russia. (I believe that she's been working on a monograph on this topic as well, although I don't think it's published yet; she's also previously written on the student movement in Late Imperial Russia, a work which may or may not be useful for you). You might want to read the books Just Assassins: The Culture of Terrorism in Russia and Thou Shalt Kill: Revolutionary Terrorism in Russia. Joan Neuberger has also published a book on hooliganism in St Petersburg, 1900-14, which you may also find relevant - it's been a while since I last read it but some of the behaviour she discusses was politicised by the regime, so you might find it useful.