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Young Russia: Rebellion, Revolution or -- Insanity. The Birth of the Revolutionary Movement. Revolutionary movements and terrorist organizations born in the wake of the liberalization of despotic regimes
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The Birth of the Revolutionary Movement • Revolutionary movements and terrorist organizations born in the wake of the liberalization of despotic regimes • Emancipation spawned peasant uprisings and student unrest: brutal repression of Polish nationalist uprising in 1863 • Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Nikolai Dobroliubov, Dmitrii Pisarev were the spokesmen and leading ideologues of young radicals
The “Invention of Terrorism” • Russians such as Vissarion Belinsky looked to Terror of 1793 as model for revolutionary terror • Two types of terror: state and individual (insurgent) • Two subtypes: targeted and random
“Unheard of” -- Dmitrii Karakozov, attempted tsaricide • Ishuntin circle -- group of Moscow studentry led by Nikolai Ishutin, attempt to put Chernyshevsky’s vision into practice • Conspiratorial group “Ad” (Hell) did or did not exist to plan revolution and tsaricide • Karakozov attempted to shoot tsar April 4, 1866: “White Terror” follows
the Indeterminacy of faction and fiction • Did Karakozov act alone, or as part of group “Ad” or larger, conspiratorial network, as arch conservative publisher Katkov claimed? • Did “Ad” or conspiratorial network even exist? • Was Karakozov genuinely physically and psychically ill, or were the maladies imaginary?
Questions for Discussion • Based on the evidence which Verhoeven presents, was Karakozov insane and thus not responsible for his crime, or was he sane and responsible? • What does Verhoeven believe the connection between Karakozov’s purported illness and his act to be? Who or what does she hold responsible?
Michel Foucault’s “Great Confinement” • When and where did the “great confinement” occur, and why does Foucault use the adjective “great?” • To what major cultural shifts and socio-economic conditions does Foucault attribute the “great confinement?”
Ward No. 6: A Typical Ward? • How does Chekhov’s Ward No. 6 reflect the realities of the psychiatric profession in Imperial Russia as described by Julie Vail Brown? • How is Ward No. 6 Chekhov’s resounding answer to Notes from the Underground?