Blog - Page 149 of 286 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Mentioned in passing

June 26, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

“Achristoff, the 17-year-old priest’s daughter, who made love to the detective Lavroffski, in order to betray him into the hands of the nihilists…” “Victoria Goukoffski, daughter of a medical dispenser of Odessa, who, on hearing that the Nihilist Kovalsky had been sentenced to death, created a riot…” “the daughter of Major General Herzfeld, who was arrested at Kief…” “Jude Krakoffski, the daughter of a university official at Kieff, whose banishment to Siberia for having destroyed certain compromising papers in 1877, was confirmed only the other day…” (1881) “the lady Levandovski, aged 25, and condemned to 15 years hard labour…” “Anna […]

May Beals-Hoffpauir, “Sketches of Russian Heroines. I. Vera Figner”

June 26, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

Sketches of Russian Heroines. I. Vera Figner BY May Beals-Hoffpauir Twenty-two years, nearly one-third of the expected three score and ten, spent in a black prison cell with no glimpse of passing cloud or starry skies; no message for thirteen of these years from friend or relative; no hope, in all that dreary time, of any change but death—such is the record of nearly one-half of Vera Figner’s life. It is not strange that her recent appearance in London aroused the wild enthusiasm to which she was already accustomed on the continent. Few can survive twenty years in a Russian […]

Joaquin Miller, “Sophia Perovskaya” (1881)

June 26, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

Sophie Perovskaya, LIBERTY’S MARTYRED HEROINE. Hanged April 15, 1881, For Helping to Rid the World of a Tyrant. Down from her high estate she stept, A maiden, gently born And by the icy Volga kept Sad watch, and waited morn; And peasants say that where she slept The new moon dipped her horn. Yet on and on, through shoreless snows Stretched tow’rd the great north pole, The foulest wrong the good God known Rolls as dark rivers roll. While never once for all these woes Upspeaks one human soul. She toiled, […]

George Barlow, “Sophia Perovskaia” (1895)

June 26, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

SOPHIA PEROVSKAIA. Blue-eyed, fair-haired, a girl in outward seeming, With lips, men held, that only cared to sing, When thy foot passed along the meadows dreaming Soft dreams and tender of the gold-haired Spring— When other maidens dreamed with longing wonder Of love, thou crowned with Spring’s most loving light Beneath blue skies wast dreaming of the thunder, Beneath the morn wast dreaming of the night . High-born, thou didst forsake the lordly places; Thy young heart thrilled at Freedom’s trumpet-call: Thou wanderedst forth, a light for poor men’s faces; Love, wealth, repose,—thou didst surrender all. And has not yet […]

Strategies of Presentation

June 25, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

[two_third padding=”0 0px 0 0px”] Beneath all the (hopefully useful) chatter, the strategy of interpretation I’m pursuing has three main elaments: To treat the body of Bakunin’s works as rich and relatively coherent, suffering much more from various kinds of incompleteness than from inconsistency; To remind ourselves of the long periods during which we, particularly in the English-speaking world, have not always adhered to that kind of strategy; and To look to Bakunin’s own texts for inspiration when trying to solve the problems posed by their notoriously untidy state. So what are the consequences of those strategic commitments, when it […]

Available now!

June 24, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Anarchy and the Sex Question: Essays on Women and Emancipation, 1896-1917 By Emma Goldman Edited by Shawn P. Wilbur Available from PM Press, August 1, 2016 Emma Goldman (1869 – 1940) remains one of the best known figures of the political tradition known as anarchism, and with good reason, as few writers have so convincingly explained the evils of authority in government. But Goldman’s anarchism extended beyond the political realm, and arguably found its most essential expressions in her writings on matters more directly connected to everyday life. For Goldman, anarchism was not just an ideology, but a living force […]

Available now!

June 24, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur

Anarchy and the Sex Question: Essays on Women and Emancipation, 1896-1917 By Emma Goldman Edited by Shawn P. Wilbur Available from PM Press, August 1, 2016 Emma Goldman (1869 – 1940) remains one of the best known figures of the political tradition known as anarchism, and with good reason, as few writers have so convincingly explained the evils of authority in government. But Goldman’s anarchism extended beyond the political realm, and arguably found its most essential expressions in her writings on matters more directly connected to everyday life. For Goldman, anarchism was not just an ideology, but a living force […]

“Extraordinary escape of a young Nihilist girl…” (1879)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

THE Moscow journals relate an extraordinary escape of a young Nihilist girl named Gobieslawska from the hands of the police. They had discovered the house in which she was concealed, and were about to make the arrest, when, to their surprise, they saw a balloon rising from the garden containing the object of their search and two men. The balloon rapidly disappeared. Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (September 13, 1879): 23. Up in a Balloon.— A novel mode of escape was recently practiced by a Nihilist. A young woman named Olga Gobieslawska had been wanted for a long time by the […]

Tragedy In San Francisco (1893)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

Tragedy In San Francisco.—A shocking accident is reported from San Francisco during the performance of a charade representing a Nihilist plot, which was being given at the residence of Mrs. M’Coy, whose son, Mr. Albert M’Coy, appeared in the role of a Russian officer. Miss Grace King, who took the part of a Nihilist girl, and had to assassinate the officer, had been suffering from a sprained ankle. She had used a crutch, which, however, she laid aside previous to the charade. At the moment she was making a dagger-thrust her ankle failed, and she fell against M’Coy, the weapon […]

Plot of a Beautiful Nihilist (Sophie Gunsberg, 1891)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

PLOT OF A BEAUTIFUL NIHILIST ______ To Make Her Lovers Kill the Czar—Her Failure and Trial—The Official’s Side of a Story Hitherto Told Differently. No authentic account has yet been given of the late political trial—or rather condemnation—of Russian Nihilists for high treason; for trial, in the English sense of the word, there was none. I have just had a long conversation with one of the dignitaries who played the part of judge, jury, and counsel for the crown during the brief ceremony which began by accusation, was continued by voluntary confession, and ended in condemnation to death. The ringleader […]