1880s

Bakunin Library

An appealing, but apocryphal tale

July 1, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
“So you see those fellows yonder?” said a man to me in a Russian village in 1871, pointing to a group of sallow, bearded, low-browed peasants, who were slouching past in their ragged frocks of sheepskin. “These are the men who carry all Russia on their backs, and the moment they find out how much they have to bear, down we all go together; but they endure it because they don’t know how ill off they are!” Few more striking truths have ever been uttered, and the utterer could hardly be accused of speaking without experience, for he was no […]
Bakunin Library

Henry Seymour, Michael Bakounine: A Biographical Sketch (1888)

January 8, 2015 Shawn P. Wilbur
MICHAEL BAKOUNINE: A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. BY HENRY SEYMOUR.   Michael Bakounine was born of an ancient aristocratic Russian family in 1814. At an early age, his father, who was then a wealthy proprietor of Torchok in the governmental department at Twer, sent him to a cadet school in St. Petersburg; here he was soon entered as an artillery ensign. In those days this service was one which was reserved especially for the most favored nobles, the Czar’s traditional policy being to grant greater freedom of research in this than in other services. It is not to be wondered at, then, […]