Research Catalog

The tsarist secret police and Russian society, 1880-1917

Title: The tsarist secret police and Russian society, 1880-1917 / Fredric S. Zuckerman.
Author: Zuckerman, Fredric Scott, 1944-2011.
Publication: New York : New York University Press, 1996.

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Status	Format	Access	Call Number	Item Location
Request for On-site Use Request Scan How do I pick up this item and when will it be ready?	Text	Request in advance	HV8225.7.O54 Z83 1996	Off-site

Description

xvii, 345 pages; 23 cm

Summary

Alexander II's Great Reforms of the early 1860s unleashed hopes among Russians for a true civil society that would enjoy the benefits of increased political freedom and exclusion from want. Instead, after the attempt on the Tsar's life by D. V.
Karakozov in 1866, Russian political life became trapped within a vicious circle of political reaction, growing disillusionment with the government and intensifying political dissent that increasingly manifested itself in acts of terrorism against Tsarist officials.
The creation of the Department of State Police in 1880, to combat all forms of political subversion, served as a declaration of war by the Russian government, not only against Russia's terrorists, but also against enlightened society as a whole. The secret police acted as the vanguard of the forces of order in this internal war, its tentacles penetrating every corner of Russian life.
Zuckerman's book is the first to place the entire history of the so-called "Okhrana" within the context of the political and social history of late imperial Russia. Indeed, Zuckerman shows that, ironically, the secret police were themselves victims of the political culture they strove to preserve.

Subject

Bibliography (note)

Contents

A Note on Police Terminology -- 1. Law and the Repression of Political Crime in Russia, 1826-1902 -- 2. The Development of Modern Political Policing Institutions in Russia, 1800-1902 -- 3. Fontaka's Foot Soldiers: The Professional Lives of Russia's Political Police Detectives -- 4. Sekretnye Sotrudniki: The Lives of Russia's Undercover Agents -- 5. Making a Career: The Evolution of Professionalism within Fontanka -- 6. Spinning the Web: Plehve and the Expansion of the Political Police Network -- 7. Time of Experiment, Time of Repression, 1902-1904 -- 8. P. D. Sviatopolk-Mirskii and A. A. Lopukhin: The Political Police and Mirskii's 'Spring' -- 9. The Political and the 1905 Revolution, I: The Descent into Chaos, January-November -- 10. The Political Police and the 1905 Revolution, II: Durnovo, Rachkovskii and Internal Warfare -- 11. Stolypin and the Russian Political Police, 1906-1911 --
12. S. P. Beletskii and V. F. Dzhunkovskii and the Forces of Modernity within Russian Society -- 13. Illusion and Reality: Into the Abyss, 1915-1917 -- Key to the drawing of the chain-of-command of the Russian Political Police.

ISBN

0814796737

LCCN

95016138

OCLC

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries