“Whereas in Western countries the constitution merely had to guarantee the rights of a per-existing civil society and culture, in Russia it also had to create these. It had to educate society - and the state itself - into the… — Orlando Figes Copy Share Image
On the news that the Tsar had sent the troops icons to boost their morals, General Dragomirov quipped: 'The Japanese are beating us with… — Orlando Figes Copy Share Image
“For the Romanov regime fell under the weight of its own internal contradictions. It was not overthrown.” — Orlando Figes Copy Share Image
“The only way, they argued, to prevent a revolution was to rule Russia with an iron hand. This meant defending the autocratic principle, the… — Orlando Figes Copy Share Image
“This was a cruelty made by history. Long after serfdom had been abolished the land captains exercised their right to flog the peasants for petty crimes. Liberals rightly warned about the psychological effects of this brutality. One physician, addressing the Kazan Medical Society in 1895 said that it 'not only debases but even hardens and brutalizes human nature'. Chekhov, who… — Orlando Figes Copy Share
“Whereas in Europe new ideas were forced to compete against other doctrines and attitudes, with the results that people tended towards healthy skepticism about claims to absolute truth, and a climate of pluralism developed, In Russia there was a cultural void. The censor forbade all political expression, so that when ideas were introduced there they easily assumed the status of… — Orlando Figes Copy Share
Time and time again, the obstinate refusal of the tsarist regime to concede reforms turned what should have been a political problem into a… — Orlando Figes Copy Share Image
The link between literacy and revolutions is a well-known historical phenomenon. The three great revolutions of modern European history -- the English, the French and the Russian -- all took place in societies where the rate of literacy was approaching 50 per cent. Literacy had a profound effect on the peasant mind and community. It promotes abstract thought and enables… — Orlando Figes Copy Share
“For all too many of these high-born revolutionaries, the main attraction of 'the cause' lay not so much in the satisfaction which they might… — Orlando Figes Copy Share Image
Their notion of training was to march the men up and down in parades and reviews: these were nice to look at and gave… — Orlando Figes Copy Share Image
“Gorky called for the building of a monument to the young martyr, who, the writer said, had ‘understood that a relative by blood may… — Orlando Figes Copy Share Image
“As in 1917, the drift towards authoritarian government under Putin was enabled by the weakness of the middle classes and public institutions in post-Soviet Russia. Subjected” — Orlando Figes Copy Share
It was ironic but somehow fitting that the 1905 Revolution should have been started by an organisation dreamed up by the tsarist regime itself.… — Orlando Figes Copy Share Image
