HISTORY 103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 12: Narodniks, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Sergey Nechayev
Document Summary
Lecture 12 imperial russia nihilism and revolutionary terror: modern terrorism begins in the 1860"s in russia. What"s different about: napoleonic wars: moscow burns 1812. A group of philosophers who try to use violence against noncombatants as a means of trying to start a revolutionary change. Terrorists don"t see themselves as targeting civilians they see themselves as targeting those representing the state. They kill the representatives of the regime to impact political change. The philosophers actually have a philosophy and write about what they are doing. They begin their lives as students and come from highly educated groups of people. They are very conscious of what they are doing and they are frustrated and alienated in these moments of change. Russia was a backwards country economically and regarded backwards by the people living in it. The people are aware of another world like the west with opportunities that are not available to them living in russia.
