Abandoned in 1852 when scarcely two weeks old, Vasilii Gerasimov ultimately became a child worker at the Kreenholm cotton factory, where he worked for 8 years. In 1872, he was a participant in a labour strike at this plant. After leaving, he became a revolutionary propagandist in St Petersburg before being sentenced to exile and hard labour in Siberia. In this episode, we chart Gerasimov's life, paying particular attention to the Kreenholm strike of 1872.
Source
R. E. Zelnik, Law and Disorder on the Narova River: The Kreenholm Strike of 1872 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995)
In the 1890s, the tiny village of Ashchepkovo in western Russia was struck by an epidemic of demonic possession. This episode attempts to understand...
In 1817, Agustín José Pedro del Carmen Domingo de Candelaria de Betancourt y Molina (known in Russian as Avgustin Betankur) surveyed the site of...
In this episode, we examine the history of lèse-majesté (insulting the honour of the tsar, his family, and his image) in imperial Russia through...
