The Enduring Enigma of Lev Tikhomirov

• In Event: Alternative for Russia: Monarchist, Populist and Antisemitic Voices across the 1917 Divide

Abstract

The enduring enigma of Lev Tikhomirov is why a committed revolutionary and leading light of the People's Will faction that assassinated Czar Alexander II in 1881 should a mere seven years later have abjured revolution completely and become one of the staunchest advocates of autocratic monarchy. Irrespective of his motivation however, his action led to an astonishing flowering of his thought in the spheres of politics and theology which places him firmly in the conservative counter-current in late imperial Russia alongside such figures as Konstantin Leontiev, Vasily Rozanov, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and Sergei Bulgakov. His reflections on the roots of his "apostasy" also throw significant light on the mindset of the terrorist, obviously highly relevant to us today, and on the enduring legacy of autocracy in Russia in the post-Soviet dispensation.

Author

• Glenn Cronin