From Charity to Subversion: The Deep Roots of Aid to Prisoners and Exiles (2024)

Revolutionary Philanthropy: Aid to Political Prisoners and Exiles in Late Imperial Russia

Stuart Finkel

Published:

2024

Online ISBN:

9780198916130

Print ISBN:

9780198916109

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Revolutionary Philanthropy: Aid to Political Prisoners and Exiles in Late Imperial Russia

Stuart Finkel

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Stuart Finkel

Stuart Finkel

Associate Professor of Russian Studies and Affiliate Associate Professor of History

Dartmouth College

,

USA

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Oxford Academic

Pages

21–51

  • Published:

    May 2024

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Finkel, Stuart, 'From Charity to Subversion: The Deep Roots of Aid to Prisoners and Exiles', Revolutionary Philanthropy: Aid to Political Prisoners and Exiles in Late Imperial Russia (Oxford, 2024; online edn, Oxford Academic, 31 May 2024), https://doi.org/10.1093/9780198916130.003.0002, accessed 3 June 2024.

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Abstract

This chapter explores the genealogy of aid to political prisoners and exiles as it emerged in the 1870s, tracing several different threads of activity, thought, and social organization back to the beginning of the century. It first describes how benevolent prison guardianship societies emerged in the early 1800s as an arena for noble philanthropic activity, and how, in the 1830s–1840s, Dr. Fëdor Gaaz vigorously intervened on behalf of prisoners and exiles. It also notes that the Decembrists and Polish rebels after 1830 both established practices of mutual aid and assistance among exiles and became the initial objects of the heroic mythology of Siberian political exile. It documents the emergence of student mutual aid funds in the late 1850s as well as early surreptitious assistance to political detainees in the 1860s. Finally, it examines preliminary political aid efforts abroad, beginning with Aleksandr Herzen’s modest “Common Fund,” which helped Russian political refugees in Europe, and then in 1875 the so-called “Assistance Fund for Political Criminals,” one of the first attempts to create a formal political prisoner aid society. While contentious bickering among émigré factions quickly doomed the Assistance Fund, its charter and initial appeals provided a baseline for future efforts.

Keywords: philanthropy, Prison Guardianship Society, Fëdor Gaaz, Decembrists, Polish exiles, Alexander Herzen, Siberia, Pëtr Lavrov, emigration, Geneva

Subject

Military History Cold War Russian and Slavic History Modern History (1700 to 1945) Human Rights and Immigration

Collection: Oxford Scholarship Online

© Stuart Finkel 2024

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