Shchur S. The problem of violence in social and political thought and political practices of Dnieper Ukraine in the 1870s

This is the first time in modern Ukrainian historiography that a complex assessment of attitudes to the problem of violence in social and political thought in Dnieper Ukraine in 1870-1914 has been given. The author suggests a periodization of the history of political violence in the Ukrainian provinces of the empire, which includes two periods (both are divided into 4 stages): Narodniks period (1870s-1887) and the one associated with the activities of political parties (1901-1914), though these two are separated by the transitional phase (March 1, 1887-February 14, 1901). It is found that there developed the necessary conditions and circumstances for the spread of terrorism in Dnieper Ukraine in 1876-1877. Therefore, it was the first one among the other regions of the Russian Empire, where the ideas of terrorism occurred. Their spreading had been preceded by the popular significant theoretical works on the Narodnik movement by M. Bakunin, A. Herzen, P. Lavrov, N. Chernyshevsky and others. It is underlined that after the mass arrests and executions of the Norodniks in the late 1870s those participants of the secret unions, who escaped from the persecution of law enforcement agencies members, quit their revolutionary activities in Ukraine and moved to the capital of the Empire. A few Dnipro Narodniks composed the nucleus of a powerful revolutionary organization "Narodna Volya" ("People's Will"). It is clarifies the attitude of Ukrainian society to terrorist activities of revolutionary Narodniks. The author identifies the place of revolutionary violence in the ideological-theoretical and practical activities of social movements and political parties at the edge of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The scope of violent methods application in political struggle during the first Russian revolution of 1905-1907 is defined. It was established that the beginning of the first Russian revolution led to a significant escalation of violence in Dnieper Ukraine society. The SRs' terroristic attacks on the officials became an important form of political struggle against autocracy and the scope of violence became widespread. In the wake of civil discontent there began the active phase of the struggle of political parties primarily for the right to lead a spontaneous labor and peasant movements.