Retrieving Russian Populism: the Archeology of an Evolving Notion

The aim of this study is to question the notion of “Russian populism” (narodnichestvo, from narod, the people), to trace its evolution by freeing it from the many interpretations that have shaped it over time, sometimes to the point of making the actors who claimed to be part of it disappear. After a presentation of the common conception of narodnichestvo (a socialist movement that emerged in Russia in the middle of the 19th century and whose major figures – Herzen, Bakunin, Lavrov and Tkachev in particular – strived to adapt their socialist ideas to the Russian reality), we will question the nature of this common conception, by basing our analysis on various texts produced by Russian revolutionaries. As we will see, populism was both a practice and a philosophy for the actors who called themselves populists. Moreover, texts from Russian literary and political circles show that the term narodnitchestvo quickly escaped its creators: it came into use in Russian literary circles, became an extremely vague and evolving category, and eventually ended up almost disappearing. This term was later reborn under the pen of the Russian Marxists, who disfigured the narodnichestvo for ideological and political reasons. At the beginning of the 20th century, the narodnichestvo became an object of history. Finally, we will discuss the posterity of the concept of “Russian populism” throughout the 20th century and up to the 21st century.