Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenev (1818-1883)
The repentant revolutionary. 1863
Autograph letter in 3rd person to the Russian Embassy, 277 Schillerstrasse, Baden-Baden, 4 November 1863.

In French. One page, 204 x 127mm, on a bifolium with embossed initials 'IT'.

Turgenev the repentant revolutionary. 'Monsieur I. Turgenev has the honour to inform the Imperial Embassy that he has received the commission of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs which it sent to him and that he will hasten to act in consequence'.

Turgenev had been named as one of the defendants in the celebrated 'Trial of the 32' (officially the trial of 'persons accused of having relations with the London propagandists'), one of the most significant Russian political trials of the 1860s, in which he was accused of colluding with Alexander Herzen and others in revolutionary activities. Turgenev was indeed a close associate and correspondent of Herzen at this time, and had even offered financial support to the exiled Mikhail Bakunin. The 'Trial of the 32' began in February 1863, and Turgenev, then in Paris, received a summons for questioning in the Senate: he evaded this under the pretext of ill-health, asking to have the points of interrogation sent by letter, and writing an exculpatory letter to Tsar Alexander II assuring him of his moderate convictions. Nevertheless, he received a second summons, to which the present letter is his response. He returned to Russia to appear before the Senate commission in January 1864, and was ultimately acquitted. His behaviour in minimising his progressive beliefs was to cause a breach with Herzen and earn him the contempt of Lenin, who later used him as an example of well-meaning liberal vacillation.

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