Talk:Sergey Nechayev

catechism of a revolutionary — joint authorship?

I edited user:Max rspct's comment that Bakunin's authorship is "largely discredited". While not wanting to champion the joint authorship theory, i think it's fair to say that it has its proponents. Maybe i've missed some recent scholarship, but the article by Pomper cited in the bibliography closely analyses the language of the catechism and finds that bakunin was one of it's authors. The same argument is developed in Pomper's Nechaev biography published a few years later. Many other contemporary writers attribute the catechism to both nechaev and bakunin.

pomper's main points are:

• phrases and distinctive language of bakunin in the catechism
• a copy in bakunin's handwriting was seen by mikhail sazhin
• nechaev threatened to expose bakunin's part in the catechism
• parallels with parts of the bakunin-authored document "international alliance of social democracy's declaration of principles"
• bakunin quoted article 11 of the catechism word-for-word to zemfiri ralli, and makes statements in private letters to nechaev that echo the words of the catechism.

ntennis 02:38, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

In the Freedom press book Bakunin and Nechayev a letter from B to N is revealed with Bakunin wtiting "....your Catechism..." And the book says the Catechism is not written is Bakunin's style - will dig it out later today. -max rspct 09:24, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Cool. So given that there are notable opinions for and against, do you agree that the current text stating that "Nechaev (posbibly with Bakunin) wrote the catechism" is suitable? By the way, there are several other inconsistencies in stuff written about Nechaev (eg. his date of death). If you have an interest and reliable information, it would be great to have a fact-check of this article. ntennis 02:14, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

If I am not mistaken, a draft manuscript of the Catechism in Bakunin's handwriting has been located. As for the suggestion that Nechaev and Bakunin were lovers, that is absurd. Bakunin was impotent, his children fathered by another man, and showed no interest in any kind of sex throughout his life.76.170.116.176 23:59, 14 September 2007 (UTC)D. Ward

Thanks for the tip. If you could find a source for that info, we can add it to the article. On your second point, it doesn't seem absurd at all to me that a man who was impotent with women, and whose children were fathered by another man, would have a homosexual romance. Can you elaborate? Thanks, ntennis 05:42, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Bias

This article lacks objectivity. It has obviously been written by someone who shares Nechayev's beliefs, and is unable to give objective commentary. Such lines as 'he died in his cell, unwavering in his conviction, having never betrayed his comrades' is an utterly ridiculous statement to make about a man who murdered a member of his own group in order to cover his tracks. The article is written from Nechayev's point of view, as is illustrated in the comment 'He saw the ruthless immorality in the pursuit of total control by the Church and State.' Also, the format of the writing is like that of a personal essay, not an encyclopaedic entry. The article is factually correct as far as my knowledge serves me, however it needs to be thoroughly revised to be objective and of a quality standard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.175.138.168 (talk) 11:00, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

i didn't have much of a hand in composing this article beyond providing a reference, but I think this article is objective enough and suggest that the above comment seems to come from a writer who is seeking an explicitly anti-Nechaev article. I do not see how "such lines as 'he died in his cell, unwavering in his conviction, having never betrayed his comrades' is an utterly ridiculous statement". Nechaev DID indeed die in his cell, WAS unwavering in his convictions and DID NOT betray his comrades. These are statements of objective & incontrovertible historical fact. The article could be critiqued as being rather meagre [in fact Nechaev didn't just "die in his cell" - he was starved to death --in solitary confinement- on the orders of the warden of the impregnable Tsarist Peter & Paul fortress following Nechaev's final manipulation of the previous warden and his guards, a manipulation that allowed him to make contact with the next generation of Russian revolutionaries, the People's Will group, whose chief chemist (bomb maker) - a young man named Aleksandr Ilyich Ulyanov - would be executed for his part in an attack on the Tsar, and whose younger brother became known to the world as V.I. Lenin. 'nuff said. Nechaev's life story is larger than life, and deserves to be well told. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pottawatomie (talk • contribs) 16:20, 21 July 2009 (UTC)

I realise the article is significantly sourced, but there could be a degree of bias in its assertion that Lenin was strongly influenced by Nechaev. Lenin was a follower of Marx, who used Bakunin's association with Nechaev to discredit Bakunin. (See the introduction to "Marx: The First International and After".) Lenin did not politically follow in his brother Alexander's footsteps, and it may even be debatable how much connection there was between Nechaev and the People's Will. PatGallacher (talk) 01:10, 22 March 2021 (UTC)

Doubts in correctness of info from "Angel of Vengeance"

This page was full of references to the non-fiction book "Angel of Vengeance: The "Girl Assassin," the Governor of St. Petersburg' by Ana Siljak. The exact quotes and happenings presented by this book are not found in any of the literature about Nechayev. I conclude they are probably false. I am currently writing my bachelors thesis on Nechayev and promise to give this page a look when I'm done filled with notes but currently I have no more time then to get rid of these fantasy pieces.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Unmentionable‎ (talk • contribs)

@Unmentionable: Please specify which statements are false. the author is a scholar. And while the book may be kinda "popular science", I doubt it has glaring falsehoods. The book has excellent reviews, such as this one. -M.Altenmann >t 00:33, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

@Altenmann: At this time I would remove all references from this book. The book isn't registered as a non-fiction novel for nothing, if it where a trustworthy historical study is would be registered as such. Ratings don't matter if it's a novel. A novel is automatically not reference-able. If the qoutes are true they should also be found somewhere else. For now,I havent found any thing about these qoutes:

His family paid for good tutors who taught him Latin, German, French, History, Maths and Rhetoric (very sure about this because he was unable to speak french when he went to the university)

In December 1868 he met Vera Zasulich (who would make an assassination attempt on General Trepov, governor of St. Petersburg in 1878) at a teachers' meeting. He asked her to come to his school where he held candlelit readings of revolutionary tracts. He would place pictures of Robespierre and Saint-Just on the table while reading.[4] At these meetings he plotted to assassinate the Tsar on the 9th anniversary of serfdom's abolition. The last of these student meetings occurred on January 28, 1869. Nechayev presented a petition calling for freedom of assembly for students.[5] 97 did, though he wouldn't say what he'd do with the petition. Two days later, he handed it to the police, intending to radicalize the students through prison and exile.[citation needed] (there is not much known about the time he was a student, and most certain not in this detail)

He tried to get Zasulich to immigrate with him by declaring love for her, yet she refused.[6] (romantic fiction)

The idea was that the activists would be caught, punished and radicalized. (this is probably imagination bases on what Nechayev wrote in the Catechism)

On the way he met Christo Botev, a Bulgarian revolutionary 

Again I repeat that I will come back to do this right some time and use all I found to make this a great page on academic level (making sure that the discussion points are highlighted so not to make it one sided) Unmentionable (talk) 16:26, 25 March 2015 (UTC)

Anarchism banner

@Grnrchst, re: [1], isn't Nechayev not an anarchist? czar 05:12, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

Yeah he definitely wasn't an anarchist himself, although he had close relations with anarchist like Bakunin. I originally added it because the Russian nihilist movement broadly falls under the purview of the Anarchism WikiProject, but that may not be a good enough reason to add this particular article to the WikiProject in hindsight. --Grnrchst (talk) 11:37, 17 November 2021 (UTC)

fyi @Czar and @Grnrchst, he's listed here [2], so that and some other incoming wikilinks might need changing if anyone feels strongly about that. -- asilvering (talk) 07:36, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

That whole section needs sourcing :) czar 07:38, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Mass content removal

@Dvbdfxgn: Would you care to explain why exactly you reverted over a year's worth of edits by multiple different users? Because in the process you removed a bunch of sources that left vast sections of the page uncited and messed with a lot of code that threw up a bunch of errors. This kind of a massive change demands an explanation, yet you left none in the edit summary, leaving me absolutely baffled as to the reason you would do something like this. Please respond here or in your user talk page, because right now the only explanation I can come up with is that you felt ownership over the content, otherwise this just seems like petty vandalism. --Grnrchst (talk) 12:21, 7 June 2022 (UTC)

He lived and died in the Russian Empire

He died Ling before thd Russian Empire ended.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:30, 4 February 2024 (UTC)