On 14 December 1825 a group of young Russian army officers led 3,000 troops to Senate Square in St Petersburg, aiming to force the Senate to adopt a liberal constitution and transform the Russian Empire. The Decembrist Revolt – as it came to be known – was brutally suppressed by Tsar Nicholas I, with a second uprising in the south meeting the same fate. Five leaders were executed, and many others exiled to Siberia. The Decembrist Revolt was the first attempt in Russia to overthrow an autocratic regime by a liberal opposition movement with a structured political programme. It became a source of inspiration for all subsequent opponents of the regime and has played a significant part in Russian history and culture.
Why did so many young noblemen risk their lives for regime change, what was their vision for an alternative society, how important was the role of the Decembrist wives and fiancées, why did the Revolt fail and what were the consequences for participants and their families?
In her talk to us, Dr. Susanna Rabow-Edling will address these questions, which are discussed in her book, The First Russian Revolution: The Decembrist Revolt of 1825 (published by Reaktion Books, 2025). She will also emphasise the importance of the often overlooked liberal tradition in Russian political thought and will explain the significance of this particular attempt (albeit unsuccessful) by a liberal opposition to overthrow an autocratic regime.
Dr. Susanna Rabow-Edling is Associate Professor in Political Science and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University, Sweden. She was awarded her Ph.D by Stockholm University for her thesis about the original Russian Slavophiles and their formulation of a Russian national identity and spent a year as a visiting scholar at Cornell University, before taking up a position at the Department for East European Studies at Uppsala. Dr Rabow-Edling’s main research interests are Russian political thought throughout the long 19th century, especially nationalism, liberalism and imperialism; Russian America (i.e. Alaska between 1799-1867, when it was part of the Russian Empire); and women’s history.
As well as The First Russian Revolution, her books include Liberalism in Pre-Revolutionary Russia: State, Nation, Empire (2018), Married to the Empire: Three Governors' Wives in Russian America 1829-1864 (2015) and Slavophile Thought and the Politics of Cultural Nationalism (2006).