Kistiakovsky: The Struggle for National and Constitutional Rights in the Last Years of Tsarism

by Susan Heuman

Overview

In 1903 Bogdan Kistiakovsky railed against Lenin's concept of a vanguard party to lead the revolution, remarking that he did not want to see the Romanov autocracy replaced with the despotism of Lenin in the name of the dictatorship of the proletariat. His charge was wholly consistent with a life (1868–1920) devoted to the development of rule of law in the Russian Empire—a new government based on respect for national minorities, human rights, and constitutional federalism. Susan Heuman's study shows the fresh urgency of Kistiakovsky's ideas as Russia, Ukraine, and the other countries of the former Soviet Union seek to establish precisely those values that Kistiakovsky put forth ninety years ago. Heuman's analysis and portrait of Kistiakovsky will provoke scholars of Russian and Ukrainian intellectual history to reassess early twentieth-century politics and society in the Russian Empire.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780916458652
Publisher:	Harvard University Press
Publication date:	10/15/1998
Series:	Harvard Series in Ukrainian Studies , #58
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	(w) x (h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Susan Heuman is Associate Professor of History at Manhattanville College.

Table of Contents

Usage Note

Preface and Acknowledgments

Illustrations

Bogdan Kistiakovsky, 1903

Bogdan Kistiakovsky, 1910

Kistiakovsky with his son George, 1903

Kistiakovsky with his sons George and Alexander, 1910

Introduction

A Cosmopolitan in Three Worlds

Neo-Kantianism and the General Theory of Law

Human Rights: A Pre-Revolutionary Model

Constitutionalism and the Rule-of-Law State

The Role of the Intelligentsia

The Ukrainian Movement within the Multinational Russian Empire

The Debate on the Ukrainian National Question: Kistiakovsky vs. Struve

Conclusion

Notes

Select Bibliography

Index

Editorial Reviews

[Heuman's] lucid scholarly account places [Kistiakovsky] firmly in his social and intellectual context, and provides a fascinating picture of the complex intermingling of diverse currents of thought in the early twentieth-century Russian Empire.

English Historical Review - Maureen Perrie

[Heuman's] lucid scholarly account places [Kistiakovsky] firmly in his social and intellectual context, and provides a fascinating picture of the complex intermingling of diverse currents of thought in the early twentieth-century Russian Empire.
— Maureen Perrie

English Historical Review