Research project on the history of emotion regarding terrorism in the Russian Empire before 1917

Our century began with the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, and since then at the latest, terrorism has been an omnipresent threat in our time. Terrorist attacks shake societies in all countries of the world, not only in the Middle and Far East, in Africa, America or on the peripheries of the former Soviet empire. Terrorist attacks also excite the public in the major European cities, in London, Paris and Berlin. Even in the provinces, for example in Halle an der Saale or Hanau in Hesse, lone terrorists are killing innocent people. Their motives are as varied as they are sometimes almost impossible to determine. Above all, it is the violence and threat emanating from the omnipresence and indiscriminate nature of terrorism that is probably shaking us in a similar way to how it shook the people of the Russian Empire in the 19th century. Century has moved. Making the history of Russian terrorism the subject of an investigation is therefore very promising, because it provides readers with a frame of reference into which past events and their analysis can be integrated. At the same time, however, it is precisely this supposed reference to current events that is problematic, because readers expect this story to fulfil the moral requirements of their current position on terrorism in a particular way. The dilemma begins with the central concept of ‘terrorism’, about which Walter Laqueur has already said that it cannot be defined. Nevertheless, the sociologist Peter Waldmann has presented a definition that takes into account some important aspects of the historical phenomenon of terrorism:

Terrorism is therefore a tactic of violent struggle. It is used regardless of the ideological or religious background of the acts in order to fulfill a communicative purpose. However, the analytical content of the term differs from its often normative use in the sources. There, the term “terror, terrorism” is primarily used to “demarcate the enemy”. In this sense, the bon mot that the same people who are considered by some to be resisters or freedom fighters can be terrorists from another perspective does have its meaning. Even Osama bin Laden, the most wanted terrorist of the early 21st century, was for many people a fighter for the cause of oppressed Muslims. For the history of Russian terrorism, it is also true that the term “terrorism” is a source term in the sense of positive self-identification, in addition to this pejorative demarcation typical of external attribution.

From the Introduction - Full Version here