Note 8 — Chapter I · JOURNEY TO GERMANY—IMPRISONMENT IN FREIBURG—EPISODES FROM THE PAST OF THE REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT

At the time of the emancipation of the serfs the peasants in the Tchigirìn district of the province of Kiëv did not wish to divide into private property the land allotted to them, but to hold it in common, as was done in the north of Russia. In 1875 the Government took the harshest measures against them: arrests, executions, and persecutions of every kind; but the peasants held firm. The revolutionists, among others Stefanòvitch, Bohanòvsky, and myself, resolved accordingly to organise a rising among the Tchigirìn peasantry. Our plans failed, we ourselves were arrested, and the Tchigirìn trial instituted. See also Thun’s Geschichte der revolutionären Bewegung in Russland, and Stepniak’s Underground Russia.