Lev Tikhomirov

Lev Alexandrovich Tikhomirov (Russian: Лев Александрович Тихомиров; born January 19, 1852 in Gelendzhik, † October 10, 1923 in Sergiev Posad ) was a Russian revolutionary of the terrorist wing of the Populists and was a member of the Executive Committee. After his separation from the ideas of violent revolution, he became one of the leading conservative thinkers in Russia. He wrote several books about the Russian monarchy, the Orthodox faith and political philosophy in Russia.

Education and political activity

The son of a military doctor and a graduate of the Institute of the Daughters of higher education, he attended high school in Kerch. Around 1872, he studied at the medical faculty of Moscow University. Although he was conservative educated him the revolutionary ideas of the Populists influenced. As he pursued political agitation among the workers, he was detained in connection with the process of the 193 in 1873 and sentenced to four years in prison in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg. In 1878 he became a member of the organization and Freedom of the Populists and where he took a leading position in the Executive Committee. He was also involved in the publication of the journal of the organization. In 1979 he joined the conspiracy and radical union Narodnaya Volya ( German: People's Will ) in.

In 1883 he emigrated to the banning of the Narodnaya Volya to Switzerland, then to travel to France. There he described in 1886 his thoughts on the situation in Russia:

From now on, our only hope Russia and the Russian people. We have nothing to expect from the revolutionaries ... From this point I began to re- categorized my life. I have to justify it to the service of Russia, under the terms of my conscience, independent of all Parteigrogrammen.

In Paris, he distanced himself in 1888 by his former revolutionary beliefs and published the book in 1888, Tikhomirov publicly repented of his revolutionary activities, publishing his book Why I gave up a Revolutär to be (Russian: Pochemu yes perestal but revoljutsionerom ). Then he addressed to the Czar Alexander III. a petition to return to Russia, which was granted to him in 1889.

Looking back on his early life, he wrote in his memoirs:

I loathed my youth. It is filled with passionate desires of a corrupt heart, full of impurity, a silly pride, a pride of a man who recognizes his ways, who was ready to think analytically or independently. I started my life from the time to love ( in my last years in Paris) when I was ripe and freed .... the meaning of life to understand and as I began to search for God

Conservative monarchist

After his return from exile he was one of the leading conservative monarchists in Russia. He has published numerous articles in magazines Moskowskije Vedomosti, Vremya Nowoje and Russkoje Obosrenije.Im 1917 he moved to Sagorsk and retired from politics.

Publications

In his writings he criticized liberal democracy, as in Scripture liberals and terrorists (1890 ) and in the publication of Liberals and Social Democracy ( 1896). He attacked democratic institutions, which are dominated by party intrigues and excessive individualism. He campaigned for a Russian alternative to the democratic idea:

We must look for other ways by understanding the decisive truth, which is now revealed by the negative experiences of the New Age: an organization of a society is only possible to maintain the mental balance in everyone. And this spiritual equilibrium is only possible by leading a life of religious thought.

In 1905 he published his largest font, the four-volume edition of About the monarchical state, which soon became the ideological basis of the monarchist movement in Russia. He stated the existence of the authority as the basic regulatory power in society. The kind of authority - democratic, aristocratic or monarchist - is the root of moral psychology between state and society. He wrote:

If a powerful moral ideal in a society exists - an ideal, which calls for the voluntary obedience and service to each other, then it leads to a monarchy, because the existence of this ideal no physical power (democracy ) or the rule requires an elite ( aristocracy ). All the results required as a continuing expression of this moral ideal. The biggest promoter of this expression is a character in a position of coming full independence from all external political forces

In 1909 he became editor of the state-owned monarchist newspaper Vedomosti Moskovskije. After the Home Secretary had set the payments for the newspaper in 1913, he resigned as editor. He then wrote his second greatest work entitled On the religious and philosophical foundations of history.

In it, he argued that the story of two competing points of view in the world is determined: the dual and the monistic. The dualist acknowledges the existence of God and that the world was created by God. The monistic claims that the world has always existed out of itself. He showed in his writing the traces in the history of the struggle between these two views, which will end in an apocalypse.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, he worked as a school secretary in Sergiev Posad, where he died in 1923.