European Nationalist Revolts in 1905

This week’s edition of Culture.pl contains an article by Zachary Mazur written in 2022 that heralds his new book entitled To Kill a Spy: Everyday Nationalism and Political Violence in Fin-de-Siecle Europe from Amsterdam University Press’s CEU Press imprint later in 2026. Here are excerpts from most of the text of the article, without illustrations. For decades, the Revolution of 1905 has been tucked away in history books as a mere ‘dress rehearsal’ for the Soviet rise in 1917. But for the Poles, Jews, Lithuanians and Ukrainians living under the Tsarist yoke, 1905 wasn’t a rehearsal for someone else’s drama – it was their own leading role. It was the moment the modern mass nation was born, an epoch-making explosion of culture and defiance that shattered imperial censorship and provided a blueprint for the independent states that would follow. The catalyst: a war of hubris & machine guns On the eve of the revolution, the Russian Empire was engaged in an embarrassing war with Imperial…