Participants

Discussion

This roundtable proposal unites five scholars with a special interest in martyrdom to deliver short presentations on different aspects of the theme, exploring historical cases all situated in a shared context. It is based on a journal special issue titled ‘Political Martyrdom in Late Imperial Russia’ for The Slavonic and East European Review, scheduled for publication in 2024. Authors are exploring images, symbols and motifs connected to martyrdom events and legends in Russia between the 1870s and 1917. All these articles are connected to people or groups who were killed or suffered for a political cause, including punishment by incarceration and the stories that circulated surrounding this. Hence, we are only looking at political manifestations, so shall not, for instance, be looking at the activities of the Russian Orthodox Church. Most of our investigations explore the activities of the revolutionary left. One speaker explores at the convergence between liberal and radical ideas in the late imperial period, and another considers how revolutionary martyrs were interpreted following the collapse of the autocracy through the journal ‘Hard Labour and Exile’, though all its case studies come from the pre-revolutionary period. There is a transnational element to our collection – included are explorations of martyrdom activities and legends that range beyond the late Russian empire, including within Irish and American historical contexts.  The word martyr originally means ‘witness’, and interpretations and perceptions of martyrdom in the public environment are central to our investigation – in martyrdom legends, there was always an audience for these radical acts of affirmation.