Talk:Narodnaya Volya

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--This Page uses the Russian name, but for those people who are simply searching people's will, it is extremely hard to find (unless of course one knows of Alexander Ulyanov's involvement) but other than that one article, I found no other link to this page. It may be in the best interest of everyone to find a way to have any reference to "People's Will" hyperlink through to this page Yourlefthand 22:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)Yourlefthand

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 * People's Will redirects to the Narodnaya Volya article, so people should be able to find it. KNewman 06:36, 11 December 2006 (UTC)


 * why does russian revolutionaries re-direct to this page, Narodnaya Volya was not the only revolutionary movement. Infact i think it deserves its own article.--Fabio 11:12, 13 December 2006 (UTC)


 * Now this is really weird. We have a Category:Russian revolutionaries. KNewman 13:02, 13 December 2006 (UTC)

It seems that it can either be Narodnaya Volya, Narodnaja Volja, or even Narodnaja Volya (newspaper). It might be good to sort of organize this - I doubt that the newspaper was the same except with a j. It must be the same name but different transliteration.

I suggest to rename this article to 'Narodnaya Volya, (organization)'. Since there are other uses of this name, particularly the opposition newspaper in Belarus. If there are no objections I am going to rename it and I will create disambiguation page. Yurivict (talk) 02:30, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Should Rick and Morty redirect here, since it draws so heavily upon it?

Terrorism?
I'm concerned with this allegation because "terrorism" usually implies the intentional killing of civilians, whereas from what I've read (and what the article reports) Narodnaya Volya were interested only in assassinating the Tsar. Unless someone can bring up evidence of the group targeting civilians I move that all mentions of "terrorism" be replaced with "revolutionary" or some variation of the term.--Pooneil (talk) 21:13, 26 October 2009 (UTC)


 * I used Google News to scan trough the whole of the 19th century. This AP wire from 1881 may be the first time the word "terrorist" is used in a modern context – as opposed to the French Reign of Terror.
 * It seems that the word originates from the self described "terrorist fraction" of the party. The assassination was influential in developing the modern concept of terrorism, but it is doubtful if the party or the fraction would subscribe to any modern definition of terrorism. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 17:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
 * It seems that the word originates from the self described "terrorist fraction" of the party. The assassination was influential in developing the modern concept of terrorism, but it is doubtful if the party or the fraction would subscribe to any modern definition of terrorism. -- Petri Krohn (talk) 17:22, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

I, too, disagree with classifying Narodnaya Volya as a terrorist organization. They used violence, no doubt, but if their actions didn't even involve large-scale destruction of civilian property (much less actually killing civilians) then they wouldn't fit the modern definition of the word. They were nothing like Al-Qaeda, after all. Vistafreak (talk) 00:37, 1 December 2011 (UTC)e mer
 * Indeed I am also bothered by this definition. Beside the word terror and terrorism has become so over-used by anyone and everyone wanting to smear their opponents that even when applied somewhat correctly it holds little merit Today, just like yesterday we see oppressive governments jumping on the bandwagon and justifying acts of terror against their own people by disguising them as acts against terrorists. 46.59.36.37 (talk) 16:18, 27 January 2013 (UTC)

Seriously, guys? It's not their ideals that count in this situation, it's their methods. What kind of terrorist organization (that isn't from today) kills only a few random civilians? Even today, if an organization in Nigeria kills 3 people I doubt we would even know about it. That's not how terrorism works. Terrorism is a method through which you can reach a much greater audience than one you can get through democratic methods, with complete disregard (or targeting) of 'innocent' civilians. It's to state a point. Killing the emperor in broad daylight and any poor guy unlucky enough to be near him is definitely terrorism. Violence, force, fear, threat, victim-target differentiation, these guys are a nationalistic textbook example. Prinsgezinde (talk) 10:01, 28 March 2015 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Narodnaya Volya which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RM bot 18:45, 16 May 2010 (UTC)

"People's Freedom"
Suggestion to add this alternate translation explicitly to the intro, as it was a case of intentional wordplay on the part of the founders of the organization. And although in contemporary Russian "volya" is less common than "svoboda" to be used in the sense of "freedom", in the 19th century it was the basic meaning of the term. For example, the manumissions given to individual serf peasants prior to general abolition of serfdom in 1861 were called "vol'naya gramota" (literally "the freedom certificate"). 83.149.3.173 (talk) 07:19, 19 June 2011 (UTC) Etymologically, the meaning "will" is secondary to the meaning "freedom", as it was accepted that only a free man can have a will, as opposed to, say, a serf, who can't. There was also a precursor organization to the narodniki, called "Zemlya i Volya", and that name was basically the #1 demand of their program, calling for giving the "land and freedom" to the people. It was also later used as a motto by the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (which was sort of a follow-up to the narodniki and narodovoltsi both in terms of peasant-oriented political program and terrorist tactics), as can be seen on. 83.149.3.173 (talk) 08:00, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Focus on Jewish participation
I have edited this article to remove the focus on the Jewish participation but user:Dimadick has reverted this. I would like to have this founded. The article in my opinion suggestively poses that there is a supposed remarkable high Jewish participation in the organization compared to the percentage in the population of the Russian Empire. It is not stating why, nor why this info is relevant. I think it is suggestive and that the focus on specifically Jewish participation is weird and might have antisemitic motivations - as was also rampant in the era that the organization was active by the way. Therefore I suggest to either remove the whole part, or rewrite it in a less suggestive manner.

Below the part I talk about:

''Demographically ethnic Russians dominated the organization, with about 14% of the group's members sent to trial of ethnic Jewish origins.[33] Two Jews (Zundelevich and Zlatopolsky) were long-term members of the Executive Committee. The number of ethnic Jews in the Narodnaya Volya was roughly comparable to the percentage of ethnic Jews subjected to political arrests throughout the entire period from 1884 to 1890, which totaled 15%.[33] Judging by the membership in the Executive Committee, Jews constituted about 7% of the Narodnaya Volya's leadership at the time when no more than 1% of the population of the Russian Empire was of a Jewish origin or background.[34]''

Comment added by WithDefiance 20:30, 29 December 2019

Comment: we ought to know what the source says on this topic, but citation to Yarmolinsky's Road to Revolution is missing...Cinadon36 09:09, 30 December 2019 (UTC)

Comment: I have checked the source (https://archive.org/details/roadtorevolution00yarm/page/248) and its taken out of its context, one of my problem with the piece. There is given no explanation for instance why the there was a higher percent of 'police arrests' of Jewish political activist. Was this because there were more? Or was this because the police focussed on them more (because they lived in ghetto's and anti-Semitism was rampant at the time). One explanation is given in the source (Road to Revolution): the universities were recently opened up for Jews (they were excluded before), and a relatively large part was seeing their education as a way of liberating themselves. The Narodnaya Volya ideology fitted in there well (p.248, top section). This is however left out in the piece.

The other problem I have is however more important. Why is it that the piece (and also the book btw) is focussing on one specific ethnic group only. Why is there no mention of other ethnic groups, like Tartars, Chechens, Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Pontic Greeks? Why only Jews? WithDefiance (talk) 20:43, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

The Assassination of Tsar Alexander II
I don't feel comfortable editing this myself but I thought I should point out that the section about the assassination makes no mention of the assassination.

Not generally considered anarchists
The article currently refers to Narodnaya Volya as an anarchist group, without reference. None of the sources I've seen consider them anarchists, just perhaps influenced by anarchists and part of the broader socialist movement. 138.88.18.245 (talk) 03:44, 30 May 2021 (UTC)