The response of the Russian Decembrists to Spanish politics in the age of Ferdinand VII

Authors

  • Derek Offord University of Bristol

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17811/hc.v0i13.329

Keywords:

Decembrists, European liberal movements after the Napoleonic Wars, Russian constitutional projects, Russian political thought, Russo-Spanish historical contacts

Abstract

The article begins by describing the so-called Decembrist Revolt, a mutiny of Russian officers in 1825. It then examines the development of secret societies in Russia after the Napoleonic Wars and the various internal causes of the revolt, before focusing on the external context of the revolt, especially events in Spain during the Napoleonic period and in the decade following Napoleon’s defeat. In particular, the article discusses the extent to which Decembrists made use of the constitution promulgated in 1812 in Cádiz in their own constitutional projects, the significance that the Decembrists attached to the Spanish rising of 1820 against the restored Bourbon monarchy, and the effect that the suppression of the Spanish liberal experiment in 1823 had on them.

 

Fecha de envío / Submission Date: 03/05/2012

Fecha de aceptación / Acceptance Date: 21/05/2012

Author Biography

Derek Offord, University of Bristol

Derek Offord is Emeritus Professor of Russian at the University of Bristol. His main research interests lie in the fields of Russian intellectual, revolutionary and literary history. His publications in these areas include the monographs Portraits of Early Russian Liberals (Cambridge University Press, 1985), The History of the Russian Revolutionary Movement in the 1880s (Cambridge University Press, 1986), and Journeys to a Graveyard: Perceptions of Europe in Classical Russian Travel-Writing (Springer, 2005). Most recently he has co-edited, with William J. Leatherbarrow, A History of Russian Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2010). He has also published two books on the modern Russian language: Modern Russian: An Advanced Grammar Course (Bristol Classical Press/Duckworth, 1994) and Using Russian: A Guide to Contemporary Usage (Cambridge University Press, 1996; a revised and augmented second edition, co-authored with Natalia Gogolitsyna, appeared in 2005). He is currently leading a three-year interdisciplinary research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom on ‘The History of the French Language in Russia’, for which there is a website at http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/research/french-in-russia

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Issue

No. 13 (2012): Historia Constitucional N. 13 (2012)

Section

The Impact of the Constitution of Cadiz in Europe

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