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In progress.

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Losing the plot in Stockholm

After spending 24 hours doing a comic (for 24 hour comic day) in Helsinki, the anarchist history stuff has kind of fallen out of my head a bit.
I'm off now to look at fanzines here [WHICH WERE NO LONGER THERE, THE OLD ZINE LIBRARY GONE], and then maybe an art gallery, but historical sites? Not sure, I'm just looking forward to heading homewards and keep thinking "I'll do it from the comfort of my room"...

But I'll try check one of these places out.

Bakunin and Stockholm:

"After three years in the underground dungeons of the Fortress of St Peter and St Paul, he spent another four years in the castle of Shlisselburg. It was here that he suffered from scurvy and all his teeth fell out as a result of the appalling diet. He later recounted that he found some relief in mentally re-enacting the legend of Prometheus. His continuing imprisonment in these awful conditions led him to entreat his brother to supply him with poison.

Following the death of Nicholas I, the new Emperor Alexander II personally struck Bakunin's name off the amnesty list. In February 1857 his mother's pleas to the Emperor were finally heeded and he was allowed to go into permanent exile in the western Siberian city of Tomsk. Within a year of arriving in Tomsk, Bakunin married Antonia Kwiatkowska, the daughter of a Polish merchant. He had been teaching her French."

Bakunin met up with his wife in Stockholm after his escape from Siberia.
His wife was called Antonia Kwiatkowska. There is a picture of them together here.

Bakunin wrote to Herzen & Ogareff from Stockholm on 17th August 1863 "I stayed in Sweden and I devoted myself to finding friends sympathetic to our Russian cause, who are ready to struggle with us. My efforts have been rewarded with success. From now on, Stockholm and all of Sweden will be a secure refuge for Russian revolutionary action and immigration. The Russian publicity and propaganda will find here solid footing, supporters and a wealth of resources. And with that nothing could be easier than communicating from Stockholm to St. Petersburg during summer. I learned to like the stalwart men who you can confide in and count on. Thanks to them and to the resources I have found here, I was able to spread throughout Northern Russia (the Arkhangelsk and Olonetzk governments) approximately 7,000 pamphlets of different proclamations"

And he gives his address as Stora Vagutton, which I now need to visit too.
[I TRIED TO FIND IT BUT COULD NOT. I DID, HOWEVER, FIND THE BEST LOOKING ANARCHIST SOCIAL CENTRE THAT I HAVE EVER FOUND]

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