Lev Tikhomirov - Revolutionary

Revolutionary

Lev Tikhomirov was born in Gelendzhik on January 19, 1852, to a military doctor and his wife, a graduate of the Institute for the Education of Noble Maidens. Despite receiving a conservative education, he came under the influence of radical ideas and became involved in the Narodniki movement. In 1873, Tikhomirov was arrested in connection with the Trial of the 193 and sentenced to a four year term in St Petersburg's Sts Peter and Paul Fortress. By the end of the 1870s became one of the leaders of the Land and Liberty organization. In 1879 he joined its most radical successor, the People's Will.

In 1882, following the assassination of Emperor Alexander II, Tikhomirov emigrated to Switzerland and then to France. In France, however, he began to reconsider his views writing in 1886:

From henceforth our only hope is Russia and the Russian people. We have nothing to gain from the revolutionaries ... In light of this, I have began to reconsider my life. I must now build it in such a way so as to serve Russia according to the dictates of my conscience, independent of all parties.

In 1888, Tikhomirov publicly repented of his revolutionary activities, publishing his book Why I am No Longer a Revolutionary. The same year he petitioned to be allowed to return to Russia, a petition granted by Alexander III.

In commenting on his earlier life, Tikhomirov wrote in his memoirs:

I do not like my youth. It is full of the passioned desires of a corrupt heart, full of impurity, full of a stupid pride, a pride of someone who, while realizing his potential, has not yet matured to analytical thinking or independence of thought. I only begin to like my life from that point (in my last years in Paris), when I matured and was liberated ... began to understand the meaning of life, began to seek God.