October / November 2005, Moscow (exact dates will be communicated later)

Conference languages : English, French, Russian

The historiography of the 1905 Revolution is far too recent and was too heavily marked by ideological or political assumptions to have had its last word. This Revolution was frequently eclipsed by its homologues of 1917. Because of the shadow cast by the 1917 revolutions, it can almost be qualified as its “general rehearsal” or a “forgotten revolution”, ignoring its own specificity and radical novelty.

Considerable research on the Revolution of 1905 has been undertaken from the 1920s in the USSR and from the 1990s in Russia, as well as in the Western World. The most studied aspects have so far concerned the unfolding of revolutionary events, popular movements (of workers, peasants and revolutionaries), the creation of political parties, the formation of the Duma, Stolypin reforms or the extreme right. However, the real impact that this major shock produced on the Russian Empire remains to be uncovered and thoroughly investigated. Was it a beginning of an agony, the only chance – rapidly missed – of the evolution towards a liberal society, an exemplary socialist revolution or a striking demonstration of Russian backwardness ? The Revolution of 1905 has served many purposes, illustrated all the causes, and prophesied all possible futures.

This Russian revolution was an event of extraordinary importance, which changed the course of events inside the Russian Empire to the point that one can talk about a “before” and an “after” 1905. It affected numerous areas : institutions, political and economic life, social groups, municipal, provincial and associative movements, structures of intellectual and professional spheres, nationalities, Churches and religious life, publishing, media, etc. A strong imprint of the 1905 Revolution can be found almost everywhere : failing to fulfil most of the goals fixed by its protagonists, it had set the Empire – probably for the first time since Peter the Great’s reign - in motion and in an extremely fast evolution.

However, the shock waves produced by the Revolution of 1905 did not stop at the Empire’s borders. A wide range of actors, such as foreign governments, financial spheres, big political parties (radicals and socialists in France, social-democrats in Germany, etc.), public opinion and the international press, European and Asian revolutionary movements or the Russian Diaspora, many of whom returned to Russia, reacted with vigour, enthusiasm, fear or embarrassment to the Russian events and frequently attempted to instrumentalise them. The spread of information about the Revolution and the manner in which revolutionary events were represented in Russia and in other countries also remain little studied.

This conference seeks to explore the impact of this cataclysm, inside the Empire as well as on the “periphery” and abroad. Preference will be given to original paper proposals, based on concrete research cases, offering new insights into the history of the 1905 Russian Revolution and examining the changes that occurred in the period between 1905 and 1907 in all the fields mentioned above.

The Deadline for submission of proposal is the 1st of April 2005.

Interested persons are invited to submit a one-page paper proposal written in English, French or Russian to: