---

 

 

        

Project Overview

This project, funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust, explores the influence and historical representations of the Paris Commune in revolutionary Russia.

Few historical events mattered as much to Soviets as the Paris Commune of 1871. Lenin is said to have danced in the snow the moment his government survived a day longer than their Parisian forebears. Yet this obsession with 1871 has often been seen as inauthentic: a cynical propaganda ploy to present historical legitimacy where none existed, an imposition that mattered only to revolutionary leaders. The broader emotional resonance of 1871 remains unexamined.

Looking beyond the revolutionary elite, this project will examine the evolution and reception of this foundational tale. Drawing on archival materials from Russia, the UK and US, it will assess how 1871 was told and retold, read and re-read, through pamphlets, the popular press, radical commemorations, memoirs, workers’ club and popular activities. This is a history of a French tale, picked up by a radical elite, embraced by a widening community of revolutionary journeymen, then made Soviet.

Researcher / PI

Dr Andy Willimott