Welcome to the Saint-Ravachol archive

Saint-Ravachol:

Ravachol spent his life as a sort of criminal jack-of-all-trades—smuggler, counterfeiter, grave-robber, murderer, bomber—and then, at the end of that career, was made a secular saint, “the violent Christ of anarchy.” And he was hardly the only one of the illegalists and attentateurs who was subsequently mythologized. Indeed, in the long war between anarchists and the agents of capitalism and the state, mythology has been a tool used on both sides. The items collected here are drawn from that war and are part of a literature in which history and myth are often inextricable. The collection includes items previously contained in the archives Relics of Saint-Ravachol and A Beautiful Nihilist.

Related links:

• Saint Ravachol catagory feed
• A Beautiful Nihilist tagged items

Ravachol:

• “Ravachol est le héros du jour,” Gazette Anecdotique 7 (April 15, 1892): 193–194. (FR/EN)
• “Un autographe de Ravachol,” l’Echo de Lyon 4 no. 1087 (July 12, 1892): 1. (FR/EN)

George Etiévant:

• “Une Lettre d’Etiévant,” L’Universe no. 11,097 (June 17, 1898): 3. (FR/EN)

Emile Henry:

• Emile Henry, “Comrades of l’En Dehors,” L’En Dehors, no. 69, August 28, 1892. (EN)

Misc.:

• “Une Bagarre Boulevard Barbès,” Le Petit Parisien 17 no. 5819 (October 2, 1892): 2. (FR/EN)
• “The Anti-Anarchist Bomb-proof Clockwork Substitute Ruler,” The Athenaeum no. 3743 (July 22, 1899): 138. (EN)

Offsite:

• [Sebastien Faure, ed.], L’anarchie en cour d’assises (1891) [Gallica]
• Pierre Delcourt et J. H., Les compagnons de Ravachol: recit authentique (1892)
  
• Alexandre Lacassagne, Affaire Marcon. Question de survie. Poursuites contre Ravachol, etc. (1893)
• Henri Varennes, De Ravachol à Caserio : (notes d’audience) (1895) [Hathi Trust]
  
• Albert Bataille, Causes criminelles et mondaines de 1894 (1895) [Google Books]
• Liard-Courtois, Souvenirs du bagne (1903)
• Liard-Courtois, Après le bagne! (1903)

General & Introductory

• Introducing The Beautiful Nihilist: Representations of Revolutionary Women
• Ella Norraikow, “Woman’s Share in Russian Nihilism” (1891)
• “The Term ‘Nihilist’” (1887)
• Voltairine de Cleyre, “Some Nihilists I Have Met” (1893)

Mlle. Achristoff

• “The Nihilist Rebellion” (1879) [coming soon]

Sophie Bardin

• “Russian Revolutionary Heroines” (1881)

Vera Figner

• Ella Norraikow, “Woman’s Share in Russian Nihilism” (1891)
• “A Beautiful Nihilist” (1892)
• “Imprisoned Twenty Years” (1904)
• Hubert Church, “Vera Figner” [poem] (1908)
• May Beals-Hoffpauir, “Sketches of Russian Heroines. I. Vera Figner” (1909)

Mme. Frowdeinki

• “Revival of Nihilism” (1893)

Gesya Gelfman

• “A Horrible Story” (1881)

Olga Gobieslawska

• “Extraordinary Escape of a Young Nihilist Girl” (1879)

Olga Gontcharenko

• “Beautiful Nihilist Girl” (1890)
• “A Young Nihilist Woman” (1890)

“The girl Goukoffski, aged 15”

• “Cruel Punishments” (1879)

Sophie Gunsberg

• “Plot of a Beautiful Nihilist” (1891)

Olga Ivanovsky

• “Suspected Nihilists” (1890)
• “A Female Nihilist” (1891)

Wanda Krahelska-Filipowicz

• “Beautiful Nihilist Slays; Weds; Tracked, Is Caught” (1907)

Olga Lubotovitch

• Stepniak, “A Female Nihilist” (1886)

Sophie Perovskaya

• “The Stuff of Which Nihilist Martyrs are Made” (1881)
• Joaquin Miller, “Sophia Perovskaya” [poem] (1881)
• Sir Henry Parks, “The Beauteous Terrorist” [poem] (1885)
• “The Beautiful Nihilist” (1889)
• Ella Norraikow, “Woman’s Share in Russian Nihilism” (1891)
• George Barlow, “Sophia Perovskaia” [poem] (1895)
• Ernest Tissot, “Une Nihiliste: Sophie Perovskaia” (1895) [coming soon]
• Tragic Stories from Russia (1905)

Vera Sassulitch

• Joseph Verey, “Vera Sassulitch” [poem] (1880)

Misc. Clippings

• “Another beautiful nihilist…” (1887)
• “Arrested as Nihilists” (1891)
• “Tragedy in San Francisco” (1893)
• “A Nihilist Crime” (1897)
• “A Female Nihilist” (1902)
• [Mentioned in passing]

Fiction

• Leon de Tinseau, “A Beautiful Nihilist” (1892)
• “A Hunt to Death” (1892)

OFFSITE LINKS

Drama:

• Oscar Wilde, Vera; or, The Nihilists (1881)
• Stepniak, The New Convert (Novoobrashchennyi)(1897)

Fiction:

• Ernest Lavigne, A Female Nihilist (1880)
• Charles H. Eden, George Donnington; or, In the Bear’s Grip (1885, 3 volumes) [Google Books]
• Philip May, Love: The Reward (1885, 3 volumes) [Google Books]
• Loiuse Gagneur, A Nihilist Princess (1886)
• Kathleen O’Meara, Narka, the Nihilist (1887)
• Joseph Hatton, By Order of the Czar (1890)
• Richard Henry Savage, My Official Wife (1891)
• St. George Rathborne, Major Matterson of Kentucky (1894)
• William Le Queux, Stolen Souls (1895)
• Thomas Patrick Deegan, The Rescue of Victoria: The Beautiful Nihilist (1909)

Nonfiction:

• The Break-up of Nihilism in Russia. Female Nihilists (1885)