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The Rebel on the Bridge: A life of the Decembrist Baron Andrey Rozen, 1800-84
The Rebel on the Bridge A life of the Decembrist Baron Andrey Rozen 180084 Author:Glynn Barratt The talented, courageous Baron Andrey von Rozen has a lasting place in European history as chief chronicler of the Decembrist Uprising, an attempted coup carried out by a group of disaffected noblemen (Baron von Rozen among them) in St. Petersburg on December 14, 1825. Rozen was a German speaking Balt of thousand year lineage and a zealous junio... more »r officer in the Imperial Russian Guards, yet a humane liberal who deeply sympathized with the exploited serfs (slaves) of Russia and Estonia, he is a fascinating figure embodying many of the ambiguities and tensions of his time.
Rozen's life spanned a crucial period in Russian history - a period in which the very notions of imperial power and of the inhumanity of serfdom were beginning to be challengd from within. Ever more effectively, liberal thought flowed into Russia from the West, and Rozen was by temperament alert to the winds of change. All who took any part in the uprising of 1825 were hanged, exiled or sentenced to hard labour. Rozen himself, after some thirteen months of solitary confinement, was condemned to ten years labour in Siberia, to be followed by perpetual banishment - essentially, exile to the provinces.
Rehabilitated in 1839, Rozen returned to his dear native land, Estonia, where he devoted himself to improving the lot of the serfs. He also authored an account of the Decembrist Uprising destined to inspire a new generation of liberal leaders and revolutionaries.« less