Anna Lively
Published: 21 January 2019
The transnational connections between the Russian and Irish Revolutions, focusing on the transmission of political ideas across borders through texts and the media.
University of Edinburgh
The transnational connections between the Russian and Irish Revolutions, focusing on the transmission of political ideas across borders through texts and the media.
The period 1905 to 1923 was one of global political change especially in Russia and Ireland, intensified by World War One. In Russia, Lenin, Trotsky and others commented on the Easter Rising of 1916 as evidence of the anticipated global proletarian revolution. Likewise, for some Irish nationalists and socialists, the Russian Revolution offered revolutionary inspiration. Bolshevism simultaneously strengthened the anxieties of many Irish Catholic clerics and political conservatives about social radicalism.
The project will explore how news of the Russian Revolution fuelled division within Ireland and how the Irish Revolution was reported in Russia. The research expands on my MSc dissertation and an article which I co-authored in Historical Research in 2017 on the centenary of the Russian Revolution. While ‘Russian Revolution’ is a long-established term, the phrase ‘Irish Revolution’ is more recent and contested, referring to the period c. 1912 to 1923.
First published: 21 January 2019