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Title: Remembering Natalia Pirumova Author: Mikhail Tsovma Date: April 2007 Language: en Topics: history, biography, Russia Source: Retrieved on November 13, 2012 from http://bakunista.nadir.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=218&Itemid=103 Notes: Written for German-language “Bakunin Almanach 1” (Berlin, Karen Kramer Verlag, 2007). Also published in English (CIRA Bulletin, #63, September 2007) and Russian (Bakunista! website).
On April 8, ten years ago, Natalia Mikhailovna Pirumova (1923–1997), one
of the best-known historians of the Russian anarchist and socialist
movement, author of several books on Mikhail Bakunin, Piotr Kropotkin
and Alexander Herzen, passed away. [1]
I have first encountered Natalia Pirumova on the occasion of the
memorial meeting devoted to Mikhail Bakunin at the Herzen Museum in
Moscow (April 26, 1989). This was the first open celebration of the
famous Russian rebel anarchist after several decades of oblivion in the
USSR. Still a high school student then, but already an anarchist, I was
thrilled to see such a number of people gathered to commemorate the dead
Russian revolutionary – historians, philosophers, anarchists, members of
the Bakunin family. I was familiar with the name of Pirumova even before
this meeting, as her book on Bakunin from 1970 was on the list of
recommended readings in my school anarchist group (which was established
at the end of 1988, following the arrival of history students from the
Moscow State Pedagogical Institute who were also activists of Obschina,
Moscow’s first openly anarchist organization since the 1920s).
It was impossible not to notice Pirumova – already an elderly woman, her
hair starting to turn white, with dark, lively and intelligent eyes. She
intrigued with her simple, but bold dress, a black vest adorned by a
vivid red necklace. We, of course, interpreted this particular
combination of colors in an anarchist sense, and, as our later
acquaintance with her has proven, we were not mistaken. [2]
My diary of that time indicates that the speakers at the memorial
meeting were, besides N.M., Vladimir Pustarnakov (editor of two
collections of Bakunin’s writings published in 1987 and 1989), Boris
Itenberg (who presented a very official version of the Bakunin-Marx
conflict), as well as some young historians: Dmitry Oleinikov, Andrey
Isayev and Yury Borisenok, all, in one way or another, students of
Pirumova.
I later met with Pirumova on quite a few occasions. First, because she
lent me a helping hand in organizing other commemorative events for
Bakunin and a lesser known Russian anarchist philosopher by the name of
Alexey Borovoy (1875–1935). And secondly, because she was the driving
force behind the large international conference on Piotr Kropotkin which
was held in December 1992 in Moscow, St.Petersburg and Dmitrov. Besides
that, we have met quite regularly on Kropotkin’s birthday at his grave
in the Novodevichye Cemetery in Moscow. It must have been during one of
these meetings that Pirumova received her nickname of “grandmother of
Russian anarchism”. Despite of its obvious humorous overtones, the name
conveyed only respect, since for many people the rediscovery of Russia’s
officially forbidden anarchism in the 1970s and 1980s had started with
reading the sympathetic biographies of anarchists written by Pirumova.
Although I cannot claim to have been a close friend of Natalia Pirumova,
we had cordial relations, and she invited me to visit her both at home
and at the Institute of Russian History, where she worked. Now I can
only regret that our relationship and cooperation were rather
fragmentary – I was not a historian, and activism as well as everyday
life distracted me at the time from paying proper attention to what
essentially was our common interest, Mikhail Bakunin. Once I did, N.M.
was already quite old and had suffered a stroke that had badly affected
her memory. Nevertheless, she was still trying to do what she could. And
while I regret the missed opportunities to know her better, I am
consoled by the fact that we have commonly started a project that
continues well after her passing.
It was largely thanks to her that we were able to get in touch with
Georgy Tsyrg, a member of the Bakunin family, who was willing to sponsor
our regular volunteer camps in Pryamukhino, the village where Bakunin
was born. There we did some work on the conservation of the park and the
remaining buildings. The restoration of the Bakunin family’s house
requires sizeable investments, which cannot be met to this day. However,
little by little, different activities were able to restore the spirit
of the “Pyramukhino harmony” and allowed the birthplace of the famous
anarchist to breathe life again. A small museum was finally opened in
2003. Volunteer (and largely anarchist) camps took place in Pryamukhino
from 1995 till 2001 and have since been replaced by annual Bakunin
conferences.
I look at the photos from Pirumova’s funeral and see a very old woman.
However, this is not how I remember her at all – even when the years
were taking their toll and her strength was on the decrease, her eyes
were always lit with a lively, youthful flame. And this is how we will
remember our ‘granny’. We can still recall her asking, standing by
Kropotkin’s grave: “Where is our flag?”
I was only able to discover the details of Pirumova’s biography after
she died, as reminiscences of her friends were published by the
Kropotkin Commission (also established largely due to her efforts in the
early 1990s). (See note 1)
Natalia Prumova was born in the village of Smygalovka, in the Ryazan
region, on August 20, 1923. Her family was trying to survive the hunger
of the post-revolutionary years in the countryside.
Her mother, Olga Galitskaya, was from a noble Russian family, while her
father, Mikhail Khachaturov, was Armenian and a member of the
internationalist wing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, which was
opposed to Russia’s participation in WWI. He was arrested the first time
before the Revolution and sent into Siberian exile. After the
Revolution, in 1924 or 1925, when Natalia was just about 2 years old, he
was arrested again, this time by the Bolsheviks, and sentenced to 10
years of forced labor in the Northern camp of the Solovki islands.
Khachaturov returned from captivity only for a short time in 1933,
before he was arrested once more in August 1935. He was executed three
years later. [3]
There appears to be a contradiction in the biographical notes on
Pirumova as far as her patronymic is concerned – sometimes she is
referred to as Natalia Iosifovna, sometimes (in later notes) as Natalia
Mikhailovna. The difference is explained by the fact that in her
passport she was named after her stepfather, Iosif Pirumov, while later
she preferred to be called after her deceased father Mikhail
Khachaturov, whose memory she cherished. “When asked why in some
documents she is referred to as Mikhailovna, while in others as
Iosifovna, she used to joke: ‘Probably I’m an illegal daughter of Iosif
Stalin.’” (II-273)
In the early 1930s, Pirumova’s family moved to Moscow. But sometime
before 1940, her mother was arrested and sent into exile in Kazakhstan.
Natalia now lived with relatives. Her mother’s noble origin and the fact
that her parents were imprisoned deprived her of almost any possibility
to enter university. However, when she evacuated to Uzbekistan during
WWII, she somehow managed to enter the evening department of the
Tashkent Pedagogical Institute. She finished her education in just two
and a half years, taking external exams. While in Tashkent she was able
to attend lectures of some of the best Soviet historians and
philologists who also found themselves evacuated.
In 1946, Natalia managed to return to Moscow where she lived with her
sister. She started working as a schoolteacher and later, in 1953, as an
editor at Gospolitizdat (a political Soviet publishing house). However,
she did not last long there. After one of her colleagues denounced her
for telling “anti-Soviet anecdotes”, she was dismissed.
With a little help from her friends, she ended up becoming an editor in
a large publishing house, the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (BSE), where she
worked for the history department and prepared the recent history
volumes of the Soviet Historical Encyclopedia. As her friend Eleonora
Pavlyuchenko recalls, “in those years this publishing house has given
shelter to many well-qualified specialists from among the
‘freethinkers’, ‘cosmopolitans’ and other ‘politically unreliable’
groups who were kicked out of universities and other institutions. The
relatively liberal conditions in the publishing house allowed for –
although quite limited – alternative perspectives on certain events of
Russian history, especially with regard to the period preceding the
formation of the Soviet Union. And to a great extent it was N.M.
Pirumova who made such perspectives the base of her work.” (I-206)
In 1954, Natalia successfully completed her “Candidate of Sciences”
degree in history with a thesis on “Herzen’s Views on Russia’s
Historical Process”. Two years later the dissertation was published as a
book. It was Russian socialists and anarchists – Alexander Herzen,
Mikhail Bakunin, Piotr Kropotkin, later also Leo Tolstoy – as well as
the zemstvo system that became Pirumova’s main interests, both
academically and personally. Those who knew her well, recall that
Pirumova chose “her ‘heroes’ not only based on research interests, but
also because she felt connected to their ideas.” (I-206)
In 1962, Natalia Pirumova started to work at the USSR History Institute
and became an editor of the Istoricheskiye Zapiski journal. In the 1960s
and 1970s, her name gained notoriety among the liberal-minded
intelligentsia in the USSR because of her cooperation with the Prometey
historical journal, in which she published several articles on Bakunin
and Kropotkin.
In 1966, her first book on Bakunin was published, followed by a more
extensive volume in 1970, which was printed in the popular “Life of
Remarkable People” series. For her unorthodox treatment of Mikhail
Bakunin, which in some ways contradicted official Soviet Marxism, she
was subjected to “a negative ideological and political book review in
the Kommunist magazine.” (II-302) However, both her book and the
negative review in the official communist organ contributed to her
growing popularity among the critically thinking intelligentsia. Her
next book on Kropotkin (1972) also became a significant event in Soviet
history and an esteemed study of an anarchist well-forgotten in his home
country for many years.
In 1980, Pirumova wrote her doctoral dissertation at the Institute of
USSR History entitled “The Liberal Zemstvo Movement, its Social Origins
and Evolution” (the dissertation was based on a book and several
articles she had published earlier). As Sergey Udartsev, one of her
younger colleagues and students writes, “her doctorate thesis was not
devoted to her main interest. She has studied the history of the zemstvo
and liberalism with curiosity as the history of social activities of the
intelligentsia, their service to justice and the social good. Yet, the
study was not a voluntary one and it kept her from doing what she would
have really wanted to do: researching the lives, activities and works of
the famous theorists and practitioners of anarchism: M. Bakunin, P.
Kropotkin, and L. Tolstoy (…). She used to say that she likes liberals,
that liberals are nice people, but that studying them bored her and that
she was much more attracted to the study of anarchism. This was her true
vocation.” (II-266)
We can probably agree with Udartsev when he writes that “an organic
synthesis of anarchism (…) with liberalism, which tends to put sometimes
‘sky-high’ ideals of anarchism down to earth (…) was for her a natural
(…) direction of thought.” (II-308) However, in her letters she also
expressed strong reservations towards liberalism. Writing in 1979 on the
Soviet liberal intelligentsia that she was working with, she noted: “I
live among liberals now. I can’t say that their company is bad, but they
lack the ability to fly.” (II-325) Throughout her life, Pirumova was
equally sympathetic to the prudent, rational Alexander Herzen who
“possessed the talent to understand and sympathize with reality” [4] and
the ardent, impatient, militant, and rebellious Mikhail Bakunin.
Pirumova started to present her studies of the liberal zemstvo movement
to a wider audience during the perestroika when prospects of local
self-management were increasingly debated in Russia. She spoke at
conferences and wrote articles which discussed the historical experience
of self-management in the country.
So far, we have mainly spoken about the official and known parts of
Pirumova’s biography. However, there is an ‘unofficial’ part as well. It
includes a sort of literary salon that existed in N.M.’s house, where an
informal group of scholars on Russia’s liberal and socialist history met
to discuss their works [5], as well as her cooperation with the
historical and literary group Vozrozhdeniye (“Revival” or “Renaissance”)
[6], and finally her friendship with political prisoners (including
anarchists and socialists) who survived the Gulag.
Throughout the 1980s, Pirumova continued her research on famous Russian
anarchists, tried to publish some works by Bakunin and Kropotkin
(neither had been published in Russian since the 1920s and ‘30s, and
their works were largely held in special library sections, inaccessible
to the general public), made efforts to persuade the officials to
re-open the Kropotkin museums in Moscow and Dmitrov, and greatly
contributed to the establishment of a Bakunin museum in Pryamukhino
(which finally opened in 2003).
It was also during the first half of the 1980s that she worked on two
new books – on Bakunin and Herzen respectively – which remained
unpublished for several years. In September 1986 she wrote in a letter
to Udartsev: “‘Bakunin’ rests unpublished for the second year already
and it will do so for many more years, I’m afraid. That’s at Nauka
[publishing house]. At Mysl [another publishing house] rests ‘Herzen’,
for the first year so far.” (II-354) It was only during the perestroika
that the books finally came out. The one on Herzen was printed in 1989,
the Social Doctrine of Bakunin in 1990. Just like her book on Bakunin
from 1970, this latter study became one of the most significant
contributions on Bakunin published in Russian. It focused on the origins
of Bakunin’s social and philosophical ideas and his influence on Russian
thought and Russia’s revolutionary movement. One has to bear in mind
that this book, although published at the height of the perestroika, had
already been written several years earlier, when the ideological
pressures of the dominant communist ideology were very strong and
certain bows before official Soviet Marxism unavoidable.
The disappearance of strong ideological restrictions and the
democratization of social life during the perestroika finally created
possibilities for the realization of Pirumova’s projects. [7] In the
late 1980s and early 1990s, she contributed extensively to different
historical journals and newspapers, publishing articles on the history
of the zemstvo system and her beloved anarchists.
“In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Natalia Mikhailovna had many
projects and plans, and she worked in many different directions,”
Udartsev writes. “She was suddenly sought after by everybody (…).
Different journals asked for her articles. On the eve of the
disintegration of the USSR and amidst the spread of chaos, the interest
for anarchism and its theorists was growing everywhere. Natalia
Mikhailovna could not respond to all the requests for contributions she
received and passed some of them on to friends whom she thought could do
the work well.” (II-290, 293) However, the events of 1991 and Russia’s
financial collapse lead to the closure of many publishing houses and did
not allow different projects to come about. Thus, for example,
Kropotkin’s Mutual Aid was never published.
Nonetheless, N.M. managed to see many of her plans through – with her
active participation, the first conference devoted to Bakunin in Russia
since the 1920s was held in Kalinin (now Tver’) in 1989, and a large
international conference on Kropotkin followed in 1992. Other projects
were harder to realize, for example the Kropotkin museums. The new times
turned out to be almost as unaccommodating to her heroes as the old ones
were – even if for different reasons.
During this period, Pirumova also cooperated with Memorial, an NGO
established to study and spread information about political repression
in the USSR. Together with the group, she organized a conference on the
history of resistance in the Gulag, and helped edit and publish several
collections of memoirs of former Gulag prisoners. The restoration of
historical truth and the memory of victims of political repression were
of utter importance to her. This was directly linked to her own
biography. Long before glasnost, she was brave enough to meet with
people who had just returned from Gulag camps in order to learn from
them the history that the ruling party tried to deny and hide. One of
these people, a 93-year old woman, a member of the Socialist
Revolutionary Party who would live long enough to attend Pirumova’s
funeral, recalled Natalia Pirumova as she had first met her in the
mid-1950s, young and afraid of nothing, attending the gatherings of
former prisoners: “[With people like her] we stopped thinking of
ourselves as outcasts, forever excluded from society by Stalin.” (I-217)
As Udartsev notes, “this issue was connected to her own biography and
has never ceased to attract her attention. Her studies of the people
involved in the Russian liberation movement of both liberal and
anarchist tendencies and her later interest in the activities of
Memorial had a common denominator – a critical and negative attitude
towards the violent, punitive activity of the state, the prosecution of
the freedom of thought, and the [violation] of human rights in order to
pursue the interests of those in power (…). For her, the study of the
history of the liberation movement and the struggle against the legacy
of the Gulag were inseparable.” (II-291)
She also assisted in the publication of some literary works which were
previously banned in the USSR (namely the books of Mikhail Osorgin).
But the years were taking their toll. In 1997, N.M. died. On a cold and
gloomy April day we came to the Mitinskoye Cemetery on the outskirts of
Moscow to attend her funeral. Many people assembled there, those who had
known and loved her, both old and young. Later we gathered at her house
and started to share our memories – of her as a colleague, a brilliant
historian, a wonderful person, ‘granny’… In these recollections the
grief over our loss was partially relieved.
Her portrait would remain unfinished without a description of the type
of person she was, even if many of her characteristics are already
evident from her biography. Everybody who encountered her could not help
noting her joyous character, her warmth and informality, her
responsiveness and kindness, her readiness to help. “What was most
attractive about her and what also commanded respect, was that her
troubled biography had not made her bitter, but had, on the contrary,
led to a determination to help the weaker, to share what she had with
generosity,” her friend Vasily Antonov wrote. (I-201) These personal
qualities of her were directly linked to her innate sense of freedom.
One of her closest and oldest friends recalled that even back in the
1950s, Natalia “stood out among her colleagues because of her absolute
lack of inhibition, her independence of judgment and the absence of any
servility towards superiors, something which was striking during the
times of Soviet intimidation.” (I-206) [8]
At the same time, N.M. was known for her respectful attitude towards
people, even those whose opinions she did not share, and for her
tolerance, including a tolerance for others’ weaknesses. Her colleagues
noted her ability to combine both adherence to principles and the art of
avoiding conflict. Antonov wrote: “Strange as it may seem, I cannot
recall a single serious conflict between N.M. Pirumova and authors
[whose works she edited for publication] – although some of them were
distinguished and ambitious – or people who reviewed her works, or even
the administration of the publishing house. Probably this was due to her
scholarly distinction, her editorial skills and tact.” (I-206)
Besides carrying out her own research, N.M. actively helped young
historians. One of her prodigies later wrote that “many young people
came to her. They brought their dissertations, theses or articles. Many
of them had their own academic tutors who worked very formally. But the
young people wanted a real evaluation of their work, real advice and
guidance. This is why they came to Natalia Mikhailovna, who never
refused to help.” (I-208-209) Apart from over 20 post-graduate students
who she tutored before they successfully defended their theses, she
helped dozens of other Soviet and foreign students and researchers by
providing her professional advice.
“Not being the most gifted public speaker, she demonstrated such a
grace, freedom and depth of mind, such humor and infectious love of
life, such openness and benevolence, that she remains in people’s
memories not [only] as a scholar, but also as a friend of Alexander
Herzen, Mikhail Bakunin, Mikhail Osorgin (whose literary works she
adored) or the zemstvo activists.” (I-216-217)
Sergey Udartsev also notes that Pirumova “was a very persuading person.
This did not rely on the positions she occupied, and was not formal but
factual. It was built on her morality, philosophy, and social skills.”
(II-308)
One of the places where her social skills flourished, was Pirumova’s own
house. “The hospitable house of Pirumova was always packed with people,”
a close friend recalled. “Colleagues, historians, philosophers, artists,
doctors, former political prisoners and emigrants, truth-seekers from
provincial towns, promising young people and lonely women… Many people
sought consolation, support or help there. And they found it.” (I-207)
“Usually the conversations began in her living room and were continued
in the kitchen,” writes Udartsev. “Sometimes they would later return to
the living room, to the bookshelves and the manuscripts… At the
[kitchen] table there was usually some liqueur, often made by Natalia
Mikhailovna herself, and some small glasses. But I can’t remember a
single case when somebody drank too much. Drinking liqueur was a custom,
it was done little by little … Often Natalia Mikhailovna would propose a
toast, her favorite one being: ‘For your and our freedom!’” (II-274-275)
One of her students wrote that in the 1990s, “N.M. was probably the last
person in Moscow whom you could visit without a preceding telephone
call, and the doors of her flat remained unlocked (sic!).” (I-211)
“What always impressed was that Natalia Mikhailova held on to her values
in spite of the times. Cautiously, yet determined, she resurrected whole
eras of Russian history from oblivion. Later, when the pressures of
state ideology were lifted, she took a lot of pleasure in restoring
these lost memories to the degree that her health and energy allowed…”
(I-215)
Pirumova’s name is undoubtedly among those of the most revered
historians who studied the life and legacy of Mikhail Bakunin and other
anarchists and participants in the Russian liberation movement. If one
thinks about the circumstances in which Pirumova worked, her scientific
interests also take on a tint of personal moral and political choice.
Historians in the USSR had to work under dramatically different
circumstances than their colleagues in the West, with their works
subjected to censorship and the archives and books of anarchists and
other opponents of the communist autocracy banned and hidden in secret
library storerooms. Choosing “controversial” subjects for your research
could in itself hinder your career as a Soviet scholar.
Pirumova, however, managed to write and publish honest books about her
beloved heroes even under the pressure of censorship.
Indeed, her biography of Bakunin, published in 1970 during the period of
the so-called “Brezhnevist stagnation”, is still one of the best Russian
books on the topic. With the exception of a few pages on the
Marx-Bakunin conflict within the First International in which she had to
pay lip-service to the Marxist doctrine, the book is a very
comprehensive and sympathetic look at the controversial man that Mikhail
Bakunin was. Pirumova even managed to criticize Marx (without
specifically naming him) as the editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
for the unscrupulous story that suggested that Bakunin was an agent of
the Russian tsar. Likewise, she did not shy away from questioning the
ethics and methods of the allies of Marx and Engels who ‘investigated’
the Nechayev affair or the activities of the Alliance. [9] The book was
later translated into different languages. [10]
When Pirumova worked on her books, there existed the unwritten Soviet
rule that scholars who wanted to ensure the publication of their works
had to make regular references to the Marxist canon and criticize
“non-Marxist” ideas. But, as one of her colleagues writes, “she [N.M.]
would rather not write something or avoid discussing a subject than
write anything that would contradict her own beliefs. Of course she,
too, was forced to make the occasional obligatory reference to the
classics of Marxism-Leninism or tame her judgments of the deeds or
thoughts of her heroes; but she did this thoughtfully and with measure,
mostly by making them appear less critical within a complex presentation
of their work.” (II-272-273)
She passed this approach on to her students. On the one hand, she wrote
to a younger colleague in 1983: “I don’t advise you to walk on the
razor’s edge. The tone of your writing should be academic, reasonable
and based on argumentation, and no refutations after each phrase of
Kr[opotkin]! There is place for that in the preface, at the end of
individual chapters or in the afterword.” (II-277) At the same time, she
taught younger scholars not to compromise their conscience for the
academic and ideological authorities on whom the acceptance of their
dissertations or the publications of their manuscripts relied: “Whether
‘they’ are afraid or not should not be your concern – your only concern
should be to remain an honest scholar.” (II-345)
Pirumova closely followed the work of her foreign colleagues, although
even the most notable books sometimes traveled a long way before they
reached the library collections in the USSR. She was watching the
publications of A. Lehning, M. Confino, T. Bacounine, J. Catteau and
others closely, and tried to inform the Soviet readers about relevant
releases. But even a simple review of a foreign book published on
Bakunin was not always possible to place in Soviet historical journals.
“As for our hero,” she wrote in one of her letters in 1976, the 100^(th)
anniversary of Bakunin’s death, “there will be nothing in his
remembrance in our press. Even my review of [his] ‘Archive’ – the one
that I gave you to read – [will not be published]. [11] As for me, I’m
writing an article requested by a Canadian-American journal and approved
by my office.” (II-314)
From 1981 on, Pirumova tried hard to publish various works by Bakunin in
Russian, for example those published by Arthur Lehning, which were
written at the time of his work on the Knouto-Germanic Empire and the
Social Revolution.
In 1983, she and her colleagues handed in a written request for the
publication of two volumes of Bakunin’s works. The first response was
negative. By the end of the year, however, the officials’ attitude had
changed: “And now our news. Unexpectedly it was decided at the very top
to publish Bak[unin] – (…) ‘for academic libraries’ only. Also
Krop[otkin] in two volumes (I had requested Mutual Aid and Ethics). Also
Freud, Solovyev, Slavophiles and others. Bak[unin] will be published
first. In July [1984] the text should be given to the editor.
Pustarnakov is doing this. He aims to translate ‘Consideration
philosophique sur le phantome’ and other appendices to the
Knouto-Germanic Empire himself and do all the other work. (…) The print
run of these books will only be 1.500 copies, they will hardly be sold
in the bookstores at all.” (II-345) The process proved long and
complicated, though – only in 1987, Vladimir Pustarnakov finally managed
to publish excerpts from some of Bakunin’s works, and only the
philosophical pieces, with all references to politics and Marxism
omitted. The publication of some major works by Bakunin became possible
only in 1989, for the first time since the 1930s. Pustarnakov’s thorough
and sympathetic preface to the 1987 collection of philosophical writings
– “M.A. Bakunin as a Philosopher” – was another significant contribution
to the return of Bakunin to the Russian readership.
N.M. was also active (and successful) in retrieving historical documents
and relics of the Bakunin family. The fact that – unfortunately after
her death – the Bakunin Museum was opened in Pryamukhino in 2003 was due
to her earlier efforts to find the remains of the Pryamukhino archive in
the 1970s and ‘80s. After the revolution in 1917, the contents of the
archive were spread out between Moscow, Leningrad and Tver’ (then
Kalinin), with some parts disappearing during the civil war. N.M. also
found the remaining members of the Bakunin family, helped recover
historical relics from them for the museum collection, and allowed the
first Bakunin family exhibition to take place in 1987 in the Tver’ State
Museum.
Pirumova not only helped gather relics and documents, but also
individuals willing to uncover forgotten pasts and help restore the
memory of people who were dear to her. Vladimir Sysoyev, a scholar of
the local history of the Tver’ region and the Bakunin family, who first
met Pirumova in 1978, recalls: “She was an amazing woman: Being a
professor of history, she spoke to me, at the time a young scholar of
local Tver’ history, as an equal. She patiently explained to me, who
lacked education in history, things that should have been well-known to
any historian. She could talk very compellingly (…) about her search for
historical relics of the Bakunin family which were scattered all over
the world. Natalia Mikhailovna spent a lot of energy on getting
Pryamukhino restored: she wrote articles, gave interviews, met with
[local and regional] administration, and participated in all possible
events.” (III-419)
Among other things Pirumova also tried to find the lost archive of Yury
Steklov, probably the most renowned Soviet historian who studied
Bakunin. Yury Steklov (1873–1941) published four volumes of Bakunin’s
collected works and correspondence in 1934–35, but was later arrested.
The other volumes might have been finished by that time, but his archive
could never be located. In the course of trying to find it, N.M. was
able to contact his son, Vladimir Yuryevich Steklov, who also was trying
to recover his father’s documents. Vladimir Steklov died in 1981. In one
of Pirumova’s letters we read: “On September 18 [V.Yu.] Steklov died. He
was buried at the Kuntsevskoye Cemetery [in Moscow]. I spoke to [his
widow] S.F. She tries to get by. She sorts out his papers, but I decided
not to talk about them now. He was contacted by that institution [the
KGB] about a week before his death. An officer came in person. He was
rather nice. Said that no traces of Yu.M.’s archive could be found, but
that the library had supposedly been donated by Yu.M.’s wife to the
Central Committee [of the Communist Party] in 1941. She herself died in
[19]42. I will try to find this [library]. If what this man said is
true, it can only be in the IMEL [Institute of Marx-Engels-Lenin,
affiliated with the Central Committee of the CPSU]. So far, I could not
find out anything about Turkos [Yury Steklov’s colleague who attended to
Bakunin’s correspondence]. They didn’t find her [personal] card in the
department [of the IMEL] or didn’t want to find it. So far, I haven’t
had time to go to the History Library. In the catalogue of the Lenin
Library she is not mentioned.” (II-329) [10]
Pirumova also tried hard to publish Kropotkin’s works and to
re-establish the Kropotkin museums in Moscow and Dmitrov. [11] In a
letter dated February 1983 she wrote: “The [idea of] the Kropotkin
Museum in Dmitrov received support, but at the last moment the [Moscow]
Regional Committee [of the Communist Party] asked for the official
decision of the Central Committee. A letter was sent there on February
8. Let’s hope that by Women’s Day the Geog[raphical] Soc[iety] will get
some response. But I don’t expect it to be positive.” (II-340) The case
was indeed moving very slowly – if at all: “What will happen with the
museum is not clear. So far, the scientific department of the MC [Moscow
City Communist Party Committee] has requested information on what we
plan to exhibit in the museum. We have compiled references to literary
and revolutionary activities [of Kropotkin] and expressed our desire to
restore the interior of the London cabinet and some living rooms based
on different funds (Revolution Museum and Literature Museum).” (II-342)
[12] And later: “The efforts on behalf of the Commission for the
Creative Legacy of Kropotkin moves forward with great difficulty. Two
distinguished academics (Yanshin and Gilyarov) agreed to participate,
but academics of the social sciences refuse. And various parts of the
commission’s ideology are not quite clear…” (II-344)
Although Pirumova was a renowned specialist on Bakunin, Herzen and
Kropotkin, it would be wrong to say that she was a specialist on the
history of the Russian and international anarchist movement as such. The
times and circumstances of her work prevented her from studying this
history in detail. Nevertheless, she was one of the few biographers of
her ‘heroes’, who was really able to understand both their psychological
features and motives, and the historical circumstances in which they
acted.
“Some of the episodes of Bakunin’s biography or his comments on Marxism
she had to avoid or delicately conceal, but as a whole, her book, for
the first time after 40 years of oblivion, returned to the Russian
readers the name of one of the most famous revolutionaries and
philosophers, of the creator of anarchist theory and a dominant
influence on several generations who fought for the freedom of the
individual around the world,” wrote Vladimir Sysoyev in his book on the
Bakunin family in 2002. (III-418) This praise of her work, which comes
from an author writing in the 21^(st) century, is a good example of the
many contributions she will be remembered for.
[1] Biographical data about N.Pirumova was mainly taken from the
following publications: “Pamjati M.A.Bakunina” (Moskva, Institut
ekonomiki Rossijskoj Akademii nauk, 2000; further referred to as I,
followed by page number); “Michail Aleksandrovich Bakunin. Lichnost’ i
tvorchestvo” (Moskva, Institut ekonomiki Rossijskoj Akademii nauk, 2005;
referred to as II) and Vladimir Sysoyev, “Bakuniny” (Tver’, Sozvezdije,
2000; (referred to as III). The former two volumes were published in
limited circulation and are thus difficult to find in libraries.
[2] She was known for her black dress already back in the 1950s. This,
however, was due to a quite simple reason. As her long-time friend and
fellow historian Eleonora Pavlyuchenko recalls, “the first meeting with
her was unforgettable. A young, very beautiful woman, with straight dark
black hair, worn as a bun on the crown of her head, in a very austere
and tight black dress (an anarchist? a member of the Socialist
Revolutionary Party?). Then, in obvious contrast to her almost ascetic
looks: lively, curious eyes, with a kind expression, always ready to
make contact. As for the black dress, it later turned out that it was
all Natalia Mikhailovna had in terms of ‘good clothes’ – we were all
very poor in those days. Regardless, the element of play in her behavior
fascinated…” (I-205)
[3] Natalia learnt about her father’s prison years only later from
Dmitry Likhachev, a famous Soviet literature professor, who was
imprisoned in Solovki together with Khachaturov. Likhachev recalled that
Khachaturov was first imprisoned in the 1920s on criminal charges – he
had embezzled state money and had unsuccessfully tried to escape from
Armenia to Turkey. Vasily Antonov, Natalia Pirumova’s colleague and
long-time friend, recalls that during one of the short thaws in Soviet
history, Pirumova was allowed to read her father’s case and discovered
that he had been a secret correspondent of a liberal Russian newspaper,
published by Pavel Milyukov in Paris from 1921 to 1940. (I-201)
[4] N.Pirumova. Aleksandr Herzen — revoljucioner, myslitel’, chelovek.
(Moskva, Mysl’, 1989.) P. 6.
[5] Among its participants were some famous Soviet historians, including
Yevgeny Plimak (an expert on Radischev and Chernyshevsky), writer and
historian Natan Eidelman, Alexander Volodin (author of books on Herzen
and Hegel’s influence on Russian thought), and Pirumova’s close friend
Eleonora Pavlyuchenko (an expert on the Decembrists).
[6] Vozrozhdeniye members collected and published memoirs of Gulag
prisoners, first in secret (in the 1970s), later openly.
[7] Udartsev recalls that “only at the peak of the perestroika she got a
small TV in her living room which she often turned on.” (II-274) It
appears that Pirumova had been very skeptical of the official Soviet
propaganda, preferring not to have a TV at the time.
[8] These qualities – liveliness, activism and innate freedom – were
also characteristics of her father. Professor Dmitry Likhachev, who knew
him in Solovki, wrote: “We loved him for his joie de vivre. One could
learn a lot from Mikhail Ivanovich in practical life, but the main thing
was his ability not to lose self-respect. Watching him in his
interaction with superiors, we could see that he was making fun of them,
that he despised them.” (See Dmitry Likhachev, Vospominaniya. Various
editions.)
[9] For Pirumova’s own studies of the Nechayev affair, see, for example,
“M. Bakunin ili S. Nechaev?” (Prometej – Vol. 5, 1968 — Pp. 168–182),
her books on Bakunin (1970, 1990), her article (co-author S.V.
Zhitomirskaja) “Ogarev, Bakunin i N.A. Herzen-doch’ v ‘Nechaevskoj
istorii’ (1879)” in Literaturnoe nasledstvo. Moskva, 1985 – Vol. 96:
Herzen i Zapad – Pp.413–546), or her reviews of foreign publications:
“Novoje o Bakunine na stranicah francuzskogo zhurnala” [“Cahiers du
monde russe et sovietique”] // Istorija SSSR — № 4, 1968 — Pp. 186–198.
10. Pirumova’s Bakunin was published in Japan (1973), Yugoslavia (1975),
Hungary (1979). 11. Pirumova managed to publish this – a review of the
IISG edition of Bakunin’s works – only two years later. See “Arhiv
Bakunina”: Izdanie Mezhdunarodnogo instituta social’noj istorii //
Osvoboditel’noe dvizhenie v Rossii: Mezhvuzovskij nauchnyj sbornik —
Saratov — Vol. 8 — Pp.113–119. [co-author V.A.Chernyh].
[10] Pirumova published an article on Yury Steklov in 1974, following
his 100^(th) birthday. See [K stoletiju so dnja rozhdenija Ju.M.
Steklova] // Istorija SSSR — № 2 — Pp.221–222. Her proposal to publish a
biography of Steklov in 1989 was not accepted. Sergey Udartsev was to
write the book, but the Politizdat publishing house (formerly
Gospolitizidat) later decided not to pursue its publication. See
II-364-365.
[11] Following Kropotkin’s death, the Kropotkin Museum in Moscow was
established in 1921 in the house where he had been born. Until the late
1920s it served as a meeting point for anarchists who were not yet
imprisoned by the communist regime. It was finally closed down in 1938
after Kropotkin’s widow had “given” it to the Soviet government. The
closure was officially due to “repairs” but the museum never re-opened.
In Dmitrov, the house where Kropotkin lived for the last three years
before his death was partly turned into an informal museum by his widow,
Sofia Kropotkin. The museum existed de facto until 1941 when German Nazi
troops reached the surroundings of Moscow. The remaining archives and
relics were given to the local Dmitrov Museum. Sofia Kropotkin died
shortly after. Pirumova tried to re-establish at least one of the
museums – Moscow or Dmitrov – but to no effect.
[12] The plan, as it was proposed by Pirumova in 1983, awaits
realization to this very day. Neither for Kropotkin’s 150^(th) birthday
in 1992 nor at any later date has it been possible to re-establish one
of the Kropotkin museums. In Dmitrov his house was finally ‘restored’,
but in a rather brutal fashion: it was destroyed and built anew. A
Kropotkin monument has also been built. The museum, however, still
awaits to be re-opened.