Kaspar Michal Turski
Turski, Kaspar Michał
Born circa 1847 in the Tiraspol’ District of Kherson Province, in what is now the Moldavian SSR; died July 26,1926, near Nice, France. Figure in the Russian and Polish revolutionary movements; publicist.
A member of the dvorianstvo (nobility or gentry), Turski studied at the University of Kharkov until 1867. Considered politically suspect because of his attempt to take part in the Polish Uprising of 1863–64, he was placed under police surveillance in 1866. In 1867 he was exiled to Arkhangel’sk Province, but in the spring of 1869 he escaped, fleeing through Istanbul to Switzerland and subsequently to France. He became associated with Polish leftist émigrés. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, Turski was a volunteer in the Polish Legion of G. Garibaldi’s army. He took part in the Paris Commune of 1871, and he fled to Zürich after the Commune’s defeat.
In the early 1870’s, Turski became a friend of S. G. Nechaev’s and helped organize the Slavic Circle, a group of Russian Jacobins. Together with P. N. Tkachev and other Jacobins, he published and edited the journal Nabat from 1875 to 1881. Turski was one of the organizers of the Society for the Liberation of the People, and he contributed to the newspaper of the French Blan-quists Ni dieu, ni maître. In 1888 and 1889 he published the newspaper Svoboda. In the late 19th century, Turski became a member of the Polish Socialist Party; toward the end of his life he adopted nationalist views.
WORKS
Amari, A. (pseudonym). Idealizm i materializm v politike, part 1. Geneva, 1877.Amari, A. (pseudonym). Revoliutsionnaia rasprava. [Geneva] 1878.
REFERENCES
Nikolaevskii, B. “Pamiati poslednego ’iakobintsa’-semidesiatnika (G.-M. Turskii).” Katorga issylka, 1926, no. 2 (23).Grosul, V. Ia. “O balkanskikh sviaziakh russkikh ’iakobintsev’ (70-e gody 19 v.).” In Balkanskii istoricheskiisbornik, book 4. Kishinev, 1974.
Grosul, V. Ia. “Mezhslavianskie revoliutsionnye obshchestva nach. 70-kh gg. 19 v.” In Iz istorii ekonomicheskoi i obshchestvennoi zhizni Rossii. Moscow, 1976.
Borejsza, J. W. Emigracja polska po powstaniu styczniowym. Warsaw, 1966.
V. IA. GROSUL