Okhrana: PPK]
* Perspective of Zachariasz Prus.
Zachariasz Prus, under the name of Krystian Rys was meeting with some other Poles in an apartment in Lithuania, the apartment was not bad but not in the best condition either. There were mainly Polish nationalists, and some socialists like Maria Koplewska.
"So, through the formation of the Lithuanian branch of the Polska Partia Kulangistów (Polish Boulangist Party), we commit ourselves to the establishment of an independent Poland based on democratic principles, with a direct universal vote, freedom of press, expression and assembly, day eight-hour work, equal wages for men and women, minimum wage, universal education and social support in case of injury at work. " It is held inside the apartment, that was the document brought by Parisian Poles like Maria Skłodowska, and several delegates applaud the PPK's political program (quite progressive in some matters).
"While I support this program, we must remember that the first and most important objective is the reestablishment of an independent Poland, for this we must also bring in the other nations of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth and foreign nations to prevent the Russian yoke from returning to repeat." Another one of the delegates, a man with a mustache argues, an idea that excites Polish nationalists, the main base of this delegate and of course, one of the main attractions of the PPK.
It was a nationalist party, one that promised immediate and uncompromising independence to the Russians unlike most Polish politicians, there were even members with certain other ideas of the traditional Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth.
That day the PPK arrived in Russia.
"Józef Piłsudski, a pleasure." The delegate introduces himself shaking the hand of another of those present.
"Krystian Rys." Agent Prus introduces himself amiably, "joining" Piłsudski, Koplewska and others to the Lithuanian branch of the PPK, which is officially launching its career in Russia.
This marked the first expatriation of Boulangism, coming from the elitist and nationalist mass of the Parisian Poles, they maintained an unconditional independence of Poland from Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany, based on democratic and Catholic ideals strongly linked to Western Europe.
Although democracy was promised, the truth is that the PPK was quite divided into two ideas, centralism (therefore making all non-Polish ethnic groups pass a process of imposition of Polish culture) or federalism (therefore having various cultures, but non-Polish ethnic-cultures would suffer from Polish-dominated state imperialism and violence if they did not submit to the union).
It was very similar to French Boulangism, a right wing ideology with some radicals on the political left giving support.
*******
"I am Polish, like my father before me, but my connection with Poland is practically non-existent. I was born on German soil, and the Germans expelled me and the Russians received me, I have never had sympathy for the ideals of Polish independence.
I have sympathy for Russia, a Russia that welcomed me and many other Poles expelled from Germanic lands.
Piłsudski might be a well-intentioned man, but he promises projects that turn my guts, a 'Promethean' plan about dividing Russia through her minorities, reforms to the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and an Intermarium alliance.
I am opposed to such ideas ... perhaps he is a traitor to a 'cause' of the Polish nation, but my loyalty lies more in Russia, in the homeland in which I have lived.
At the moment my orders are to observe and report, until the capture of the PPK members is absolutely successful."
-Written by Prus, later destroyed or lost.
*******
[Okhrana: Technical advances]
Russia became the first European country, and the second country globally, to adopt fingerprint identification offices. This through an initial cooperation with the Argentine police of Buenos Aires.
The Russians readily adopt it in their police offices and intelligence services (the Okhrana) for the purpose of identifications, and soon the first fingerprint records of citizens of the Russian Empire are formed.
In Europe and America (and therefore even less so in Africa, Asia or Oceania) these measures would not be adapted until many years later, and of course, these measures were only in their first steps but that was not the most important thing. important was the precedent for investigations and civil authorities.
With a foundation, the people of the future could build more from that foundation.
*******
[International]
At some point in April a conflict breaks out in Wyoming, United States, we talk about the Johnson County war. This conflict was the product of competition between cattle companies and settler-farmers (defined as thieves by the companies) for rights to water, land-property, and livestock.
This leads to the large established ranchers hiring armed gunmen against more than 200 American citizens, united in a gigantic local militia-gang.
The issue is that the large ranchers are closely linked to the Republican party, while the minor farmers and ranchers were mostly democratic, causing certain problems in justice regarding violence between both sides. With a support to the agricultural-livestock monopoly of the big businessmen over Wyoming, thus keeping the Wyoming Stock Growers Association closed to the largest producers and capitalists, harming the smallest.
Both sides would later mythologize those involved to try to gain a positive light, putting an even stronger touch on the class struggle in the United States, and leading to the demystification of the American Wild West (to some extent).
On April 15, Thomson-Houston Company and the Edison General Electric Company merge into the General Electric Company.
May 19, the Battle of the Yemoja River takes place, with a British victory at the hands of the natives (a product of technological, training and logistical superiority) of the British Empire over Nigeria, where the natives of the kingdom of Ijebu.
The English conquest continues for the following days.
May 28, Theodore Roosevelt arrives in the United States (after a few detours through Europe) to start editing and finally publishing his first book about his travels, in this case the Russian travel edition.
Roosevelt also joins the Sierra Club, the brainchild of Scottish-American preservationist John Mur, an environmental organization that wants policies related to protecting the environment through political pressure.
On June 7, this time a remarkable event occurs in the racial struggle in the United States, the octoroon (a quarter of African descent and three-quarters of European descent) Homer Plessy deliberately sits in a whites-only railroad car.
This leads to Plessy v. Ferguson, a failed case of fighting the racial segregation of the United States, where at that time black and white were "separate but equal" (an explanation of how there can be racial segregation without violating the Constitution of the United States).
On June 30, the strike in Homestead, Pennsylvania, caused by the steel workers began, the strike again turned into a class struggle when the employers began to hire private security agents against the strikers, leading to violence, actions against unions and to some extent corruption.
It is clear that the capitalist world of 1892 was terrified of strikes and the possibility of violent rebellions, especially their effects on the local or national economy, with the great Liverpool strike leaving chills in England-United Kingdom, the American industrial barons did not they wanted to take risks which led to more violence and repression from the unions.
In this sense, the economic-social elites increasingly viewed the "French model", a value of culture, civilization and rapid growth, which fiercely crushed the attempts of socialists and trade unionists who threatened the regime.
During this year the Carnegie Steel Company is formed, a monopoly on the steel industry owned by Andrew Carnegie after the merger of all his companies.
*******
[Medicine]
It is May when Tsar Alexander III and Dmitry Iosifovich Ivanovsky meet, in February Ivanovsky had published an article regarding tobacco diseases.
It is not related to the damage of tobacco in the lungs, Ivanovsky's interest was what we know today as the tobacco mosaic virus or TMV.
With this report in Saint Petersburg, under the auspices of Tsar Alexander III (who strongly pushed some concepts and advances), Ivanovsky repeated his experiments, being able to observe a group of viruses through an optical microscope. Indicating that the TMV did not originate from a bacterial infection, but that there was something else, showing that the infected sap remained infectious even after being filtered through the best Chamberland filters.
This went against some of Ivanovsky's hypotheses, that he believed that the origin was bacterial but the filters failed due to the characteristics of the bacteria in question, but that's the science.
The Russian scientific community and the Imperatorskaya Gazeta called this "virus", indicating the non-bacterial origin of TMV.
The discovery of the virus would play a very important role in the development of biology, medicine, veterinary medicine and phytopathology, which would allow the etiology to decipher the processes of rabies, smallpox and other diseases.
Ivanovsky's experiments would be independently verified by other European scientists in later years (Martinus Willem Beijerinck in 1898), because it was something relatively new in 1893 and not immediately accepted.
In Russia on the other hand Ivanovsky was decorated almost immediately, after this Ivanovsky would continue to investigate diseases caused by tobacco, alcoholic fermentation, photosynthesis and general agricultural microbiology.
Ivanovsky also promoted Darwinism, emphasizing the existence of a dependency of organisms on environmental conditions, and therefore the importance of evolution in this fact.
*******
[Manchurian Project]
Another year in Manchuria for Tsesarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich, after 1891 Tsesarevich returned from a formal visit to Saint Petersburg to notify his Cossack officers that Tsar Alexander III agreed to the formation of a Cossack Host in Inner Manchuria.
This time it was official.
This allowed the Cossacks to begin greater resettlement and training efforts in the Inner Manchuria region, in turn increasing the population of other non-Han or Manchu ethnicities, particularly a population loyal to the Russian Empire.
The Cossacks began to recruit many local young men, interested in work, education and food, who helped fight crime in the countryside and became more loyal populations of the Russian Empire through their service alongside the Cossacks.
The Tsesarevich Nicholas continued the mainly civil administration, expand the railway lines, inaugurate some factories, improve the administration and economic development, etc.
But now there was also an increase in the military administration, the army and the Cossacks forming military academies, training spaces, supply lines, etc.
An investment but one that continued to increase the demographic density (of loyal population) and the infrastructure of the region ruled by Nicholas within the Russian Empire.
The largest increases in the local military forces of Inner Manchuria were yet to come (1895) but in 1892 there was already a basis for this with the formation of the new Cossack Host.
Port Arthur and Mukden among other cities of Inner Manchuria continued to grow as commercial positions within the Russian Empire, Port Arthur due to its access to the sea and the other cities due to their positions within the internal trade network within Russia.
Due to the increase of native Russian population in the area (mainly Slavs), Orthodox churches and some neighborhoods with European influence were formed. Of course the Han-Manchu style continued to prevail, but there were some neighborhoods more European than others.
Regardless of this, the Tsesarevich Nicholas continued to maintain peace between the migrants and the former inhabitants, educating the population on both sides, etc. Because the important thing was the cooperation of both Russian populations by nationality and not by ethnicity.
*******
[Rodina]
There are several ways of saying homeland, for example this Otechestvo (Отечество) or Rodina (Родина).
Homeland (Otechestvo) describes the native or adoptive land to which an individual feels bound by emotional, cultural, historical or other ties, for example from birth. The country / land of the parents, with strong emotional connotations (patriotism), in certain parts of Russian history had socio-political and revolutionary connotations after the French Revolution and the Decembrists.
On the other hand, 'Rodina' in the Russian context indicates the territory, locality or country of birth of the person and his citizenship (of where he is a citizen), a model of the relationship between the individual, the state and society, between the individual and the centralized ideological system (and to a lesser extent the place of origin of some occurrence, object or phenomenon).
Rodina was the great homeland (as opposed to the small homeland, city, town, clan, tribe or small settlement, a small territory more isolated or separated from the great homeland), Russia was the great homeland of the Russians.
"A single political, economic and cultural space, the peoples of Russia communicate with each other, intermingle territorially (to some extent), have common aspirations and goals, and use the Russian language as the language of inter-ethnic communication.
As a result, there is a state, geopolitical, cultural and, in part, linguistic unity of the country's population, which forms a sense of common homeland.
The homeland (also Motherland or Fatherland), like a Matrioshka, absorbs the region of origin (small homeland) into the state (great homeland).
God, Tsar and Motherland are some of the most important values of Russia! "
-The Rus newspaper.
The idea of the Great Homeland and Rodina was developed in the Rus newspaper, Rus is the successor to the Moskva newspaper which was discontinued due to the death of Ivan Aksakov in 1886.
However, Aksakov's legacy continued through Mikhail Skobelev (Aksakov's friend) and Rus workers, Vladimir Sergeevich Soloviev, Sergei Alexandrovich Rachinsky, Vladimir Ivanovich Lamansky, Nikolai Nikolaevich Strakhov, Dimitri Fedorovich Samarin and Sergei Fedorovich Sharapovich, among others.
A group that included notable members of society, literary critics, philosophers, writers and publicists, members of the church or interested in religion, etc.
Rus was something weird, the newspaper supported Slavophilic ideas, nationalism and orthodox traditions, they opposed some segments of Russia's educational programs.
They wanted to preserve imperial and monarchy unity (foster the authority of the Tsar and the ruling elite), but in turn pointed out the shortcomings of the Tsarist government.
It must be understood that although cities are usually more liberal or of a different spectrum to the rural sector, the Russian Empire was in a time of exceptionalism, its lower-middle classes were still exceptionally conservative (although changing a bit in the cities) the Moskva was popular.
So the Rus continued to contribute to the ideas of the Holy Rus and Russian exceptionalism, nationalism and pan-Slavism, etc. It helped that someone like Deputy War Minister Skobelev was widely involved.
Another curious fact is that the Rus also contributed to the popular culture of Russia within the state and abroad, further popularizing the Matrioshka and some comics.
*******
[Sports culture: Quarter-finals]
* Kharkov vs Baku: The Baku team defeats the Kharkov team in a 3 to 2.
* Vyborg vs Tomsk: Vyborg's team defeats Tomsk's team 1 to 0.
* Novo Arkhangelsk vs Murmansk: Novo Arkhangelsk's team defeats Murmansk's team 2 to 1.
* Kiev vs Saint Petersburg: The Saint Petersburg team defeats the Kiev team by 2 to 0.