Nikolay Ivanovich Turgenev

Nikolay Ivanovich Turgenev (born Oct. 23 [Oct. 12, Old Style], 1789, Simbirsk [now Ulyanovsk], Russia—died Nov. 10 [Oct. 29], 1871, Paris) was a Russian government official and economist who was a cofounder of the revolutionary Northern Society, which staged the Decembrist uprising of 1825 in St. Petersburg.

Born into the middle class, Turgenev was one of a number of Russian youths infected by the liberal spirit that emerged in Europe after the French Revolution. He belonged to the Union of Welfare, a reformist society, many of whose members eventually came to advocate the overthrow of the autocracy. In 1821 the group formally disbanded but covertly reorganized itself into several secret branches, including the Northern Society in St. Petersburg.

An opponent of serfdom, Turgenev wrote a number of books on taxation and serfdom that had a wide influence prior to the 1825 revolt, the most prominent of these being Experience of the Theory of Taxation (1818). Abroad at the time of the December uprising, Turgenev became an emigré (having been tried in absentia and sentenced to hard labour for life). In 1847 he published Russia and the Russians, regarded as one of the first comprehensive accounts of the development of Russian political thought.