The revolutionary movement and the practice of public funerals based on the sources of personal origins

The paper examines the tradition of politicized public funerals, which was of great importance among those who sympathized with revolutionary ideas in pre-revolutionary Russia, using materials of personal sources. Public funerals of this kind went beyond the boundaries of the traditional confessional funeral rite to a large extent and elicited serious anxiety from the authorities. It is shown that this tradition was born and formed in the second half of the 19^th century and allowed the public to express political ideas bypassing the censorship restrictions of that period. The politicized funeral attracted large crowds of participants and spectators, accompanied by revolutionary songs, and ended with speeches and a «civil funeral». The significance of politicized public funerals as a performative practice is shown. It is noted that politicized funerals were not always anti-religious in nature. The reaction of contemporaries to the mass politicized funeral is considered. Memoirists note the extra-state nature of a funeral of this kind, which made it possible to maintain perfect order even without the participation of the police. It is shown that by the time of the 1917 revolution, public revolutionary funerals were already a well-formed social phenomenon, and the ritual of the ceremonial burial of the victims of the revolution on the Field of Mars dates back precisely to this practice.