Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Fontanka 16: The Tsars' Secret Police

Fontanka 16: The Tsars' Secret Police

Stepanov, Sergei A.
Ruud, Charles

Hardcover

Biographies GeneralGeneral Political ScienceRussian History

Currently unavailable to order

ISBN10: 0773517871
ISBN13: 9780773517875
Publisher: McGill-Queen's University Press
Published: Apr 23 1999
Pages: 424
Weight: 1.61
Height: 7.90 Width: 2.86 Depth: 9.24
Language: English

Fontanka 16 takes a fresh look at the feared Russian tsarist secret police, the Okhranka, during the period of the imperial regime leading up to the Revolution of 1917. It is a fascinating account of the development of a secret police organization that was deeply rooted in tsarist Russia but provided a model for Soviet police organizations.

From police headquarters at Fontanka 16 to the secret offices in major Russian post offices where specialists opened and read correspondence, the Okhranka blanketed the huge Russian empire with a network of secret agents and informers. In many cases they were involved in a desperate effort to track down terrorists before they could assassinate government officials and members of the imperial family. Charles Ruud and Sergei Stepanov have mined police archives, including Moscow's State Archive of the Russian Federation and the archives of the Hoover Institution, to produce this first post-Soviet look at the Okhranka's covert operations, which spread as far as Western Europe. In many ways Fontanka 16 reveals as much about the enemies of the tsars as the police who fought them. Although each side saw its cause as a struggle for good over evil, the authors show that the two sides strongly resembled one another in method, psychology, and morality. In this strange nether world of intrigue and deception, police agents often assisted revolutionaries and a number of former revolutionaries rose through the ranks of the secret police. The authors shed new light on the supposed anti-Semitism of the imperial government, as well as the origins of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

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