On the biography of the Bakunin Family Archive

Abstract

History often purports to be like currency on the gold standard.  It bases its claims to value on some archived thing.  But things change, literally and inevitably.  They lead social lives, interact with the world around them, and accumulate meanings through this life.  Adopting the “biography of things” approach used in many social sciences, this essay investigates the history of the Bakunin family archive. In doing so, it considers the intimate foundations of intellectual agency (and history) in modern Russia. It is based on long acquaintance with those Bakunin family papers now housed in Russian institutions.