Michael Lunin | |
|---|---|
 Lunin in 1822 | |
| Born | Mikhail Sergeyevich Lunin 8 December 1787 |
| Died | 3 December 1845 (aged 57) |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Russian philosophy |
| School | Liberalism, Romanticism |
Main interests | Republicanism, Catholicism, Liberalism |
Notable ideas | Russian liberalism |
Mikhail Sergeyevich "Michael" Lunin (Russian: Михаил Сергеевич Лунин; 8 December 1787 – 3 December 1845), also spelt as Mikhaïl Lounine, was a Russian Empire political philosopher, revolutionary, Mason, Decembrist, a Lieutenant of the Grodno Life Guards regiment and a participant of the Franco-Russian Patriotic War of 1812. After a successful career in the military during the Napoleonic invasion, he became involved with multiple liberal Russian secret societies in the early 19th century, including the Union of Salvation and the Union of Welfare, as well as the Northern Society and the Southern Society. After the Decembrist Revolt took place in 1825, he was arrested due to his affiliations with the men responsible, and was subsequently exiled to a labor camp in Siberia. Lunin spent time in Finnish jails, three different prisons in Siberia, and lived on a farm under the watchful eye of the government during his life as an exile. Known for keeping good spirits and maintaining a firm defiance of autocratic rule, Lunin was eventually imprisoned again for writing in "opposition" to the Russian government, and lived out the rest of his life in a cell.
Dostoevsky described Lunin as a "character about whom legends persist", a precursor to the later Russian socialist revolutionaries:
My nickname changed during my imprisonment and exile, and with each change it became longer. Now, in official documents, I am referred to as: “A state criminal in exile.”... My sole weapon is my thought…[1]
As an aged man he used to say that, though he had only one tooth left in his mouth, even that one was directed against Nicholas.[2]
All his life he deliberately looked for danger. He so loved the sensation it gave him that it became a physical necessity for him. In his youth he fought duels over nothing, and when he was exiled to Siberia, he went bear hunting armed only with a knife. He also enjoyed tangling with runaway convicts in the Siberian forests.... What fascinates [such people]...is overcoming their fear.[3]