Nikolai Utin

Nikolai Isaakovitch Utin (, ; 8 August 1841 – 1 December 1883) was a Russian socialist and revolutionary. He grew up in Saint Petersburg, and became a charismatic leader of the student movement. Because of his revolutionary activities, he spent most of his adult life in political exile in Switzerland, where he participated in the founding of the Russian section of the International Workingmen's Association and kept up correspondence with liberals and revolutionaries across Europe. In the conflict between Mikhail Bakunin and Karl Marx, he supported Marx, and through his involvement with Geneva journals Narodnoye delo and l'Égalité as a writer and editor, he played an important role in increasing support for Marx at Bakunin's expense. He was extremely influential in revolutionary circles until the breakup of the First International in 1876, whereupon he withdrew from politics and returned to Russia.

Career

Russia Nikolai Utin was born 8 August 1841 in Kherson in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine), the seventh of eight children of Isaak Iosifovich Utin (1812–1876) and Maria Isaakovna Utina (?–1870). His father, an extremely successful wine merchant, was a Jewish convert to Russian Orthodoxy. In the mid-1850s, the family moved to a townhouse in Saint Petersburg and became prominent members of the social and intellectual community. Nikolai Utin emerged as a charismatic student leader, encouraging his fellow students towards political aims. His speeches, along with the manifestos and leaflets circulated by a group that became known as "Utin's party", contributed to the street protests of 26 and 27 September, at which both Nikolai and his younger brother Yevgeny were arrested, along with nearly 300 other protesters. The university closed on 20 December 1861, and was not reopened until 1863. Utin ran the journal from 1868 to 1870.

Well known in the expat Russian revolutionary community, he participated in the foundation of the Russian section of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) with Elisabeth Dmitrieff. The Geneva group that founded this section, following Johann Philip Becker's suggestions, wrote to Karl Marx for support and strongly distanced themselves from Bakunin. he used his influence at this newspaper and Narodnoye delo to keep the revolutionary community in Geneva sympathetic to Marx and not Bakunin. However, he remained sympathetic to Elisabeth Dmitrieff, who had returned to Russia after the events of the Paris Commune, and so he was warned by Yekaterina Barteneva and her husband Victor Bartenev when Dmitrieff's partner, and later husband, Ivan Davydovski, had been arrested for murder and was in need of his help. On 17 December 1876, he wrote to Karl Marx, who found a lawyer to accept the case pro bono.

After the split of the IWA, Utin withdrew from politics. He returned to Russia in 1878 and died on 1 December 1883 in Saint Petersburg.

Writing Utin wrote for Kolokol and Vestnik Evropy under various pseudonyms.

Personal life In 1863, Nikolai Utin married Natalia Korsini (1841 - after 1913), daughter of architect and writer . She was among the first women to attend Saint Petersburg University and was arrested in 1861 during the student unrest. She followed him into exile in 1863 and returned with him in 1878. She wrote for Vestnik Evropy, under her own name or as N. I. Tal. Her 1885 novel Zhizn za zhizn (Жизнь за жизнь, "Life for Life") caused a scandal.

Utin's siblings were also involved in the student movement of the 1860s. Boris Isaakovitch Utin (1832–1872) was a professor at Saint Petersburg University. Yakov Isaakovitch Utin (1839-1916) was a businessman and privy counsellor. Yevgeny Isaakovitch Utin (1843–1894) was a lawyer and journalist, a regular contributor to Vestnik Evropy. Their sister, Liuba, married Mikhail Stasyulevich, an academic who had been one of Nikolai Utin's teachers and would become the founder and chief editor of Vestnik Evropy, in April 1859.