Nikolai Isaakovitch Utin (, French: Nicolas Outine; 8 August 1841 – 1 December 1883) was a Russian socialist and revolutionary. He spent most of his adult life in Switzerland, where he participated in the founding of the Russian section of the

International Workingmen's Association The International Workingmen's Association (IWA), often called the First International (1864–1876), was an international organisation which aimed at uniting a variety of different left-wing socialist, communist and anarchist groups and trad ...

. In the conflict between

Mikhail Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (; 1814–1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist, socialist and founder of collectivist anarchism. He is considered among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major founder of the revolutionary ...

and

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

, he supported Marx, and through his involvement with Geneva journals ''

Narodnoye delo ''Narodnoye delo'' (; ) was a Russian-language newspaper founded in Geneva, Switzerland, after the congress of the League of Peace and Freedom in 1867 by a group of exiled Russian revolutionaries. The circle involved in the writing of the newspape ...

'' and ''l'Égalité'' as a writer and editor, he played an important role in increasing support for Marx at Bakunin's expense.

Career

Nikolai Utin was born 8 August 1841 in

Kherson Kherson (, ) is a port city of Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers appr ...

in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

(now Ukraine). His father, a Russian merchant, was a Jewish convert to Russian Orthodoxy. Utin and his siblings were involved in the student movement of the 1860s in

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

. When the government placed restrictions on students in 1861 in an attempt to control the spread of

nihilist Nihilism (; ) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects generally accepted or fundamental aspects of human existence, such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values, or meaning. The term was popularized by Ivan ...

radicalism in universities, Nikolai encouraged 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. Nikolai's brother Boris was a professor of the university at the time, and resigned over the university's failure to enact democratizing reforms. Nikolai Utin was released from the

Peter and Paul Fortress The Peter and Paul Fortress is the original citadel of St. Petersburg, Russia, founded by Peter the Great in 1703 and built to Domenico Trezzini's designs from 1706 to 1740 as a star fortress. Between the first half of the 1700s and early 1920s i ...

after a month of incarceration, and shortly thereafter became a leading member of Land and Liberty. He fled Russia for London in May 1863. He arrived in

Vevey Vevey (; frp, Vevê; german: label=former German, Vivis) is a town in Switzerland in the canton of Vaud, on the north shore of Lake Geneva, near Lausanne. The German name Vivis is no longer commonly used. It was the seat of the district of ...

, Switzerland in 1864, and was condemned to death ''

in absentia is Latin for absence. , a legal term, is Latin for "in the absence" or "while absent". may also refer to: * Award in absentia * Declared death in absentia, or simply, death in absentia, legally declared death without a body * Election in absen ...

''. While in London, he had attempted to persuade

Nikolai Ogaryov Nikolay Platonovich Ogarev (Ogaryov; ; – ) was a Russian poet, historian and political activist. He was deeply critical of the limitations of the Emancipation reform of 1861 claiming that the serfs were not free but had simply exchanged one fo ...

and

Aleksandr Herzen Alexander Ivanovich Herzen (russian: Алекса́ндр Ива́нович Ге́рцен, translit=Alexándr Ivánovich Gértsen; ) was a Russian writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism" and one of the main fathers of agra ...

, the editors of the influential journal ''

Kolokol Kolokol is Russian word which means bell. It may refer to: * ''Kolokol'' (newspaper), a newspaper edited by Alexander Herzen and Nikolay Ogarev *Kolokol Group, a group of somma volcanoes located in the Kuril Islands, Russia *Tsar Bell, also referre ...

'' (''The Bell''), to turn over the newspaper to the next generation of Russian revolutionaries, with himself in control. They refused. At a "unity conference" that Utin helped to organize in Geneva over the New Year in 1864/5, the ideological divide between the two generations having grown even further, Utin successfully convinced the others of his age group to endorse his claim to ''Kolokol'' and his demand that the previous editors step aside. When anarchist

founded the monthly journal ''Narodnoye delo'' (''The People's Cause'') with funding from

Zoya Obolenskaya Zoya (russian: Зоя, links=no) is a feminine Russian and Ukrainian first name, a variant of Zoe, meaning "life", from Greek ζωή (zoē), "life".