Mikhail Bakunin

1814

Mikhail Bakunin was born to noble parents in the village of Premukhino on May 18, 1814. Back then, no one could have expected that he would grow up to be one of Europe's most charismatic revolutionaries.

Bakunin played a role in uprisings all over the continent, from Prague, where he fomented insurrection, to Dresden, where he spent time in chains while awaiting execution before being handed over to Russian authorities and sent to Siberia. After fleeing via Japan and reaching America, he made his way to England, and from there back to the continent, where he set out to support revolution in Poland, Germany and even mild-mannered Switzerland, all the while vying with Marx for influence over Europe's revolutionary undergrounds and preaching anarchism and the abolition of all government.

The tempestuous life of this rabblerousing scion of the nobility ended in 1876, at a hospital for the destitute in Bern.