Lev Tikhomirov

Lev Alexandrovich Tikhomirov (Russian: Лев Александрович Тихомиров; 19 January 1852, Gelendzhik – 10 October 1923, Sergiyev Posad), originally a Russian revolutionary and one of the members of the Executive Committee of the Narodnaya Volya, following his disenchantment with violent revolution became one of the leading conservative thinkers in Russia.

Lev Tikhomirov was born in Gelendzhik on 19 January 1852 to a military doctor and his wife, a graduate of the Institute for the Education of Noble Maidens.

In 1873, Tikhomirov was arrested in connection with the Trial of the 193 and sentenced to a four-year term in St Petersburg's Sts Peter and Paul Fortress.

In August 1879, when Land and Liberty split into two factions as the result of a dispute over organizational tactics, he joined its most radical of the two successors, the People's Will.

In France, however, he began to reconsider his views writing in 1886: From henceforth our only hope is Russia and the Russian people.

He advocated finding a Russian alternative to the democratic idea, writing: We must seek other ways, understanding that great truth, which is now apparent given the negative experiences of the "new era": that organizing a society is only possible by keeping the spiritual balance in every man.

He then moved to Sergiev Posad, where he wrote his second largest work, On the Religious and Philosophical Fundamentals of History.