[Banned Edition] Strakhov, F. A. Letter to the Prosecutor Regarding State Violence (Pismo k prokuroru po povodu gosudarstvennogo nasiliya), 1897. In Russian.

[Запрещенное издание] Страхов Ф. А. Письмо к прокурору по поводу государственного насилия.
Каруж (Женева) : Издание М. К. Элпидина, 1897.
24 с. Без переплета, уменьшенный формат.
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[Banned Edition] Strakhov, Fyodor. Letter to the Prosecutor Regarding State Violence.
Carouge (Geneva): M. K. Elpidin Publishing House, 1897.
24 pp. Unbound, small format. In Russian.

This rare 1897 pamphlet is a significant artifact of the Russian revolutionary underground, published by the legendary Mikhail Elpidin in Carouge, a suburb of Geneva. Fyodor Alekseyevich Strakhov, a publicist and revolutionary closely associated with the Populist (Narodnik) movement, wrote this open letter as a searing indictment of the Tsarist judicial and executive systems. The text provides a deep typological analysis that offers a deep dive into the internal logic of late 19th-century radical dissent, including the arrangement of moral and legal arguments against institutionalized state terror and systemic repression. Strakhov’s appeal to the prosecutor serves as a philosophical and political confrontation with the autocracy, demanding accountability for state-sanctioned violence at a time when such discourse was strictly prohibited within the Russian Empire.
The publishing house of Mikhail Elpidin was the primary conduit for forbidden Russian literature during the late 19th century, printing the works of Bakunin, Kropotkin, and Herzen for clandestine distribution across the border. As a "Banned Edition," this pamphlet was printed in a small, portable format specifically designed to be easily concealed and smuggled into Russia. Its presence today is a bibliographical rarity, as most copies were confiscated or destroyed during police raids. The 24-page brochure remains an essential primary source for historians of the Russian revolutionary movement and the history of censorship, representing the defiant spirit of the Geneva emigration that paved the intellectual way for the upheavals of the early 20th century.