Anke Hilbrenner : Der Bombenanschlag auf das Café Libman in Odessa am 17. Dezember 1905

The bomb attack on Café Libman in Odessa on December 17, 1905: Terrorism as a History of Violence

The article offers a thick description of the notorious terrorist attack on the café Libman in Odessa in December 1905. Following the strike on the Hotel Bristol in Warsaw in November 1905, the Libman assault was the second café bombing in the Tsarist Empire. It was an act of „motiveless terror“ commited by anarchist groups' escalating mass terrorism during the revolution of 1905 until 1907.  The bombing attracted attention in the whole Empire because it was aimed directly at civilians: Women and children were harmed and injured. Because of the choice of the location this was not a ‘collateral damage,’ but the attack was intended by the anarchist terrorists to kill „bourgeois capitalists“.  

The analysis intends to clarify the violent impact of the terrorist deed. Violence in this specific context is perceived as a powerful action deliberately hurting an other person. Therefore the violent action itself is in the center of interest. The description of the event intends to shed a new light on the palpable consequences of the deed. Violence creates relationships between the perpetrators, the victims and the audience. The focus is thus moved from the perpetrator towards everybody involved in the terrorist action. The perception of the attack among the audience, the reading of the violent deed by the public, communicated through mass media, is regarded as part of the direct consequences of the deed.

The perception of the terrorist action as much as its emergence is moreover interpreted in the historical context of the violent revolution in Odessa and in the Russian Empire in 1905. The bombing took place while the Moscow uprising was defeated and on the last day of a failing general strike in Odessa. Its violent character was overshadowed by the aftermath of the bloody pogroms in October and continuing hooliganism. The violent impact of this specific terrorist deed is thus affected by the historical context of violence. In Odessa in December 1905 a cultural normalcy of violence interfered with the tangible consequences of terrorism.

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