The Russian emigration was a distinct phenomenon that profoundly influenced developments at home. It acted as a testing ground, as an experimental laboratory for new ideas and strategies for radical change in Russia which could not possibly be developed within the restrictive borders of the empire. Especially during the second half of the nineteenth century, the emigration became an alternative for many Russians committed o social and political change. For these people, there had previously been only two choices: they could renounce radical political solutions in order to compromise with the regime and resume a legal life, or they could face capture and life in Siberian exile after the hardships of an underground existence. There was now a new possibility to flee abroad and continue to work there for the revolutionary future. This book is an inquiry into the origins of this alternative, the formation of the Russians emigration.