
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism.
He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general.
Bakunin grew up in Premukhino, a family estate near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French encyclopédistes, leading to enthusiasm for the philosophy of Fichte. From Fichte, Bakunin went on to immerse himself in the works of Hegel, the most influential thinker among German intellectuals at the time. That led to his whole-hearted embrace of Hegelianism, bedazzled by Hegel's famous maxim; "Everything that exists is rational". In 1840 Bakunin traveled to St. Petersburg and Berlin, aiming at preparing himself for a professorship in philosophy or history at the University of Moscow.
Bakunin moved from Berlin, in 1842, to Dresden. Eventually he arrived in Paris, where he met George Sand, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Karl Marx. Bakunin's increasing radicalism - including staunch opposition to imperialism in east and central Europe by Russia and other powers - changed his life, putting paid to hopes of a professorial career. He was eventually deported from France for speaking against Russia's oppression of Poland.