Swiss shelters: Mikhail Bakunin

In the 19th century, revolutions were rife in Europe, and with them the repression that invariably befell followers of new left-wing political theories. Switzerland enjoyed an image of welcome for many intellectuals fleeing the hostility of their homelands. The country was seen as an open-air laboratory where liberal, radical, then socialist and anarchist theories came to life on a daily basis. At the time, the creation of the federal state in 1848 was seen as the only successful concretization of a liberal revolution.