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give
different
years
of birth for
some women.
For
instance,
in
one source
Batiushkova's
is
given
as
1850 and in the other
as
1849. But the
difference in
one
year
could
not
significantly
affect
my
final
analysis
and
I
decided
to
opt
for the
most
recent
source.
For
exactly
half of the
women
I
was
also able
to enter
the
exact
date of
death with
another
two
being
known
to
be still alive after 1930.
Four
women
died
under the
age
of
40,
one
under the age
of
50 and five lived
over
the age of 60. Four
women
lived
long
enough
to
witness the
revolutionary
events
of
1917,
among
whom

31
were
two
of the Subbotin sisters. Three
women
took their
own
lives.
Batiushkova
committed
suicide while
serving
her
sentence
in Tomsk and Khorzhevskaia died in St.
Petersburg.
The
third,
and
arguably
the best known
woman
from this group, is Sofia
Bardina.
She attracted the attention and
sympathy
of the Russian
public
with her
passionate
speech
at
the end of the trial. She had demonstrated her
leadership
qualities
and
strong
conviction
already
in Zurich. Sofia
was
allowed
to
address the
court
as
one
of
the
organisation's
leaders.
In
her final
statement
she declared:
Whatever fate awaits
me,
gentlemen,
I do
not
ask for mercy and do
not
wish it. You
can
persecute
us
as
much
as
you
like,
but
I
am
deeply
convinced that such
a
broad movement, caused
most
likely by
the
spirit
of the
time,
cannot
be
stopped by
any
means
of
suppression.
...
Persecute
us
you
have the material
strength
for
a
while, gentlemen,
but
we
have moral
strength,
the
strength
of historic
progress,
the
strength
of
ideas;
and
ideas,
alas,
you
cannot
pierce
with
bayonets!4
As
mentioned
above,
there
was a
number of similarities in the
biographical
details of
the female revolutionaries. One of such details is their educational
background.
Indeed,
it
was
this factor that
brought
most
of the
women
together
to
the
revolutionary
cause.
In
spite
of
an
extensive search
I
drew
a
blank
on
the educational
experience
of
six
women.
However,
it is safe
to
infer that
they
were
all literates for otherwise
they
would have been unable
to
conduct their
propaganda.
One of the main methods
employed by
the
group
was
reading
literature aloud
to
the
gathered
workers.
At
least
five of the
ten
women
who
went
to
Zurich studied medicine there. None of them
managed
to
complete
the
course
preferring
to return
home with the aim of
spreading
propaganda
among
factory
workers. The
years
spent
in studies
were
not
totally
lost
as
the
women
could
use
their
knowledge
to
support
themselves
by taking
up
professional
work. For
example,
Ol'ga
Liubatovich
practised
medicine in exile. Gesia Gel'finan
studied
midwifery
in Kiev.
At
least
one
of
them,
A.Toporkova,
also
worked
as a
teacher. Once back in Russia the female revolutionaries
began
their work in factories.
Only
one,
Vera
Liubatovich,
was
chosen
to
stay
in Moscow in order
to
co-ordinate the
administrative
side of the work. Unable
to
remain for
any
length
of time
at
any
one
S.
Tsederbaum,
Zhenshchina
v
russkom revoliutsionnom
dvizhenii, 1870-1905,28

32
place,
women
and
men
from the Moscow Circle travelled under assumed
names
across
central Russia and in the south. O. Liubatovich and A.Khorzhevskaia worked
in Odessa and
Tula,
A.
Toporkova,
L.
Figner
and V. Aleksandrova
were
important
to
the
organisation's
work in Ivanovo-Voznesensk.
Verifiable information
on
marital
status
is
available for
seven women.
Three
-
Aleksandrova,
GePfman and
O.Liubatovich
-
married fellow revolutionaries.
S.Tsederbaum described
O.Liubatovich
as
married twice and both times
choosing
men
who shared her
political
beliefs. These
marriages
took
place
after the
women
had
begun
their radical activities.
In
two
further
cases
-
Batiushkova and Khorzhevskaia
-
the
marriages
were
fictitious and occurred
prior
to
the
two
women
engaging
in
subversive
work. Such
marriages
were
not
uncommon
at
the
time
among
women
seeking
freedom from
parental
control and
despotism.
Having
entered into such
a
union the
'couple'
often remained celibate and
went
their
separate
ways.
The
case
of
Ges'ia GePfman differs from the others. She
ran
away
from her home after her
father,
as
it
was
customary
in the
Jewish
community,
had
arranged
a
marriage
for her. Later
GePfman married
a
fellow
revolutionary
by
whom she had
a
child.
From
O.Liubatovich's
own
accounts
we
know that she
too
had
a
child.
The
women
received different
sentences
reflecting
the authorities' view of the
gravity
of the offences. The
most
severe
punishment
was
reserved for the
women
who
stood accused of
organising
and /
or
being
a
member of
a
secret
society
whose
ultimate aim
was
the overthrow of the
tsar.
Six
women were
sentenced
to
various
-terms
of hard
labour,
which
were
later commuted
to
lengthy
exile
terms.
Among
other
prosecution
charges
was
wilful dissemination of
propaganda
and Vera Liubatovich
was
also accused of
resisting
arrest.
Only
three
women
received
comparatively light
sentences.
Tumanova
was
sentenced
to
six weeks in
prison. Georgievskaia
was
to
spend
two
months in
prison
and the
lightest
sentence
was
reserved for Vvedenskaia
who had been
simply
accused of
knowing
of the
organisation's
existence. Almost all
the
women were
deprived
of their
social
privileges
and
rights
to
property.
A
number
of those who
were
sent to
Eastern Siberia
escaped
and tried
to
rejoin
the
revolutionary
movement,
including
O.Liubatovich and S.Bardina. I shall
explore
the
outcome
of
these
attempts
later in the
chapter.
A
close
analysis
of the sixteen
women uncovers some
interesting
patterns
which
were
repeated
among
other
women
in later trials.
Despite
a
reputation
for
asceticism and
single-minded
devotion
to
the
cause,
family
relationships
were
very

33
important
for
revolutionaries,
men
and
women
alike. For
instance,
among
the accused
there
were
two sets
of sisters: Liubatovich and Subbotina. Female
revolutionaries
tended
to
marry
men
who
came
from the
same
circle
or
had similar
political
views.
In
spite
of the
apparent
ready availability
and
comparatively
complete
nature
of the information available
on
the trial I did
come across one
interesting
discrepancy.
All historians who
wrote
about the
case
quote
the
figure
16 for the number of
women
accused
at
the trial. When
I
began compiling
a
list of all the
names
cross-referencing
them
against
at
least four
different works I ended
up
with 18
names.
For
example,
E.Pavliuchenko in her work Zhenshchina
v
russkom osvoboditel
'nom
dvizhenii
(Moscow, 1988)
talks about Praskov'ia
Georgievskaia,
a
sister of
Nadezhda,
whom I
have included into
my
database. Praskov'ia did
not
appear
in
any
other
source
however.
She
was
not
mentioned in V.Sablin's Protsess 50-ti
(1906)
which contains
a
full list of the
accused and their
sentences.
Having
checked
against
all the other
names
in
my
list for the Trial of the 501
spotted
one
probability
-
P.
Georgievskaia
may, in
fact,
be E.Vvedenskaia. Given the
very
different initials the
two
surnames
could
not
belong
to
the
same woman as
her
married and maiden
name.
Yet the
women
of the
group
had been known
to
use
aliases and there is
a
possibility
that Praskov'ia
succeeded in
keeping
her
anonimity
to
the
very
end of the trial. There
are
three factors
which
are
in favour
of
this
theory.
The
profession
of the
two
women's fathers is
'a
priest'
and the
age
of the
two
women
is
given
as
24. Vvedenskaia
was
sentenced
to
two
weeks in
prison
while N.
Georgievskaia,
possibly
her
sister,
was
given
a more
severe
two
months'
sentence.
The other person who features in all written work about the Trial of the 50 is
Betia Kaminskaia. Like her comrades she had studied in Zurich and
was a
member of
the Fritsche
Circle,
having
gone
to
Switzerland with her
friends,
the Liubatovich
sisters. Vera
Figner
wrote
about Betia's
experience
of work in
a
paper
factory
that had
left her exhausted both
physically
and
mentally.
It is
a
proven fact that Kaminskaia
was
arrested
among
other members of the Moscow Circle. But she
was never
brought
to
trial.
In
prison
Kaminskaia fell
seriously
ill and became
mentally
unstable.
Shortly
after
her comrades
were
sentenced Betia committed suicide
by
taking
poison.
I
decided
to
include her into
my
general
database and took her shared
experience
into
account
in
my
statistical calculations.
I
In all around
4,000
young
city
people
most
of whom
were
students,
had
sought
to
spread
socialist ideas
among
the
peasantry
by
'going
to
the
people'
in
1874,

34
dressing
as
peasants,
in
some cases
living
in
a
village,
in others
moving
from
one
village
to
another,
trying,
with minimal
success,
to
win
over
the
peasants
to
socialism.
The
response
from the
villages
was
largely
indifference but there
was
also
hostility
and
suspicion.
Peasants could
not
understand
why urban,
upper
class,
educated
men
and
women
would
give
up
their comforts
to
wander the
countryside.
The
movement
was
soon
crushed.
Within
a
few months of the Trial of the 50
a
much
larger
group
of
people appeared
in
court
accused of
conducting illegal
propaganda.
Among
the
accused stood 38
women.
I
was
able
to
find information
on
17
out
of 38
women
who stood trial. It
was
not
as
füll
as on
the
women
from
the first trial.
Nevertheless,
I
decided
to
draw up
a
table and
to
make
a
statistical
analysis
that could contribute
to
the better
appreciation
of female revolutionaries who took
part
in the
early days
of the radical
movement.
Table
2:
NAME
DATES
Alekseeva-
D'iakova OG
(1850-1918)
Averkieva EI
Breshko-
Breshkovskaia
(1845-1934)
Griaznova
Iurgenson
(Golovina)NA
(1855-1943)
Ivanova
(Boreisho)
SA
(1856-1927)
Kornilova-Moroz
:M
(1853-nd)
Kuvshinskaia-
Charushina
AD
(-1909)
Lebedeva-Frolova
TI
(1850-1887)
Leshern-von
Gertsfel'd
SA
(1839-1898)
Perovskaia
Sofia
11853-1881)
Pototskaia
MP
Women who
appeared
at
the Trial
of
the 193
ORIGIN
Father-
landowner
Father -landowner
Father
-junior
courtier
Father
-
officer
Father-
factory
owner
Gentry
Father -officer
EDUCATION
PROFESSION
Professional
revolutionary
Teacher
Seamstress
Type
setter
Studied
midwifery
in
Vienna
Teacher
teacher
teacher
Midwife;
studied
MARITAL
STATUS
Married with
two
children
Married with
a
child
married
Married
to
a
fellow
revolutionary
Married
to
a
fellow
revolutionary
married
SENTENCE
5 years of
katorga
Exiled
Exiled
Exiled
Acquitted

35-
Sidoratskaia-
Obodovskaia
Ala
Subbotina
SA
-
(1830-1919)
Supinskaia
EV
Zarudneva
LT
Zavadskaia
EF
committed suicide
Gentry
in Zurich
Studied
in
a
private
school
Married;
3
daughters
Exiled
Acquitted
Of the nine
women
for whom I have dates of birth six
were
born in
or
after 1850. The
oldest of the
remaining
three,
S.
Subbotina,
was
47
during
her trial. This
means
that
the
average age
was
just
over
26,
only
three
years
more
than the Moscow Circle
members. From the
information
about their year of death
we
learn that five of them
lived
after the Revolution of 1917 with three
-
Breshko-Breshkovskaia,
Iurgenson
and
Subbotina
living
to
a
remarkably
old
age.
The social
origins
of the known
eight
indicate that the
women
tended
to
come
from
a
privileged background.
Like
the
Moscow
Circle
most
of these
women
had
a
good
education but
only
two, Kornilova
and
Pototskaia,
were
known
to
have studied abroad. The others received their
education in Russia with
three,
Aleksandra
Kornilova,
Anna
Kuvshinskaia and Sofia
Perovskaia,
attending
the Alarchin Courses
(preparatory
courses
for
women
seeking
entry
to
higher
education, opened
in St.
Petersburg
in
1869).
A
circle for the
study
of
political
economy
was
set
up
by
the
course
students,
many of whom later became
Chaikovtsy.
One
woman
stands
out
from this
group
when
we
analyse
the educational
pattern.
S.
Ivanova
was
born into
a
well-off
family.
But
as
her father died before she
reached the age of
16,
Ivanova failed
to
secure
enough
funds that would allow her
to
train
as a
teacher
or a
midwife.
For
a
while she worked in
a
seamstress'
workshop
but
gave
this
job
up in favour of
working
in
a
printing
house. In other
words,
Ivanova
was
among
those
upper-class
Russian
women
who had
to
earn
their
own
living
and whose
job opportunities
were
severely
limited due
to
inadequate
education.
Six of the 17
were
known
to
have been married and three of them had
children.
One, Kuvshinskaia,
was
married
to
a
fellow
revolutionary.
In this
category,
S.
Subbotina
deserves
a
special
mention. The mother
of
the three Subbotin sisters who
were
tried
just
a
few months before
her,
she
never
joined
any
revolutionary
circle. Yet
from
the very
beginning
of her
daughters'
involvement
in radical activities she
became
their closest
ally
assisting
them with
keeping
and
distributing
literature and

36
giving
shelter
to
her
daughters'
comrades-in-arms. She
was
quoted
as
saying
to
them,
'You,
the
young
ones,
conduct
your
revolutionary
cause,
and I shall
help
you
by
finding funds.'5
This
exceptional
woman
spent
three
years
in
prison.
She
refused
to
seek
pardon
for herself and her
daughters
and instead followed
one
of
them,
Nadezhda,
to
exile in Tomsk. There senior Subbotina
organised help
for
political
exiles and
was once
again punished
for this
activity
by being
sent
further
away
to
Eastern Siberia. Of the 38
women
tried
during
this
case
five
were
sentenced
to
katorga.
Though
Breshko-Breshkovskaia
was
not
the first
revoliutsionerka
to
receive
such
a
sentence,
she
was
the first
one
to
serve
it. Nine
women were
sentenced
to
imprisonment
and the
remaining
twenty-four
were
acquitted.
Among
the latter
was
S.
Perovskaia
who
just
four
years
later would become the first Russian
woman
to
be
executed for her
participation
in the assassination of the
tsar
Alexander II.
In
all 84
political
trials
were
held
during
the 1870s.
Ninety-five
women were
tried
during
them. The 35
women
featuring
in the
two
tables
represent
only
a
small
number of
female
revolutionaries of the 1870s. The
biographical analysis
of this
decade would remain
incomplete
without
adding
information about
a
sample
of other
women
who
were
politically
active
during
the
period.
In
1874 the Russian Minister of
Justice
spoke
about 23
centres
which
were
actively
engaged
in
conducting
radical
propaganda
among industrial workers. He named
seven women
who
were
suspected
of
heading
some
of them:
Leshern,
Subbotina, Tsvetkova, Andreeva, Kolesnikova,
Breshkovskaia,
Okhremenko.
Apart
from
Subbotina,
all the other
women were
representatives
of the so-called Great
Propaganda Society
which
came
to
be
generally
referred
to
as
the
Chaikovtsy
Circle,
the
name
taken after
one
of its male leaders.
At