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very roots of the Society were a number of independent circles founded at the end of the 1860s, notably a women's circle run by S. Perovskaia and the Kornilov sisters. This group concentrated their work in St.Petersburg, with women living in the industrial districts of the capital disguised as workers. There were 22 women (21.5 per cent) among the Society's known 102 members. In 1873, the Chaikovtsy began their 'going to people' by sending their representatives not only to industrial towns but also to villages. The movement reached mass proportions but failed to survive beyond 1875. It also failed to convert peasants to their beliefs. Too many of the propagandists had been arrested and put E. Pavliuchenko, Zhenschina v russkom osvoboditel'nom dvizhenii, 231 37 into prisons to await atrial. During the Trial of the 193, members of the Great Propaganda Society made up more than half of the accused. There is one aspect which sets the two trials apart. The women at the first trial, the Trial of the 50, all came from one circle. The Trial of the 193 brought together women from different radical groups who were engaged in spreading propaganda both among urban industrial workers and the peasantry. Among these was a small group of women who were charged with working in the Myshkin printing house where illegal literature for the propagandists was produced. Table 3: Female revolutionaries of the 1870s NAME DATES Armfeld NA (1850-1887) Chemodanova- Sinegub LV Dement'eva AL (nd-1922) Kornilova- Griboedova VI (1848-1873) Kornilova- Serdhikova LI (1852-1892) Kovalevskaia MP (1849-1889) KovaPskaia (nee Solntseva) E (1851-1943) Rozenstein- Makarevich AM (1854-1925) Shleissner-Natanson Ol'ga Tomilova EKh Zasulich-Uspenskaia AI Zasulich-Nikiforova EI ORIGIN Gentry Father- factory owner Father- factory owner Gentry Illegitimate child of a nobleman; Meshchanka Father- merchant Gentry Gentry EDUCATION PROFESSION Studied abroad teacher doctor Alarchin Courses Teacher Alarchin Courses student Alarchin Courses and studies in Zurich Studied in Zurich MARITAL STATUS Single Married a fellow revolutionary Married to P.Tkachev Married Married Married One child Married First husband a fellow Narodnik; Second and third- Italian socialists Married a fellow revolutionary; two children Married to a colonel Married to a Nechaev circle member Married to a Nechaev circle member POLITICAL AFFILIATION Osinskii Circle Chaikovka Social democrat and a close comrade-in-arms of Tkachev Chaikovka Chaikovka Osinskii Circle Chaikovka Chaikovka Chaikovka; Land and Freedom 38 The sample list of 12 female revolutionaries shows similar patterns to those identified in the previous two tables. Exact dates of birth are available only in five cases but indirect references made to others indicate that they too were young women. For instance, the two Zasulich sisters were elder sisters of the more famous Vera but the age difference between the three was not very significant. Two of the women, the Kornilov sisters, were from the family of a factory owner. Rozenstein's father was a wealthy merchant and the Zasulich sisters came from a gentry family. One notable exception is E. KovaPskaia. A product of a liaison between a wealthy landowner and a serf, at the age of seven she persuaded her father to grant her and her mother freedom. He later even helped her to buy the title of meshchanka. With the support of the money left to her by the father and the assistance of her future husband, Koval'skaia set up free courses for women. In 1869 she opened up literacy circles for women workers where they were taught basic skills and where socialist theory was explained to them. This is one of the first examples of a study circle aimed specifically at working women. The educational experience of these women echoes that of other female revolutionaries from the 1870s with three attending the Alarchin Courses and/or doing a course in Zurich in their chosen professions of either teaching or midwifery. All but one woman are known to be married. Six were married to fellow revolutionaries. A. Rozenstein was married three times. All three husbands were revolutionaries, two of whom were Italian socialists. Avoiding arrest Rozenstein left for abroad in 1877. For a while she lived in Switzerland with her second husband, the Italian socialist A.Kosta. Eventually she settled in Italy where she married for the third time. This time her husband became F.Turati, another leading Italian Socialist. At least two of the women, Kovalevskaia and Shleissner, had children. There were a number of features in the female Chaikovtsy members which were similar to their counterparts from the Moscow circle. For instance, the average age on entering the movement of the Moscow Circle women was 21 and for the Chaikovtsy it was 24. So the majority was relatively young. An analysis of their social origin demonstrates that they came mainly from privileged groups of land-owning or propertied gentry. Women workers and female peasants were almost absent from them, which is really easy to understand since the freedom from serfdom was granted only ten years ago. There were individuals though who could be seen as 'a blend' of the two social extremes. E.KovaPskaia, a member of the Chaikovtsy group, was a 39 daughter of a serf mother and a landowner father, A.Toporkova's father worked in a workshop and S.Ivanova earned her living by working as a seamstress and type setter. The educational level of the women was generally the highest a Russian woman could achieve at that time. Literacy was vital for the type of revolutionary work performed by activists. Knowledge received by attending courses could lead women to teaching or medicine, the two professions that would later become the main source of female recruits into the movement for the next twenty to thirty years. With few exceptions the women were married, an indication that many were still largely dependent on men either financially or socially if not spiritually or mentally. Some women went on to have children but others were prevented by the revolutionary life style or made a conscious choice not to. Female revolutionaries performed the same work as their male comrades in the movement which include propaganda, agitation, production and distribution of illegal literature. As a result the punishment that women were apportioned seems to have been identical to men's. Women came into the movement via study circles playing a role of mutual initiators with their fellow students. It is not surprising then that in many cases whole groups of siblings were becoming involved in revolutionary activities and that when women had a choice they were more likely to marry a man from within the movement. Ethnically, with only few exceptions (e.g. G.Gel'fman), female revolutionaries were Russian. The initial disappointment which most women must have felt after the failure of the first efforts in taking propaganda to the people and the shock of receiving terms of imprisonment or exile had a different effect on these women. For a number of them it led to health problems, including nervous breakdowns, while a significant minority committed suicide, like B. Kaminskaia, E. Zavadskaia and S. Bardina. Out of the women who worked in the Myshkin printing house only one, S. Ivanova, returned to the movement. But many others were determined to continue their work and struggle. Those who were acquitted took time to reflect on the way forward, like S. Perovskaia. Having served a part of their sentence, others tried to escape from their place of exile and rejoin the movement. This happened to S. Bardina. These early efforts were short-lived, but the women had an enduring influence hot only through their high idealism but also by their full participation in policy making and implementation. Vera Zasulich, who later became one of the founders of social democracy in Russia, commented towards the end of this century that in the 1870s female revolutionaries 'ceased to be exceptional' and that they achieved 'a 40 good fortune seldom attained in history: the possibility of acting in a capacity not of the inspirers, wives and mothers of men, but in complete independence, as equals with men in social and political activity'. 6 The show trials of 1877 backfired on the government, with those in the dock, notably, Bardina, seen in heroic terms, while many of the accused were further radicalised by their harsh treatment at the hands of the authorities. Attempts to set up a new type of organisation had begun even before the tsarist government tried and sentenced the first groups of revolutionaries. The main initiators behind it were M. Natanson and his wife O.Shleissner, familiar to us from the Chaikovtsy Circle. By the start of 1877 'The Northern Revolutionary-People's Group' began its work. In 1878 it was replaced by Land and Liberty (Zemlia i Volia). A new form of politics, terrorism, developed alongside the work of spreading propaganda. The latter became increasingly difficult due to police harassment, while the brutal treatment of students in prison left their comrades feeling impotent. Vera Zasulich responded to the savage flogging of one student by attempting to assassinate General Trepov in St. Petersburg in 1878. The General survived and she was put on trial, but not only was Zasulich acquitted, she was lionised in the foreign press, and was taken as an exemplar by many in Land and Liberty. Within a year, there was a terrorist faction (Liberty or Death) which argued for targeting the tsar, in the hope that his death would serve as a catalyst for social revolution. That strategy, however, was difficult to reconcile with the long-term work of propaganda, and Land and Liberty soon split into the larger People's Will (Narodnaia Volia - which attracted many of the female members of Land and Liberty, including Vera Figner) and a smaller Black Repartition (Chernyi Peredel - which Zasulich joined). Given how difficult it was to penetrate the world of factory workers, who lived in accommodation provided by the employers, and in view of the omnipresence of the secret police, the radical intelligentsia came to rely heavily on study circles to reach their audience. Hence the importance of the minority of mainly male skilled workers who alone could afford to rent flats outside the factories and buy books. The secret police's success in crushing such initiatives not only resulted in the continual loss to the nascent labour movement of relatively experienced leaders through imprisonment and exile, but led some to abandon the long road of propaganda and R.Kovnator ed., Stat 7 o russkoi literature, 96 41 grassroots organisation for terrorism. Yet even those attracted to the People's Will continued to set up study circles and libraries and to preach the message that unity was essential. From Propaganda to Terrorism The 1870s began with hundreds of young people turning to propaganda. They often worked in small groups with only loose ties joining them into a large single organisation without any one group playing the role of a centre. These groups lacked the hierarchical structure which will characterise political parties of the future generations. This type of organisation did not allow for individuals to be singled out for a leadership role. Such a democratic structure was favourable to women. It is not surprising then that just ten years after being admitted into public life they were able to claim a place among the radical elements of Russian society. Many of the women who feature in the annals of the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia in the 1880s had their first experience of radical action in the 1870s. Some featured in the political trials of the preceding decade, like S.Perovskaia, E. Koval'skaia and O.Liubatovich. Not all learned to adjust to the changing conditions and new emerging methods. In 1883 one of the heroes of the seventies, S.Bardina, having escaped from exile in the hope of rejoining the movement, found terrorist ideas and tactics unacceptable and after only a few years abroad, felt so alienated from the cause that she committed suicide. Of the two organisations that emerged after the split in Land and Liberty, People's Will attracted more new recruits and through its terrorist acts it also gained more notoriety. The aim was to target the tsar, in the hope that his death would serve as a catalyst for social revolution. A smaller organisation within People's Will, formed to direct the terror campaign, was named the Executive Committee. Ten members out of a total of 29 were women: S.Perovskaia, M.Oshanina, V.Figner, A.Korba, AJakimova, T.Lebedeva, S.Ivanova, OXiubatovich, N.Olovennikova and E.Sergeeva. For my fourth table I selected 15 women who were active and influential during the first half of the 1880s though as the data shows the majority had entered 42 the movement during the preceding decade. In most cases, however, the early eighties were more definitive for the revolutionary development. Those names marked with * appeared in one of the previous tables. TABLE 4: Female Revolutionaries of the 1880s NAME DATES Bulanova-Trubnikova OK (1859-1943) Figner-Filippova VN (1852-1942) ?Gel'mian G (1852-1882) Iakimova-Dikovskaia AV (1856-1942) *Ivanova-Boreisho SA (1856-1927) Ivanovskaia- Voloshenko PS (1853-1935) *Koval'skaia- Solntseva EN (1851-1943) Korba-Pribyleva AP (1849-1939) *Lebedeva-Frolova TI (1850-1887) *Liubatovich- Morozova OS (1853-1917) Moreinis-Muratova FA (1859-1937) Olovennikova EN. (1857-1932) *Perovskaia S (1853-1883) Volkenstein- Aleksandrova LA (1857-1906) Zasulich VI (1849-1919) ORIGIN Gentry Gentry Merchant Father-village priest Gentry Father-village priest Meshchanka Intelligentka nd Father-factory owner Wealthy merchants Gentry Gentry Gentry Gentry EDUCATION PROFESSION Secondary school Studied medicine in Zurich nd Teacher Seamstress Type-setter teacher Alarchin Courses Alarchin Courses nd Studied medicine in Zurich Cobbler Midwifery course The Alarchin Courses Teacher Midwifery course Feldsher course MARITAL STATUS Married Three children Married Married Had a child Married Had two children Married married Married Married Married Married Had a child Married Had children Single Single Married Had children Single POLITICAL AFFILIATION Black Repartition People's Will EC People's Will People's Will EC SR People's Will EC People's Will SR Black Repartition SR maximalist Chaikovka People's Will EC Chaikovka People's Download 88.01 Kb. 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