The Emerging Women of the Russian Revolution Jessica De La O After generations of oppression, nineteenth-century Russia experienced a turning point in both the role of women and the use of rebellion as a vehicle for change. While civil disruption was common amongst the female citizenry, the height of it came as a direct result of the emancipation of the Russian peasantry in 1861 and the 1881 assassination of Czar Alexander II. Amidst the chaos, questions about the actions of these new emerging women produced new perspectives on gender and radicalism, embodied in new forms of female agency. Historians now understand the revolutionary woman less as a result of noble efforts and more as a product of a process where women chose to shed their traditional roles and become rebels. Scholars have studied the revolutionary woman, but historians have overlooked overlaps of motive, action, consequence, and change amongst this group of actors. A comparative analysis of the women who sought change in Russia through terrorism, education, and writing, this study demonstrates that the long-term impact of more violent acts often overshadowed more peaceful efforts for change. It also shows how these women––and their divergent approaches to revolution––intertwined. The study of revolutionary women in the late nineteenth century is a major part of Russian history. Autobiographies, memoirs, letters, and official documents demonstrating women’s perspectives have contributed to scholarship on the twentieth- century Bolshevik Movement.1 1 Barbara Alpern Engel, “The Emergence of Women Revolutionaries in Russia.” Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, 2, 1 (Spring, 1977): 92–105; Richard Stites, The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism, and Bolshevism, 1860–1930 (Princeton University Press, 1977); Derek Offord, The Russian Revolutionary Movement in the 1880s (Cambridge University Press, 1986); Barbara Alpern Engel, Women in Russia, 1700–2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2004); Natalia Pushkareva, Women in Russian History: From the Tenth to the Twentieth Century (Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1997); George 42 Perspectives This article compares and contrasts the life stories, actions, and writings of seven revolutionary women in turn-of-the-century Russia. Vera Figner, an advocate for peaceful reform, saw how newly emancipated serfs continued to suffer from inequality and turned to terrorism as a solution. Vera Zasulich’s need for political freedom and gender equality also eventually led her to endorsing terrorism. Emma Goldman’s non-violent approach to revolution communicated her views on the struggles of the citizenry and stressed that absolute liberty was fundamental to her cause. After the revolution, Vera Broido also promoted nonviolence by using her mother’s experiences of radicalism to examine government corruption, while Alexandra Kollontai argued that women played an essential role in the proletarian revolution. Sofya Kovalevskaya took advantage of the traditional path of government reform and argued that it was in the government’s best interest to provide equal rights and access to anyone who pursued higher education. Lastly, Sofie Satina worked from within the Russian education system to criticize the ways the state served as an obstacle. Examining the importance of the radical movements these women chose to participate in reveals what made these women so prominent, why they chose their causes, and why they considered the revolution worthy of risking everything they had. This traces the political movements of female revolutionaries and identifies their social connections to the intelligentsia and beyond. These social connections were integral to explaining the influences behind the revolution and outside factors that have shaped their actions. The radical mood of the 1860s gave rise to a full movement in the 1870s and introduced a period of uncertainty and unrest, mainly because the women’s movement reached its greatest Kearns, "Revolutionary Women and Others," The Hudson Review 39, 1 (1986): 121–134; Claudia Verhoeven, “Time of Terror, Terror of Time: On the Impatience of Russian Revolutionary Terrorism (Early 1860s – Early 1880s),” Jahrbücher Für Geschichte Osteuropas, 58, 2 (2010): 254-273; Marina Liborakina, "Women's Voluntarism and Philanthropy in Pre-revolutionary Russia: Building a Civil Society," Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 7, 4 (1996): 397-411. De La O 43 numbers.2 Although that generation failed to achieve educational reforms and equality, the revolution was far from over. Less than a decade after the emancipation of the serfs, the development of the radicalized revolutionary woman had begun: self-sacrificing activists who questioned their role in society denounced their traditional feminine characteristics. For centuries, young women had been taught, primarily through religious scripture, that they were inferior to men and were obligated to obey their fathers or husbands.3 Amidst the Decembrist revolt of 1825 and refusals to swear allegiance to Czar Nicholas I, a new group of actors arrived: the wives of the male aggressors who supported the revolution.4 While hangings were a common punishment for the radicals, many others were exiled with their wives.5 Many of these women believed that Russia was trapped in a feudal society and aligned themselves with other female radicals who shared their view that Russia was rife with injustice. After Czar Nicolas I’s death in 1855, heir to the throne Alexander II implemented multiple agrarian reforms and emancipated the empire’s serfs in 1861. Despite signs of change, newly freed serfs still felt their economic standing was in peril.6 These changes, along with “processes of economic development, expansion of formal education, and cultural change that powerfully affected the lives of most women” bred uncertainty, especially as the peasantry left the countryside in search of work in cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg.7 2 Jane McDermid and Anna Hilyar, Midwives of the Revolution: Female Bolsheviks and Women Workers in 1917 (London: UCL Press, 1999), 99. 3 Pushkareva, Women in Russian History, 36. 4 Ibid., 44–45. 5 Ibid., 202. 6 Engel, Mothers and Daughters, 49–50. 7 Robin Bisha, et. al., ed., Russian Women, 1698–1917: Experience & Expression, An Anthology of Sources (Bloomington; Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2002), 161. 44 Perspectives Life for women in cities was not much different from the countryside. Access to equal education still had many barriers.8 As “changes in employment in turn both compelled a redefinition of what constituted ‘women’s work’ and helped to undermine the system social estates,” many women found themselves doing demeaning work, including cleaning and other domestic labor.9 When the inconsistencies and empty promises of reform, welfare, and equality from the Czar became impossible to ignore, many anarchist groups shared their ideas on revolution, the need for education and work, and shedding the traditional familial roles. With the spread of the need for action, the emergence of the nihilist woman was no longer a question of if, but when? The revolutionary women of the late nineteenth century came from all walks of life. Inspired by the early writings of European feminists, Russian literature, and revolutionary propaganda, these women were desperate to act on their new ideas. Regardless of their chosen method of action, the radicalization of these women was only the beginning of a new understanding of womanhood. Influenced by novels like Nikolai Chernyshevsky’s What Is To Be Done, these women read about fictional revolutionaries that lived the rebel’s dream of escaping a restricting verve to live one of freedom and independence.10 Studies of nineteenth-century revolutionary Russia primarily focus on the acts of terrorists like Vera Figner and Vera Zasulich, who believed their actions would accelerate change. Some terrorists swore allegiance to the revolution and vowed a continuous fight to instill fear into the government and promote the transformation of the country. But once the empire’s police began arresting and punishing these revolutionaries, many of them chose alternatives more fitting to their beliefs and proclivities. Born into a wealthy family, Vera Figner lived her childhood unaware that the Russian peasantry lived in extreme poverty. In her teens she became aware of “the disparity between her own 8 Sophia Satina, Education of Women in Pre-Revolutionary Russia (New York: Sophia Satina, 1966), 38. 9 Bisha, et. al., Russian Women, 1698–1917, 161. 10 Nikolai Chernyshevsky, What Is To Be Done (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989. First published in 1863). De La O 45 privileged position and the destitution of the peasantry.”11 Figner wanted to help the poor by studying abroad and becoming a doctor but her father, expecting her to marry, forbade the plan. She eventually conformed to her father’s expectations and married Aleksey Victorovich in 1870. Little did her family know, her husband did not expect his new wife to submit to a traditional familial life. Figner wrote in her memoir, “he shared my views and sympathized with my plans. We read books together and were of one mind with respect to my entering a university.”12 By conforming to the traditional system of marriage, Figner leveraged her married status to her benefit and convinced her husband to move to Zurich so she could study medicine. While in Zurich, Figner buried herself in her studies, became more attracted to the growing radical movement in the city, and drifted from her husband.13 She was angry with the government, their treatment of commoners, and the economic toll on women, but received little support from her husband. Figner eventually made her decision and “became a socialist and a revolutionary.”14 She believed that her involvement would make a significant difference and slowly joined the fight for equality, determining both her future and the route she would take toward revolution. Figner returned to Russia without her degree, divorced her husband, immersed herself in the life of the peasantry, and dedicated herself to the revolutionary movement.