https://www.amazon.com/Yashka-Life-Peasant-Officer-Exile/dp/B000G8XIM8/?tag=2022091-20
1919
Maria Bochkareva, the third daughter of a peasant family, was born in Novgorod Oblast in 1889. She was badly beaten by her alcoholic father. He was a sergeant in the imperial army, fought in the Russo-Turkish War. Her mother was from a peasant family from the northern part of Russia. Her early life is unknown.
School was not an option for Siberian peasant girls in the 1890’s.
Maria followed the call of "unselfish sacrifice" and petitioned the government to allow her to enlist in the Imperial Army in order to protect Mother Russia against Germany in World War I. Her original request was denied, and Bochkareva was accepted into the army only after appealing personally to the tsar. Once at the front, she took a man’s name - Yashka, the Russian diminutive for Yakov.
Legend has it that in the spring of 1917 she presented the idea of an all-female battalion to Alexander Kerensky, then the Russian minister of war. In her memoirs, Bochkareva specified that it was actually Mikhail Rodzyanko, then president of the Russian Duma, who brought the "little heroine" to the soldiers' delegates' session in the Petrograd’s Taurida Palace. There, Bochkareva conceived of the idea of the Women’s Battalion; it would set a patriotic example for the fractious nation, and it would shame men into returning to the front lines. Kerensky and General Brusilov, the commander in chief of the Russian forces, both supported the idea. Nearly 2,000 women of all backgrounds responded to Bochkareva’s initial appeal to "women-citizens" during an evening of political speeches at the Mariynski Theater on May 21, 1917. It was subsequently reprinted in newspapers.
Bochkareva selected 300 recruits for her first Women’s Battalion, which was named the "Battalion of Death" - because the women who joined it promised to fight to the bitter end. Bochkareva insisted on one condition - no soldiers’ committees in her regiment. Reluctantly, Kerensky assented. The Battalion of Death became known for its merciless discipline. Sent out against the Germans in the Kerensky Offensive in July 1917, the women performed valiantly. They overtook the German trenches, but they were unable to influence the final outcome because they were left without support on the battlefield by the male units. Several other Women’s Battalions were formed in Bochkareva’s wake. On October 25, while her regiment was still at the front, another Women’s Battalion was the last army unit defending the Provisional Government, barricaded inside the Winter Palace, against the Bolsheviks.
After 20 of her female soldiers were lynched by the angry male mob, nothing remained except to disband the Battalion. This was done secretly, by providing "the girls" with women’s attire and directing them, one by one, "to a score of scattered stations and villages".
In 1918, however, the Civil War broke out. Bochkareva was asked by old officer friends to cross Bolshevik lines in order to reach the "White" - that is, anti-Bolshevik - General Lavr Kornilov, who was operating in the Don region, in order to find out what his plans were. Bochkareva stated from the very beginning that she had no interest in participating in the killing of her fellow citizens on either side, Red or White, but she accepted the assignment since it called for information only. Crossing the country to get to the Caucasus, Bochkareva saw unspeakable atrocities. She reached Kornilov but was arrested by the Bolsheviks on her way back and sentenced to be executed. Miraculously, one of the local prominent Bolsheviks recognized her. He happened to be a soldier whose life she had saved while serving in the Imperial Army. He put his neck on the line and convinced the other Bolsheviks to let her go.
Meanwhile, the Germans were advancing at the front. Still called to protect Mother Russia, Bochkareva decided to reach out to the Allies for military help. Under the pretext of visiting her British friend, the suffragist Emmeline Pankhurst, in London, Bochkareva crossed the country to the Far East and arrived in San Francisco by ship. Philanthropist and activist Florence Harriman arranged for Bochkareva to meet President Woodrow Wilson on July 10, 1918, and Bochkareva begged him to intervene in Russia.
Bochkareva then traveled to the United Kingdom, where she was granted an audience with King George V. In September 1918, she returned to Russia and unsuccessfully tried to form another women’s regiment in the city of Arkhangelsk, not far from Petrograd. In April 1919, she came back to Tomsk, found her elderly parents in deep poverty, and reached out to Admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, then the commander of the Siberian White Army, asking him to discharge her. Instead, Kolchak asked her to organize a female sanitary brigade to care for his wounded soldiers. Bochkareva did as she was asked. When Kolchak’s army retreated from the area shortly thereafter, she returned to Tomsk, where she presented herself to the local Soviet authorities and offered her services. These were denied, but she was allowed to go home. Not long after, she was arrested, tried in Krasnoyarsk, and shot on May 16, 1920. Astoundingly, she was only 30 years old.
Maria Bochkareva was the first Russian woman to command a military unit. She was the creator of the Women's Battalion in 1917. It was named the "Battalion of Death" - because the women who joined it promised to fight to the bitter end.
Maria became a legend in her regiment, known for fearlessly running into battle where she pulled the wounded from the field, saving over 50 lives.
Bochkareva’s political opposition to the Bolsheviks put her life in danger following the October Revolution and she was forced to flee to the US. There she met with President Woodrow Wilson, who was reportedly moved to tears by her pleas that he intervene in Russia.
Quotations:
"My heart yearned to be there, in the boiling caldron of war, to be baptized in its fire and scorched in its lava. I was overwhelmed by a sense of self-sacrifice, and my country was calling me."
"The news of a woman recruit had preceded me at the barracks and my arrival there precipitated a riot of fun. The men assumed that I was a loose-moraled woman who had made her way into the ranks for the sake of carrying on her illicit trade."
"As soon as I made an effort to shut my eyes I would discover the arm of my neighbour on the left around my neck and would restore it to its owner with a crash. Watchful of his movements I offered an opportunity for my neighbor on the right to get too near me, and I would savagely kick him in the side. All night long my nerves were taut and my fists busy."
"Come with us in the name of your fallen heroes. Come with us to dry the tears and heal the wounds of Russia. Protect her with your lives. We women are turning into tigresses to protect our children from a shameful yoke - to protect the freedom of our country."
"I'll be responsible for every single woman. There will be harsh discipline and I will prevent them from wandering the streets. Only discipline can save the army. In this battalion, I will have full power and I’ll insist on obedience."
Quotes from others about the person
"A country that can produce such women cannot possibly be crushed forever. It may take time for it to recover from its present debauch of anarchism, but recover it surely will. And when it does it will know how to honor the women who went out to fight when the men ran home." - Rheta Childe Dorr
"At dinner we heard more of the Women's Death Battalion. It was true; Bochkareva had brought her small battalion down south of the Austrian Front, and they had manned part of the trenches which had been abandoned by the Russian Infantry. The size of the Battalion had considerably decreased since the first weeks of recruitment when some 2000 women and girls had rallied to the call of their leader. Many of them, painted and powdered, had joined the Battalion as an exciting and romantic adventure; she loudly condemned their behaviour and demanded iron discipline. Gradually the patriotic enthusiasm had spent itself; the 2000 slowly dwindled to 250. In honour to those women volunteers, it was recorded that they did go into the attack; they did go 'over the top'. But not all of them. Some remained in the trenches, fainting and hysterical; others ran or crawled back to the rear." - Florence Farmborough
"From that day, Marie Bachkarova became simply “Bachkarova.” Her woman’s name and her long brown braids went first. She changed her trailing skirt with the ruffle on the bottom for soldier’s breeches tucked into the tops of high black boots. The strength and breadth, and the deep, full-toned voice of a man, were hers. Passing her on the street, you had to look three times to make sure she was not a man." - Bessie Beatty
Bochkareva married at 15 in order to escape an abusive father - only to end up with an abusive husband, Afansi Bochkarev. The couple moved to Tomsk, Siberia where they worked as labourers on a construction site. She ran out on him and tried to start an independent life. When her second, common-law husband, Yakov Buk, was sent to prison and then into exile in the Arctic North, Bochkareva followed him. In 1914, in a fit of jealousy, her husband attempted to hang her.
