Catherine Breshkovsky (real name Yekaterina Konstantinovna Breshko-Breshkovskaya) is known as the grandmother of the Russian revolution. Disappointed with the tsarist government, she became an active member of the Narodnik movement. For her revolutionary activities, she was sent into exile twice, having spent a total of 22 years in exile. She participated in the creation of the Workers Party of the Political Liberation of Russia.
Background
Catherine Breshkovsky (real name Yekaterina Konstantinovna Breshko-Breshkovskaya (born Verigo) was born on January 25 (13 January old style) 1844 in Ivanovo village, Nevelsky district, Vitebsk province (now Pskov Oblast, Russian Federation) and grew up on the family estate in Chernigov province. Her father, Konstantin Verigo, owned serfs, but - according to her account - treated them well.
Education
Yekaterina Konstantinovna Breshko-Breshkovskaya received primary education at home. After that, she continued her studies at the female gymnasium.
In 1861, during the Emancipation reform Yekaterina Konstantinovna helped her father free the serfs on the family estate then worked voluntarily to educate them. In 1868, she married N.P.Breshko-Breshkovsky, but left him after two years and moved to Kiev where she formed a "commune" with her sister Olga (who died young) and Maria Kolenkina. The trio followed the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, when most of the revolutionaries in Kiev were in a group led by Pavel Axelrod, followers of the populist revolutionary Pyotr Lavrov. Axelrod introduced her to Andrei Zhelyabov, the peasant's son who organised the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881.
Career
Yekaterina Konstantinovna came quite early under the influence of revolutionary ideas: in the 1860s she became a witness to the negative reaction of tsarism to the social changes that were so necessary for the society, which made her disappointed in monarchy and liberalism. Already in the early 1870s, she was imbued with revolution.
Having moved to Kyiv, Yekaterina Konstantinovna joined the anarchist movement of the Bakuninists. Since 1874, under the name "Theokla Kosoy Soldier" she began to go to the people, preparing the peasants for a general uprising. In the same year, she was arrested and after the Trial of the 193 was sent to Siberia to hard labour. In 1881, she tried to escape but was caught.
Freed in 1896, Yekaterina Konstantinovna began preparations for the creation of a Socialist Revolutionary party. Since 1898 she travelled 29 provinces, gathering future party members. In 1899, she together with G. Gershuni created the Workers' Party of the Political Liberation of Russia, which in 1902 became part of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.
In 1903, Yekaterina Konstantinovna emigrated to Switzerland, and since 1904 had given lectures on combating tsarism at US universities. In 1905, she returned to Russia, but at the denunciation of E. Azef was arrested in 1907 and again exiled to Siberia in 1910. In 1913, she again tried to escape, but unsuccessfully.
In 1917, Yekaterina Konstantinovna moved to Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg), where she wrote for the right-wing newspaper The Will of the People. She expressed active support for A. Kerensky, demanded the continuation of the war and opposed the October Revolution of 1917.
In 1918, Yekaterina Konstantinovna sided with the uprising of the Czechoslovak Corps in Siberia. After that she migrated to the USA, where she led an active anti-Bolshevik campaign. Since 1920, settled in Czechoslovakia, where she shared her final exile with Maria Kolenkina, a friendship that spanned more than 50 years. Breshkovsky continued to speak out against communism until her death in Hvaly-Pochernice, near Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Disappointed with tsarism, Yekaterina Konstantinovna first joined the anarchists (Bakuninists), then became a part of Narodniks movement. After exile for her revolutionary activities, she began active work on creating a party of Social Revolutionaries.
In 1899, together with G. Gershuni, she founded the Workers' Party for the Political Liberation of Russia, which in 1902 became part of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.
Actively opposed the October Revolution and the Bolshevik Party and supported the Provisional Government in the person of A. Kerensky.
Views
Yekaterina Konstantinovna actively opposed tsarism in all its manifestations, considering the reaction of the monarchs to social changes in the country "a terrible drama of the liberation era." In her works, she repeated the idea that the intelligentsia (to which she included herself) had moral and political rights, and resistance to these rights in any form cannot but offend the intelligentsia. In her opinion, the revolutionaries not only understood their rightness but also enjoyed the fact of that understanding.
Personality
Yekaterina Konstantinovna abandoned the family, devoting herself to political propaganda. Her work allowed her to gain credibility among the revolutionaries of the new generation, who gave her the title of the grandmother of the Russian Revolution.
Quotes from others about the person
Yekaterina Konstantinovna was exiled to Seleginsk village, in Transbaikal where the American journalist and explorer George Kennan interviewed her in 1885. He wrote: "She was a lady perhaps 35 years of age (actually 41) with a strong, intelligent, but not handsome face, a frank unreserved manner and sympathies that seemed to be warm, impulsive, and generous. Her face bore traces of much suffering, and her thick, dark wavy hair, which had been cut in prison at the mines, was streaked here and there with grey... Almost the last words that she said to me were: "Mr Kennan, we may die in exile, and our children may die in exile, and our children's children may die in exile, but something will come of it at last."
Kennan was later quoted as saying: "All my standards of courage, of fortitude, and of heroic self-sacrifice have been raised for all time, and raised by the hand of a woman."
According to a contemporary report "When the "Grand Old Lady" got up to speak, the great audience rose en masse. Handkerchiefs waved, hats were flung into the air, words of affection in five languages were rained upon her."
Connections
In 1868, Yekaterina Konstantinovna married N.P.Breshko-Breshkovsky, a landowner and country magistrate, but left him after two years and moved to Kiev. In 1874, she gave birth to a son, Nikolai, whom she left to be brought up by relatives. The next time, she saw him when Nikolai was 22 years old.