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Biography of Catherine BreshkovskyName: Catherine BreshkovskyBirth Date: January, 1844 Death Date: 1934 Place of Birth: N/A Nationality: Russian Gender: Female Occupations: revolutionary Catherine Breshkovsky Catherine Breshovsky (1844-1934) was the only Russian revolutionist whose adulthood spanned the entire revolutionary period--from the early 1860s to 1917--and whose lifework was devoted entirely to the welfare of the peasants.Born to Olga Ivanovna and Constantine Mikhailovich Verigo, Catherine Breshkovsky would often remark later in life, "I had wonderful parents; if there is anything good in me, I owe it all to them." From her father, she inherited frankness, good-heartedness, and a short temper; from her mother--a woman of gentility--she received an education from Bible stories. Her parents never whipped the children, never allowed a word of profanity. But in her childhood, Breshkovsky preferred solitude. In her memoirs, she would later explain that her tendency toward withdrawal sprang from feelings of being unwanted as a child; she recalled her mother saying once: "When you were born, I detested you so much. . . . My other children behave like typical …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…for the Russian peasant did not stop with her exile; she continued working among the Carpatian Russians who lived in the territories then part of post-war Czechoslovakia. Breshkovsky's real strength of persuasion was not so much in her ability to charm and speak, as in her living example. After living in France for a short time, she returned to Czechoslovakia where she died at the age of 90. Associated Events Russian Revolution, 1917-1921 Further Reading Blackwell, Alice Stone, ed. Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution. Little, Brown, 1919.Breshkovskaia, Ekaterina. "1917-yi god," in Novyi Zhurnal (The New Review). Vol. 38, 1954: pp. 191-206.Kerensky, Alexander. "Catherine Breshkovsky (1844-1934)," in The Slavonic and East European Review. Vol. 13. No. 38. January 1935: pp. 428-431.Arkhangelsky, V. G. Katerina Breshkovskaya. Prague, 1938.Hutchinson, Lincoln, ed. Hidden Springs of the Russian Revolution: Personal Memoirs of Katerina Breshkovskaia. Stanford University Press, 1931.Maxwell, Margaret. Narodniki Women: Russian Women Who Sacrificed Themselves for the Dream of Freedom. Pergamon, 1990. |