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Sir Henry Parkes, “The Beauteous Terrorist” (Sophie Perovskaya, 1885)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

“She was beautiful. It was not the beauty which dazzles at first sight, but that which fascinates the more, the more it is regarded. “A blonde, with a pair of blue eyes, serious and penetrating, under a broad and spacious forehead. A delicate little nose; a charming mouth, which showed, when she smiled, two rows of very fine white teeth. “It was, however, her countenance as a whole which was the attraction. There was something brisk, vivacious, and at the same time, ingenuous in her rounded face. She was girlhood personified. Notwithstanding her twenty-six years, she seemed scarcely eighteen. A […]

Beautiful Nihilist Girl (Olga Gontcharenko, 1890)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

BEAUTIFUL NIHILIST GIRL Implicated in the Plot Against the Czar’s Life, Shoots a Policeman and Then Herself. St. Petersburg, Jan 11.—In following up the plots of the Nihilists in Warsaw the secret police discovered evidence implicating in the conspiracy against the life of the Czar, Olga Goutsehaunko, a young and beautiful girl, connected with prominent Russian families. Yesterday the chief of police went to her house to arrest her, when the girl, suddenly drawing a revolver, shot him dead. She then turned the pistol upon herself and blew out her own brains. Manitoba Free Press (Winnipeg, Canada) 16 no. 164 […]

“Sophie Perovskaya”

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

Sophie Perovskaya, LIBERTY’S MARTYRED HEROINE. Hanged April 15, 1881, For Helping to Rid the World of a Tyrant. Down from her high estate she stept, A maiden, gently born And by the icy Volga kept Sad watch, and waited morn; And peasants say that where she slept The new moon dipped her horn. Yet on and on, through shoreless snows Stretched tow’rd the great north pole, The foulest wrong the good God known Rolls as dark rivers roll. While never once for all these woes Upspeaks one human soul. She toiled, she taught the peasant, taught The dark-eyed Tartar. […]

Hubert Church, “Vera Figner” (1908)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

[Vera Figner, Russian Revolutionary; a woman of great charm and radiant beauty. She was condemned to imprisonment for life, and for twenty years was immured in the living rave of the Schlusselburg Fortress. When these lines were composed the writer thought that Vera Figner was still in prison. By a strange chance, on three days after the lines were written, he read that Vera Figner had been released.] I. Vera Figner, when the breezes blow, Do you awaken to the hostile morn? Or do you live so numbed you do not know, Like a toad in a granite tempest-worn? Vera […]

Voltairine de Cleyre, “Some Nihilists I Have Met” (1893)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

Some Nihilists I Have Met The word nihilist is so generally associated with darkness, secrecy, dynamite, assassination and blood, that had someone whispered five minutes before the encounter, “You are about to meet a Russian nihilist,” I should, no doubt, have hastily retreated to the shelter of law-abiding domiciles, far from the dirty, tortuous, downtown quarter, where, amidst a labyrinth of alleys and deceitful little streets that mockingly led against walls, and then turned back into one another, I found myself one snowy afternoon, picking my way somewhat disgustedly with no very clear idea concerning my exact whereabouts. One thing, […]

Stepniak, “A Female Nihilist” (1886)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

A FEMALE NIHILIST I. On the 27th of July, in the year 1878, the little town of Talutorovsk, in Western Siberia, was profoundly excited by a painful event. A political prisoner, named Olga Liubatovitch, miserably put an end to her days. She was universally loved and esteemed, and her violent death therefore produced a most mournful impression throughout the town, and the Ispravnik, or chief of the police, was secretly accused of having driven the poor young girl, by his unjust persecutions, to take away her life. Olga was sent to Talutorovsk some months after the trial known as that […]

Ella Norraikow, “Woman’s Share in Russian Nihilism” (1891)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

WOMAN’S SHARE IN RUSSIAN NIHILISM Ella Norraikow THE propagation of Nihilistic ideas in Russia received its first great impulse from the novel by Tourgenieff entitled Fathers and Children, which appeared in 1861. Since that time, while much has been written about the men who figured prominently in Nihilism, writers have failed to show the same interest in the women who participated in the movement. It was not until 1862 that women began to take an active part in Nihilism, and the movement is indebted for not a little of its success to the tact and shrewdness of the many brave […]

The Beautiful Nihilist (Sophie Perovskaya, 1889)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

THE BEAUTIFUL NIHILIST “She was beautiful.” Those are the three words with which a Russian writer, who was intimately acquainted with her, commences his personal description of Sophie Perovsky. “Hers was not,” he continues, “the beauty which dazzles at first sight, but that which fascinates the more it is regarded. A blonde, with a pair of blue eyes, serious and penetrating, under a broad and spacious forehead. A delicate little nose, a charming mouth,. which showed, when she smiled, two rows of very fine white teeth. It was, however, her countenance as a whole which was the attraction. There was […]

Imprisoned Twenty Years (Vera Figner, 1904)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

IMPRISONED TWENTY YEARS Czar Banishes Desperate Woman Nihilist to Archangel By Associated Press ST. PETERSBURG, Nov. 8.—Mary Figner, who has been confined to the Schlusselburg fortress for twenty years, has been released and banished to Archangel, northern Russia. The woman was condemned to life imprisonment for participating in Nihilist conspiracies. She waved her handkerchief as a signal indicating the approach of Alexander II when he was assassinated here in 1881. As the woman still shows desperate nihilistic sentiments she has now been banished. “Imprisoned Twenty Years,” Los Angeles Herald 32 no. 39 (November 9, 1904): 11.

The Term “Nihilist” (1887)

June 22, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist

THE TERM “NIHILIST.” November Century. The word “Nihilist” was introduced in Russia by Turgenef, who used it in his novel “Fathers and Children” to describe a certain type of character which had then recently made its appearance in the ranks of the rising generation, and which he contrasted sharply and effectively with the prevailing types in the generation which was passing from the stage. As applied to Bazaroff, the skeptical, materialistic, iconoclastic surgeon’s son in Turgenef’s novel, the word “Nihilist” had a natural appropriateness which the Russian public at once recognized. There were differences of opinion as to the question […]