"BABUSHKA"
Maoriland Worker, Volume 8, Issue 318, 28 March 1917, Page 5
About this newspaper
"BABUSHKA"
■... — V 1 Q {E* I "*^.' * ___ A Brave Russian Woman I
Victim of the Rule of Nicholas ll^t'M
AVcdncsday, March 9, 1910, saw;the close of a famous triirl in St, Petersburg, r Two-jiuble 1 revolutionists were charged i with -.conspiring against (he Russian ; Autocracy. They w;:re tried in the | typical Russian thbliiun. The trial was ; conducted with closed doors, -No public j —no newspaper nlen■-were permitted in, i (lie court. Even the daughter of one of I tin; j.'.eusei! was nut ]ar,.iiUe.il to ivit! m-s Die trial. I The evidence produced to 'convict these jlwy revoluiioais.s was el tho aai'i de: seription, tlie evidence of spies and I traitors. One w itiie.-s~-.t'i('Layuk—.vho j was brought into c.uirt in chains, ad| milled being guilty of murder 'and ' brigandage. i as a nsu.lt of this trial, one of llm ! jiri-ijiier.--, Niche-ias Tehajh-jv.-ky, was | acquitted; the other, K.itiierinc, Bresh! rov a |«y, wad cimY-mii-id to ' txilu in j Siberia. ■ ! Nicholas Tcliayiovsky . bad powerful| English : and Anurican 'i'rknds. They j ! might lighten their pui ay-strings if the 1 j autocracy did list release him from its '■ j lungs. The t'zualj:'] occasionally re- j i quires i money, and -wj the. old friend of] | Stepniak, .Sophia Perovskaia, aud ! Kropotkin las nicr.srtJ. But with Katheriue Lrcshkovsky it j was <Jiff;:l-Jilt. V. .aa-i..ii:ed, Uh'i with j age, worn with iuuumerabb hardships, 1 sufferings, exile and imprisonment, tha,- Czardom sends her to Ilia dismal land 1 of everlasting snow--to certain death. ! ' Born in 18-1-1, this remarkable' woman . I was then Wi y;ar.s of aga' (she is now i 7a). One would have thought that the ! great white- Czar, in all his majesty and I might, invested with the. destinies of his magnificent empire, could hay? been just a little merciful to this poor old woman, j But why look for mercy, from' beasts:'' j ! Sho was of gc-ntio birth, and her early i life was a happy one. tslic;married a (/magistrate, and became'th? mother of a I '; family. I She spf-nt'lier early years in popular i instruction, philanthropic and educa■ tional work amongst the peasantii. . Eventually, however, she found out how ( i futilo this kind of work was. >| • In 1873' she entered the Socialist move- . ment. * ! ' i ■• Afe'first sho conducted a purely pacific J propaganda. .Sho went amongst the ; ■ peasants. She taught Hum, cared for , them during sicklies*-, inspired tneiii j '. with her high ideals. . i '. "Ju l-ST-l she was err-e.-tcd and thrown ' .into prison. Eor four years she lingered in, the dungeons of the terrible fortress , of Peter and 'Paul'-the Russian Castle D'lf. '! (Jn her release she ente.-ed once again 'into th; struggle—this timo. u« a ttricr-1 ist. ' • ' . . , j In 187S she was sentenced in the l famous trial of the 193, along with'A T Tolkovsky, Eogaatchov, and Kovolin, to p ' five years' imprisonment. On the oom'ipletion of her term of imprisonment she • was deported to Silreria. In connection with her fellow exile, Nicholas Tiveritchev, she mado an attempt to escape, and had nearly reached Japan when shs was betrayed, captured, aud condemned to deportation and 25 blows with the knout. Her comrades threatened fearful vengeance if the whipping took place.-. The authorities thereupon changed the een' fence, giving her one months' additional imprisonment in place of each blow with the knout. Ik 1897—after- having spent 23' years of her life in Siberia—she succeeded in . escaping. She went back to Russia. Hiaing under different, names,; moving: from , place to place, she accom! plished nn immense p.mount of propaganda amongst the peasants. ! . '.. ■ Owing to the efforts of the Minister, i Yon Pklivc. to suppress the revolutionary movement, sho Mt Russia in 1903. ! From that time to tho beginning of ' 1905 sho devoted herself to/helping the ■ cause from without-po.rtic.nlarly in the United States. '■''■,", In 1905—tho year of tho great attempt-she returned to Russia, 'and
threw herself into the fight with all hel'Y; customary fervour. Y'.'.. During the years of the terrible .'• V I struggle made by lh<S revolution against .', the reuction—loos, 190G, 1907—she took a■' ,' leading part in tlie general strike, in- ,". I surreetions, and risings. „ *•■ I In October, 1907, she v,as arrested -at. ', Simbirsk. Chained hand and foot, she' ■*. Iv. as taken to St*. Petersburg, nnd onc*Z.* more- thrown into the dreaded fortrew :■> of Peter and l'aul., " Then came the trial and the dire sen- ,• ,_ fence. Defiantly she told her accusers what, i .'.he wao. She took pride in theM'act oi'.j,' being a Revolutionary Socialist, and "'■ gloried in her struggle against the vila, V beast who occupied the bloody thron« of Russia. "Babushka," grandmother, her -com- * , I rades call her. She is, ( indeed, the> .'V I grandmother of the Rutsinn revolution! "' I No grander woman has ever tr*>d.. - this earth. Tender, sympathetic with.*. i the suffering, gifted with a singular ' 1 nobility of character, poE-.BEsiug rarft i ii strength, courage, determination, hating Af : oppression with intense hatred,' she- V.' | ranks well with that intrepid band of ;/, Russian women martyrs which has astonished and won the admiration of ,', the entire world. v • V Babushka frees 'undoubtedly .to 'her -,"«;' grave. It is too much to hope that she ...' will escape again. She will trend -that, '' long, long road over which more than '•'', , a million exiles have trod. SHE AVILL : NEVER, RETURN. Russia is tho land of gloomy thadoirs v '. >'■ Russia is the land of the knout, tho ", torture chamber, and the- scaffold, , Russia is the land where all that iii noblest and bsst is criibhed and killed. {• Nicholas 11. and his tools are vulture* h •at tho heart of a wonderful people.',. .',' The hour ol retribution is not yet. But - ; y ■it is coming—coming swiftly. Aero*.-, v I the sky of history there is a pair), wftxm : I gleam of light. .4s th« days go by, thu -f ' light . grows brighter and brighter.. -,<:J Soon the bright rays of morning will; ;;.-shoot up and drive those shadows away '- for ever. } And on that morning Babushka- will '' bs rsmeinbcred. k ' '. j So wrote Torn Quehh in" London^ ■/.•: ; "Justice" nearly .-eVen years ago. „ j "Babushka"—Katherin-s Breshhovsky—is v: ! still in Siberia, at 73 years of age, the . ( I victim of llv; Rufcian Terror under .£> Nicholas 11. H the' Revolution means -~ all thai it should mean, the grand* V; 1 motlwr of the Revolution will return from her long and cruel txile to re-" . ceivc the. plaudits nnd the.-welcome of^ the people for whose emancipation slid , i^ sacrificed her all nnd suffered as fey ■"; women have ever sullered. .■• , •;
