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The Defiant Life of Vera Figner: Surviving the Russian Revolution

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The Defiant Life of Vera Figner: Surviving the Russian Revolution

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Overview

This engaging biography tells the dramatic story of a Russian noblewoman turned revolutionary terrorist. Born in 1852 in the last years of serfdom, Vera Figner came of age as Imperial Russian society was being rocked by the massive upheaval that culminated in the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. At first a champion of populist causes and women's higher education, Figner later became a leader of the terrorist party the People's Will and was an accomplice in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Drawing on extensive archival research and careful reading of Figner's copious memoirs, Lynne Ann Hartnett reveals how Figner survived the Bolshevik revolution and Stalin's Great Purges and died a lionized revolutionary legend as the Nazis bore down on Moscow in 1942.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780253012845
Publisher:	Indiana University Press
Publication date:	06/06/2014
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.20(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Lynne Ann Hartnett is Assistant Professor of History and Director of Russian Area Studies at Villanova University.

Table of Contents1. In the Twilight of a Fading Age 2. Age of Consciousness 3. Pioneers Diverted 4. Town and Country 5. The Tsar's Death Sentence 6. Revolutionary Iconography 7. Transformation 8. Life and Death 9. Resurrection in Exile 10. An Old Revolutionary in a New Revolution 11. Revolutionary Survivor

What People are Saying About This

Barbara Evans Clements

Hartnett made this hard-headed woman come to life, following her through the populist underground, into prison, and then out into the revolutionary era.

Barbara Evans Clements]]>

Hartnett made this hard-headed woman come to life, following her through the populist underground, into prison, and then out into the revolutionary era.

From the B&N Reads Blog

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Editorial Reviews

03/03/2014
Hartnett, director of Russian area studies at Villanova University, profiles the eventful but largely forgotten life of “assassin turned octogenarian” Vera Nikolaevna Figner, onetime leader of Narodnaya Volya (The People’s Will), the late-19th-century Russian populist terrorist organization. Although she was born into the nobility and became a student of medical science in Zurich, Figner was radicalized in response to the pernicious repression of the Romanov czars, whose secret police were “powerful and arbitrary.” Figner and her fellow revolutionaries, claiming their right “to interfere in politics in a state bereft of political rights,” murdered Czar Alexander II in 1881 , an act that led to Figner languishing for two decades in bleak Shlisselburg Fortress—known as the Russian Bastille—before her sentence was commuted to exile. Hartnett clearly depicts her subject’s gradual transformation from a severe ideologue into a revered martyr whose “suffering became enshrined,” and the book revivifies a legendary socialist whose violent extremism evolved into humanitarianism on behalf of political prisoners and exiles sentenced to hard labor. Although Hartnett’s pronounced feminist approach to the material occasionally diverts it from history into gender studies, it remains likely to engage those interested in the Russian revolution and biography. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Hartnett made this hard-headed woman come to life, following her through the populist underground, into prison, and then out into the revolutionary era."—Barbara Evans Clements, author of A History of Women in Russia: From Earliest Times to the Present

"Hartnett clearly depicts her subject's gradual transformation from a severe ideologue into a revered martyr whose 'suffering became enshrined,' and the book revivifies a legendary socialist whose violent extremism evolved into humanitarianism on behalf of political prisoners and exiles sentenced to hard labor."—Publishers Weekly

"Hartnett is an able storyteller, and the chapters portraying Figner's involvement in the People's Will, her prolonged ordeal in Schlisselburg, and her harrowing experiences during the 1917 revolution and Civil War make riveting reading. Scholars will benefit from this more expansive and thorough treatment of Figner's astonishing career in Soviet Russia, when her youthful defiance had mellowed to carefully calibrated accommodation with and resistance to a regime that was in part her legacy."—The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review

"Although Figner was a famous and politically active figure throughout her life, historians have overlooked her part in the events of 1917 and after. Hartnett's biography is an excellent and comprehensive effort to correct this situation, but there is always the danger that once one book has been written about a prominent woman, no further works are published. . . . The greatest achievement of Hartnett's impressive work would be that it encourages further study of a woman who did not simply survive the Revolution, but lived it."—Slavonic & East European Review

"This interesting and well-written biography . . . should be recommended for courses on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russian history. It is a valuable addition to what remains quite a limited selection of accessible English-language monographs on the nineteenth-century revolutionary movement in Russia."—Slavic Review

"The Defiant Life of Vera Figner is a valuable contribution to our understanding of an important Russian political figure and of broader political developments."—Journal of Modern History

From the Publisher

Hartnett is an able storyteller, and the chapters portraying Figner's involvement in the People's Will, her prolonged ordeal in Schlisselburg, and her harrowing experiences during the 1917 revolution and Civil War make riveting reading. Scholars will benefit from this more expansive and thorough treatment of Figner's astonishing career in Soviet Russia, when her youthful defiance had mellowed to carefully calibrated accommodation with and resistance to a regime that was in part her legacy.

The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review

Although Figner was a famous and politically active figure throughout her life, historians have overlooked her part in the events of 1917 and after. Hartnett's biography is an excellent and comprehensive effort to correct this situation, but there is always the danger that once one book has been written about a prominent woman, no further works are published. . . . The greatest achievement of Hartnett's impressive work would be that it encourages further study of a woman who did not simply survive the Revolution, but lived it.

Slavonic & East European Review

The Defiant Life of Vera Figner is a valuable contribution to our understanding of an important Russian political figure and of broader political developments.

Journal of Modern History

This interesting and well-written biography . . . should be recommended for courses on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russian history. It is a valuable addition to what remains quite a limited selection of accessible English-language monographs on the nineteenth-century revolutionary movement in Russia.

Slavic Review

"Hartnett made this hard-headed woman come to life, following her through the populist underground, into prison, and then out into the revolutionary era." —Barbara Evans Clements, author of A History of Women in Russia: From Earliest Times to the Present

author of A History of Women in Russia: From Earliest Times to the Present - Barbara Evans Clements

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Overview

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About the Author

Table of Contents

What People are Saying About This

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