Anna Korba was a highly educated woman, in character courageous, even-tempered, and persevering. She holds the same views to-day as when she first threw herself into the fight, and this unswerving faith in her cause impresses with respect even people who cannot share her opinions.
Before I proceed to describe the other inmates of the women’s prison, I must digress for a moment to relate an incident which in its time caused great excitement among the newspaper-reading public. Towards the end of February, 1881, the police of Petersburg had their suspicions directed to a certain cheesemonger’s shop in that city, where something illegal was supposed to be going forward. A search-party, one member of which was an engineer of the pioneer corps, was sent to investigate, but discovered nothing of any consequence. The next day came the assassination of the Tsar, and three days after that the cheese-shop was suddenly deserted by its occupants, among whom had been a married couple calling themselves Kòbozev—peasants from the interior of Russia, according to their perfectly regular papers. The police now made a more effectual search, and found that a subterranean passage had been made from the cheese-shop to the Màlaya Sadòvaya, a street through which the Tsar often passed. This tunnel had been meant to serve as a mine for blowing up the Tsar’s carriage in case the bombs had failed to do their work. It is easy to imagine what must have been the feelings of the two revolutionists who passed under the name of Kòbozev when the police made their first visit to the shop; the underground passage had then just been completed, and the cases and barrels, supposed to contain cheese, were filled with the earth that had been dug out. Had the police but lifted the straw matting that covered them, the whole plot, like many others before, might have been doomed to failure.
The humble peasant-woman who had served in that shop was Anna Yakìmova. She was the daughter of a priest, and had been a village schoolmistress. Like so many others, she had gone “among the people,” and had been one of the accused in the “Case of the 193”; she was acquitted, but was nevertheless sent by administrative order to a forlorn spot in the north of Russia, whence in 1879 she escaped and came to Petersburg, where I made her acquaintance. Subsequently she joined the Naròdnaia Vòlya, and took an active part in a series of attempts against the life of the Tsar. She had helped Zhelyàbov and others in 1879 to undermine the station at Alexandròvskaya, through which the Tsar was expected to pass. After many escapes she was eventually arrested, and condemned to death in the “Trial of the Twenty”; but her sentence was commuted, she was imprisoned in the Fortress of Peter and Paul, and sent to Kara in 1884. I need hardly say that Anna Yakìmova was a person of strong-willed and determined character; all the women who took part in our movement of the seventies were of one type in that respect, and eminently so Praskòvya Ivanòvskaya and Nadyèshda Smirnitskaya, (both sentenced in 1883,) who, with Yakìmova, formed a little group by themselves in the Kara prison. They had been friends of old, shared the same opinions, and were similar in tastes and temperament.
Besides these, Elizabeth Kovàlskaya,[[102]] Sophia Bogomòletz,[[102]] and Elena Rossikòva,[[103]] all of whom were brought to Kara in 1885, and Maria Kalyùshnaya—who, it will be remembered, had travelled thither with Tchuikòv and myself—completed the number of our women “politicals.”
These inmates of the women’s prison constituted in a certain sense the élite of our band; for while in the men’s prison a great number were mere boys whose opinions were scarcely formed, and who only languished in Siberia because of senseless persecutions under martial law, the women were without exception tried and convinced adherents of the revolutionary movement, whose sentiments and ideas were fixed once and for all. In Russia alone has the historical development of events induced so great a number of women belonging to the upper classes of society to leave the circles in which they were born, in order to aid in freeing a nation from political slavery.
Conditions of life in the women’s prison were on the whole a little better than in ours. Above all, each had a cell to herself—small, dark, and damp, it is true, but this spared them the most irksome of our trials, that absence of quiet which made our existence so hard to bear. They could enjoy companionship if they so desired, as a large common room was also provided for them, and the doors of the cells were left open by day; but whenever they pleased they could isolate themselves. They were better provided with material comforts than we were, for they received more money from their relations; and they could even occasionally contribute to our exchequer. Then, of course, they had not to submit to the barbarous process of head-shaving; they might wear their ordinary clothes, and the staff generally abstained from teasing them with petty restrictions. But the peculiar characteristics of these women, their whole mode of thought, their inflexibility of purpose,—which under such conditions inevitably develops into contrariety of temper,—led to a series of conflicts between themselves as well as with the authorities. There was no unity of principle among them in their attitude towards the prison rules. Whilst Sophia Bogomòletz, Maria Kovalèvskaya, and Elena Rossikova regarded it as a part of their political programme, to which they conscientiously adhered, that they should maintain a continual feud with the staff about any and every possible circumstance, the others held that conflicts should not be needlessly provoked. These differences of opinion caused frequent friction, and personal relations between the prisoners were occasionally somewhat strained.
In the spring of 1887 Maria Kovalèvskaya was brought from Irkutsk to Kara. She arrived just at a time when the disputes in the women’s prison had become unbearable; and shortly afterwards Sophia Löschern von Herzfeld, Anna Korba, Anna Yakimova, and Paraskova Ivanòvskaya petitioned the commandant to separate them from the others, their request being granted. At the same time, in consequence of some squabble with the staff, Sophia Bogomoletz and Elena Rossikòva were removed to another prison; there were, therefore, for some time only four women in the prison at Ust-Kara—Kovàlskaya, Kovalèvskaya, Kalyùshnaya, and Smirnitskaya.
Early in 1888 the Governor-General, Baron Korf, came to visit the prisons of Kara. When he arrived with his suite at the women’s prison Elizabeth Kovàlskaya was sitting on a bench out in the open air, and as the Governor-General came up to her she remained quietly seated, vouchsafing him not a glance. He addressed her harshly, saying that in his presence she ought to stand up, that he was the highest official in the district.
“I did not elect you to that position,” replied Kovàlskaya calmly, and remained as before.
The functionary was beside himself with rage, and informed the commandant that he would send written instructions how to deal with this refractory prisoner; so shortly afterwards there came an order to send Kovàlskaya to the central prison in Verkhny-Udinsk, “because by her unruly behaviour she had a demoralising influence on the other prisoners in Ust-Kara.”