The Woman Who Shocked Russia

Russia’s women protesters know how to make a splash. The female band Pussy Riot are serving harsh jail sentences for performing a “punk prayer” in Moscow’s Cathedral of  Christ the Saviour. And when members of Femen, the Ukrainian topless protest group, recently revealed themselves before the steely gaze of President Putin he declared, “I like it”. Indeed, women with anarchic tendencies are nothing new in Russia. 

Before the Revolution, Russia’s most celebrated political terrorist was a young woman, yet her name is almost forgotten now: Maria Spiridonova.  

In 1905 Spiridonova joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party in the provincial town of Tambov. The following year, she stalked a local official, G.N. Luzhenovsky. The SR party had sentenced him to death for his cruel acts of repression against peasants .