Vera Figner: biography and interesting facts from life

The cause of the Russian revolution, strangely enough, coincided with the rapid feminization of women. More and more girls in the late 19th and early 20th centuries abandoned the role of the wife and mother and plunged into an active struggle not only for their rights, but also for human rights in general. One of the brightest participants of the revolutionary movement at the turn of the century was Vera Figner, who went down in history preparing a daring assassination attempt against Emperor Alexander II.

Origin

The famous revolutionary Figner Vera Nikolaevna, as was usually the case in the nascent revolutionary movement, was of noble origin. In the autobiography she wrote in Moscow in 1926, already a deeply convinced revolutionary, she pointed out that Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Figner, his grandfather on the part of his father, was a nobleman from Livonia (the territory of the modern Baltic). In 1828, being in the rank of lieutenant-colonel, he was assigned to the nobility in the Kazan province.

The landlords were also on the maternal line. Grandpa Vera Nikolaevna, Christopher Petrovich Kupriyanov, from the big landlords, served as a district judge. He owned lands in the Tetyushinsky district and Ufa province. However, from his wealth there were only 400 desyatinas of the village of Khristoforovka, which were sent to her mother. Father, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Figner, in 1847, in the rank of captain-captain, retired.

Childhood

Vera Figner herself was born in 1852 in the Kazan province. There were five other children in the family: Sisters Lydia, Eugene and Olga, brothers Nikolai and Peter. Remembering their parents, the future terrorist wrote that they were completely different in temperament, but at the same time energetic and strong-willed, moreover incredibly active. These qualities, she recalls, were vaccinated in one way or another to all children, each of whom, probably due to the severe education, left its mark in history.

Vera Figner, whose biography is described in detail in her book "Imprinted Labor," wrote that in her childhood she did not recognize the identity of the child, nor did she have a close affinity between parents and children. The basis of education was strict discipline, Spartan habits were instilled. Moreover, the brothers were also subjected to corporal punishment. The only close person for children was their old nanny Natalya Makarevna. And yet Vera Figner notes that in the family there have never been quarrels, there were no abusive words "and there was no lie." Because of the father's service, the family lived in the village and was deprived of the conventions of city life, and therefore, Vera Nikolaevna says, "we knew neither hypocrisy, nor gossip and slander."

Youth

As a result or in spite of, but all the offspring of the family came out, as they say, into people: Peter became a major mining engineer, Nikolai - a famous opera singer. But the sisters, all three, devoted themselves to the revolutionary struggle.

And Vera Nikolaevna Figner, whose brief biography is represented in our review, also devoted herself to the bright cause of the revolution.

Childhood ended when the girl was identified in the Kazan Rodionovsky Institute of Noble Maidens. The training was based on religious dogmas, to which Vera remained indifferent, going deeper into atheism. The training lasted six years, during which the girl went home for vacation only four times.

After graduation, Vera Figner returned home to the village. As she herself wrote, only Uncle Pyotr Kupriyanov visited them in the wilderness, who knew perfectly well the ideas of Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov and Pisarev, as well as the doctrine of utilitarianism, which the young girl also penetrated. She did not have a direct acquaintance with the peasantry, real life and reality, according to her apt remark, passed by her, which adversely affected her acquaintance with life and people.

External influence

The first acquaintance with serious literature at Figner happened at the age of 13 when her uncle Kupriyanov allowed to take with him to the institute an annual filing of the magazine "Russian Word". However, the works read there did not have any effect on the girl. At the institute, reading was forbidden, and the books that the mother gave were related to fiction and influenced more sensuality than intellectual development. Serious journalism did not fall into her hands until a certain time.

The first strong impression on her made the novel "Alone in the field is not a warrior" Shpilgagen. Strangely enough, but an important book for herself, Vera Figner celebrated the Gospel. Despite adherence to atheism, she extracted from the book of life the principles that guided her whole life. In particular, the whole giving itself away once the chosen goal. The poem Nekrasov "Sasha", which taught not to separate the word from the case, completed the formation of the worldview foundation of the future revolutionary.

Marriage

The desire to be useful, to bring as much happiness as possible to more people in a logical way caused in her the desire to learn on the Aesculapius. She decided to study medicine in Switzerland. But she managed to realize this intention only in 1870, after she married a young investigator Aleksey Filippov. Hearing once, how the suspect is interrogated and seeing the infamy, convinced her husband to quit this occupation and go with her to get medical education at the University of Zurich.

Having arrived abroad, Figner Vera Nikolaevna first met and became imbued with the ideas of socialism, the commune and the people's movement. The choice of the side of socialist transformations began with visits to the "freecia" circle in Zurich, where she met the French socialists Kabe, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Louis Blanc, Proudhon. As she herself noted, to select the side of the revolution it was inspired not so much by an acute sense of justice as by "the cruelty of suppressing revolutionary movements by the ruling class."

Return to Russia

In 1875, the members of the freechey circle who had come to Russia to propagate socialist ideas among the working class were arrested. Having received an appeal from her comrades to resume revolutionary ties in Russia, Vera Figner - the biography briefly touches on her experiences and doubts about this - she was forced to leave the university and return to her homeland. Her doubts were connected with the fact that she throws the matter halfway, although she always considered it cowardly. In Russia, she still passed exams for paramedics. After five years of marriage, she divorced from her husband, who did not share her enthusiasm for the revolution, and went to Petersburg.

By the mid-seventies of the 19th century a new revolutionary center had begun to be formed, the program of which was no longer merely a revolutionary romance, but also concrete actions. In particular, a real fight with the authorities. Then for the first time they began talking about the use of dynamite in the struggle.

In 1878, the first revolutionary shot sounded, which changed the direction of this movement in Russia. In St. Petersburg, the mayor of Trepov, Vera Zasulich shot. It was revenge for corporal punishment, which one political prisoner suffered because he did not take off his caps before the authorities. After that, acts of retaliation with the use of terror were held across the country.

Creation of "Narodnaya Volya"

Vera Figner, though not directly involved in the movement "Land and Freedom," nevertheless adjoined him with ideas and his own autonomous circle of "separatists." Participated in the congress of the organization in Voronezh. However, as she wrote, at the congress, nothing had been agreed upon. The compromise was to continue the revolutionary enlightenment in the countryside and, at the same time, to fight the government. Compromise, as usual, led to the fact that the movement was divided. Those who considered it necessary to actively fight the government and saw its task to overthrow the autocracy, united in the party "Narodnaya Volya". Vera Figner joined her executive committee.

Members of the new party were very determined. Several members of the organization were preparing dynamite, and the rest were developing a plan to assassinate Emperor Alexander II. Vera Figner, whose photo tells us about a thin and solid girl, but not about a terrorist, took an active part in preparing assassination attempts in Odessa in 1880 and in Petersburg in 1881. Initially, her participation was not planned, but, as she herself wrote, "my tears softened my comrades," and she took part in her first terrorist attack.

From the death penalty in the balance

The whole organization fell into the hands of a search in 1883. Vera spent 20 months in complete isolation in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Then she was brought to trial and sentenced to death, which was replaced by indefinite hard labor. She spent twenty years in Shlisselburg. In 1904 she was sent to Arkhangelsk, then to Kazan province. After transfer to Nizhny Novgorod, she was allowed to leave Russia, and in 1906 she left to treat her nervous system abroad.

She returned home only in 1915, was elected to the Constituent Assembly after the February Revolution. However, the October Revolution did not accept and did not become a member of the Communist Party. In 1932, the year of her eightieth birthday, a complete collection of works was published in seven volumes, which included her main opus, the novel The Sealed Labor, about the Russian revolutionary movement.