Lyudmila Alexandrovna Selva

Lyudmila Alexandrovna Wolkenstein ( Russian Людмила Александровна Волкенштейн ; born September 30, 1855 in Kiev ; † January 23, 1906 Vladivostok ) was a Russian revolutionary and member of the Narodnaja Wolja .

Life

Having grown up in a wealthy family in Kiev , Lyudmila (née Alexandrowa) married the doctor Alexander Wolkenstein in 1876. He was a member of the social revolutionary circle around Nikolai Wassiljewitsch Tchaikovsky and was arrested in 1877, but acquitted shortly afterwards. In 1877, Lyudmila gave birth to their son, Sergej Wolkenstein, and after the birth she trained as a nurse in Kiev.

In 1879 the Narodnaya Volya organized the assassination of the governor of Kharkov , Prince Dmitri Kropotkin, whom the revolutionaries blamed for the brutal treatment of political prisoners and opposition members. Lyudmila Wolkenstein participated in the planning of the attack and rented an apartment in Kharkov under a false name, which the group should use as a hiding place and starting point for the attack. On February 21, 1879, the Russian revolutionary Grigori Goldenberg shot the governor. Shortly afterwards, Lyudmila Wolkenstein separated from her husband and left Russia.

The revolutionary lived for four years in Switzerland , France , Italy , Turkey , Bulgaria and Romania , until in August 1883 she settled in Saint Petersburg under a false name . There she was discovered and arrested in the fall of 1883. In the subsequent trial - in which the revolutionary Vera Nikolajewna Figner was also accused - Wolkenstein rejected the defense and did not recognize the legitimacy of the district military court. On October 10, 1883, the death sentence was pronounced against Wolkenstein, which was shortly afterwards commuted to a twenty-year prison sentence. For the next 13 years, Selva was located in the Shlisselburg Fortress near Petersburg.

After an 18-month prison term, Wolkenstein was allowed to take a walk with Wera Figner, who was also imprisoned in Schluesselburg. When Wolkenstein learned that not all inmates enjoyed this "privilege", Wolkenstein persuaded her fellow inmates to forego further walks together until everyone else was granted the same rights. Figner later wrote in her memoir about Lyudmila Wolkenstein: “There should be no more humane person than the Wolkenstein. Limitless indulgence in every respect was her most characteristic trait. 'We all need forbearance', that was her favorite saying and her mild soul and her love for all living beings emerged so strongly that she always avoided so as not to trample the insects that came in her way. (...) But if it was an idea, a right that had to be upheld, this softness and mildness combined with absolute tenacity and intransigence. (...) "

On the occasion of the coronation of Nicholas II in 1896, Wolkenstein received a reduction in sentence, which was linked to the condition of settling on the Siberian island of Sakhalin . After a brief stay in the Peter and Paul Fortress , she was first taken to the Odessa prison in March 1897 , where she wrote her memoirs. In Odessa she met her former husband Alexander Wolkenstein again, who decided to follow Lyudmila to Sakharin. In November 1897 she arrived in Sakhalin, where she worked together with Alexander Wolkenstein in a hospital.

In the summer of 1902, Selva settled in Vladivostok . In 1904 she took part in the Russo-Japanese War , where she organized nursing courses and carried out revolutionary propaganda among the soldiers. During an anti-war demonstration in which Wolkenstein took part in Vladivostok on January 23, 1906, she was fatally wounded by government troops who opened fire on the demonstration. She was buried on January 13, 1906 in the Pokrovsky Cemetery in Vladivostok.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Fannina W. Hall: The woman in Soviet Russia . P. Zsolnay, 1932, p. 107 f .
2. ↑ ANNO, Die Rote Fahne, 1922-01-29, page 5. Retrieved on April 5, 2020 . 
3. ↑ Daniel Jamritsch: Ludmila Wolkenstein - A Russian revolutionary in the 19th century. In: Proletkult.at. April 5, 2020, accessed April 5, 2020 .