The Portland daily press., 1881-07-14
Russian Destroying Angels.
Heroines Of the Revolution -Sassulitch,
Bardin and Peroffsky.
[Pall Mall Gazette I

lPan Mall Gazstte.l
Sophie Bardin, of Tamboff, o Young lady of
noble birth, was the frst to familiarizs tho
public with the spectacle of Russian revolu-
tionary heroine. She had not finished her
studies and passed her final examinations
when she had decided to dedicate her life to
the service of cher brothers, AT IS years OF
age she went to Zurich to study toe labor ques-
tion in Switzerland and in Germany, and to
sit at the feet OF Bakunin ''the apostle of uni.
versal destruction" and the prophet of an-
archy. She soon returned to Russia confirmed
in the faith as TO the necessity for remodeling
society, and lost no time in setting to work
She assumed the name of a soldiers widow,
and began to work at daily wages in a factory,
the better to DO able to carry on the work of
proselytism among the disinherited of the
world. A year after her descent among the
workers she was arrested. The authorities
took two years to prepare her indictment, and
she was tried before the spring of 1877. She
conducted her own defense, and surprised ev-
cry one by the courage and passion with which
she pleaded her cause. Thousands of copies of
her address were sold in St. Petersburg, and
the fate of the eloquent speaker gave force and
emphasis to her closing words: "The associa-
tion will ayenge me, and its vengeance will be
terrible. Let your hangman aud Judges mas
sacre and destroy US now, during the short
time that forco is still on your side. We set
against you our moral might, and that will
triumph. Progress, liberty, and equality fight
for us, and through these ideas no bayonet eau
thrust." Her eloquence ayailed not,and Sophie
Bardn was sent to hard labor in the Siberian
mines for nine years-a dreary expiation for
one years propagandism of revolutionary doc
trine.
Sophie Bardin was the first, and Sophie Pc
roHsky the third. of the popular herones of
the Russian revolution. The second was oc-
cupied by Vera Sassuitch, whose name is per-
haps even more familiar in the West than that
OF any of the others. Vera, who achieved no.
toriety by the shot she fred at Gen. Trepoff to
avenge the chastisement inflicted on q prison.
er, 3oglaiouboH, who vas personally unknown
to her, was four years older than Sophie Bar
din at the time of her trial. Her troubles,
however, began even earlier. When only II
years old she was flung into jail as the friend
OF the sister OF Netchaieff, the we'll known con-
spirator. She lay there two years without tri-
al, and after her release sac spent three years
in exile, being passed on by the police from
town to town as suspect. Oppression drives
even the wise man mad, and no one can be
surprised that such treatment drove the VIC
tim into the ranks of the active conspira-
tors, aud at last led her to shoot Gen Ire
pof. She made no attempt to escape. and
justified her deed in court as being necessary
TO call attention to The cruelty which
was spracticed under his control All
other means of publicity being denied her, she
resorted to the revolver. Her plea found fa-
vor in the eyes of Russian jury, and her ac-
quittal, which was applauded by almost every
newspaper in St. Petersburg, startled Europe.
Immediately after her aequittal, amid q scene
of riotous enthusiasm, she disappeared 1t was
said she had been arrested by administrative
order," and banished to Siberia. After short
time it was discovered that she had only been
in safe hiding, and coon afterward sho was
f6ted as heroine by the revolutionary Tefu-
gees of Geneva and Paris, among whom she
continues to exc out livelihood to this day.
Sophie Bardin is in Siberia Vera Sassulitch is
in exile; Sophie Peroffsky is dead. But al
though the three leading actors in the tragic
drama are thus accounted for, there are many
whose names appear and reappear in the blood
stained annals of Russian sedition. OF these
we catch but passing glimpses, some of which,
it must be admitted, are by no means cacu-
lated to attract. Olga Rassoffski, who sent q
bullet through the head of Police Sergeant;
Anna MakhaIevna, who fed with passport
forged by two other revolutionary women from
the punishment due for her share in the vitri-
olization Of the spy Goronovitch, and Achris-
toff, the 17-year old priests daughter, who
made love to the detective Layroffski in order
to betrsy him into tho hands of the Nihilists,
who cut off his ears and sliced off his nose, arc
among those who, ruthless as destroying an
gels, keep up the Red terror in Russia.