Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1919-02-24

TN THE early summer of 1917 the
world was thrilled by a news item
from Petrograd announcing the for
nation by one Maria Botchkareva
of a women's fighting unit under the
name of "The Battalion of Death"
With this announcement an obscure
Russian peasant girl made her debut
in the international hall of fame.
From the depths Of dark Rus
> STA Maria Botchkareva suddenly
emerged into the limelight of mod
ern publicity. Foreign correspond
ents sought her, photographers fol-
lowed her, distinguished visitors
paid their respects to her. All tried
to interpret this arresting person.
atty. The result was a riot of mis-
information and misunderstanding.
OF the numerous published tales
about and interviews with Botch-
kareva that have come under my
observation, there is hardly one
which does not contain some false
or misleading statement. This is
partly due to the deplorable fact
that the foreign journalists who in
terpreted Russian men and affairs
! to the world during the momentous
year Of 1917 were, with very few
exceptions, ignorant of the Russian
language; and partly to Botchka-
reva's reluctance to take every ad-
venturous stranger into her conf
dence. 1t was her cherished dream
to have a complete record of her life
incorporated in a book some day.
This work is the realization of that
dream.
To a very considerable extent,
therefore, the narrative here I'M
> folded is of the nature of a confess
sion. When in the United States in
the summer of 1918, Botchkareva
determined to prepare her autobiog-
raphy. Had she been educated
enough to be- able to write a letter
fluently, she would probably have
written her own life-story in Rus
sian and then had it translated into
English. Being semi-illiterate, she
found it necessary to secure the
services of a writer commanding a
knowledge of her native language,
which is the only tongue she speaks.
The procedure followed in the writ
ling of this book was this: Botch-
kareva recited to me in Russian the
. story of her life, and 1 recorded it
Yin English in longhand, making
every effort to set down her narra-
tive verbatim. Not infrequently I
would interrupt her with a question
intended to draw out some forgotten
experiences. However, n of Botch-
kareva's natural gifts is an extra
ordinary memory. 1t took nearly a
hundred hours, distributed over a
period of three weeks, for her to
tell me every detail of her romantic
life.
At our first session Botchkareva
made it clear that what she was go
ing to tell me would be very differ
ent from the yarns credited to her
in. the press. She would reveal her
innermost self and break open for
1.-THE first time the sealed book of
her past. This she did, and in doing
SO ruined completely several widely
circulated tales about her. Perhaps
the chief of these is the statement
that Botchkareva had enlisted as a
soldier and gone to war to avenge
her fallen husband. Whether this
invention was the product of her
own mind or was attributed to her
originally by some prolific CORE
spondent, l do not know. In any
event it was a handy answer to the
D eternal question of the pestiferous
Journalists as to how she came to
be a soldier. Unable to explain to
the conventional world that pro-
found impulse which really drove
her to her remarkable destiny, she
adopted this excuse until she had
an opportunity to record the full
story of her daring life.
This book will also remove that
d~istrustful attitude based on mis-
understanding that has been mani
tested toward Botchkareva in rsdi.
cal circles. When she arrived in
the United States she was immedi'
ately hailed as a "counter-revolu'
tionary," royalist and sinister in
triguer by the extremists. That
was a grave injustice to her. She
is ignorant of politics, contemptu'
GUS of intrigue, and spiritually far
and above party strife. Her mis-
sion in life was to free Russia from
A.. Carman woke.