Anna Korvin-Krukovskaya

Anna Korvin-Krukovskaya, the daughter of General Vasily Korvin-Krukovsky, was born in Palibino, near Vitebsk, on 1843. Her mother, Yelizaveta Fedorovna Schubert, held progressive views and made sure Anna and her sister, Sophia Kovalevskaya, received a good education. Sophia later recalled: "What a happy time that was! We were so enthusiastic about the new ideas, so sure that the present social state could not continue for long. We pictured to ourselves the glorious period of liberty and universal enlightenment of which we dreamt, and in which we firmly believed." The sisters were especially influenced by the Russian writers, Nikolai Chernyshevsky and Peter Lavrov.

Anna and Sophia felt that life was passing them by. Sophia argued in her unpublished memoirs: "People lived quietly and peacefully in Bilibino. They grew up, they grew old; they argued sometimes about some article in a journal, quite convinced that these questions belonged to another world, far apart from theirs, which would never have any contact with it. And then suddenly, wherever you looked, there appeared the signs of some strange madness, which unquestionably approached closer and closer and threatened to submerge this patriarchal way of life. In this period, from the sixties to the seventies, all intelligent sections of Russian society were concerned with one problem, the family antagonism between the young and the old."

General Vasily Korvin-Krukovsky was interested in mathematics and decided to paper the walls of the nursery with mathematical calculations. By the age of six Sophia Kovalevskaya began inventing mathematical problems and her mother decided to hire a young tutor, A. N. Strannoliubskii, to develop these abilities. However, when she suggested to her father that she would like to study the subject at university. He refused claiming that to go to university was "unbecoming for a woman".

Anna strongly disapproved of Tsar Alexander II authoritarian rule. After Nikolai Chernyshevsky was imprisoned for publishing his utopian novel, What's to be Done? (1862) Anna went to live in Paris where she associated with other radicals such as Louise Michel, Victoire Léodile Béra, Maria Deraismes and Noémie Reclus. She also became romantically involved with Fyodor Dostoyevsky. In 1866 Dostoyevsky proposed to her but she rejected him. This was partly because he did not share her socialist views. Anna told her sister: "I am sometimes astonished that I am unable to love him. He is so good, so intelligent, so kind. But he needs a woman who would devote herself utterly to him, and I cannot do that."

Dostoyevsky later commented that "she is one of the finest women I have ever met in my life, a girl of high moral qualities... but her convictions are diametrically opposed to my own; she is too singleminded." A mutual friend, Natalya Gizetti, questioned Dostoyevsky's definition of singlemindedness: "In those days, it was a question of the honour of defending and actively struggling for woman's equality and independence, not a question of happiness. And these questions were not determined by mere singlemindedness."

Anna wanted to study medicine at university. Her father refused permission for her to do this. The only way to go was to find a husband who had progressive ideas on education. She approached Vladimir Kovalevsky, a young man whose family owned a publishing company. Anna asked him if he would marry her in order that she could study in Germany. He refused Anna but said he was willing to marry Sophia instead. As she was only seventeen years old at the time, she was unable to marry without her father's permission. Sophia decided to elope with Kovalevsky and they married in Germany in 1867.

Anna Korvin-Krukovskaya moved to Geneva, Switzerland, to study medicine. In 1867 she married fellow medical student, Victor Jaclard. The couple were deeply influenced by the anarchist views of Mikhail Bakuninand Sergi Nechayev. In their book Catechism of a Revolutionist (1869), they argued: "The Revolutionist is a doomed man. He has no private interests, no affairs, sentiments, ties, property nor even a name of his own. His entire being is devoured by one purpose, one thought, one passion - the revolution. Heart and soul, not merely by word but by deed, he has severed every link with the social order and with the entire civilized world; with the laws, good manners, conventions, and morality of that world. He is its merciless enemy and continues to inhabit it with only one purpose - to destroy it."

They also joined the International Workingmen's Association, and became friends with its leader, Karl Marx. After the fall of Napoléon III in 1870 the couple returned to France. Anna participated in the Paris Commune of 1871. She was active in organising the food supply of the besieged city of Paris and co-founded and wrote for the journal La Sociale. Anna also collaborated closely with other revolutionaries in the conflict who favoured women's rights, including Louise Michel, Victoire Léodile Béra, Nathalie Lemel, Adèle Paulina Mekarska and Elisaveta Dimitrieva. Together they founded the Women's Union, which fought for equal wages for women, female suffrage, measures against domestic violence and the closing of the legal brothels in the city. Anna held strong views on drinking alcohol and urged that "drunkards who have lost all self-respect should be arrested". She also tried to get smoking banned in concerts.

Cathy Porter, the author of Fathers and Daughters: Russian Women in Revolution (1976), has argued: "Anna's ideas about the new society were in many ways Utopian... Her chief concern was that the Commune should uphold moral standards, and she was outraged by the excessive drunkenness and brutality of many of the communards. She was convinced that the raising of family allowances would eliminate prostitution, and wanted to see all prostitutes detained and then trained as nurses."

Anna was disappointed by the lack of support women received from male colleagues in providing health services. Victor Jaclard urged their acceptance: "The women who had the courage to force open the doors of science will surely not fail to serve humanity and the Revolution." Victoire Léodile Béra also joined the debate and called for a move towards "that responsible alliance of men and women, that unity of feelings and ideas which alone can create, in honour, equality and peace."

When the Paris Commune was overthrown Anna and her husband were captured. He was sentenced to death, she, to hard labour in perpetuity in a penal colony in New Caledonia. However, in October 1871, the Jaclards managed to escape from prison with help from Sophia Kovalevskaya and her husband, Vladimir Kovalevsky. They went to live in London and for a while stayed at the home of Karl Marx. During this period, Anna began translating Marx's Das Capital into Russian.

In 1874, Anna and her husband went to live in Russia. She worked as a journalist and also helped translate some of the works of Fyodor Dostoyevsky into French. Anna also supported the terrorist organization, the People's Will, but left the country before the group assassinated Tsar Alexander II on 1st March, 1881.

Anna died in Paris in 1887.

Primary Sources

(1) Sophia Kovalevskaya, Childhood Memories (Moscow, 1960)

What a happy time that was! We were so enthusiastic about the new ideas, so sure that the present social state could not continue for long. We pictured to ourselves the glorious period of liberty and universal enlightenment of which we dreamt, and in which we firmly believed. Besides this we had the sense of true union and cooperation. When three or four of us met in a drawing room among older people where we had no right to advance our opinions, a tone, a glance, even a sigh was sufficient to show each other that we were one in thought and sympathy....

People lived quietly and peacefully in Bilibino. They grew up, they grew old; they argued sometimes about some article in a journal, quite convinced that these questions belonged to another world, far apart from theirs, which would never have any contact with it. And then suddenly, wherever you looked, there appeared the signs of some strange madness, which unquestionably approached closer and closer and threatened to submerge this patriarchal way of life. In this period, from the sixties to the seventies, all intelligent sections of Russian society were concerned with one problem, the family antagonism between the young and the old.

(2) Cathy Porter, Fathers and Daughters: Russian Women in Revolution (1976)

Anna's ideas about the new society were in many ways Utopian... Her chief concern was that the Commune should uphold moral standards, and she was outraged by the excessive drunkenness and brutality of many of the communards. She was convinced that the raising of family allowances would eliminate prostitution, and wanted to see all prostitutes detained and then trained as nurses.