Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Kobiakova, Aleksandra
(1823-1892)
writer
Kobiakova was a popular writer from the 1860s
whose work provides one of the few glimpses
into the lives of women in the traditional patriar-
chal merchant family. Little is known about her
early life in Kostroma, an old merchant town on
the Volga River, before she moved to St. Peters-
burg in the late 1850s. The success of her first
novel,
The Last Execution
(1858), a historical tale
about 18th-century merchant life, opened the
doors of the capital's literary world, including
those of the progressive journal
Russkoe slovo
(
The
Russian Word
). During the 1860s,
Russkoe slovo
continued to publish her work, including her sec-
ond novel,
The Podovshin Family
(1860), about a
woman's unhappy marriage to the son of an abu-
sive merchant. The journal also solicited her
autobiography, one of the few extant primary
sources authored by a woman from a merchant
background. Writing within the framework of
the radical intelligentsia of the times, Kobiakova
confirmed the received notions of the journal
and its readers about the oppressive, tradition-
bound world of merchant families they had read
about in Aleksandr
OSTROVSKY
's popular plays.
A
Woman in Everyday Merchant Life,
published in
1863 and considered her best work, further
explores the themes of merchant life, this time
from the point of view of a woman's psychologi-
cal disintegration during her marriage to an abu-
sive merchant. Kobiakova's later work, treating
provincial life, received far less attention from the
St. Petersburg reading public than her earlier
work. Little is known about her later years.
the Black Sea Fleet in July 1916. Previously he
had also participated in two polar expeditions
(1900-1903 and 1908-11) as a hydrologist. Faced
with the rapid disintegration of the army and
navy after the
FEBRUARY REVOLUTION
, he resigned
his commission in June 1917 and traveled to the
United States. Looking for a way to join the anti-
Bolshevik struggle after the
OCTOBER REVOLUTION
,
he linked up with the British, who were con-
cluding that a military dictatorship might be the
best way to defeat the
BOLSHEVIKS
. In October
1918, with British help, Kolchak reached Omsk,
home to the Directorate, a moderate socialist anti-
Bolshevik government, where he was appointed
minister of war and navy. A few weeks later,
right-wing officers overthrew the Directorate and
named Kolchak “supreme ruler of Russia.” Kol-
chak's regime never lived up to its grandiose title.
Its major military offensive in the spring of 1919
fell short of reaching its objective, the Volga River.
Bolshevik forces, led by Mikhail
FRUNZE
, soon
forced Kolchak to retreat behind the Urals. Polit-
ically, Kolchak was never to rally any support
beyond the narrow coterie of White officers and
liberal politicians. Instead, chaos, corruption, and
repression became the hallmark of his regime,
despite his own reputation for honesty. Kolchak's
regime unraveled quickly after November 1919.
Fleeing eastward from Omsk, he was captured
and turned over to revolutionaries in Irkutsk,
who in turn handed him to the Bolshevik troops
that captured Irkutsk in January 1920. Fearing a
White counteroffensive, the Irkutsk Bolsheviks
executed him on February 7, 1920.
Kollontai, Aleksandra Mikhailovna
(1872-1952)
revolutionary and Soviet official
One of the few women who occupied a promi-
nent position in the early Bolshevik hierarchy,
Kollontai (born Domontovich) was also an
accomplished writer and theorist. She was born
in St. Petersburg, the daughter of an imperial
army general. In 1893, she married a distant rel-
ative, Vladimir Kollontai, and together they had
a son. Her life changed dramatically in 1896
Kolchak, Aleksandr Vasilievich
(1873-1920)
admiral
Kolchak was one of the leading anti-Bolshevik
White commanders during the Russian civil war.
Born in St. Petersburg into a family of naval offi-
cers, he entered the Naval Academy and gradu-
ated in 1894. During a distinguished naval career
he served in the
RUSSO
-
JAPANESE WAR
, then in
World War I, where he became commander of
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