Praskovia Ivanovskaia

Infobox Person
name=Praskovia Ivanovskaia
caption=
birth_date=1853
birth_place=Tula, Russia
death_date=
death_place=

Praskovia Ivanovskaia was a Russian revolutionary, member of both the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) and Socialist-Revolutionary Party.

Early life

Praskovia Ivanovskaia was born in Tula, Russia, in 1853. She was the daughter of a priest, and her mother died when she was young, leaving her to be educated at the local boarding school. Ivanovskaia's older brother, Vasilii Ivanovskaia was a medical student who had become a follower of Sergey Nechayev. It was through her brother that Praskovia became interested in revolutionary activity, and was able to acquire radical literature which she distributed at her school. This resulted in her arrest, though she was released without charge.

Revolutionary life

After finishing her studies, Praskovia moved to Odessa where she immediately made contact with other radicals living in the city. She worked distributing socialist propaganda to factory workers by day while providing literacy lessons in the evening.

In the summer of 1876 Ivanovskaia found work as a farm labourer in Ukraine, with intentions to spreading information on the Zemlya i volya (Land and liberty) movement. However, this did not quite work out as she had hoped, for she was so exhausted by the end of the day's work that she had little energy for propaganda work.

After the split of "Zemlya i volya" she became a member of the more radical break away faction, Narodnaya Volya (the Peoples Will), which favoured a policy of terrorism.

She was then briefly imprisoned, and after her release lived in an émigré colony of Russian radicals in Romania.

Later in 1880 Ivanovskaia returned to Russia where she worked in an underground printing plant producing propaganda for 'Zemlya i volya', one job having been to print leaflets explaining why they had assassinated Emperor Alexander II of Russia.

Following the assassination of Alexander II, several members of 'Zemlya i volya' were arrested and on 3 April 1881, and many were subsequently hanged.

Ivanovskaia was arrested and charged with involvement in the assassination. She was sentenced to death, with the sentence being reduced to life, hard labour.

After 15 years she was released from prison, but was sent to Siberia. In 1903 she escaped and went into hiding, joining the Socialist Revolutionary Party and became involved with the SR Combat Organisation. In 1904 she helped the organisation in the assassination of the Minister of Interior, Vyacheslav Plehve.

Ivanovskaia became one of many revolutionaries to be betrayed by Evno Azef, which led to her arrest and imprisonment, however was granted amnesty as part of Nicholas II consetions following the 1905 revolution.

In 1925 Ivanovskaia published her autobiography.