Katorga ) was a system of penal labor in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union.
Narodnaya Volya was a late 19th-century revolutionary socialist political organization operating in the Russian Empire, which conducted assassinations of government officials in an attempt to overthrow the autocratic Tsarist system. The organization declared itself to be a populist movement that succeeded the Narodniks. Composed primarily of young revolutionary socialist intellectuals believing in the efficacy of direct action, Narodnaya Volya emerged in Autumn 1879 from the split of an earlier revolutionary organization called Zemlya i Volya. Similarly to predecessor groups which had already used the term "terror" positively, Narodnaya Volya proclaimed themselves as terrorists and venerated dead terrorists as "martyrs" and "heroes", justifying political violence as a legitimate tactic to provoke a necessary revolution.
Yelizaveta Nikolayevna Kovalskaya was a Russian revolutionary, narodnik, and founding member of Black Repartition.
Akatuy katorga prison, part of the Nerchinsk katorga system of the Russian Empire, was situated in the present-day Alexandrovo-Zavodsky District of Transbaikalia. It was constructed in 1888 at the Akatuyskiy mine, what is now the village of New Akatuy. Originally labor convicts were used here for extraction of lead-silver ores. After the closing of the Kara katorga in 1890, it became one of the main centers of detention of political prisoners. It was turned into a women's penal camp in 1911 and was finally shut down after the February Revolution of 1917.
Nerchinsk katorga was a system of katorga — a type of penal labour — practiced by the Russian Empire in the area of the Nerchinsk Mining District. That district embraced a large part of eastern Transbaikalia, near the border to China, in the 18th to 20th centuries. The District consisted of a variable number of industrial centres (zavody), usually operated by military administrations, the first of which, Nerchinsk, situated not far from the confluence of Nercha and Shilka Rivers, was established in the 18th century after the discovery in the area of large mineral reserves. Thus, penal labor was used to work the mines.
Nadezhda Konstantinovna Sigida, née Malaxiano (1862–1889), was a Russian revolutionary, heroine of the Kara katorga tragedy of 1889.
Nadezhda or Nadežda is a Slavic female given name popular in Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia and other Slavic countries, as well as other former Soviet states such as Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan etc. It means "hope". The name is a translation of the Greek name Ἐλπίς (Elpis), with the same meaning.
Pyotr Filippovich Yakubovich was a Russian revolutionary, poet and member of Narodnaya Volya during the 1880s.
The Narodniks were members of a movement of the Russian Empire intelligentsia in the 1860s and 1870s, some of whom became involved in revolutionary agitation against tsarism. Their ideology, known as Narodism, Narodnism or Narodnichestvo, was a form of agrarian socialism, though it is often misunderstood as populism.
The Kara is a river in Transbaikalia, in Eastern Siberia. It is a left tributary of the Shilka, with the mouth at Ust-Karsk. It is 37 kilometres (23 mi) long.
Ust-Karsk, formerly known as Ust-Kara is an urban-type settlement in the Sretensky District of Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia. The settlement is located on the northern bank of the Shilka River, near the mouth of its left tributary, the Kara River.
Aaron Isaakovich Zundelevich was a Jewish Russian revolutionary narodnik.
Alexander Vasilievich Pribylev (1857–1936) was a Russian revolutionary, member of the party Narodnaya Volya, member of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries, a bacteriologist and later a Soviet public figure.
Yakiv Vasylevich Stefanovych was a Ukrainian narodnik revolutionary.
Maria Pavlivna Kovalevska was a Ukrainian Narodnik. A revolutionary activist from an early age, she became involved with Narodnik circles in Odesa, Kyiv and Kharkiv. She was arrested several times for her activities, before finally being exiled to Siberia in 1879. She spent the last decade of her life between several Siberian prisons, where she and other women prisoners were tortured. In protest, she poisoned herself and died in Kara katorga.
Tatyana Ivanovna Lebedeva was a Russian Narodnik revolutionary. A member of the executive committee of Narodnaya Volya, she participated in the assassination of Alexander II of Russia and was tried during the Trial of the 20.
Maria Ignatevna Kutitonskaya was a Ukrainian Narodnik revolutionary. After involvement with a revolutionary circle in Odesa, she was exiled to Siberia. There she attempted to assassinate the military governor Luka Illyashevich.
Nadia Symonivna Smyrnytska was a Ukrainian Narodnik revolutionary. The daughter of a priest killed by Cossacks, she joined the Narodniks during the 1870s and was arrested for her activities. She escaped enforced exile, going on to work for Narodnaya Volya, but was rearrested and imprisoned in Kara katorga. There, along with other imprisoned revolutionary women, she committed suicide in protest against their abuse by the prison authorities.
Maria Vasilyevna Kalyuzhnaya was a Ukrainian Narodnik revolutionary. She was arrested in 1882 for her involvement in the printing operations of Narodnaya Volya, and again in 1884 for attempting to assassinate a Gendarme. She committed suicide by poisoning in the Kara katorga, in protest against the abuse of imprisoned women by the prison authorities.
Sofya Aleksandrovna Subbotina was a Russian Narodnik revolutionary. The mother of Evgeniia, Maria and Nadezhda Subbotina, she went with her daughters to Zurich, where she joined a number of revolutionary circles. When she returned to Russia, she aided the return of fellow revolutionaries Varvara Batyushkova and Evgeniia Zavadskaya, for which she was given up to the Tsarist authorities. She was charged in the Trial of the 193 and sentenced to exile, which she spent in the regions of the Volga, Urals and Siberia, her sentence extended after she was caught financially supporting other political exiles as a member of Narodnaya Volya. Upon her return from exile, she travelled through European Russia, Poland and Ukraine, where she was kept under close surveillance. After the Russian Revolution of 1917, she returned to her home in Oryol, where she died in 1919.
