Search

The article investigates the roles of gender and dress in contributing to the perception of terrorist acts in revolutionary Russia. The author sees the terrorist assassin and victim as symbolically involved in a contest of legitimate violence between the popular will and the regime. With the advent of women political terrorists, the violence was said to be made more spectacular. The notion of a renunciatory dress code followed by female assassins dressed to kill and die is explored against the backdrop of the lavish costumes parties staged by the tsar.

The article discusses the activities and mythology surrounding the Socialist Revolutionary (SR) party and in particularly its leftist terrorist leader Mariya Spiridonova, tracing her beginnings in the radical subculture of Underground Russia. The "shesterka" group of terrorists Spiridonova formed with five other women is described together with the group's role in the revolution of 1905-1907. The author speculates on the motives of these women and their finding of social, intellectual, and emotional fulfillment in taking up revolutionary terrorism.

An introduction is presented to this May 2010 issue, which focuses on terrorism in general and specifically on terrorism in late Tsarist Russia, the tradition of Russian nihilists and anarchists, and the Socialist Revolutionaries' role in terrorism.