Olga Mikhailovna Genkina (October 2 [14], 1881, Kaluga — November 16 [29], 1905, Ivanovo-Voznesensk) was a Russian revolutionary, a member of the RSDLP, who died during the revolutionary events of 1905. She is connected to Nizhny Novgorod through party work in the summer of 1905: it was here that she worked as an organizer of workers' study circles on assignment from the Moscow committee of the RSDLP. One of the streets of the Sovetsky district of Nizhny Novgorod is named after Genkina.[1]

Biography

She was born in Kaluga. Her father was Mikhail Semyonovich Genkin (1854–1935), a physician and court councillor; her mother was Praskovya Andreyevna, née Shchurovskaya (1857–1941). Her brother was Dmitry Mikhailovich Genkin; her sisters were Nadezhda Mikhailovna Genkina (married name Garkavi; 1887–1991), an ophthalmologist, and Tatyana Mikhailovna Genkina (married name Zak; 1893–1971), an accountant.[1]

In 1892 the family moved to Moscow. From 1892 to 1900 Olga studied at a gymnasium, after which she entered the Women's Medical Institute in St. Petersburg. In 1902 she joined the RSDLP and distributed party literature. On the night of February 24–25, 1904, she was arrested in connection with the case against the St. Petersburg organization of the RSDLP and expelled from the institute. After five months in detention she was released on bail of 1,000 rubles; the case was dropped on August 11, 1904, under an amnesty manifesto. After her release she continued underground work under the pseudonym "Sonya" and became an organizer of the Bolshevik organization in the Vyborg district of St. Petersburg. On January 9, 1905, she was arrested again and released under police supervision in March, but was detained once more — for an anti-government outburst directed at a policeman — and was freed only a month later.[1]

Activity in Nizhny Novgorod

In May 1905, under the pseudonym "Maria Petrovna," Genkina was sent by the Moscow committee of the RSDLP to Nizhny Novgorod to lead workers' study circles at the Kurbatov Plant and at the Dobrov and Nabgolts partnership factories. She took part in preparing the demonstrations of July 9–10, 1905; on July 10 she narrowly avoided being seized by Black Hundred activists on the square in front of the People's House. That same month she organized the escape from prison of one of the Bolsheviks. In early September 1905 she was tracked down and arrested. On October 18, 1905, she was released, along with other prisoners, under the Manifesto issued by Nicholas II on October 17.[1]

Death

After her release Genkina went to Moscow, from where the party committee sent her to Ivanovo-Voznesensk with a shipment of weapons intended for revolutionary organizations. At the railway station on November 16 (according to other accounts, November 19), 1905, she was identified as a participant in the revolutionary movement, detained by gendarmes, and killed by a mob that took the law into its own hands. The criminal case opened over her death was closed on September 26, 1906, for "failure to identify the perpetrators." She was buried at the Cemetery of Old Bolsheviks in Ivanovo.[1]

Genkina operated under the conspiratorial names Sonya and Maria Petrovna; she was the fiancée of the party figure Yemelyan Mikhailovich Yaroslavsky.[1]

Memory

Genkina's name is borne by one of the streets of the Sovetsky district of Nizhny Novgorod, as well as a street in the Oktyabrsky district and a square by the old railway station in Ivanovo. Two obelisk monuments were erected on that square: one in front of the old station, at the presumed site of the revolutionary's death, and the other in front of the new station. Both monuments have since been lost.[1] A biographical essay about Genkina was published by the Gorky Book Publishing House in 1963, authored by L. P. Pozmogova.[1]

Links

Sources

  1. Wikipedia (ru) — Genkina, Olga Mikhailovna (архив)