Maria Bochkareva

Maria Bochkaryova
Born	1889 Novgorod Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	May 16, 1920 (aged 30/31) Krasnoyarsk, Russian SFSR
Allegiance	Russian Empire (to 1917) Russian Republic
Unit	25th Tomsk Reserve Battalion
Commands held	1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death
Battles/wars	Kerensky Offensive

Maria Leontievna Bochkareva (Russian: Мари́я Лео́нтьевна Бочкарёва Maria Leontievna Bochkaryova; née Frolkova (Фролко́ва), nicknamed Yashka; 1889–1920) was a Russian woman who fought in World War I and formed the Women's Battalion of Death.

Early life

Maria Frolkova was born to a peasant family in the Novgorod Governorate in 1889. She left home at the age of 15 to marry Afanasy Bochkarev and they moved to Tomsk, Siberia where they worked as laborers. When her husband began to assault her, Bochkareva left him and found job as a servant, not knowing that her employer was a brothel owner forcing Maria to work in her establishment.^[1] They moved her to Sretensk where Maria began relationship with a local Jewish man named Yakov (or Yankel) Buk.^[1] She and Buk opened a butcher shop, but in May 1912, Buk was arrested for larceny and sent to Yakutsk. Bochkareva followed him into exile, primarily on foot, and the couple established another butcher shop. Buk was caught stealing again and sent to the remote settlement of Amga in 1913, and once again Bochkareva followed him. Buk began drinking heavily and soon became abusive.

Military career

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, Bochkareva left Buk and returned to Tomsk. In November, she managed to join the 25th Tomsk Reserve Battalion of the Imperial Russian Army by securing the personal permission of Tsar Nicholas II. Men of the regiment treated her with ridicule or sexually harassed her until she proved her courage in battle.^[2] In the following years, Bochkareva was twice wounded and decorated three times for bravery, and bayoneted at least one German soldier to death.^[3]

After the abdication of the Tsar in early 1917, she was charged with creating an all-female combat unit by Minister of War Alexander Kerensky. This was the first women's battalion to be organized in Russia. Bochkareva's 1st Russian Women's Battalion of Death initially attracted around 2,000 women volunteers, but the commander's strict discipline drove all but around 300 dedicated women soldiers out of the unit.

After a month of intensive training, Bochkareva and her unit were sent to the Russian western front to participate in the Kerensky Offensive. The unit was involved in one major battle, near the town of Smarhon. The women of the unit performed well in combat, but the vast majority of male soldiers, already long demoralized, had little inclination to continue fighting. Bochkareva herself was wounded in the battle and sent back to Petrograd to recuperate.

Bochkareva was only marginally involved in the creation of other women's combat units formed in Russia during the spring and summer of 1917. Her unit was at the front at the time of the Bolshevik October Revolution and did not participate in the defense of the Winter Palace (this was another women's unit, the 1st Petrograd Women's Battalion). The unit disbanded after facing increasing hostility from the male troops remaining at the front. Bochkareva returned to Petrograd where she was initially detained by the Bolsheviks but released shortly thereafter. She secured permission to rejoin her family in Tomsk, but left for Petrograd again in early 1918. She claims to have then received a telegram asking her to take a message to General Lavr Kornilov, who was commanding a White Army in the Caucasus. After leaving Kornilov's headquarters she was again detained by the Bolsheviks, and after learning her connection with the Whites, was scheduled to be executed. She was rescued, however, by a soldier who had served with her in the Imperial army in 1915 and who convinced the Bolsheviks to stay her execution. She was granted an external passport and allowed to leave the country. Bochkareva then made her way to Vladivostok, where she left for the United States by steamship in April 1918.

United States and Britain

Bochkareva arrived in San Francisco and then made her way to New York City and Washington, D.C, sponsored by the wealthy socialite Florence Harriman. She was given a meeting with President Woodrow Wilson on July 10, 1918, during which she begged the president to intervene in Russia. Wilson was apparently so moved by her emotional appeal that he responded with tears in his eyes and promised to do what he could.^[4]

While in New York, Bochkareva dictated her memoirs, Yashka: My Life As Peasant, Exile, and Soldier to a Russian emigre journalist named Isaac Don Levine. After leaving the United States she traveled to Great Britain where she was granted an audience with King George V. The British War Office gave her funding to return to Russia.

Return to Russia, and execution

Bochkareva arrived in Arkhangelsk in August 1918 and attempted to organize another unit, but failed.

In April 1919, she returned to Tomsk and attempted to form a women's medical detachment under the White admiral Aleksandr Kolchak, but before she could complete this task she was captured again by the Bolsheviks. She was sent to Krasnoyarsk where she was interrogated for four months and ultimately sentenced to death as an enemy of the working class. She was shot by the Cheka on May 16, 1920.

Cultural references

Maria Bochkareva is a main hero of a Russian movie Battalion directed by Dmitriy Meshiev released to cinemas in February 2015.^[5]

See also

• Flora Sandes
• Milunka Savić
• Ecaterina Teodoroiu
• Women in the military

Bibliography

• Botchkareva, Maria. Yashka: My Life as Peasant, Exile, and Soldier. As told to Isaac Don Levine (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1919)

References

External links

• Battalion of Death at the Internet Movie Database