Konkordiya Nikolavna Samoilova (née Gromova) (Russian: Конкордия Николаевна Самойлова; 1876 – June 3, 1921) was a

Bolshevik The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, were a radical Faction (political), faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) which split with the Mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, ...

revolutionary and a founding editor of the

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

n newspaper, ''

Pravda ''Pravda'' ( rus, Правда, p=ˈpravdə, a=Ru-правда.ogg, 'Truth') is a Russian broadsheet newspaper, and was the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, when it was one of the most in ...

'', in 1912. She was a revolutionary and activist for women workers both before and after the

Bolshevik Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of two revolutions in Russia in 1917. It was led by Vladimir L ...

. She devoted her life to the cause of

proletarian The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian or a . Marxist philo ...

women. Feeling strongly as a

Communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

, she sometimes used the name "Natasha Bolshevikova".

Early life and education

Samoilova's father was an

Orthodox priest Presbyter is, in the Bible, a synonym for ''bishop'' (''episkopos''), referring to a leader in local church congregations. In modern Eastern Orthodox usage, it is distinct from ''bishop'' and synonymous with priest. Its literal meaning in Greek ...

Irkutsk Irkutsk ( ; rus, Иркутск, p=ɪrˈkutsk; Buryat language, Buryat and , ''Erhüü'', ) is the largest city and administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. With a population of 587,891 Irkutsk is the List of cities and towns in Russ ...

Siberia Siberia ( ; , ) is an extensive geographical region comprising all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has formed a part of the sovereign territory of Russia and its predecessor states ...

, and she had a sister, Kaleriia. Samoilova graduated with a gold medal from gymnasium in Irkutsk. She took part in her first demonstration in February 1897 while a university student, studying

Bestuzhev Courses The Bestuzhev Courses () in Saint Petersburg were the largest and most prominent women's higher education institution in Imperial Russia. The institute opened its doors in 1878. It was named after Konstantin Bestuzhev-Ryumin, the first director ...

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

. In 1901, she was expelled from school after three months in prison. She returned home to Irkutsk until early 1902, when she received a passport and left for Paris to study

Marxism Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...

at the ''Vol'naaia Russkaia shkola obshchestvennykh nauk'' (Free Russian School of Social Sciences) where the lecturers included

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

and

Julius Martov Yuliy Osipovich Tsederbaum (24 November 1873 – 4 April 1923), better known as Julius Martov, was a Russian revolutionary, politician, and a leader of the Mensheviks, a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). A close ...

and eventually joined their newspaper ''

Iskra ''Iskra'' (, , ''the Spark'') was a fortnightly political newspaper of Russian socialist emigrants established as the official organ of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). History ''Iskra'' was published in exile and then smuggl ...

'' as a journalist.

Career

In 1903, she joined the

Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (bolsheviks) The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU),. Abbreviated in Russian as КПСС, ''KPSS''. at some points known as the Russian Communist Party (RCP), All-Union Communist Party and Bolshevik Party, and sometimes referred to as the Soviet ...

or RSDLP(b). She was arrested four times between 1902 and 1913, and spent a year in prison. At the First All-Russian Women's Congress in November 1918, she sat on the podium with

Inessa Armand Inessa Fyodorovna Armand (born Elisabeth-Inès Stéphane d'Herbenville; 8 May 1874 – 24 September 1920) was a French-Russian communist politician, member of the Bolsheviks and a feminist who spent most of her life in Russia. Armand, bein ...

Alexandra Kollontai Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai (; , ; – 9 March 1952) was a Russian revolutionary, politician, diplomat and Marxist theoretician. Serving as the People's Commissar for Welfare in Vladimir Lenin's government in 1917–1918, she was a highl ...

, and Klavdiia Nikolaeva. In 1912, she was a founding editor, and secretary of the editorial board, of the newspaper, ''Pravda''. She later joined the editorial staff of ''

Rabotnitsa ''Rabotnitsa'' (; ) is a women's journal, published in the Soviet Union and Russia and one of the oldest Russian magazines for women and families. Founded in 1914, and first published on Women's Day, it is the first socialist women's journal, an ...

''.

Personal life

She met Arkadi A. Samoilov in 1906 and they married in 1913. They had two children. The husband died in 1919 of typhoid fever, while Konkordiia died in 1921 of

cholera Cholera () is an infection of the small intestine by some Strain (biology), strains of the Bacteria, bacterium ''Vibrio cholerae''. Symptoms may range from none, to mild, to severe. The classic symptom is large amounts of watery diarrhea last ...

Astrakhan Astrakhan (, ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the Caspian Depression, from the Caspian Se ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Samoilova, Konkordiia 1876 births 1921 deaths Writers from Irkutsk People from Irkutsk Governorate Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members Bolsheviks Marxist feminists Russian feminists Russian socialist feminists Deaths from cholera Media founders Women founders Politicians from Irkutsk Journalists from the Russian Empire Russian newspaper editors