The Defiant Life of Vera Figner: Surviving the Russian Revolution

8 Life and Death

8 LIFE AND DEATH Much of the joy Ekaterina Figner feltuponlearningthat Vera’sdeath sentence had been commuted dissipated when tsarist officials informed her that her daughter had been taken to Shlisselburg Fortress. While the state refused to end Vera’s life on the scaffold, its judicial arm had no compunction about consigning her to a living death behind high fortress walls and a dangerous current at the mouth of the Neva River. Ekaterina spent years longing for news of her eldest child, but for more than a decade her anxious curiosity encountered only silence. It seemed that the prison administration intended to abide by the retributive promise made to the Figner matriarch in 1884 when an official ominously vowed that the next she would hear of Vera would be when she was “in her grave.”1 In spite of her fears, months and years passed and news of Vera’s death never came. Although Ekaterina had no idea what her daughter’s life was like, she found comfort in knowing that at least her firstborn was still alive. But for Vera the line between life and death blurred in Shlisselburg as she discovered a life that was much worse than her anticipated death. While each passing day without news of her daughter’s death brought a measure of solace to Ekaterina, Vera’s endless days in her tomblike cell led her to wistfully recall how close she had come to realizing the martyrdom on the scaffold that she had sought. Although Shlisselburg Fortress was built in 1323, in the months after Alexander II’s assassination the government had renovated the facilities at the edge of Lake Ladoga and erected a new forty-cell prison building to house 152 The Defiant Life of Vera Figner “the most active and dangerous members” of the People’s Will.2 The prison was not meant for rehabilitation. It was intended to be a strictly punitive exercise in vengeance. To that end the prison regime was designed to be as arduous as possible. Inmates lived almost entirely within the narrow confines of their cells, isolated from the outside world and from each other. Shlisselburgrapidlyearnedthereputationasanotoriouslyrepressiveprison, and its reputation was welldeserved. Tovengefullyretaliate against the young men and women who violently attacked the state and the tsar, the fortress administrationaspiredtoextinguishitsinmates ’spiritswhileitdominatedtheir bodies through complete isolation, harsh discipline, and dehumanizing daily life. By suffocating the prisoners’ personalities and smothering their wills, the Shlisselburg commandant, warden, and guards located punishment in and through the body. Everything about the prison—from the guards’ demeanor, to the physical space, to the perpetual feeling of vulnerability that ensued— was designed to inscribe the prisoners’ bodies with an absence of power and self-determination. Solace was difficult to find while torment lurked at every turn. The cumulative effect of years lived in this state left even those prisoners who survived the ordeal psychologically marred and emotionally damaged by the experience. Vera’s terrifying first day in Shlisselburg foreshadowed the grueling years to come. Immediately upon her arrival, guards ordered her to undress and stand naked before the prying gaze of a male prison doctor and his female assistant . The medical team studied Vera’s body intently, noting all discerning features on the premise that familiarity with the newest inmate’s body could abettheprisonadministration’scontroloverit.Feelingcompletelyvulnerable and utterly mortified, Vera tried to disengage her spirit from her exposed, naked body. In describing this moment decades later, she discloses a feeling of vulnerability that coexists with a grandiose conception of herself, her crimes, and her sacrifice when she compares this experience to that of young Christian women brought naked to the Roman Colosseum to be devoured by lions for the entertainment of the emperor and the assembled crowds. No sexual assault or corporal punishment ensued in this moment, but Vera likens the degradation she felt to torture and death. Stripped naked before two hostile strangers and denied the consideration typically afforded women, especially those of her class, she was forced to confront the extent of her bodily subjection. Life and Death 153 With every physical feature noted and each freckle and mole mapped, the doctorallowedVeratodress.Unliketheassortmentofprettydressesanddelicate blouses she had worn during her pretrial incarceration, she now donned anuglygrayskirt,agray-and-blackoversizedjacket,andagraykerchief,which was to be the uniform of her incarceration.3 Her female form receded behind the clothes that marked her as a political convict. With no mirror to taunt her, she was...