Anne Jaclard
Encyclopedia
Note: This article deals with the Russian-born nineteenth-century revolutionary, not with the American Marxist-Humanist theoretician Anne Jaclard.
Anne Jaclard, born Anna Vasilevna Korvin-Kurkovskaya (1843–1887), was a Russian socialist and feminist revolutionary. She participated in the Paris Commune
and the First International and was a friend of Karl Marx
. She was once engaged to Fyodor Dostoyevsky but married the Blanquist Victor Jaclard
. Her sister was the mathematician and socialist Sofia Kovalevskaya
(1850–1891).
, Karl Vogt
and others—and the writings of 'nihilist' and Narodnik
social critics like N.G. Chernyshevsky
and P.L. Lavrov. Both women became associated with radical Narodnik
circles.
In the 1860s, Anna was briefly engaged to the famous writer Feodor Dostoevsky. She met him in 1864, after publishing two stories in his literary journal, The Epoch, unbeknownst to her family. Dostoevsky respected her talent and encouraged her writing. However, the two were not politically compatible. Although Dostoevsky had sympathised with utopian socialist ideas in his youth and had even been banished to Siberia for his involvement in the Petrashevsky circle, by the 1860s he was becoming increasingly religious and conservative. The engagement was eventually called off, but Korvin-Kurkovskaya and Dostoevsky remained on friendly terms. It is thought that Dostoevsky based the character of Aglaya Epanchina in The Idiot on Anna.
Anna Korvin-Kurkovskaya left Russia in 1866 and went to Geneva, Switzerland, where she studied medicine and associated with exiled radicals from Russia and elsewhere. One of them was a young medical student recently exiled from France for his involvement in Blanquist
conspiracies, Victor Jaclard
. In 1867, Anna and Victor were married. The Jaclards were involved in the revolutionary anarchist groups set up by Mikhail Bakunin
, but this did not prevent them from befriending Karl Marx
, subsequently Bakunin's greatest opponent. They joined the First International, organised in 1864 under Marx' leadership, Anna as a member of the Russian section, Victor as a member of the French.
of 1871. She sat on the Committee of Vigilance of Montmartre and on the committee supervising the education of girls; she was active in organising the food supply of the besieged city of Paris; she co-founded and wrote for the journal La Sociale; she acted as one of the representatives of the Russian section of the International and she participated in a committee on women's rights. She was convinced that the struggle for women's rights could only succeed in conjunction with the struggle against capitalism in general. Anne Jaclard, as she was then known, collaborated closely with other leading feminist revolutionaries in the Commune, including Louise Michel
, Nathalie Lemel
, the writer André Léo, Paule Mink
and her fellow Russian, Elisaveta Dimitrieva
. Together they founded the Women's Union, which fought for equal wages for women, female suffrage, mesures against domestic violence and the closing of the legal brothels in Paris.
When the Paris Commune was suppressed by the Versailles government of Adolphe Thiers
, Anna and her husband were captured. He was sentenced to death, she, to hard labour in perpetuity in a penal colony in New Caledonia. However, in October 1871, with the aid of Anna's brother and father, the Jaclards managed to escape from prison. They fled first to Switzerland and then to London, England, where they stayed at the home of Karl Marx
. Apparently Marx did not hold their earlier association with Bakunin against them. Marx, who had taught himself Russian, was at the time very interested in the Russian revolutionary movement. Anna began, but did not complete, a translation of Volume 1 of Marx' Capital. (The whole work was later translated by Nikolai Danielson
.) Marx also helped arrange a study trip to Heidelberg, Germany, for Anna.
movement 'to the people' in the 1870s and with the revolutionaries who, in 1879, formed the group Narodnaia Volia (The People's Will). In 1881, this group assassinated the tsar, Aleksandr II
. However, the Jaclards had left Russia by then, and were not caught up in the repression which followed. In 1880, a general amnesty enabled Anne and Victor Jaclard to return to France. There, they resumed their journalistic work. Anna Korvin-Kurkovskaya Jaclard died in 1887.
Anne Jaclard, born Anna Vasilevna Korvin-Kurkovskaya (1843–1887), was a Russian socialist and feminist revolutionary. She participated in the Paris Commune
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
and the First International and was a friend of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
. She was once engaged to Fyodor Dostoyevsky but married the Blanquist Victor Jaclard
Victor Jaclard
Charles Victor Jaclard was a French revolutionary socialist, a member of the First International and of the Paris Commune.-Early Life:...
. Her sister was the mathematician and socialist Sofia Kovalevskaya
Sofia Kovalevskaya
Sofia Vasilyevna Kovalevskaya , was the first major Russian female mathematician, responsible for important original contributions to analysis, differential equations and mechanics, and the first woman appointed to a full professorship in Northern Europe.She was also one of the first females to...
(1850–1891).
Early life
Anna Vasilevna Korvin-Kurkovskaya came from a respectable, wealthy military family of aristocratic status. Her father was General Vasily Korvin-Kurkovsky. Anna and her sister, the future mathematician Sophia Kovalevskaya, were raised in an enlightened household. As young women they read the materialist literature then popular—books by Ludwig BüchnerLudwig Büchner
Friedrich Karl Christian Ludwig Büchner was a German philosopher, physiologist and physician who became one of the exponents of 19th century scientific materialism.Büchner was born at Darmstadt, Germany, on 29 March 1824...
, Karl Vogt
Karl Vogt
Carl Christoph Vogt was a German scientist who emigrated to Switzerland. Vogt published a number of notable works on zoology, geology and physiology...
and others—and the writings of 'nihilist' and Narodnik
Narodnik
Narodniks was the name for Russian socially conscious members of the middle class in the 1860s and 1870s. Their ideas and actions were known as Narodnichestvo which can be translated as "Peopleism", though is more commonly rendered "populism"...
social critics like N.G. Chernyshevsky
Nikolai Chernyshevsky
Nikolay Gavrilovich Chernyshevsky was a Russian revolutionary democrat, materialist philosopher, critic, and socialist...
and P.L. Lavrov. Both women became associated with radical Narodnik
Narodnik
Narodniks was the name for Russian socially conscious members of the middle class in the 1860s and 1870s. Their ideas and actions were known as Narodnichestvo which can be translated as "Peopleism", though is more commonly rendered "populism"...
circles.
In the 1860s, Anna was briefly engaged to the famous writer Feodor Dostoevsky. She met him in 1864, after publishing two stories in his literary journal, The Epoch, unbeknownst to her family. Dostoevsky respected her talent and encouraged her writing. However, the two were not politically compatible. Although Dostoevsky had sympathised with utopian socialist ideas in his youth and had even been banished to Siberia for his involvement in the Petrashevsky circle, by the 1860s he was becoming increasingly religious and conservative. The engagement was eventually called off, but Korvin-Kurkovskaya and Dostoevsky remained on friendly terms. It is thought that Dostoevsky based the character of Aglaya Epanchina in The Idiot on Anna.
Anna Korvin-Kurkovskaya left Russia in 1866 and went to Geneva, Switzerland, where she studied medicine and associated with exiled radicals from Russia and elsewhere. One of them was a young medical student recently exiled from France for his involvement in Blanquist
Louis Auguste Blanqui
Louis Auguste Blanqui was a French political activist, notable for the revolutionary theory of Blanquism, attributed to him....
conspiracies, Victor Jaclard
Victor Jaclard
Charles Victor Jaclard was a French revolutionary socialist, a member of the First International and of the Paris Commune.-Early Life:...
. In 1867, Anna and Victor were married. The Jaclards were involved in the revolutionary anarchist groups set up by Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists,...
, but this did not prevent them from befriending Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
, subsequently Bakunin's greatest opponent. They joined the First International, organised in 1864 under Marx' leadership, Anna as a member of the Russian section, Victor as a member of the French.
The Paris Commune
The fall of Napoléon III in 1870 enabled Jaclard to return to France, and Anna went with him. Together with her husband she participated actively in the Paris CommuneParis Commune
The Paris Commune was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution...
of 1871. She sat on the Committee of Vigilance of Montmartre and on the committee supervising the education of girls; she was active in organising the food supply of the besieged city of Paris; she co-founded and wrote for the journal La Sociale; she acted as one of the representatives of the Russian section of the International and she participated in a committee on women's rights. She was convinced that the struggle for women's rights could only succeed in conjunction with the struggle against capitalism in general. Anne Jaclard, as she was then known, collaborated closely with other leading feminist revolutionaries in the Commune, including Louise Michel
Louise Michel
Louise Michel was a French anarchist, school teacher and medical worker. She often used the pseudonym Clémence and was also known as the red virgin of Montmartre...
, Nathalie Lemel
Nathalie Lemel
Nathalie Lemel , was a militant anarchist and feminist who participated on the barricades at the Commune de Paris of 1871. She was deported to Nouvelle Calédonie with Louise Michel.-The Bookbinder:...
, the writer André Léo, Paule Mink
Paule Mink
Paule Mink , born Adèle Paulina Mekarska, was a French feminist and socialist revolutionary of Polish descent. She participated in the Paris Commune and in the First International. Her pseudonym is also sometimes spelled Minck.-Early life:...
and her fellow Russian, Elisaveta Dimitrieva
Élisabeth Dmitrieff
Elisabeth Dmitrieff was a Russian-born feminist and actress of the 1871 Paris Commune. Born Elisaviéta Loukinitcha Koucheleva, she was a co-founder of the Women's Union, created on 11 April 1871, in a café of the rue du Temple, with Nathalie Lemel.-Life:Elisabeth Dmitrieff was the daughter of a...
. Together they founded the Women's Union, which fought for equal wages for women, female suffrage, mesures against domestic violence and the closing of the legal brothels in Paris.
When the Paris Commune was suppressed by the Versailles government of Adolphe Thiers
Adolphe Thiers
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers was a French politician and historian. was a prime minister under King Louis-Philippe of France. Following the overthrow of the Second Empire he again came to prominence as the French leader who suppressed the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871...
, Anna and her husband were captured. He was sentenced to death, she, to hard labour in perpetuity in a penal colony in New Caledonia. However, in October 1871, with the aid of Anna's brother and father, the Jaclards managed to escape from prison. They fled first to Switzerland and then to London, England, where they stayed at the home of Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
. Apparently Marx did not hold their earlier association with Bakunin against them. Marx, who had taught himself Russian, was at the time very interested in the Russian revolutionary movement. Anna began, but did not complete, a translation of Volume 1 of Marx' Capital. (The whole work was later translated by Nikolai Danielson
Nikolai Danielson
Nikolai Frantsevich Danielson was a Russian economist and sociologist.-Early Life:...
.) Marx also helped arrange a study trip to Heidelberg, Germany, for Anna.
Later Years
In 1874, Anna and her husband returned to her native Russia. Victor found a job as a French teacher, and Anna worked primarily as a journalist and translator. She contributed to such oppositional papers as Delo and Slovo. The Jaclards also resumed friendly relations with Dostoevsky. Neither Anna's previous engagement to Dostoevsky nor Dostoevsky's strong political differences with the Jaclards prevented cordial and regular contact between them. She occasionally assisted him with translations into French, in which she was fluent. Anne Jaclard also resumed her contacts with revolutionary circles. She was acquainted with several members of the NarodnikNarodnik
Narodniks was the name for Russian socially conscious members of the middle class in the 1860s and 1870s. Their ideas and actions were known as Narodnichestvo which can be translated as "Peopleism", though is more commonly rendered "populism"...
movement 'to the people' in the 1870s and with the revolutionaries who, in 1879, formed the group Narodnaia Volia (The People's Will). In 1881, this group assassinated the tsar, Aleksandr II
Alexander II of Russia
Alexander II , also known as Alexander the Liberator was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 3 March 1855 until his assassination in 1881...
. However, the Jaclards had left Russia by then, and were not caught up in the repression which followed. In 1880, a general amnesty enabled Anne and Victor Jaclard to return to France. There, they resumed their journalistic work. Anna Korvin-Kurkovskaya Jaclard died in 1887.
Sources and Links
- Lantz, K.A., 'Korvin-Kurkovskaia, Anna Vasilevna (1843–1887).' In: The Dostoevsky Encyclopedia. Westport, 2004, pp. 219–221.
- Frank, J., Dostoevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet, 1871-1881. Princeton, 2002, p. 321 ff.
- http://chipluvrio.free.fr/gdes%20femmes/gdes-femmes4.html#jacl