It was an eventful period--the year of 1882--in which Emma Goldman,
then in her 13th year, arrived in St. Petersburg. A struggle for
life and death between the autocracy and the Russian intellectuals
swept the country. Alexander II had fallen the previous year.
Sophia Perovskaia, Zheliabov, Grinevitzky, Rissakov, Kibalchitch,
Michailov, the heroic executors of the death sentence upon the
tyrant, had then entered the Walhalla of immortality. Jessie
Helfman, the only regicide whose life the government had reluctantly
spared because of pregnancy, followed the unnumbered Russian martyrs
to the etapes of Siberia. It was the most heroic period in the great
battle of emancipation, a battle for freedom such as the world had
never witnessed before. The names of the Nihilist martyrs were on
all lips, and thousands were enthusiastic to follow their example.
The whole INTELLIGENZIA of Russia was filled with the ILLEGAL
spirit: revolutionary sentiments penetrated into every home, from
mansion to hovel, impregnating the military, the CHINOVNIKS, factory
workers, and peasants. The atmosphere pierced the very casemates of
the royal palace. New ideas germinated in the youth. The difference
of sex was forgotten. Shoulder to shoulder fought the men and the
women. The Russian woman! Who shall ever do justice or adequately
portray her heroism and self-sacrifice, her loyalty and devotion?
Holy, Turgeniev calls her in his great prose poem, ON THE THRESHOLD.

It was inevitable that the young dreamer from Konigsberg should be
drawn into the maelstrom. To remain outside of the circle of free
ideas meant a life of vegetation, of death. One need not wonder at
the youthful age. Young enthusiasts were not then--and, fortunately,
are not now--a rare phenomenon in Russia. The study of the Russian
language soon brought young Emma Goldman in touch with revolutionary
students and new ideas. The place of Marlitt was taken by Nekrassov