The Death of My Father

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Galina Kuzmenko (1894-1978) is best known to history as the wife of the Ukrainian peasant anarchist Nestor Makhno, but she was an important figure in his movement in her own right. A teacher by profession, she was elected to important positions within the Makhnovist “republic,” including chairperson of the teachers’ union and was known as a fiery advocate for women’s rights. Her long life was full of tragedy, and the article below describes one particularly poignant episode, the death of her father, an old school reactionary who had to pay the price for raising a daughter who became a revolutionary. (Introduction, translation and notes by Malcolm Archibald.)

From: Probuzhdenie, No. 80-81, March-April 1937, pp. 14-24. Translated by: Malcolm Archibald.