quarters but acceded to Kerensky’s request. ‘I wanted to be set free again, but could not bring myself to leave. I could not deny Alexander Fyodorovich’s wish to have me as his neighbour,’ she recalled.236
In 1917 Breshkovskaya spoke about her special ties with Kerensky. Her speech in April in Revel, where she had gone with the minister of justice, is illustrative: ‘The strength of the Provisional Government is that it includes Kerensky, a socialist, a devoted friend of the people. You have a loyal friend, and that friend is Kerensky. He and I are kith and kin, related not by family ties, but in spirit.’237
The friendship between the grandmother of the Russian Revolution and her ‘grandson’ was of considerable political importance for both of them. Breshko-Breshkovskaya was a living legend for the Socialist Revolutionaries. For decades she had been praised by the party. Her biography was presented as the life of a martyr who had dedicated herself to service of the people. The moral and political backing of such an illustrious champion of freedom reinforced Kerensky’s standing and sanctified his actions. For Breshko-Breshkovskaya too, however, the alliance was important: her young ally was proof that she had been right, and justified the battle she had waged against the regime for the whole of her life. Kerensky was the personification of a new generation of revolutionaries who were successfully carrying forward the mission she had begun so long ago. At the same time, the revolutionary minister was a guide for the old Narodnik warrior in the complicated and sometimes confusing world of modern politics.
The relationship between Kerensky and Breshko-Breshkovskaya was warm and relaxed, and it remained so in later years when both were in exile. In her memoirs she refers to him as the most outstanding member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party.238 (Other Socialist Revolutionary leaders might not have agreed.) In a different version of her memoirs there is an even more ecstatic description of Kerensky: ‘He has always lived, and probably always will, with the most positive imaginable belief in the future of mankind in general and of the Russian people in particular. This quality of his soul, this great talent of selfless love and an unbounded willingness to serve his people are probably what provided the foundation of the mutual understanding which formed between him and me. I have the greatest respect for this man. I admire his personality as among the best things our land has ever produced.’239
In 1917 Breshkovskaya spoke publicly of her admiration for what Kerensky was doing. After visiting Taurida province, she had this to say about the morale of the inhabitants of Crimea (believing that everyone who came to her speeches or with whom she spoke shared her attitude towards the revolutionary minister).
Nor is there any mistrust of the new composition of the Provisional Government, although those who comprise it are not particularly well known.
This drawback is satisfactorily dealt with by confidence that, as long as Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky is one of the ministers, nothing bad will be allowed to happen. In the five years that the repute of Kerensky has stood untarnished in the arena of Russia’s politics, the population, even in remote corners of our far-flung land, has come to revere his name and to see it as a guarantee of truth, lawfulness and justice. They have come to see him as a knight, always resolute, always prepared to occupy the most dangerous positions in pursuing his ideal of selfless service to his motherland. To his people.240
In the autumn of 1917, Breshko-Breshkovskaya tried to shield the head of the Provisional Government from attacks from the left and right, reminding people of the biography of a hero who was sacrificing his health, and perhaps even his life, to the cause of the revolution. ‘He has given a full decade of his young life to Russia, sparing neither his strength, his health, nor his very life.’241
Whenever Kerensky’s authority was under threat, he and his supporters sought to shore it up by recalling his biography as a champion of freedom and authenticating his reputation with the aid of authoritative endorsement from veterans of the revolutionary movement.
* * *
All manner of conflicts of the time are reflected in the controversies around the accounts of Kerensky’s life, and these conflicts are, in many ways, of interest. Particular aspects of Kerensky’s life – his social antecedents, his family ties with the bureaucratic elite, and a number of scenes caused by his actions in the State Duma – were omitted or hushed up. Others recur in the various biographies and biographical articles, in resolutions and newspaper reports, and, indeed, in autobiographies, in Kerensky’s speeches and even in the orders he issued. The biographical elements of particular importance for establishing his revolutionary credentials were occasions when he was persecuted by the old regime, his clandestine activities, his legal defence of political cases in court, and his bold and ‘prophetic’ speeches in the State Duma. Then there were his actions in late February, of which the most spectacular was bringing the mutinous soldiers into the Tauride Palace. The references back to his biography served to substantiate the status of a ‘tried and tested’, tireless champion of freedom, a prerequisite for the image of a revolutionary Leader. Much was made also by some biographers of the gift of foresight they believed he possessed. To have been able to ‘prophesy’ the revolution was surely also grounds for qualifying as a charismatic leader.
For decades before the revolution, Russian revolutionaries had developed the genre of glorification of their martyrs, heroes and teachers. Their techniques of political hagiography were exploited by Kerensky, his supporters and his adversaries. The cult of champions of freedom became the official political religion of the new Russia, and initiatives to establish it enhanced politicians’ authority. Simultaneously, Kerensky’s political collaboration and friendship with authoritative veterans of the liberation movement enabled him to turn their sacralization to his own account.
Even as he actively participated in building up the cult of champions of freedom, Kerensky was a part of the cult, enhancing his own reputation within it by being a contender for the role of true Leader of the people. His heroic biography as an ardent revolutionary fitted well into the sanctified history of the revolutionary movement, which became core to the politics of memory of the new Russia.
The controversy surrounding the biography of Kerensky, who was claiming the status of Leader of the revolution, was rooted in the affirmation of the clandestine political subculture as the basis of new Russia’s political culture. The discussions in effect led to the establishment of a canon of texts and images, symbols and rituals deemed appropriate to inform the cult of the revolutionary leader. In the process some came to acknowledge Kerensky as an authentic Leader. Others did not. As far as the set of qualities the ideal revolutionary Leader needed to possess, both sides were in agreement. The existing cult of fallen or still living champions of freedom provided the requisite discursive framework for forming the cult of the Leader.
The creativity manifest in the cultural politics of the first months of the revolution, in which Kerensky himself played an active role, exerted no little influence on Soviet political culture. The latter was also to include a cult of ‘champions of freedom’, a canon for describing the life of the Leader, and a combining of the patriotic military and revolutionary traditions. The texts, symbols, ceremonies and rituals, created on a foundation of revolutionary tradition to resolve current political tasks at the time of the February Revolution, were to prove applicable to the tasks of later years.
Notes
1 1. Edinstvo, 14 May 1917.
2 2. Irina Zhdanova, ‘“Vek propagandy”: Upravlenie informatsiei v usloviiakh voiny i revoliutsii v Rossii v marte–oktiabre 1917 g.’, Otechestvennaia istoriia, no. 3 (2008): 129–36, here p. 130.
3 3. Aleksandr Kerenskii, Rechi A. F. Kerenskogo o revoliutsii, s ocherkom V. V. Kir’iakova ‘Kerenskii kak orator’ (Petrograd: Kopeika, 1917), p. 50.
4 4. V. B. Zhilinskii, ‘Organizatsiia i zhizn’ okhrannogo otdeleniia vo vremena tsarskoi vlasti’, Golos minuvshego, nos. 9/10 (1917): 255.
5 5. O. L-v, ‘A. C. [sic] Kerenskii pod nabliudeniem okhranki’, Novaia zhizn’, 20 April 1917. The author of this publication may have been O. L. Leonidov, who is mentioned in the text. See also