Abstract

The Flame Seeker

The article discusses several books and authors. More than half a century one woman has typified the highest ideals of Russia. Social activist Catherine Breshkovsky is remarkably portrayed in the volume of reminiscences and letters, "The Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution," gathered by author Alice Blackwell, who tells the incomparable story with something of "Babushka's" own simplicity. Since her girlhood, Breshkovsky has been the inspiration of the multitudes among whom she has lived and worked. Though a child of the nobility, her sympathies were so deeply stirred by the wretchedness of the serfs and the contrast between their hardships and the idleness and luxury of the aristocrats in her own circle that she set about teaching the serfs on her father's estate.