Suffragettes in the Land of the Tsars

Jessie Kenneys Diary of Revolutionary Russia

This volume introduces Kenneys Russian diary to a general audience, offering a new perspective on the Russian Revolution and facilitating awareness of this unique episode in the story of the British suffrage movement.

During Russia revolutionary year of 1917, Emmeline Pankhurst and her secretary Jessie Kenney, both well-known suffragettes, traveled to the beleaguered country to talk with Russian women about suffrage, but also to persuade Russia to remain in the war. While there, Pankhurst and Kenney met many leading figures in Russia: Felix Yusupov, the ringleader in the murder of Grigorii Rasputin; members of the Provisional Government, including its president, Alexander Kerensky; and Maria Bochkareva, the commander of the Womens Death Battalion. They spoke with officials from the YMCA and the Red Cross and gave talks to small groups of women in private homes. Throughout, Kenney kept a