23 Facts About Olga Taratuta

Olha Illivna Taratuta was a Ukrainian Jewish anarchist and a founder of the Anarchist Black Cross.

Olga Taratuta joined the Social Democratic Labour Party during its founding in 1898, but within a few years moved towards more radical anarchist positions.

Olga Taratuta became a leading figure in the Odesa anarchist communist movement, organising a terrorist campaign against Russian imperial officials.

Olga Taratuta continued to organise international campaigns for Soviet political prisoners even after her release.

Olga Taratuta was born Elka Ruvinska, in 1874 or 1876, into a Jewish family in the southern Ukrainian village of Novodmytrivka Persha, in the Taurida Governorate of the Russian Empire.

In January 1905, the police opened another case against Olga Taratuta, but failed to gather enough evidence to keep her under arrest.

On 17 December 1905, Olga Taratuta's cell carried out a bomb attack against the Libman Cafe, aiming to kill those they called "exploiters" who frequented the cafe.

In November 1906, the tribunal of the Odesa Military District pronounced its sentence against the group: Moisei Metz, Yosip Brunstein and Beilya Shershevska were hanged; while Olha Olga Taratuta herself had her death sentence commuted on account of her two-year-old son Leonid, and was sentenced to seventeen years of penal labour.

Olga Taratuta herself escaped from her Odesa prison on 15 December 1906.

Olga Taratuta fled to Moscow, where she established the anarchist group Rebel, a cell of the Chernoe Znamia.

Olga Taratuta was appointed to head the anarchist terror detachment in Odesa and granted 7,000 rubles for the task.

Olga Taratuta planned a bombing of the Odesa tribunal while it was in session.

That same month, Olga Taratuta moved on to Kyiv, where she made a botched attempt at breaking out anarchists that were incarcerated in Lukyanivska Prison.

Olga Taratuta was arrested the following month and sentenced to 21-years of penal labour, joining her compatriots in Lukyanivska.

Olga Taratuta was released in March 1917, following the February Revolution, as part of a general amnesty that freed hundreds of anarchist prisoners.

Olga Taratuta participated in the Nabat's preparations for an All-Russian Anarchist Conference in the city.

In March 1922, Olga Taratuta was exiled to the Vologda Governorate in the Russian North, along with her comrade Anastasia Stepanova-Halayeva.

Olga Taratuta moved to Moscow later that year, aided by the Society of Political Prisoners and Exiles, but quickly withdrew from the Society after she denounced it as an organ of the State Political Directorate.

Olga Taratuta moved back to Kyiv, where Stepanova-Halayeva died in October 1925 and Taratuta published Stepanova-Halayeva's memoirs in the magazine Kandalnyi Zvon.

Olga Taratuta decided to release her own account of her time in the Lukyanivska Prison, which was published in Hard Labour and Exile: History of the Revolutionary Movement in Russia.

In February 1927, Olga Taratuta attended the funeral of the anarchist Lev Tarlo, during which she gave a speech that the GPU considered to be anti-Soviet agitation.

Olga Taratuta was arrested for the final time during the Great Purge.

On 27 November 1937, Olga Taratuta was detained on charges of anti-Soviet agitation.