Authors

Discussion

By the time the Detroit Free Press ran a full-page, full-colour feature about the latest punishment meted out to famed revolutionary Ekaterina Breshko-Breshkovskaia by the Tsarist government, images depicting Siberia as a place of desolate extremes and suffering had been circulating in American popular culture for half a century. My paper undertakes a close analysis of this remarkable piece that was published in the special Sunday edition of the newspaper on 19 September 1915. By examining every aspect of the composition in detail, I intend to show how the piece underscored Breshkovskaia’s status as a revolutionary martyr, notably by positioning her body in a landscape marked by extreme cold and isolation while also signaling the every-present threat of state violence that loomed over her. The paper will further consider how the article might have resonated with the growing Russian émigré community that emerged in Detroit in the years leading up to the First World War.