Authors

Discussion

In September 1916, Lieutenant Zinovy Peshkov of the French Foreign Legion sailed for America. He then spent the next nine months touring the United States and Canada, all the while raising funds for the American hospital at Neuilly, informing the public about the fighting raging in Europe, and being feted by members of business groups and social elites. As my paper will show via an exploration of press coverage of his speaking tour, Peshkov’s reputation and public persona underwent quite a transformation during this time. Born Yeshua Sverdlov – brother to the more famous Bolshevik – and eventually adopted by famed Russian writer Maksim Gorki, as a young man Peshkov had solid credentials within the revolutionary community. Yet, he ultimately turned his back on that world, using tropes associated with martyrdom and bodily suffering (he had lost an arm in combat) as a means toward redemption from his youthful embrace of radical politics. In other words, he reversed the pattern that scholars (with the exception of George Gilbert) have typically described in studies of martyrdom in the Russian revolutionary context. This difference makes Peshkov’s story an interesting and unusual contribution to that emerging literature.