Yekaterina Peshkova

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Ekaterina Peshkova

Yekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova née Volzhina (Russian: Екатерина Павловна Пешкова, урождённая Волжина; 1887–1965) was a Russian human rights activist and humanitarian, first wife of Maxim Gorky.

Before the October Revolution she took an active part in the work of Committee for Assistance to Russian Political Prisoners (Комитета помощи русским политкаторжанам) under the leadership of Vera Figner. After 1914 led the Children Commission at the Society for Assistance to the War Victims. After 1918 she was the major activist of Moscow Committee of Political Red Cross.

After 1922, she was the chairwoman of organization Assistance to Political Prisoners (Pompolit, Помощь политическим заключенным, Помполит). She was awarded by an order of Polish Red Cross for her participation in the exchange of POWs after the Polish-Soviet War.

During the years of Stalin's political repressions, she was often the only person who actually helped the political prisoners, passed along letters and parcels of food, and advocated softening of the jail terms and amnesties. Thousands of Russian intellectuals owed her their lives. Among them was Rabbi Yosef Yitzchok Schneersohn, the sixth Rebbe of the Chabad Lubavitch chasidic movement, who was arrested and imprisoned in the Shpalernaya prison in Leningrad. His death sentence was softened and changed two times. Finally he was released and left Russia.