Yashka: My Life as Peasant, Exile and Soldier

Yashka is the autobiography of Maria Botchkareva, a young Russian woman who bravely took up arms first against the Germans in World War One, and then opposed the Bolsheviks in the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Maria describes a hard upbringing as a member of the Russian peasantry. Married at sixteen to her first husband Afanasy, it wasn't long before his charms were replaced by physical abuse; Maria soon fled. She applied for work as a servant girl, only to discover that the man advertising actually owned a string of brothels; she was promptly sent to the town of Sretensk to work in one.

Such harsh experiences in youth nevertheless built a certain determination and toughness in the young Maria. When war broke out in 1914, she applied to join as a soldier - facing verbal abuse and sexual harassment from the outset, she nevertheless took to military life with eagerness and courage. The soldiers nicknamed her 'Yashka', and a measure of respect was slowly gained as she demonstrated great bravery.

The middle portions of the book see Botchkareva describe the most exciting episodes of her army service. Her dramatic rescue of fifty wounded soldiers is accompanied by her success in defeating the enemy. Briefly captured, Yashka claimed to be a Red Cross nurse looking for her husband, but soon after ambushed and escaped the German platoon, inflicting several casualties in the process.

The Russian Revolution would disrupt the military's operations, and Yashka soon found many of her fellow soldiers demoralized both from war fatigue and a sympathy for the Bolshevik cause. Narrowly avoiding execution by the Bolsheviks, she escaped to the United States - where this memoir was dictated to Isaac Don Levine. Determined to stop communism from overtaking the country, Botchkareva returned to Russia but was put to death as an 'Enemy of the People' in 1920.