Maria Nikiforova - Legacy - Treatment By Historians

Treatment By Historians

Nikiforova left few written records or photographs of herself during much of her life. This is owed in part to her hidden activity as an international terrorist. Operating underground, and in exile across multiple countries, Nikiforova did not begin to make her activity public knowledge until the last two years of her life, when she officially held a military command. A few contemporary records of her life survived the Soviet era. Nestor Makhno provided eye-witness accounts of several dramatic incidents in Nikiforova's life within his memoirs. Makhno's former adjutant, Viktor Belash, also wrote of her life within his own records, which were rescued from files held by the Soviet secret police. Briefly a member of the Red Army, Nikiforova's service record exists as one of the few official documentations of her life.

Nikiforova has been largely ignored by historians since her death. Soviet-era historians largely erased her from history, despite the important role she played in the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and subsequent civil war. A biographical dictionary of the Russian Revolution includes hundreds of entries, but does not include her. Of the few Bolshevik women who are included, none held military commands as Nikiforova did. There is no scholarly biography of her life, or historiography of her era which mentions her. The few references made to her by Bolshevik contemporaries in memoirs and works of fiction are biased against her. These depict her uniformly as "repulsive and evil," with little exception.

Nikiforova has also been ignored by non-Soviet historians. Today, Nikiforova remains obscure and uncelebrated within Ukraine. She has been ignored by Ukrainian historians. Critics of this treatment speculate that as an anti-nationalist who fought and was executed by the White Army, Nikforova's activities have been too difficult to rewrite and reconcile to fit a reformist historical narrative.

There is little explanation for the neglect on the part of anarchist historians. While several biographies of Nestor Makhno have been published, there is little mention of Nikiforova. This is despite their close collaboration, and her greater contemporary prominence, according to biographer Malcolm Archibald: "...in 1918 Nikiforova was already famous as an anarchist atamansha (military female leader) throughout Ukraine, while Makhno was still a rather obscure figure operating in a provincial backwater." Of several anarchist historians who have published histories regarding Makhno, only Alexandre Skirda's work, Nestor Makhno: Anarchy's Cossack, mentions her—a single paragraph, out of over 400 pages, is devoted to her.

Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, historians have attempted to reintroduce individuals expunged from history, such as Nikiforova, Makhno, and other anarchists. Several essays on Nikiforova have been published, and the Nikiforova biography, Atamansha, published in 2007, was based on such sources in Russia and the Ukraine.

Nikiforova appears in the French novel "Clarisse", by Cecil Saint-Laurent. She keep Clarisse prisoner in her armored train in Ukraine, and the two women become lovers, Clarisse being deflowered by Nikiforova.