Yelizaveta Nikolayevna Kovalskaya (; June 17 (29), 1849 or 1851 – 1943) was a Russian revolutionary, narodnik, and founding member of Black Repartition. Early life Kovalskaya was born near Kharkiv. Her mother was a serf, who belonged to her father, Colonel Solntsev. When she was aged about seven, she confronted her father, having just learnt that "there were landowners and peasant serfs in the world, that landowners could sell people, that my father could separate my mother and me by selling her to one neighbouring landowner and me to another - but my mother could not sell my father." He agreed to free them both, and had them registered as free citizens, and arranged for her to be privately educated. When he unexpectedly died, he left his large estate to his illegitimate daughter. She used her new wealth to organise free higher education courses for women, and hired a lecturer named Yakov Kovalsky, whom she married but later divorced, until a police officer came and threatened to arrest them both unless they stopped. Revolutionary life Kovalskaya went on to join the Kharkov society for the promotion of literacy. She was inspired by the women's movement in the 1860s and so she was always interested in feminist and socialist views. Impressed by the work of Robert Owen, she used one of her inherited houses as a college for young women seeking education. In 1869, she met Sophia Perovskaya and began attending her women's meeting, both joining Zemlya i volya (The Land and Liberty). When Zemlya i volya split in 1879, Kovalskaya joined the Black Repartition, while her colleague Perovskaya joined Narodnaya Volya (The Peoples Will). Black Repartition rejected terrorism, while Narodnaya Volya felt that terrorist acts were an appropriate method in forcing reforms. Kovalskaya worked with Black Repartition to support a socialist propaganda campaign among workers and peasants. In 1880, together with Nikolai Schedrin, she took part in organizing the Worker's Union of Southern Russia in Kiev. Although only involved in propaganda work, she was arrested in 1881, found guilty of being a member of an illegal organization and sentenced to an open-ended katorga in 1881. In 1882, Kovalskaya was transferred to the Kara katorga. During the next twenty years, she went through several hunger strikes and made two unsuccessful prison escapes as well as knifed a prison guard. She and Sofya Bogomolets escaped together in February 1882, but were recaptured