Description

1905 Passion and politics in London and St Petersburg. Since childhood in Kyiv, Sophia Krichevska has wanted to be a doctor but when Moscow Medical School rejects her application for being a woman and Jewish, she determines to study in NYC. Crossing the Baltic Sea, she meets charismatic, Socialist Revolutionary Dov Feldman, who believes in 'propaganda by the deed', violent action to foment revolution.

Arriving in London, Sophia finds she's alone. Working in a sweatshop, living in a tenement room, she is shocked by the poverty, filth, and long hours in the sweating industry. Sophia assists at numerous confinements with midwife Ettie Gutenberg. Horrified at mothers' and babies' high mortality rate, she's ever more resolved to become a women's doctor, to introduce forbidden contraception.

She joins the 'gentle' anarchists led by Rudolph Rocker, while Dov travels back and forth to Russia promoting revolution and gunrunning. Returning in July, he invites Sophia to a 'love-in' for the anarchist inner circle. She's falling for him but is conflicted. On the Day of Atonement, his beautiful girlfriend leads Soho revolutionaries eating and smoking among the worshippers and is attacked by the Jewish Mafia or by the British Brothers, forerunners of the BNP. Sophia tends to her but is also injured and they're admitted to the London Hospital. Dov stays overnight with Sophia, leaving the next day, to rejoin the Petersburg Soviet and lead the 1905 'Great' Russian Revolution.

Sophia receives a letter that will change her life - Dov adores her, although sought by the Okhrana, the Russian secret police, may never return. Yet in December, he's back; despite her qualms about free love, they become lovers. Dov learns that his sister, Katya, is desperately ill. Sophia insists on accompanying him to Petersburg, but his sister dies before their arrival. The Okhrana bursts in, Dov disappears. Arrested, Sophia saves the police inspector's newborn baby but is exiled to London.

Heart-torn, she visits the London School of Medicine for Women and while longing to study with like-minded women, the school's fees are beyond her. Still no news of Dov. Hearing he's been imprisoned, doused himself with paraffin, and burnt to death, she collapses. But he's alive and returns to London months later. Furious with his obsessional violence, she rejects him. He promises to continue his revolutionary work peaceably in England. A glorious reconciliation. Thrilled to receive an unexpected bursary, Sophia can finally start her medical training.