Is it true that Kerensky fled Petrograd in a woman's dress?

The fact that Alexander Kerensky dressed in a woman’s dress when he escaped from Petrograd during the October Revolution was written in Soviet textbooks. We checked whether this actually happened.

Here's how described Kerensky’s escape in the textbook “A Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)”, published in 1938: "As for Kerensky, he, dressed in a woman’s dress, managed to hide in an “unknown direction.”"

Kerensky in a woman's dress remains in the public consciousness today. In 2018, the satirical publication IA Panorama, which publishes fictitious news, toldthat Finland is supposedly going to give Russia the dress in which Kerensky fled in 1917. Some social network users are believed.

There are several versions, in what dress Alexander Kerensky fled from the Winter Palace - having changed into the clothes of a nurse or a maid. According to another version, during the October Revolution, Kerensky fled in a woman’s dress not from the Winter Palace, but from Gatchina, where he was located after power fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks.

Rumors that Kerensky fled in women's clothing were supported by Bolshevik propaganda. In addition to the fact that such a version was presented in Soviet textbooks, in 1938 the artist Grigory Shegal wrote picture “Kerensky’s Escape from Gatchina”, and the picture began to be reproduced in Soviet textbooks.

After the events of October 1917, Alexander Kerensky, then the head of the Provisional Government, found himself in a difficult situation. On the one hand, the Bolsheviks demanded his extradition, and on the other, he himself had previously declared Kornilov’s speech illegal, so the army did not want to support him. Then Kerensky moved from Petrograd to Gatchina, where he was going to wait out the battles between the Bolsheviks and the Cossacks of General Krasnov. But the Cossacks soon also refused to defend Kerensky, considering him a traitor after the Kornilov speech. As a result, Kerensky fled from Gatchina, and soon left Russia altogether.

So Kerensky, apparently, fled at least twice: from Petrograd and from Gatchina. But in none of his escapes, in his own words, did he have to change into a woman’s dress. In 1966, in an interview with Soviet journalist Genrikh Borovik, Kerensky exclaimed:

“Mr. Borovik, tell me there in Moscow - you have smart people! Well, I didn’t run away from the Winter Palace in a woman’s dress!”

Kerensky himself was sure that the rumors were spread by monarchists who hated him. Advisor to the Director of the State Hermitage, Doctor of Historical Sciences Yulia Kantor in conversation with TASS about the myths of the October Revolution, offered another version of why there was a rumor about Kerensky in a dress:

“It was about a nurse’s dress, and the myth about it arose from the fact that there had been a hospital in the Winter Palace since 1915. Those who entered the Winter Palace on the evening of October 25, including the Antonov-Ovseenko group, came to the hospital and even tried to tear off the bandages from the wounded, believing that members of the Provisional Government had disguised themselves this way - both doctors and nurses recalled this. The recovering wounded put up serious resistance to them, using crutches and all available equipment as means of self-defense.”

According to Kantor, the fact of the existence of the hospital and the presence of wounded in it on the revolutionary night was hushed up during the Soviet era, since shelling was still carried out on the Winter Palace, knowing about the hospital and the fact that they did not have time to evacuate the wounded from it.

Subsequently, another version appeared: Kerensky fled not in a woman’s dress, but “in a sailor’s jacket and blue glasses” - for example, retold memoirs of General Krasnov Pavel Milyukov. 

In general, eyewitnesses of Kerensky's escape paid attention to other details. For example, the US Ambassador to Russia at that time, David Francis remembered in his book “Russia from the Window of the American Embassy” that during the escape from Petrograd, Kerensky actually “stealed” the car of American diplomats. But there was no mention of women's clothing in the memories.

American diplomats failed to catch the escape from Gatchina, but more on this episode later wrote Kerensky himself: “I was transformed into a very ridiculous sailor, the sleeves of whose pea coat were a little short, my reddish-brown boots and leggings were clearly out of style. The cap was so small that it barely stayed on top of my head. The disguise was completed by huge driver’s glasses.”

Although the myth of Kerensky in a woman’s dress is explicitly refuted only by Kerensky himself, historians converge in the opinion that this did not happen in reality. The main weak point of the myth is the lack of a single version of events, the exact circumstances in which it happened, and several versions of the dress itself, which do not coincide with the memories of eyewitnesses.

Fake

What do our verdicts mean?

Read on the topic:

1. Storming of the Winter Palace, salvo of the Aurora, Kerensky in a woman's dress: myths about the October Revolution
2. Kerensky fled from the Bolsheviks in a woman's dress (Portal History.RF)
3. Comparative memoirs - Kerensky’s escape from Zimny ​​and Gatchina in the description of different persons