Unlike the “heroine” of my previous post, who heroically “murdered” the wax effigy of Vladimir Putin, these are women who “did assassinations” for real, as well as for a cause.
Some of them, just like the femme from FEMENE, might have done it while topless.
Marcia Aurelia Ceionia Demetrias
Тhe daughter of an imperial freedman raised by a Christian eunuch, she became the concubine of the emperor’s nephew. The nephew got involved in an assassination plot against emperor Commodus, and put to death.
Soon enough, Marcia became Commodus’ favored mistress. Adept at handling the unstable emperor, she used her influence to diminish his cruelty toward Christians. Most likely, she was herself a Christian.
Marcia was thought to have poisoned Commodus on December 31, 192. There is a huge Roman drama here with tragic ending here. She married her fellow-slave Eclectus. They both were put to death in 193 by Commodus’ successor.
Marcia was the patroness of Anagnia, a hill town southeast of Rome famed as the summer retreat of the 2nd century emperors. Another inscription of the period refers to a statue of her erected by the town in gratitude for her largess.
Judith of Bethulia
In the dark of the night Judith, a beautiful Hebrew widow, entered the general’s camp and offered wine, cheese and her virtuous self. Some party it must’ve been…
And she struck his neck twice with all her might, and severed his head from his body (Judith 13,6-8)… After a moment she went out and gave Holofernes’ head to her maid (Judith 13, 9)”.
In the morning Judith returned to Bethulia with the severed head of hapless Holofernes, and the enemy, now leaderless, was defeated.
Over the centuries, many painters — bless their brushes! — spilled plenty of quinacridone red, vermilion, carmineand alizarin crimson to portray Holofernes’ bloody neck. (Bloody Judy)
Charlotte Corday
She was called l’ange de l’assassinat (the Angel of Assassination).
The members of the People’s Tribunal were impressed by the dignity and beauty of the slim, red-haired girl who stood before them in the dock. Wearing a plain white dress and matching Normandy cap, she looked anything but a murderess –- let alone one who was accused of stabbing a 50-year-old man to death in his bath.
But Charlotte Corday had committed murder. Not only she had killed Marat, she wanted all of France to know what she had done.
“I have nothing to say except that I am guilty,” she declared proudly. “In killing Citizen Marat, I have ridden France of a monster. I would do the same thing again tomorrow if I had to.”
She wore a bright-red summer dress as she ascended the steps of the guillotine, led by Sanson –- a hideous man and exceptionally skilled executioner.
“I have never seen the guillotine before,” said Charlotte. “I am rather curious.” And asked Sanson to step aside, to give her a better view, which he did.
She then knelt down, laid her head on the block and, 60 seconds later, took her place as one of France’s heroines and martyrs. (From the edited article about the French Revolution in Look and Learn issue number 877 published on 4 November 1978.)
Khioniya Guseva
She drove a knife into his stomach, shouting that she had killed the Antichrist. But she hadn’t. He fled. She pursued him, wielding her knife. He grabbed a stick and hit her in the face with it. Grigori Rasputin was no gentleman.
Her name was Khioniya Guseva. Very soon after the attack, it appeared in every newspaper and secret diplomatic report, supplied with one ridiculous version of her biography after another: She was Rasputin’s jilted lover, avenging betrayal! She was a former prostitute whom he infected with syphilis!
She was neither. The 33 year old Khioniya Guseva was a virgin.
“When I was nine, I was a sickly girl, and they treated me with herbs and mercuric chloride dissolved in alcohol. This gave me a sunken nose at the age of 13, but I never had syphilis and I’ve never been pregnant, and never drunk alcohol.”
It is unknown whether or not Khioniya Guseva had any political or religious views of her own and acted upon them. It is assumed she fell under influence of a male relative who ascribed mystical powers to Rasputin and thought him to be Antichrist.
Fanni Kaplan
On 30 August 1918, Vladimir Lenin spoke at a Moscow factory “Hammer and Sickle”. As he was about to leave in his car, a woman called out to him. Lenin turned around. She fired three shots at him with a Browning pistol.
“My name is Fanya Kaplan. Today I shot at Lenin. I did it on my own. I will not say from whom I obtained my revolver. I will give no details. I had resolved to kill Lenin long ago. I consider him a traitor to the Revolution. I was exiled to Akatui for participating in an assassination attempt against a Tsarist official in Kiev. I spent 11 years at hard labour. After the Revolution, I was freed. I favored the Constituent Assembly and I am still for it”.
She refused to implicate any accomplices and was executed on September 3rd, 1918.
Shi Jianqiao
1935, Tianjin, China. A Chinese woman by the name of Shi Jianqiao murdered the notorious warlord Sun Chuanfang as he prayed in a Buddhist temple.
Shi Jianqiao fired three shots in to Sun Chuanfang’s head, then threw the gun down and explained her act to a crowd of astonished onlookers.
Chuanfang was not a person to be deeply missed. He had been involved in the repression of strikes in Shanghai, opium trafficking and collaboration with the Japanese.
Chuanfang also executed Jianqiao’s father in a most cruel manner, by decapitation. Afterwards, Chuanfang had ordered his head put on a pike outside a railway station for everyone to see. And that, quite justifiably, made Jianqiao very, very angry.
Put on trial with three different courts, Jianqiao was eventually released and given a full pardon. Public opinion was squarely on her side. She died in 1979.
Violet Gibson
She was known as The Woman Who Bloodied Benito’s Nose.
On April 7, 1926, Benito Mussolini had given a speech to the International Congress of Surgeons in Rome. He liked to mingle in the adoring crowd of his supporters.
Thenmozhi Rajaratnam
She was also known as Gayatri and Dhanu, the assassin who killed Rajiv Gandhi, herself, and 14 others in a suicide bombing on 21 May 1991, in the Indian town of Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu.
She was a member of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (Tamil Tigers).
Idoia Lopez Riano
The Guardian referred to her as “a green-eyed, glamorous gun woman who police, journalists and some repentant former companions have painted as a man-eating, man-murdering monster.”
Nicknamed La Tigresa – the tigress – for her legendary sexual prowess, she has become one of the leading commandos in the violent campaign for Basque independence during the 1980s.
ETA, a terrorist group has killed over 800 people since 1970. The blood from at least 23 of those dead are on the hands of ETA’s most notorious female assassin.
The green-eyed femme fatale who is serving 30 year prison time in Spain. Recently, she has been kicked out of the Basque Separatist organisation after renouncing violence and apologizing for her crimes.
Contra Spem Spero... Et Rideo 