[3] In Zurich, both Lyubatovich sisters joined the 'Fritsche circle', a group of nine or ten young feminists whose leading figures were Sophia Bardina and Vera Figner.

[7] In St Petersburg, she joined Sergey Kravchinsky and Nikolai Morozov as co-editors of the illegal publication Zemlya i Volya (Land and Liberty), but having no legal status was having to change address constantly.

In spring 1879, she and Yakov Stefanovich returned to Russia, just as Zemlya i Volnya split into two factions, over the tactical question of whether to assassinate Tsar Alexander II.

In her memoirs, Lyubatovich accused Tikhomirov of using underhand methods to get his version of the party programme adopted in preference to Morozov's, and that in doing so "disfigured one of the most brilliant periods of the revolutionary struggle.

A Swiss woman left a vivid description of the teenage Lyubatovish in Zurich: Behind the table was sitting an enigmatic being, whose biological character was at first all but clear to me: a roundish, boyish face, short-cut hair, parted askew, enormous blue glasses, a quite youthful, tender-coloured face, a coarse jacket, a burning cigarette in its mouth - everything about it was boylike, and yet there was something which belied this desired impression.

Then my acquaintance arrived, and it appeared that the phenomenon was a 17 year old Russian girl from Moscow, Miss Lyubatovich, which fact she confirmed with a short nod.