Armand was born 125 years ago Inessa Ekaterina Stefan was born in Paris at two in the afternoon, in house # 63 on Rue de la Chapelle into a family of artists. Soviet historiography emphasized the almost entirely proletarian origins of the future revolutionary; however, her mother, born Natalie Wilde, was the heiress of a rich family of entrepreneurs - russified Englishmen. As a girl, she came to Paris to study music under the supervision of her aunt.

It was Dalya Gudavichute, a journalist from "Lietovas Ritas" who led me to Kristina Ivanauskene, the assistant to the pastor. Along the way, my colleague was recounting how just recently she attended self-defense classes for women at a school organized under the auspices of the Vilnius Protestant Church ˆ experienced English and Lithuanian trainers instructed rather non-athletic matrons how to resist an aggressor when under attack.

It was a snowy January afternoon in l995. I was visiting a friend, Rose, who is a holistic healer. Warming ourselves by the fireplace, we began to talk about our childhood memories. Mine were not happy. I spent my early years in Russia when it was still under the tyrannical regime of Joseph Stalin.

A few months ago when Colette and I discussed ideas for this issue of the magazine, we decided to devote its main section to religion. At that time there were not yet bombers circling the skies over Yugoslavia, not yet tens of thousands of refugees seeking shelter in the European countries, there wasn't yet that oppressive feeling of approaching catastrophe about which people are talking more and more, as summer comes on. The world has changed, however much we wish to ignore this.

Dear Editors of the magazine, Women's Dialogue I am writing you for the first time, although it is not the first year that I have been reading your magazine. I am Ludmila Bondarenko, a docent of Tomsk State University where I work in the department of sociology.

Information about the organization can be found on its website: www.catholicsforchoice.org FAITH, FEMINISM AND WOMEN'S FREEDOM A Roundtable Discussion at the United Nations, March 25, l999 Sponsored by Catholics for a Free Choice Marcia Ann Gillespie, Moderator - Editor in Chief of Ms. Magazine Discussants : Denise Ackermann - Professor of Christian Theology, University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

In 1693, when there was still no periodical press in Russia, women in England were already reading the first women's journal in the world, called "The Lady's Mercury." This English initiative was met with joy in other developed countries. In the second half of the 18th century, special publications for women could be found in France, Germany, and the U.S. In 1779, a women's journal appeared in Russia. Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov began publishing it at his own initiative.