The work is dedicated to the life and work of Olga Aleksandrovna Shleisner – the daughter of a retired officer, landowner of the Oryol province, who became a member of one of the populist circles, and then the wife of M. A. Nathanson. She played a very important role in the formation of the first populist organizations, while she spent most of her life under police supervision and in custody. To compile her biography, documentary materials of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Justice were used.