MURDER OF THE LIBERATOR

The struggle between the Winter Palace and the revolutionary populists was coming to an end, and its sad end was inevitable, despite the fact that the conservatives tried to take their own measures against the terrorists. At the beginning of 1881, thirteen figures, whose names remained unknown to contemporaries and historians, united in the Secret Anti-Socialist League (T.A.S.L.) “Our motto,” wrote one of these figures, “God and Tsar, our coat of arms - a star with seven rays and a cross in the center. Now we ... there are about two hundred agents, and their number is constantly growing in all corners of Russia. As for the number of T.A.S.L. agents, two hundred is a clear exaggeration, although we know that Princess Yuryevskaya herself patronized the league, trying at any cost to save her crowned husband. In general, amateur legionnaires were unable to play on a foreign field (conspiracy, terror) with real professionals. Apparently, therefore, the emperor did not wait for any real help from the League.

Meanwhile, around the monarch, not only the ring of “hunters” was shrinking, but also semi-mystical clouds of signs and omens were gathering. Two weeks before his death, Alexander Nikolaevich began to find every morning on the windowsill of the bedroom killed and mauled pigeons. It turned out that a huge bird of prey settled on the roof of the Winter Palace, but all attempts to catch it were in vain. Finally, the trap was set. Nevertheless, the bird failed to cope with it in flight and crashed onto Palace Square. The predator turned out to be a kite of such gigantic proportions that its effigy was placed in the Kunstkamera. Later, the epic with the predator will be remembered as a gloomy and last omen of Alexander's reign, but all this will be later ...

Once a fortune-teller predicted to Alexander II that he would have a difficult life, full of mortal dangers. In general, one does not have to be a seer to prophesy difficulties and dangers to the autocrat on his life path. However, the lady, who was guessing Alexander Nikolayevich, told him that he would die from the seventh attempt made on his life. If you have a desire, count how many assassination attempts the emperor survived, including Rysakov's bomb, and it turns out that the fortuneteller was not mistaken. True, she could not (or did not want to) tell him about the assassination attempts that were being prepared, but for one reason or another did not take place. And it was like this...

Alexander Mikhailov has long been attracted by the Stone Bridge, thrown over the Catherine Canal. The imperial carriage, following from the Tsarskoselsky railway station to the Winter Palace, could not by any means pass this bridge. When Mikhailov shared his observations with his comrades, the idea arose to mine this bridge and blow it up under the tsar's carriage. The implementation of this plan was entrusted, of course, to Zhelyabov.

The experience of underground work taught the people of Narodnaya Volya, above all, thoroughness. A whole expedition set out to reconnoiter the mining of the bridge: Makar Teterka on the rudder of the boat, Zhelyabov on the oars. In addition to them, Barannikov, Presnyakov, Grachevsky. We examined the powerful supports, measured the bottom under the bridge. It turned out that dynamite must be placed in the bridge supports, which can only be done under water. It is most convenient to blow up from the walkways, on which the washerwomen rinsed the laundry. Kibalchich calculated that seven pounds of explosives were needed for a successful assassination attempt. He also came up with a shell for her - four gutta-percha pillows. They were lowered from the boat to the bridge supports, the wires were brought under the walkways of the laundresses. However, later they decided to abandon the explosion of the bridge supports, since there was no one hundred percent certainty in the success of the assassination attempt, and the Narodnaya Volya did not need extra victims. However, this did not mean that the radicals once and for all abandoned explosions in crowded places.

Malaya Sadovaya Street, the house of Count Mengden, in which a semi-basement is rented out. On January 7, 1881, the “peasant Kobozev family” opens a cheese shop in it - Anna Yakimova and Yuri Bogdanovich, members of the Narodnaya Volya IK. Another tunnel, a narrow half-grave gallery, fear of a possible collapse, the threat of an unexpected visit to the apartment by the police. The last one is the most real. The wrong police stationed in St. Petersburg, and the janitors are not the same. They became more fearful, more alert, more experienced. At the end of February, the janitor brought an audit to the Kobozevs: a district police officer and a well-known technician, Major General Mravinsky, a police expert.

The smell of cheeses, accumulated in the basement, hit his nose so much that the general did not look forward to how to get out into the fresh air as soon as possible. Apparently, therefore, he only inquired about the wall paneling, tapped in several places with his heel on the floorboards, and asked about the origin of the damp spot in the pantry. “They spilled sour cream, your honor,” answered Bogdanovich. And here were cheese barrels filled with earth from a dig, a pile of earth lay on the floor against the wall, covered with matting and tattered rugs. The general had no time to delve into these "trifles". However, the terrorists did not need to dig.

On March 1, 1881, Alexander Nikolayevich told his wife how he intended to spend the current day: in half an hour he went to the Mikhailovsky Manege to set guards, from there he was going to his cousin, Grand Duchess Ekaterina Mikhailovna, who lived near the arena. At a quarter to three, the monarch promised to return home and take his wife for a walk in the Summer Garden.

The Emperor left the Winter Palace at three-quarters past twelve in a carriage escorted by six Terek Cossacks. The seventh sat on the goats, to the left of the coachman. Three policemen, led by police chief A. I. Dvorzhitsky, followed the carriage in a sleigh. At the end of the divorce of the guards, the sovereign, together with Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich, went to his cousin, and at two ten minutes left her and got into the carriage, saying to the coachman: "The same way home." Having passed Inzhenernaya Street and turning onto the Ekaterininsky Canal, he greeted the guard from the 8th naval crew returning from a divorce. The coachman trotted the horses along the embankment, but did not have time to drive even a hundred meters, when there was a deafening explosion that damaged the emperor's carriage. We will not try to fictionalize further events and will give the floor to police chief Dvorzhitsky as the main witness of what happened.

“After driving a few more meters after the explosion,” he wrote, “His Majesty’s carriage stopped, I immediately ran to the sovereign’s carriage, helped him out and reported that the criminal had been detained. The emperor was completely calm. To my question about the state of his health, he replied: "Thank God, I'm not injured." Seeing that the sovereign's carriage was damaged, I decided to invite his majesty to ride in my sleigh to the palace. To this proposal, the sovereign said: “All right, just show the criminal.” The coachman Frol also asked the sovereign to get into the carriage and go on, but his majesty, without saying anything at the request of the coachman, returned and headed ... along the sidewalk, to the left of him, the Cossack Mochaev , who was on the goats of His Majesty, behind Mochaev - 4 dismounted Cossacks with horses. After walking a few steps, the emperor slipped, but I managed to support him.

The tsar approached Rysakov. Upon learning that the criminal was a tradesman, His Majesty, without saying a word, turned around and slowly headed towards the Theater Bridge. At this time, His Majesty was surrounded on one side by a platoon of the 8th naval crew, and on the other by escort Cossacks. Here I again allowed myself to turn to the sovereign with a request to get into the sledge and leave, but he stopped, lingered a little, and then answered: “All right, just show me first the place of the explosion.” Fulfilling the will of the sovereign, I turned obliquely to the site of the explosion, but before I had time to take three steps, I was stunned by a new explosion, wounded and knocked to the ground.

Suddenly, among the smoke and snow fog, I heard a weak voice of His Majesty: “Help.” Assuming that the sovereign was only seriously wounded, I lifted him from the ground and then saw with horror that His Majesty’s legs were crushed and blood flowed from them strongly ... " Let's face it, the protection of the emperor was carried out very badly, and this was no secret to the highest ranks of the then police. One of them said that the governor-general of St. Petersburg was always obliged to personally accompany the emperor and not allow him to leave the carriage in such a critical situation. However, since the time of A.E. Zurov (late 1870s), it was considered indecent for a guards officer to follow the sovereign, and this task was assigned to the chief of police. Dvorzhitsky, according to the same source, “looked at his main duty as a matter that would be done by itself” - he flaunted more in front of passers-by than thought about the sovereign’s safety.

Alexander II, like his assassin Ignatius Grinevitsky, died at the same time, one in the Winter Palace, the other in the prison hospital. Alexander Nikolayevich sacredly fulfilled one of the precepts of his father. “The head of the monarchical state,” Nicholas I told him, “is losing and dishonoring himself, yielding one step to the uprising. His duty is to uphold by force the rights of his own and those of his predecessors. His duty is to fall, if destined, but ... on the steps of the throne ... ”At 15:35 on March 1, 1881, a black-and-yellow imperial standard crawled down from the flagpole of the Winter Palace. And at the grave of his grandfather stood the 12-year-old Grand Duke Nikolai Alexandrovich, who was to become the last emperor of Russia and meet no less martyrdom ...

And everything was mixed up in the Russian state. According to the Novoye Vremya newspaper, about 200 innocent citizens were arrested on the Vyborg side of St. Petersburg alone. In the provinces, crowds of commoners beat up landlords and intellectuals, saying: “Ah, you are glad that the king was killed, you bribed to kill him because he freed us.” It was proposed to lay anti-mine discharging cables near the most important buildings of St. Petersburg, slingshots were installed around the residence of the new emperor and patrols were constantly on duty. The panic at the "top" really reached its climax. From this point of view, the instructions given to Alexander III by his longtime mentor K.P. Pobedonostsev are characteristic: “When you are going to sleep, if you please, lock the doors behind you, not only in the bedroom, but also in all the following rooms, up to the day off. A trusted person should carefully monitor the locks and see that the internal latches at the folding doors are pushed in.

The turn has come and fantastic descriptions of the activities of insidious and cunning, like Ulysses, revolutionaries. They talked about mysterious poisoned pills allegedly sent to the emperor from abroad; about three young people who ordered court singers' caftans from a tailor and apparently intended to sneak into the Winter Palace not to sing a serenade to the ladies-in-waiting; about millions of sums of money allegedly found with Zhelyabov during his arrest. However, some plans of the Narodnaya Volya overtook the wildest imagination of the townsfolk.

Since the twentieth of March, the EC has been developing an operation to free the comrades arrested and convicted "in the case of March 1". They were supposed to be beaten off on the way to the place of execution by the forces of 200-300 workers, divided into three groups. The workers were to be supported by all St. Petersburg and Kronstadt officers who were members of the Narodnaya Volya military organization. Groups of attackers were planned to be placed on three streets overlooking Liteiny Prospekt.

When the motorcade with the regicides passed the middle group, all three - on a signal - were to rush forward, dragging the crowd with them. The side groups should have distracted the attention of part of the troops with noise so that the officers marching in the middle group could get to the convicts and hide with them in the crowd.

It is not known whether the required number of workers was at the disposal of the Narodnaya Volya, but as for the officers, they agreed to participate in the attack on the motorcade with the convicts. The Executive Committee abandoned its plan at the last moment, since five convicts were surrounded by an unprecedented convoy (in total, from 10 to 12 thousand soldiers were involved in cordoning off the place of execution). April 3 A. Zhelyabov, S. Perovskaya, N. Kibalchich, A. Mikhailov and N. Rysakov were hanged on the Semenovsky parade ground. It was the last public execution in Russia.

In general, from the very beginning of the reign of the new emperor, his relations with the "Narodnaya Volya" and other populist circles took on the character of irreconcilable hostilities, and victory in them more and more clearly leaned on the side of the government. Yes, the terrorists managed to force the monarch to move from the Winter Palace to Gatchina, but this can hardly be considered a significant success for the revolutionaries. The reason for the change of residence by the emperor was not so much fear (Alexander III showed personal courage not only before, during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878, but will show it later, say, during the crash of the royal train in Borki), but the desire to save the country from the upheavals that would have been inevitable in the event of a second successful assassination attempt on the head of state.

Yes, and Alexander Alexandrovich was thinking in Gatchina not at all of constitutional reform projects, as the people who continued to threaten him demanded, but proposals for the complete eradication of sedition and the establishment of calm and order in the empire. Gendarme Lieutenant Colonel G. P. Sudeikin recommended fighting the revolutionaries with their own weapons, responding to the creation of an anti-government underground by establishing an underground operating under the control of the police (later, the famous S. V. Zubatov uses similar tactics). The project of the lieutenant colonel was approved by the Highest, and soon the Narodnaya Volya members themselves, who were at large, could not say with certainty which of the circles was formed by them and which was controlled by Sudeikin.

By the spring of 1882, revolutionary populism was over: all members of the "great IK" were either arrested or forced to emigrate. This did not mean that the life of the emperor was not threatened by assassination attempts by revolutionaries; the infection of political terror deeply penetrated the radical movement and over the years again gave ugly shoots. However, assassination attempts for some time lost their organized-party character, becoming, as in the 1860s, an individual matter, that is, quite random. For the next twenty years, the danger of assassinating the monarch sharply decreased, later it disappeared altogether, since the fighting groups of the Socialist-Revolutionaries concentrated their fire against the prominent ministers of Nicholas II.

Let us return, however, to 1881. Immediately after the assassination of Alexander Nikolaevich, Loris-Melikov turned to the new monarch with the question: should he, according to the instructions received the day before from the late emperor, order the publication of the Manifesto on the convening of a commission and electives? Without the slightest hesitation, Alexander III replied: “I will always respect the will of my father. Have it printed tomorrow." However, in the dead of night from March 1 to 2, Loris-Melikov received an order to suspend the printing of the Manifesto. A new reign began, the star of the emperor rose, who professed completely different methods than Alexander II for solving the pressing problems facing Russia.

Who is to blame for the tragedy that happened on Catherine's Embankment? Who is to blame for the failures that befell Alexander II in the second half of his reign? Who is guilty? - any work devoted to the history of Russia can hardly do without this question. You can formulate the problem softer: why is this possible? The essence of this will not change. It is unlikely that my interlocutors will be satisfied if the initiator of the conversation gets off with a simple statement of the fact that the loneliness of Alexander Nikolayevich is to blame for everything. You can, of course, try to blame some public camp for what happened. But G. Heine scoffed at such attempts when he wrote:

It's all revolution fruit,

This is her doctrine.

All the fault of Jean Jacques Rousseau,

Voltaire and the guillotine...

Well, let's try to give a more intelligible, although not final, summary.

Let's start with the fact that the uniqueness of the position of the monarch led to the struggle of the revolutionaries not with the reactionaries and not with the conservatives, but with the emperor, as a symbol of the old hated by the "progressives" of Russia. Opportunities for compromise in this struggle were very rare, in particular, the peaceful solution of issues, theoretically possible in the early 1860s, was left far behind. Now the parties absolutely did not understand each other, and could not understand, because they carefully concealed from the enemy the true goals of their actions.

The Winter Palace sincerely believed that it had done good to the peasantry, took care of the introduction of a modern system of justice in the country, strengthened the military power of the state, raised its education and culture to a new level of development, not forgetting the interests of the first estate. However, the "tops" diligently concealed that they consider the reform activities basically completed. The reform of the highest authorities, the change in the form of government was not planned by them and could only happen by chance, under the pressure of extraordinary circumstances. The revolutionaries, on the other hand, seemed to proceed from the fact that tsarism had deceived the peasantry, ruined it, and in fact did not equalize its rights with other estates; from their point of view, he got off society with miserable handouts, keeping his power intact.

These accusations lay on the surface and served, so to speak, as a slogan for the actions of the revolutionary organizations. The main thing was that the populists saw the ideal of equality and justice in the free communal structure of the future Russia; this ideal did not exist outside the community. The emperor, by his reforms, perhaps unwittingly, gave a signal for the more rapid development of capitalism, which destroyed primarily the peasant community. Therefore, in the clash between the revolutionaries and the authorities, it was not just about deceiving the people and society, but about depriving them of a bright future - what kind of compromises are there!?

As for the terrorist method of struggle chosen by the Narodniks, everything is not so simple here either. Let's immediately discard the talk about special bloodthirstiness or other pathologies allegedly characteristic of Russian revolutionaries. Otherwise, we will have to turn not to historians, but to psychiatrists. By the way, don't you think that it was not the radicals who started the attempts on the life of the crowned bearers? Justifying the removal from the throne of Ivan Antonovich, Peter III, Paul I, their successors created a dangerous precedent for the dynasty. After all, illegal killings of monarchs in these cases were interpreted as “correct”, logical and therefore seemingly legal. After that, it was hardly possible to seriously count on the fact that society would constantly adhere to the principle proclaimed by the ancient Romans: "What is allowed to Jupiter is not allowed to the bull." But it's not only that. It would be interesting to know why individual assassination attempts made on specific occasions (Karakozov - deception of the peasants by the reform of 1861; Berezovsky - the defeat of the Polish uprising of 1863; method of reorganization of the country?

Is it because the emperor and members of his government at one time did not want to heed not even the just demands, but the proposals of society (including its revolutionary part)? After all, the same populist terror in the 1870s went through a number of stages, and at some of them it could be easily and painlessly stopped. Trepov suffered because he violated the laws of the Russian Empire; the highest police ranks - because in prisons and exiles the rules for keeping arrested and convicted were not observed; police agents and traitors were killed, as "Land and Freedom" and "Narodnaya Volya", being underground organizations, were forced to defend themselves against a failure that threatened their members with many years of imprisonment in very remote places. Could the government at these stages contribute to the cessation of revolutionary terror? Of course, it could, but it did not want to, did not dare, did not believe in the romantic idealism of its opponents. When terror became for the Narodniks a method of reorganizing society, no agreements between them and the government were possible anymore.

The reasons for the “hunt for the king” or “the red beast” organized by the “Narodnaya Volya” were not only that the emperor was a unique figure, a symbol of something ... Stop! Let's ask ourselves: What did Alexander II symbolize in the late 1870s? Among other things, he was also a symbol of the underdevelopment of Russian political life, its lack of civility. For any country going through a period of fundamental reforms and rapid changes in all spheres of life, the political center becomes the most important in public life, and the policy of centrism becomes the most reasonable line of conduct. This is not at all because this policy is perfect and meets the interests of all sections of society. The fact is that without the creation of a center protected by all social camps, an essentially unproductive clash of extreme right and extreme left forces takes place very quickly. The most hopeless thing in this development of events is that even the seemingly final victory of one or the other does not lead to the establishment of calm in the country. Sooner or later, a “shattering” victory is followed by a no less crushing defeat, bringing the country a new political crisis.

On the other hand, true centrism cannot be throwing from side to side in an attempt to connect the incompatible. It is a search among the right and the left for acceptable constructive solutions that can lead society to its intended goal and at the same time reconcile the opposing sides in concrete work. The political center becomes a shield against extremism, irrepressible social fantasies that are not supported and cannot be supported by sane forces. In the political battles that were raging in the empire, Alexander II tried to occupy an exceptional, unique position - he wanted to personify alone that center of public life, which is designed to cushion the actions of the extreme right and extreme left forces.

As a result, he was subjected to harsh and, as it turned out, deadly attacks from both sides. The political position, unlike the sacred post of the monarch, is by no means sacred, and Alexander Nikolayevich, having tried to become, in addition to the autocrat, also one of the political figures of Russia, actually became a target for his opponents. First, a target in the figurative sense of the word, and then ... And again, let's return to the personal life of our hero. His stubborn desire to emphasize the rights of his human "I", the desire to be seen in him not only as an autocrat, but also as a person, bore fruit. For the general public, it has really become closer, clearer and, I would say, more accessible in every sense of the word. Time, of course, takes its toll. For many Decembrists, say, to raise a hand against the monarch meant to take a swing at something sacred, in any case, consecrated by centuries of tradition. For the Narodniks, such problems no longer existed, after all, half a century has passed and what half a century! .. However, the feeling does not leave us that it is not only in the past years, but also in the constant desire of our hero to distance himself from what separated him from simple personal happiness , distinguished from ordinary subjects ...

Alexander Nikolayevich, of course, was not a doctrinaire, during the years of his reign he had to give up a lot, reconsider established views and positions. At the end of his life, the emperor seems to have become convinced that a person, no matter what level and scale his personality or the position he occupies, cannot alone be the political center of social forces. He was pushed to this conclusion even by such, in general, an external thing as the gradual grinding of his own environment. Princess Yuryevskaya is difficult to compare with Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna; Shuvalov, Tolstoy, Plehve - with an inspired and professionally trained cohort of figures of the late 1850s - early 1860s.

The Emperor has changed. It seemed that quite a bit more, and a means would be found to establish, if not an alliance, then normal civilized relations between power and society. It's not meant to be. Loneliness, which surrounded Alexander Nikolayevich with three almost impenetrable rings, may not be the only one to blame for the tragic death of the monarch, but it was it that made the fate of this man unique.

King Liberator. Tsar-Hangman. Unfortunate king...

Notes

2. In addition to Alexander II and Grinevitsky, twenty people were injured in the explosion on the embankment of the Ekaterininsky Canal. Two of them died from their wounds.

3. In the early 1880s. Both the government and the revolutionary camp found themselves at another crossroads. The authorities could try to do what Alexander II did not dare to do for so long - to bring the socio-economic and political orders in the country into some kind of correspondence. A different path suggested a final return to the attempts of Nicholas I to stabilize the situation in the country by traditional authoritarian methods, which ultimately led to a distortion of the historical meaning of the transformations of the 1860s-1870s. The sharpness, the turning point of the moment was also felt by the Russian press. In the editorial of Moskovskie Vedomosti of January 1, 1881, the previous year was called "a year of crisis and transition ... a year that did not finish its word and will now pass on an unknown legacy to its successor." The legacy turned out to be so unpredictable that the journalist of Moskovskie Vedomosti could hardly have imagined such a thing even in a nightmare.

The revolutionary camp also had two options for further action. He could remain in his former populist positions, trying to raise the countryside to the socialist revolution. However, in 1882-1883, after the final defeat of the populist circles, this option turned out to be unviable. The second path was associated with changes in the ideological foundations of the radical movement, its tactics with a focus on the proletariat as the main force of the revolution. The choice of the government and revolutionary camps is known as well as its results, which brought neither prosperity nor peace to Russia.

4. Cursing revolutionaries for being revolutionaries, or demanding a ban on revolutionary organizations (if they do not try to crush the foundations of a proper civil society) is a completely useless exercise. The revolutionary movement is only the most acute manifestation of the clearly felt discontent of society, it is the most sharp reaction to the lack of rights of society, the blatant social insecurity of the masses, the violation of individual rights, etc. It is possible to demand that the revolutionary movement take more or less adequate forms only if a proper civilized political life is established in the country. The Russia of Alexander II did not even begin to approach civil society, and therefore political terror turned out to be quite adequate to the framework of the system that existed in the state.

5. The greatest misfortune from rampant terror in Russia was that both government and revolutionary terror became a destructive force for the moral health of society. They merged into a single chain of increasing repressions and assassination attempts, accustoming people to blood, violence, the cheapness of human life. They stopped shocking people with their inhumanity, uncivilization. As a result, the sense of the uniqueness of the human personality has atrophied, to say nothing of the value of its rights...

Source Leonid Lyashenko. Alexander II, or the History of Three Solitudes

MOSCOW, YOUNG GUARD, 2002

We are all accustomed to envy rulers, monarchs. It is worth considering for a moment, but the life of a ruler is not so simple.

There are many examples in history when monarchs lived a very hard life and even died not by their own death.

In the history of Russia there was, during which the expression appeared - "The unlimited power of the monarch in Russia is limited only by a strong noose."

The era of Palace Revolutions ended after death, but the phrase that went among the people remained relevant.

There were attempts on more than once, but another assassination attempt was successful. The assassination of the emperor was being prepared for a long time, it was carried out by the organization of the Narodnaya Volya.

The attempt was prepared by six people, including Vera Figner and Sofia Perovskaya. It is worth noting that the elder brother of Vladimir Lenin also participated in the case. Apparently the example of his brother became contagious for Ilyich.

In the last month of the winter of 1881, the police received information about an assassination attempt on the emperor. Unfortunately, the secret police could not open the assassination plan. The Prime Minister of the Russian Empire, Loris-Millikov, informed Alexander II of the available information.

In the morning, on March 1 (old style), Emperor Alexander II went to the traditional parade in the arena. Loris-Mellikov, persuaded the monarch not to go, but the emperor was adamant. He drove to the arena perfectly, after watching the parade, the emperor had to go back.

The emperor's carriage with his retinue followed along the Neva, when suddenly a man ran out of the crowd, in his hands was a bundle. With a sharp movement of the hand, the bundle flew under the wheels of the carriage of Alexander II. There was an explosion, the sound of breaking glass and the squeal of horses. The terrorist was captured.

The emperor survived, quickly got out of the carriage. The monarch was interested in the health of the wounded. Then he approached the terrorist, looked at him, and calmly said - "well done." After that, he headed towards the carriage.

Nearby, another terrorist was waiting for the moment when Alexander II approached him. The moment has come, the "Narodnaya Volya" threw another bomb at the feet of the emperor. There was an explosion. The road instantly turned red, people lay around, dead and alive, crippled and miraculously escaped injury.

The legs of Alexander II were crushed, there were no people able to provide assistance nearby. The state of the monarch was extremely difficult. The emperor was put into a sleigh and sent to the palace.

There, after some time, he died. March 1 (13 according to the new style) in 1881 shocked all of Russia. On this day, the life of the Great Man, the reformer Tsar Alexander II, ended.

Land and Freedom was excellently thought out and structured. It was based on the principle of centralization and the strictest secrecy.

Unprecedented for Russia organization

During these years, the police successfully declassified other circles, but "Land and Freedom" was never caught. Each member of the organization knew only the work entrusted to him, but he was forbidden to delve into the peculiarities of the work of other members. And this despite the fact that the organization had only registered members - 3,000. Here is the memoir of its member Lev Tikhomirov: “In appearance, “Earth and Freedom” represented an organization as strong and slender as it had never been in Russia. It absorbed everything of any importance in the revolutionary milieu. The number of members was significant, and, in addition to the main participants, quite a few people joined it according to the system of subgroups, on each particular case ... Thus, about 20 members united quite a lot of forces around themselves, not to mention the fact that the organization had influence on many private circles, had varied and good connections throughout Russia. "Land and Freedom" had a name and trust, as a result of which it received money from sympathizers ... Thanks to the founding of the printing house, the "Land and Freedom" circle did not need emigrants at all and got out of all dependence abroad. This was a new phenomenon. Finally, "Land and Freedom" had no competitors... In terms of all-Russian influence, only one Executive Committee of "Narodnaya Volya" subsequently surpassed "Land and Freedom".

two poles

"Land and Freedom" from the very beginning was not homogeneous, but, as it were, consisting of two categories of people: people of deep thought and people of quick action. In the first years of the organization's existence, the main emphasis was on the education of the peasants. The main forces were assigned to explain to them in an accessible form the disadvantage of their position and to rouse them to the fight. The Land and Freedom program featured the transfer of land to peasants for ransom, the idea of ​​replacing government officials with elected officials, and a number of other, essentially liberal, proposals. Chernyshevsky, for example, was arrested as a journalist-educator who talks too much and does not want to take the line of power, and not as a revolutionary who calls for an open fight with weapons in his hands.
Other figures believed more in blood and revolution than in articles and conversations. Their number increased over time, and this is what O.V., a member of the Land and Freedom, wrote about this. Aptekman: “... the revolutionary became more and more aggressive... He has a dagger in his belt, and a revolver in his pocket: he will not only defend himself, but also attack... The inexorable logic of events drew the revolutionaries into its whirlpool, and in order not to choke, they seized on terror, like a drowning man at a straw.
Later, "Land and Freedom" split into two organizations - the terrorist "Narodnaya Volya" and the populist "Black Redistribution".

Secret agent in the police

Land and Freedom had its own secret agent in the police - counterintelligence officer Nikolai Vasilievich Kletochnikov. This man had an ideal background for applying for a job in the Third Division, he even had experience as an official. Soon, for diligent work, Kletochnikov was given the opportunity to rewrite "top secret notes and papers, which included lists of persons who were seen as unreliable and who were supposed to have searches and encrypted documents." A little later, the agent was initiated into all political searches, carried out not only in St. Petersburg, but throughout the empire. Thanks to Kletochnikov, the revolutionary center almost daily found out in time about impending arrests, and also knew which of the revolutionaries had given the police evidence dangerous to the rest. In November 1880, Kletochnikov was nevertheless declassified and arrested, but until his death he did not change his convictions and even starved in favor of his cellmates.

Paramedic revolutionaries

The organizers of "Land and Freedom" took into account the experience of "going to the people", but considered it insufficient. Therefore, these city dwellers acted even more boldly: they went to live among the people and spent sometimes several years in the villages. The revolutionaries who settled in the countryside worked as paramedics, clerks, teachers, entering into communication with the locals and gradually propagating new ideas. These settlements lasted less than the “Land and Freedom” itself, which after some time returned from the village to the city. And yet the scale of the propagandists' actions is impressive.

Kazan demonstration

In 1876, on December 6, in St. Petersburg, on the square near the Kazan Cathedral, the populists-landlords staged a demonstration. It was on this day that "Land and Freedom" for the first time openly declared its existence. This demonstration was the first political demonstration in Russia in which advanced workers participated. About four hundred people gathered in the square, where the revolutionary red flag was unfurled. The well-known revolutionary G. V. Plekhanov spoke to the audience. The demonstrators, of course, did not want to surrender to the police, and suffered heavy losses: 31 of them were arrested, 5 were later sentenced to 10-15 years of hard labor, 10 were sentenced to exile in Siberia and three workers, including Ya. Potapov, unfurling a red flag, to imprisonment for 5 years in a monastery.

Underground dynamite lab

At the end of May 1879, the landlords, or rather the super-secret terrorist group "Freedom or Death", created within the "Earth and Freedom" society, organized their first underground dynamite laboratory in house number 6 on Baskovy Lane in St. Petersburg. It is formed by Stepan Shiryaev, who studied in Paris with the famous inventor of the "electric candle" Yablochkov. It was also led by the inventor Nikolai Kibalchich, who, by the way, was the first in the world (15 years before K.E. Tsiolkovsky) to develop a project for an aircraft with a jet engine. Until March 1, 1881, the unchanging mistress of all dynamite workshops was Inna Vasilyevna Yakimova, a tall blonde with a long braid, whose first arrest was at the age of 17, and the last at the age of sixty.

Assassination attempts on the king

The landowners believed that "the tsar will fall, tsarism will also fall, a new era will come, the era of freedom." During the summer of 1879, about 96 kilograms of dynamite were made in the dynamite workshop. It was used in the fall of 1879 to prepare three assassination attempts on the emperor on his way from the Crimea to St. Petersburg. All three assassination attempts were unsuccessful, but left the government confused. After that there was an explosion in the Winter Palace, which also did not hurt the emperor. The police tried, but could not find the perpetrators and did not arrest anyone. “A terrible feeling took possession of all of us,” the heir to the throne wrote in his diary. - What should we do?" Fantastic rumors about the expected explosions crawled through the capital, the townspeople stocked up on water in case of a water pipe explosion. The last attempt on Alexander II was made by the Narodnaya Volya on March 1, 1881, the emperor was mortally wounded and died on the same day.

Assassination attempts on Alexander II

Narodnaya Volya terrorists made 10 attempts on the life of Emperor Alexander II.
The most significant of them are listed and described below.

• April 4, 1866- the first attempt on the life of Alexander II. Committed by revolutionary terrorist Dmitry Karakozov. The idea of ​​killing the tsar for a long time spun in Karakozov's head when he was in his village, and he longed for the fulfillment of his plan. When he arrived in Petersburg, he stopped at a hotel and began to wait for the right moment to make an attempt on the tsar. A convenient opportunity presented itself when the emperor, after a walk with his nephew the Duke of Leuchtenberg and his niece, the Princess of Baden, got into a carriage. Karakozov was not far away, and having successfully wormed his way into the crowd, he fired almost point-blank. Everything could have ended fatally for the emperor, if it were not for the hat master Osip Komissarov who happened to be nearby, who instinctively hit Karakozov on the arm, as a result of which the bullet flew past the target. People standing around rushed to Karakozov and if not for the police he could have been torn to pieces. After Karakozov was detained, he, resisting, shouted to the standing people: Fools! After all, I am for you, but you do not understand! When Karakozov was brought to the emperor and he asked if he was Russian, Karakozov answered in the affirmative and, after a pause, said: Your Majesty, you offended the peasants. After that, Karakazov was searched and interrogated, after which he was sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress. Then a court took place, which decided to execute Karakozov by hanging. The sentence was carried out on September 3, 1866.

• May 25, 1867- the second most significant attempt on the life of the king was made by Anton Berezovsky, a leader of the Polish national liberation movement. In May 1867, the Russian emperor arrived on an official visit to France. On June 6, when, after a military review at the hippodrome, he was returning in an open carriage with children and the French emperor Napoleon III, in the area of ​​​​the Bois de Boulogne, a young man stood out from the jubilant crowd, a Pole by birth, and when a carriage with emperors appeared nearby, he twice point-blank fired a pistol at Alexander. It was only thanks to the courage of one of the security officers of Napoleon III that he noticed a man with a weapon in the crowd and pushed his hand away, as a result of which the bullets hit the horse. This time the reason for the assassination attempt was the desire to take revenge on the king for the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863. During the assassination attempt, Berezovsky's pistol exploded and injured his hand: this helped the crowd to instantly grab the terrorist. After his arrest, Berezovsky stated: I confess that today I shot at the emperor during his return from the review, two weeks ago I had the idea of ​​regicide, however, or rather, I have been feeding this idea since I began to realize myself, meaning the liberation of my homeland On July 15, the trial of Berezovsky took place, the case was considered by the jury. The court decided to send Berezovsky to life hard labor in New Caledonia. Subsequently, hard labor was replaced by life exile, and in 1906, 40 years after the assassination attempt, Berezovsky was amnestied. However, he remained in New Caledonia until his death.
• April 2, 1879- the attempt was made by the teacher and member of the society "Land and Freedom" Alexander Solovyov. On April 2, the emperor was walking near his palace. Suddenly, he noticed a young man who was heading towards him with a quick step. He managed to shoot five times, and then was captured by the royal guards, while not a single bullet hit the target: Alexander II managed to successfully evade them. During the trial, Solovyov stated: The idea of ​​an attempt on the life of His Majesty arose after my acquaintance with the teachings of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. I belong to the Russian section of this party, which believes that the majority suffers in order for the minority to enjoy the fruits of the people's labor and all the benefits of civilization that are inaccessible to the majority. As a result, Solovyov was sentenced to death by hanging.

• November 19, 1879- an attempt to undermine the train on which the emperor and members of his family rode. In the summer of 1879, the Narodnaya Volya organization was created, which broke away from the populist Zemlya i Volya. The main goal of the organization was the assassination of the king, who was accused of repressive measures, bad reforms and suppression of the democratic opposition. In order not to repeat the old mistakes, the members of the organization planned to kill the tsar in a new way: by blowing up the train on which the tsar and his family were to return from a vacation in the Crimea. The first group operated near Odessa. Here, Narodnaya Volya member Mikhail Frolenko got a job as a railway watchman 14 km from the city. At first, everything went well: the mine was laid, there were no suspicions from the authorities. But then the plan to blow up here failed when the tsar's train changed its route, going through Aleksandrovsk. The Narodnaya Volya had such an option, and therefore, at the beginning of November 1879, Andrei Zhelyabov, a Narodnaya Volya member, arrived in Aleksandrovsk, introducing himself as a merchant Cheremisov. He bought a plot of land near the railway with the aim, allegedly, to build a tannery here. Working at night, Zhelyabov drilled a hole under the railway and laid a mine there. On November 18, when the royal train appeared in the distance, Zhelyabov took up a position near the railway and, when the train caught up with him, tried to set the mine in action, but nothing happened after connecting the wires: the electrical circuit had a malfunction. Now the hope of the Narodnaya Volya was only on the third group, led by Sofya Perovskaya, whose task was to plant a bomb on the Rogozhsko-Simonova Zastava, near Moscow. Here the work was somewhat complicated by the protection of the outpost: this did not make it possible to lay a mine on the railway. To get out of the situation, a tunnel was made, which was dug despite difficult weather conditions and the constant danger of being exposed. After everything was ready, the conspirators planted the bomb. They knew that the royal train consisted of two trains: one of which was Alexander II, and the second was his baggage; the train with luggage is half an hour ahead of the train with the king. But fate kept the emperor: in Kharkov, one of the locomotives of the luggage train broke down and the royal train was the first to start up. The conspirators did not know about this and let the first train pass by detonating a mine at the moment when the fourth car of the second train was passing over it. Alexander II was annoyed by what had happened and said: What do they have against me, these unfortunates? Why do they follow me like a wild animal? After all, I have always strived to do everything in my power for the good of the people! After the failure of this assassination attempt, the Narodnaya Volya began to develop a new plan.

• February 5, 1880 An explosion was carried out in the Winter Palace. Through acquaintances, Sofya Perovskaya learned that cellars were being renovated in Zimny, which included a wine cellar, which was located directly under the royal dining room and was a very convenient place for a bomb. The implementation of the plan was entrusted to the new People's Will, the peasant Stepan Khalturin. Having settled in the palace, the “carpenter” tiled the walls of the wine cellar during the day, and at night he went to his colleagues, who handed him bags of dynamite. Explosives were skillfully disguised among building materials. During the work, Khalturin had a chance to kill the emperor when he was repairing his office and was alone with the king, but Khalturin did not raise his hand to do this: despite the fact that he considered the king a great criminal and enemy of the people, he was broken by a kind and Alexander's courteous treatment of the workers. In February 1880, Perovskaya received information that a gala dinner was scheduled for the 5th in the palace, at which the tsar and all members of the imperial family would be present. The explosion was scheduled for 6:20 p.m., when, presumably, Alexander should have already been in the dining room. But the plans of the conspirators were not destined to come true: the train of the Prince of Hesse, a member of the imperial family, was half an hour late and shifted the time of the gala dinner. The explosion caught Alexander II not far from the security room, which was located near the dining room. The Prince of Hesse spoke about what happened : The floor rose as if under the influence of an earthquake, the gas in the gallery went out, perfect darkness set in, and an unbearable smell of gunpowder or dynamite spread in the air. None of the high-ranking persons were injured, however, 10 soldiers from the Finnish Guard Regiment were killed and 80 wounded.

• March 1, 1881- the last attempt on Alexander II, which led to his death. Initially, the plans of the Narodnaya Volya were to lay a mine in St. Petersburg under the Stone Bridge, which stretches across the Catherine Canal. However, they soon abandoned this idea and settled on another option - to lay a mine under the roadway on Malaya Sadovaya. If the mine suddenly didn’t work, then four Narodnaya Volya, who were on the street, were supposed to throw bombs into the royal carriage, and if Alexander II was still alive, then Zhelyabov would personally jump into the carriage and stab the king with a dagger. Not everything went smoothly during the preparation of the operation: either a search was carried out in the “cheese shop”, where the conspirators gathered, then the arrests of important members of the People’s Will began, among which were Mikhailov, and already at the end of February 1881, Zhelyabov himself. The arrest of the latter prompted the conspirators to take action. After the arrest of Zhelyabov, the emperor was warned of the possibility of a new assassination attempt, but he reacted calmly to this, saying that he was under divine protection, which had already allowed him to survive 5 assassination attempts. On March 1, 1881, Alexander II left the Winter Palace for the Manege, he was accompanied by a rather small guard (in the face of a new assassination attempt). After attending the dispensation of the guards and drinking tea with his cousin, the emperor went back to the Winter Palace through the Catherine Canal. This turn of events completely broke the plans of the conspirators. In the current emergency situation, Perovskaya, who headed the organization after the arrest of Zhelyabov, hastily reworks the details of the operation. According to the new plan, 4 Narodnaya Volya members (Grinevitsky, Rysakov, Emelyanov, Mikhailov) took up positions along the embankment of the Ekaterininsky Canal and waited for a prearranged signal (waving a handkerchief) from Perovskaya, according to which they should throw bombs at the royal carriage. When the royal motorcade drove to the embankment, Sophia gave a signal and Rysakov threw his bomb towards the royal carriage: there was a strong explosion, after driving some distance after that, the royal carriage stopped and the emperor was once again not injured. But the further expected favorable outcome for Alexander was spoiled by himself: instead of hastily leaving the scene of the assassination, the king wished to see the captured criminal. When he approached Rysakov, unnoticed by the guards, Grinevitsky threw a second bomb at the tsar's feet. The blast wave threw Alexander II to the ground, bleeding heavily from his crushed legs. The fallen emperor whispered: Take me to the palace... I want to die there... Then came the consequences for the conspirators: Grinevitsky died from the consequences of the explosion of his bomb in the prison hospital, moreover, almost simultaneously with his victim. Sofya Perovskaya, who tried to go on the run, was caught by the police, and on April 3, 1881, she was hanged along with the main functionaries of Narodnaya Volya (Zhelyabov, Kibalchich, Mikhailov, Rysakov) on the Semyonovsky parade ground.

Literature

• Korneichuk D. Hunt for the Tsar: Six Attempts on the Life of Alexander II.
• Nikolaev V. Alexander II.
• Zakharova L. G. Alexander II // Russian autocrats, 1801 - 1917.
• Chernukha V. G. Alexander III // Questions of history.

From the article "Biography of Alexander II" by Dmitry KORNEICHUK

It should be noted that the police, well aware of the existence of various revolutionary circles, did not perceive them as a serious danger, considering them just regular talkers unable to go beyond their revolutionary demagogy. As a result, Alexander II had practically no bodyguards, except for the escort required by etiquette, consisting of several officers.

On April 4, 1866, Alexander II went for a walk with his nephews to the Summer Garden. Having enjoyed the fresh air, the tsar was already getting into the carriage, when a young man stepped out of the crowd of onlookers who were watching the sovereign's walk and pointed a gun at him. There are two versions of what happened next. According to the first, the one who shot at the tsar missed due to his inexperience in handling weapons, according to the other, the barrel of the pistol was pushed away by a peasant standing nearby, and as a result, the bullet flew near the head of Alexander II. Be that as it may, the assassin was seized, and he did not have time to fire a second shot.

The shooter turned out to be a nobleman Dmitry Karakozov, shortly before that expelled from Moscow University for participating in student riots. He called the motive for the assassination the tsar's deception of his people by the reform of 1861, in which, according to him, the rights of the peasants were only declared, but not implemented in reality. Karakozov was sentenced to death by hanging.

The assassination caused great excitement among representatives of moderate radical circles, who were concerned about the reaction that could follow from the government. In particular, Herzen wrote: "The shot on April 4 was not to our liking. We expected disasters from him, we were outraged by the responsibility that some fanatic took upon himself." The king's answer was not long in coming. Alexander II, up to this point fully confident in the support of the people and gratitude for his liberal undertakings, under the influence of conservative-minded members of the government, reconsiders the amount of freedom given to society; liberal-minded officials are removed from power. Censorship is introduced, reforms in the field of education are suspended. There is a reaction period.

But not only in Russia the sovereign was in danger. In June 1867, Alexander II arrived on an official visit to France. On June 6, after a military review at the Longchamp racecourse, he returned in an open carriage with his children and the French Emperor Napoleon III. In the area of ​​the Bois de Boulogne, among the jubilant crowd, a short, black-haired man, Anton Berezovsky, a Pole by birth, was already waiting for the appearance of the official procession. When the royal carriage appeared nearby, he fired two pistol shots at Alexander II. Thanks to the bold actions of one of Napoleon III's security officers, who in time noticed a man with a weapon in the crowd and pushed his hand away, the bullets flew past the Russian Tsar, hitting only the horse. This time the reason for the assassination attempt was the desire to take revenge on the king for the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863.

Having survived two assassination attempts in two years and miraculously survived, Alexander II firmly believed that his fate was completely in the hands of God. And the fact that he is still alive is proof of the correctness of his actions in relation to the Russian people. Alexander II does not increase the number of guards, does not lock himself in the palace turned into a fortress (as his son Alexander III would later do). He continues to attend receptions, freely travel around the capital. However, following the well-known truth that God saves the safe, he gives instructions to carry out police repressions against the most famous organizations of revolutionary youth. Some were arrested, others went underground, others fled to the mecca of all professional revolutionaries and fighters for lofty ideas - to Switzerland. For a while there was a calm in the country.

A new intensity of passions in society originates from the mid-1970s. A new generation of young people is coming, even more uncompromising towards power than their predecessors. Populist organizations that preached the principle of bringing the word to the masses, having come across harsh repressions from the state, gradually transformed into clearly defined revolutionary terrorist groups. Not being able to democratically influence the government of the country, they go on the warpath with the authorities. The murders of governor-generals, high-ranking police officials - all those with whom, in their opinion, autocracy is associated, begin. But these are secondary pawns, the main goal is ahead, the basis of the very principle of the regime they hate - Alexander II. The Russian Empire enters the era of terrorism.

On April 4, 1879, the sovereign was walking in the vicinity of his palace. Suddenly, he noticed a young man walking towards him with a quick step. The stranger managed to shoot five times before he was captured by the guards - and, lo and behold, Alexander II managed to evade the deadly messengers. On the spot, they found out that the attacker was the teacher Alexander Solovyov. During the investigation, he, without hiding his pride, stated: “The idea of ​​​​an attempt on the life of His Majesty arose after I got acquainted with the teachings of the Socialist Revolutionaries. I belong to the Russian section of this party, which believes that the majority suffers so that the minority enjoy the fruits of the people labor and all the benefits of civilization, inaccessible to the majority. The verdict of the court is execution by hanging.

If the first three assassination attempts on Alexander II were carried out by unprepared loners, then since 1879 an entire terrorist organization has been set to destroy the tsar. In the summer of 1879, "Narodnaya Volya" was created, which broke away from the populist "Land and Freedom". The formed executive committee (EC) of the organization was headed by Alexander Mikhailov and Andrey Zhelyabov. At their first meeting, the members of the EC unanimously sentenced the emperor to death. The monarch was accused of deceiving the people with meager reforms, bloody suppression of the uprising in Poland, suppression of signs of freedom and repressions against the democratic opposition. It was decided to start preparing an assassination attempt on the king. The hunt has begun!

After analyzing previous attempts to kill the tsar, the conspirators came to the conclusion that the surest way would be to organize an explosion of the tsar's train when the emperor was returning from vacation from the Crimea to St. Petersburg. In order to avoid accidents and surprises, three terrorist groups were created, whose task was to lay mines along the route of the royal staff.

The first group operated near Odessa. For this purpose, a member of the "Narodnaya Volya" Mikhail Frolenko got a job as a railway watchman 14 km from the city. The operation proceeded smoothly: the mine was successfully laid, there were no suspicions from the authorities. However, the royal train changed its route, going not through Odessa, but through Aleksandrovsk.

This option was provided by the terrorists. Back in early November 1879, Andrey Zhelyabov arrived in Aleksandrovsk under the name of the merchant Cheremisov. He bought a plot of land near the railroad tracks, ostensibly to build a tannery. Working at night, the "merchant", having drilled through the railway track, laid a mine. On November 18, the royal staff appeared in the distance. Zhelyabov took up a position behind the railway embankment, and when the train caught up with him, he connected the wires leading to the mine ... But nothing happened. The electric circuit of the fuse did not work.

All hope remained on the third group, led by Sofya Perovskaya, whose task was to plant a bomb on the Rogozhsko-Simonova Zastava, not far from Moscow. Here, the work was complicated by the protection of the outpost, which made it impossible to lay a mine in the railway track. There was only one way out - a dig. Acting in difficult weather conditions (it was a rainy November), the conspirators dug a narrow hole and planted a bomb. Everything was ready for the "meeting" of the king. And again, heavenly forces intervened in the fate of Alexander II. The Narodnaya Volya knew that the imperial motorcade consisted of two trains: Alexander II himself and his retinue traveled in one, and the royal luggage in the second. Moreover, the train with luggage is half an hour ahead of the royal train. However, in Kharkov, one of the locomotives of the luggage train broke down - and the royal train went first. Not knowing about this circumstance, the terrorists let the first train pass by detonating a mine under the fourth carriage of the second. Upon learning that he had once again escaped death, Alexander II, according to eyewitnesses, mournfully said: “What do they have against me, these unfortunates? Why are they chasing me like a wild beast? strength, for the good of the people!"

The "unfortunate" ones, not particularly discouraged by the failure of the railway epic, after some time began to prepare a new assassination attempt. This time it was proposed to get the beast in its own lair, thus showing that there are no barriers for the People's Will. The Executive Committee decided to blow up the Emperor's quarters in the Winter Palace.

Through her acquaintances, Perovskaya learned that basements were being repaired in the Winter Palace, in particular the wine cellar, located directly under the royal dining room and being a convenient place for a hidden bomb. One of the new members of the organization, Stepan Khalturin, was assigned to carry out the operation.

Having settled down to work in the palace, the newly-minted "carpenter" faced the walls of the wine cellar during the day, and at night he went to meet his fellow Narodnaya Volya, who handed him packets of dynamite. Explosives were hidden among building materials. Once Khalturin was instructed to carry out minor repairs in the emperor's office. Circumstances developed in such a way that he managed to remain alone with Alexander II. Among the tools of the "carpenter" was a heavy hammer with a sharp end. It seems to be an ideal chance to simply, with one blow, do what the Narodnaya Volya were so passionately striving for ... However, Khalturin could not deliver this fatal blow. Perhaps the reason should be sought in the words of Olga Lyubatovich, who knew Khalturin well: “Who would have thought that the same person, having once met Alexander II one on one in his office ... would not dare to kill him from behind simply with a hammer in his hands? ... Considering Alexander II the greatest criminal against the people, Khalturin involuntarily felt the charm of his kind, courteous treatment of the workers.

In February 1880, the same Perovskaya received information from her acquaintances at court that a gala dinner was scheduled for the 18th in the palace, which would be attended by all members of the imperial family. The explosion was scheduled for six twenty minutes in the evening, when, as expected, Alexander II was supposed to be in the dining room. And again, the case confused the conspirators all the cards. The train of one of the members of the imperial family - the Prince of Hesse - was late for half an hour, shifting the time of the gala dinner. The explosion caught Alexander II near the security room, located not far from the dining room. The Prince of Hesse described the incident as follows: "The floor rose, as if under the influence of an earthquake, the gas in the gallery went out, complete darkness set in, and an unbearable smell of gunpowder or dynamite spread in the air." Neither the Emperor nor any of his family members were hurt. The result of another assassination attempt was ten killed and eighty wounded soldiers from the Finnish regiment guarding Alexander II.

After the unsuccessful attempt again, the Narodnaya Volya took, in modern terms, a time-out in order to thoroughly prepare for the next attempt. After the explosion in Zimny, Alexander II rarely left the palace, regularly leaving only to change the guard at the Mikhailovsky Manege. The conspirators decided to take advantage of this punctuality of the king.

There were two possible routes for the royal cortege: along the embankment of the Catherine Canal or along Nevsky Prospekt and Malaya Sadovaya. Initially, at the initiative of Alexander Mikhailov, the option of mining the Stone Bridge, which stretches across the Catherine Canal, was considered. The demolition men, led by Nikolai Kibalchich, studied the bridge supports, calculated the required amount of explosives. But after some hesitation, the explosion was abandoned there, since there was no one hundred percent guarantee of success.

We settled on the second option - to lay a mine under the roadway on Malaya Sadovaya. If for some reason the mine did not explode (Zhelyabov remembered his bitter experience in Aleksandrovsk!), Then the four Narodnaya Volya members who were on the street were supposed to throw bombs into the royal carriage. Well, if after that Alexander II is still alive, then Zhelyabov will jump into the carriage and stab the king with a dagger.

We immediately set about bringing the idea to life. Two members of Narodnaya Volya, Anna Yakimova and Yuri Bogdanovich, rented a basement on Malaya Sadovaya Street and opened a cheese shop. From the basement, Zhelyabov and his comrades break through a tunnel under the carriageway of the street for several weeks. Everything is ready for laying the mine, over which the genius of chemical sciences Kibalchich worked tirelessly.

From the very beginning of the organizational work on the assassination attempt, the terrorists had unforeseen problems. It all started with the fact that the "cheese shop", completely unvisited by customers, aroused the suspicions of the janitor of the neighbor's house, who turned to the police. And although the inspectors did not find anything (although they did not really try to look!), The very fact that the store was under suspicion caused concern for the disruption of the entire operation. This was followed by several heavy blows to the leadership of the "Narodnaya Volya". In November 1880, the police arrested Alexander Mikhailov, and a few days before the date of the planned assassination, at the end of February 1881, Andrey Zhelyabov. It was the arrest of the latter that forced the terrorists to act without delay, setting the date of the assassination attempt on March 1, 1881.

Immediately after the arrest of Zhelyabov, the sovereign was warned about a new assassination attempt planned by the People's Will. He was advised to refrain from traveling to the Manege and not to leave the walls of the Winter Palace. To all the warnings, Alexander II replied that he had nothing to fear, since he firmly knew that his life was in the hands of God, thanks to whose help he had survived the previous five assassination attempts.

On March 1, 1881, Alexander II left the Winter Palace for the Manege. He was accompanied by seven Cossack guards and three policemen, led by police chief Adrian Dvorzhitsky, following the royal carriage in separate sledges (not too many guards for a person awaiting a new assassination attempt!). After attending the dispensation of the guards and having a cup of tea with his cousin, the tsar went back to the Winter through ... the Catherine Canal.

This turn of events completely ruined all the plans of the conspirators. The mine on Sadovaya became a completely useless slide of dynamite. And in this situation, Perovskaya, who headed the organization after the arrest of Zhelyabov, is hastily processing the details of the operation. Four members of the People's Will - Ignaty Grinevitsky, Nikolai Rysakov, Alexei Yemelyanov, Timofey Mikhailov - take up positions along the embankment of the Ekaterininsky Canal and are waiting for a prearranged signal from Perovskaya, according to which they should throw bombs at the royal carriage. The wave of her handkerchief was supposed to be such a signal.

The royal cortege drove to the embankment. Further events developed almost instantly. Perovskaya's handkerchief flashed - and Rysakov threw his bomb towards the royal carriage. There was a deafening explosion. After driving some more distance, the royal carriage stopped. The emperor was not hurt. However, instead of leaving the scene of the assassination, Alexander II wished to see the perpetrator. He approached the captured Rysakov…. At this moment, unnoticed by the guards, Grinevitsky throws a second bomb at the Tsar's feet. The blast wave threw Alexander II to the ground, blood gushed from his shattered legs. With the last of his strength, he whispered: "Take me to the palace ... There I want to die ...".

On March 1, 1881, at 3:35 p.m., the imperial standard was lowered from the flagpole of the Winter Palace, announcing the death of Emperor Alexander II to the population of St. Petersburg.

The further fate of the conspirators was sad. Grinevitsky died from the explosion of his own bomb in the prison hospital almost simultaneously with his victim. Perovskaya, who tried to go on the run, was caught by the police and on April 3, 1881, she was hanged along with Zhelyabov, Kibalchich, Mikhailov, Rysakov on the Semenovsky parade ground.

The hope of the Narodnaya Volya to undermine the foundations of the monarchy by killing the tsar was not justified. There were no popular uprisings, because the ideas of the "Narodnaya Volya" were alien to the common people, and the majority of the previously sympathetic intelligentsia recoiled from them. The son of the tsar, Alexander III, who ascended the throne, completely abandoned all the liberal undertakings of his father, returning the train of the Russian Empire to the track of absolute autocracy ...

Russian Emperor Alexander II the Liberator (1818-1881) is considered one of the most prominent monarchs of the Great Empire. It was under him that serfdom was abolished (1861), and zemstvo, city, judicial, military, and educational reforms were carried out. According to the idea of ​​the sovereign and his entourage, all this was supposed to lead the country to a new round of economic development.

However, not everything worked out as expected. Many innovations extremely aggravated the internal political situation in the vast state. The most acute discontent arose as a result of the peasant reform. At its core, it was bondage and provoked mass unrest. In 1861 alone, there were more than a thousand of them. Peasant uprisings were suppressed extremely cruelly.

The situation was exacerbated by the economic crisis that lasted from the early 60s to the mid-80s of the XIX century. The growth of corruption was also noteworthy. Massive abuses were observed in the railway industry. During the construction of railways, private companies stole most of the money, while officials from the Ministry of Finance were in the share with them. Corruption flourished in the army. Contracts for the supply of troops were given for bribes, and instead of quality goods, servicemen received low-quality products.

In foreign policy, the sovereign was guided by Germany. He sympathized with her in every possible way and did a lot to create a militaristic power under the nose of Russia. In his love for the Germans, the tsar went so far as to order the Kaiser officers to be awarded St. George's crosses. All this did not add popularity to the autocrat. There has been a steady increase in popular dissatisfaction with both the domestic and foreign policies of the state in the country, and the assassination attempts on Alexander II were the result of weak rule and monarchial lack of will.

revolutionary movement

If the state power sins with shortcomings, then many oppositionists appear among educated and energetic people. In 1869, the "People's Punishment Society" was formed. One of its leaders was Sergei Nechaev (1847-1882), a terrorist of the 19th century. A terrible personality, capable of murder, blackmail, extortion.

In 1861, the secret revolutionary organization "Land and Freedom" was formed. It was a union of like-minded people, numbering at least 3 thousand people. The organizers were Herzen, Chernyshevsky, Obruchev. In 1879, "Land and Freedom" broke up into the terrorist organization "Narodnaya Volya" and the populist wing, called the "Black Redistribution".

Pyotr Zaichnevsky (1842-1896) created his circle. He distributed forbidden literature among young people and called for the overthrow of the monarchy. Fortunately, he did not kill anyone, but he was a revolutionary and propagandist of socialism to the marrow of his bones. Created revolutionary circles and Nikolai Ishutin (1840-1879). He argued that the end justifies any means. He died in a penitentiary before the age of 40. Pyotr Tkachev (1844-1886) should also be mentioned. He preached terrorism, not seeing other methods of dealing with power.

There were also many other circles and unions. All of them actively engaged in anti-government agitation. In 1873-1874, thousands of intellectuals went to the countryside to propagate revolutionary ideas among the peasants. This action was called "going to the people."

Beginning in 1878, a wave of terrorism swept across Russia. And the beginning of this lawlessness was laid by Vera Zasulich (1849-1919). She seriously wounded the mayor of St. Petersburg Fyodor Trepov (1812-1889). After that, the terrorists fired on gendarmerie officers, prosecutors, and governors. But the most desirable goal for them was the Emperor of the Russian Empire Alexander II.

Assassination attempts on Alexander II

Assassination attempt on Karakozov

The first attempt on the anointed of God took place on April 4, 1866. The terrorist Dmitry Karakozov (1840-1866) raised his hand against the autocrat. He was a cousin of Nikolai Ishutin and vehemently advocated individual terror. He sincerely believed that by killing the tsar, he would inspire the people for a socialist revolution.

The young man, on his own initiative, arrived in St. Petersburg in the spring of 1866, and on April 4 he waited for the emperor at the entrance to the Summer Garden and fired at him. However, the life of the autocrat was saved by a small businessman Osip Komissarov (1838-1892). He stood in the crowd of onlookers and stared at the emperor, who was getting into the carriage. The terrorist Karakozov was nearby a few seconds before the shot. Komissarov saw the revolver in the stranger's hand and hit it. The bullet went up, and for a courageous act Komissarov became a hereditary nobleman and received an estate in the Poltava province.

Dmitry Karakozov was arrested at the scene of the crime. From August 10 to October 1 of the same year, a trial was held under the chairmanship of the actual Privy Councilor Pavel Gagarin (1789-1872). The terrorist was sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on September 3, 1866 in St. Petersburg. They hanged the criminal on the Smolensk field in public. At the time of his death, Karakozov was 25 years old.

Assassination attempt on Berezovsky

The second attempt on the Russian Tsar took place on June 6, 1867 (the date is indicated according to the Gregorian calendar, but since the attempt took place in France, it is quite correct). This time Anton Berezovsky (1847-1916), a Pole by birth, raised his hand to the anointed of God. He participated in the Polish uprising of 1863-1864. After the defeat of the rebels, he went abroad. From 1865 he lived permanently in Paris. In 1867, the World Exhibition opened in the capital of France. It showcased the latest technological advances. The exhibition was of great international importance, and the Russian emperor came to see it.

Upon learning of this, Berezovsky decided to kill the sovereign. He naively believed that in this way he could make Poland a free state. On June 5 he bought a revolver, and on June 6 he shot at the autocrat in the Bois de Boulogne. He rode in a carriage along with 2 sons and the French emperor. But the terrorist did not have the appropriate shooting skills. The fired bullet hit the horse of one of the riders, who was galloping next to the crowned heads.

Berezovsky was immediately captured, put on trial and sentenced to life imprisonment. They sent the criminal to New Caledonia - this is the southwestern part of the Pacific Ocean. In 1906, the terrorist was amnestied. But he did not return to Europe and died in a foreign land at the age of 69.

The third assassination attempt took place on April 2, 1879 in the capital of the empire, St. Petersburg. Alexander Solovyov (1846-1879) committed the crime. He was a member of the revolutionary organization "Land and Freedom". On the morning of April 2, the attacker met the emperor on the Moika Embankment, when he was taking his usual morning walk.

The sovereign was walking without escorts, and the terrorist approached him at a distance of no more than 5 meters. A shot sounded, but the bullet flew past without hitting the autocrat. Alexander II ran, the criminal chased him and fired 2 more shots, but again missed. At this time, the captain of the gendarmerie Koch arrived. He hit the attacker on the back with a saber. But the blow was flat, and the blade bent.

Solovyov almost fell, but stood on his feet and fired at the emperor's back for the 4th time, but again missed. Then the terrorist rushed towards the Palace Square to hide. He was prevented by the people hurrying to the sound of shots. The offender shot for the 5th time in the direction of the running up people, without harming anyone. After that, he was captured.

On May 25, 1879, a trial was held that sentenced the attacker to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on May 28 of the same year at the Smolensk field. Several tens of thousands of people attended the execution. At the time of his death, Alexander Solovyov was 32 years old. After his execution, members of the executive committee of Narodnaya Volya gathered and decided to kill the Russian emperor at any cost.

Suite train explosion

The next attempt on Alexander II took place on November 19, 1879. The emperor was returning from the Crimea. There were 2 trains in total. One royal, and the second with a retinue - retinue. For safety reasons, the retinue train moved first, and the royal train ran at intervals of 30 minutes.

But in Kharkov, a malfunction was discovered near the locomotive of the suite train. Therefore, the train, in which the sovereign was, went ahead. The terrorists knew about the order, but did not know about the breakdown of the locomotive. They missed the royal train, and the next train, in which the escort was, was blown up. The 4th carriage overturned, as the explosion was of great force, but, fortunately, no one was killed.

Attempted Khalturin

Another unsuccessful attempt was made by Stepan Khalturin (1856-1882). He worked as a carpenter and was closely associated with the Narodnaya Volya. In September 1879, the palace department hired him to carry out carpentry work in the royal palace. They settled there in the basement. The young carpenter transferred explosives to the Winter Palace, and on February 5, 1880, he made a powerful explosion.

It exploded on the 1st floor, and the emperor had lunch on the 3rd floor. On this day, he was late, and at the time of the tragedy he was not in the dining room. Absolutely innocent people from the guards in the amount of 11 people died. More than 50 people were injured. The terrorist fled. He was detained on March 18, 1882 in Odessa after the murder of prosecutor Strelnikov. Hanged on March 22 of the same year at the age of 25.

The last fatal attempt on Alexander II took place on March 1, 1881 in St. Petersburg on the embankment of the Catherine Canal. It was made by members of the Narodnaya Volya Nikolai Rysakov (1861-1881) and Ignaty Grinevitsky (1856-1881). The main organizer was Andrey Zhelyabov (1851-1881). Sofya Perovskaya (1853-1881) was the direct leader of the terrorist act. Her accomplices were Nikolai Kibalchich (1853-1881), Timofey Mikhailov (1859-1881), Gesya Gelfman (1855-1882) and her husband Nikolai Sablin (1850-1881).

On that ill-fated day, the emperor rode in a carriage from the Mikhailovsky Palace after breakfast with Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolayevich and Grand Duchess Ekaterina Mikhailovna. The carriage was accompanied by 6 mounted Cossacks, two sleighs with guards, and another Cossack was sitting next to the coachman.

Rysakov appeared on the embankment. He wrapped the bomb in a white handkerchief and walked straight towards the carriage. One of the Cossacks galloped towards him, but did not have time to do anything. The terrorist dropped the bomb. There was a strong explosion. The carriage settled on its side, and Rysakov tried to escape, but was detained by guards.

In the general confusion, the emperor got out of the carriage. The bodies of dead people lay all around. Not far from the site of the explosion, a 14-year-old teenager was dying in agony. Alexander II approached the terrorist and inquired about his name and rank. He said that he was a tradesman Glazov. People ran up to the sovereign, began to ask if everything was all right with him. The emperor replied: "Thank God, I was not hurt." At these words, Rysakov grinned angrily and said: "Is it still glory to God?"

Not far from the scene of the tragedy, Ignaty Grinevitsky stood at the iron grate with a second bomb. Nobody paid any attention to him. Meanwhile, the sovereign moved away from Rysakov and, apparently in shock, wandered along the embankment, accompanied by the chief of police, who asked to return to the carriage. In the distance was Perovskaya. When the tsar caught up with Grinevitsky, she waved her white handkerchief, and the terrorist threw a second bomb. This explosion was fatal for the autocrat. The terrorist himself was also mortally wounded by the exploding bomb.

The explosion disfigured the entire body of the emperor. They put him in a sleigh and took him to the palace. Soon the emperor died. Before his death, he regained consciousness for a short time and managed to take the sacrament. On March 4, the body was transferred to the home of the temple of the imperial family - the Court Cathedral. On March 7, the deceased was solemnly transferred to the tomb of the Russian emperors - the Peter and Paul Cathedral. On March 15, the funeral took place. It was headed by Metropolitan Isidore, the leading member of the Holy Synod.

As for the terrorists, the investigation took the detained Rysakov into a tough turn, and he very quickly betrayed his accomplices. He named a safe house located on Telezhnaya Street. The police raided there, and Sablin, who was in it, shot himself. His wife Gelfman was arrested. Already on March 3, the rest of the participants in the assassination attempt were arrested. Who managed to escape punishment is Vera Figner (1852-1942). This woman is a legend. She stood at the origins of terrorism and managed to live 89 years.

Trial of the First Marchers

The organizers and perpetrator of the assassination were tried and sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on April 3, 1881. The execution took place on the Semyonovsky parade ground (now Pioneer Square) in St. Petersburg. They hanged Perovskaya, Zhelyabov, Mikhailov, Kibalchich and Rysakov. Standing on the scaffold, the Narodnaya Volya said goodbye to each other, but did not want to say goodbye to Rysakov, as they considered him a traitor. Subsequently, those executed were named March 1st, since the attempt was made on March 1.

Thus ended the assassination attempt on Alexander II. But at that time, no one could even imagine that this was only the beginning of a series of bloody events that would result in a civil fratricidal war at the beginning of the 20th century..