4 assassination attempt on Alexander 2. What are the reasons for the numerous assassination attempts on Alexander II and why the authorities could not prevent them? Attempted regicide

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 thought of killing the Tsar had been spinning in Karakozov’s head for a long time when he was in his village, and he longed for the fulfillment of his plan. When he arrived in St. Petersburg, he stayed at a hotel and began to wait for an opportune moment to commit an assassination 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, sat in a carriage. Karakozov was nearby and, having successfully squeezed into the crowd, fired almost point-blank. Everything could have ended fatally for the emperor if master Osip Komissarov, who happened to be nearby, instinctively hit Karakozov on the arm, causing the bullet to fly past the target. People standing around rushed at Karakozov and if not for the police he could have been torn to pieces. After Karakozov was detained, he resisted and shouted to the standing people: Fools! After all, I am for you, but you don’t 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 have offended the peasants. After this, Karakazov was searched and interrogated, after which he was sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress. Then a trial was held, 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 tsar 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, Pole by origin, stood out from the jubilant crowd and, when the carriage with the emperors appeared nearby, he twice point-blank fired a pistol at Alexander. It was possible to avoid the bullets hitting the emperor only thanks to the courage of one of Napoleon III’s security officers, who 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 Tsar 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 instantly capture 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 thought of regicide, however, or rather, I nurtured this thought since I began to realize myself, having in mind the liberation of my homeland On July 15, Berezovsky's trial took place, the jury considered the case. The court decided to send Berezovsky to lifelong hard labor in New Caledonia. Subsequently, hard labor was replaced by lifelong exile, and in 1906, 40 years after the assassination attempt, Berezovsky was amnestied. However, he remained to live in New Caledonia until his death.
• April 2, 1879— the assassination attempt was committed by Alexander Solovyov, a teacher and member of the “Land and Freedom” society. On April 2, the emperor was walking near his palace. Suddenly he noticed a young man walking quickly towards him. He managed to shoot five times, and then was captured by the royal guards, although not a single bullet hit the target: Alexander II managed to successfully evade them. During the judicial investigation, Solovyov stated: The idea of ​​an attempt on His Majesty’s life came to me after becoming 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 can 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 blow up a train on which the emperor and members of his family were traveling. In the summer of 1879, the People's Will organization was created, breaking away from the populist Land and Freedom. The main goal of the organization was the murder of the tsar, who was accused of repressive measures, bad reforms and suppression of the democratic opposition. In order not to repeat old mistakes, 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 supposed to return from their vacation in Crimea. The first group operated near Odessa. Here, Narodnaya Volya member Mikhail Frolenko got a job as a railway guard 14 km from the city. At first everything went well: the mine was laid, there was no suspicion on the part of the authorities. But then the plan to blow up here failed when the royal train changed its route, traveling through Aleksandrovsk. The Narodnaya Volya had such an option, and therefore at the beginning of November 1879, the Narodnaya Volya member Andrei Zhelyabov came to Aleksandrovsk, introducing himself as the merchant Cheremisov. He bought a plot of land near the railway with the intention of allegedly building a tannery there. Working at night, Zhelyabov drilled a hole under the railroad and planted a mine there. On November 18, when the royal train appeared in the distance, Zhelyabov took a position near the railway and, when the train caught up with him, he tried to activate the mine, but after connecting the wires nothing happened: the electrical circuit had a malfunction. Now the hope of the Narodnaya Volya was only in the third group, led by Sofia Perovskaya, whose task was to plant a bomb at the Rogozhsko-Simonova outpost, near Moscow. Here the work was somewhat complicated by the guarding 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 contained Alexander II, and the second contained his luggage; the train with luggage is half an hour ahead of the train with the king. But fate protected the emperor: in Kharkov, one of the locomotives of the baggage train broke down and the royal train was launched first. The conspirators did not know about this and let the first train pass, detonating a mine at the moment when the fourth carriage of the second train was passing over it. Alexander II was annoyed by what happened and said: What do they have against me, these unfortunate people? Why are they chasing 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 attempt, the Narodnaya Volya began to develop a new plan.

• February 5, 1880 An explosion was carried out in the Winter Palace. Through friends, Sofya Perovskaya learned that the basements in the Winter Palace were being renovated, 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 a new member of the People's Will, the peasant Stepan Khalturin. Having settled in the palace, the “carpenter” lined the walls of the wine cellar during the day, and at night he went to his colleagues, who handed him bags of dynamite. The explosives were skillfully disguised among building materials. During the work, Khalturin had a chance to kill the emperor when he was renovating his office and was face to face with the tsar, but Khalturin did not raise his hand to do this: despite the fact that he considered the tsar a great criminal and an enemy of the people, he was broken by the kind and Alexander’s courteous treatment of the workers. In February 1880, Perovskaya received information that a gala dinner was scheduled for the 5th at the palace, which would be attended by the tsar and all members of the imperial family. The explosion was scheduled for 6:20 pm, 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 delayed 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, complete darkness fell, and an unbearable smell of gunpowder or dynamite spread in the air. No high-ranking persons were injured, but 10 soldiers from the Finnish Guard Regiment were killed and 80 wounded.

• March 1, 1881- the last attempt on Alexander II's life, which led to his death. Initially, the Narodnaya Volya plans included laying a mine in St. Petersburg under the Stone Bridge, which stretched 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 did not go off, then four Narodnaya Volya members who were on the street should have thrown bombs at the Tsar’s carriage, and if Alexander II was still alive, then Zhelyabov would personally jump into the carriage and stab the Tsar 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 were gathering, then arrests of important Narodnaya Volya members began, among whom were Mikhailov, and already at the end of February 1881 Zhelyabov himself. The arrest of the latter prompted the conspirators to take action. After Zhelyabov’s arrest, the emperor was warned about the possibility of a new assassination attempt, but he took it calmly, 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 Manezh, accompanied by a rather small guard (in the face of a new assassination attempt). After attending the changing of the guards and drinking tea with his cousin, the emperor went back to the Winter Palace via the Catherine Canal. This turn of events completely disrupted the plans of the conspirators. In the current emergency situation, Perovskaya, who headed the organization after Zhelyabov’s arrest, 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 Catherine Canal and waited for a signal (wave of a scarf) from Perovskaya, according to which they should throw bombs at the royal carriage. When the royal cortege drove onto the embankment, Sophia gave a signal and Rysakov threw his bomb towards the royal carriage: a strong explosion was heard, after traveling some distance, 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 attempt, 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 profusely 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, and 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

• Korneychuk 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

Let us note that the police, well aware of the existence of various revolutionary circles, did not perceive them as a serious danger, considering them just another talkers, unable to go beyond the scope of their revolutionary demagoguery. As a result, Alexander II had practically no security, except for the escort required by etiquette, consisting of several officers.

On April 4, 1866, Alexander II went for a walk with his nephews in the Summer Garden. Having enjoyed the fresh air, the tsar was already getting into the carriage when a young man came out from the crowd of onlookers watching the sovereign’s walk and pointed a pistol 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 next to the head of Alexander II. Be that as it may, the attacker was captured, and he did not have time to fire a second shot.

The shooter turned out to be nobleman Dmitry Karakozov, who had recently been expelled from Moscow University for participating in student riots. He called the motive for the assassination attempt 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 actually implemented. Karakozov was sentenced to death by hanging.

The assassination attempt caused great unrest among representatives of moderate radical circles, 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 disaster from it, we were outraged by the responsibility that some fanatic took upon himself.” The king's answer was not long in coming. Alexander II, until this moment 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 extent of freedoms given to society; liberal-minded officials are removed from power. Censorship is being introduced and reforms in education are being suspended. The period of reaction begins.

But it was not only in Russia that 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 Longchamps hippodrome, he was returning 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 origin, was already waiting for the official procession to appear. When the royal carriage appeared nearby, he fired a pistol at Alexander II twice. Thanks to the brave actions of one of Napoleon III’s security officers, who noticed a man with a weapon in the crowd in time 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 Tsar 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 towards 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 and travel freely around the capital. However, following the well-known truth that God protects those who are careful, 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 high ideas - to Switzerland. For a while, there was a calm in the country.

The new intensity of passions in society dates back to the mid-70s. A new generation of young people is coming, even more intransigent to power than their predecessors. The populist organizations, which preached the principle of bringing the word to the masses, encountered severe repression by the state, and gradually transformed into clearly defined revolutionary terrorist groups. Unable to democratically influence the governance of the country, they go on the warpath with government officials. The murders of governors-general, high-ranking police officials begin - all those with whom, in their opinion, autocracy is associated. But these are minor pawns, ahead is the main goal, the basis of the very principle of the regime they hate - Alexander II. The Russian Empire is entering an era of terrorism.

On April 4, 1879, the sovereign was walking in the vicinity of his palace. Suddenly he noticed a young man walking quickly towards him. 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 teacher Alexander Solovyov. At the investigation, he, without hiding his pride, stated: “The idea of ​​an attempt on His Majesty’s life arose after becoming 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 can enjoy the fruits of the people’s labor and all the benefits of civilization that are inaccessible to the majority." The court's verdict was execution by hanging.

If the first three attempts on the life of Alexander II were carried out by unprepared individuals, then since 1879 the goal of destroying the Tsar has been set to an entire terrorist organization. In the summer of 1879, Narodnaya Volya was created, breaking 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, suppressing signs of freedom and repression against the democratic opposition. It was decided to begin preparations for an assassination attempt on the Tsar. The hunt has begun!

Having analyzed 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 Tsar was returning from vacation from 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 train.

The first group operated near Odessa. For this purpose, member of Narodnaya Volya Mikhail Frolenko got a job as a railway guard 14 km from the city. The operation proceeded smoothly: the mine was successfully planted, there was no suspicion on the part of the authorities. However, the royal train changed its route, traveling not through Odessa, but through Alexandrovsk.

This option was provided for by the terrorists. Back in early November 1879, Andrei Zhelyabov arrived in Aleksandrovsk under the name of merchant Cheremisov. He bought a plot of land near the railroad tracks, ostensibly for the construction of a tannery. Working at night, the “merchant” drilled into the railroad tracks and laid a mine. On November 18, the royal train appeared in the distance. Zhelyabov took 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 electrical circuit of the fuse did not work.

All hope remained with the third group, led by Sofia Perovskaya, whose task was to plant a bomb at the Rogozhsko-Simonova outpost, not far from Moscow. Here the work was complicated by the guarding of the outpost, which made it impossible to plant a mine in the railway track. There was only one way out - a tunnel. Operating 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 cortege consisted of two trains: Alexander II himself and his retinue were traveling 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 baggage train broke down - and the royal train went first. Not knowing about this circumstance, the terrorists let the first train through, detonating a mine under the fourth carriage of the second. Having learned that he had once again escaped death, Alexander II, according to eyewitnesses, sadly said: “What do they have against me, these unfortunates? Why are they chasing me like a wild animal? After all, I have always strived to do everything in my power.” forces, for the good of the people!"

The “unhappy” people, not particularly discouraged by the failure of the railway epic, after some time began preparing a new assassination attempt. This time it was proposed to get the beast in its own lair, thereby showing that there were no barriers for the Narodnaya Volya. The Executive Committee decided to blow up the emperor's chambers in the Winter Palace.

Through her friends, Perovskaya learned that the basement rooms in the Winter Palace were being renovated, in particular the wine cellar, located directly under the royal dining room and which was 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” lined the walls of the wine cellar during the day, and at night he went to meet his fellow People’s Volunteers, who handed him bags of dynamite. The explosives were hidden among the building materials. Once Khalturin was tasked with carrying out minor repair work in the emperor’s office. Circumstances were such that he managed to be left alone with Alexander II. Among the "carpenter's" tools was a heavy hammer with a sharp end. It seems like an ideal chance to simply, with one blow, do what the Narodnaya Volya members so passionately strived for... However, Khalturin was unable to deliver this fatal blow. Perhaps the reason should be sought in the words of Olga Lyubatovich, a colleague who knew Khalturin well: “Who would have thought that the same person, having once met Alexander II face to face in his office... would not dare to kill him from behind simply with a hammer in his hands?... Considering Alexander II was 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 at the palace, at which all members of the imperial family would be present. The explosion was scheduled for six twenty minutes in the evening, when Alexander II was supposed to be in the dining room. And again, chance confused all the cards for the conspirators. The train of one of the members of the imperial family, the Prince of Hesse, was half an hour late, delaying the time of the gala dinner. The explosion found Alexander II near the security room, located near the dining room. The Prince of Hesse described what happened: “The floor rose as if under the influence of an earthquake, the gas in the gallery went out, complete darkness fell, and an unbearable smell of gunpowder or dynamite spread in the air.” Neither the emperor nor any of his family members were harmed. The result of the next assassination attempt was ten killed and eighty wounded soldiers from the Finnish regiment guarding Alexander II.

After another unsuccessful attempt, the Narodnaya Volya took, in modern parlance, a time-out in order to thoroughly prepare for the next attempt. After the explosion in Zimny, Alexander II began to rarely leave 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, on the initiative of Alexander Mikhailov, the option of mining the Kamenny Bridge, which stretches across the Catherine Canal, was considered. Demolitionists led by Nikolai Kibalchich examined the bridge supports and calculated the required amount of explosives. But after some hesitation, they abandoned the explosion, 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 four Narodnaya Volya members who were on the street should have thrown bombs at the royal carriage. Well, if after this Alexander II is still alive, then Zhelyabov will jump into the carriage and stab the king with a dagger.

We immediately began to bring the idea to life. Two members of Narodnaya Volya - Anna Yakimova and Yuri Bogdanovich - rented a semi-basement space on Malaya Sadovaya, opening a cheese shop. From the basement, Zhelyabov and his comrades have been digging a tunnel under the roadway for several weeks. Everything is ready to lay the mine, on which the genius of chemical sciences Kibalchich worked tirelessly.

From the very beginning of the organizational work on the assassination attempt, the terrorists encountered unforeseen problems. It all started with the fact that a “cheese shop”, completely unfrequented by customers, aroused the suspicions of the janitor of a neighbor’s house, who contacted the police. And although the inspectors did not find anything (though they didn’t really try to look!), the very fact that the store was under suspicion raised concerns about the failure of the entire operation. This was followed by several heavy blows to the leadership of Narodnaya Volya. In November 1880, the police arrested Alexander Mikhailov, and a few days before the date of the planned assassination attempt - at the end of February 1881 - Andrei 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 Zhelyabov’s arrest, the sovereign was warned about a new assassination attempt planned by the Narodnaya Volya. He was advised not to travel to the Manezh 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 survived the previous five assassination attempts.

On March 1, 1881, Alexander II left the Winter Palace for Manege. He was accompanied by seven Cossack guards and three policemen, led by Chief of Police Adrian Dvorzhitsky, following in separate sleighs behind the royal carriage (not too many guards for a person expecting a new assassination attempt!). After attending the guard duty and having tea with his cousin, the Tsar went back to Zimny ​​through... the Catherine Canal.

This turn of events completely ruined all the plans of the conspirators. The mine on Sadovaya became a completely useless pile of dynamite. And in this situation, Perovskaya, who headed the organization after Zhelyabov’s arrest, is hastily processing the details of the operation. Four Narodnaya Volya members - Ignatiy Grinevitsky, Nikolai Rysakov, Alexey Emelyanov, Timofey Mikhailov - take positions along the embankment of the Catherine Canal and are waiting for a conditioned signal from Perovskaya, according to which they should throw bombs at the royal carriage. The wave of her scarf should have been 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 traveling some distance, the royal carriage stopped. The Emperor was not injured. However, instead of leaving the scene of the assassination attempt, Alexander II wanted to see the criminal. He approached the captured Rysakov... At this moment, Grinevitsky, unnoticed by the guards, throws a second bomb at the Tsar’s feet. The blast wave threw Alexander II to the ground, blood gushing from his crushed legs. With the last of his strength, he whispered: “Take me to the palace... There I want to die...”

On March 1, 1881, at 15:35, the imperial standard was lowered from the flagpole of the Winter Palace, notifying the population of St. Petersburg about the death of Emperor Alexander II.

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, hanged along with Zhelyabov, Kibalchich, Mikhailov, and Rysakov on the Semenovsky parade ground.

The hope of the Narodnaya Volya members to undermine the foundations of the monarchy by killing the tsar was not justified. There were no popular uprisings, because the ideas of the “People's Will” were alien to the common people, and the majority of the intelligentsia who had previously sympathized with them recoiled from them. The Tsar’s son, Alexander III, who ascended the throne, completely abandoned all his father’s liberal undertakings, returning the train of the Russian Empire to the track of absolute autocracy...

“I hand over My command to You, but, unfortunately, not in the order I wanted, leaving You with a lot of work and worries,” Alexander II recalled the words of Father Nicholas I, as if anticipating all the hardships and difficulties of his reign. The reforms carried out by Alexander II met with mixed reactions from society: conservatives (Mikhail Katkov, Viktor Panin) complained about the shaking of centuries-old foundations, democrats (Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Alexander Herzen) called them half-hearted, and those who considered themselves revolutionaries saw them as usurper king. The latter pursued the emperor throughout his life and tried to kill him. Providence seemed to protect the “Liberator”: six times he miraculously managed to avoid death, but the seventh turned out to be fatal.

"Do not touch My Anointed One"

On April 16, 1866, Alexander II, at four o'clock in the afternoon, after a walk with his nephews, sat in a carriage, which was surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. Osip Ivanovich Komissarov, a hat maker, passed by. Having learned that the crew belonged to the king, he decided to look at the “anointed one of God.” It was the peasant’s curiosity that saved the emperor’s life: Komissarov, noticing that some young man was rudely pushing forward and trying to shoot the tsar with a pistol, pulled away the hand of the failed regicide - former student Dmitry Karakozov, expelled from Kazan and Moscow universities for participating in the riots.

The angry crowd tried to deal with him, but the gendarmes grabbed the criminal and brought him to the emperor.

The king asked: “Are you a Pole?” Karakozov replied: “No, Russian.” “Why did you shoot at me?” - Alexander II was surprised. “You deceived the people,” Karakozov blurted out. The Emperor was amazed that a Russian nobleman from the Saratov province could shoot at his Tsar: “The most unfortunate thing is that he is Russian.” Immediately after the failed assassination attempt, Alexander II went to the Kazan Cathedral to thank God for his salvation.

Karakozov did not give his real name for a long time, so the gendarmes tormented him with insomnia and “special psychological techniques”: he received letters from his beloved brother Nikolai Ishutin, who headed the revolutionary circle, written under duress from the gendarmes, asking him to tell the whole truth. In the end, the would-be regicide confessed to everything, and he was sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress, and then sentenced to hanging. Alexander II imposed a resolution on his request for pardon: “Personally, in my soul I forgave him a long time ago, but as a representative of the Supreme Power, I do not consider myself in the right to forgive such a criminal.”

The execution took place on September 3, 1866 on the Smolensk field. The artist Ilya Repin was also in the crowd wanting to see the criminal. The execution made a grave impression on him. After the incident, he made a pencil sketch, which depicted an emaciated, deprived man (“Karakozov before execution,” 1866). At the site of the assassination attempt, a marble chapel-monument was erected with the inscription “Do not touch My Anointed One.”

For his courageous act, the emperor awarded Osip Komissarov the Order of St. Vladimir, IV degree, and elevated him to the dignity of nobility, giving him the surname Komissarov-Kostromskaya (Osip came from the Kostroma province).

“Beware, sir, of a fair-haired woman with a scarf in her hand.”

In May 1867, Alexander II arrived on an official visit to France. One day in May, while walking through the park, the emperor saw a gypsy woman, known in Paris as the fortune teller Tamar, run up to him. She looked the emperor in the eyes and took his hand, peering into the lines of his palm: “I see seven deaths in your destiny, sir, six times your life will be in the balance, but will not end, the seventh time death will catch up with you.” Hearing the gypsy woman’s words, Alexander II turned pale: he remembered how Dmitry Karakozov shot at him. The emperor could not stop thinking about the terrible prediction.

The next day, he ordered the fortune teller to be delivered to the palace. Tamar took out the cards: the emperor again had seven deaths. The emperor gave the gypsy a gold coin and wanted to let her go, but she did not leave: she decided to clarify the prediction. The gypsy woman handed him a white cambric scarf.

“Beware, sir, of a fair-haired woman with such a scarf in her hand. From him, death will come to you,” Tamar warned.

The fortune teller's prediction began to come true the very next day. The Emperor, his sons and Napoleon III were traveling from the Loshan hippodrome after a military review. Suddenly a man stepped from the side of the road and raised a pistol. The horse of one of the guards shielded the emperor from the bullet. The shooter turned out to be Anton Berezovsky, a 20-year-old Pole. As the investigation later established, he was the son of a poor music teacher and came from the Volyn province. Despite the fact that the father was against his son’s anti-government activities, Berezovsky at the age of 16 participated in the Polish uprising. After the suppression of the uprising, the young man went to Paris and got a job in a metalworking shop. During his stay abroad, the Polish emigrant hatched a plan to kill the emperor and tracked his movements. Berezovsky said: “When I saw the opportunity to take his life in France, I did not hesitate for a minute.” The Pole was tried by a French jury. The terrorist said that he acted only for the sake of Poland. The criminal did not repent. As a result, Berezovsky was found guilty and, according to the verdict, was sent to hard labor in New Caledonia (a Pacific colony of France).

In 1906 he was amnestied, but remained to live in New Caledonia, where he died in 1916.

"Shy and silent" teacher

Despite previous assassination attempts, there were no changes in ensuring the king's security. The security continued to operate according to the old plan: the emperor, walking in front, was followed at a great distance by gendarmerie police. On April 2, 1879, while walking in the very center of the capital, on Palace Square, the Tsar noticed a suspicious young man looking intently at him. The young man put his hand in his pocket, took out a revolver and fired five shots.

The following picture emerged before the eyes of passers-by: the emperor, like a hare, dodging and weaving, ran away from the revolutionary right at the walls of his own palace. Not a single bullet hit the king, but the terrorist wounded a passerby.

The passerby was bleeding, but rushed to the criminal and prevented him from shooting at the sovereign. The terrorist dropped his weapon and tried to escape, but he was caught. It turned out to be the teacher Alexander Solovyov, who was also a member of the “Land and Freedom” society. According to Nikolai Morozov, a Russian revolutionary populist with whom Solovyov “went to the people,” the criminal was a “shy and silent” person: “I especially liked Solovyov for his gentle thoughtfulness and friendliness. His silence was clearly not the result of narrow-mindedness. No! When they asked him about something, he always answered intelligently or originally, but he, like me, and even incomparably more, loved to listen to others, rather than tell them something of his own.”

The teacher had been planning the assassination attempt on the king for a long time and promised that after committing the murder he would take poison. However, he was arrested and sentenced to hang.

Terrorists change tactics

In the summer of 1879, the revolutionary organization “People's Will” arose, whose members, having analyzed previous assassination attempts, realized that the bullet “would not take” the emperor. They changed tactics: they decided to blow up the royal train. A group led by Sofia Perovskaya, a national teacher who participated in the “walk among the people,” knew that the emperor was coming from Crimea with his family, and, having previously made a tunnel, planted a bomb at the Rogozhsko-Simonovskaya outpost.

The conspirators knew some nuances: the first train—the luggage train—passed half an hour earlier, while the second train, which was supposed to contain the royal family, followed it. But everything did not work out as the terrorists planned: one of the locomotives of the baggage train broke down in Kharkov, and the royal train was allowed in first.

As a result, the conspirators detonated a mine while the baggage train was passing.

Alexander II, having learned about what had happened, said: “What do they have against me, these unfortunate people? Why are they chasing 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 failed assassination attempt, the terrorist revolutionaries began to develop a new plan.

Explosion in the Winter Palace

Revolutionary Stepan Khalturin, under the name Batyshkov, got a job as a carpenter in the Winter Palace: at that time the basements were being repaired there. Sofya Perovskaya, having carefully worked out the action plan, considered that the wine cellar, located under the royal dining room, was the most suitable place for the bomb. During the day, the silent “worker” repaired the premises, at night he brought dynamite and carefully hid it.

Here is what Narodnaya Volya member Lev Tikhomirov wrote about the security system in the Winter Palace: “First of all, the disorder in management was surprising... Khalturin’s palace comrades organized parties at their place, to which dozens of their acquaintances freely came, without control or supervision. While the highest-ranking officials did not have access to the palace from the front entrances, the back entrances were open at all times of the day and night to every tavern acquaintance of the latest palace servant.

Often visitors would stay overnight in the palace, since staying there was safer than walking home through the streets late at night.”

The explosion was supposed to occur on February 5, 1880 at 18.20, when, according to information received by Perovskaya, Alexander II, along with his family and the Prince of Hesse, were going to have dinner. However, fate again saved the emperor: the Prince of Hesse was delayed for half an hour, and it was decided to postpone dinner.

I.E. Repin. Karakozov before execution. 1866

As a result of the explosion of 48 kilograms of dynamite, soldiers of the Finnish regiment were injured. From the diary of the heir to the throne, Alexander Alexandrovich: “We went to the Winter Palace for lunch, and as soon as we managed to reach the beginning of the large corridor... when there was a terrible roar, and everything began to move under our feet, and in an instant the gas went out everywhere... Having run to the main guard, we found a terrible scene; the entire large guardhouse, where the people were housed, was blown up and everything fell through more than a fathom of depth, and in this pile of bricks, mortar, slabs and huge blocks of vaults and walls, more than 50 soldiers lay side by side, mostly wounded, covered with a layer of dust and blood.

The picture is heartbreaking, and I will never forget this horror in my lifetime!”

White scarf

On Sunday, March 1, 1881, the emperor was going to a weekly review of the guards units at the Mikhailovsky Manege, where he had not gone for several weeks at the insistence of the police: agents reported that another assassination attempt was being prepared on the tsar. In November 1880, the Narodnaya Volya members created an observation detachment in order to monitor all the movements of Alexander II. All the results of observations flocked to Sofya Perovskaya. After the arrest of Andrei Zhelyabov (he was Perovskaya’s lover), the Narodnaya Volya members decided to liquidate the usurper. A few hours before the murder, Perovskaya drew up an assassination plan. The terrorists knew the route thoroughly: they had a map of all the emperor’s movements over the previous months.

Alexander II usually went to Manezh in two ways: the first - through the arch of the main headquarters on Nevsky Prospekt, along it to the left, to Malaya Sadovaya, then straight to the Manege, the second - through the entire Palace Square to the Pevchesky Bridge, then along the Moika embankment through Konyushennaya Square along Ekaterininsky Canal, further left along Inzhenernaya and Italianskaya streets.

The emperor himself chose the route at the last moment.

The Narodnaya Volya members prepared for the assassination attempt for six months. It was decided to make a tunnel on Malaya Sadovaya. To carry out their plan, the Narodnaya Volya members, under the guise of a peasant family from the Voronezh province, rented a shop on the corner of Malaya Sadovaya and Nevsky. A tunnel was made to the middle of the street, and it was decided to plant the bomb here. The soil from the mine was hidden in a Turkish sofa and cheese barrels. Ten days before the assassination attempt, they became interested in the shop: the neighbors were embarrassed that the peasant wife was flaunting in city clothes and smoking cigarettes. The police came to the store to check, but did not find anything suspicious.

It was impossible to make a tunnel on the second route - there were solid squares, embankments and government buildings everywhere, so it was necessary to use suicide bombers. Nikolai Kibalchich (party pseudonym - Technician), a young man with the makings of a great scientist, volunteered to make the bomb. At home, he conducted hundreds of experiments on the chemistry of explosives and developed a very effective bomb, the basis of which was explosive jelly. Working with it required caution: the slightest mistake could cause an explosion.

Kibalchich had an incredible capacity for work: he made bombs for 15 hours, risking being blown up every minute. By 10 o'clock in the morning four bombs were ready.

Sofia Perovskaya. Illustration: M. Filimonov/RIA Novosti

What could the emperor’s guards do against Kibalchich’s bombs? The squadron's staff included five officers, 18 non-commissioned officers and 164 Cossacks. The Cossacks were distinguished by their loyalty and were ready to give their lives for the Tsar, but they did not possess the skills of bodyguards: in a critical situation they only did what the Tsar ordered them to do.

How the Emperor died

The guard review ended, Alexander got into the carriage. “To the Mikhailovsky Palace across the Singing Bridge,” said the emperor. The terrorists miscalculated: the tsar would not go where the tunnel was made. Then Perovskaya gave the bombers a prearranged signal - a white scarf, which indicated that they should move to the Catherine Canal. Half an hour later, the emperor left the palace, got into the carriage and said to the coachman: “The same road home.”

At 14.15 the carriage turned to the embankment of the Catherine Canal. She drove three meters from Nikolai Rysakov, a 19-year-old student. At 14.20 he threw a bomb, and the explosion occurred under the rear wheels. The emperor was not injured; Rysakov himself was thrown by the blast wave towards the canal fence. The coachman tried to take Alexander II away from the scene of the assassination attempt, but the tsar gave the order to stop. The officers of the motorcade rushed to the emperor's carriage. Rysakov was detained. The Emperor staggered out of the carriage. The police chief began to insist that Alexander II return to the palace as soon as possible, but the tsar wanted to look at the criminal. He approached Rysakov, the Cossacks at that time were in the saddles, since there was no command to dismount: no one except the emperor had the right to command the guard.

Confident that the danger had passed, Alexander II also wanted to see the crater.

At this time, Ignatius Grinevitsky came very close and threw a bomb at the king’s feet: “...among the snow, debris and blood, the remains of torn clothes, an epaulette, sabers and bloody pieces of meat could be seen.” Before arriving at the Winter Palace, Alexander II was not given any assistance, no tourniquets were applied. Soon the emperor died. Later, the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood was built at the site of the assassination attempt.

After the assassination of Alexander II, the security system began to be built on different principles. There was a reaction: Alexander III canceled the constitutional reform and approved the provision on the protection of His Majesty. Now all departments of the empire were obliged to comply with the requirements of the head of security.

Russian Emperor Alexander II the Liberator (1818-1881) is considered one of the most outstanding 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 bring 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 huge state. The most acute discontent arose as a result of the peasant reform. At its core, it was enslaving and provoked mass unrest. In 1861 alone there were more than a thousand of them. Peasant protests were suppressed extremely brutally.

The situation was aggravated by the economic crisis that lasted from the early 60s to the mid-80s of the 19th century. The rise in corruption was also notable. Massive abuses occurred in the railway industry. During the construction of railways, private companies stole most of the money, while officials from the Ministry of Finance shared with them. Corruption also flourished in the army. Contracts for supplying troops were given for bribes, and instead of quality goods, military personnel 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 that the Kaiser's officers be awarded the Cross of St. George. All this did not add to the popularity of 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 attempts on the life of Alexander II were the result of weak rule and royal lack of will.

Revolutionary movement

If state power suffers from shortcomings, then many oppositionists appear among educated and energetic people. In 1869, the “People's Retribution Society” was formed. One of its leaders was Sergei Nechaev (1847-1882), a terrorist of the 19th century. A terrible person, capable of murder, blackmail, and 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" split into the terrorist organization "People's Will" and the populist wing, called the "Black Redistribution".

Pyotr Zaichnevsky (1842-1896) created his own circle. He distributed prohibited literature among young people and called for the overthrow of the monarchy. Fortunately, he didn’t kill anyone, but he was a revolutionary and a promoter of socialism to the core. Nikolai Ishutin (1840-1879) also created revolutionary circles. He argued that the end justifies any means. He died in a hard labor prison before reaching the age of 40. Pyotr Tkachev (1844-1886) should also be mentioned. He preached terrorism, not seeing other methods of fighting the government.

There were also many other circles and unions. All of them were actively involved in anti-government agitation. In 1873-1874, thousands of intellectuals went to the villages 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 this, the terrorists shot at gendarmerie officers, prosecutors, and governors. But their most desired target was the Emperor of the Russian Empire, Alexander II.

Assassination attempts on Alexander II

Assassination of Karakozov

The first attempt on the life of God's anointed took place on April 4, 1866. Terrorist Dmitry Karakozov (1840-1866) raised his hand against the autocrat. He was Nikolai Ishutin's cousin and ardently advocated individual terror. He sincerely believed that by killing the Tsar, he would inspire the people to 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 shot at him. However, the life of the autocrat was saved by the small businessman Osip Komissarov (1838-1892). He stood in the crowd of onlookers and stared at the emperor getting into the carriage. 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 Komissarov, for his courageous act, became a hereditary nobleman and received an estate in the Poltava province.

Dmitry Karakozov was arrested at the crime scene. 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. The criminal was hanged on the Smolensk field in public. At the time of his death, Karakozov was 25 years old.

Berezovsky's assassination attempt

The second attempt on the life of 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 origin, raised his hand against God’s anointed one. He took part in the Polish uprising of 1863-1864. After the defeat of the rebels he went abroad. Since 1865 he lived permanently in Paris. In 1867, the World Exhibition opened in the capital of France. It demonstrated the latest technical achievements. The exhibition was of great international importance, and the Russian Emperor came to it.

Having learned about 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 was traveling in a carriage with his 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 in hard labor. 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 attempt occurred 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 while he was taking his usual morning walk.

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

Solovyov almost fell, but stayed on his feet and threw a shot at the emperor’s back for the 4th time, but missed again. Then the terrorist rushed towards Palace Square to hide. He was interrupted by people rushing to the sound of gunfire. The criminal shot at the running people for the 5th time, without causing harm to anyone. After that he was captured.

On May 25, 1879, a trial was held and the attacker was sentenced to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out on May 28 of the same year on 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.

Explosion of the Suite train

The next attempt on Alexander II's life occurred on November 19, 1879. The Emperor was returning from Crimea. There were 2 trains in total. One is royal, and the second with his retinue is retinue. For safety reasons, the suite train moved first, and the royal train went at intervals of 30 minutes.

But in Kharkov, a malfunction was discovered in the locomotive of the Svitsky train. Therefore, the train containing the sovereign went ahead. The terrorists knew about the route, but did not know about the breakdown of the locomotive. They missed the royal train, and the next train, which contained an escort, was blown up. The 4th car overturned, as the explosion was very powerful, but, fortunately, there were no casualties.

Assassination of 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 do carpentry work in the royal palace. They settled there in the semi-basement. A young carpenter brought explosives to the Winter Palace, and on February 5, 1880, he caused a powerful explosion.

It exploded on the 1st floor, and the emperor was having lunch on the 3rd floor. That day he was late, and at the time of the tragedy he was not in the dining room. Absolutely innocent people from the guard, numbering 11, 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. He was hanged on March 22 of the same year at the age of 25.

The last fatal assassination attempt on Alexander II took place on March 1, 1881 in St. Petersburg on the embankment of the Catherine Canal. It was accomplished by Narodnaya Volya members Nikolai Rysakov (1861-1881) and Ignatius Grinevitsky (1856-1881). The main organizer was Andrei Zhelyabov (1851-1881). The immediate leader of the terrorist attack was Sofya Perovskaya (1853-1881). 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 was riding in a carriage from the Mikhailovsky Palace after breakfast with Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich and Grand Duchess Ekaterina Mikhailovna. The carriage was accompanied by 6 mounted Cossacks, two sleighs with guards, and another Cossack sat next to the coachman.

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

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 asked his name and rank. He said that he was a Glazov tradesman. People ran up to the sovereign and began to ask if everything was okay with him. The emperor replied: “Thank God, I was not hurt.” At these words, Rysakov bared his teeth angrily and said: “Is there still glory to God?”

Not far from the scene of the tragedy, Ignatius Grinevitsky stood at the iron grating with the second bomb. Nobody paid attention to him. The Emperor, meanwhile, moved away from Rysakov and, apparently in shock, wandered along the embankment, accompanied by the police chief, 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 turned out to be fatal for the autocrat. The terrorist himself was also mortally wounded by the exploding bomb.

The explosion disfigured the emperor's entire body. He was put into a sleigh and taken to the palace. Soon the sovereign died. Before his death, he regained consciousness for a short time and managed to take communion. 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. The funeral service took place on March 15. 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 arrived there, and Sablin, who was there, shot himself. His wife Gelfman was arrested. Already on March 3, the remaining participants in the attempt were arrested. Who managed to escape punishment was Vera Figner (1852-1942). This woman is a legend. She stood at the origins of terrorism and managed to live for 89 years.

The trial of the First Marchers

The organizers and perpetrator of the assassination attempt 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 Pionerskaya Square) in St. Petersburg. They hanged Perovskaya, Zhelyabov, Mikhailov, Kibalchich and Rysakov. Standing on the scaffold, the Narodnaya Volya members said goodbye to each other, but did not want to say goodbye to Rysakov, since they considered him a traitor. Those executed were subsequently named March 1st, since the attempt was committed on March 1.

Thus ended the assassination attempts 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..

Equestrian portrait of Alexander II

As you know, Alexander II ascended the throne in 1855. During his reign, a number of reforms were carried out, including the peasant reform, which resulted in the abolition of serfdom. For this, the emperor began to be called the Liberator.

Meanwhile, several attempts were made on his life. For what? The sovereign himself asked the same question: “ What do they have against me, these unfortunate people? Why are they chasing me like a wild animal? After all, I have always strived to do everything in my power for the good of the people!”

First attempt

It happened on April 4, 1866. This day and this attempt are considered the beginning of terrorism in Russia. The first attempt was made by Dmitry Karakozov, a former student, a native of the Saratov province. He shot at the emperor almost point-blank at the moment when Alexander II was getting into his carriage after a walk. Suddenly, the shooter was pushed by a person nearby (later it turned out that it was the peasant O. Komissarov), and the bullet flew above the emperor’s head. The people standing around rushed at Karakozov and, quite likely, would have torn him to pieces on the spot if the police had not arrived in time.

The detainee shouted: “ Fools! After all, I am for you, but you don’t understand!” Karakozov was brought to the emperor, and he himself explained the motive for his action: “Your Majesty, you offended the peasants.”

Shot by Karakozov

The court decided to execute Karakozov by hanging. The sentence was carried out on September 3, 1866.

Second attempt

It happened on May 25, 1867, when the Russian emperor was in Paris on an official visit. He was returning from a military review at the hippodrome in an open carriage with children and the French Emperor Napoleon III. Near the Bois de Boulogne, a young man, a Pole by origin, emerged from the crowd and, when the carriage with the emperors caught up with him, he fired a pistol twice at point-blank range at the Russian emperor. And here Alexander was saved by an accident: one of Napoleon III’s security officers pushed away the shooter’s hand. The bullets hit the horse.

Second attempt on Alexander II

The terrorist was detained; he turned out to be a Pole, Berezovsky. The motive for his actions was the desire for revenge for Russia’s suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863. Berezovsky said during his arrest: “... two weeks ago I had the idea of ​​regicide, however, or rather, I have nurtured this thought since I began to recognize myself, meaning the liberation of my homeland.”

Terrorist Berezovsky

On July 15, as a result of the trial of Berezovsky by a jury, he was sentenced to life in hard labor in New Caledonia (a large island of the same name and a group of small islands in the southwestern part of the Pacific Ocean, in Melanesia. This is an overseas special administrative-territorial entity of France). Later hard labor was replaced by lifelong exile. But 40 years later, in 1906, Berezovsky was granted amnesty. But he remained to live in New Caledonia until his death.

Third attempt

On April 2, 1879, Alexander Solovyov made the third attempt on the life of the emperor. A. Solovyov was a member of the “Land and Freedom” society. He shot at the sovereign while he was on a walk near the Winter Palace. Soloviev was quickly approaching the emperor; he guessed the danger and dodged to the side. And, although the terrorist fired five times, not a single bullet hit the target. There is an opinion that the terrorist was simply poor at wielding a weapon and had never used it before the assassination attempt.

At the trial, A. Solovyov said: “ The idea of ​​an attempt on His Majesty’s life came to me after becoming 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 can enjoy the fruits of the people’s labor and all the benefits of civilization that are inaccessible to the majority.”

Terrorist A. Soloviev

Soloviev, like Karakozov, was sentenced to death by hanging, which took place in front of a huge crowd of people.

Fourth assassination attempt

In 1979, the People's Will organization was created, which broke away from Land and Freedom. The main goal of this organization was to kill the king. He was blamed for the incomplete nature of the reforms carried out, the repression carried out against dissidents, and the impossibility of democratic reforms. Members of the organization concluded that the actions of lone terrorists cannot lead to their goal, so they must act together. They decided to destroy the tsar in another way: by blowing up the train in which he and his family were returning from their vacation in Crimea. An attempt to blow up a train carrying the royal family took place on November 19, 1879.

Baggage train crash

One group of terrorists operated near Odessa (V. Figner, N. Kibalchich, then they were joined by N. Kolodkevich, M. Frolenko and T. Lebedeva): a mine was planted there, but the royal train changed the route and went through Aleksandrovsk. But the Narodnaya Volya members also provided for this option; the Narodnaya Volya member A. Zhelyabov (under the name Cheremisov) was there, as well as A. Yakimova and I. Okladsky. Not far from the railway, he bought a plot of land and there, working at night, he laid a mine. But the train did not explode, because... Zhelyabov failed to detonate the mine; there was some technical error. But the Narodnaya Volya members also had a third group of terrorists, led by Sofia Perovskaya (Lev Hartmann and Sofia Perovskaya, under the guise of a married couple, the Sukhorukovs, purchased a house next to the railway) not far from Moscow, at the Rogozhsko-Simonova outpost. And although this section of the railway was especially guarded, they managed to plant a mine. However, fate protected the emperor this time too. The royal train consisted of two trains: one was passenger and the other was luggage. The terrorists knew that the luggage train was coming first - and they let it through, hoping that the next one would be the royal family. But in Kharkov the locomotive of the baggage train broke down, and the royal train moved first. The Narodnaya Volya blew up the second train. Those accompanying the king were injured.

After this assassination attempt, the emperor said his bitter words: “ Why are they chasing me like a wild animal?

Fifth assassination attempt

Sofya Perovskaya, the daughter of the St. Petersburg Governor-General, learned that the Winter Palace was renovating the basements, including the wine cellar. The Narodnaya Volya found this place convenient for placing explosives. The peasant Stepan Khalturin was appointed to implement the plan. He recently joined the People's Will organization. Working in the basement (he was covering the walls of a wine cellar), he had to place the bags of dynamite given to him (2 pounds in total were prepared) among the building material. Sofia Perovskaya received information that on February 5, 1880, a dinner would be held in the Winter Palace in honor of the Prince of Hesse, which would be attended by the entire royal family. The explosion was scheduled for 6 p.m. 20 minutes, but due to the delay of the prince's train, dinner was moved. The explosion occurred - none of the senior officials were injured, but 10 guard soldiers were killed and 80 were wounded.

The dining room of the Winter Palace after the assassination attempt in 1879

After this assassination attempt, the dictatorship of M. T. Loris-Melikov was established with unlimited powers, because the government understood that it would be very difficult to stop the wave of terrorism that had begun. Loris-Melikov provided the emperor with a program whose goal was to “complete the great work of state reforms.” According to the project, the monarchy should not have been limited. It was planned to create preparatory commissions, which would include representatives of zemstvos and urban estates. These commissions were supposed to develop bills on the following issues: peasant, zemstvo, and city management. Loris-Melikov pursued a so-called “flirting” policy: he softened censorship and allowed the publication of new printed publications. He met with their editors and hinted at the possibility of new reforms. And he convinced them that terrorists and radically minded individuals were interfering with their implementation.

The Loris-Melikov transformation project was approved. On March 4, its discussion and approval was supposed to take place. But on March 1, history took a different turn.

Sixth and seventh attempts

It seems that the Narodnaya Volya (daughter of the governor of St. Petersburg, and subsequently a member of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Sofya Perovskaya, her common-law husband, law student Andrei Zhelyabov, inventor Nikolai Kibalchich, worker Timofey Mikhailov, Nikolai Rysakov, Vera Figner, Stepan Khalturin, etc.) failure brought excitement. They were preparing a new assassination attempt. This time the Stone Bridge on the Catherine Canal, through which the emperor usually passed, was chosen. The terrorists abandoned their original plan to blow up the bridge, and a new one emerged - to lay a mine on Malaya Sadovaya. Perovskaya “noticed that at the turn from the Mikhailovsky Theater to the Catherine Canal, the coachman was holding back the horses, and the carriage was moving almost at a walk.” Here it was decided to strike. In case of failure, if the mine did not explode, it was envisaged to throw a bomb at the Tsar’s carriage, but if this did not work, then Zhelyabov had to jump into the carriage and stab the Emperor with a dagger. But this preparation for the assassination attempt was complicated by the arrests of Narodnaya Volya members: first Mikhailov, and then Zhelyabov.

Assassination of Alexander II. Chromolithography performed by F. Morozov

Increased arrests led to a shortage of experienced terrorists. A group of young revolutionaries was organized: student E. Sidorenko, student I. Grinevitsky, former student N. Rysakov, workers T. Mikhailov and I. Emelyanov. The technical part was headed by Kibalchich, who manufactured 4 bombs. But on February 27, Zhelyabov was arrested. Then Perovskaya took over the leadership. At the meeting of the Executive Committee, the throwers were determined: Grinevitsky, Mikhailov, Rysakov and Emelyanov. They “had to throw their bombs from two opposite sides at both ends of Malaya Sadovaya.” On March 1, they were given bombs. “They had to go to the Catherine Canal at a certain hour and appear in a certain order.” On the night of March 1, Isaev laid a mine near Malaya Sadovaya. The terrorists decided to speed up the implementation of their plan. The emperor was warned about the danger that threatened him, but he replied that God was protecting him. On March 1, 1881, Alexander II left the Winter Palace for Manezh, attended the changing of the guards and returned to the Winter Palace through the Catherine Canal. This broke the plans of the Narodnaya Volya members; Sofya Perovskaya urgently restructured the assassination plan. Grinevitsky, Emelyanov, Rysakov, Mikhailov stood along the embankment of the Catherine Canal and waited for Perovskaya’s conditioned signal (wave of a scarf), according to which they were to throw bombs at the royal carriage. The plan worked out, but the emperor was not harmed again. But he did not hastily leave the scene of the assassination attempt, but wanted to approach the wounded. The anarchist Prince Kropotkin wrote about this: “He felt that military dignity required him to look at the wounded Circassians and say a few words to them.” And then Grinevitsky threw a second bomb at the Tsar’s feet. The explosion threw Alexander II to the ground, blood poured from his crushed legs. The Emperor whispered: " Take me to the palace... I want to die there..."

Grinevitsky, like Alexander II, died an hour and a half later in the prison hospital, and the rest of the terrorists (Perovskaya, Zhelyabov, Kibalchich, Mikhailov, Rysakov) were hanged on April 3, 1881.

The “hunt” for Emperor Alexander II was over.

Mournful commemorative medal commemorating the death of Emperor Alexander II

This medal was awarded to persons who accompanied Emperor Alexander II during the assassination attempt on him on March 1, 1881, and to eyewitnesses who were wounded during the explosion. A total of 200 medals were issued.

134 years ago, Emperor Alexander II, honored in history with the epithet “Liberator,” died in the Winter Palace. The Tsar was known for carrying out large-scale reforms: he was able to lift the foreign economic blockade established after the Crimean War and abolish serfdom.

However, not everyone liked the transformations of Alexander II. The country experienced increasing corruption, police brutality, and an economy considered wasteful. By the end of the tsar's reign, protest sentiments spread among different strata of society, including the intelligentsia, part of the nobility and the army. Terrorists and Narodnaya Volya began the hunt for Alexander II. For 15 years he managed to escape, until March 1, 1881, his luck changed. Revolutionary Ignatius Grinevetsky threw a bomb at the Tsar’s feet. There was an explosion. The emperor died from his injuries.

On the day of the monarch’s death, the site recalled how terrorists hunted Alexander.

Retracted hand

The first attempt on the life of the emperor occurred on April 4, 1866. It was committed by Dmitry Karakozov, a member of the revolutionary society “Organization” headed by Nikolai Ishutin. He was convinced that the assassination of Alexander II could become an impetus for awakening the people to a social revolution in the country.

Pursuing his goal, Karakozov arrived in St. Petersburg in the spring of 1866. He settled in the Znamenskaya Hotel and began to wait for the right moment to commit a crime. On April 4, the Emperor, after a walk with his nephew, the Duke of Leuchtenberg and his niece, the Princess of Baden, sat in a carriage near the Summer Garden. Karakozov, huddled in the crowd, shot at Alexander II, but missed. At the moment of the shot, the terrorist’s hand was hit by the peasant Osip Komissarov. For this he was subsequently elevated to hereditary nobility and awarded a large number of awards. Karakozov was caught and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

On the eve of his assassination attempt on the Tsar, the terrorist distributed a proclamation “To fellow workers!” In it, the revolutionary explained the reasons for his action as follows: “It became sad, hard for me that... my beloved people were dying, and so I decided to destroy the villain king and die for my dear people. If my plan succeeds, I will die with the thought that by my death I brought benefit to my dear friend, the Russian peasant. But if I don’t succeed, I still believe that there will be people who will follow my path. I didn’t succeed, but they will succeed. For them, my death will be an example and will inspire them..."

In the case of the assassination attempt on the Tsar, 35 people were convicted, most of whom were sent to hard labor. Karakozov was hanged in September 1866 on the Smolensk field on Vasilievsky Island in St. Petersburg. The head of the “Organization” Nikolai Ishutin was also sentenced to hanging. They threw a noose around his neck and at that moment they announced a pardon. Ishutin could not stand it and subsequently went crazy.

Chapel at the site of the assassination attempt of Alexander II Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

A chapel was erected at the site of the assassination attempt on the Tsar. It was demolished during Soviet times - in 1930.

Killed horse

A significant attempt on the life of the Russian Emperor occurred in Paris in June 1867. They wanted to take revenge on Alexander II for the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863, after which 128 people were executed and another 800 were sent to hard labor.

On June 6, the Tsar was returning in an open carriage with children and Napoleon III after a military review at the hippodrome. In the area of ​​the Bois de Boulogne, Anton Berezovsky, a leader of the Polish national liberation movement, emerged from the crowd and fired several shots at Alexander II. The bullets were diverted from the Russian Tsar by an officer from the guard of the French Emperor, who hit the criminal in the hand just in time. As a result, the attacker only killed the horse with his shots.

Berezovsky did not expect that the pistol with which he was going to shoot Alexander II would explode in his hand. Thanks in part to this, the crowd apprehended the criminal. The leader of the Polish national liberation movement himself explained his action as follows: “I confess that I shot at the emperor today during his return from the review, two weeks ago I had the idea of ​​regicide, however, or rather, I have harbored this thought since then, how he began to recognize himself, having in mind the liberation of his homeland.”

In July, Berezovsky was exiled to New Caledonia, where he lived until his death.

Portrait of Tsar Alexander II in an overcoat and cap of a cavalry guard regiment around 1865. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Five inaccurate shots

The next high-profile attempt on the life of the tsar occurred 12 years after the Paris attack. On April 2, 1878, teacher and member of the “Land and Freedom” society Alexander Solovyov waylaid Alexander II during his morning walk in the vicinity of the Winter Palace. The attacker managed to fire five shots, despite the fact that before the last two volleys he received a serious blow to the back with a bare saber. Not a single bullet hit Alexander II.

Soloviev was detained. A very thorough investigation was carried out into his case. On it, the attacker stated: “The idea of ​​​​an attempt on the life of His Majesty arose in me after becoming 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 can enjoy the fruits of the people’s labor and all the benefits of civilization that are inaccessible to the majority.”

Solovyov was hanged on May 28, 1879 in the same place as Karakozov, after which he was buried on Goloday Island.

Exploded train

In the fall of the same year, members of the newly formed organization “People's Will” decided to blow up the train on which Alexander II was returning from Crimea. To do this, the first group of Narodnaya Volya members went to Odessa. One of the participants in the conspiracy, Mikhail Frolenko, got a job as a railway guard 14 km from the city. His new position made it possible to quietly lay a mine. But at the last moment the royal train changed its route.

The Narodnaya Volya were prepared for such a development of events. At the beginning of November 1879, revolutionary Alexander Zhelyabov was sent to Aleksandrovsk, who introduced himself there as Cheremisov. He bought a plot next to the railway under the pretext of building a tannery. Zhelyabov, who was working under cover of darkness, managed to drill a hole under the tracks and plant a bomb there. On November 18, when the train caught up with the Narodnaya Volya, he tried to detonate the mine, but the explosion did not happen because the electrical circuit had a malfunction.

“People's Will” formed a third group, led by Sofia Perovskaya, to carry out the assassination of the Tsar. She was supposed to plant a bomb on the tracks near Moscow. This group failed due to chance. The royal train followed two trains: the first carried luggage, and the second carried the emperor and his family. In Kharkov, due to a malfunction of the baggage train, the train of Alexander II was launched first. The terrorists ended up blowing up only the freight train. No one from the royal family was injured.

Dynamite under the dining room

Already by February 5, 1880, representatives of Narodnaya Volya prepared a new attempt on the life of Alexander II, who was despised for repressive measures, bad reforms and suppression of the democratic opposition.

Stepan Khalturin. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Sofya Perovskaya, who was responsible for the bombing of the royal train near Moscow, learned through her friends that the basements in the Winter Palace were being repaired. The premises to be worked on included a wine cellar, located exactly under the royal dining room. It was decided to plant the bomb here.

“Carpenter” Stepan Khalturin got a job in the palace and at night he dragged bags of dynamite to the right place. He was even once left alone with the king when he was renovating his office, but was unable to kill him, since the emperor was polite and courteous with the workers.

Perovskaya learned that the Tsar had a gala dinner scheduled for February 5th. At 18.20 it was decided to detonate dynamite, but this time Alexander II was not killed. The reception was delayed by half an hour due to the delay of the Prince of Hesse, who was also a member of the imperial family. The explosion caught the king not far from the security room. As a result, none of the high-ranking persons were injured, but 10 soldiers were killed and 80 wounded.

Bomb at your feet

Before the assassination attempt in March 1881, during which Alexander II was killed, the tsar was warned about the serious intentions of the Narodnaya Volya, but the emperor replied that he was under divine protection, which had already helped him survive several attacks.

Representatives of Narodnaya Volya planned to plant a bomb under the roadway on Malaya Sadovaya Street. If the mine had not worked, then four Narodnaya Volya members on the street would have thrown bombs at the emperor’s carriage. If Alexander II is still alive, Zhelyabov will have to kill the Tsar.

Attempt on the life of the king. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Many conspirators were exposed in anticipation of the assassination attempt. After the detention of Zhelyabov, the Narodnaya Volya decided to take decisive action.

On March 1, 1881, Alexander II went from the Winter Palace to the Manege, accompanied by a small guard. After the meeting, the Tsar went back through the Catherine Canal. This was not part of the plans of the conspirators, so it was hastily decided that four Narodnaya Volya members would stand along the canal, and after Sofia Perovskaya’s signal they would throw bombs at the carriage.

The first explosion did not affect the king, but the carriage stopped. Alexander II was not prudent and wanted to see the captured criminal. When the tsar approached Rysakov, who threw the first bomb, the Narodnaya Volya member Ignatius Grinevetsky, unnoticed by the guards, threw a second bomb at the tsar’s feet. There was an explosion. Blood flowed from the emperor's crushed legs. He wished to die in the Winter Palace, where he was taken.

Grinevetsky also received fatal injuries. Later, the main participants in the conspiracy, including Sofia Perovskaya, were detained. Members of Narodnaya Volya were hanged on April 3, 1881.

Emperor Alexander II on his deathbed. Photo by S. Levitsky. Photo: