A Alexander II entered Russian history as a conductor of large-scale reforms.
During his reign, he survived several assassination attempts and eventually died from the last of them. The gypsy told him six unsuccessful attempts and that he would die from the seventh and in red boots. The emperor's red boots always amused me, but that's exactly what happened... further about all the assassination attempts in detail and with links...

First attempt happened April 4, 1866- Dmitry Karakozov shot at the emperor, heading to his carriage at the gates of the Summer Garden, I wrote about this in detail

In tsarist times there was this joke:
"- Mama, who shot the Tsar?
- Nobleman.
- And what did they do with him?
- He was hanged, darling.
-Who saved the king?
- Peasant.
- And what did they do with him?
- He was made a nobleman..."

Just a year later May 25, 1867 happened second attempt- Polish emigrant Anton Berezovsky in France on the Longchamp field shot at the Russian emperor, when Alexander was returning from a military review in an open carriage, but missed and hit a horse. He committed the assassination attempt out of revenge for the suppression of the Polish uprising. Berezovsky was sentenced to eternal hard labor and exiled to Cayenne. In 1906 he was granted amnesty.

It should be noted that during the war with the Turks (after the victory in which Bulgaria became an independent state), the emperor was not afraid of death and was often on the front line among the troops, coming under fire. God kept him...

Third attempt happened April 2, 1879. The People's Volunteer Soloviev tried again against Alexander II. The emperor forbade the guards to protect themselves. And as a result, the terrorist simply ran and shot in the back of the emperor while he was walking around, and the emperor ran away from him, dodging... five shots in the back and not a single hit! I wrote in detail about this assassination attempt

Apparently the terrorists decided that they couldn’t take the emperor with a bullet. And after this assassination attempt they tried to blow him up.
Fourth attempt took place in winter, on the third verst of the Moscow-Kursk railway.

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 noblewoman Sofya Perovskaya, to carry out the assassination of the Tsar. She was supposed to plant a bomb on the tracks near Moscow.

December 1 (November 19), 1879 they successfully blew up the train. But an accident intervened - the royal train was traveling in two trains: the first was carrying luggage, and the second was carrying the emperor and his family. In Kharkov, due to a malfunction of the baggage train, the Alexander II train was launched first, which the terrorists mistook for a freight train and allowed through. As a result, the second freight train was blown up. No one from the royal family was injured. The monument to this “noblewoman” still stands in her homeland.

Fifth assassination attempt took place February 17 (5), 1880. At 6:30 p.m., in the basement of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Stepan Khalturin, a carpenter for the palace repair team, detonated a 32-kilogram dynamite bomb. The fact that many innocent people would die did not bother him.

The attempt was again unsuccessful. The explosion caused the vaults of the basement to collapse, destroying the guard room, in which 10 soldiers were killed and 44 were wounded.

In the royal dining room, under which the explosion took place, window panes flew out, a main wall collapsed, and the floor was damaged. At the time of the explosion, the sovereign and his august family were just approaching the dining room. Contrary to the routine, according to which the emperor and his family sat down for dinner at 18 o'clock, on this day there was a delay due to the arrival of the empress's brother. Being late for dinner turned out to be a saving grace for Alexander II and his family.

More details about this assassination attempt and the fate of the terrorist under the link -

Until March 1881 For years, attempts on the emperor's life ended in failure. The government and the gendarmerie wasted no time: they mobilized all their police and detective forces. "Narodnaya Volya" suffered heavy losses. All the forces of the organization were concentrated on one thing - to kill the emperor before the organization was destroyed. The Narodnaya Volya believed that the regicide would lead to a revolution and would be a signal for its beginning.

During this period, his wife died and he secretly married his common-law wife and his great love. The court did not recognize this marriage, but no one dared to openly oppose the will of the emperor.

Alexander II, whom they were hunting, felt doomed. One day he arrived at the House of Pre-trial Detention and spent several hours alone in an empty cell. He wanted to feel the state of a person imprisoned in solitary confinement, to understand the reasons for the hatred of the revolutionaries.

Sixth attempt“Narodnaya Volya” prepared especially carefully. March 13 (1), 1881 Princess Yuryevskaya, the second beloved former common-law wife of Alexander I, with whom he had already secretly married by that time (his wife had died), very much asked her husband not to go to the military withdrawal, to beware of possible assassination attempts. But, as he was leaving, he light-heartedly answered her that the fortune teller had predicted his death during the seventh attempt, and now, if it happens, it will only be the sixth.

But on this day, Alexander II was mortally wounded on the embankment of the Catherine Canal in St. Petersburg by a bomb thrown by the Narodnaya Volya member Grinevitsky. And the gypsy was not mistaken. The Emperor escaped death in time. He was not injured by the thrown bomb, but for some reason he went to talk to the terrorist, and then flew to the people affected by the explosion. And then they committed an assault on him seventh attempt- fatal! The bomb was thrown right at their feet. He had no chance to survive. I wrote about this assassination attempt in detail here -


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, a Pole by origin, stood out from the jubilant crowd and, when a carriage with emperors appeared nearby, he stood out twice at point-blank range 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 young man, who was quickly walking 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 following me like wild beast? 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 there was an explosion in Winter Palace. Through acquaintances, 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 Manege, 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 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 fresh air, the king 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. The motive for the assassination attempt was 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 completely 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 protected, he gives instructions to carry out police repressions against the most well-known organizations 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 Emperor 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 at the palace on the 18th, 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, saying modern language, time out in order to thoroughly prepare for the next attempt. After the explosion in Winter Alexander II began to rarely leave the palace, regularly going 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 worked tirelessly chemical sciences Kibalchich.

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. From last bit of 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, 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 also recoiled. The Tsar's son, Alexander III, who ascended the throne, completely abandoned all his father's liberal initiatives and returned the train. Russian Empire into the rut of absolute autocracy...

Alexander II ascended the throne in 1855. His reign remained in the memory of the people as a period of reforms that gave a powerful impetus development of Russia, in including the peasant reform, which sent into oblivion serfdom There was also an unrealized project (its implementation was prevented by the murder of the tsar) of the “Loris-Melikov constitution”, according to which the third estate of cities and zemstvos would have the right to participate in a deliberative meeting under the emperor, i.e. some restrictions on autocracy were introduced, etc.

Alexander II

But despite all the reforms of Tsar Alexander II, nicknamed the Liberator, they wanted to kill him like no other Russian monarch. 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 have offended the peasants".


Shot by Karakozov

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 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

The terrorist was detained; he turned out to be a Pole, Berezovsky. The motive for his actions was a 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, having in mind the liberation of my homeland.”

Terrorist Berezovsky

On July 15, as a result of the consideration of Berezovsky's case by a jury, he was sentenced to lifelong hard labor in New Caledonia (a large island of the same name and a group of small islands in the southwestern part of 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. Soloviev said: “The idea of ​​an attempt on His Majesty’s life arose after I became 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 not available to the majority.”.


Terrorist Soloviev

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

Fourth attempt

In 1879, the People's Will organization was created, which broke away from Land and Freedom. The main goal this organization was the murder of 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.


Crash of a baggage train after an explosion

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 baggage train was coming first - and they let it through, hoping that the next one would be 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.


Dining room of the Winter Palace after the explosion

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 later 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.) failures added 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 Ekaterininsky 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 Tsar Alexander II

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 by known 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... There I want to die...”

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.

This ended the “hunt” for the Tsar. This murder predetermined the conservative course of the next Tsar, Alexander III.

Why did they want to kill the emperor? After all, he abolished serfdom, receiving the name Liberator, and carried out many progressive reforms. So why was Alexander II persecuted for decades “like a wild beast” and, in the end, killed?

What went wrong?

Alexander II ascended the throne in 1855. Already the first steps of the sovereign (conclusion Parisian world, “dual alliance” with Germany) led to a “thaw” in the country. Subsequently, Alexander confirmed his authority as a transformer, and his reign was spoken of as a time of “great reforms.” Indeed, he abolished military settlements and serfdom, carried out financial, zemstvo, judicial, military reform, rebuilt local government, higher and secondary education. Nothing like this has ever been done before. Thus, the road was cleared for the development of capitalism in Russia, the boundaries of civil society and the rule of law were expanded. The Tsar and his like-minded people believed that this would be the beginning economic development country, but everything went completely wrong.

The main target is the emperor

Alexander II carried out many progressive reforms. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

At this time, national liberation uprisings began in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. One of them in May 1864 was brutally suppressed by Russian troops. An economic crisis also broke out in the country. By the way, a number of experts attribute this to the growth of corruption and massive abuses of officials. So, during construction railways huge funds from the budget went to support private companies. Contracts for supplying troops were given for bribes; as a result, the military received rotten cloth and rotten provisions. Alexander’s sympathy for Germany also played a negative role. He loved everything German so much that he ordered the Kaiser's officers to be rewarded St. George's crosses, which caused indignation in the army.

At the same time, Alexander actively annexed new territories to Russia, especially in Central Asia, but the meaning of these achievements was then unclear to society. For such a policy, he was sharply criticized by Saltykov-Shchedrin and other progressive figures. Moreover, widespread discontent grew in the country, including among the knowledgeable, enlightened layers. In the 60s, many protest groups appeared among the intelligentsia and workers. Entire “societies of popular reprisals” arose.

The secret organization “Land and Freedom,” headed by Herzen, Chernyshevsky and Obruchev, numbered at least 3 thousand people. In 1873-1874 hundreds educated people went to the village to propagate revolutionary ideas among the peasants. This movement was called “going to the people.” As a result, a wave of terrorism swept across Russia, where Emperor Alexander II became the main target.

There is a legend that in 1867 a Parisian gypsy told the Russian emperor: “Six times your life will be in the balance, but will not end, and on the seventh time death will overtake you.” Moreover, a sign of certain death for him will be a fair-haired woman with a white headscarf and a man in red boots. The prediction came true.

“I am for you, but you don’t understand!”

The first attempt on Alexander's life occurred on April 4, 1866. The Emperor and his nephews were walking in the Summer Garden. When the walk was over, and the king was already getting into the carriage, a shot was heard. The shooter turned out to be 25-year-old Dmitry Karakozov, recently expelled from Moscow University for unrest. Having waited for an opportune moment, the revolutionary got lost among the onlookers and fired almost point-blank. The king was saved by chance. The hatmaker Osip Komissarov, who happened to be next to Karakozov, instinctively hit him on the hand, and the bullet flew upward. The crowd almost tore Karakozov to pieces, and he shouted: “Fool! After all, I am for you, but you don’t understand!”

When the killer was brought to the emperor, Karakozov said: “Your Majesty, you offended the peasants.” The man was tried and hanged. For his courageous act, Osip Komissarov was “granted hereditary nobility” and an estate in the Poltava province.

The second time they wanted to kill the Russian Tsar was a year later - June 6, 1867. The Russian autocrat arrived on an official visit to France. When, after a military review, he was returning in an open carriage with children and Napoleon III, a young man stood out from the jubilant crowd and shot at Alexander twice. It was Pole Anton Berezovsky. He longed to take revenge on the Tsar for the suppression of the Polish uprising. Alexander was not injured this time either - one of the security officers pushed the criminal away, and the bullets hit the horse. Berezovsky was sent to lifelong hard labor in New Caledonia. After 40 years he was amnestied, but he remained in this distant land.

The third fatal day could have been April 4, 1879 for Alexander II. The king was walking in the vicinity of his palace when he suddenly noticed a young man quickly heading towards him. The stranger managed to shoot five times before he was captured by security. And again the lead flew past. The killer tried to swallow potassium cyanide, but the poison had no effect. It turned out that the attacker was teacher Alexander Solovyov. During the investigation, he stated that the idea of ​​the assassination arose “after becoming acquainted with the teachings of the Socialist Revolutionaries.”

At the trial he behaved calmly and explained in detail the reasons that led him to the murder. The court sentenced him to death by hanging.

Doesn't the bullet hit?

In the summer of 1879, the radical organization “People's Will” emerged. The terrorists who led it, together with Sofia Perovskaya, decide that the time of lone artisans has passed in attacking the Tsar. Moreover, as it turned out, the Tsar’s bullet does not kill. They refuse small arms and choose a more serious weapon - a mine. So it was decided to blow up the imperial train on the route between St. Petersburg and Crimea, where Alexander II vacationed every year.

Time “X” became November 19, 1879. The conspirators knew that the train with luggage was coming first, and the royal “letter” was coming second, and they blew it up. However, fate saved Alexander again. The freight locomotive suddenly broke down and the railway workers were the first to let through the “suites” with the emperor and his retinue... Then, standing in front of the torn cars, the king bitterly uttered the famous words: “What do they have against me, these unfortunates? Why are they chasing me like a wild animal?

And the Narodnaya Volya members were preparing a new blow. Perovskaya, the daughter of the Governor-General of St. Petersburg, learned that the basements in the Winter Palace were being renovated, including the rooms located directly under the royal dining room. Thus a daring idea was born. Stepan Khalturin, a peasant son and a member of the People's Will, got a job in the Winter Palace under the name of carpenter Batyshkov. He believed that the king should die at the hands of a representative of the people.

The terrorist acted simply: he brought dynamite to the palace in small packs and put it in his personal chest. Why the security or police didn’t look into it is a big question. When “about 3 poods” of explosives had accumulated, Khalturin planted a mine under the dining room where the crowned family was supposed to dine.

February 5th exploded with enormous force - and passed by again! The Emperor was 20 minutes late for dinner - he was meeting distinguished guests. As a result of the attack, nineteen soldiers were killed and another forty-eight were injured. Khalturin managed to escape.

We prepared for the next attempt for six months. The plan was developed by the same Sofya Perovskaya. Deadly bombs were to be thrown with a wave of her white scarf.

The prediction came true...

The revolutionaries figured out that every week the emperor went to the Mikhailovsky Manege to review his troops. There are only two ways from Zimny. The first is through the arch to Nevsky, along Malaya Sadovaya and to the Manege. Here the terrorists made a tunnel and mined the road.

The second led across the entire Palace Square, to the Pevchesky Bridge along the Catherine Canal and to the left. It was decided to deploy bomb throwers along this route. The shells, which easily fit into a box and exploded upon impact with the ground, were made by the talented chemist Nikolai Kibalchich.

The operation was scheduled for March 1 (13). Perovskaya was in charge of everything that was happening. Nikolai Rysakov was the first to throw the bomb. The explosion maimed and killed people nearby and damaged the carriage, but the king was alive. He came out and approached the terrorist. Then, perhaps in shock, he walked along the embankment, although the police chief asked him to return to the carriage. At this time, Ignatius Grinevitsky, unnoticed by anyone, stood at the iron bars with a second bomb. Perovskaya waved her handkerchief (the prediction came true!) and the terrorist threw a shell at the feet (here they are, red boots) of Alexander II. This turned out to be fatal for him. He died from multiple severe wounds on the same day.

Alexander II died on March 13. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

The organizers of the crime were tried and hanged on Semyonovsky Parade Ground (now Pionerskaya Square) in St. Petersburg on April 3, 1881. 26 years later, the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, one of the most beautiful in the city, was built at the site of the assassination attempt. It preserved a fragment of paving stones on which the mortally wounded emperor lay. Contrary to the expectations of the Narodnaya Volya members, the bloody action did not find support among the broad masses. There was no popular uprising. And soon Alexander III came and curtailed most of the liberal reforms.

“Your Majesty, you offended the peasants...”

On April 4, 1866, Alexander II was walking with his nephews in the Summer Garden. A large crowd of onlookers watched the emperor's promenade through the fence. When the walk ended, and Alexander II was getting into the carriage, a shot was heard. For the first time in Russian history, an attacker shot at the Tsar! The crowd almost tore the terrorist to pieces. "Fools! - he shouted, fighting back. “I’m doing this for you!” This was a member of the secret revolutionary organization Dmitry Karakozov. To the emperor’s question “why did you shoot at me?” he answered boldly: “Your Majesty, you offended the peasants!” However, it was the peasant, Osip Komissarov, who pushed the hapless killer's arm and saved the sovereign from certain death. Karakozov was executed, and in the Summer Garden, in memory of the salvation of Alexander II, a chapel was erected with the inscription on the pediment: “Do not touch My Anointed One.” In 1930, the victorious revolutionaries demolished the chapel.

“Meaning the liberation of the homeland”

On May 25, 1867, in Paris, Alexander II and the French Emperor Napoleon III were traveling in an open carriage. Suddenly a man jumped out of the enthusiastic crowd and shot twice at the Russian monarch. Past! The identity of the criminal was quickly established: the Pole Anton Berezovsky was trying to take revenge for the suppression of the Polish uprising by Russian troops in 1863. “Two weeks ago I had the idea of ​​regicide, however, I had this thought since I began to recognize myself, meaning liberation homeland,” the Pole explained confusingly during interrogation. A French jury sentenced Berezovsky to life in hard labor in New Caledonia.

Five bullets from teacher Solovyov

The next assassination attempt on the emperor occurred on April 14, 1879. While walking in the palace park, Alexander II drew attention to a young man quickly walking in his direction. The stranger managed to fire five bullets at the emperor (and where were the guards looking?!) until he was disarmed. It was only a miracle that saved Alexander II, who did not receive a scratch. Turned out to be a terrorist school teacher, and “part-time” - a member of the revolutionary organization “Land and Freedom” Alexander Solovyov. He was executed on the Smolensk field in front of a large crowd of people.

“Why are they chasing me like a wild animal?”

In the summer of 1879, an even more radical organization emerged from the depths of “Land and Freedom” - “People's Will”. From now on, in the hunt for the emperor there will be no place for the “handicraft” of individuals: professionals have taken up the matter. Remembering the failure of previous attempts, the Narodnaya Volya members abandoned small arms, choosing a more “reliable” means - a mine. They decided to blow up the imperial train on the route between St. Petersburg and Crimea, where Alexander II vacationed every year. The terrorists, led by Sofia Perovskaya, knew that a freight train with luggage was coming first, and Alexander II and his retinue were traveling in the second. But fate again saved the emperor: on November 19, 1879, the locomotive of the “truck” broke down, so Alexander II’s train went first. Not knowing about this, the terrorists let it through and blew up another train. “What do they have against me, these unfortunate people? - the emperor said sadly. “Why are they chasing me like a wild animal?”

"In the Lair of the Beast"

And the “unlucky ones” were preparing a new blow, deciding to blow up Alexander II in his own house. Sofya Perovskaya learned that the Winter Palace was renovating the basements, including the wine cellar, “successfully” located directly under the imperial dining room. And soon a new carpenter appeared in the palace - Narodnaya Volya member Stepan Khalturin. Taking advantage of the amazing carelessness of the guards, he carried dynamite into the cellar every day, hiding it among the building materials. On the evening of February 17, 1880, a gala dinner was planned in the palace in honor of the arrival of the Prince of Hesse in St. Petersburg. Khalturin set the bomb timer for 18.20. But chance intervened again: the prince’s train was half an hour late, dinner was postponed. The terrible explosion claimed the lives of 10 soldiers and injured another 80 people, but Alexander II remained unharmed. It was as if some mysterious force was taking death away from him.

"The honor of the party demands that the Tsar be killed"

Having recovered from the shock of the explosion in the Winter Palace, the authorities began mass arrests, and several terrorists were executed. After this, the head of Narodnaya Volya, Andrei Zhelyabov, said: “The honor of the party demands that the tsar be killed.” Alexander II was warned about a new assassination attempt, but the emperor calmly replied that he was under divine protection. On March 13, 1881, he was riding in a carriage with a small convoy of Cossacks along the embankment of the Catherine Canal in St. Petersburg. Suddenly one of the passers-by threw a package into the carriage. There was a deafening explosion. When the smoke cleared, the dead and wounded lay on the embankment. However, Alexander II cheated death again...

The hunt is over

...It was necessary to leave quickly, but the emperor got out of the carriage and headed towards the wounded. What was he thinking about at these moments? About the prediction of the Parisian gypsy? About the fact that he has now survived the sixth attempt, and the seventh will be the last? We will never know: a second terrorist ran up to the emperor and thundered new explosion. The prediction came true: the seventh attempt became fatal for the emperor... Alexander II died on the same day in his palace. "Narodnaya Volya" was defeated, its leaders were executed. The bloody and senseless hunt for the emperor ended in the death of all its participants.