Who shot Alexander 2 1866. About all the attempts on the life of Emperor Alexander II. Figner. the last attempt

Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ on Blood. Refined Russian style with a claim to repeat the famous St. Basil's Cathedral. But not everyone knows that this building is fraught with a memorial place of the death of Tsar Alexander II. The western dome inside the temple keeps a piece of history: the grating and part of the cobblestone pavement on which the autocrat died.

Why this ruler was awarded such a bitter "honor" - history is silent. He was not considered a despot like his grandfather and father. He was not weak and weak-willed, like his grandson and son. During his reign, serfdom was abolished and many reforms were prepared that were supposed to make life easier for the Russian people. Nevertheless, five attempts were made on Alexander II, before the bomb put an end to the life of the king on March 1, 1881.

After the first, unsuccessfully thrown bomb, the tsar managed to get out of the carriage and ask a question to the terrorist Nikolai Rusakov, when at the same time Ignatius Hryvnetsky threw the second one right at Alexander's feet. Falling, mortally wounded, with crushed legs, the tsar did not understand why "Narodnaya Volya" took his life. Near the autocrat lay about a dozen bodies.

What did the terrorists achieve by their act? After the assassination of the tsar, all reforms were canceled, and the decrees prepared by Alexander II were canceled. The main conspirators Sofya Perovskaya and Andrei Zhelyabov were executed on the block.

The world received another ghost - the executed student goes to the bridge across the canal and waves a handkerchief with openwork embroidery - giving a signal to throw a bomb.

First attempt

It was undertaken on April 4, 1866. Accompanied by his nephew and niece, the tsar walked in the Summer Garden at about 4 pm. It was a wonderful sunny day, the king with a cordial mood went to his carriage. And then a shot rang out. A man standing at the gate shot the king. Surely, this man would have killed him, but at the last moment someone from the crowd managed to hit the killer on the hand - the bullet flew past. The crowd almost tore the killer to pieces, but the police arrived just in time. The attacker Dmitry Karakozov went to prison.

The identity of the man who saved the life of his ruler was established. It turned out to be an unknown peasant, Osip Komissarov. The king granted him a title of nobility and supplied him with a large sum of money. Karakozov and Ishutin (the head of the organization) were executed. All members of the group were sent into exile.

The second attempt

The second attempt took place a little over a year later, on May 25, 1867. Anton Berezovsky, a member of the Polish liberation movement, was determined to kill the Russian tyrant Alexander II. The tsar was resting in Paris at this time.

Passing through the Park of Boulogne, Alexander II was in a carriage along with his heirs the Tsarevich and Vladimir Alexandrovich and the Emperor Napoleon.

The shot came from the direction of Napoleon Bonaparte, but only the equestrian's horse was wounded. The shooter was immediately captured and practically torn apart by the surrounding crowd. The reason for the unsuccessful shot was an exploded pistol in the hands of Berezovsky. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in New Caledonia, was pardoned in 1906, but did not leave his place of residence.

The third attempt

On April 2, 1979, Alexander II took a leisurely stroll along his palace. A man was rapidly approaching towards him, intuition helped the king quickly enough to dodge bullets. Of the five shots fired, none reached the target. The shooter turned out to be a member of the Earth and Freedom society, a teacher, the name of this fighter for justice was Alexander Solovyov. Executed at Smolensk Field at 10 am the next day.

The fourth attempt

On November 19, 1879, another attempt was made to kill Alexander II. This time, the attempt was made by members of the "Narodnaya Volya" group, which was a breakaway stem of the populist group "Land and Freedom".

The attempt was being prepared for a very long time, since the summer of 1879, a plan of action was being worked out and dynamite was being prepared to blow up one of the trains.

The plan was as follows. Having discovered that the railway line from Crimea to St. Petersburg has weak points, the terrorists decided to blow up the tsarist train. There were several ambushes: near the town of Alexandrovka, in the Rogozhsko-Simonovskaya outpost near Moscow and in Odessa. All work on the mining of communication lines in Odessa was carried out by a group of people: Nikolai Kibalchich, Vera Figner, M. Frolenko, N. Kolodkevich, T. Lebedeva. But the tsar did not want to go to Odessa on vacation and all work had to be stopped.

Near Moscow, at the Aleksandrovsk station, Andrey Zhelyabov was preparing the second version of the train crash. Placing a mine under the railroad bed, the terrorist took up a position by the road. A train appeared, but the mine did not work - the electrical contacts were faulty.

The conspirators had only one option left: Moscow. Sofia Perovskaya and Lev Gertman arrived in this city, the entire supply of dynamite was transferred to Moscow.

The digging to the communication lines was led from a house nearby, which was acquired by Sophia and Leo. The mine was laid on time. Then there was such a plan for the explosion: two rolling stock were to go from Kharkov to Moscow. The first was with things, the luggage of the royal persons and accompanying persons. In the second, with a gap of half an hour, the train of Alexander II was supposed to leave.

So fate decreed, but the baggage train turned out to be out of order and the train with Alexander set off first. The mine exploded under the second train, which contained luggage and servants.

Alexander was very upset by this incident:
“What do they have against me, these unfortunate ones? Why are they following me like a wild animal? After all, I have always tried to do everything in my power for the good of the people! "

The fifth attempt

Wine cellars were located under the royal dining room of the Winter Palace, which Sophia Perovskaya really liked. It was decided to plant a bomb in the ruler's palace. The preparation of the assassination attempt was entrusted to Stepan Khalturin, who got a job there as a facing. It was easy to hide dynamite under the building materials, which thus rushed into the territory of the Winter Palace.

Stepan more than once happened to be in the same office with the tsar, because it was there that he carried out the facing work. But he did not raise a hand to kill the courteous, kind and attentive Alexander.

In February, on the fifth of 1880, it was decided to blow up the dining room at 18.20, when the entire royal family would gather for dinner. But it so happened that the tsar was waiting for the reception of Duke Alexander of Hesse, the tsarina's brother. At the appointed hour, the duke could not arrive - the train broke down. Dinner was postponed until his arrival.

Khalturin could not know this. The explosion sounded at the appointed time, but the dining room was empty, only 8 soldiers were killed in the guardhouse and 5 people were wounded.

The king had only a year and one month before his death.

"Your Majesty, you have offended the peasants ..."

April 4, 1866 Alexander II walked with his nephews in the Summer Garden. A large crowd of onlookers watched the emperor's promenade through the fence. When the walk was over and Alexander II was getting into the carriage, a shot rang out. 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! ". It was Dmitry Karakozov, a member of a secret revolutionary organization. When the emperor asked "why did you shoot me?" he boldly replied: "Your Majesty, you have offended the peasants!" Nevertheless, it was the peasant, Osip Komissarov, who pushed the hapless killer by the 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 an 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 rode 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 tried to avenge the suppression of the Polish uprising by Russian troops in 1863. “Two weeks ago, the idea of \u200b\u200bregicide was born to me, however, I have been nourishing this idea since I began to realize myself, meaning liberation homeland, "the Pole confusedly explained during interrogation. A French jury sentenced Berezovsky to life in prison in New Caledonia.

Five bullets of teacher Solovyov

Another attempt on the emperor's life took place on April 14, 1879. Walking in the palace park, Alexander II drew attention to a young man walking quickly in his direction. The stranger managed to release five bullets at the emperor (and where were the guards looking ?!), until he was disarmed. Only a miracle saved Alexander II, who did not receive a scratch. The terrorist turned out to be a school teacher, and "in combination" - a member of the revolutionary organization "Land and Freedom" Alexander Solovyov. He was executed in the Smolensk field in front of a large crowd of people.

Why are they following me like a wild animal?

In the summer of 1879, an even more radical organization, Narodnaya Volya, emerged from the depths of Earth and Freedom. From now on, there will be no place for the "handicraft" of single individuals in the hunt for the emperor: professionals have taken up the task. Remembering the failure of the previous assassination attempts, the People's Will abandoned small arms, choosing a more "reliable" means - a mine. They decided to blow up the imperial train on the way between Petersburg and the Crimea, where Alexander II rested annually. The terrorists, led by Sophia Perovskaya, knew that a freight train with luggage was coming first, while Alexander II and his retinue were traveling in the second. But fate again saved the emperor: on November 19, 1879, the "truck" locomotive broke down, so the train of Alexander II went first. Unaware of this, the terrorists let him in and blew up another train. “What do they have against me, these unfortunate ones? the emperor said sadly. “Why are they following me like a wild animal?”

"In the den of the beast"

And the "unfortunate" were preparing a new blow, deciding to blow up Alexander II in his own house. Sophia Perovskaya learned that cellars were being renovated in the Winter Palace, including a wine cellar, "successfully" located right under the imperial dining room. And soon a new carpenter appeared in the palace - Stepan Khalturin from Narodnoye. Taking advantage of the amazing carelessness of the guards, he daily carried dynamite into the cellar, 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 at 18.20. But chance intervened again: the prince's train was half an hour late, dinner was postponed. A terrible explosion took the lives of 10 soldiers, wounded another 80 people, but Alexander II remained unharmed. As if some mysterious force was taking death away from him.

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

Having recovered from the shock after the explosion in the Winter Palace, the authorities began mass arrests, several terrorists were executed. After that, the head of the "Narodnaya Volya" Andrei Zhelyabov said: "The honor of the party demands that the tsar be killed." Alexander II was warned of a new assassination attempt, but the emperor calmly replied that he was under divine protection. On March 13, 1881, he rode in a carriage with a small escort 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 again cheated death ...

The hunt is over

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

AND lexander II went down in Russian history as a conduit for large-scale reforms.
During his reign, he survived several assassination attempts and eventually died from the last of them. The gypsy guessed six unsuccessful attempts on his life and the fact that he would die from the seventh and in red boots. The emperor's red boots were always amusing, but that is exactly what happened ... then about all the attempts in detail and with links ...

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

In tsarist times, there was such an anecdote:
"- Mamma, who shot the king?
- A nobleman.
- And what did they do to him?
- He was hanged, darling.
- And who saved the king?
- A peasant.
- And what did they do to him?
- He was made a nobleman ... "

Within a year, May 25, 1867 occurred second attempt - Polish emigrant Anton Berezovsky in France on the Longchans field shot at the Russian emperor, when Alexander was returning from a military inspection in an open carriage, but missed and hit the horse. He made an 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 amnestied.

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 occurred April 2, 1879... The People's Party member Soloviev again tried 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 during his walk along, and the emperor ran away from him dodging ... five shots in the back and not a single hit! I wrote in detail about this attempt

Apparently the terrorists decided that they would not take the emperor with a bullet. And after this attempt they tried to blow it up.
Fourth assassination attempt took place in winter, at the third verst of the Moscow-Kursk railway.

In early November 1879, revolutionary Alexander Zhelyabov was sent to Aleksandrovsk, who introduced himself there as Cheremisov. He bought a plot next to the railroad on the pretext of building a tannery. Zhelyabov, who worked 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, since the electrical circuit had a malfunction.

“Narodnaya Volya” formed a third group for the murder of the tsar, led by the noblewoman Sofya Perovskaya. 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 followed in two trains: the first carried luggage, and the second the emperor and his family. In Kharkiv, due to a luggage train malfunctioning, the first train was sent to Alexander II, which the terrorists mistook for a freight train and let it pass. As a result, the second freight train was blown up. None of the royal family was hurt. The monument to this "noblewoman" still stands in her homeland.

Fifth attempt took place 17 (5) February 1880... At 18:30 in the basement of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, the carpenter of the palace repair team, Stepan Khalturin, 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 collapsed the vaults of the basement, the guard room was destroyed, in which 10 soldiers were killed and 44 were injured.

In the royal dining room, under which an explosion was made, window panes flew out, the main wall collapsed, and the floor was damaged. At the time of the explosion, the sovereign and the august family were just approaching the dining room. Contrary to the order by which the emperor and his family sat down to dinner at 6 pm, there was a delay on that day due to the arrival of the empress's brother. Being late for dinner was a lifesaver for Alexander II and his family.

Details about this attempt and the fate of the terrorist under the link -

Till March 1881 years of assassination attempts on the emperor ended in failure. The government and the gendarmerie wasted no time: they mobilized all the police and detective forces. Narodnaya Volya suffered heavy losses. All the forces of the organization were focused on one thing - to have time to kill the emperor before the organization could be destroyed. The Narodnaya Volya believed that regicide would lead to revolution and would signal 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 openly dared to oppose the will of the emperor.

Alexander II, whom they hunted for, felt his doom. Once he arrived at the Pre-trial Detention House and spent several hours alone in an empty cell. He wanted to feel the state of a man imprisoned in solitary confinement, to understand the reasons for the hatred of the revolutionaries.

Sixth attempt Narodnaya Volya prepared especially carefully. 13 (1) March 1881princess 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 a divorce, to beware of possible attempts. But, as he left, he nonchalantly answered her that the fortune-teller had predicted his death at the seventh attempt, and now, if it did, it would be only 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 People's Will Grinevitsky. And the gypsy was not mistaken. The emperor escaped death in time. He was not hurt by the bomb, but for some reason he went to talk to the terrorist, and then he flew to the people who had been injured by the explosion. And then they committed seventh attempt - fatal! The bomb was thrown right at the feet. He had no chance to survive. I wrote about this attempt in detail here -

Two hundred years ago, on April 29 (April 17, old style), 1818, Emperor Alexander II was born. The fate of this monarch was tragic: on March 1, 1881, he was killed by Narodnaya Volya terrorists. And experts still have not come to a consensus on how many assassination attempts the Tsar-Liberator survived. The generally accepted version is six. But the historian Yekaterina Bautina believes that there were ten of them. It's just that not all of them are known.

DISSATISFACTION WITH PEASANT REFORM

Before talking about these attempts, let us ask ourselves a question: what caused the wave of terror that swept Russia in the sixties and seventies of the nineteenth century? After all, terrorists attempted not only on the emperor.

In February 1861 serfdom was abolished in Russia - perhaps the most important thing in the life of Alexander II.

The greatly delayed peasant reform is a compromise of various political forces, ”Roman Sokolov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent. - And neither the landowners nor the peasants were satisfied with its result. The latter, because they freed them without land, in fact, doomed them to poverty.

Serfs were granted personal freedom, and the landowners retained all the lands they owned, but were obliged to provide the peasants with land plots for use, - says the writer and historian Elena Prudnikova. - For the use of them, the peasants must continue to serve corvee or pay a quitrent until they buy out their land.

According to Roman Sokolov, dissatisfaction with the results of the reform has become one of the main causes of terrorism. However, a significant part of the terrorists were not peasants, but the so-called commoners.

Most peasants, speaking in modern language, adhered to traditional values, Sokolov said. - And the murder of the emperor that occurred on March 1, 1881 aroused their anger and indignation. Yes, Narodnaya Volya committed a terrible crime. But I must say this: unlike modern terrorists, none of them was looking for personal gain. They were blindly convinced that they were sacrificing themselves for the benefit of the people.

The Narodnaya Volya members did not have any political program; they naively believed that the assassination of the tsar would lead to revolutionary uprisings.

The emancipation of the peasants was not accompanied by political transformations, says Yuri Zhukov, Doctor of Historical Sciences. - At that time in Russia there were no political parties, democratic institutions, in particular, parliament. And therefore, terror remained the only form of political struggle.

"YOU HAVE OFFENED THE PEASANTS"

The first attempt on the Tsar's life took place on April 4, 1866 in the Summer Garden. Dmitry Karakozov, by the way, a peasant by origin, but who had already managed to learn and be expelled from the university, as well as to take part in one of the revolutionary organizations, decided to kill the tsar on his own. The sovereign got into the carriage with the guests - his relatives the Duke of Leuchtenberg and the Princess of Baden. Karakozov moved into the crowd and aimed his pistol. But the master, Osip Komissarov, who was standing next to the hat business, hit the terrorist on the hand. The shot went into milk. Karakozov was seized and would have been torn to pieces, but the police intercepted him, taking him away from the crowd, which the terrorist who was desperately fighting back shouted: “You fool! After all, I am for you, but you do not understand! " The sovereign approached the arrested terrorist, and he said: "Your Majesty, you have offended the peasants!"

ALL LIFE DREAMED TO KILL THE RUSSIAN TSAR

The next assassination attempt did not take long. On May 25, 1867, during the sovereign's visit to France, the Polish revolutionary Anton Berezovsky tried to kill him. After a walk through the Bois de Boulogne in the company of the French Emperor Napolein III, Russian Alexander II returned to Paris. Berezovsky jumped to the open wheelchair and fired. But one of the security officers managed to push the assailant, and the bullets hit the horse. After his arrest, Berezovsky said that all his adult life he dreamed of killing the Russian Tsar. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and sent to New Caledonia. He stayed there for forty years, then he was amnestied. But he did not return to Europe, preferring to live out his life at the end of the world.

The first militant revolutionary organization in Russia was Land and Freedom. On April 2, 1878, a member of this organization, Alexander Solovyov, carried out another attempt on the king's life. Alexander II was walking near the Winter Palace when a man came out to meet him, pulled out a revolver and began to shoot. From five meters he managed to shoot five (!) Times. And never hit. Some historians are of the opinion that Solovyov did not know how to shoot at all and took up arms for the first time in his life. When asked what prompted him to take this crazy step, he replied with a quote from the works of Karl Marx: "I believe that the majority suffers for the minority to enjoy the fruits of national labor and all the benefits of civilization that are inaccessible to the minority." Solovyov was hanged.

THE "PEOPLE'S WILL" TAKEN INTO THE CASE

Photo: KP archive. People's Will People Sofia Perovskaya and Andrey Zhelyabov in the Dock

On November 19, 1879, there was an attempt on the life of the People's Will organization, which had separated from the "Land and Freedom". On that day, the terrorist attempted to blow up the tsarist train, on which the monarch and his family were returning from the Crimea. A group led by Sofia Perovskaya, daughter of the actual state councilor and governor of St. Petersburg, planted a bomb under the rails near Moscow. The terrorists knew that the baggage train came first, and the sovereign followed the second. But for technical reasons, the passenger train was sent first. He drove safely, but jerked under the second train. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Note that all the activists of "Narodnaya Volya" were young and relatively educated people. And the engineer Nikolai Kibalchich, who designed and prepared the charges for the assassination of the sovereign, was even fond of the ideas of conquering space.

It was this youth who carried out two more assassination attempts on the emperor.

Sophia Perovskaya learned about the forthcoming renovation in the Winter Palace from her father. One of the Narodnaya Volya members - Stepan Khalturin - easily got a job as a carpenter in the royal residence. As he worked, he carried baskets and bales of explosives to the palace every day. I hid them among construction debris (!), Accumulated a charge of enormous power. However, one day he had the opportunity to distinguish himself before his comrades-in-arms and without an explosion: Khalturin was summoned to repair the tsar's office! The terrorist was left alone with the emperor. But he did not find the strength to kill the sovereign.

On February 5, 1880, the Prince of Hesse visited Russia. On this occasion, the emperor gave a dinner, which was to be attended by all members of the royal family. The train was late, Alexander II was waiting for his guest at the entrance to the Winter Palace. He appeared, they went up to the second floor together. At that moment, an explosion thundered: the floor swayed, plaster fell. Neither the sovereign nor the prince suffered. Ten and eighty soldiers of the guards - veterans of the Crimean War - died and were seriously wounded.

The last, alas, successful assassination attempt took place on the embankment of the Catherine Canal. A lot has been written about this tragedy, it makes no sense to repeat it. Let's just say that as a result of the assassination attempt, twenty people were injured and killed, including a fourteen-year-old boy.

SAID!

Emperor Alexander II: “What do they have against me, these unfortunates? Why are they following me like a wild animal? After all, I have always tried to do everything in my power for the good of the people? "

BTW

Leo Tolstoy asked not to execute murderers

After the assassination of Alexander II, the great writer Count Leo Tolstoy turned to the new emperor Alexander III with a letter in which he asked not to execute the criminals:

“Only one word of forgiveness and Christian love, spoken and fulfilled from the height of the throne, and the path of Christian reign, which you have to enter, can destroy the evil that sharpens Russia. Like wax from the face of fire, any revolutionary struggle will melt before the Tsar - a man who fulfills the law of Christ. "

INSTEAD OF AFTERWORD

On April 3, 1881, five participants in the assassination attempt on Alexander II were hanged on the parade ground of the Semyonovsky regiment. The correspondent of the German newspaper Kölnische Zeitung, who was present at the public execution, wrote: “Sophia Perovskaya shows amazing fortitude. Her cheeks even retain a pink color, and her face, invariably serious, without the slightest trace of anything feigned, is full of true courage and boundless selflessness. Her look is clear and calm; there is not even a shadow of drawing in it "

The assassination attempt on Alexander II

The Narodnaya Volya terrorists committed 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. Done by revolutionary terrorist Dmitry Karakozov. The idea of \u200b\u200bkilling the tsar was 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 stopped at a hotel and began to wait for a convenient moment to commit an assassination attempt on the tsar. An opportunity presented itself when the emperor, after a walk with his nephew the Duke of Leuchtenberg and his niece Princess of Baden, got into a carriage. Karakozov was not far away and having successfully wedged himself into the crowd, fired almost point-blank. Everything could have ended fatally for the emperor, if it were not for the master Osip Komissarov, who turned out to be a number of nodding cases, who instinctively hit Karakozov on the arm, as a result of which the bullet flew 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, resisting, shouted to the standing people: Fools! After all, I am for you, and you do not understand!When Karakozov was brought to the emperor and he asked if he was Russian, Karakozov answered in the affirmative and, after a pause, said: Your Majesty, you have offended the peasants.After that, Karakazov was searched and interrogated, after which he was sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress. Then a trial took place, which ruled 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 carried out 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 Bois de Boulogne region, a young man, of Pole origin, stood out from the jubilant crowd, and when a carriage with emperors appeared nearby, he twice point-blank fired a pistol at Alexander. It was possible to avoid hitting the emperor with the bullets fired only thanks to the courage of one of the security officers of Napoleon III, who noticed a man with a weapon in the crowd and pushed his hand away, causing the bullets to hit the horse. This time, the reason for the attempt was a desire to take revenge on the king for the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863. During the assassination attempt, Berezovsky's pistol exploded and injured his arm: this helped the crowd to instantly grab the terrorist. After his arrest, Berezovsky said: I confess that I shot the emperor today during his return from the inspection, two weeks ago the idea of \u200b\u200bregicide was born to me, however, or rather, I have been nourishing this thought since I began to realize myself, meaning the liberation of my homelandOn July 15, the trial of Berezovsky took place, the case was considered by a jury. The court ruled to send Berezovsky to life imprisonment 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 attempt was made by the teacher and member of the society "Land and Freedom" Alexander Solovyov. On April 2, the emperor took a walk near his palace. Suddenly he noticed a young man who was walking with a quick step in his direction. He managed to shoot five times, and then was captured by the tsarist guard, while not a single bullet hit the target: Alexander II managed to successfully evade them. During the trial, Solovyov stated: The idea of \u200b\u200ban attempt on the life of His Majesty came to me after getting acquainted with the teachings of the socialist revolutionaries. I belong to the Russian section of this party, which believes that the majority suffers for the minority to enjoy the fruits of the people's labor and all the benefits of civilization that are inaccessible to the majority.As a result, Solovyov was sentenced to death by hanging.

• November 19, 1879- an attempt to blow up the train on which the emperor and his family members were traveling. In the summer of 1879, the People's Will organization was created, which broke away from the populist "Land and Freedom". The main goal of the organization was the assassination of the king, who was accused of repressive measures, bad reforms and suppression of the democratic opposition. In order not to repeat the old mistakes, the members of the organization planned to kill the tsar in a new way: by blowing up the train on which the tsar and his family had to return from vacation in the Crimea. The first group operated near Odessa. Here Mikhail Frolenko, a member of the Narodnaya Volya, got a job as a railway watchman 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 Tsar's train changed its route, going through Aleksandrovsk. The Narodnaya Volya had provided for such an option, and therefore at the beginning of November 1879, Andrei Zhelyabov from Narodnaya Volya arrived in Aleksandrovsk, posing as a merchant Cheremisov. He bought a plot of land not far from the railway with the aim, ostensibly, to build a tannery here. Working at night, Zhelyabov drilled a hole under the railway and laid a mine there. On November 18, when the royal train appeared in the distance, Zhelyabov took up a position near the railway and, when the train caught up with him, tried to 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 on the third group, led by Sofia Perovskaya, whose task was to plant a bomb at the Rogozhsko-Simonovaya 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 tsar's train consisted of two trains: one of which was Alexander II, and the second was his luggage; the train with luggage is half an hour ahead of the train with the tsar. But fate kept the emperor: in Kharkov one of the luggage locomotives broke down and the tsar's train was launched first. The conspirators did not know about this and missed the first train, detonating a mine at the moment when the fourth car 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 ones? Why are they following me like a wild animal? After all, I have always tried to do everything in my power for the good of the people!After the failure of this assassination attempt, the People's Will began to develop a new plan.

• February 5, 1880an explosion was made in the Winter Palace. Through her acquaintances, Sophia Perovskaya learned that the basements were being renovated in the Winter Palace, which included the wine cellar, which was located right under the royal dining room and was a very convenient place for a bomb. The implementation of the plan was entrusted to the new People's Will, the peasant Stepan Khalturin. Having settled in the palace, the "carpenter" lined the walls of the wine cellar during the day, and at night he went to his colleagues, who handed him bags of dynamite. Explosives were skillfully disguised among building materials. During the work, Khalturin had a chance to kill the emperor, when he was repairing his office and was alone with the 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 in the palace on the 5th day, 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 be realized: 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 found Alexander II not far from the security room, which was located near the dining room. 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, it was completely dark, and an intolerable smell of gunpowder or dynamite spread in the air.None of the high-ranking officials were injured, but 10 soldiers from the Finnish guard regiment were killed and 80 wounded.

• March 1, 1881- the last attempt on Alexander II, which led to his death. Initially, the plans of the Narodnaya Volya were to lay mines in St. Petersburg under the Kamenny Bridge, which stretched across the Catherine Canal. However, they soon abandoned this idea and settled on another option - to lay a mine under the carriageway on Malaya Sadovaya. If the mine suddenly did not work, then four Narodnaya Volya members who were on the street should have thrown bombs into 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 in preparation for the operation: either a search was carried out in the "cheese shop" where the conspirators gathered, then the 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 pushed the conspirators to take action. After the arrest of Zhelyabov, the emperor was warned of 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 attempts. On March 1, 1881, Alexander II left the Winter Palace for the Manezh, accompanied by a rather small guard (in the face of a new assassination attempt). After attending the divorce of the guards and drinking tea with his cousin, the emperor set off back to the Winter Palace through the Catherine Canal. This turn of events completely ruined the plans of the conspirators. In the current emergency, Perovskaya, who headed the organization after Zhelyabov's arrest, hastily reworked the details of the operation. According to the new plan, four People's Will (Grinevitsky, Rysakov, Emelyanov, Mikhailov) took up positions along the embankment of the Catherine Canal and waited for a conditional signal (wave of the handkerchief) from Perovskaya, according to which they were to throw bombs into the tsar's carriage. When the tsar's motorcade drove to the embankment, Sophia gave a signal and Rysakov threw his bomb towards the tsar's carriage: there was a strong explosion, after that, having traveled some distance, the tsar's carriage stopped and the emperor was not injured again. But the further supposed favorable outcome for Alexander was spoiled by himself: instead of hastily leaving the place of the attempt, the king wished to see the captured criminal. When he approached Rysakov, Grinevitsky, unnoticed by the guards, threw a second bomb at the Tsar's feet. The blast wave threw Alexander II to the ground, blood was coming out of his shattered legs. The fallen emperor whispered: Take me to the palace ... There I want to die ...Then came the consequences for the conspirators: Grinevitsky died from the consequences of the explosion of his bomb in a prison hospital, moreover, almost simultaneously with his victim. Sophia Perovskaya, who was trying to go on the run, was caught by the police, and on April 3, 1881, she was hanged along with the main functionaries of Narodnaya Volya (Zhelyabov, Kibalchich, Mikhailov, Rysakov) on the Semyonovsky parade ground.

Literature

• Korneichuk D. The 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 KORNEYCHUK

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

On April 4, 1866, Alexander II went for a walk with his nephews to the Summer Garden. Having enjoyed the fresh air, the tsar was already getting into the carriage when a young man came out of 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 shooter at the tsar missed due to his inexperience in handling weapons, according to the other, the barrel of a pistol was pushed aside by a peasant standing next to him, and as a result the bullet flew near the head of Alexander II. Be that as it may, the assassin was seized, and he did not have time to fire the second shot.

The gunman turned out to be the nobleman Dmitry Karakozov, who had recently been expelled from Moscow University for participating in student riots. The motive for the assassination attempt, he called the deception of the king of his people the reform of 1861, in which, according to him, the rights of the peasants were only declared, but not implemented in reality. Karakozov was sentenced to death by hanging.

The assassination attempt sparked great excitement among members of moderate radical circles, worried about the reaction that might follow from the government. In particular, Herzen wrote: "The April 4th shot was not to our liking. We expected disasters 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, revises the size of the freedoms given to society; liberal-minded officials are being removed from power. Censorship is introduced, and reforms in the field of education are suspended. The reaction period begins.

But not only in Russia the sovereign was in danger. In June 1867, Alexander II arrived on an official visit to France. On June 6, after a military review at the Longchamp Hippodrome, he returned in an open carriage with his children and the French emperor Napoleon III. In the area of \u200b\u200bthe Bois de Boulogne, among the jubilant crowd, the appearance of the official procession was already awaited by a short black-haired man - Anton Berezovsky, a Pole by birth. When the royal carriage appeared nearby, he fired a pistol twice at Alexander II. Thanks to the bold actions of one of the security officers of Napoleon III, who spotted 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 attempt was a desire to take revenge on the king for the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863.

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

The new intensity of passions in society originates from the mid-70s. A new generation of young people is coming, with an even more intransigent attitude towards power than their predecessors. The populist organizations that preached the principle of spreading the word to the masses, faced with harsh repressions from the state, gradually transformed into clearly expressed revolutionary terrorist groups. Not being able to democratically influence the government of the country, they go on the warpath with representatives of the authorities. The assassinations of governor-generals and high-ranking police officers begin - all those with whom, in their opinion, autocracy is associated. But these are secondary pawns, ahead of the main goal, the basis of the very principle of the hated regime - Alexander II. The Russian empire is entering the era of terrorism.

On April 4, 1879, the sovereign was walking in the vicinity of his palace. Suddenly he noticed a young man walking briskly in his direction. The stranger managed to shoot five times before he was captured by the guards - and, lo and behold, Alexander II managed to evade the deadly messengers. On the spot, they found out that the attacker was the teacher Alexander Soloviev. During the investigation, he, not hiding his pride, said: “The idea of \u200b\u200ban attempt on the life of His Majesty came to me after getting acquainted with the teachings of the socialist revolutionaries. I belong to the Russian section of this party, which believes that the majority suffers for the minority to enjoy the fruits of the people's labor and all the benefits of civilization, inaccessible to the majority. " The verdict of the court is execution by hanging.

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

After analyzing the previous attempts to kill the tsar, the conspirators came to the conclusion that the most sure way would be to organize the explosion of the tsar's train when the emperor was returning from his vacation from the Crimea to St. Petersburg. In order to avoid accidents and surprises, three terrorist groups were created, the task of which was to lay mines on the route of the tsarist composition.

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

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

All hope remained with the third group, led by Sofia Perovskaya, whose task was to plant a bomb at the Rogozhsko-Simonov outpost, not far from Moscow. Here the work was complicated by the guarding of the outpost, which made it impossible to lay a mine on the railroad bed. 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: in one, Alexander II himself was traveling with his retinue, in the second - the royal luggage. Moreover, the train with luggage is half an hour ahead of the royal train. However, in Kharkov, one of the luggage locomotives broke down - and the tsar's train went first. Unaware of this circumstance, the terrorists missed the first train, detonating a mine under the fourth car of the second. Having learned that he had escaped death once again, Alexander II, according to eyewitnesses, sadly said: "What do they have against me, these unfortunates? Why do they persecute me like a wild beast? After all, I always tried to do everything in my forces, for the good of the people! "

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

Through her acquaintances, Perovskaya learned that basements were being repaired in the Winter Palace, in particular the wine cellar, located directly under the royal dining room, 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 Narodnaya Volya, who handed him packages of dynamite. Explosives were hiding among the building materials. Once Khalturin was instructed to carry out minor repairs in the emperor's office. Circumstances developed in such a way that he managed to be left alone with Alexander II. Among the tools of the "joiner" was a heavy hammer with a sharp end. It seems to be an ideal chance, simply, with one blow, to do what the People's Will so passionately aspired to ... However, Khalturin could not deliver this fatal blow. Perhaps, the reason should be looked for in the words of Olga Lyubatovich, who knew Khalturin well-known colleague: “Who would have thought that the same person, having met Alexander II one on one in his office ... would not dare to kill him from behind with just a hammer in his hands? ... Alexander II, the greatest criminal against the people, Khalturin involuntarily felt the charm of his kind, courteous treatment of workers. "

In February 1880, the same Perovskaya received information from her acquaintances at the court that a gala dinner was scheduled in 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, as expected, Alexander II should be in the dining room. And again the case 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, having moved the time of the gala dinner. The explosion found Alexander II near the security room located not far from the dining room. The Prince of Hesse described the incident in the following way: "The floor rose as if under the influence of an earthquake, the gas in the gallery went out, it was completely dark, and an intolerable smell of gunpowder or dynamite spread in the air." Neither the emperor nor any of his family members were hurt. The result of the next attempt was ten killed and eighty wounded soldiers from the Finnish regiment guarding Alexander II.

After the failed assassination attempt again, the People's Will took, in modern terms, a time-out in order to thoroughly prepare for the next attempt. After the explosion in the Winter Palace, Alexander II began to rarely leave the palace, regularly leaving only to change the guard in the Mikhailovsky arena. 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 Prospect and Malaya Sadovaya. Initially, at the initiative of Alexander Mikhailov, the option of mining the Stone Bridge, which stretched across the Catherine Canal, was considered. The demolitionists, led by Nikolai Kibalchich, examined the bridge supports, calculated the required amount of explosives. But after some hesitation, the explosion was abandoned there, since there was no one hundred percent guarantee of success.

We stopped at the second option - to lay a mine under the roadway on Malaya Sadovaya. If the mine for some reason would not have exploded (Zhelyabov remembered his bitter experience in Aleksandrovsk!), Then four Narodnaya Volya members on the street should have thrown bombs into the tsar's carriage. Well, if after that Alexander II is still alive, then Zhelyabov will jump into the carriage and stab the tsar with a dagger.

We immediately began to translate the idea into reality. Two members of Narodnaya Volya - Anna Yakimova and Yuri Bogdanovich - rented a basement room on Malaya Sadovaya, opening a cheese shop. For several weeks, Zhelyabov and his comrades have been digging a tunnel from the basement under the roadway. Everything is ready for laying a 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 had unforeseen problems. It all started with the fact that the "cheese shop", which was not visited at all by buyers, aroused the suspicions of the janitor of the neighboring house, who turned to the police. And although the inspectors did not find anything (admittedly, they did not really try to search!), 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 at 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 - Andrey Zhelyabov. It was the arrest of the latter that forced the terrorists to act without delay, setting the day of the attempt on March 1, 1881.

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

On March 1, 1881, Alexander II left the Winter Palace for the Manege. He was accompanied by seven guard Cossacks and three policemen, led by Chief of Police Adrian Dvorzhitsky, following the tsar's carriage in separate sleighs (not too many guards for a man expecting a new assassination attempt!). Having attended the divorce of the guards and drank tea from his cousin, the tsar set off back to Winter through ... the Catherine Canal.

This turn of events completely ruined all the plans of the conspirators. The mine on Sadovaya became a completely useless heap of dynamite. And in this situation, Perovskaya, who headed the organization after the arrest of Zhelyabov, hastily reworking the details of the operation. Four Narodnaya Volya members - Ignatiy Grinevitsky, Nikolai Rysakov, Alexey Emelyanov, Timofey Mikhailov - are taking positions along the embankment of the Catherine Canal and awaiting a conditional signal from Perovskaya, along which they are to throw bombs into the Tsar's carriage. That signal was to be the wave of her handkerchief.

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

On March 1, 1881, at 15:35, the imperial standard was lowered on the flagpole of the Winter Palace, informing 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 a prison hospital almost simultaneously with his victim. Perovskaya, who was trying to escape, was caught by the police and on April 3, 1881, she was hanged along with Zhelyabov, Kibalchich, Mikhailov, Rysakov on the Semenovsky parade ground.

The hopes of the People's Will to undermine the foundations of the monarchy by killing the tsar did not materialize. There were no popular uprisings, for the common people were alien to the ideas of "Narodnaya Volya", and the majority of the earlier sympathetic intelligentsia 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 ...