Place: St. Petersburg, at the gates of the Summer Garden, from where Alexander II was heading to his carriage

Executor: D.V. Karakozov, a revolutionary terrorist, from small estate nobles

Exodus: the bullet flew over the emperor's head

Place: Paris, at the exit from the Hippodrome Longchamp (fr. Longchamp)

Executor: A.I. Berezovsky, leader of the Polish national liberation movement, terrorist, son of a poor gentry

Exodus: bullets hit the horse

Place: St. Petersburg, in the vicinity of the Winter Palace during the emperor's morning walk

Executor: A.K. Solovyov, a revolutionary populist, was born in the family of a collegiate registrar

Exodus: five shots from a revolver, all bullets missed the target

Place: a bomb explosion on a train en route from Kharkov occurred near Moscow

Executor: members of the People's Will movement

Exodus: there were no human casualties

Place: St. Petersburg, first floor of the Winter Palace

Executor: S.N. Khalturin, Russian worker, revolutionary terrorist, from a family of wealthy peasants

Exodus: the explosion killed 11 guards of the emperor, the ranks of the Life Guards of the Finnish Regiment, wounded 56 people

Place: St. Petersburg, turn from Inzhenernaya street to the embankment

Executor: N.I. Rysakov, Russian revolutionary, son of a sawmill manager

Exodus: more than 20 people were injured, a 14-year-old boy from a butcher shop was killed

The date: March 1, 1881

Place: St. Petersburg, embankment of the Catherine Canal

Executor: AND I. Grinevitsky, revolutionary, member of the underground revolutionary-terrorist organization Narodnaya Volya, from a noble family

Exodus: death of Alexander II

"His heart had an instinct for progress..."

"The name of Alexander II belongs to history; if his reign ended tomorrow, the beginning of liberation was still made by him, future generations will not forget this ...".

A.I. Herzen (1812-1870), writer, publicist

"This sovereign is the noblest person in the world, diligent in business, understanding them, and full of frankness and straightforwardness."

Adolphe Thiers (1797–1877), historian, President of France

“Not a single tsar after Peter moved Russia off the reactionary path of eastern despotism like Alexander II. I remember we were young together. What a brilliant epoch he would have brought into our national history, his dreams, I still cannot think of them without tears.

Whole evenings, when he was heir, we spent together. In our imagination, all of Russia was covered with schools, gymnasiums, and universities. Competent, free people in a liberated state! And then? He was spoiled by the court, which, like a bee's nest, gives honey to some and stings others."

Count D.A. Milyutin (1816-1912), field marshal, minister of war

"He was called upon to fulfill one of the most difficult tasks that an autocratic ruler can imagine: to renew to the very foundations the vast state entrusted to his administration, to abolish the centuries-old state order, established on slavery, and replace it with citizenship and freedom, to establish a court in a country that from century did not know what justice is, to reorganize the entire administration, to establish freedom of the press with unlimited power, everywhere to bring to life new forces and secure them legally, to put on its feet a oppressed and degraded society and give it the opportunity to move in the open. presents another example of such a revolution...".

B.N. Chicherin (1828-1904), historian, philosopher

"He differed from his immediate predecessors by his lack of inclination to play the tsar. Alexander II, as far as possible, remained himself both in everyday and weekend appeal. He did not want to seem better than he was, and often was better than he seemed ... When a difficult and a difficult matter that gave leisure for reflection, Alexander was seized by a viscous meditation, a suspicious imagination was awakened, drawing possible individual dangers ... But in moments of helplessness, Alexander II was rescued by the same lack of character that so harmed the entire course of his transformative activity: this fearful suspiciousness of his ... Suspiciousness became a source of determination."

IN. Klyuchevsky (1841-1911), historian

"Alexander II, as a great reformer, knew that Russia should stand on a par with other European states. He understood that she needed freedom, that Russia's freedom was vitally necessary ... For the first time, perhaps, in the entire thousand-year history of Russia, it became a value, this is the most important thing, and the one who brought it gave his life for it."

YES. Medvedev, prime minister

"I think of this unfortunate man, innocent and kind, who has just passed away as a result of a bloody crime. In a word, to free fifty million people and die like a hunted beast in their own capital - an irony of fate, predetermined from above. What a night for who will pick up the crown of Monomakh in a pool of blood!.. Look at this martyr! He was a great king and deserved a happier fate. He cannot be called a sage, but he had a noble, exalted soul. He loved his people and tried with all his might to help the humiliated and oppressed ... On the last day of his life, he worked on a reform that was supposed to direct Russia on the path of modern development - the introduction of a parliamentary system. And now the nihilists killed him! What a dangerous trade it is - a liberator!

Melchior de Vogüet (1848-1910) French writer and diplomat

Having taken the rank of autocrat of a great empire, Alexander II immediately became the target of a handful of professional hunters for kings. The seekers of "happiness for the people", who had gone through many years of schooling in Geneva and other most civilized centers of Europe, sentenced him to death.

Who commanded? Why? By what right?

KARAKOZOV. First call

What the king has, what the kennel has, one life. Everyone has their own job. Whatever it is, it must be done.

The Russian Empire lived under Alexander II for 26 years. At the height of the battle for Sevastopol and the Crimea, he took responsibility for Russia. A year later, he will end the Crimean War, agreeing to some losses. Not for a day doubting that they will have to be returned. Preferably with a profit.

But Crimea will not give up. He will sacrifice the navy, but the Crimea and Sevastopol will remain Russian.

And the fleet will slowly begin to create a new one. Not wooden on sails, but armored on steam engine traction. We must overcome backwardness. Sevastopol taught.

And officers must be trained professionally, and not by noble pedigree. And not like him: on the tenth day after his birth, he was appointed chief of the Life Guards of the Hussar Regiment, and on his seventh anniversary he was promoted to the rank of cornet.

Therefore, it will open the Military Engineering and Artillery Academy.

Publicly announce the abolition of serfdom and embark on an ambitious program of land reform.

Then to the reform of secondary education.

Will establish free schools for completely illiterate Russia.

And on April 6, 1866, the first bell will ring: Dmitry Karakozov's failed assassination attempt on Alexander II. The terrorist Karakozov was executed, 34 accomplices were sentenced to various terms of hard labor.

In the same year, when Karakozov missed, the Russian troops of General D. Romanovsky will cross the Syr Darya River and enter the Bukhara Khanate. And a year before that, Russian soldiers under the command of General M. Chernyaev would take the largest trade and political center of the Kokand Khanate - the city of Tashkent. The commander for this will receive a reprimand from the tsar and will be dismissed from the army, for Tashkent was arbitrarily captured.

And a year after the first assassination attempt, Alexander II will issue a decree on the formation of the Turkestan Governor-General. In 1882, already in the reign of Alexander III, Chernyaev was appointed Governor-General of Turkestan. This will actually complete the process of entry of the states of Central Asia into the Russian Empire.

DECABRISTS. First amnesty

To know that a terrorist system has been created in your country (and the military wing of Narodnaya Volya was just such an organization) and that its main goal is you, tsar, autocrat of the Russian Empire; to know that this system was created specifically for hunting you, the father of twelve children, a man in the very juice, overwhelmed by all human passions, to feel the pupil of a pointed revolver with the back of your head, to catch the movement of a hand to the jacket pocket of every man walking towards the royal carriage - to know and not be able to prevent...

That way you can go crazy.

But he had a job, hard, around the clock and with many unknowns. And in this work, mercy was in the first place. This is the personal specialization of the lords - to show mercy. Not mercy in general, but objectively and personally.

Including those who hunt you.

The first were the Decembrists, whom he granted amnesty. All who remained alive. He was not surprised when he was informed that some of them preferred Baikal to service and refused to return to St. Petersburg. And the choice of further life path left for everyone.

FIGNER. Last assassination attempt

What does it mean to do with the stroke of a pen what has been tabooed for centuries: to free the peasants, to give them freedom and land? But what about the earth-soul-owners-nobles? Who will keep them?

To do this in one fell swoop is to set fire to the fuse of a popular uprising worse than Pugachev's. Here, perhaps, everyone will unite against the king-father.

You have to think and think...

Just what will break out earlier - a peasant revolt or revolutionary bombers? In the Third Division, the best bloodhounds were knocked off their feet: the bombers are preparing tunnels, making bombs for him ...

On the calendar August 29, 1879. The execution was especially hurried by the great revolutionary Vera Figner. There were four of them, revolutionary sisters from a family of Kazan nobles, brilliantly brought up and educated, but only she became great - Vera Nikolaevna, who survived the last two Russian tsars, lived to see Stalin's socialism and did not fall into Yezhov's list of "enemies of the people". Although all her like-minded people in the 30s under Stalin, who were still alive, were subjected to repression. For Vera Figner, everything turned out the other way around: by decision of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, signed by V.V. Kuibyshev in 1926, she was awarded a lifetime personal pension. And she carefully received it until her death, when the Panfilov guards had already immortalized themselves in the battle with the Nazis near Moscow.

Inscrutable are the ways of those who have devoted their lives to the hunt for kings.

On March 1, 1881, Vera Nikolaevna writes: “When I went in to my place, to my friends, who still did not suspect anything, I could hardly say out of excitement that the tsar was killing me. I wept like the others: the heavy nightmare that had crushed young Russia before our eyes for ten years was interrupted, the horrors of prison and exile, violence and cruelty against hundreds and thousands of our like-minded people, the blood of our martyrs - THIS MINUTE REDATED EVERYTHING. from our shoulders; the reaction had to end in order to give way to the renewal of Russia.

On the night of February 28 to March 1, three bombers - Sukhanov, Kibalchich and Grachevsky - worked uninterruptedly on shells for 15 hours, so that by 8 in the morning everything was ready. The tunnel had been dug and was waiting.

Alexander II the liberator had no more than 6 hours to live. Because they, his subjects, otherwise patience will burst. As later, already in Soviet times, V. Figner wrote in his memoirs about those fateful days: “The personal security of one or another of us worried us. All our past and all our revolutionary future was at stake on this Saturday, the eve of March 1 : the past, in which there were six attempts on regicide and 21 executions, which we wanted to end, shake off, forget. And the future - bright and wide, which we thought to conquer for our generation. No nervous system could endure such a strong tension for a long time ".

The bright future of the generation - and the nervous itch of Vera Figner and her comrades, an intelligent girl from a Kazan noble family.

But everything went the opposite way: Alexander III began with a tougher reaction.

ALEXANDER III. Nut tightening

The whole history of the world is written with the blood of civil strife and revolutions: people are fighting for a place under the sun. Is it by definition that this unspent power must nest in power in order to elevate the one marked to the pinnacle of bliss? And to throw it out into oblivion? Is there really nothing more attractive in the sublunar world than power?

Apparently not.

What about poetry? What about art? What about medicine? And science is the mother of civilizations?..

Of course yes. But all this later. After wars and revolutions commanded by leaders. We measure time with the lives of pharaohs, kings, leaders. We give their names to epochs. The era of Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, Genghisides, Rurikovich, Romanovs, the Paris Commune ...

Perhaps Alexander II most of all of the Romanovs felt this spurring of time: in two generations, everything and everything will end. Others will come.

His death at the hands of terrorist conspirators served as a signal to tighten the screws in the country. His successor, Alexander III, began with the defeat of the "Narodnaya Volya", the execution and hard labor of the terrorists of the People's Will. But it was more revenge for the murder of his father than a sanitary purge of civil society from the infection of a custom-made revolution. Time has been lost. A spark ignited a flame - in 1883 the Marxist group "Emancipation of Labor" was formed in Geneva.

The new power formation was measured out for a period several times shorter than the royal one.

XXI CENTURY. Memory and lessons

Today, in free conversations, citizens are trying to draw parallels between the transformations of Alexander II and the current reforms. It is not correct. There are not only two centuries between us, two revolutions, two world wars plus perestroika, but also a scientific and technological revolution.

There are no parallels between the past and the future. There is only memory.

And there are historical lessons.

Of the 20 million peasants freed from serfdom, only a few could immediately pay for the land provided to them, while the vast majority came to the aid of the state. For many, this relief was not within their power. The redemption of all allotment lands of the former landlord peasants was to end in 1932! But on January 1, 1907, as part of the Stolypin agrarian reform, redemption payments were stopped: the Russian state treasury took over all the land debts of the freed peasants and paid them off. The land reform was a truly outstanding tsarist victory.

What does it have in common with the reform of the 90s of the XX century, which liquidated collective and state farms and left the peasants completely without land? What does the education reform of Alexander II have in common with the post-perestroika breakup of academic science started by officials? The common thing is that we do not want to learn from the victories of the past. But even less - on mistakes.

In 1988, M. Gorbachev repeated the mistake of Alexander II, ordering the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan - American troops immediately took their place. And the Russian tsar in October 1878 refused to help Afghanistan, a friendly southern neighbor, when he was at war with England - he withdrew his mission from Kabul. True, forcing the British in exchange to sign an agreement on maintaining the integrity of Afghanistan.

And maybe only with the Crimea we acted as wisely as Alexander II did in his time, returning the peninsula home without firing a shot...

A HIT TO A PORTRAIT

Order of military honor

In the Russian army of the time of Alexander II, military honor was placed above all else. When the emperor awarded the rank of Field Marshal to 74-year-old General M.S. Vorontsov for long service, the whole army knew what "length of service" was rated so highly. Being in the position of commander of the occupation corps in Paris, Vorontsov found out: Parisian restaurateurs billed Russian officers for one and a half million rubles. Despite the fact that, according to unwritten laws, the winners from time immemorial dined for free in the restaurants of the vanquished.

The general quietly paid the debts of his officers from his own funds and ordered no one to spread on this account.

They say that in 1867 a Parisian gypsy told the Russian Emperor Alexander II: “Six times your life will be in the balance, but it will not end, and in the seventh, death will overtake you.” The prediction came true...

“Your Majesty, you offended the peasants…”

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 got 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 a member of a secret revolutionary organization Dmitry Karakozov. To the emperor's question "why did you shoot me?" he boldly replied: "Your Majesty, you offended the peasants!". Nevertheless, it was the peasant, Osip Komissarov, who pushed the unlucky killer by the arm and saved the sovereign from certain death. They did not understand the "foolish" care of the revolutionaries. 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 motherland"

On May 25, 1867, in Paris, Alexander II and 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 perpetrator was quickly established: the Pole Anton Berezovsky tried to avenge the suppression of the Polish uprising by Russian troops in 1863. homeland, ”the Pole confusingly explained himself during interrogation. A French jury sentenced Berezovsky to life imprisonment in New Caledonia.

Five bullets teacher Solovyov

Another assassination attempt on the emperor took place on April 2, 1879. While walking in the palace park, Alexander II drew attention to a young man walking quickly in his direction. The stranger managed to fire five bullets at the emperor (and where did the guards look?!) until he was disarmed. Not otherwise than a miracle saved Alexander II, who did not receive a scratch. The terrorist turned out to be a school teacher, and "part-time" - a member of the revolutionary organization "Land and Freedom" Alexander Solovyov. He was executed on the Smolensk field with a large gathering of people.

"Why are they following me like a wild animal?"

In the summer of 1879, an even more radical organization, Narodnaya Volya, arose from the bowels of Zemlya i Volya. From now on, there will be no place for “handicraft” of singles in the hunt for the emperor: professionals have taken up the matter. Remembering the failure of previous assassination attempts, the Narodnaya Volya abandoned small arms, choosing a more “reliable” means - a mine. They decided to blow up the imperial train on the way between St. Petersburg and the Crimea, where Alexander II rested every year. The terrorists, led by Sofya Perovskaya, knew that the freight train with luggage was the first to go, 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 the train of Alexander II went first. Not knowing about it, the terrorists let it through and blew up another train. “What do they have against me, these unfortunates? the Emperor said sadly. “Why are they following me like a wild animal?”

"In the lair of the beast"

And the "unfortunate" were preparing a new blow, deciding to blow up Alexander II in his own house. Sofya Perovskaya learned that cellars were being repaired 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, a Narodnaya Volya member. 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 5, 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 claimed the lives of 10 soldiers, injured another 80 people, but Alexander II remained unharmed. As if some mysterious force averted death from him.

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

After recovering from the shock of the explosion in the Winter Palace, the authorities began mass arrests, several terrorists were executed. After that, the head of the "Narodnaya Volya" Andrey Zhelyabov said: "The honor of the party requires 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 1, 1881, he rode 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 bundle into the carriage. There was a deafening explosion. When the smoke cleared, the dead and wounded were lying on the embankment. However, Alexander II again deceived 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 that moment? 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 broke out. The prediction came true: the seventh attempt was 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.

Assassination attempts on Alexander II

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

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

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

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

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

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

Literature

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 to the development of Russia, including the peasant reform, which sent serfdom into oblivion. There was also an unrealized (its implementation was prevented by the assassination of the tsar) project " Loris-Melikov's constitution, "according to which the third estate of cities and zemstvos would have the right to participate in a deliberative assembly under the emperor, i.e. some restriction of autocracy was introduced, etc.

Alexander II

But despite all the reforms of Tsar Alexander II, nicknamed the Liberator, they wanted to kill him like none of the Russian monarchs. For what? The Emperor himself asked the same question: What do they have against me, these unfortunates? Why do they follow me like a wild animal? After all, I have always strived to do everything in my power for the good of the people!”

First assassination 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 got into the carriage after a walk. Suddenly, the shooter was pushed by a man who was nearby (later it turned out that it was a peasant O. Komissarov), and the bullet flew over the head of the emperor. 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’m for you, but you don’t understand! Karakozov was brought to the emperor, and he himself explained the motive for his act: "Your Majesty, you offended the peasants".

Shot by Karakozov

Second assassination 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, stepped out of the crowd, and when the carriage with the emperors caught up with him, he fired twice at point-blank range from a pistol at the Russian emperor. And here Alexander was saved by chance: one of Napoleon III's security officers pushed the shooter's hand away. The bullets hit the horse.

Second assassination attempt

The terrorist was detained, it turned out to be a Pole Berezovsky. His motive 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 been feeding this idea since I began to realize myself, meaning the liberation of my homeland.”

Terrorist Berezovsky

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

Third assassination attempt

April 2, 1879 Alexander Solovyov made a third attempt on the emperor. A. Solovyov was a member of the "Land and Freedom" society. He shot at the sovereign when he was on a walk near the Winter Palace. Solovyov quickly approached 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 simply had a poor command of weapons and had never used them before the assassination attempt.

At the trial, A. Solovyov said: “The idea of ​​an attempt on the life of His Majesty arose after my acquaintance with the teachings of the Socialist Revolutionaries. I belong to the Russian section of this party, which believes that the majority suffers so that the minority enjoy the fruits of the people's labor and all the benefits of civilization that are inaccessible to the majority..

Terrorist Solovyov

Solovyov, like Karakozov, was sentenced to death by hanging, which took place with a huge gathering of people.

Fourth assassination attempt

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

The collapse of the baggage train after the explosion

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

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

Fifth assassination attempt

Sofya Perovskaya, daughter of the St. Petersburg governor-general, learned that the Winter Palace was undergoing repairs to the cellars, 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 lined the walls of the wine cellar), he had to place the bags of dynamite handed over to him (2 pounds were prepared in total) among the building material. Sofya Perovskaya received information that on February 5, 1880, a dinner in honor of the Prince of Hesse would be held in the Winter Palace, at which the entire royal family would be present. The explosion was scheduled for 6 p.m. 20 min., but due to the delay of the prince's train, dinner was postponed. The explosion thundered - none of the highest persons were injured, but 10 soldiers of the guard were killed and 80 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 was 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 was not supposed to be 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, city management. Loris-Melikov pursued a so-called "flirtatious" policy: he softened censorship, allowed the publication of new printed organs. He met with their editors and hinted at the possibility of new reforms. And he convinced that terrorists and radical personalities interfered with their implementation.

The Loris-Melikov conversion project was approved. On March 4, it was to be discussed and approved. But on March 1, history took a different turn.

Sixth and seventh assassination attempts

One gets the impression that the people of 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.) failure gave excitement. They were preparing another attack. This time, the Stone Bridge on the Catherine's Canal was chosen, through which the emperor usually passed. The terrorists abandoned the original plan to blow up the bridge, and a new one arose - to lay a mine on Malaya Sadovaya. Perovskaya "noted that at the turn from the Mikhailovsky Theater to the Ekaterininsky Canal, the coachman was delaying the horses, and the carriage was moving almost at a pace." Here it was decided to strike. In case of failure, if the mine did not explode, it was envisaged to throw a bomb into the tsar's carriage, but if this did not work out, 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 the Narodnaya Volya members: first Mikhailov, and then Zhelyabov.

Assassination of Tsar Alexander II

Increased arrests meant that there was 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 in charge of Kibalchich, who made 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 Yemelyanov. They "from two opposite sides at both ends of Malaya Sadovaya had to throw their bombs." On March 1, bombs were handed over to them. "They were supposed to enter the Catherine Canal at a certain hour and appear in a certain order." On the night of March 1, Isaev laid a mine near Malaya Sadovaya. The terrorists decided to speed up the implementation of their plan. The emperor was warned of the danger that threatened him, but he replied that God was protecting him. On March 1, 1881, Alexander II left the Winter Palace for the Manege, was present at the setting of the guards, and returned to the Winter Palace through the Catherine Canal. This broke the plans of the Narodnaya Volya, Sofya Perovskaya urgently rebuilt the assassination plan. Grinevitsky, Emelyanov, Rysakov, Mikhailov stood along the embankment of the Ekaterinensky Canal and waited for the prearranged signal of Perovskaya (waving a handkerchief), according to which they were to throw bombs into the royal carriage. The plan worked out, but the emperor was not injured again. But he did not hastily leave the place of the assassination, but wanted to approach the wounded. The anarchist Prince Kropotkin wrote about this: “He felt that military dignity required to look at the wounded Circassians and say a few words to them.” And then Grinevitsky threw a second bomb at the feet of the tsar. The explosion threw Alexander II to the ground, blood poured from his crushed legs. The emperor whispered, “Take me to the palace… I want to die there…”

Grinevitsky, like Alexander II, died an hour and a half later in a 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 king. This murder predetermined the conservative course of the next king, Alexander III.

More assassination attempts were made on Alexander II than on any other Russian ruler. The Russian emperor found himself on the verge of death six times, as a Parisian gypsy once predicted to him.

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

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 got 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 a member of a secret revolutionary organization Dmitry Karakozov. To the emperor's question "why did you shoot me?" he boldly replied: "Your Majesty, you offended the peasants!". Nevertheless, it was the peasant, Osip Komissarov, who pushed the unlucky 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.

2. "Meaning the liberation of the motherland"

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 perpetrator was quickly established: the Pole Anton Berezovsky tried to avenge the suppression of the Polish uprising by Russian troops in 1863. homeland, ”the Pole confusingly explained himself during interrogation. A French jury sentenced Berezovsky to life imprisonment in New Caledonia.

3. Five bullets teacher Solovyov

Another assassination attempt on the emperor took place on April 14, 1879. While walking in the palace park, Alexander II drew attention to a young man walking quickly in his direction. The stranger managed to fire five bullets at the emperor (and where did the guards look?!) until he was disarmed. Not otherwise than a miracle saved Alexander II, who did not receive a scratch. The terrorist turned out to be a school teacher, and "part-time" - a member of the revolutionary organization "Land and Freedom" Alexander Solovyov. He was executed on the Smolensk field with a large gathering of people.

4. "Why are they following me like a wild animal?"

In the summer of 1879, an even more radical organization, Narodnaya Volya, arose from the bowels of Zemlya i Volya. From now on, there will be no place for “handicraft” of singles in the hunt for the emperor: professionals have taken up the matter. Remembering the failure of previous assassination attempts, the Narodnaya Volya abandoned small arms, choosing a more “reliable” means - a mine. They decided to blow up the imperial train on the way between St. Petersburg and the Crimea, where Alexander II rested every year. The terrorists, led by Sofya Perovskaya, knew that the freight train with luggage was the first to go, 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 the train of Alexander II went first. Not knowing about it, the terrorists let it through and blew up another train. “What do they have against me, these unfortunates? the Emperor said sadly. “Why are they following me like a wild animal?”

5. "In the lair of the beast"

And the "unfortunate" were preparing a new blow, deciding to blow up Alexander II in his own house. Sofya Perovskaya learned that cellars were being repaired 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, a Narodnaya Volya member. 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 claimed the lives of 10 soldiers, injured another 80 people, but Alexander II remained unharmed. As if some mysterious force averted death from him.

6. "The honor of the party demands that the tsar be killed"

After recovering from the shock of the explosion in the Winter Palace, the authorities began mass arrests, several terrorists were executed. After that, the head of the "Narodnaya Volya" Andrey Zhelyabov said: "The honor of the party requires 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 convoy of Cossacks along the embankment of the Catherine Canal in St. Petersburg. Suddenly, one of the passers-by threw a bundle into the carriage. There was a deafening explosion. When the smoke cleared, the dead and wounded were lying on the embankment. However, Alexander II again deceived 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 that moment?