Sophia Perovskaya. The story of one killer - story in photos

Sophia’s childhood, like most children of Russian aristocrats, was cloudless. Surrounded by the care of her parents and governesses, she received an excellent home education, but the girl wanted more. She refused to enter the Smolny Institute, and went to the Alarcha women's courses at the men's gymnasium. The father’s attempts to guide his daughter “on the true path” did not yield results, Sophia from childhood had a strong will and was used to achieving her wishes.

In the courses, where the daughters of petty officials and petty bourgeois mainly studied, Sophia joined the ideas of Narodism and decided to devote her life to educating the common people and fighting for their better future. Naturally, the father was soon informed of his daughter's dubious acquaintances, but his attempts to somehow influence Sophia again proved unsuccessful. The girl just ran away from home, and when the police began to look for her, she left for Kiev. She returned home only after her father promised to give her a passport and allow her to live on her own.

Having passed all the exams for the gymnasium course, Sophia enrolled in pedagogical courses to become a national teacher. Around her again a circle of young people committed to the ideas of Narodism was formed. Despite her father’s high position, Sophia was on the list of “politically unreliable”, she was not even given a teacher’s diploma after completing the courses.

But this girl was not embarrassed, and she left for the Tver province to work as an assistant teacher in the village of Yedimenovo. In the spring of 1873, Sophia still achieved the coveted diploma and went to teach in Samara, and then in the Simbirsk province.

She quickly became disillusioned with the ideas of educating the peasants and returned to Petersburg, where she began to train workers and at the same time maintain a safe house in which classes of revolutionary circles took place. Already in January 1874, several St. Petersburg circles were defeated by the police. Sophia was arrested and ended up in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where she spent almost half a year.

Her father ensured that she was released on bail, but she was banned from teaching at school. In order not to depend on her parents, Sophia graduated from feldsher courses and went to work as a feldsher in Simferopol Zemstvo hospital, where she again started organizing revolutionary circles.

In 1877, a new arrest followed, and then a trial in the “trial of 193 people's volunteers”. The trial for Sophia went well; she was only sent to the Olonets province in an administrative link. But on the way, the girl ran away from the gendarmes accompanying her and switched to an illegal position.

The end of the 1870s brought great changes to the tactics of the revolutionary struggle in Russia, a transition from enlightenment to terrorist actions was clearly outlined. The final split occurred at the Voronezh Congress of Narodniks in 1879, where Sofia supported the part of the party that advocated individual terror as a method of political struggle. The girl, who had finally lost faith in the ideas of the Narodniks, sincerely believed that the killing of the tsar and several prominent dignitaries could lead the people to revolution, and that every execution of fighters against tsarism should be answered with acts of terror.

Perovskaya joined the Executive Committee of Narodnaya Volya and became an active participant in the preparation of a number of attempts. She was not embarrassed that, together with the “royal satraps”, innocent people died from bombs and shots of the people's avengers. But her main desire was the assassination of the emperor.

“It is enough to look at her portrait, at her high forehead and expression, in order to understand that her mind was thoughtful and serious, that she was superficially carried away not in her nature, that she would not argue, but if she expressed her opinion, she would defend his".

Sophia Perovskaya participated in the preparation of two attempts on Alexander II in 1879 and 1880. Then the emperor could not be killed. The following year, after the sudden arrest of Zhelyabov, she led a group of terrorists who committed the assassination of the emperor on March 1, 1881. At her signal (wave of a white handkerchief) I.I. Grinevitsky threw a bomb into the carriage of passing Alexander II.

Despite the compelling demands of her comrades, Perovskaya refused to leave Petersburg and began to prepare for the release of Zhelyabov, her former common-law husband. On March 10, she was arrested and, together with the other five participants in the assassination of the emperor, was put on trial.

Sofia Perovskaya did not understand that the murder of the emperor, who, despite the constant threat to his life, consistently carried out reforms that were extremely important for the country, was pointless and harmful to both the state and the revolutionary movement. And most importantly, it was extremely negatively perceived by the vast majority of the Russian population. This terror later will receive the tacit support of the liberal intelligentsia.

The court was quick, and the regicide did not have to wait for condescension. At the end of March, to the letter of Pobedonostsev with a request not to show pity for the criminals, Alexander III answered:

“Be calm, nobody will dare come to me with such offers; and that all six will be hanged, for which I vouch. "

All six defendants were sentenced to be hanged, but for the pregnant Gesi Gelfman, the execution of the sentence was postponed, she later died in prison. Sophia Perovskaya, along with other participants in the assassination of the emperor, was hanged on April 3 (New Style) in 1881 on the parade ground of the Semenovsky Regiment.

The case file has been preserved, which describes in detail the last hours of the life of the convicts and the execution procedure itself. Amazingly, even in the evening before the execution, Sophia was calm. Dry lines of the protocol:

“Today, April 3, at 9 a.m., state criminals will be executed by hanging: noblewoman Sofya Perovskaya, priest’s son Nikolai Kibalchich, tradesman Nikolai Rysakov, peasants Andrei Zhelyabov and Timofey Mikhailov. As for the criminal, Gelfman, her execution, in view of her pregnancy, is postponed by law until recovery. ”

The execution took place with a large gathering of people. The correspondent of the German newspaper Kolnische Zeitung, who was present at it, wrote:

“Sophia Perovskaya shows amazing strength of mind. Her cheeks retain even pink color, and her face, invariably serious, without the slightest trace of anything pretentious, is full of true courage and boundless selflessness. Her gaze is clear and calm; there is not even a shadow of drawing in it. ”

He described the execution itself as follows:

"I was present at a dozen executions in the East, but I have never seen such a fleece."

And it was repeated what once was during the execution of the Decembrists. Mikhailov twice fell off the gallows, and they could hang him only by putting two loops around his neck.

The execution of the “Pervartovartsevs”, which became the last public execution in the state, did not stop the development of terror in the country, which became a black page in the history of Russia. Perovskaya’s deed, of course, is not to be approved, but the courage with which she defended her, albeit erroneous, ideals and accepted death for them, is worthy of respect. Perhaps Lev Tolstoy was right in some way when he called Sophia Perovskaya “ideological Zhanna d’Ark”.

Sofya Lvovna Perovskaya is a Russian revolutionary, one of the leaders of the "Narodnaya Volya" who directly led the assassination of Alexander II and the first woman in Russia executed on political charges.

Sofia Perovskaya was born in St. Petersburg, in a noble family of the descendant of Count Razumovsky - Lev Nikolayevich Perovsky, an official of the Customs Department. From July 26, 1857 to August 2, 1859 he was in the position of Pskov Vice Governor. Therefore, the family moves to Pskov and settle in one of the best wooden houses of the time. Sophia Perovskaya spent two years of her childhood in the house of the merchant Kurbatov. The room on the mezzanine, large, with windows on the street, she shared with her sister.

I.K. Makarov. Portrait of Maria and Sophia Perovsky. 1859 year.

Near the house there was a garden fenced by a low wooden fence. In the garden there was a wooden bathhouse and a pond where crucians were raised. There the sisters walked and played with other children, among whom was the future prosecutor Sophia Perovskaya Nikolay Valerianovich Muravyov, the son of the then Pskov governor.

In 1859, her father became the Tauride vice-governor and the family moved to Simferopol. Despite the fact that the girl was brought up in a noble noble family, her views on life and the social structure of society early and very strongly came into conflict with the worldview and prejudices of her circle. In 1869, Perovskaya entered the Alarcha women's courses, which provided education in the volume of a male gymnasium, where she first became acquainted with revolutionary ideas. At the end of 1870, having reached the age of 17 years and having broken with his father, he left home. Sophia maintains a trusting and tender relationship with her mother and sister until the end of her days.

Sophia Perovskaya is fully committed to revolutionary activity. Consistently becoming a member of several populist circles, including the organizer, "went to the people", seeking to educate the people.

She began her career as an assistant to a teacher, then a teacher in the Tver province, then graduated from feldsher courses and worked in the Simferopol hospital, then in the Samara and Simbirsk provinces. She kept safe houses, conducted propaganda among the workers.

In January 1874 she was arrested for the first time during the rout of the populist circle of the "Tchaikovtsy", after a short detention in the Peter and Paul Fortress she was released on bail. In 1877, she was again arrested and tried in the “193s trial” for revolutionary propaganda, acquitted, but sent to an administrative exile in the Olonets province. On the way, she hid from the police and went into an illegal position.

As a member of Earth and Freedom, and already as a revolutionary organizer, Perovskaya participated in congresses of People’s Volunteers, and in the fall of 1879 she joined the Executive Committee of People’s Will.

This revolutionary organization considered terror the main method of political struggle. In their opinion, only the assassination of the emperor could force the government to change the social structure of society to a democratic one.

Sophia Perovskaya personally took part in two failed assassination attempts on Emperor Alexander II near Moscow and Odessa.

On March 1 (13th century), the assassination of Alexander II was successful. The training was led by Andrei Zhelyabov, but after his arrest on the eve of the planned terrorist attack, the group was headed by Sofia Perovskaya. She was a close friend, and then the civil wife of Zhelyabov.

The initial, carefully prepared plan of the Volunteers did not succeed, because the king changed his route. Perovskaya is decisively changing the strategy: four militants occupy positions on the embankment of the Catherine’s Canal. The first bomb is thrown by Nikolai Rysakov, and when, after the first explosion, Alexander climbed out of the damaged carriage, Ignatius Grinevitsky threw a mortal shell under his feet.

The arrest of Sofia Perovskaya took place ten days later. During this time, she could hide, but did not give up hope to free her comrades-in-arms.

March 26-29, 1881, at the meeting of the public, the case of regicide was considered. The prosecutor was a childhood acquaintance Nikolai Valerianovich Muravyov - a prosecutor with the Special Presence of the Governing Senate. After the death sentence imposed on the "Pervartovtsev" he becomes Minister of Justice.

Nikolay Valerianovich Muravyov

In her memoirs, a Russian revolutionary, a terrorist, a member of the People’s Will Executive Committee wrote: “By coincidence, her accuser in the Senate’s Special Presence in the case of March 1 was a person who was her childhood playmate in the past.

In Pskov, where Perovskaya used to live, the parents of Sofya Lvovna and her future prosecutor were colleagues and lived nearby, so the children constantly met (Muravyov himself told me this after my arrest). ”

In his speech, the accuser emphasized: “Perovskaya, the instigator and the main culprit ... But so that the woman becomes the head of the conspiracy, that she takes charge of all the details of the murder, so that she arranges the sweepers with cynical composure, draws up a plan and shows where they become so that a woman, having become the soul of a conspiracy, runs away to look at its consequences, becomes a few steps from the scene of the atrocity and admires the work of her hands - such an ordinary moral feeling refuses to understand such a role of a woman .

Sophia Perovskaya responded only to this passage in her last word, emphasizing that she agrees with all the charges, “but regarding the charge ... of immorality, cruelty and neglect of public opinion ... I allow myself to object and refer to the one who knows our life and the conditions under which we have to act will not throw us accusations of immorality or accusations of cruelty. ”

In notes from the courtroom, Secretary of State Egor Abramovich Peretz wrote: “The soul of the case is Zhelyabov and Perovskaya, and Kibalchich is a very smart and talented person .... She (Perovskaya) must have remarkable willpower and influence on others.”

Of the eight defendants, five were sentenced to death, including the 29-year-old Sofya Perovskaya.

The execution by hanging took place on April 3 (15th century) on April 1881 at the Semenovsky Platz in St. Petersburg. The bodies of the executed are buried secretly at the Preobrazhensky cemetery.

The house of Sofia Perovskaya in Pskov. st. Sovetskaya, 42

Alexander Blok. From the poem "Retribution"

The gathering is not eloquent

And every guest entering the door

Silent stare

It is examined like a beast.

Here's someone flushed with a cigarette:

Among others - a woman sits:

Big baby forehead not hidden

A simple and modest haircut,

Wide white collar

And the dress is black - everything is simple,

Thin, short

Blue-eyed children's face,

But, as if finding something beyond the distance,

Looks closely, point blank

And this sweet, gentle look

Burns with courage and sadness ...

Perovskaya was a member of the populist organization Earth and Freedom, and after its split, she became a member of the Executive Committee of Narodnaya Volya. She took an active part in the terrorist activities of the People’s Volunteers.

“On March 1, 1881, on Sunday, at three o’clock in the afternoon in St. Petersburg, on the embankment of the Catherine’s canal, against the garden of the Mikhailovsky Palace, the greatest crime was committed, the sovereign of which Emperor Alexander Nikolaevich fell victim to it.” So about the event, which literally shocked the Russian empire, was written in the indictment, which was announced in court by the prosecutor N. Muravyov.

During the process, he indignantly accused Sophia Perovskaya, who organized the assassination attempt on the emperor, of immorality and unprecedented cruelty, demanding, contrary to the customs existing at that time, to sentence her to death.

How was he right? Now in numerous publications devoted to Sofya Perovskaya, she appears either as a fanatical revolutionary, or as a weak woman, whom Andrei Zhelyabov subordinated to his will.

However, judging by the recollections of people who knew her well, if you follow her entire short life, it turns out that the prevailing cliches are not true.

Sofia Perovskaya was born in 1853 in St. Petersburg. Her father Lev Nikolaevich at that time served in a state bank, and, apparently, successfully, since three years later he was transferred to Pskov as vice-governor. His house in Pskov was located next to the house of Governor Muravyov, and therefore little Sonya Perovskaya often played with her peer, the future prosecutor Kolya Muravyev. Once they were crossing the deep pond on a ferry, and Kolya fell into the water. Sonya was the first to rush to his aid and helped get out of the water. Half a century later, her brother Vasily Perovsky wrote: “In general, no matter how much I recall, but I could never remember that Sonya would ever be afraid of anything or even be cowardly.”

In 1858, the former Taurian governor and mayor of Feodosia Nikolai Ivanovich Perovsky, who was Sofia's grandfather, died. Soon her father, having inherited, obtained a transfer to Simferopol for the post of vice-governor. Moving to the Crimea adversely affected relationships in the Perovsky family. According to contemporaries, Lev Nikolaevich was an honest and kind person, but with a weak character. Having retired after serving in the army, he married the sweet and modest girl Barbara Veselovskaya, who came from an impoverished noble family. He did not even think of a more profitable game. Of course, the Perovsky family was considered noble - the grandfather of Lev Nikolaevich was the native nephew of the morganatic husband of Empress Elizabeth Count Alexei Grigoryevich Razumovsky. However, in high society it was well known that, before making a dizzying career and becoming the spouse of the Empress, Alexei Grigoryevich was only a singer of the court church, and even earlier a shepherd. Therefore, among the Russian nobility, the attitude towards Perovsky was very dismissive. However, in Crimea, the vice-governor Lev Perovsky was supposed to participate in high-society receptions, which the St. Petersburg nobility arranged on their estates. The proximity to the cream of society then turned his head, he began to live in a big way, and on his wife and children to tear anger because of wasted years.

In 1861, thanks to new acquaintances, Lev Nikolayevich received the rank of full state adviser and was appointed governor of the St. Petersburg province, but five years later he was removed from this post in connection with the attempt of Dmitry Karakozov to emperor Alexander II. Family relationships have become even more tense. Those who knew Sophia Perovskaya at that time noted her gaze from below, similar to that of a hunted animal. Sophia’s relationship with her father was even more complicated after she refused to study at the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens and entered the female higher education courses organized to prepare for study at the university. Her friend recalled how Perovskaya once told her: “I would like to study psychiatry and be a psychiatrist, and I hope that I will succeed.” But these dreams were not destined to come true. After another scandal in the family, Sophia was forced to leave her father's house.

Usually it is this moment in the life of Sofia Perovskaya that is considered the beginning of her revolutionary activity, but this is not so. Left without a livelihood, Sophia decided to pass the exam and get qualified as a zemstvo teacher. She successfully passed the test, but did not receive a diploma. Apparently, her father prevented this. Nevertheless, Sophia left for the village of Edimonovo, Tver province, where for a year she worked as an assistant teacher at a public school. In Tver, she received a diploma and returned to Petersburg, where she began to teach workers to read and write. In January 1874, she was arrested.

The Code of Criminal and Correctional Sentences, in force at that time, read: “For delivering public speeches in which the inviolability of the rights of the supreme authority is intensified to be challenged or questioned, those responsible are deprived of all state rights and exiled to hard labor in factories for a period of four to six years. " Fortunately, she was released on bail by her father and, having promised him to forget about the teaching profession forever, she left for Crimea, where her mother had settled by then.

Sophia did not want to sit idle, and therefore, after completing the paramedic courses, N.P. Arendta got a job in the Simferopol Zemstvo hospital. She lived in the house of her brother Nikolai, who worked as a lawyer in Simferopol. Apparently, Sofia Perovskaya really liked the work in the hospital and the Crimea itself. She even changed outwardly. Her acquaintance noted in surprise: “The old incredulous look from below from somewhere completely disappeared, my eyes looked openly, good-naturedly. The face became softer, more feminine, lost its severity. "

So three years passed, and Sophia already began to think about realizing her dream and getting a medical education, but in August 1877 she was arrested and taken to St. Petersburg for the “about propaganda in the empire” demonstration process. 193 participants of the famous “going to the people” were brought to trial. During the judicial investigation, Sophia Perovskaya was acquitted, in May 1878 she returned to the Crimea. However, a few days later, in front of her mother, whom Sofya dearly loved, she was again arrested and sent to an administrative exile in the Olonets province (present Karelia). All the hopes of Sofia Perovskaya for a peaceful and happy life collapsed.

On the way to exile, she fled from the gendarmes accompanying her and soon joined the ranks of the revolutionaries. In the fall of 1879, Sophia was elected a member of the executive committee of the Narodnaya Volya organization. At the mention of this, a kind of ardent revolutionary is immediately presented, whose, as Alexander Blok wrote, “a sweet, gentle look burns with courage and sadness”. However, Perovskaya was not at all like that. Peter Kropotkin recalled: “We had wonderful companionship with all the women in the circle. But we all loved Sonya Perovskaya. When each of us saw her, her face blossomed into a broad smile. ” One of her revolutionary friends said: “The sense of duty was very strong in Perovskaya, but she was never a pedant; on the contrary, in her free time she loved to chat, and she laughed so loudly and contagiously, in a childish way that everyone around her felt fun. "

It is believed that Sofia Perovskaya took part in several attempts on the emperor Alexander II exclusively under the influence of Andrei Zhelyabov, who literally suppressed her will. The first person to express this version was Lev Tikhomirov, member of the People’s Will Executive Committee: “I finally lived to see Perovskaya in complete enslavement - at Zhelyabov. It was a woman: she fell in love with Zhelyabov with all her soul and became his slave. ” But Tikhomirov and Perovskaya had personal scores - he tried to drag after her, but she rejected him, calling her a womanizer. The most offensive was that she preferred Zhelyabov, whom Tikhomirov did not consider a person as a student at the Kerch real school, since he came from peasant households. Tikhomirov was a dishonest man in general - in 1888 he broke with the revolutionary movement, became a convinced monarchist, collaborated with the tsarist government, and after the revolution, referring to his merits, he asked the Bolsheviks for an extra ration.

As for Zhelyabov, for a long time he rejected the idea of \u200b\u200bterror against imperial dignitaries, defending the need for wide propaganda among the people. At the beginning of 1879 he said: "I will go to the Volga provinces and stand at the head of a peasant uprising, I feel enough strength in myself for such a task." However, Zhelyabov soon announced the need to create a combat organization, which surprised his associates, who were at a loss about what had happened. The answer to this question is obvious when you consider that just at that time Zhelyabov came close to Perovskaya.

Several attempts to attempt the life of Alexander II were unsuccessful. In the winter of 1881, an observation team operating under the leadership of Perovskaya found that on Sundays the emperor regularly leaves for the Mikhailovsky Manege. On this route it was decided to lay a mine, and if Alexander II remains alive, bomb it. With high probability, this attempt would also be unsuccessful, since Zhelyabov’s preparation for it was very bad, but the unexpected happened - on February 27, Andrei Zhelyabov was arrested.

Perovskaya took up the matter, who showed extraordinary organizational skills and rare composure. When it turned out that the tsar did not go on the usual route, all the participants in the attempt were about to curtail, but Perovskaya again placed them in combat positions.

With a wave of her handkerchief, she signaled the approach of the carriage of Alexander II. The first to drop a bomb under the tsar’s crew was Nikolai Rysakov, but the explosion that injured several people among the Cossacks accompanying the king and passers-by did not touch the emperor. Having got out of the broken carriage, the king went to the wounded. At this moment, the second terrorist, Ignatius Grinevitsky, threw a bomb under the feet of Alexander II. The emperor, as some witnesses claimed, died on the spot, and Grinevitsky a few hours later.

There are different opinions about whether Alexander II deserved such a fate. It is alleged, for example, that he went to sign the long-awaited constitution, but in reality the document prepared by the Minister Loris-Melikov did not provide for the formation of a parliament. “We are not talking about a constitution. There is no shadow, ”General Milyutin wrote with regret. In addition, Alexander II entered Russian history not only as a liberator, but also as a hanger. In 1879 alone, 16 executions took place for “belonging to a criminal community”, hundreds of citizens were sent to hard labor only for “possessing” revolutionary proclamations. Including the fate of Perovskaya was crippled. And women, as you know, cannot be offended, it is fraught with unpredictable consequences.

Sophia Perovskaya could leave St. Petersburg, but she did not give up hope to free her comrades-in-arms. Meanwhile, the tsarist investigators managed to split the 19-year-old Rysakov and get the names of revolutionaries who participated in the action from him. Soon Perovskaya was arrested. At the trial, she behaved with restraint, but with such composure and dignity that Secretary of State E. Peretts, observing her during the days of the trial, concluded: “She must possess remarkable willpower and influence on others.”

The execution took place on April 3, 1881. Together with Sofia Perovskaya A. Zhelyabov, N. Kibalchich, T. Mikhailov and N. Rysakov ascended the scaffold.

Before her death, Perovskaya wrote a letter to her mother: “I lived as my beliefs told me, but I was not able to act against them, so with a clear conscience I expect everything that’s coming to me ... You know that from childhood you were always my own constant and high love. Worrying about you has always been my biggest grief. I hope, my dear, that you will calm down, forgive at least part of all the grief that I cause you, and will not scold me much. Your reproach is the only painful for me. ”

The murder of the king - how could this fragile, pretty woman organize him? Strong character, ideology, unbending will - all these qualities were collected in it alone, and allowed to carry out the plan. Today Passion.ru talks about a woman whom Leo Tolstoy called the "ideological Jeanne D" Ark ".

... Sophia Perovskaya - this name, alas, causes far from lyrical associations. Its owner went down in history asrevolutionary organizer and participant in the assassination attempts on the sovereign. What emotional outbursts made her the first woman hanged on political business in the history of Russia?

SLAVE IDEAS AND LOVE

Aristocratic childhood

After classes in the gymnasium, which completely absorbed this serious student, I did not want to go home.

A tense and unfriendly atmosphere reigned in the rich and noble house of the St. Petersburg governor (and later - an employee of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) Lev Nikolayevich Perovsky.

It was not easy to withstand the steep temper of his father and husband to all family members. For two brothers and sisters, great moral support was the mother - Varvara Stepanovna, by nature a kind and sincere woman, the exact opposite of her husband.

She herself could not stand his rude character and often for a long time escaped from the house to the Crimean estate. Unfortunately, wealth and status did not make anyone happy in this aristocratic family.

The future “populist” was of noble birth: her great-great-grandfather was the last Little Russian hetman K. G. Razumovsky, and his grandfather served as the Crimean governor under Emperor Alexander I.

All the children in the Perovsky family received a good home education. Sophia, whose assertive character declared itself in childhood, seemed to him few, and the girl against the will of her father in 1869 entered the female course at the St. Petersburg male gymnasium. Here she breathed easier than in her native walls, her studies distracted from problems.

In the courses, she entered the circle of self-education, in which young girls imperceptibly carried away by the then popular ideas of populism. Sophia soon learned about Sophia’s visit to a dubious circle, demanding that she immediately break off relations with “dubious personalities.”

But to convince a stubborn daughter was impossible. Fascinated by new ideas, in 1871, Sophia already created her populist circle.

Series of arrests

A life full of dangers has captured the adventure hunter.In January 1874, Perovskaya was first arrested when the authorities defeated revolutionary circles.

She was punished with incomplete five months of imprisonment in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The term could be long, but the young revolutionary was taken on bail by his father. But, it seems, she even forgot to thank him for this ...

“In the summer I was released on bail and left for my mother, in the Crimea. Having lost the opportunity to continue to be a teacher, I began to study paramedic ", - so she wrote about that time.

After graduating from 4 year courses, Sophia was admitted to the Simferopol Zemstvo hospital, where she worked until the subpoena in August 1877. The trial of participants in “going to the people,” known in history as the “trial of the 193s,” sentenced Perovskaya to acquittal.

It seems that such a life did not frighten a girl obsessed with revolutionary ideas. She wanted to fight "for the happiness of the people", and otherwise did not represent herself.

Perovskaya even participated in the release from prison of convicted circle mates, joined the banned organization "Land and Freedom",on the instructions of which I went to organize the escape of prisoners from the Kharkov Central, which failed.

“A young girl with a light brown scythe and light gray eyes,” her contemporaries described. Ah, how deceitful is the appearance sometimes!

FATAL WAVE SHARP

Slave of love

The inner world of this young woman was hidden from others. It seemed to her that purely female interests were alien to her, all of her was aimed at fighting opponents of her political convictions.

But love conquers all hearts! Soon, fate brought her to the same ardent revolutionary - Andrey Zhelyabov. He was two years older, came from a family of serfs.

United by common goals in life, they are united in civil marriage and were probably a noticeable couple that attracted attention. Sophia never became the official wife of her beloved ..

Murder "for the happiness of the people"

The populists attempted the life of Alexander II four times, of which Perovskaya participated in three, including the last, successful.

Sophia was in a house in which, when the Tsar’s train approached, an electric current should be closed and an explosion followed.

The plan did not materialize - the explosion occurred after the train passed a dangerous place.

"Consciously going to the great cause of terror," Perovskaya participates in the second attempt, undertaken in Odessa in the spring of 1880. And again the sacrifice of the Narodniks will survive.

The following year, when A. Zhelyabov was under arrest, his faithful girlfriend led a group of terrorists who managed to kill the sovereign.

Waving a white handkerchief, she gave a signal to one of the conspirators to drop a bomb at the passing Alexander II. And this time, she managed to escape unnoticed from the scene of the tragedy.

Perovskaya was hiding, but did not leave Petersburg - she hoped to free her civil husband from the dungeons. In March 1881, on Nevsky Prospekt, she was accidentally met and recognized ... by childhood friend N. Muravyov, with whom they played fun games.

... Life did not last long - the trial of the participants in the murder of the Russian tsar decided on the execution scheduled for April 3.

In St. Petersburg, on the Semyonovsky parade ground, Perovskaya and Zhelyabov stood together and, like other conspirators, looked death in the face. Everyone was expected to be executed by hanging.

In anticipation of the verdict, the only woman among the convicted was held steady. According to eyewitnesses, it was she who died and fought the longest. Maybe one death for two gave strength?

Inna ININA

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SOFIA LVIV PEROVSKAYA

Revolutionary populist. Member of the organization "Earth and Freedom", since 1879 a member of the executive committee of the "People’s Will", organizer and participant in the assassination attempts against Alexander II. Hanged in Petersburg on April 3, 1881.

In the depths of Engineering Street, the royal train dusted with snow. The riders of the convoy were the first to jump to the corner. Following is the carriage. Behind her is a sleigh with guards. Sonya grabbed a handkerchief from the clutch and did not bring it to his face, but waved it like a flag. Now the train will turn onto the canal! .. Riding ... next - the carriage ... Now they are rushing along the promenade.

Between the horse and the carriage flashed a red hat Rysakov. Well! .. And a cannon shot rushed under the wheels, a cloud of smoke clouded everything around.

When the smoke cleared and a dull March day exposed what was happening, Sonya, as if in a dream, saw a broken carriage. There was a piercing silence for a second. Suddenly the door opened, and the sovereign descended down on black snow, and ranks from the guard rushed to him And together they went to Rysakov, who was tenaciously held by the soldiers.

Now the hope was only on Grinevitsky. But where is he? A lot of people ran from somewhere, they all went astray in a tight ring around the sovereign. Grinevitsky stood aside, clinging to the grate and holding his hands behind his back. And only she, Sonya, from her place on the other side of the canal could see that he was hiding behind her a white bundle, that same fatal bundle that Perovskaya herself had collected this morning as an Easter "gift" to the sovereign.

Alexander II, meanwhile, was returning to the sleigh. Will Grinevitsky decide? There was absolutely no time left ...

And he took a step. He looked up from the bars and, still holding his hands behind his back, took a step ... and yet ... slowly ...

They converged almost closely. And their hands flew up with a bomb! And it crashed, jerked, reared, closed it with a black caustic cloud. And that’s all ...

March 1, 1881 an explosion on the channel shocked the whole of Russia. Emperor Alexander II died a martyrdom. And for Sophia Perovskaya, the work of her whole life was accomplished, the work to which she gave so much strength. It was the seventh assassination attempt on the king, and, finally, it succeeded.

Studying the biography of Perovskaya, you are perplexed: what made this girl choose such an unusual way. She grew up in a wealthy family of the capital's governor, received the usual home-school education for the girl, and was a modest, unremarkable special. Perhaps alienation between parents affected? A father, a stern servant, was at home a little, he hardly dealt with children and had a heavy, suspicious disposition, bordering on tyranny.

Sonya began an independent life early, having quarreled with her father. At the age of sixteen, she entered the female courses at the gymnasium, where she blew on her with new winds of emancipation, nihilism and materialism. New friends appeared, romantic dreams of changing the world and contempt for the "fathers". And then there was a glorious summer, when parents left for a foreign fashion resort, leaving them alone with his brother. It was then that friends and comrades from the revolutionary circle of the "Tchaikovsky" appeared in their house.

On arrival, the father, having seen that the daughter had acquired suspicious acquaintances, tried to prevent her free life, but it was too late. Sonya left home. Of course, many in their youth rebel against the prevailing orders that seem unfair to them, many pass the time of protest. But how does a person become a convinced terrorist? How can killing be a lifelong affair? And especially for a woman ?! This phenomenon is difficult to explain, even attributing some of the reasons to a temporary situation.

There were many of them - women terrorists - some even became famous throughout Russia. Vera Zasulich, for example, personally shot General Trepov, and the court acquitted her, as she avenged the scolded honor of her comrade. But we decided to tell only about Sophia Perovskaya, because even among the male terrorists she was distinguished by rare tenacity and conviction. And also because humanly I want to understand this poor victim of political ranting, who so recklessly threw her life into the maelstrom of revolutionary ideas.

The circle of “Tchaikovtsy” became the first school of her illegal activities, but so far Sonya dreamed only about what many in their midst dreamed of — going to the people, educating men. Soon, however, the government began to carry out large-scale actions to identify and suppress the activities of revolutionary circles. Together with friends, Sonia got into the police network, she was in prison for a while, but then she was released before the trial. Four years there was an investigation into the famous "case of 193". Perovskaya was finally acquitted, but it was during the process that the girl was captured by revolutionary ideas. With tears in her eyes, she listened to the speeches of Peter Alekseev and ran with her friends to the house of pre-trial detention, expressing solidarity with those who languished in the cells.

To get the opportunity to freely visit the prison, Sonya called herself the bride of one of his friends, Tikhomirov.

SOFIA LVIV PEROVSKAYA

Then the thought was born - but should they really get married? After all, if Tikhomirov was sent to Siberia, then in this case she would be able to go with him and deal with the arrangement of shoots. Of course, there was no love between them, but for such a marriage it did not matter much. While Sonya was writing a letter to her mother, while together they came up with a plan for obtaining permission from her father, with whom Perovskaya did not communicate, Tikhomirov was convicted and sent to the Kuban to her parents. The need for a sacrificial marriage has disappeared.

On December 6, 1876, a large demonstration took place on Kazan Square. Here for the first time a banner was raised with the words “Earth and freedom” embroidered on it. This motto later became the name of the new organization, the active member of which was Perovskaya. A wave of political killings swept Russia. With sympathy, Sonya watched the battle between the lone killers and the state machine. Their organization threatened the most difficult - the physical destruction of the king. It is difficult today to understand the logic of people who have put their own lives at stake. What did they achieve? They wanted to plunge society into a state of fear? Seek secret power and dictate your will to the state? In any case, the terrorists were playing a dangerous game.

Alexander II was to return from the south. In this case, the killers thought of several options for the crime. Zhelyabov was preparing to blow up a train in Aleksandrov, and in case of failure several miles from Moscow, a group of revolutionaries dug a digging to put a mine in it. The owner of the apartment, where this deadly tunnel began in the underground, was Sofia Perovskaya. When you find out about the difficulties that accompanied the work of terrorists, you can’t get rid of the thought that adults have either gone crazy or played some ridiculous game. The pit was flooded with water, once a collapse occurred in a nearby barn, and the conspirators were close to being exposed. Only the ingenuity of Perovskaya, who came out with images to a crowd trying to enter the house, saved the situation.

The efforts were in vain. In Alexandrov, the electrical circuit that was supposed to power the bomb did not work. And near Moscow, accident prevented. The royal train was to go second after the retinue train, and it was allowed to go first. As always, in such cases, innocent people died, and the emperor only strengthened his confidence that he was guarded by the Lord God.

Perovskaya is hiding in a safe house in St. Petersburg, and the plan of a new attempt is ripening again.

But only now they are developing it together with their common-law husband Andrei Zhelyabov. Sonia, of course, passionately loved Zhelyabov, and in addition, they were united by a common goal.

The next year, Perovskaya goes to Odessa to prepare for the assassination of Alexander when he goes on another summer vacation. However, providence again saved the king. The empress suddenly dies, and the trip is canceled due to mourning in the highest family.

The assassination attempt of Khalturin, carried out right in the Winter Palace, also ended in failure. There was something to infuriate and believe in mysticism, although the terrorists, of course, professed materialism. The king really, as if spoken, miraculously avoided death.

But now they were captured by the excitement of a hunter, driving their game and tasting the blood. They could not stop.

The decisive attempt was prepared especially carefully. For many days Perovskaya personally studied the king’s routes, developed a plan of murder. In case of the first misfire, three more bombs were prepared, and if this, which was absolutely incredible, didn’t work, then Zhelyabov had to go to the emperor with a knife. But Perovskaya’s husband was arrested a few days before the assassination attempt, and then Sofia took over the organization of the terrorist act.

A few days after the assassination of Alexander II, Perovskaya was caught and identified. She was issued by accomplice Rysakov. The verdict in the case of Pervartovtsev was handed down by the prosecutor Nikolai Muravyov, a friend of Sony’s children's games. In Pskov they lived in neighboring houses and were friends of families, but now from her lips she heard the words: "... Put him to death by hanging ..."

In the prison yard, the convicts were put in two shameful, black chariots. On the first to the bench, with their backs to the coachman, Rysakov and Zhelyabov were tied. On the second - Perovskaya, Kibalchich, Mikhailov. All the way to the Semenovsky parade ground, they were accompanied by the insufferable, chilling drum roll. A continuous dark, motionless mass of people rumbled muffledly in the square. There were six gallows, one intended for Gesi Gelfman, who was pardoned as a result of her pregnancy. Those sentenced said goodbye to each other and to everyone.

Perovskaya ascended the third scaffold.

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