Assassination attempt on Alexander II

This was the first of numerous attempts on his life. They say that the fortune-teller predicted that the emperor would be on the verge of death several times, but that “a fair-haired woman with a white headscarf” would bring him death. And indeed, every time the case seemed to save the sovereign. During the assassination attempt in the Summer Garden, the peasant Osip Komissarov became a “case”. The hat maker Komissarov noticed that a young man was trying to get through the crowd and shoot at the emperor. The peasant took the criminal's hand away, and the bullet flew over the head of Alexander II. The shooter turned out to be Dmitry Karakozov, a former student of Kazan and Moscow universities, a member of the Ishutin circle.

Dmitry Karakozov. (Pinterest)

When the emperor asked him why Karakozov shot him, the Ishutin man replied: “You deceived the people: you promised them land, but didn’t give it.” The police took away both the shooter and the rescuer. Later, Osip Komissarov was elevated to hereditary nobles with the surname Komissarov-Kostroma (he was a native of the Kostroma province). Under Karakozov, his proclamation “To Friends-Workers!” Was found, in which the revolutionary explained the motives of his act: “It was sad, hard for me that ... my beloved people were dying, and so I decided to destroy the villainous tsar and die for my dear people myself . If I succeed in my plan, I will die with the thought that by my death I have benefited my dear friend, the Russian peasant. But if it doesn’t work, I still believe that there will be people who will follow my path. I failed, they will succeed. For them, my death will be an example and inspire them ... ".

Chapel at the site of the assassination attempt on the emperor. (Pinterest)

Karakozov claimed that he was a peasant son Alexei Petrov, but the investigators managed to find a torn letter to Nikolai Ishutin, a cousin, among the things of the criminal, and the identity of the terrorist was revealed. Ishutin, members of his secret society "Organization" and revolutionaries associated with him were arrested. The Ishutins promoted the ideas of utopian socialism, special influence work was done on them. They even organized a “Society for Mutual Assistance”, opened artels and workshops in which the artels themselves divided the profits, in the hope of instilling in the workers the idea of ​​collective property and collective labor. But the circle also had a conspiratorial side - the secret societies "Organization" and "Hell". The Ishutins believed that terror directed against the autocracy and those who could interfere with the plans of the revolutionaries could inspire the masses to a socialist revolution.

Trial of the Ishutins

197 people were arrested in the "Karakozov case". It became the first political cause after the judicial reform, therefore it combined pre-reform and post-reform features. For example, despite the fact that it had signs of competitiveness, the meetings were held behind closed doors and any publicity in the press was strictly prohibited by the decision of the emperor himself. The investigation was headed by Count Mikhail Muravyov. The emperor was very determined and even demanded that the case be considered in a court-martial, but after the assurances of the Minister of Justice Zamyatin that the criminals would be punished to the fullest extent and that they would face the death penalty, the tsar gave a sanction to the Supreme Criminal Court. Muravyov tried to bring as many of the accused under the death sentence as possible, and the investigation was conducted by the most stringent methods. It is authentically known that Karakozov was tortured by sleep deprivation, which is confirmed by Muravyov's squire: interrogations were conducted without a break for 12-15 hours, and at night Karakozov was woken up three times an hour. Karakozov explained his act by a nervous illness and reported that he acted independently and voluntarily, no one led him. However, this did not stop investigators. Other defendants were also tortured with interrogations, they put Ishutin on bread and water, and Ivan Khudyakov, who was arrested for ties with Ishutin, was threatened with torture and execution. In addition, the investigators used threats and deception (“Your comrades have already shown everything”) to extract confessions from the accused. One of them, Lapkin, confessed in court that he had been coerced by threats, so he took the blame for "what he was never guilty of."

Nikolay Ishutin. (Pinterest)

Of the nearly 200 arrested, the majority, due to lack of evidence, received only administrative punishments in the form of exile under police supervision. However, out of 36 defendants put on trial, a group of "suicide bombers" of 11 people was singled out. The court as a whole was ready to follow the executioner inclinations of Muravyov, but thanks to the chairman of the court, Gagarin, and the prosecutor, Zamyatin, who tried to follow the new judicial decrees, they managed to avoid unnecessary victims. As a result, only Ishutin and Karakozov were sentenced to death. The tsar was dissatisfied with the leniency of the court and even reproachfully said to Gagarin: "You have decreed such a sentence that you have left no place for my mercy."

By order of the king, the court tried to pass judgment on Karakozov as soon as possible on the eve of the arrival of the bride of the crown prince, the Danish princess Dagmara. The sentence was passed on August 31, and the execution was scheduled for September 3. By seven in the morning, crowds of onlookers gathered on the Smolensk field. Everyone wanted to see the failed regicide. “Women, girls, even children, and all this was in a hurry, fearing to be late, everything was in a hurry, and many straightened the mess of their toilet on the go, others finished breakfast on the street, started at home in haste. Some women had such curiosity that, probably, having no one to leave their babies, they carried them with them, ”they wrote in the press. Among the crowd was the famous artist Ilya Repin, who made a sketch of the terrorist before the execution. Karakozov was hanged in public.

Portrait of Karakozov. Sketch by Ilya Repin. (Pinterest)

After his execution, the Ishutins continued to be interrogated. Most of them received hard labor for 12, 20 years and without a term, one was exiled to Siberia, one was acquitted due to lack of evidence. Ishutin death penalty replaced with life imprisonment. Until 1868, he was kept in solitary confinement in the Shlisselburg Fortress, where he lost his mind. Later he was transferred to the Nizhnekariya hard labor prison, where he died in 1879.

Maria Alekseevna Ishutina (Karakozova) [Ishutins]

Events

OK. October 24, 1840? baptism: Zhmakino, Serdobsky Uyezd, Saratov Governorate, Russian Empire

Notes

Karakozov Dmitry Vladimirovich (October 23 (November 4), 1840, the village of Zhmakino, Serdobsky district, Saratov province, now Penza region, - 3 (15). September 1866, St. Petersburg) - participant of the Russian revolutionary movement, was a member of a secret revolutionary society in Moscow. He graduated from the 1st Penza Men's Gymnasium in 1860, then studied at Kazan (since 1861) and Moscow (since 1864) universities. At the beginning of 1866 he belonged to the revolutionary center of the Ishutinsk circle, founded in Moscow in 1863 by his cousin N. A. Ishutin. In the spring of 1866 he arrived in St. Petersburg to carry out an assassination attempt on the tsar. He distributed a handwritten proclamation written by him "To Friends-Workers", in which he called on the people to revolution. April 4, 1866 shot at the Emperor Alexander II at the gates of the Summer Garden in St. Petersburg, but missed. He was arrested and imprisoned in Alexander Ravelin Peter and Paul Fortress. According to the official version, the reason for Karakozov's miss was that his hand was pushed by the peasant Osip Komissarov, who was given the nobility and the surname of Komissarov-Kostromsky. He was sentenced to death by hanging by the Supreme Criminal Court. Executed on the Smolensk field in St. Petersburg.

played a decisive role in the fate of the family younger son Vladimir Ivanovich DMITRY VLADIMIROVICH KARAKOZOV (1840 - 1866).

Until April 4, 1866, Dmitry's biography was extremely poor in events. Like his older brothers, Dmitry studied at the First Penza Men's Gymnasium. His teacher of mathematics was Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov. In 1860, after graduating from high school, he entered the law faculty of Kazan University. But a year later he was expelled by order of the police and expelled from Kazan. For about a year he served as a clerk at the justice of the peace of the Serdobsky district. He was admitted back to Kazan University in 1863 and dismissed from it in 1864 "to be transferred to Moscow University", from where he was expelled in the summer of 1865 for non-payment of tuition.

On April 4, 1866, at four in the afternoon, Emperor Alexander II, after a usual walk in the Summer Garden, accompanied by his nephew, Duke Nicholas of Leuchtenberg, and his niece, Princess Maria of Baden, got into a carriage when Unknown person shot him with a pistol. At that moment, the peasant Osip Komissarov, who was standing in the crowd, hit the killer on the arm, and the bullet flew past. The offender was detained on the spot and, by order of the emperor, was taken to the III department.

The sovereign himself went straight from the Summer Garden to the Kazan Cathedral - to thank God for deliverance from the danger that threatened him, and Duke Nikolai and Princess Maria hurried to the meeting of the State Council to warn Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich, who presided over the Council, about what had happened. When the Emperor returned to Winter Palace, then all the members of the State Council were already waiting for him to offer congratulations. Embracing the empress and the august children, the emperor and his family again went to the Kazan Cathedral, where a thanksgiving service was served in front of the miraculous icon of the Mother of God.

The next day, at 10 o'clock in the morning, the emperor accepted the congratulations of the Senate, who appeared at the Winter Palace in in full force, with the Minister of Justice at the head. “Thank you, gentlemen,” he said to the senators, “thank you for your loyal feelings. They make me happy. I have always been sure of them. I only regret that we had the opportunity to express them on such a sad event. that he is who he claims to be. The most regrettable thing is that he is Russian."

The one who shot at the sovereign was expelled for participating in the riots from the number of students, first at Kazan and then at Moscow universities, by a nobleman of the Saratov province Dmitry Karakozov. The discovery of the causes that caused the crime and the identification of its accomplices was entrusted to a special commission of inquiry, the chairman of which was Count M.N. Muraviev.

Karakozov at first hid his last name and introduced himself as the peasant Petrov. On April 5, the chief of the gendarmes, Prince Dolgorukov, wrote in a report to the tsar: "All means will be used to reveal the truth." It sounded ominous. The next day, Dolgorukov informed the tsar that the arrested man "was interrogated all day long, not giving him rest - the priest hung him for several hours." A day later, the same Dolgorukov reported: “From the attached note, Your Majesty deigns to see what was done by the main investigating commission during the second half of the day. Despite this, the criminal still does not announce his real name and asks me to give him rest so that to-morrow to write his explanations. Although he is really exhausted, he still needs to be exhausted in order to see if he still dares to be frank today.

Kropotkin, in Notes of a Revolutionary, related the story he heard in the fortress of the gendarme who guarded Karakozov in the cell: two guards were constantly with the prisoner, changing every two hours. By order of the authorities, they did not allow Karakozov to fall asleep. As soon as he, sitting on a stool, began to doze, the gendarmes shook him by the shoulders.

The nobleman's attempt on the tsar seemed so unthinkable that in the first days after the arrest, the topic of Dmitry Karakozov's mental illness was widely discussed.

The investigation established that Karakozov belonged to a Moscow secret circle led by his cousin Ishutin, which consisted mainly of young students, university volunteers, students of the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy and pupils of others. educational institutions; that this circle had the ultimate goal of carrying out a coup d'état by force; that the means for this was to serve him as a rapprochement with the people, teaching them to read and write, establishing workshops, artels and other similar associations for the dissemination of socialist teachings among the common people. It was also established that the members of the Moscow circle had connections with like-minded people in St. Petersburg, with exiled Poles and with Russian immigrants abroad.

The investigation revealed, moreover, the unsatisfactory state of most educational institutions, higher and secondary, the unreliability of teachers, the spirit of disobedience and self-will of students and even high school students, who were fond of the teachings of unbelief and materialism, on the one hand, and the most extreme socialism, on the other, openly preached in magazines of the so-called advanced direction.

The sessions of the Supreme Court, to which Karakozov was devoted, all took place in the same Peter and Paul Fortress, where the Decembrists and Petrashevists were tried. Alexander II wished that the process be completed as soon as possible. Persons whose merciless cruelty were known in advance were introduced into the composition of the court. The chairman of the court was Prince Gagarin.

His not at all impassive judicial mood spilled out at the very beginning of the trial, when he told the secretary of the court that he would address Karakozov as "you", since "such a villain does not have the opportunity to say" you ". However, the secretary managed to convince him to address the defendant to "you".

During the trial itself, the desire of the king to expedite the end of the process was brought to the attention of the chairman. "If the execution of Karakozov is not carried out before August 26, then the Sovereign Emperor does not like it to take place between August 26 (the day of the coronation) and August 30 (the day of his namesake)." That was the verdict. He was taken out. Its adoption was preceded by a private meeting of the members of the court at the chairman's apartment, where it was decided to execute Karakozov alone. Member of the court Panin agreed with this very reluctantly, saying that, "of course, it is better to execute two than one, and three is better than two."

Karakozov, completely broken by the investigation and the trial, testified and filed a request for pardon. The Minister of Justice, who is also the accuser in the process, reported to the tsar, about which he later spoke: “What an angelic expression was on the face of the sovereign when he said that he had long forgiven him, like a Christian, but, as a sovereign, he does not consider himself entitled to forgive ". So, hypocritically, with pompous phrases, the tsar, an unlimited monarch, limited himself in the right to get rid of the condemned gallows! ..

On September 2, the chairman of the court summoned Karakozov from the ravelin to the building where the trial was taking place. Karakozov entered with such a bright face that, apparently, he was waiting for a pardon, but when he heard about the approval of the sentence, all the light disappeared from his face, it darkened and took on a stern and gloomy expression. The convict had to wait for the execution for a whole day.

In addition to Karakozov, the Supreme Criminal Court tried 35 other defendants in his own case, divided into two groups. In the first group, along with Karakozov, 11 people were assigned, and in the second - 25. In addition, the government dealt with some of those arrested in the same case without trial, in an administrative manner. The defendants were charged with some form of belonging to the assassination attempt on Alexander II and participation in an organization that aimed coup d'état and the establishment of new social principles. Most of the members of the circle did not go further than attempts to organize artels and industrial associations, further than intentions to conduct propaganda with the help of libraries and schools. The indictments primarily brought charges against members of the society called "Hell", in which the assassination of the king as a means of coup was the subject of discussion.

Most of the accused during the investigation and in court, after being sentenced to hard labor and settlement, filed requests for pardon. Submitted a request for pardon after the execution of Karakozov and Ishutin, who was sentenced to be hanged. He was pardoned after the entire ceremony of public execution was performed on him, up to dressing in a shroud and putting a noose around his neck. It cost him mental health. The age of the convicts was in the range of 19 - 26 years.

September 3, 1866 at 7 am Dmitry Karakozov was taken from the Peter and Paul Fortress to the Smolensk field. Thousands of people despite early hour gathered here. Everyone was waiting for the execution ...

Court secretary Ya. G. Esipovich, who was present at the execution of the sentence, wrote in his memoirs:

“A wide road was left between the boundless masses of the people, along which we reached the very square formed from the troops. Here we left the carriage and entered the square. a low wooden platform for the Minister of Justice with his entourage, everything was painted black, and on this platform we stood.

Soon the shameful chariot drove up to the scaffold, on which Karakozov sat with his back to the horses, chained to a high seat. His face was blue and dead. Filled with horror and mute despair, he glanced at the scaffold, then began to look with his eyes for something else, his gaze rested for a moment on the gallows, and suddenly his head convulsively and as if involuntarily turned away from this terrible object.

And the morning began so clear, bright, sunny!

And so the executioners calmly, without haste, forged Karakozov. Then, taking him by the arms, they raised him to a high scaffold, to the pillory. The crowd of thousands fell silent and, fixing their eyes on the scaffold, waited for what would happen next.

Minister of Justice D.N. Zamyatin turned to Esipovich and said loudly:

"Mr. Secretary of the Supreme Criminal Court, announce the verdict of the court for all to hear!"

Esipovich, with difficulty overcoming his excitement, climbed the steps of the scaffold, leaned on the railing and began to read:

"By decree of His Imperial Majesty..."

After these words, drums were beaten, the army made "on guard", everyone took off their hats. When the drums died down, - continued Esipovich, - I read the verdict from word to word and then again returned to the platform where the Minister of Justice stood with his retinue.

When I descended from the scaffold, Archpriest Palisadov, Karakozov's confessor, ascended it. In vestments and with a cross in his hands, he approached the convict, said his last parting word to him, gave him a kiss to the cross and left.

The executioners began to put on him a shroud that completely covered his head, but they did not manage to do this properly, because they did not put their hands in his sleeves. The police chief, who was sitting on horseback near the scaffold, said this. They took off the shroud again and put it on again so that their hands could be tied back with long sleeves. This, of course, added one extra bitter minute to the condemned man, for when they took off his shroud, shouldn't the thought of pardon flash through him? And again they put on the shroud again, now for the last time.

The witness of the execution of Karakozov was the novice artist Ilya Repin, who left his memoirs under the name "The Execution of Karakozov", published in the collection of memoirs "Far Close".

It was already broad daylight when a black cart with a bench on which Karakozov was sitting swayed in the distance without springs. Only the width of the cart was guarded by the police, and in this space it was clearly visible how the “criminal” swayed from side to side on the jolts on the cobblestone pavement. Attached to a plank bench, he seemed like a mannequin without movement. He sat with his back to the horse, not changing anything in his dead seat ... Here he is approaching, now he is passing us. All step - and close past us. You could clearly see the face and the whole position of the body. Stunned, he held on, turning his head to the left. In the color of his face was salient feature solitary confinement - having not seen air and light for a long time, it was yellow-pale, with a grayish tint; his hair - a fair blond - naturally inclined to curl, was with a gray-ashy coating, not washed for a long time and matted somehow under a cap of a prisoner's cut, slightly pulled down in front. The long, protruding nose looked like the nose of a dead man, and the eyes, directed in one direction - huge gray eyes, without any brilliance, also seemed already on the other side of life: in them one could not notice a single living thought, not a living feeling; only tightly compressed thin lips spoke of the remnant of the frozen energy of the one who had made up his mind and endured his fate to the end. The general impression he made was especially terrible. Of course, he carried on himself, in addition to all this appearance, the death sentence decided on him, which (it was on everyone's faces) would happen now.

The gendarmes and some other servants, having taken off his black prisoner's cap, began to push him to the middle of the scaffold. He seemed to be unable to walk or was in tetanus, his hands must have been tied. But here he is, liberated, earnestly, in Russian, without haste, bowed on all four sides to all the people. This bow immediately turned all this many-headed field, it became familiar and close to this alien, strange creature, which the crowd ran to look at, like a miracle. Perhaps only at that moment the "criminal" himself vividly felt the significance of the moment - farewell forever to the world and universal connection with it.

And forgive us, for Christ's sake, - someone muffled muffled, almost to himself.

Mother, queen of heaven, - the woman drawled in a singsong voice.

Of course, God will judge, - said my neighbor, a merchant in appearance, with a tremor of tears in his voice.

Ooh! Fathers! .. - howled the woman.

The crowd began to hum dully, and even some cries of hysterics were heard ... But at that time the drums beat loudly. Again, for a long time they could not put on the “criminal” a solid hood of unbleached linen, from the pointed crown to a little below the knees. In this case, Karakozov could no longer stand on his feet. The gendarmes and attendants, almost on their own hands, led him along a narrow platform up to a stool, above which hung a noose on a block from the black verb of the gallows. An agile executioner was already standing on a stool: he reached for the noose and lowered the rope under the victim's sharp chin. Another performer standing at the post quickly tightened the noose around his neck, and at the same moment, jumping off the stool, the executioner deftly knocked the stand out from under Karakozov's feet. Karakozov was already rising smoothly, swaying on a rope, his head, tied at the neck, seemed to be either a puppet figure or a Circassian in a hood. Soon he began to convulsively bend his legs - they were in gray trousers. I turned away to the crowd and was very surprised that all the people were in a green fog ... I felt dizzy, I grabbed Murashko and almost bounced off his face - it was amazingly terrible in its expression of suffering; suddenly he seemed like a second Karakozov to me. God! His eyes, only his nose was shorter.

April 4, 1866 D.V. Karakozov's assassination attempt on Emperor Alexander II. The king survived, and Karakozov was sentenced to hang.

On April 4, 1866, at four o'clock in the afternoon, Emperor Alexander II was walking in the Summer Garden, accompanied by his nephew and niece. When the walk ended and the emperor went to the carriage, which was waiting for him outside the gate, an unknown person, standing in the crowd at the garden lattice, tried to shoot at the king. The bullet flew past because someone managed to hit the killer on the arm. The attacker was seized, and the emperor, who quickly mastered himself, went to the Kazan Cathedral to serve a thanksgiving service for a happy rescue. Then he returned to the Winter Palace, where his frightened relatives were already waiting for him, and calmed them down.

The news of the assassination attempt on the king quickly spread throughout the capital. For Petersburgers, for the inhabitants of all of Russia, what happened was a real shock, because for the first time in Russian history someone dared to shoot the king!

Dmitry Karakozov. Photograph 1866

An investigation began, and the identity of the perpetrator was quickly established: he turned out to be Dmitry Karakozov, a former student who was expelled from Kazan University, and then from Moscow University. In Moscow, he joined the underground group "Organization", headed by Nikolai Ishutin (according to some reports, Ishutin was Karakozov's cousin). This secret group claimed as its ultimate goal the introduction of socialism in Russia through revolution, while in order to achieve the goal, according to the Ishutins, all means should be used, including terror. Karakozov considered the tsar the true culprit of all the misfortunes of Russia, and, despite the excuses of his comrades in secret society, came to St. Petersburg with an obsession to kill Alexander II.

Medal of Osip Komisarov, obverse.

They also established the identity of the person who prevented the murderer and actually saved the life of the tsar - he turned out to be a peasant Osip Komissarov. In gratitude, Alexander II granted him the title of nobility and ordered him to give a significant amount of money.

Medal of Osip Komisarov, reverse.

In the case of Karakozov, about two thousand people were under investigation, 35 of them were convicted. Most of the convicts went to hard labor and settlement, Karakozov and Ishutin were sentenced to death by hanging. Karakozov's sentence was carried out on the glacis of the Peter and Paul Fortress in September 1866. Ishutin, on the other hand, was pardoned, and this was announced to him when a noose was already put on the convict's neck. Ishutin could not recover from what happened: he went crazy in the prison of the Shlisselburg fortress.

A. Kuznetsov: In different circles, the attitude towards Alexander II was different. The reforms carried out by the emperor, first of all, of course, the abolition of serfdom and everything connected with it, for many people (at least at first) looked like a real shock to the foundations. Recall Nekrasov: “The great chain has broken…” or Firs’s remark about the fact that “the samovar was buzzing, and the owl was screaming before trouble. - Before what trouble, old man? "Before the will."

However, the case before us is by no means the result of a deliberate conspiracy by some revolutionary underground organization. Dmitry Vladimirovich Karakozov acted solely on his own impulse. What were those motives? Karakozov himself explained them in quite classical proclamation terms. Here, for example, is what he wrote shortly before the assassination attempt: “It became sad, hard for me that ... my beloved people were dying, and so I decided to destroy the villainous king and die for my dear people myself. If I succeed in my plan, I will die with the thought that by my death I have benefited my dear friend, the Russian peasant. But if it doesn’t work, I still believe that there will be people who will follow my path. I failed, they will succeed. For them, my death will be an example and inspire them ... ".

The reforms of Alexander II for many looked like a shock to the foundations

And yet: what became the ideological ground for both Karakozov and the entire Ishutin circle, because the trial, in fact, was not only over him, but over the whole organization? At the trial of 1866, the prosecutor, the Minister of Justice Zamyatnin, devoted a large part of his speech to the circumstances, the atmosphere in which all this was born, prepared: “These persons, back in 1868, began to think about the dissemination of social ideas. They chose the university as the initial field for their actions, where they believed among students to generate and develop the idea of ​​the need to spread social ... by spreading social ideas to achieve a revolution and transform the state on a social basis. In these types, a special proclamation was even drawn up, but it was not distributed. In 1864 the activity of the persons I have named changed in its direction. They found it more useful to spread their ideas among the people. To this end, under various most plausible pretexts, they began to set up various circles and associations, whose external external purpose was to provide assistance and means of subsistence to those in need, or rather to ensure and more correctly distribute the productive incomes of the working class. In this way they set up an auxiliary cash desk, sewing and bookbinding workshops, in which all participants, working together, received remuneration for their work, the entire proceeds, and a school for free education children from the lower classes. In these establishments, the defendants create for themselves an extensive field of activity. In them they enter into relations with new persons attracted there by the desire to benefit the smaller brethren, and among them they spread thoughts about the alleged failure of the present state structure, about the need to change the existing order and transform the state life on new social principles.

That is, the members of the Ishutin circle, an organization created by Karakozov's cousin Nikolai Andreyevich Ishutin, were not revolutionaries. This, let's say, were progressive public figures, activists.

Dmitry Karakozov. Portrait by Ilya Repin, 1866. Source: wikipedia.org

Where did the person who decided to shoot come from in this environment? Apparently, Karakozov was a very mentally unstable person. Ishutin's defender, a wonderful Russian lawyer Dmitry Vasilyevich Stasov, will gently write about this. In his memoirs, he returns several times to the moment that when it became clear to the members of the Ishutin organization that Karakozov, apparently, was planning an individual assassination attempt, they became extremely worried. Ivan Alexandrovich Khudyakov, one of the active participants in this organization, came from St. Petersburg to Moscow, rushed to Ishutin with the question: “Whom did you send us?” (They decided that Karakozov had been sent from Moscow to Petersburg). Ishutin: No. We didn't send it. He went on his own initiative." They began looking for ways to stop him. We met with him and seemed to get him, according to Ishutin, to promise not to make any sudden movements, not to do anything. Nevertheless, on April 4, Karakozov went, met the emperor, fired, and, according to the official version, only heroic deed peasant Osip Komissarov saved Alexander II from death.

Karakozov was the first to open the "hunt" for the king

It is worth noting that at that very time the last stage of judicial reform was in full swing. Completely new institutions were created, a fundamentally different court - the adversarial court, in which the prosecution and defense had equal rights, and the court itself was a neutral arbiter; advocacy and jury trials arose. And in this very situation, a decision was made (I must say, very bold and doing honor to the authorities) to judge, albeit in a special closed court, but according to new rules.

And, of course, a few words should be said about the people who made this decision, who convinced the emperor and who played key roles in this process. The fact is that a person of extremely reactionary views was appointed to lead the investigation - Mikhail Nikolayevich Muravyov. The investigation was pretty tough. Physical torture, in the literal sense of the word, was not used, but they used torture by sleep, or rather by insomnia ...

O. Pashina: It is known that Karakozov was not allowed to sleep.

A. Kuznetsov: Yes.

O. Pashina: And he was already mentally unstable.

A. Kuznetsov: They didn't let Ishutin sleep. And, in general, the investigation has collected a huge amount of material. It went on for several months. And on August 10, a closed process began. Muravyov insisted on publishing only what the investigation itself and the court itself deems necessary. Therefore, there is a lot of evidence about the trial, but here are the documents ... Of course, the verdicts, the indictment, the speech of the state prosecutor Zamyatnin were published, but the speeches of the lawyers were not.

In total, 36 people were brought to trial. Needless to say, we were in a hurry. According to the general opinion, this was due to the fact that the arrival of the Danish princess Dagmar, the betrothed bride of the heir to the throne Alexander Alexandrovich, the future Alexander III. So with the regicides (at least with the main one) they planned to finish before this event.

O. Pashina: First, executions, then solemnly.

A. Kuznetsov: Quite right. Also, the decisive roles in this case were played by the already mentioned Dmitry Nikolayevich Zamyatnin, in fact, the main author of the judicial charters, and Pyotr Petrovich Gagarin, a man of very conservative views, who presided over this process.

Portrait of Emperor Alexander II. Source: wikipedia.org

In general, it is surprising, but the organizers set themselves the task of conducting the process flawlessly. Here is how Stasov describes it: “At the trial, everything that was stated above was revealed by the testimony of the witnesses and is contained in the above-mentioned note of the Minister of Justice, which is generally drawn up impartially. In general, the Minister of Justice at the trial, as a prosecutor, behaved remarkably correctly, did not overdo it in the accusation, did not try to obtain, as a result of the investigation, many prosecutors both in courts and in the chambers, any special confessions, did not exaggerate, did not ask captious questions, generally kept himself very calmly, as if wishing to fulfill precisely that role of a conscientious prosecutor, which appeared in the minds of the drafters of the newly approved judicial statutes. The same must be said about the chairman of the Supreme Court, Prince Gagarin, who presided over State Council when discussing judicial charters, in every possible way supported the charter of Zarudny, the chief leader for these works, in carrying out the general principles and details. Therefore, when presiding over the Supreme Court, which was established and functioned for the first time on the basis of these judicial statutes, of course, as far as I understood, I tried in every possible way to adhere to these statutes both in terms of their spirit and letter. But at the same time, there were still curious facts. For example, one of the members of the Supreme Court, I don’t remember Count Panin or Prince of Oldenburg, offers one of the defendants, while interrogating as a witness, specifically Motkov such a question, answering which Motkov could give evidence harmful to himself. Then Turchaninov, Motkov's defender, stood up and said that such a question could not be raised to the witness, and Prince Gagarin supported Turchaninov and, turning to Panin and Prince Oldenburg, said: "Yes, sir, this question cannot be asked." And turning to Turchaninov, he said: "You can speak for him." Turchaninov replied: “I don’t find it possible to speak for a witness.”

As a result of the trial, Karakozov was sentenced to capital punishment

So, the defendants were divided into two unequal groups: the first - the most difficult, 11 people who were accused of direct participation in the preparation of the assassination attempt (that is, Karakozov - in the assassination attempt, and the remaining 10 people that they were his accomplices). The other 25 people were guilty of knowing but not reporting, and so on. Of the 11 people, it would seem, doomed to death and indefinite hard labor, one was acquitted. Moreover, there was actually quite a lot of things against him: he sheltered Karakozov in St. Petersburg, undoubtedly knew about his plans, somehow either saw the weapon, or heard from Karakozov that he had acquired it. Ishutin helped him in this. That is, according to all, let's say, traditional Russian canons, this person should have gone to hard labor as one of those closely related to this case. He was acquitted. Justified by the crown court, consisting of the highest dignitaries. In his parting speech, Gagarin told him: “And for you, young man, what happened here should be a particularly remarkable event, since you can see from your own example that we judged impartially.”

As, again, Stasov writes, defending Karakozov was practically impossible. The only thing that could be counted on was the testimony of doctors. However, here it was concluded that Karakozov, although he was a person with upset nerves and, there to say, to some extent a disturbed psyche, but ...

O. Pashina: … was aware.

A. Kuznetsov: Yes. That is, fully consistent with the legal term "sanity". And this was evident both in the way he prepared, and in the way he behaved at the crime scene.

Lubok message about the feat of Osip Komissarov, 1866.

Maria Ulyanova, Alexander Ulyanov and Dmitry Karakozov

Version of the great-niece of the terrorist who shot at Tsar Alexander II, Tatyana Karakozova: “Dmitry Karakozov had a serious affair with Maria Ulyanova. He was the real father of Alexander Ulyanov. The Karakozovs and the Ulyanovs lived in the same house in Penza.

Emperor of All Russia, Tsar of Poland, Grand Duke Finnish Alexander II died as a result of a terrorist act on March 1, 1881. This was the seventh assassination attempt on the king-liberator, the king-reformer. The first happened fifteen years earlier. On April 4, 1866, when, after a walk in the Summer Garden, he got into a carriage that was waiting on the Neva embankment, a shot rang out ... Not only the gendarmes, but also eyewitnesses who were nearby attacked the criminal.

"Shot of Karakozov". Artist B. Lebedev

- Guys! I shot for you! he shouted.

Alexander ordered to bring the shooter to him, asked:

- You're polish?

- Russian.

- Why did you shoot me?

- You deceived the people: you promised them land, but did not give it.

“Take him to the Third Section,” Alexander ordered.

This is how many writers describe the assassination attempt - from Valentin Pikul to Voldemar Balyazin.

There are different explanations for the miraculous salvation of the august person. The first and most banal: the assassin missed. Second: he let down a double charge of gunpowder - the recoil when fired was so monstrous that the muzzle of the pistol was pulled up. (Valentin Pikul.) There is also officially recognized: saving the life of the sovereign, the Kostroma peasant Osip Komissarov pushed the potential killer (option: hit on the arm). Valentin Pikul, in his miniature “The Kostroma Nobleman”, claims that General Eduard Totleben, who fell into disfavor, took advantage of the incident and staged a loyal spectacle - he made a hero, the savior of the sovereign and the Fatherland, from the first person he saw in the crowd.

In the Third Department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery (the highest police body in charge of overseeing politically unreliable persons and detective work), the shooter called himself a peasant Alexei Petrov, but refused to testify. During the proceedings, it was established that he lived in the Znamenskaya Hotel, as a result of a search in the 65th room of which a torn letter to Nikolai Ishutin was found. Ishutin was immediately arrested, and from him they learned the name of the terrorist - Dmitry Karakozov.

Karakozov's assassination attempt on Alexander II. Artist Dmitry Kardovsky

In the pocket of the detainee was one copy of the proclamation "To Friends-Workers!", which, as it turned out, he distributed on the eve of the assassination attempt. Its text is given in the book of the historian and archeographer Alexei Shilov (Shilov, A.A. From the history of the revolutionary movement of the 1860s //

The voice of the past. 1918. No. 10–12. S. 161.):“It was sad, hard for me that ... my beloved people were dying, and so I decided to destroy the villainous king and die for my kind people myself. If I succeed in my plan, I will die with the thought that by my death I have benefited my dear friend, the Russian peasant. But if it doesn’t work, I still believe that there will be people who will follow my path. I failed, they will succeed. For them, my death will be an example and inspire them ... ".

The verdict of the Supreme Criminal Court noted: Dmitry Karakozov admitted that "his crime is so great that it cannot be justified even by the painful nervous state in which he was." The court determined: "called a nobleman, but not approved in the nobility, Dmitry Vladimirov Karakozov, 25 years old, upon deprivation of all rights of the state, to be executed by death by hanging."

Dmitry Karakozov before execution. Drawing by Ilya Repin

The sentence was carried out on September 3 in St. Petersburg, on the Smolensk field with a large gathering of people.

By that time, a temporary wooden chapel had already been built at the site of the assassination attempt; within a year, a stone chapel was erected instead (architect Roman Kuzmin). At the direction of the emperor, the chapel had to be kept in a strict style in order to harmoniously combine with the famous lattice of the Summer Garden (architect - Yuri Felten), part of which had to be dismantled. One of the interior inscriptions warned: "Do not touch My Anointed One." The chapel was consecrated - under a cannon salute from the Peter and Paul Fortress - in the name of the holy noble prince Alexander Nevsky on April 4, 1867.

In 1930, the chapel was dismantled, the grating was restored and a modest marble plaque was fixed on it: “At this place on April 4, 1866, the revolutionary D.V. Karakozov fired at Alexander II.

... Psychologist Olga Bodunova in the publication "Ideological and psychological motives for terrorist crimes in Russia" (in the scientific and theoretical journal "Society. Environment. Development" / TerraHumana, February 2007) claims that in the proclamation "To Friends-Workers!" Karakozov explained the motives for his action: “Karakozov not only became imbued with the idea of ​​committing a crime - the murder of the tsar - for the good of the Motherland (peasantry), but was also ready to die himself “for his kind people.”

Is it so? Is all of the above true? These and other questions of our correspondent are answered by the great-niece of the "fiery revolutionary" Tatyana Karakozova.

She is a sculptor, a graduate of the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. I.E. Repin (read - Academy of Arts), student of Mikhail Anikushin. Already a member of the Union of Artists, Tatyana Vladimirovna got a job in the forestry, settled in a "state house without amenities." Firstly, at that time she had nowhere to lay her head, ”and secondly, there were horses in the forestry, which she loves crazy, and the main theme of her work is horses. Not so long ago, Karakozova "came out of a voluntary retreat" ...

"Shot of Karakozov". Artist Vasily Griner

“THE REVOLUTIONARY IS MADE FROM KARAKOZOV, A LONE TERRORIST”

- Tatyana Vladimirovna, when we agreed on a meeting, it sounded: “I am the last of a kind Tatar Khan Karakoza "...

- Yes it is. It is known that Ivan the Terrible had such an associate. Apparently, he served well - he received the nobility. Of course, the ending "ov" was added to the surname. The family nest of the Karakozovs still exists in the Penza region - the village of Zhmakino, but, they say, few people live there now - the Russian village is dying out ... Maybe you will be interested in this fact: the surname Karakozov is found in Leonid Sabaneev's book about hunting dogs. One of the Karakozovs, who lived in the middle of the last century, had a Russian dog, a survivor (male hunting breed - Ed.) Kosmach. He was famous for the fact that he alone went to the wolf, and Sabaneev entered him into history. After the event that happened on April 4, 1866, not only Dmitry Karakozov was deprived of the nobility, but also his brothers Alexei and Peter - they were sent to the Saratov province, to the village of Shirovka, Volsky district. At the same time, the surname Karakozov began to be given to conversions. When I got a job in the forestry, the chief forester (I will not give my last name) for some reason spread the rumor that I was a baptized Jew.

- On what line are you related to Dmitry Vladimirovich?

- On the line of brother Peter.

What can you say about your other relatives?

- Some of the Karakozovs lived in Saratov. My grandfather, Karakozov Mikhail Vasilievich, who was called up from the Volsk military registration and enlistment office in 1941, ended up on the Leningrad front. In 1944, on March 23, he died near Narva. He was buried in a mass grave of Soviet soldiers in the village of Kärekonna, seven and a half kilometers along the road to Tallinn. There was also a relative who died defending Leningrad.

Dad, Vladimir Mikhailovich Karakozov, also a front-line soldier, participant Battle of Stalingrad; after the war he graduated from the Saratov Road Institute, which is currently Technical University them. Yu.A. Gagarin, worked there as vice-rector for evening and distance learning. He headed the regional Council of Veterans, achieved free travel for pensioners in fixed-route taxis. His uncle Ilya sang in the church choir; he never studied singing anywhere, but by nature he possessed a rare tenor - they joked that Kozlovsky would not have voiced with him! Another uncle was the director of the church choir in the village of Bely Klyuch. Papin younger brother Nikolai moved to Leningrad in 1952, he was a test pilot. He graduated from the flight school in Saratov, then from the Leningrad Air Force Academy. This is the fifth generation, if you count from Dmitry Vladimirovich and his brothers. I am the sixth. The current Karakozovs have no male heirs. So the surname, consider, no longer exists.

- You say that close relatives of Dmitry Karakozov were deprived of the nobility.

– All relatives and their descendants were deprived of the nobility.

- In the Verdict of the Supreme Criminal Court, published in the newspaper Moskovskie Vedomosti in September 1866, there is a very strange phrase: "Dmitry Vladimirov Karakozov, who is called a nobleman, but not approved in the nobility ...". How would you like to understand "named, but not approved"?

– As casuistry or insinuation. It never occurred to the person who wrote this phrase that in 150 years someone would be interested in state criminal Karakozov and will understand the motivation of his act.

- In our time, you probably are not very pleased to realize that your ancestor - I quote - "opened the era of terrorism in Russia" ...

- In historical literature, there is only an official point of view on Karakozov: a revolutionary, a lone terrorist. In my first or second year at the Serov Art School, I found and read a fictionalized biography of Dmitry Vladimirovich in the reading room of the Academy of Arts, the book was called The Shot, unfortunately I don’t remember the author. Of course, it was "edited" by Soviet censors, but the author honestly writes that nowhere, in any archives, there are documents indicating Karakozov's involvement in revolutionary circles.

– Excuse me, but there is information that Dmitry Karakozov was a member of a secret political society headed by his cousin Ishutin. It is alleged that he, like some other members of the circle, was a supporter of the tactics of individual terror, believing that the assassination of the king would push the people to a social revolution.

- Nikolai Andreevich Ishutin could be his cousin on the maternal side, otherwise he would have had the surname Karakozov. When the Third Department received an order from the tsar to give the assassination a political coloring, and it suddenly turns out that Karakozov's relative is a revolutionary, only a fool would not take advantage of such a gift. But, you see, Dmitry might not know what he was doing. cousin. Ishutinskaya organization was secret! Dmitry Karakozov is not a terrorist at all - they made a terrorist out of him.

– How to explain the fact that during the arrest Karakozov found a proclamation “To Friends-workers!” in his pocket?

“Can it be said for certain that the proclamation was in his pocket?”

Chapel at the site of the assassination attempt by Dmitry Karakozov on Alexander II

"WHOSE FATHER WAS DMITRY KARAKOZOV"

- But the fact of the assassination attempt on the sovereign emperor cannot be denied, which means that there must be a reason that prompted Dmitry Vladimirovich to do this.

There was a reason, of course. Completely unexpected. The fact is that in the early 1860s, the Karakozov family lived in Penza on the street, which was later named after Karakozov ...

- His name was also given to the streets in Serdobsk, Mozhaisk, Tula, Krivoy Rog.

- Well, yes. The house was big and wooden. The Karakozovs occupied half, and Ilya Nikolaevich Ulyanov and his wife Maria lived in the other half. In to Soviet time there were no communal apartments in Russia, and, most likely, the Karakozovs and the Ulyanovs were somehow related. How to prove it? Don't know. Archives perished in the fires of revolutions and wars, some documents were deliberately destroyed. Ilya Nikolaevich treated his professional and official duties responsibly. The young wife was too often left at home alone, bored. Apparently, Maria Alexandrovna was not just a loving woman, but had some kind of magic power- they recognize it for her. And Dmitry could not resist, although Maria Alexandrovna was five years older. Between them began a relationship, it seems, quite serious. They did not stop even after Ilya Ulyanov was transferred to the Nizhny Novgorod Men's Gymnasium and the Ulyanovs left Penza. By that time, Ilya Nikolaevich and Maria Alexandrovna already had a daughter, Anna, and on March 31, 1866, a boy was born, whose father was Dmitry Karakozov.

Do you know the fate of this boy?

- The fate of this boy is known to everyone, as well as his name - Alexander. Alexander Ulyanov. Probably, Dmitry Karakozov took some action to legitimize his relationship with Maria Ulyanova, but it was not possible to terminate the church marriage, and he decided on a desperate step - he went to St. Petersburg to the tsar with the hope of begging highest resolution for the divorce of Maria and Ilya Ulyanov. The argument was more than serious: they love each other with Maria, they had a son, and he, Karakozov, as a nobleman, cannot but marry her. There is no evidence of an audience. It can be assumed that a refusal followed. For Karakozov, this was the end of everything, and the impulsive young man, who had lost his mind, got a gun - at that time it was not difficult to do this. What happened next is known with varying degrees of certainty. Such is, as it is now customary to say, lovestory.

- Tatyana Vladimirovna, how do you know all this?

– I learned about all this in February 2015. Dad died. We buried him in Bazarny Karabulak, where his mother was buried. In the evening - commemoration. Nikolai Fedorovich Kurbatov (he is brought to me by a relative on his maternal side; the mother of Nikolai Fedorovich is nee Karakozov) and told, referring to his nephew, a graduate of the history department of Saratov University, Yuri Kurbatov. Yuri Alekseevich, as it turned out, has long been engaged in tribal research. You can't imagine how shocked I was!

Ulyanov family. Sitting: Maria Alexandrovna (first from the left) with her youngest daughter Maria (on her knees), Dmitry (second from the left) and Vladimir (first from the right). Standing: Olga (first from left), Alexander (second from left) and Anna (third from left)

- This begs the question: did Alexander Ulyanov try to avenge his father, preparing an assassination attempt on Alexander III?

- This is not a question for me. But how can you prove it? Here, read. (Tatyana Karakozova shows the publication of Larisa Vasilyeva "Children of the Kremlin" in the magazine "Spark", April 1996, No. 17).

(I read: “In the spring of 1891, in an intellectual company, I heard an unlikely legend: as if Lenin’s mother, Maria Blank, had been almost a maid of honor at the royal court for some time before her marriage, had an affair with one of the Grand Dukes, almost with the future Alexander II, became pregnant and was sent to her parents, where she was urgently passed off as a modest teacher Ilya Ulyanov, promising him a promotion ... Maria gave birth to a son, Alexander, her first child, then many more children already from her husband, and many years later, Alexander Ulyanov learned the secret mother and vowed to take revenge on the king for her desecrated honor: becoming a student, he contacted terrorists and encroached on the life of the king, who was his true father ... ").

- How do you like this version, Tatyana Vladimirovna?

- When did you find out that you are related to Dmitry Karakozov?

- In the late 1950s, dad went to Leningrad and brought a photograph where he stands under a memorial plaque "April 4 at this place ...". Someone asked to "click". Dad was a good photographer himself, he took a whole suitcase. Perhaps there were some other pictures associated with Dmitry Karakozov, but, as it turned out after my father's death, he, analyzing family archive, suitcase filled with my children's drawings. He destroyed a lot of photographs, and I did not find the one where he is near the bars of the Summer Garden. At the age of 16, immediately after my graduation from school, my mother and I arrived in Leningrad and first of all went to the Summer Garden. It was then that I internally felt an inexplicable connection with the person whose name is on the memorial plaque. But in general, it was not customary in the family to talk about Dmitry Karakozov. Only my grandmother, Anfisa Vasilievna, once said: “There was an apostate in our family.” It meant: he raised his hand to the anointed of God. The family was an old believer.

- Under Soviet rule, Dmitry Karakozov became a hero ...

- It was not he who became a hero - I already said: they made him a hero.

- Yes, but in the ever-memorable Soviet times, I didn’t come across any books about Karakozov - neither historical research, nor popular science publications. In the Soviet Union, for more than 20 years, books have been published in the "Fiery Revolutionaries" series. Whoever they wrote about, even about Thomas Paine and Robert Eich, completely unknown to our fellow citizens. There was no book about Dmitry Karakozov!

- This could lead a thinking person to the idea that information about him is closed.

- Relatives, descendants famous people, their associates and friends were then invited to schools, asked to speak at pioneer gatherings ...

- There was deathly silence around the Karakozov family! Does this mean something? Tell about it revolutionary activity there was absolutely no one. The title of revolutionary assigned to him was not supported by the facts. With us, everything was taken on faith, but it was necessary to tell, in terms of facts.

- Nevertheless, your surname is such that the question of family ties suggests itself.

- The question was asked and asked, I answered honestly and answer: yes, a relative.

- The dialogue should not be continued - do they bother with questions?

– Fellow students didn’t care about my distant relative. Everyone had their own affairs, their own interests, professional and not only.

- And the teachers were not interested?

- They knew exactly as much about Karakozov as all other citizens Soviet Union. No one asked me, but I never started talking about this topic. What for? She herself was interested in this tragic story, tried to find some new information, but very soon realized that information about Karakozov's attempt on Alexander II was tabooed.

Tatyana Karakozova. 2016