As you know, there are simply no people who are completely satisfied with life. Despite numerous economic and political reforms carried out by the Russian Emperor Alexander II, dissatisfaction with the authorities, especially in the circles of “free-thinking” (as it was common to say in those days) youth, only grew. The times of cruel terror were approaching.

Perhaps the main reason was the internal political situation in the country. The reform associated with the abolition of serfdom not only did not improve the life of the common people, but, on the contrary, led to a prolonged economic crisis, which led to massive and brutally suppressed popular unrest.

The overall picture was aggravated by large-scale corruption. When executing government orders for construction railways or supplying the army, most of the treasury disappeared into the bottomless pockets of ministerial officials. In addition, Emperor Alexander II extremely idealized Germany, considering this power a role model. The monarch spent too much time and money maintaining a one-sided relationship.

Thus, the already not very charismatic emperor became the focus of evil in the eyes of revolutionary-minded youth thirsty for change. Secret societies appeared one after another. Of the most well-known organizations, promoting revolutionary ideas, “Land and Freedom” deserves special mention. This secret society, at one time created by Chernyshevsky, Herzen and Ogarev, degenerated into the terrorist organization “People's Will”.

Russia was swept by a wave of brutal murders and attempts on the lives of any government officials: revolutionaries shot and blew up gendarmes, judges, and mayors. But of course main reason They considered all the troubles personally to be the king and passionately desired to kill God’s anointed.

Karakozov

Debut attempt to kill Russian Emperor committed by Dmitry Karakozov in 1866. The young man (he was barely 25 years old) picked up forbidden ideas in the secret circle of his cousin Nikolai Ishutin and naively believed that the murder of the autocrat would immediately lead to revolution.

Karakozov arrived in St. Petersburg, tracked down and waylaid Alexander II in the Summer Garden. The king was saved by a random passer-by. Osip Komissarov noticed a revolver in the attacker’s hand and knocked the weapon out, for which he was subsequently awarded the title of nobility.

Dmitry Karakozov was tried and sentenced to death penalty, after which he was publicly hanged on the Smolensk field in St. Petersburg.

Berezovsky

The next test of fate for the Russian Tsar was Anton Berezovsky, a Pole by nationality, hiding in Paris. He fled to France after a failed uprising in Poland. Unlike Karakozov, he did not dream of a socialist revolution, but only wanted the independence of his homeland. However, he also considered the Russian Tsar to be the main culprit.

The French World Exhibition of 1867 was one of the most spectacular events of that time. Still, they were collected in one place latest achievements science and technology around the world. Alexander II also honored Paris with his presence.

Berezovsky, knowing the visit program from the newspapers Russian monarch, was waiting for him in the Bois de Boulogne, where Alexander II was taking a horseback ride with the French emperor and his retinue. Fortunately for the crowned heads, the Pole did not know how to properly handle weapons: the only bullet fired from his revolver hit an innocent horse.

Anton Berezovsky was captured and, according to French law, sentenced to life hard labor, having been imprisoned for 39 years. He was released under an amnesty as a very old man.

Soloviev

One of the most incredible attacks on the autocrat was the attack by Alexander Solovyov in 1879. He, fulfilling an assignment from the Earth and Freedom organization, waylaid the Tsar during a morning walk along the Moika embankment. Alexander II preferred to walk alone, and it was not difficult for the militant to get almost close to the emperor.

Solovyov shot at the monarch from a distance of no more than five meters and missed. Alexander II began to run away from the attacker, and he fired four more shots in pursuit. Not a single bullet hit the target, as if fate itself was protecting the king. Soloviev in last time shot towards the people running towards him and was captured.

No one was hurt during the assassination attempt, but Alexander Solovyov was sentenced to death and soon hanged. Members of the "Land and Freedom" society vowed bloody revenge on the autocrat.

Train explosion

Another attempt to settle scores with the Russian monarch occurred in the fall of the same 1879. The Tsar was returning from a trip to Crimea. The conspirators knew that he would return to the capital by train and made preparations. A powerful bomb was planted along the train's route.

However, due to a technical problem, instead of the royal train, a train transporting the sovereign’s large retinue came under attack. The carriages derailed and overturned, but everyone survived. The Emperor once again escaped death.

A. Ivanitsky. Imperial Train Disaster

Khalturin

A year later, in the winter of 1880, in the main residence of the Tsar - Winter Palace- happened powerful explosion. The dining room was completely destroyed, more than a dozen guards and servants were killed, and another fifty were injured. However, the monarch remained unharmed, lingering in his office and not coming down in time for lunch.

The bomb was planted by Stepan Khalturin on instructions from the revolutionaries. Under the guise of a carpenter, he got a job in the Winter Palace and, while carrying out repair work, carefully prepared the assassination attempt. After the explosion, Khalturin fled and was caught only two years later in Odessa. The bomber was sentenced to death and hanged.

Murder of the Tsar

The Narodnaya Volya nevertheless completed the job they had begun; they managed to kill the Tsar on March 1, 1881. The militants prepared very thoroughly; the monarch's motorcade was met by two men armed with bombs.

That morning, accompanied by mounted police, Alexander II moved in a carriage towards the Winter Palace. Nikolai Rysakov came out to meet the procession and threw the first bomb. There was an explosion. The carriage was damaged, the tsar was not injured, and Rysakov was immediately captured by gendarmes.

Alexander II got out of the carriage and looked around. Dead, seriously wounded and dying people lay around the explosion site. Stunned and shocked by what he saw, the king slowly walked down the street, and then a second explosion thundered. The next bomb was thrown by Ignatius Grinevitsky. The bomber died, but achieved his goal - the mutilated body of the Russian monarch lay on the pavement.

Alexander II II was still alive, he was transported to the palace, where he soon died. The group of revolutionaries who were preparing the assassination attempt was found, tried and executed. However, they achieved their goal: with the death of the emperor, the countdown of a troubled and bloody time for Russia began.

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

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

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

“Meaning the liberation of the homeland”

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

Five bullets of teacher Solovyov

The next attempt on the life of the emperor occurred on April 2, 1879. While walking in the palace park, Alexander II drew attention to young man, quickly walking towards him. The stranger managed to fire five bullets at the emperor (and where were the guards looking?!) until he was disarmed. It was only a miracle that saved Alexander II, who did not receive a scratch. The terrorist turned out to be a school teacher, and “part-time” - a member of the revolutionary organization “Land and Freedom” Alexander Solovyov. He was executed on the Smolensk field in front of a large crowd of people.

"Why are they following me like wild beast?»

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

"In the Lair of the Beast"

And the “unlucky ones” were preparing a new blow, deciding to blow up Alexander II in his own house. Sofya Perovskaya learned that the Winter Palace was renovating the basements, including the wine cellar, “successfully” located directly under the imperial dining room. And soon a new carpenter appeared in the palace - Narodnaya Volya member Stepan Khalturin. Taking advantage of the amazing carelessness of the guards, he carried dynamite into the cellar every day, hiding it among the building materials. On the evening of February 5, 1880, a gala dinner was planned in the palace in honor of the arrival of the Prince of Hesse in St. Petersburg. Khalturin set the bomb timer for 18.20. But chance intervened again: the prince’s train was half an hour late, dinner was postponed. The terrible explosion claimed the lives of 10 soldiers and injured another 80 people, but Alexander II remained unharmed. Like some kind of mysterious power took death away from him.

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

Having recovered from the shock of the explosion in the Winter Palace, the authorities began mass arrests, and several terrorists were executed. After this, the head of Narodnaya Volya, Andrei Zhelyabov, said: “The honor of the party demands that the tsar be killed.” Alexander II was warned about a new assassination attempt, but the emperor calmly replied that he was under divine protection. On March 1, 1881, he was riding in a carriage with a small convoy of Cossacks along the embankment of the Catherine Canal in St. Petersburg. Suddenly one of the passers-by threw a package into the carriage. There was a deafening explosion. When the smoke cleared, the dead and wounded lay on the embankment. However, Alexander II cheated death again...

The hunt is over

...It was necessary to leave quickly, but the emperor got out of the carriage and headed towards the wounded. What was he thinking about at these moments? About the prediction of the Parisian gypsy? About the fact that he has now survived the sixth attempt, and the seventh will be the last? We will never know: a second terrorist ran up to the emperor, and a new explosion occurred. The prediction came true: the seventh attempt became fatal for the emperor...

Alexander II died on the same day in his palace. "Narodnaya Volya" was defeated, its leaders were executed. The bloody and senseless hunt for the emperor ended in the death of all its participants.

“I hand over My command to You, but, unfortunately, not in the order I wanted, leaving You with a lot of work and worries,” Alexander II recalled the words of Father Nicholas I, as if anticipating all the hardships and difficulties of his reign. The reforms carried out by Alexander II met with mixed reactions from society: conservatives (Mikhail Katkov, Viktor Panin) complained about the shaking of centuries-old foundations, democrats (Nikolai Chernyshevsky, Alexander Herzen) called them half-hearted, and those who considered themselves revolutionaries saw them as usurper king. The latter pursued the emperor throughout his life and tried to kill him. Providence seemed to protect the “Liberator”: six times he miraculously managed to avoid death, but the seventh turned out to be fatal.

"Do not touch My Anointed One"

On April 16, 1866, Alexander II, at four o'clock in the afternoon, after a walk with his nephews, sat in a carriage, which was surrounded by a crowd of onlookers. Osip Ivanovich Komissarov, a hat maker, passed by. Having learned that the crew belonged to the king, he decided to look at the “anointed one of God.” It was the peasant’s curiosity that saved the emperor’s life: Komissarov, noticing that some young man was rudely pushing forward and trying to shoot the tsar with a pistol, pulled away the hand of the failed regicide - former student Dmitry Karakozov, expelled from Kazan and Moscow universities for participating in the riots.

The angry crowd tried to deal with him, but the gendarmes grabbed the criminal and brought him to the emperor.

The king asked: “Are you a Pole?” Karakozov replied: “No, Russian.” “Why did you shoot at me?” - Alexander II was surprised. “You deceived the people,” Karakozov blurted out. The Emperor was amazed that a Russian nobleman from the Saratov province could shoot at his Tsar: “The most unfortunate thing is that he is Russian.” Immediately after the failed assassination attempt, Alexander II went to the Kazan Cathedral to thank God for his salvation.

Karakozov did not give his real name for a long time, so the gendarmes tormented him with insomnia and “special psychological techniques": he received from his beloved brother Nikolai Ishutin, who headed the revolutionary circle, letters written under duress from the gendarmes, asking him to tell the whole truth. In the end, the would-be regicide confessed to everything, and he was sent to Peter and Paul Fortress and then sentenced to hang. Alexander II imposed a resolution on his request for pardon: “Personally in my soul I forgave him long ago, but as a representative Supreme power, I do not consider myself in the right to forgive such a criminal.”

The execution took place on September 3, 1866 on the Smolensk field. The artist Ilya Repin was also in the crowd wanting to see the criminal. The execution made a grave impression on him. After the incident, he made a pencil sketch, which depicted an emaciated, deprived man (“Karakozov before execution,” 1866). At the site of the assassination attempt, a marble chapel-monument was erected with the inscription “Do not touch My Anointed One.”

Behind courageous act The emperor awarded Osip Komissarov the Order of St. Vladimir, IV degree, and elevated him to the dignity of nobility, giving him the surname Komissarov-Kostromskaya (Osip came from the Kostroma province).

“Beware, sir, of a fair-haired woman with a scarf in her hand.”

In May 1867, Alexander II arrived on an official visit to France. One day in May, while walking through the park, the emperor saw a gypsy woman, known in Paris as the fortune teller Tamar, run up to him. She looked the emperor in the eyes and took his hand, peering into the lines of his palm: “I see seven deaths in your destiny, sir, six times your life will be in the balance, but will not end, the seventh time death will catch up with you.” Hearing the gypsy woman’s words, Alexander II turned pale: he remembered how Dmitry Karakozov shot at him. The emperor could not stop thinking about the terrible prediction.

The next day, he ordered the fortune teller to be delivered to the palace. Tamar took out the cards: the emperor again had seven deaths. The emperor gave the gypsy a gold coin and wanted to let her go, but she did not leave: she decided to clarify the prediction. The gypsy woman handed him a white cambric scarf.

“Beware, sir, of a fair-haired woman with such a scarf in her hand. From him, death will come to you,” Tamar warned.

The fortune teller's prediction began to come true the very next day. The Tsar, his sons and Napoleon III were traveling from the Loschan hippodrome after a military review. Suddenly a man stepped from the side of the road and raised a pistol. The horse of one of the guards shielded the emperor from the bullet. The shooter turned out to be Anton Berezovsky, a 20-year-old Pole. As the investigation later established, he was the son of a poor music teacher and came from the Volyn province. Despite the fact that the father was against his son’s anti-government activities, Berezovsky at the age of 16 participated in the Polish uprising. After the suppression of the uprising, the young man went to Paris and got a job in a metalworking shop. During his stay abroad, the Polish emigrant hatched a plan to kill the emperor and tracked his movements. Berezovsky said: “When I saw the opportunity to take his life in France, I did not hesitate for a minute.” The Pole was tried by a French jury. The terrorist said that he acted only for the sake of Poland. The criminal did not repent. As a result, Berezovsky was found guilty and, according to the verdict, was sent to hard labor in New Caledonia (a Pacific colony of France).

In 1906 he was amnestied, but remained to live in New Caledonia, where he died in 1916.

"Shy and silent" teacher

Despite previous assassination attempts, there were no changes in ensuring the king's security. The security continued to operate according to the old plan: the emperor, walking in front, was followed at a great distance by gendarmerie police. On April 2, 1879, while walking in the very center of the capital, on Palace Square, the Tsar noticed a suspicious young man looking intently at him. The young man put his hand in his pocket, took out a revolver and fired five shots.

The following picture emerged before the eyes of passers-by: the emperor, like a hare, dodging and weaving, ran away from the revolutionary right at the walls of his own palace. Not a single bullet hit the king, but the terrorist wounded a passerby.

The passerby was bleeding, but rushed to the criminal and prevented him from shooting at the sovereign. The terrorist dropped his weapon and tried to escape, but he was caught. It turned out to be the teacher Alexander Solovyov, who was also a member of the “Land and Freedom” society. According to Nikolai Morozov, a Russian revolutionary populist with whom Solovyov “went to the people,” the criminal was a “shy and silent” person: “I especially liked Solovyov for his gentle thoughtfulness and friendliness. His silence was clearly not the result of narrow-mindedness. No! When they asked him about something, he always answered intelligently or originally, but he, like me, and even incomparably more, loved to listen to others, rather than tell them something of his own.”

The teacher had been planning the assassination attempt on the king for a long time and promised that after committing the murder he would take poison. However, he was arrested and sentenced to hang.

Terrorists change tactics

In the summer of 1879, the revolutionary organization “People's Will” arose, whose members, having analyzed previous assassination attempts, realized that the bullet “would not take” the emperor. They changed tactics: they decided to blow up the royal train. A group led by Sofia Perovskaya, a national teacher who participated in the “walk among the people,” knew that the emperor was coming from Crimea with his family, and, having previously made a tunnel, planted a bomb at the Rogozhsko-Simonovskaya outpost.

The conspirators knew some nuances: the first train—the luggage train—passed half an hour earlier, while the second train, which was supposed to contain royal family, follows him. But everything did not work out as the terrorists planned: one of the locomotives of the baggage train broke down in Kharkov, and the royal train was allowed in first.

As a result, the conspirators detonated a mine while the baggage train was passing.

Alexander II, having learned about what had happened, said: “What do they have against me, these unfortunate people? Why are they chasing me like a wild animal? After all, I have always strived to do everything in my power for the good of the people!” After the failed assassination attempt, the terrorist revolutionaries began to develop a new plan.

Explosion in the Winter Palace

Revolutionary Stepan Khalturin, under the name Batyshkov, got a job as a carpenter in the Winter Palace: at that time the basements were being repaired there. Sofya Perovskaya, having carefully worked out the action plan, considered that the wine cellar, located under the royal dining room, was the most suitable place for the bomb. During the day, the silent “worker” repaired the premises, at night he brought dynamite and carefully hid it.

Here is what Narodnaya Volya member Lev Tikhomirov wrote about the security system in the Winter Palace: “First of all, the disorder in management was surprising... Khalturin’s palace comrades organized parties at their place, to which dozens of their acquaintances freely came, without control or supervision. While the highest-ranking officials did not have access to the palace from the front entrances, the back entrances were open at all times of the day and night to every tavern acquaintance of the latest palace servant.

Often visitors would stay overnight in the palace, since staying there was safer than walking home through the streets late at night.”

The explosion was supposed to occur on February 5, 1880 at 18.20, when, according to information received by Perovskaya, Alexander II, along with his family and the Prince of Hesse, were going to have dinner. However, fate again saved the emperor: the Prince of Hesse was delayed for half an hour, and it was decided to postpone dinner.

I.E. Repin. Karakozov before execution. 1866

As a result of the explosion of 48 kilograms of dynamite, soldiers of the Finnish regiment were injured. From the diary of the heir to the throne, Alexander Alexandrovich: “We went to the Winter Palace for lunch, and as soon as we managed to reach the beginning of the large corridor... when there was a terrible roar, and everything began to move under our feet, and in an instant the gas went out everywhere... Having run to the main guard, we found a terrible scene; the entire large guardhouse, where the people were housed, was blown up and everything fell through more than a fathom of depth, and in this pile of bricks, mortar, slabs and huge blocks of vaults and walls, more than 50 soldiers lay side by side, mostly wounded, covered with a layer of dust and blood.

The picture is heartbreaking, and I will never forget this horror in my lifetime!”

White scarf

On Sunday, March 1, 1881, the emperor was going to a weekly review of the guards units at the Mikhailovsky Manege, where he had not gone for several weeks at the insistence of the police: agents reported that another assassination attempt was being prepared on the tsar. In November 1880, the Narodnaya Volya members created an observation detachment in order to monitor all the movements of Alexander II. All the results of observations flocked to Sofya Perovskaya. After the arrest of Andrei Zhelyabov (he was Perovskaya’s lover), the Narodnaya Volya members decided to liquidate the usurper. A few hours before the murder, Perovskaya drew up an assassination plan. The terrorists knew the route thoroughly: they had a map of all the emperor’s movements over the previous months.

Alexander II usually went to Manezh in two ways: the first - through the arch of the main headquarters on Nevsky Prospekt, along it to the left, to Malaya Sadovaya, then straight to the Manege, the second - through the entire Palace Square to the Pevchesky Bridge, then along the Moika embankment through Konyushennaya Square along Ekaterininsky Canal, further left along Inzhenernaya and Italianskaya streets.

The emperor himself chose the route at the last moment.

The Narodnaya Volya members prepared for the assassination attempt for six months. It was decided to make a tunnel on Malaya Sadovaya. To carry out their plan, the Narodnaya Volya members, under the guise of peasant family from the Voronezh province rented a shop on the corner of Malaya Sadovaya and Nevsky. A tunnel was made to the middle of the street, and it was decided to plant the bomb here. The soil from the mine was hidden in a Turkish sofa and cheese barrels. Ten days before the assassination attempt, they became interested in the shop: the neighbors were embarrassed that the peasant wife was flaunting in city clothes and smoking cigarettes. The police came to the store to check, but did not find anything suspicious.

It was impossible to make a tunnel on the second route - there were solid squares, embankments and government buildings everywhere, so it was necessary to use suicide bombers. Nikolai Kibalchich (party pseudonym - Technician), a young man with the makings of a great scientist, volunteered to make the bomb. At home, he conducted hundreds of experiments on the chemistry of explosives and developed a very effective bomb, the basis of which was explosive jelly. Working with it required caution: the slightest mistake could cause an explosion.

Kibalchich had an incredible capacity for work: he made bombs for 15 hours, risking being blown up every minute. By 10 o'clock in the morning four bombs were ready.

Sofia Perovskaya. Illustration: M. Filimonov/RIA Novosti

What could the emperor’s guards do against Kibalchich’s bombs? The squadron's staff included five officers, 18 non-commissioned officers and 164 Cossacks. The Cossacks were distinguished by their loyalty and were ready to give their lives for the Tsar, but they did not possess the skills of bodyguards: in a critical situation they only did what the Tsar ordered them to do.

How the Emperor died

The guard review ended, Alexander got into the carriage. “To the Mikhailovsky Palace across the Singing Bridge,” said the emperor. The terrorists miscalculated: the tsar would not go where the tunnel was made. Then Perovskaya gave the bombers a prearranged signal - a white scarf, which indicated that they should move to the Catherine Canal. Half an hour later, the emperor left the palace, got into the carriage and said to the coachman: “The same road home.”

At 14.15 the carriage turned to the embankment of the Catherine Canal. She drove three meters from Nikolai Rysakov, a 19-year-old student. At 14.20 he threw a bomb, and the explosion occurred under the rear wheels. The emperor was not injured; Rysakov himself was thrown by the blast wave towards the canal fence. The coachman tried to take Alexander II away from the scene of the assassination attempt, but the tsar gave the order to stop. The officers of the motorcade rushed to the emperor's carriage. Rysakov was detained. The Emperor staggered out of the carriage. The police chief began to insist that Alexander II return to the palace as soon as possible, but the tsar wanted to look at the criminal. He approached Rysakov, the Cossacks at that time were in the saddles, since there was no command to dismount: no one except the emperor had the right to command the guard.

Confident that the danger had passed, Alexander II also wanted to see the crater.

At this time, Ignatius Grinevitsky came very close and threw a bomb at the king’s feet: “...among the snow, debris and blood, the remains of torn clothes, an epaulette, sabers and bloody pieces of meat could be seen.” Before arriving at the Winter Palace, Alexander II was not given any assistance, no tourniquets were applied. Soon the emperor died. Later, the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood was built at the site of the assassination attempt.

After the assassination of Alexander II, the security system began to be built on different principles. The reaction came: Alexander III canceled the constitutional reform and approved the provision for the protection of His Majesty. Now all departments of the empire were obliged to comply with the requirements of the head of security.

134 years ago, Emperor Alexander II, honored in history with the epithet “Liberator,” died in the Winter Palace. The tsar was known for carrying out large-scale reforms: he was able to lift the foreign economic blockade established after Crimean War, and abolish serfdom.

However, not everyone liked the transformations of Alexander II. The country experienced increasing corruption, police brutality, and an economy considered wasteful. By the end of the tsar's reign, protest sentiments spread among different strata of society, including the intelligentsia, part of the nobility and the army. Terrorists and Narodnaya Volya began the hunt for Alexander II. For 15 years he managed to escape, until March 1, 1881, his luck changed. Revolutionary Ignatius Grinevetsky threw a bomb at the Tsar’s feet. There was an explosion. The emperor died from his injuries.

On the day of the monarch’s death, the site recalled how terrorists hunted Alexander.

Retracted hand

The first attempt on the life of the emperor occurred on April 4, 1866. It was committed by Dmitry Karakozov, a member of the revolutionary society “Organization” headed by Nikolai Ishutin. He was convinced that the assassination of Alexander II could become an impetus for awakening the people to social revolution in the country.

Pursuing his goal, Karakozov arrived in St. Petersburg in the spring of 1866. He settled in the Znamenskaya Hotel and began to wait for the right moment to commit a crime. On April 4, the Emperor, after a walk with his nephew, the Duke of Leuchtenberg and his niece, the Princess of Baden, sat in a carriage at Summer Garden. Karakozov, huddled in the crowd, shot at Alexander II, but missed. At the moment of the shot, the terrorist’s hand was hit by the peasant Osip Komissarov. For this he was subsequently elevated to hereditary nobility and awarded large quantity awards Karakozov was caught and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

On the eve of his assassination attempt on the Tsar, the terrorist distributed a proclamation “To fellow workers!” In it, the revolutionary explained the reasons for his action as follows: “It became sad, hard for me that... my beloved people were dying, and so I decided to destroy the villain king and die for my dear people. If my plan succeeds, I will die with the thought that by my death I brought benefit to my dear friend, the Russian peasant. But if I don’t succeed, I still believe that there will be people who will follow my path. I didn’t succeed, but they will succeed. For them, my death will be an example and will inspire them..."

In the case of the assassination attempt on the Tsar, 35 people were convicted, most of whom were sent to hard labor. Karakozov was hanged in September 1866 on the Smolensk field on Vasilievsky Island in St. Petersburg. The head of the “Organization” Nikolai Ishutin was also sentenced to hanging. They threw a noose around his neck and at that moment they announced a pardon. Ishutin could not stand it and subsequently went crazy.

Chapel at the site of the assassination attempt of Alexander II Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

A chapel was erected at the site of the assassination attempt on the Tsar. It was demolished during Soviet power- in 1930.

Killed horse

A significant attempt on the life of the Russian Emperor occurred in Paris in June 1867. They wanted to take revenge on Alexander II for the suppression of the Polish uprising of 1863, after which 128 people were executed and another 800 were sent to hard labor.

On June 6, the Tsar was returning in an open carriage with children and Napoleon III after a military review at the hippodrome. In the area of ​​the Bois de Boulogne, Anton Berezovsky, a leader of the Polish national liberation movement, emerged from the crowd and fired several shots at Alexander II. The bullets were diverted from the Russian Tsar by an officer from the guard of the French Emperor, who hit the criminal in the hand just in time. As a result, the attacker only killed the horse with his shots.

Berezovsky did not expect that the pistol with which he was going to shoot Alexander II would explode in his hand. Thanks in part to this, the crowd apprehended the criminal. The leader of the Polish national liberation movement himself explained his action as follows: “I confess that I shot at the emperor today during his return from the review, two weeks ago I had the idea of ​​regicide, however, or rather, I have harbored this thought since then, how he began to recognize himself, having in mind the liberation of his homeland.”

In July, Berezovsky was exiled to New Caledonia, where he lived until his death.

Portrait of Tsar Alexander II in an overcoat and cap of a cavalry guard regiment around 1865. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Five inaccurate shots

The next high-profile attempt on the life of the tsar occurred 12 years after the Paris attack. On April 2, 1878, teacher and member of the “Land and Freedom” society Alexander Solovyov waylaid Alexander II during his morning walk in the vicinity of the Winter Palace. The attacker managed to fire five shots, despite the fact that before the last two volleys he received a serious blow to the back with a bare saber. Not a single bullet hit Alexander II.

Soloviev was detained. A very thorough investigation was carried out into his case. On it, the attacker stated: “The idea of ​​​​an attempt on the life of His Majesty arose in me after becoming acquainted with the teachings of the socialist revolutionaries. I belong to the Russian section of this party, which believes that the majority suffers so that the minority can enjoy the fruits of the people’s labor and all the benefits of civilization that are inaccessible to the majority.”

Solovyov was hanged on May 28, 1879 in the same place as Karakozov, after which he was buried on Goloday Island.

Exploded train

In the fall of the same year, members of the newly formed organization “People's Will” decided to blow up the train on which Alexander II was returning from Crimea. To do this, the first group of Narodnaya Volya members went to Odessa. One of the participants in the conspiracy, Mikhail Frolenko, got a job as a railway guard 14 km from the city. His new position made it possible to quietly lay a mine. But at the last moment the royal train changed its route.

The Narodnaya Volya were prepared for such a development of events. At the beginning of November 1879, revolutionary Alexander Zhelyabov was sent to Aleksandrovsk, who introduced himself there as Cheremisov. He bought a plot next to the railway under the pretext of building a tannery. Zhelyabov, who was working under cover of darkness, managed to drill a hole under the tracks and plant a bomb there. On November 18, when the train caught up with the Narodnaya Volya, he tried to detonate the mine, but the explosion did not happen, because electrical circuit had a malfunction.

“People's Will” formed a third group, led by Sofia Perovskaya, to carry out the assassination of the Tsar. She was supposed to plant a bomb on the tracks near Moscow. This group failed due to chance. The royal train followed two trains: the first carried luggage, and the second carried the emperor and his family. In Kharkov, due to a malfunction of the baggage train, the train of Alexander II was launched first. The terrorists ended up blowing up only the freight train. No one from the royal family was injured.

Dynamite under the dining room

Already by February 5, 1880, representatives of Narodnaya Volya prepared a new attempt on the life of Alexander II, who was despised for repressive measures, bad reforms and suppression of the democratic opposition.

Stepan Khalturin. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Sofya Perovskaya, who was responsible for the bombing of the royal train near Moscow, learned through her friends that the basements in the Winter Palace were being repaired. The premises to be worked on included a wine cellar, located exactly under the royal dining room. It was decided to plant the bomb here.

“Carpenter” Stepan Khalturin got a job in the palace and at night he dragged bags of dynamite to the right place. He was even once left alone with the king when he was renovating his office, but was unable to kill him, since the emperor was polite and courteous with the workers.

Perovskaya learned that the Tsar had a gala dinner scheduled for February 5th. At 18.20 it was decided to detonate dynamite, but this time Alexander II was not killed. The reception was delayed by half an hour due to the delay of the Prince of Hesse, who was also a member of the imperial family. The explosion caught the king not far from the security room. As a result, none of the high-ranking persons were injured, but 10 soldiers were killed and 80 wounded.

Bomb at your feet

Before the assassination attempt in March 1881, during which Alexander II was killed, the tsar was warned about the serious intentions of the Narodnaya Volya, but the emperor replied that he was under divine protection, which had already helped him survive several attacks.

Representatives of Narodnaya Volya planned to plant a bomb under the roadway on Malaya Sadovaya Street. If the mine had not worked, then four Narodnaya Volya members on the street would have thrown bombs at the emperor’s carriage. If Alexander II is still alive, Zhelyabov will have to kill the Tsar.

Attempt on the life of the king. Photo: Commons.wikimedia.org

Many conspirators were exposed in anticipation of the assassination attempt. After the detention of Zhelyabov, the Narodnaya Volya decided to take decisive action.

On March 1, 1881, Alexander II went from the Winter Palace to the Manege, accompanied by a small guard. After the meeting, the Tsar went back through the Catherine Canal. This was not part of the plans of the conspirators, so it was hastily decided that four Narodnaya Volya members would stand along the canal, and after Sofia Perovskaya’s signal they would throw bombs at the carriage.

The first explosion did not affect the king, but the carriage stopped. Alexander II was not prudent and wanted to see the captured criminal. When the tsar approached Rysakov, who threw the first bomb, the Narodnaya Volya member Ignatius Grinevetsky, unnoticed by the guards, threw a second bomb at the tsar’s feet. There was an explosion. Blood flowed from the emperor's crushed legs. He wished to die in the Winter Palace, where he was taken.

Grinevetsky also received fatal injuries. Later, the main participants in the conspiracy, including Sofia Perovskaya, were detained. Participants " Narodnaya Volya"were hanged on April 3, 1881.

Emperor Alexander II on his deathbed. Photo by S. Levitsky. Photo:

Up to the second half of the 19th century centuries, attempts on the lives of monarchs in Russia were exclusively the work of the elite. In the process of struggle among the court parties for power, one of the parties, seeking the victory of its leader, also allowed the death of a competitor. In 1801, state dignitaries and guards officers cleared the way to the throne for Alexandra I by physically eliminating his father, the emperor Paul I.

For the people, the sovereign remained “God’s anointed,” a sacred and inviolable person.

However, the revolutionary winds also reached Russian Empire, where radically minded citizens began to study with interest Western experience in terms of sending royalty under the executioner's axe.

In 1861 the Emperor Alexander II made the historic decision to abolish serfdom. Along with this measure, a whole series of reforms were implemented, which were supposed to provide Russia with a decisive leap forward.

But the measures to liberalize public life taken by Alexander II did not suit the revolutionary-minded youth. According to Russian revolutionaries, reforms were carried out extremely slowly, and often were a deception of popular expectations.

As a result, the reformer Alexander II was declared a “tyrant” by the radicals. On Russian soil, an idea that dates back to antiquity quickly began to gain popularity - the fastest and most reliable way to bring about changes in society is to “kill the tyrant.”

"You deceived the people"

On April 4, 1866, Emperor Alexander II, as usual, walked in the Summer Garden. In those days, the tsar could afford to walk around St. Petersburg without security or with one or two accompanying persons.

After finishing the walk, the emperor headed to the entrance to the Summer Garden, where the carriage was waiting for him. A crowd of those who wanted to look at the sovereign gathered around. At that moment, when Alexander was approaching the carriage, a shot rang out. The bullet whistled over the emperor's head.

The shooter was captured on the spot. "Guys! I shot for you!” he shouted.

Dmitry Karakozov. Photo: Public Domain

Alexander II, who survived the shock, nevertheless retained his composure. He ordered the shooter to be brought to the carriage and asked:

- You're polish?

The emperor's question was not accidental. Poland, which was part of the Russian Empire, regularly raised revolts, which were also regularly and ruthlessly suppressed. So if anyone had reason to wish the Russian Tsar dead, it was the Poles.

“I’m Russian,” answered the terrorist.

- Why did you shoot at me? - the monarch was amazed.

“You deceived the people: you promised them land, but didn’t give it,” answered the would-be murderer.

“Take him to the Third Department,” ordered Alexander, who decided to end the political dispute.

The killer and the savior

Together with the shooter, who called himself a peasant Alexander Petrov, another man was also detained and suspected of complicity. He, however, did not express any revolutionary ideas. His name was Osip Komissarov, he was a hat maker who came from the peasants of the Kostroma province.

Osip Komissarov. Photo: Public Domain

Komissarov's fate was decided by the general Eduard Totleben, who happened to be at the scene and stated that the hat maker pushed the shooter under the arm, which prevented the killer from firing an accurate shot.

Thanks to these testimonies, Osip Komissarov instantly turned from a potential villain into a protagonist.

Meanwhile, detectives interrogated “peasant Petrov” to establish whether the assassin had accomplices.

During the investigation, it was established that he lived in room 65 at the Znamenskaya Hotel. A search of the room brought the police a torn letter to a certain Nikolay Ishutin, who was soon detained. The interrogation of Ishutin made it possible to establish the real name of the shooter - Dmitry Karakozov.

“I decided to destroy the villain king and die for my dear people”

He was born in 1840, into a family of small landed nobles of the Saratov province. After graduating from high school in Penza, Karakozov studied at Kazan and Moscow universities, but dropped out due to lack of funds. For some time, Karakozov worked as a clerk for the justice of the peace of the Serdob district.

In 1865, a young man, dissatisfied with the injustice of the world around him, joined the secret society "Organization", founded by him cousin Nikolai Ishutin. Subsequently, the society acquired another name - the “Ishutin circle”.

As in many other revolutionary organizations of that time, there was a dispute among the Ishutinites about methods of struggle. Dmitry Karakozov joined those who believed that individual terror and, first of all, the murder of the emperor could rouse the Russian people to revolution.

In the spring of 1866, Karakozov decided that he was able to carry out the great mission on his own, and left for St. Petersburg. On the eve of the assassination attempt, he wrote a proclamation “Friends-workers!”, in which he explained the motives for his action: “It became sad, it became hard for me that... my beloved people were dying, and so I decided to destroy the villain king and die for my dear people. . If my plan succeeds, I will die with the thought that by my death I brought benefit to my dear friend, the Russian peasant. But if I don’t succeed, I still believe that there will be people who will follow my path. I didn’t succeed, but they will succeed. For them, my death will be an example and will inspire them...”

Chapel at the site of the assassination attempt on Alexander II (not preserved). Photo: Public Domain

Execution on the Smolensk field

After Karakozov’s failure, the “Ishutin circle” was crushed, and more than three dozen of its members were put on trial. The head of the organization, Nikolai Ishutin, was initially sentenced to death, which was commuted to lifelong hard labor. Two years in solitary confinement in the Shlisselburg fortress led to Ishutin going crazy. He died in 1879 after wandering through Russian prisons and hard labor.

As for Dmitry Karakozov, his fate was virtually predetermined even before the start of the trial. On August 31, 1866, the Supreme Criminal Court presided over Prince Gagarin sentenced Karakozov to death by hanging.

The verdict noted that Karakozov “confessed to the attempt on the life of the “Sacred Person of the Emperor”, explaining before the Supreme Criminal Court, when they gave him a copy of the indictment, that his crime was so great that it could not be justified even by that painful nervous state, in which he was at the time."

Portrait by I. Repin (1866). Photo: Public Domain

The execution took place on the morning of September 3, 1866 on the Smolensk field, located on Vasilyevsky Island. Thousands of people gathered to watch the hanging. Among those present at the execution was the artist Ilya Repin, who made a pencil sketch of the condemned man. The body hung in the noose for about 20 minutes, then it was removed, placed in a coffin and taken for burial to Goloday Island, located in the Neva delta. According to some reports, the grave was under surveillance for several weeks - detectives hoped to detain Karakozov’s accomplices who would come to pay tribute to the fallen like-minded person.

"Invention" of General Totleben

Osip Komissarov, declared the savior of the emperor, gained all-Russian fame in the first weeks after the assassination attempt. Already on the evening of April 4, just a few hours after the events, he attended a reception in the Winter Palace, where he received imperial hugs and warm gratitude. Alexander II hung the Vladimir Cross of the IV degree on his chest and elevated him to hereditary nobleman with the assignment of a surname - Komissarov-Kostromskaya.

All the newspapers wrote about his feat, and the newly minted nobleman himself now said that he deliberately interfered with Karakozov, despite the danger: “I don’t know what, but my heart somehow beat especially when I saw this man who was hastily making his way through the crowd ; I involuntarily watched him, but then, however, forgot him when the sovereign approached. Suddenly I saw that he had taken out and was aiming a pistol: it instantly seemed to me that if I rushed at him or pushed his hand to the side, he would kill someone else or me, and I involuntarily and forcefully pushed his hand up; Then I don’t remember anything, I felt like I was in a fog.”

Two days before Karakozov’s execution, a ceremony took place near the Summer Garden to lay the foundation for the chapel of St. Alexander Nevsky in memory of the Tsar’s miraculous deliverance from death. Minister of Internal Affairs Pyotr Valuev, who was present at the event, wrote in his diary: “Among the persons participating in the ceremony was Komissarov. He stood next to his inventor, General Totleben. He is decorated with various foreign orders, which gives him the appearance of an official who has made trips abroad in the retinue of high-ranking persons. Coincidence".

Popular message about the feat of Osip Komissarov, 1866. Photo: Public Domain

The hero of the empire died in oblivion

In fact, by that time Komissarov was a holder of the Legion of Honor, holder of the Commander's Cross of the Austrian Order Franz Joseph, as well as the medal “April 4, 1866” specially established for him.

The 28-year-old hat maker became an honorary citizen of a number of Russian cities, houses were decorated with his portraits, he was awarded a lifelong pension of 3,000 rubles. The Moscow nobility presented him with a golden sword, and the military department collected 9,000 rubles to buy a new house for the savior of the emperor.

Meanwhile, the national hero remained an illiterate man with a craving for alcohol, which began to greatly trouble powerful of the world this. Osip Komissarov needed to be placed somewhere where he could not compromise the image created by propaganda.

A year later, he was given a job as a cadet in the Pavlograd 2nd Life Hussar Regiment. Well-born nobles who served in the elite unit shunned Komissarov, considering him an upstart. From melancholy and from having a lot of money, the savior of Alexander II began to drink too much. In 1877, he was sent into retirement with the rank of captain. Komissarov settled on an estate granted to him in the Poltava province and took up gardening and beekeeping. Forgotten by everyone, he died in 1892, before his 55th birthday.

Alexander II, showering Osip Komissarov with awards and sending Dmitry Karakozov to the gallows, could not even think that the events of April 4, 1866 were just the beginning of a great hunt for the emperor, which would stretch for 15 years and end with his death on March 1, 1881.