Karakozov, who attempted to assassinate Alexander 2. The hunt for the Tsar. Five famous assassination attempts on Emperor Alexander II. Leo Tolstoy asked not to execute the murderers

April 4, 1866 assassination attempt by D.V. Karakozov on Emperor Alexander II. The tsar survived, but Karakozov was sentenced to hanging.

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 headed to the carriage that was waiting for him outside the gate, an unknown person standing in the crowd at the garden railing tried to shoot at the king. The bullet flew past because someone managed to hit the killer in the arm. The attacker was captured, and the emperor, who quickly gained control of himself, went to the Kazan Cathedral to serve a thanksgiving prayer for the happy salvation. 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 Tsar quickly spread throughout the capital. For the residents of St. Petersburg, for the residents of all of Russia, what happened was a real shock, because for the first time in Russian history, someone dared to shoot at the Tsar!

Dmitry Karakozov. Photo from 1866

An investigation began, and the identity of the criminal 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", led by Nikolai Ishutin (according to some information, Ishutin was Karakozov's cousin). This secret group claimed as its ultimate goal the introduction of socialism in Russia through revolution, and to achieve the goal, according to the Ishutinites, all means should be used, including terror. Karakozov considered the tsar to be the true culprit of all Russia’s misfortunes, and, despite the dissuasions of his comrades in the secret society, he came to St. Petersburg with the obsessive idea of ​​killing Alexander II.

Medal of Osip Komisarov, obverse.

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

Medal of Osip Komisarov, reverse.

About two thousand people were under investigation in the Karakozov case, 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 was pardoned, and this was announced to him when a noose was already placed around the condemned man’s neck. Ishutin could not recover from what happened: he went crazy in the prison of the Shlisselburg fortress.

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

DISCONTENT WITH THE PEASANT REFORM

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

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

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

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

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

The majority of peasants, in modern terms, adhered to traditional values, Sokolov believes. “And the assassination of the emperor on March 1, 1881 caused them anger and indignation. Yes, the Narodnaya Volya committed a terrible crime. But we must say this: unlike modern terrorists, none of them was looking for personal gain. They were blindly confident that they were sacrificing themselves for the sake of the people's good.

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

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

“YOU HAVE OFFENSED THE PEASANTS”

The first attempt on the sovereign's life occurred on April 4, 1866 in the Summer Garden. Dmitry Karakozov, by the way, a peasant by birth, but who had already managed to study and be expelled from the university, as well as participate in one of the revolutionary organizations, decided to kill the tsar on his own. The Emperor got into the carriage with the guests - his relatives, the Duke of Leuchtenberg and the Princess of Baden. Karakozov wormed his way into the crowd and aimed his pistol. But hatmaker Osip Komissarov, who was standing next to him, hit the terrorist on the hand. The shot went into the milk. Karakozov was captured and would have been torn to pieces, but the police intercepted him, taking him away from the crowd, to whom the desperately fighting terrorist shouted: “Fool! After all, I am for you, but you don’t understand!” The Emperor approached the arrested terrorist, and he said: “Your Majesty, you offended the peasants!”

ALL YOUR LIFE I DREAMED OF KILLING THE RUSSIAN TSAR

We didn’t have to wait long for the next assassination attempt. On May 25, 1867, during the sovereign's visit to France, the Polish revolutionary Anton Berezovsky tried to kill him. After a walk through the Bois de Boulogne in the company of the French Emperor Napoleon III, Alexander II of Russia was returning to Paris. Berezovsky jumped up to the open carriage and fired. But one of the security officers managed to push the attacker, and the bullets hit the horse. After his arrest, Berezovsky stated that his entire adult life he had dreamed of killing the Russian Tsar. He was sentenced to life in hard labor and sent to New Caledonia. He stayed there for forty years, then he was amnestied. But he did not return to Europe, preferring to live out his life at the end of the world.

The first militant revolutionary organization in Russia was “Land and Freedom”. On April 2, 1878, a member of this organization, Alexander Solovyov, carried out another attempt on the life of the Tsar. Alexander II was walking near the Winter Palace when a man came out to meet him, pulled out a revolver and started firing. From five meters he managed to shoot five (!) times. And I never hit it. Some historians express the opinion that Solovyov did not know how to shoot at all and picked up a weapon for the first time in his life. When asked what prompted him to take this crazy step, he answered with a quote from the works of Karl Marx: “I believe that the majority suffers so that the minority enjoys the fruits of the people’s labor and all the benefits of civilization that are inaccessible to the minority.” Solovyov was hanged.

“PEOPLE’S WILL” TOOK THE CASE

Photo: KP archive. Narodnaya Volya members Sofya Perovskaya and Andrei Zhelyabov in the dock

On November 19, 1879, an assassination attempt took place, prepared by the Narodnaya Volya organization, which separated from Land and Freedom. On that day, terrorists attempted to blow up the royal train, on which the monarch and his family were returning from Crimea. A group led by the daughter of the actual state councilor and governor of St. Petersburg, Sofia Perovskaya, planted a bomb under the rails near Moscow. The terrorists knew that the baggage train was coming first, and the sovereigns were coming second. But for technical reasons, the passenger train was sent first. He drove through safely, but it exploded under the second train. Fortunately, no one was hurt.

Let us note that all the activists of Narodnaya Volya were young and relatively educated people. And engineer Nikolai Kibalchich, who designed and prepared the charges for killing the sovereign, was even keen on the ideas of space exploration.

It was these youth who carried out two more attempts on the emperor’s life.

Sofya Perovskaya learned about the upcoming renovation of the Winter Palace from her father. One of the Narodnaya Volya members, Stepan Khalturin, easily found a job as a carpenter at the royal residence. While working, every day he carried baskets and bales of explosives to the palace. I hid them among construction debris (!) and accumulated a charge of enormous power. However, one day he had the opportunity to distinguish himself in front of his comrades and without an explosion: Khalturin was called to repair the royal office! The terrorist was left alone with the emperor. But he did not find the strength to kill the sovereign.

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

The last, alas, successful attempt took place on the embankment of the Catherine Canal. A lot has been written about this tragedy; there is no point in repeating it. Let's just say that as a result of the assassination attempt, twenty people were wounded and killed, including a fourteen-year-old boy.

TOLD!

Emperor Alexander II: “What do they have against me, these unfortunates? 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?”

BY THE WAY

Leo Tolstoy asked not to execute the murderers

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

“Only one word of forgiveness and Christian love, spoken and fulfilled from the height of the throne, and the path of Christian kingship that you are about to embark on, can destroy the evil that is plaguing Russia. Every revolutionary struggle will melt away like wax before the fire before the Tsar, the man who fulfills the law of Christ.”

INSTEAD OF AN AFTERWORD

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

There is an opinion that in 1867 a Parisian gypsy told the Russian Emperor Alexander II a fortune: “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... Half of Russia wanted his death. The spirit of his father appeared to him and predicted misfortune from the person closest to him. Emperor-Liberator Alexander II, according to a fortune teller, a fair-haired woman with a white headscarf will become a sign of certain death for him. All his life the sovereign tried to find out who she was - the one who would bring him death.

Emperor Alexander II (1818-1881)

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

On April 4, 1866, Alexander II walked with his nephews in the Summer Garden. A large crowd of onlookers watched the emperor through the fence. When the walk ended, and Alexander II was getting into the carriage, a shot was heard.
At that moment, the peasant Osip Komissarov, who happened to be nearby, hit the killer in the hand, and the bullet flew past. The criminal was detained on the spot.

The assassin turned out to be a nobleman of the Saratov province, Dmitry Karakozov, a student first at Kazan and then at Moscow universities, expelled for participating in the riots. 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!” 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.

It later turned out that Karakozov belonged to the Moscow populist secret circle (led by his cousin Ishutin), which had the goal of overthrowing the legitimate government through a coup d'etat. During the trial, Karakozov and Ishutin were sentenced to death, many members of the circle were sentenced to deprivation of all rights of their fortune, exile to hard labor and settlement in Siberia. Ishutin’s life was later saved, and the sentences of other convicts were significantly reduced. The peasant who saved the Emperor, O.I. Komissarov was granted hereditary nobility.

From the testimony of D.V. Karakozov commission of inquiry into the case of the assassination attempt on Alexander II on April 4, 1866.
April 16, 1866

When and under what circumstances did you have the idea of ​​an attempt on the life of the Emperor? Who directed you to commit this crime, and what means were taken for this?

This idea was born in me at the time when I learned about the existence of a party that wanted to carry out a revolution in favor of Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich. The circumstances that preceded the commission of this intent and were one of the main motivations for committing the crime were my illness, which had a serious effect on my moral state. She first led me to the thought of suicide, and then, when the goal presented itself, not to die in vain, but to bring benefit to the people, she gave me the energy to complete my plan. As for the individuals who guided me in committing this crime and used any means for this, I declare that there were no such individuals: neither Kobylin nor any other individuals made me such proposals. Kobylin only told me about the existence of this party and the idea that this party relies on such authority and has in its ranks many influential individuals from among the courtiers. That this party has a strong organization in its constituent circles, that this party wants the good of the working people, so that in this sense it can be called a people's party.

This thought was the main guide in committing my crime. With the achievement of a political revolution, there was an opportunity to improve the material well-being of the common people, their mental development, and through that my most important goal - an economic revolution. I learned about the Konstantinovsky Party during my acquaintance with Kobylin from him personally. I wrote about this game in a letter that was found with me to my brother Nikolai Andreevich Ishutin in Moscow.

The letter was not sent because I was afraid that in some way they would interfere with me in completing my plan. This letter remained with me because I was in a restless state of mind, and the letter was written before the crime was committed. The letter “K” in the letter means exactly that party, Konstantinovskaya, about which I informed my brother. Upon arrival in Moscow, I informed my brother about this verbally, but my brother expressed the idea that this was pure absurdity, because nothing had been heard about it anywhere, and generally expressed distrust in the existence of such a party.

Napoleon III or Alexander II?

In 1867, a world exhibition was organized in Paris, in which Russia, along with other countries, was a participant. Alexander II, under the pretext of visiting an exhibition, decided to go to Paris. The emperor's inner circle dissuaded him from this venture, citing the fact that many participants in the uprising in Poland settled in the French capital. Obviously, all sorts of provocations towards him were to be expected. But the emperor was adamant in his decision. He really wanted to meet his young mistress, Katerina Dolgorukova, who at that time lived outside of Russia.

During Alexander II's official visit to France, an incident occurred that was regarded by the world community as an attempt on the life of the Russian emperor. Its events took place approximately as follows: on June 6, after a military review at the Longchamps hippodrome, Alexander II was returning in an open carriage with his children and the French Emperor Napoleon III. In the area of ​​​​the Bois de Boulogne, among the jubilant crowd of Frenchmen awaiting the appearance of the official procession, there was a short, black-haired Pole - Anton Berezovsky. When the imperial carriage appeared next to him, he fired his pistol twice in its direction. A police officer from the guard of Napoleon III noticed a man with a weapon in the crowd in time and pushed his hand away; the bullets flew past the imperial persons, only hitting the horse of the equestrian.

Neither the testimony of numerous witnesses nor ballistic examination can clearly show who Anton Berezovsky was actually aiming at. Therefore, another version cannot be ruled out - to consider what happened as an attempt on the life of any of those who were in the wheelchair at that time. The most likely version in this case is an attempt to send Napoleon III to another world. He had enough enemies both in France and abroad who wanted his quick death.

As for the Pole, he, as is typical for any person, saved his life. Knowing full well that for attempting to fulfill the order of the enemies of the Emperor of France, he would inevitably lose his own life. For such an occasion, the French would have taken the guillotine out of the museum, installed it on Bastille Square and would have cut off the villain’s head at that moment. Anton Berezovsky admitted to attempting to assassinate Alexander II. It was a completely different calico. The assassination attempt on the Russian emperor did not cause a strong resonance in French society.

The French, warmed up and fed by the “ducks” of the Western press, greeted him unfriendly from the very beginning of the distinguished guest’s visit to Paris. And the news of the assassination attempt on the Russian emperor did not particularly hurt them. Even more, many of them were on the side of the Pole, who thus decided to take revenge for his desecrated homeland. The legend about the assassination attempt on Alexander II saved the defendant from the death penalty, but did not save him from lifelong hard labor.

The question arises: why didn’t the French court impose a more lenient punishment on the terrorist? What many French people demanded. And the high court of France did not believe the legend of the attack on the Russian Tsar, but had to take into account the public mood. It is known that the French are ardent people, not satisfied with the verdict passed, they could demolish something; they had experience in demolishing the Bastille.

Five bullets of teacher Solovyov

In 1879, Alexander Soloviev, a student at St. Petersburg University, began the hunt for the Tsar with a large American revolver. Whose order he carried out is now apparently impossible to find out. The details of the assassination attempt are also unknown; those that are available vary greatly from source to source: the date of the assassination attempt varies from April 2 to April 20. The time of the assassination attempt is between “nine o’clock” and “ten o’clock in the morning.” The location is from Palace Square to Millionnaya Street. There are no testimonies from witnesses to the assassination attempt.

From Solovyov’s testimony it is known that he shot at a man, in his opinion, similar to the Tsar from a distance of 5-6 steps, almost without aiming. Not a single bullet hit the victim of the assassination attempt. He was knocked down by a blow to the head and while lying down fired two more shots. There is an opinion that the terrorist was simply poor at wielding a weapon and had never used it before the assassination attempt. There is also contrary information claiming that the same Soloviev went to the shooting range several days before the assassination attempt and fired from a revolver.

Any shooting expert will notice that there is a big difference between shooting at a shooting range and shooting at a live target. And yet, why the terrorist did not hit such a large target at close range remains a mystery. Soloviev did not keep his intentions to assassinate the Tsar a strict secret. His upcoming actions were discussed at a meeting of the political organization “Land and Freedom”; most of the members of this organization were against the assassination attempt. On the eve of the assassination attempt, illegal immigrants and political agitators left the capital, fearing mass arrests after the terrorist attack.

Presumably, the departure of most of the political activists from the city did not go unnoticed by the police. In such a situation, it is doubtful to think that the tsar could walk down the street without security, even in the vicinity of the Winter Palace. The unsuccessful attempt suggests rather the idea that it happened under the control and scenario of the king’s guard. However, this was already the third black mark for Alexander II. Alexander Solovyov was sentenced to death by hanging and executed.

“Why are they chasing me like a wild animal?”

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?”

If you imagine Sofya Perovskaya at the time of her revolutionary activity, then the image of a fanatical revolutionary appears, whose, as Alexander Blok wrote, “sweet, gentle gaze burns with courage and sadness.” However, Perovskaya was not like that at all. Peter Kropotkin recalled: “We had excellent camaraderie with all the women in the circle. But we all loved Sonya Perovskaya. When we saw her, each of our faces blossomed into a wide smile.” One of her revolutionary friends said: “The sense of duty was very strongly developed in Perovskaya, but she was never a pedant; on the contrary, in her free time she loved to chat, and she laughed so loudly and contagiously, like a child, that everyone around her felt happy.”

“And again a miss”

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.

On September 20, 1879, carpenter Batyshkov got a job at the Winter Palace. In fact, this name was hiding Stepan Khalturin, the son of a Vyatka peasant, one of the founders of the Northern Union of Russian Workers, who later joined Narodnaya Volya. He believed that the king should die at the hands of a worker - a representative of the people. His room with his partner was in the basement of the palace. Directly above it was a guardhouse, and even higher, on the second floor, were the sovereign’s chambers.

Khalturin-Batyshkov’s personal property was a huge chest in the corner of the basement; to this day it is not clear why the tsarist police never bothered to look into it. The terrorist brought dynamite to the palace in small packets. When about 3 poods of explosives had accumulated, Khalturin attempted to assassinate the Tsar. On February 5, he detonated a mine under the dining room where the royal family was supposed to be. The lights went out in the Winter Palace, and frightened guards ran in and out.

Alas, Alexander II did not go to the dining room at the usual time, as he was meeting a guest - the Prince of Hesse, whose train was 20 minutes late. As a result of the attack, nineteen soldiers were killed and another forty-eight were injured. Khalturin managed to escape. The assassination attempt on February 5 made Narodnaya Volya world famous. The explosion in the royal palace seemed a completely incredible event.

The hunt is over

March 1, 1881 - the last attempt on Alexander II's life, which led to his death. Initially, the Narodnaya Volya plans included laying a mine in St. Petersburg under the Stone Bridge, which stretched across the Catherine Canal. However, they soon abandoned this idea and settled on another option - to lay a mine under the roadway on Malaya Sadovaya. If the mine suddenly did not go off, then four Narodnaya Volya members who were on the street should have thrown bombs at the Tsar’s carriage, and if Alexander II was still alive, then Zhelyabov would personally jump into the carriage and stab the Tsar with a dagger.

Not everything went smoothly during the preparation of the operation: either a search was carried out in the “cheese shop” where the conspirators were gathering, then arrests of important Narodnaya Volya members began, among whom were Mikhailov, and already at the end of February 1881 Zhelyabov himself. The arrest of the latter prompted the conspirators to take action. After Zhelyabov’s arrest, the emperor was warned about the possibility of a new assassination attempt, but he took it calmly, saying that he was under divine protection, which had already allowed him to survive 5 assassination attempts. On March 1, 1881, Alexander II left the Winter Palace for Manezh, accompanied by a rather small guard (in the face of a new assassination attempt). He attended the changing of the guards and, after drinking tea with his cousin, the emperor went back to the Winter Palace through the Catherine Canal.

This turn of events completely disrupted the plans of the conspirators. In the current emergency situation, Perovskaya, who headed the organization after Zhelyabov’s arrest, hastily reworks the details of the operation. According to the new plan, 4 Narodnaya Volya members - Grinevitsky, Rysakov, Emelyanov, Mikhailov - took up positions along the embankment of the Catherine Canal and waited for the conditioned signal - a wave of a scarf from Perovskaya (predictions come true), according to which they should throw bombs at the royal carriage.

When the royal cortege drove onto the embankment, Sophia gave a signal, and Rysakov threw his bomb towards the royal carriage: a strong explosion was heard, after traveling some distance, the royal carriage stopped, and the emperor was once again not injured. But the further expected favorable outcome for Alexander was spoiled by himself: instead of hastily leaving the scene of the assassination attempt, the king wished to see the captured criminal. When he approached Rysakov, unnoticed by the guards, Grinevitsky threw a second bomb at the Tsar’s feet. The blast wave threw Alexander II to the ground, bleeding profusely from his crushed legs. The fallen emperor whispered: Take me to the palace... There I want to die....

The following lines by Alexander Blok (poem “Retribution”) are dedicated to the assassination of Alexander II:

"...There was an explosion
From the Catherine Canal,
Covering Russia with a cloud.
Everything foreshadowed from afar,
That the fateful hour will happen,
That such a card will appear...
And this century hour of the day -
The last one is called the first of March"

Other news

Until the second half of the 19th century, 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 the Russian Empire, where radical citizens began to study with interest the Western experience in sending royals to the executioner's ax.

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 his 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 Vasilievsky 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, and 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 worry the powers that be. 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.