September 15: Execution of Dmitry Karakozov, who shot Alexander II
On September 15, 1866, a 25-year-old man was hanged on Smolensk Field (Vasilievsky Island, St. Petersburg) Dmitry KarakozovThis revolutionary attempted to assassinate the emperor. Aleksandra II — the first terrorist attack in the history of Russia.
Penza Gymnasium and Kazan University
Karakozov was born in 1840 in the Saratov village of Zhmakino (now Penza region), into an impoverished noble family. In 1860, at the age of 20, he graduated from the Penza Boys' Gymnasium.
In the fall of 1861, he enrolled in the law department of Kazan University. A month later, he was expelled for participating in student unrest.
For the next two years, he lived in the village with relatives and worked as a clerk for a justice of the peace. There, he observed poverty and saw the shortcomings of the peasant reform.
In 1863, Karakozov returned to Kazan University under an amnesty, but was temporarily exiled twice more. In 1864, he transferred to Moscow State University. He was expelled from there for non-payment of fees.
Dmitry Karakozov and the group "Hell"
Shortly before this, he joined the secret revolutionary society "Organization", which was headed by his cousin Nikolay IshutinKarakozov was also a member of the secret terrorist group "Hell," created to plot the assassination of the emperor.
In March, he bought a Belgian Lefauche 7-gauge pistol, got six pellets, potassium cyanide, and a ticket to the capital. Karakozov rented a modest room at the Znamenskaya Hotel on Ligovka. Every day, he walked around the Tauride and Summer Gardens with a chronometer, rehearsing the assassination attempt.
Shot in the Summer Garden
On the afternoon of April 16, Alexander II, as usual, walked through the Summer Garden without a cordon (reinforced security). Karakozov missed—the bullet shattered the porcelain insulator of a lamppost.
According to the official version, his hand was pushed away by a tailor. Osip Komissarov, who was soon ennobled. Some historians consider this version to be nothing more than a propaganda invention. Karakozov himself said he was distracted by a shout from someone in the crowd.
When he was arrested, a copy of the handwritten proclamation “To the Working Friends,” which had been distributed on the eve of the assassination attempt, was found in his pocket.
I felt sad and heavy that my beloved people were perishing, and so I decided to destroy the villainous Tsar and die for my beloved people. 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. And if I fail, I still believe that there will be people who will follow in my path. I failed, but they will succeed. For them, my death will be an example and an inspiration.
Investigation and trial
The investigation into the Karakozov case was headed by Count Mikhail MuravyovFor his brutal suppression of the Polish uprising, he was nicknamed "the hangman." He died two days before his sentence was handed down.
Nearly two thousand people were involved in the case. The trial began in August. Eleven "primary" defendants and 25 "those who knew but did not report" were in the dock. The trial was closed, but public defenders were allowed to attend.
The prosecutor is the Minister of Justice Dmitry Zamyatnin - read the indictment for 14 hours and repeated the phrase “An attack on a sacred person».
Of all the defendants, only two were sentenced to death: Karakozov and Ishutin. Ishutin's sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.
The Ishutin residents gave varying accounts of Karakozov: some called him a "loner with quirks," others a "victim of a false theory of terror." The defense unsuccessfully attempted to prove his client's neurological condition. The court deemed medical reports of extreme signs of hysteria and evidence of suicide attempts insufficient.
Karakozov himself said he considered suicide, but decided "to die not in vain, but to bring benefit to the people." In his final statement, he said:
I wasn't crazy, but I was close to it. Then I expected death any day. That's the kind of disgraceful mental state I was in.
Execution through the eyes of Ilya Repin
Among the spectators of the execution was a 22-year-old Ilya RepinHe managed to make a pencil sketch of Karakozov and left behind his memoirs.
In the distance, a black cart without springs swayed, bearing a small bench on which Karakozov sat. He seemed like a motionless mannequin. His eyes, fixed in one direction, also seemed to be on the other side of life: only his thin, tightly pressed lips spoke of the remnants of the frozen energy of one who had made a decision and endured his fate to the end.
After the assassination attempt, Karakozov's relatives, in order to avoid suspicion, changed their surnames to Vladimirov and Mikhailov-Raslovlev.
