Throughout history there have been a number of acts of regicide in which the Kings, Queens
or members of the royal family in nation were killed by assassins.
Some attempts were successful, but others failed with leaders such as Vladimir Lenin
surviving assassination attempts.
Lenin was attacked by a woman, Fanny Kaplan and despite this ultimately failing, he was
affected for the rest of his life from his injuries that day.
But another woman who in Russia sought to assassinate a leader was Sophia Perovskaya,
who was part of the assassination of Alexander II of Russia.
But for her actions she was sentenced to death, and was then executed despite being just 27
years old.
Join us today as we look at the execution of Sophia Perovskaya, remember to support
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Sophia was born in Saint Petersburg, and her family were rather wealthy and were aristocrats.
The family were descendents of Elizabeth of Russia through marriage, and Sophia’s father
was the military governor of Saint Petersburg.
She spent her early life in the Crimea, and she was not the most well educated, but Sophia
taught herself to read and she then lost herself in books.
But the family them moved to Saint Petersburg, and she then went to a school, and whilst
there she became close with a number of girls who were interested in the radical movement.
Sophia Perovskaya at the age of 16 then left home as her father was not happy with her
friends and their political beliefs and ideas.
But she then became part of a revolutionary society, the Circle of Tchaikovsky.
She then went to work in different areas, but she became a teacher and also a medical
assistant.
She was described as, ‘In her moral conceptions she was a "rigorist", but not in the least
of the sermon-preaching type.
Perovskaya was a "populist" to the very bottom of her heart and at the same time a revolutionist,
a fighter of the truest steel.
She said to me once: "We have begun a great thing.
Two generations perhaps will succumb in the task, and yet it must be done.’
She then occupied a number of apartments in Saint Petersburg where revolutionaries and
revels would meet up.
They did these in Sophia’s apartments in secret, but in 1874 she was arrested and was
imprisoned in the Peter and Paul fortress.
However she was then acquitted after being imprisoned for a number of years.
But then in 1878 she was arrested again and was banished to the Olonets governorate.
But then she managed to escape as she was sent to exile, and she went undercover trying
to avoid capture.
She was a member of the Zemlya I Volya, but Sophia Perovskaya went to Kharkov and she
tried to organise the freeing of political prisoners from the prison there.
She continued to get involved in different rebel actions, and she also took part in speeches
and created propaganda to distribute amongst soldiers and students.
But the.
In November 1879 she was involved in an attempt to blow up the imperial train as it travelled
from Saint Petersburg to Moscow, but this attempt failed.
But Sophia would not stop in her attempts to assassinate.
Sophia Perovskaya took part in the planning and preparation for assassination attempts
of Alexander II of Russia, The Emperor near to Moscow in 1879, and then in Odessa the
following year.
However she was also involved in the assassination attempt in Saint Petersburg that killed him
on the 1st March 1881.
The Emperor ever Sunday went to participate in military roll call, and he had done this
for a number of years.
The emperor’s carriage was followed by two sleighs carrying the Chief of police, and
the chief of his guard staff.
The route passed via the Catherine Canal, and the streets were lined with members of
the public.
One of the assassins, then threw a white package which was wrapped in a handkerchief.
He later said, ‘After a moment's hesitation I threw the bomb.
I sent it under the horses' hooves in the supposition that it would blow up under the
carriage...
The explosion knocked me into the fence.’
The explosion had only damaged the bulletproof carriage of Alexander II, and he was shaken
up but was not hurt.
However a second member of the Narodnaya Volya who was stood by the fence threw something
at the emperor’s feet.
It was then said, ‘I was deafened by the new explosion, burned, wounded and thrown
to the ground.
Suddenly, amid the smoke and snowy fog, I heard His Majesty's weak voice cry, 'Help!'
Gathering what strength I had, I jumped up and rushed to the emperor.
His Majesty was half-lying, half-sitting, leaning on his right arm.
Thinking he was merely wounded heavily, I tried to lift him but the czar's legs were
shattered, and the blood poured out of them.
Twenty people, with wounds of varying degree, lay on the sidewalk and on the street.
Some managed to stand, others to crawl, still others tried to get out from beneath bodies
that had fallen on them.
Through the snow, debris, and blood you could see fragments of clothing, epaulets, sabres,
and bloody chunks of human flesh.’
This bomb caused chaos and Alexander who was bleeding to death had his legs torn to pieces,
and his stomach was torn open and his face was mutilated badly, was being taken away
to the Winter Palace.
But then within 15 minutes or so he was killed.
Sophia Perovskaya was the closest friend of the wife of a member of the committee of the
assassins who was key in directing the bombing plot, and with this she was linked to them.
The night before the attack, Sophia had also helped to build the bombs and the weapons.
Sophia had also had a key involvement in the assassination, as she gave a signal to the
assassins to carry out the attack, and she was the one who gave the signal to attack
when the first bomb was thrown.
One of the assassins, Nikolai Rysakov who threw the bomb under the Tsar’s carriage
would turn across to the authorities and he was co-operative with the investigators.
He gave testimony telling of the other participants and the Tsarist police arrested Sophia and
the others.
Shortly before her trial she wrote to her mother saying, ‘My darling, I implore you
to be calm, and not to grieve for me; for my fate does not afflict me in the least,
and I shall meet it with complete tranquility, for I have long expected it, and known that
sooner or later it must come.
[...] I have lived as my convictions dictated, and it would have been impossible for me to
have acted otherwise.’
Sophie Perovskaya was then tried by the Special Tribunal of the Ruling Senate, and she was
then sentenced to death by hanging.
She was the first woman in Russia who was sentenced to death for taking part in terrorism.
But on the morning of the 15th April, the prisoners including Sophia were taken to the
parade ground of the Semenovsky Regiment, where their execution would occur.
They were all dressed in black prison uniforms, and on their chests read a placard that said
‘Regicide.’
Sophia Perovskaya was put in a cart and was drawn through the city by horses, and it was
said that 100,000 people came to watch their executions.
They were taken to the gallows, and they were then led up the stairs of the gallows.
Priests then administered the last rites, and the assassins were greeted by them and
they kissed the cruficix.
As the priests left, the assassins bid each other farewell, but Sophia would not go near
the man who told of them.
Along with four others, Sophia Perovskaya was then hanged on a large gallows at the
same time.
Sophia Perovskaya was an assassin who was the mastermind behind the assassination and
death of the Russia Emperor.
She was a woman who even helped to build the bombs involved in the plot, but despite coming
from noble roots she was an anarchic character who wanted change in Russia.
But ultimately she was sentenced to death for her actions, and along with the other
co conspirators she was executed on the gallows.
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