In the history of Russian terrorism, the most striking figure is Andrei Ivanovich Zhelyabov, whom another revolutionary fanatic - V.I. Lenin - compared with Garibaldi and Robespierre. In the understanding of Zhelyabov, a great goal was able to justify any means used to achieve it. It was this goal that became for him and his comrades-in-arms the “happiness of the people”, which they imagined rather vaguely, but for which they were ready, without hesitation, to shed both their own and other people's blood.
Serf schoolboy
The future illustrious terrorist was born in 1851 in a family of serfs in the village of Nikolaevka, Tauride Province. Little Andryusha studied the basics of letters with his grandfather Gavrila Timofeevich, and his first textbook was the Psalter. Contrary to the popular belief that feudal landlords were completely soulless exploiters, his master turned out to be a man not only humane towards his peasants, but also a supporter of universal enlightenment. In 1860, he at his own expense gave nine-year-old Zhelyabov to study at the Kerch gymnasium.
Acquaintance with the world of Utopia
Thanks to an inquiring mind and enviable perseverance, Andrei graduated in 1869 with a silver medal and in the same year he became a student at the law faculty of Novorossiysk University in Odessa. Even in high school years, Zhelyabov got acquainted with the ideas of revolutionary reconstruction of the world, which had a strong influence on him. The final turn in his mind came after reading Chernyshevsky's book “What to do?”, Which formed his ideological convictions. Zhelyabov himself wrote about this.
Andrei Ivanovich, whose photo during his student years was presented in the article, later recalled that among his friends who also sought to rebuild the world, there was a fashionable expression in those years - "History is moving too slowly, it needs to be pushed." They began to push at the first opportunity, especially since he was not slow to introduce himself. General dissatisfaction was caused by the conservative views of one of the teachers - Professor Bogishich, and Zhelyabov headed the student's speech directed against him. He hardly pushed the story, but flew out of the university, expelled for misbehavior.
Failed spouse
Further, as in that saying: "I do not want to study, I want to get married." Fate was favorable too. The daughter of a wealthy sugar factory owner, Yakhnenko, the owner of enterprises in the Kherson province, fell in love with a former student, overwhelmed with ambition, but not penniless. In 1872, the wedding took place, and soon their firstborn Andryusha was born - the heir to the capital of his grandfather and the glorious revolutionary name of the papa.
Having become a relative of such a rich and respected man, Andrei Zhelyabov was soon restored at the university, where he studied for less than a year - just so much the directorate had the strength to endure its social activity, caused by all the same revolutionary ideas. After another expulsion, he abandoned his wife, "mired in bourgeois prejudice" and not sharing his views, went to Kiev.
The beginning of revolutionary activity
There, Zhelyabov establishes a relationship with local revolutionaries, and in particular with the leaders of the semi-legal organization Gromada that operated in those years. By the way, we must pay tribute to him: after parting with his family, he did not try to use the money of the former father-in-law, but earned his bread in private lessons.
Soon the time comes, for which Zhelyabov had been preparing himself for so long. Andrei Ivanovich begins his revolutionary activity, returning to Odessa in 1873, where he becomes a member of the Narodnik circle headed by V.F. Volkovsky. Here he is engaged in propaganda among workers and intellectuals. Many who had a chance to listen to Andrei Ivanovich in those years noted his outstanding oratorical abilities, which, combined with personal charm, helped Zhelyabov win the audience.
Arrests and “going to the people”
His propaganda work soon ended in arrest, but he was released from prison on bail. In the period from 1875 to 1877, Andrei Zhelyabov became a member of the famous “going to the people”, when young members of the revolutionary circles went to villages to conduct educational activities among the peasants, thus trying to raise them to the struggle for their social rights.
And again the arrest. In 1877, a large group of populist agitators, among whom was Zhelyabov, appeared before a court in St. Petersburg, which, according to the number of accused, went down in history as the “Trial of one hundred and ninety-three.” Even during the period of pre-trial detention, he met those who in the future became his associates in a terrorist organization. Among them was Sofia Perovskaya.
Creation of "People’s Will"
Fate, and this time was favorable to Zhelyabov - he was acquitted. Having been released, he leaves for Podolsk province, where he resumes propaganda among the peasants. However, very soon the whole hopelessness of this form of struggle becomes apparent to him, and he comes to the conclusion that terrorist activity is necessary as the only possible means to achieve the goal.
In the summer of 1879, a congress of the revolutionary organization Earth and Freedom was held in Lipetsk, of which Zhelyabov became a member. Andrei Ivanovich was one of those who provoked a split between supporters of the peaceful path of political transformations and radicals who saw a possible perspective only in violence. As a result, they separated from the main group, creating their own union, called the "People’s Will." Zhelyabov became one of its most active members.
Under his direct supervision, the entire structure of the organization was created, consisting of several areas, including working, student and military. According to his orders, dozens of tsarist officials of various ranks were killed. He also developed a program of action, providing for the destruction of the autocracy, the convening of a constituent assembly, the transfer of land to peasants and the establishment of social freedoms. By the way, according to the documents of the organization, the seizure of power was necessary only to transfer it to the people. But it’s not clear who they had in mind.
Hunt for the sovereign
Zhelyabov Andrei Ivanovich, whose biography is inextricably linked with the Russian revolutionary movement, became the leader of the preparation of a number of attempts on the emperor Alexander II, whom the battle group led by him at his meeting in 1879 sentenced to death.
The first of these was an attempt to undermine the tsarist train en route from Kharkov to Moscow. Zhelyabov, under an assumed name, rented a house near the railroad tracks near the city of Aleksandrovsk and personally conducted a dig for laying mines. At that time, only an accident saved the life of the emperor - the explosion occurred when its composition passed a dangerous place.
The assassination of the king is a signal to the beginning of the revolution
It is known that he planned the murder of the king eight times, being convinced that his physical elimination would become a detonator of a social explosion throughout the empire. In a fit of enthusiasm, he even intended to go to the Samara province himself to lead a peasant uprising there. He was the main organizer of the assassination attempt, fatal for Alexander II, on March 13 (according to the new style) in St. Petersburg, on the embankment of the Griboedov Canal. All the details of the attack were developed by Zhelyabov himself.
Andrei Ivanovich personally did not take part in it, since two days earlier he had been accidentally arrested in one of the safe houses. Direct control of the attack was carried out by his common-law wife Sofia Perovskaya, the daughter of the St. Petersburg governor and one of the most fierce fighters against the autocracy. After she was arrested, Zhelyabov demanded that he be included in the number of perpetrators of the attempt.
During pre-trial detention, he was held in the Trubetskoy bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress. At the trial, he refused a lawyer and used his speech to present the Narodnaya Volya program to the public. According to the verdict, Zhelyabov, along with the rest of the terrorists, was hanged on the Semyonovsky parade ground in Petersburg. Note that this was the last public execution in Russia.
Canonization in the face of the martyrs of the revolution
Zhelyabov Andrey Ivanovich, whose brief biography was published abroad a year after his execution, became an example that inspired many subsequent revolutionaries. This was facilitated, in particular, by the wide coverage of his activities published in St. Petersburg in 1906-1907. the magazine "Past".
The journal materials also served as the basis for the research work of many Soviet historians, who, among other members of the Narodnaya Volya, were primarily interested in Zhelyabov. Andrei Ivanovich, whose views were consonant with Bolshevik ideology, in the Soviet period occupied an honorable place in the pantheon of martyrs and heroes of the revolution.
In the thirties, it was planned to create a grandiose monument to Zhelyabov, designed by the sculptor Korolyov. It was supposed to be a multi-figure composition, which, along with a four-meter statue of the revolutionary himself, included sculptures of slaves breaking chains. It was planned to create a pedestal for the monument, decorated with six bas-reliefs on historical and revolutionary themes and the inscription "Zhelyabov Andrei Ivanovich (1851-1881)." Some parts were already manufactured, but work was suspended and henceforth did not resume.