Aleksandr Dmitrievich Mikhailov (russian: Алекса́ндр Дми́триевич Миха́йлов; January 17 (29), 1855,

Putivl Putyvl′ Frank SysynBetween Poland and the Ukraine: The Dilemma of Adam Kysil, 1600-1653 - P. 25. (, ) or Putivl′ ( rus, Пути́вль, p=pʊˈtʲivlʲ) is a city in north-east Ukraine, in Sumy Oblast. The city served as the administrative ...

Kursk Governorate Kursk Governorate ( rus, Ку́рская губе́рния, r=Kúrskaya gubérniya) was an administrative division (a '' guberniya'') of the Russian Empire, located in European Russia. It existed from 1796 to 1928; its seat was in the city of ...

– March 18 (30), 1884,

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

) was a leading Russian revolutionary,

populist Populism refers to a range of political stances that emphasize the idea of "the people" and often juxtapose this group against " the elite". It is frequently associated with anti-establishment and anti-political sentiment. The term develope ...

and one of the founders of Zemlya Volya and

Narodnaya Volya Narodnaya Volya ( rus, Наро́дная во́ля, p=nɐˈrodnəjə ˈvolʲə, t=People's Will) was a late 19th-century revolutionary political organization in the Russian Empire which conducted assassinations of government officials in an att ...

Biography

Mikhailov was born in Kursk in to a family of poor landowners. He entered St. Petersburg Polytechnic University but was expelled due to involved in the revolutionary student movement and was sent back to Putivl. In the fall of 1876 he returned to St. Petersburg and entered the Mining Institute and became one of the active organizers of the "Land and Liberty" society. In 1877, he went Saratov province, among the

Old Believers Old Believers or Old Ritualists, ''starovery'' or ''staroobryadtsy'' are Eastern Orthodox Christians who maintain the liturgical and ritual practices of the Russian Orthodox Church as they were before the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow ...

, hoping over time to reform the Old Belief into a revolutionary religion. In 1878 he returned to St. Petersburg and took part in the revision of the program and charter of the society, which was striving for greater centralization. Mikhailov took part in the military ventures of the

Zemstvo A ''zemstvo'' ( rus, земство, p=ˈzʲɛmstvə, plural ''zemstva'' – rus, земства) was an institution of local government set up during the great emancipation reform of 1861 carried out in Imperial Russia by Emperor Alexande ...

volunteers for an unsuccessful attempt to free an arrested comrade and preparation of an attempt on the life of the gendarme chief Nikolai Mezentsov and other actions. A talented organizer, he demanded strict discipline from his comrades, and developed an effective conspiracy system. He knew all the courtyards of St. Petersburg, for which he received the nickname "Janitor". In 1879, after the Lipetsk and Voronezh congresses, when the "Land and Freedom" split took place, he became a member of the Executive Committee of the People's Will (Narodnaya Volya. Mikhailov established the work of underground printing houses and dealt with party finances. He was arrested in November 1880 and tried in 1882 in the Trial of the 20. At the trial he delivered a speech in which he argued that the defendants were not a "gang of murderers" as the prosecutor presented it, but a party fighting for "raising the interests of the people above the interests of

autocracy Autocracy is a system of government in which absolute power over a state is concentrated in the hands of one person, whose decisions are subject neither to external legal restraints nor to regularized mechanisms of popular control (except per ...

." At first being sentenced to death, his sentence was commuted to eternal hard labour. He died in the Peter Paul Fortress at the age of 29 and later secretly buried in the Preobrazhensky cemetery in St. Petersburg.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mikhailov, Alexander Dmitrievich 1855 births 1884 deaths People from Sumy Oblast People from Putivlsky Uyezd Narodnaya Volya Revolutionaries from the Russian Empire Russian revolutionaries Prisoners of the Peter and Paul Fortress