Sofiya Perovskaya

Sophia Lvovna Perovskaya (russian: Со́фья Льво́вна Перо́вская;  – ) was a Russian Empire revolutionary and a member of the revolutionary organization '' Narodnaya Volya''. She helped orchestrate the assassination of Alexander II of Russia, for which she was executed by hanging.

Life as a revolutionary

Perovskaya was born in Saint Petersburg, into an aristocratic family who were the descendants by the marriage of Elizabeth of Russia. Her father, Lev Nikolaievich Perovsky, was the military governor of Saint Petersburg. Her grandfather, Nikolay Perovsky, was a governor of Taurida. She spent her early years in the Crimea, where her education was largely neglected, but where she began reading serious books on her own. After the family moved to Saint Petersburg, Perovskaya entered the Alarchinsky Courses, a girls’ preparatory program. Here she became friends with several girls who were interested in the radical movement. She left home at the age of sixteen over her father's objections to her new friends. In 1871–1872, together with these friends, she joined the Circle of Tchaikovsky. In 1872–1873 and 1874–1877, she worked in the provinces of Samara, Tver, and Simbirsk. During this period, she received diplomas as a teacher and a medical assistant.

A prominent fellow member of the Circle of Tchaikovsky, Peter Kropotkin, said the following of Perovskaya:

In 1873, Perovskaya maintained several conspiracy apartments in Saint Petersburg for secret anti-tsarist propaganda meetings that had not been sanctioned by the authorities. In January 1874, she was arrested and placed in the Peter and Paul fortress in connection with the Trial of the 193. She was acquitted in 1877–1878. Perovskaya also took part in an unsuccessful attempt to free Ippolit Myshkin, a revolutionary and a member of Narodnaya Volya. In the summer of 1878, Perovskaya became a member of ''Zemlya i Volya'', was soon arrested again, and banished to the Olonets Governorate. She managed to escape on her way to exile and went underground.

As a member of ''Zemlya I Volya'', Perovskaya went to Kharkov in order to organize the liberation of political prisoners from the central prison. In the fall of 1879, she became a member of the Executive Committee and later a member of the administrative committee of ''Zemlya i Volya''. Perovskaya propagandized among students, soldiers, and workers, took part in organizing the ''Worker's Gazette'', and maintained ties with political prisoners in Saint Petersburg. In November, 1879 she took part in an attempt to blow up the imperial train on its way from Saint Petersburg to Moscow. The attempt failed. On her return to Saint Petersburg she joined ''Narodnaya Volya''.

Assassination of Alexander II

Perovskaya participated in preparing assassination attempts on Alexander II of Russia near Moscow (November, 1879), in Odessa (spring of 1880), and Saint Petersburg (the attempt that eventually killed him, 1 March 1881). She was the closest friend and later the wife of Andrei Zhelyabov, a member of the executive committee of ''Narodnaya Volya''. Zhelyabov was to have directed the bombing attack, with the group of four bomb-throwers - Ignacy Hryniewiecki, Nikolai Kibalchich, Timofey Mikhailov, and Nikolai Rysakov. However, when Zhelyabov was arrested two days prior to the attack, Perovskaya took the role.

The night before the attack, Perovskaya helped assemble the bombs.

On Sunday morning, 13 March Old Style">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title=" March, Old Style and New Style dates">Old Style the bomb-throwers gathered at the group's flat on Telezhnaya Street. At 9–10 AM, Perovskaya and Kibalchich each brought two missiles.
Perovskaya would later relate that, before heading to the Catherine Canal, she, Rysakov and Hryniewiecki sat in a confectionery store located opposite of the Great Gostiny Dvor">Gostiny Dvor