Alexander II of Russia

Killed on 13 March 1881 in Saint Petersburg by a bomb thrown by Ignaty Grinevitsky of the People Will; the reforming tsar death froze reform for a generation.

Overview

Alexander II had emancipated the serfs in 1861 and reformed courts and local government, but the pace of change bred both revolutionary impatience and reaction. The People Will, a populist underground, tried seven times to kill him. On the Catherine Canal embankment a first bomb wrecked his carriage; unhurt, he stepped out to survey the damage and a second bomber, Grinevitsky, who died in the blast himself, delivered the fatal wound. The assassination, organized in part by Sophia Perovskaya, brought his son Alexander III to power under the influence of Pobedonostsev, with autocracy, pogroms, and counter-reform. The Narodnaya Volya dream that terror could topple autocracy failed, but the killing founded the tradition of revolutionary terrorism that stalked the dynasty to 1918.