[1881 A.D.]
The fatal 13th of March, 1881, came. About one o’clock in the afternoon the emperor drove in a carriage from the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, accompanied by his usual escort, to the Michael riding school to assist at a grand military parade, appointed to take place that day. Coming out of the riding school at the end of the parade, at about a quarter to three, and learning that the grand duke Michael Nikolaivitch, who was present at the parade intended to visit the grand duchess Catherine Mikhailovna at the Mikhailovski palace, the emperor proposed to his brother that they should go together. After spending about half an hour at the Mikhailovski palace the emperor came out alone, without the grand duke and told the coachman to “drive home by the same way.” The carriage set off along the Catherine canal, in the direction of the Theatre bridge.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, at a distance of about 50 sajens from the corner of the Engineer street, the emperor’s carriage as it drove along the side of the canal, past the garden of the Mikhailovski palace came alongside a young man at the footpath of the canal; he afterwards turned out to be the citizen Nicholas Ivanovitch Rissakov. When he came on a line with the imperial carriage, Rissakov turned his face towards it, and before the escort could notice anything, quickly threw beneath the feet of the horses harnessed to the carriage, something white like snow, which afterwards turned out to be an explosive instrument wrapped up in a handkerchief. At the same instant a deafening crash, like a salvo of artillery, resounded; two Cossacks riding behind the czar’s equipage fell from their horses wounded, and a fourteen year old peasant boy, mortally wounded, lay groaning on the pavement; a thick cloud of snow and splinters filled the air. The emperor’s carriage appeared much damaged by the explosion, all the four windows and the little glass behind were broken, the frame of the door was splintered at the side and back, the side of the carriage was broken and the bottom seriously injured. When he had thrown the explosive instrument under the carriage, Rissakov began to run off in the direction of the Nevski Prospect, but at a few sajens from the spot where the explosion had taken place, he slipped, fell, and was seized by some soldiers who came up. The emperor himself was entirely uninjured. He ordered the coachman to stop the horses, opened the left door, got out of the carriage, and went to the spot where Rissakov was already surrounded by a crowd of people.
Then, when the emperor, desiring to examine the spot where the explosion had taken place, had left Rissakov, and had made a few steps along the pathway of the canal, another man—who turned out to be a Pole named Grinevetzki—waiting till the emperor was at a distance of two arskins from him, raised his arms and threw something on the footpath at the very feet of the emperor. At the same moment, not more than four or five minutes after the first explosion, another deafening explosion was heard, after which a mass of smoke, snow and scraps of clothing enveloped everything for some moments. When the column of smoke dispersed, to the stricken gaze of the spectators a truly awful sight was presented: about twenty men more or less severely wounded by the two explosions lay on the pavement, and amongst them was the emperor. Leaning his back against the railing of the canal, without his cap or riding cloak, half sitting on the footpath, was the monarch; he was covered with blood and breathing with difficulty; the bare legs of the august martyr were both broken, the blood flowed copiously from them, and his face was covered with blood. The cap and cloak that had fallen from the emperor’s head and shoulders, and of which there remained but blood-stained and burnt fragments, lay beside him.
At the sight of such an unexpected, such an incredible disaster, not only the uninjured, but also the sufferers from the explosion rushed to the emperor’s help. Raising the wounded emperor, who was already losing consciousness, the persons who surrounded him, with the grand duke Michael, who had arrived on the spot, carried him to the sledge of Colonel Dvorginski, who had been following the emperor’s equipage. Leaning over the emperor’s shoulder, the grand duke inquired if he heard, to which the emperor replied, “I hear,” and then in answer to the question of how he felt the emperor said: “Quicker ... to the palace,” and then as if answering the proposal to take him to the nearest house to get help, the emperor said, “Take me to the palace to die ... there.” These were the last words of the dying monarch, heard by an eye-witness of the awful crime of the 13th of March. After this the emperor was placed in Colonel Dvorginzki’s sledge and transported to the Winter Palace. When the palace was reached the emperor was already unconscious, and at 25 minutes of 4 o’clock Alexander II was no more.
The emperor Alexander II was great not only as the czar of a nation of many millions, but by a life devoted to the welfare of his subjects; he was great as the incarnation of goodness, love and clemency. The autocratic monarch of one of the vastest empires of the world, this czar was governed in all his actions by the dictates of his loving heart. Showing himself a great example of self-sacrificing human love, he lived only in order to exalt the land of Russia, to alleviate the necessities and consolidate the welfare of his people.[d]
FOOTNOTES
[69] [A district containing several villages.]
