A strong-willed and fearless woman, Sofya Perovskaya could well have stopped the horse at a gallop and entered the burning hut. From a young age, she chose for herself the path of revolutionary struggle, which at that time meant for many participation in terror against the top officials of the state. Being sentenced to death, Sophia did not want to repent and met this last test with her head held high.
From the biography of Sophia Perovskaya
Sofia Lvovna Perovskaya was born on September 15, 1853 in St. Petersburg. A noblewoman by birth. Perovskaya's father was a descendant of Count Razumovsky, held a very respectable position as governor of St. Petersburg, and later became a member of the council of the internal political department. The mother of the future revolutionary came from an old noble family. Sophia's childhood years passed in the family estate, after which she lived for some time in Simferopol.
After graduating from the women's courses, Perovskaya organized a circle, where she was engaged in educational activities. Soon the work of the circle acquired a pronounced revolutionary character.
In the 1870s, the girl left home. This act was a response to her father's demand to stop meeting dubious people. Perovskaya wandered around the safe houses and was preparing for the peasant revolution in the country. At first, Sophia lived in a friend's house, and when her father undertook a search for her through the police, she moved to Kiev.
Having a diploma of a people's teacher, Sophia worked for several years in the Tver, Samara and Simbirsk provinces. She was arrested in 1974. She served her sentence in the Peter and Paul Fortress.
Perovskaya was a friend and later a common-law wife of the revolutionary A. Zhelyabov. Being sentenced to exile in the Olonets province, Sophia escaped on the way to the place of serving the sentence. After that, she completely went into an illegal position.
The revolutionary activities of Sofia Perovskaya
Sophia Perovskaya is known as an active participant in the revolutionary organizations "Land and Freedom", "People's Will". She was not limited to her current work, but held leading positions in these terrorist associations. She took a direct part in the creation of the "Rabochaya Gazeta".
Sophia Lvovna was in charge of the most intimate ideas of the members of the People's Will movement. Perovskaya actively participated in the preparation of several attempts on the life of Emperor Alexander II. The tsarist secret police subsequently managed to prove her involvement in three planned assassination attempts on the sovereign: in 1879, 1880 and 1881.
In the fall of 1879, Sofya Lvovna, together with her comrades-in-arms, prepares an explosion of the Tsar's train near Moscow. She was entrusted with the role of the trackman's wife. Together with her "husband", the People's Will Hartman, Perovskaya settled in a house, from where a tunnel was made under the railroad track. However, the terrorist attack did not work: the mine explosion occurred after the passage of the train in which the emperor followed.
At the end of February 1881, while preparing the next terrorist attack, Andrei Zhelyabov, Perovskaya's common-law husband, was seized by the police. There were only a few days left before the planned action. Perovskaya, who was assigned the organization of external surveillance in the operation, led the entire terrorist act.
Perovskaya personally drew up a plan of the operation to assassinate the tsar. And even with a wave of her handkerchief, at the right moment, she gave the order to the perpetrator of the assassination attempt to throw a bomb. Under the leadership of this daring and fearless woman, the conspirators achieved success: they executed the hated king.
A few days after the terrorist attack, Sophia was identified by signs, arrested and put on trial. At the hearing, Perovskaya did not repent of what she had done. She was hanged with her comrades on April 15, 1881. Among those who faced the same sad fate was Andrey Zhelyabov. The place of execution was the parade ground of the Semenovsky regiment.
