Tsar Liberator Assassinated: Alexander II Falls to Bomb

A bomb thrown by Ignacy Hryniewiecki exploded at Tsar Alexander II's feet on the Catherine Canal embankment in St. Petersburg on March 13, 1881, fatally wounding the emperor who had liberated Russia's serfs two decades earlier. It was the seventh assassination attempt against him. The first bomb, thrown by Nikolai Rysakov moments earlier, had damaged the imperial carriage and killed a bystander. Alexander, against his guards' urging, stepped out to check on the wounded. Hryniewiecki threw the second bomb from just three feet away, killing himself and mortally wounding the Tsar, who died at the Winter Palace ninety minutes later. The assassins belonged to Narodnaya Volya (People's Will), a revolutionary organization that believed killing the Tsar would trigger a popular uprising. It did the opposite. Alexander's son Alexander III reversed every liberal reform and imposed repressive authoritarian rule. The assassination proved that political violence rarely achieves its intended political goals and often produces exactly the opposite outcome.