3-070-792 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Conspiracies in St. Petersburg: the Nihilists on the scaffold, 1881. Execution of those '...found guilty of the conspiracy that effected the assassination...of the late Emperor Alexander II...The six prisoners...condemned to death were Nicholas Sheliaboff,...the manager of the plot; Nicholas Reesakoff,...who threw one of the bomb-shells; Kibaltchik, a mining engineer, by whom they were manufactured; Gabriel Michaeloff, who carried a bomb-shell...and...Sophie Peroffskaya,...daughter of an officer of rank...[They] were all hanged at the appointed hour, in the sight of a crowd of fifteen thousand people.... The prisoners were unbound and led up the steps on to the scaffold by the executioner...With the exception of Reesakoff, who seemed very feeble, they all showed remarkable firmness and resignation. The woman appeared the calmest of all, and it was noticeable that she even retained a slight colour in her cheeks to the last. Five priests in purple caps...presented a cross, which all the prisoners reverently kissed, showing that all sense of religion had not been obliterated by their subversive theories and crimes...the beating of the drums, which now began and lasted till the execution was finished, effectually drowned every other sound...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1881.