3-052-487 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

General Count Loris Melikoff, the new Russian dictator, 1880. 'This important and powerful agent of the Russian Imperial Government for the express purpose of putting down the Nihilist conspiracy has already had his own life attempted; but the assassin, failing in his attempt, was instantly seized and promptly sent to execution...the Czar nominated [Melikoff head of the Supreme Executive Commission,] Assistant First Counsellor and Supreme Governor of the Empire...There are many favourable testimonies as to the character of General Loris Melikoff from the Russian Press...Except for his spare frame and strongly marked Armenian features, he has become entirely Russianised, the one Oriental trait conspicuous in him being, perhaps, a peculiar natural shrewdness and acuteness... Count Loris Melikoff was shot at by an assassin...The bullet from a revolver passed through his cloak and coat, but inflicted no wound. The would-be murderer was a young man of thirty, a baptised Jew named Wladetzky [Ippolit Mlodetsky]...He was...tried by a court-martial sitting in private next day, was condemned to death, and was hanged on Friday morning in presence of an immense concourse of spectators'. From "Illustrated London News", 1880.