Stepan Nikolayevich Khalturin (; 2 January O.S. 21 December">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 21 December1857 – 3 April [O.S. 22 March] 1882) was a Russian revolutionary, member of Narodnaya Volya, and responsible for an attempted assassination of Alexander II of Russia.

Early life

Khalturin was born in 1857 in Khalevinskaya,

Vyatka Governorate Vyatka Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit (''guberniya'') of the Russian Empire and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR from 1796 to 1929, with its capital in Vyatka (now Kirov, Kirov Oblast, Kirov). The ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

. The son of a peasant, he became a carpenter, employed in several factories in

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

Revolutionary life

Khalturin became involved in revolutionary politics, joining

The People's Will Narodnaya Volya () was a late 19th-century revolutionary socialist political organization operating in the Russian Empire, which conducted assassinations of government officials in an attempt to overthrow the autocratic Tsarist system. The org ...

. In 1880, he got a job as a carpenter at the

Winter Palace The Winter Palace is a palace in Saint Petersburg that served as the official residence of the House of Romanov, previous emperors, from 1732 to 1917. The palace and its precincts now house the Hermitage Museum. The floor area is 233,345 square ...

, allowing him to sleep on the premises; this allowed him to bring in packets of

dynamite Dynamite is an explosive made of nitroglycerin, sorbents (such as powdered shells or clay), and Stabilizer (chemistry), stabilizers. It was invented by the Swedish people, Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Nobel in Geesthacht, Northern German ...

each day, concealing them in his room, within his bedding. Under the orders of the Narodnaya Volya, Khalturin constructed a mine on 17 February 1880, in the basement of the building under the dining-room. The mine was set to go off at the time which Narodnaya Volya had calculated the Tsar to be having dinner. Unfortunately for the assassins, Alexander II's guest Prince Alexander of Battenberg arrived late, delaying dinner, so the dining-room was empty. The Tsar was thus able to escape assassination unharmed, though 11 Imperial Guards were killed and 46 more people were badly injured by the explosion. After the failed assassination, Khalturin escaped to

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

and then to

Odessa ODESSA is an American codename (from the German language, German: ''Organisation der ehemaligen SS-Angehörigen'', meaning: Organization of Former SS Members) coined in 1946 to cover Ratlines (World War II aftermath), Nazi underground escape-pl ...

. On 18 March 1882, he participated in the assassination of police general Strelnikov who was sent to Odessa in order to eradicate the revolutionary movement. Khalturin's accomplice Zhelvakov shot Strelnikov in the head, killing him instantly. Khalturin, disguised as a cabman, was supposed to help Zhelvakov flee, but both were overpowered by the crowd and arrested. Both men gave the police fake names. Under an order by Alexander III, they were swiftly court-martialed and hanged. Khalturin was executed without being known to be the bomber of the Winter Palace.

Memory

Khalturin was portrayed in Soviet historiography as a hero of the Russian workers' movement. Dozens of streets and enterprises throughout Russia and other Soviet Republics were named after him, many of them still bear his name. Vladimir Lenin's office in the Kremlin was decorated with two haut-reliefs, one of Karl Marx and the other of Khalturin. Four different monuments of Khalturin were built in his birth place in the

Kirov Oblast Kirov Oblast ( rus, Кировская область, p=ˈkʲirəfskəjə ˈobləsʲtʲ) is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast) located in Eastern Europe. Its administrative center is the city of Kirov. As of the 2010 census, the population ...

. His biographical film '' Stepan Khalturin'' was directed by Aleksandr Ivanovsky.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Khalturin, Stepan 1857 births 1882 deaths People from Kirov Oblast People from Orlovsky Uyezd (Vyatka Governorate) Narodnaya Volya