Aleksandra Adolfovna Izmailovich (; 1878–1941) was a Belarusian socialist revolutionary. From a noble family, she joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR) while studying in Saint Petersburg. She used her family home in Minsk to host PSR meetings, during which they plotted attacks against Russian Imperial government officials. Izmailovich herself attempted to assassinate the governor of Minsk , who was responsible for pogroms in the city, but her shots failed to hit him. In prison, she found out that her sister had died attempting to assassinate the Russian naval commander Grigoriy Chukhnin.
She was sentenced to death for the assassination attempt, but following appeals by her sisters, the sentence was commuted to a life sentence of penal labour. She was transferred to Butyrka prison in Moscow and then to Siberia, where she spent 10 years together with Maria Spiridonova and other women of the PSR. She spent most of the rest of her life in prison or internal exile. She was briefly freed by the Russian Revolution and became an official in the Soviet government, but following the Left SR Uprising, she was imprisoned again by the Bolsheviks. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, she was either imprisoned or kept under house arrest or internally exiled. After being sentenced for anti-Soviet agitation during the Great Purge, she was executed in the Medvedev Forest massacre, during the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.
Early life and activism Aleksandra Adolfovna Izmailovich was born in 1878, in Saint Petersburg. She was the daughter of the Belarusian military officer Adolf Izmailovich, a brigadier general who commanded the 4th Artillery Corps of the Imperial Russian Army. She had three sisters: Mariya, Evgeniya and . Aleksandra was also known by the diminutive name Sanya. Izmailovich studied at the Saint Petersburg Imperial University, where she first joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party (PSR). She had been inspired to join the socialist revolutionaries by her younger sister, Ekaterina. The two sisters were among the PSR's first members, joining the party while it was still in the process of forming in 1901.
While their father was in the Russian Far East, fighting in the Russo-Japanese War, Aleksandra and Ekaterina Izmailovich used their home in Minsk as the Belarusian headquarters of the PSR. From their house, the SR executive committee organised the party's activities, which Aleksandra and Ekaterina carried out while disguised as servants, farmers or vendors. Following the outbreak of the Russian Revolution of 1905, the sisters became involved in PSR's terrorist activities.
Attempted assassination of Governor Kurlov After the proclamation of the October Manifesto in Minsk on 18 October 1905, a large political demonstration was held to celebrate the promise of constitutionalism in Russia. Tensions between the crowd and the gathered imperial soldiers escalated, culminating in the soldiers firing on the crowd, killing 50 and wounding 100; 1,500 more people were arrested and sentenced to penal labour in Siberia. Shortly afterwards, the Minsk branch of the PSR received orders from the party's central committee to cease all terrorist activities. The Izmailovich sisters opposed the order and convinced the Minsk branch to reject it.
The Minsk PSR called for the prosecution of Governor and Police Chief Norov, respectively responsible for pogroms in Minsk and the violent suppression of the 18 October demonstration. As state terrorism against the revolutionary movement increased, the PSR central committee reversed its order and gave permission for the Minsk branch to resume terrorist attacks. As their first act, Aleksandra Izmailovich and were tasked with assassinating Governor Kurlov. While working on the plan, Izmailovich and her sister Ekaterina made other plans to disrupt military supply lines by attacking the army's trains. Plans were put on hold after Ekaterina was arrested, with Aleksandra Izmailovich convincing the Minsk PSR to break her out of prison before assassinating Kurlov.
By this time, Izmailovich and Pulikhov were living together near Kurlov's house, posing as a married couple. They spent most of their time watching and following the governor. After breaking her sister out of prison and securing her safe passage into hiding, Izmailovich returned to her planned assassination. On 14 January 1906, she found out that the governor was due to attend a military funeral at the . Izmailovich and Pulikhov, respectively armed with a revolver and a bomb, entered the church yard as the funeral took place inside. After the ceremony, Governor Kurlov and Police Chief D.D. Norov left the church and walked towards the two SRs. Izmailovich fired her revolver at the two and Pulikhov threw the bomb at them, but the shots failed to hit their targets and the bomb failed to detonate. They were immediately attacked and arrested by the gendarmes, while their targets escaped. Norov and a retired military officer attempted to shoot Izmailovich, but both missed. The two SRs were taken to the local police station, where they were detained and tortured for information. In her memoirs, Izmailovich wrote of being beaten, stripped and spat on by "a dozen impudent police", while other officers and bailiffs watched. According to Nadezda Petrusenko, Izmailovich's biographers do not mention the violence committed against her during her detention.
Imprisonment in Minsk On the morning of 15 January, Izmailovich and Pulikhov were brought into the police station's courtyard, where they were to be identified by an assembled group of house servants. Izmailovich had been beaten so severely that one of her eyes was swollen shut and her skirt had been torn. Izmailovich was recognised by one of her father's servants and put back in her cell. Later that night, she and Pulikhov were led out of the police station and made to walk through the streets of Minsk to the city's prison. Izmailovich was given bread before being taken to her cell, where she heard the other imprisoned women singing revolutionary songs, including "La Marseillaise". Each day, while the other prisoners were allowed out of their cells to exercise in the prison yard, Izmailovich was kept in solitary confinement. She was only able to briefly exchange information with others from her cell window. Although torture by her captors continued, she was able to maintain hope due to the kindness expressed to her by her imprisoned comrades. This also caused a political dilemma for her, as she was preoccupied with the question of whether "the people" included both her captors and comrades.
One day, when she was brought to the prison office for questioning, she was reunited with her sister Mariya. She discovered that her family had initially been told she was killed during the assassination attempt. Mariya also told her that their family home had been searched, but the police had found nothing. Izmailovich was also confronted by her former maid Tatyana, a devout Christian and a supporter of the Black Hundreds who had resisted Izmailovich's attempts to convert her to socialism. Although she was brought to tears by seeing Izmailovich's wounded face, she had been shocked to find out she had attempted to kill someone. Izmailovich's sisters visited her regularly, inquiring about her health and the status of her legal proceedings. Izmailovich herself believed she would be hanged, and repeatedly stated that she wanted to "die bravely".
In prison, she was able to communicate with an SR comrade in the cell above her through tap code; they opened their tapped conversations with the password "God Save the Tsar". Through tap code, she found out that the bomb Pulikhov had thrown was not defective and would have killed their targets if it had detonated. She confessed that she no longer felt hatred for Governor Kurlov, but she still felt contempt for Norov, who had refused to go to the prison and act as a witness. She believed he wanted to avoid questions about firing shots at her. On 29 January, her comrade informed her that the Black Sea Fleet commander Grigoriy Chukhnin had been wounded in an assassination attempt. She celebrated the news, as Chukhnin had been responsible for suppressing the mutiny of the Russian battleship Potemkin. But she was soon saddened to hear that the would-be assassin had been shot and killed; the assassin, who used the name Maria Krupnitskaya, was her sister Ekaterina. In grief for her sister, she was unable to sleep that night. The next day, when the whole prison discussed the news of the attack, Izmailovich kept the identity of the attacker a secret. She read smuggled newspapers that detailed Chukhnin's recovery from his five bullet wounds inflicted by Ekaterina. When her comrade expressed his condolences, she responded that she took comfort in the idea that Ekaterina had died for a reason. She informed her sisters that Ekaterina had died attempting to kill Chukhnin, but they refused to believe her. She later received false news that Maria Spiridonova had been killed attempting to assassinate , which contributed to her sadness.
Trial One morning, a prison guard told Izmailovich that she would be hanged within five days. Although she was not concerned about the death sentence, her sisters hired her a defense lawyer for her court martial. When the lawyer brought her the indictment, she was shocked to discover it named an innocent baker's assistant as the bomb thrower. Her lawyer advised her to call witnesses of the 18 October events, who could testify about the massacre of peaceful protestors ordered by Kurlov. She compiled a list, but the court refused to permit her any witnesses in her defense. After saying goodbye to her comrade in the room above her, and expressing her love for him, she prepared herself for her death. He told her not to imagine herself to be a second Sophia Perovskaya, as he believed her sentence would be commuted.
At 04:00 on 16 February, she was woken up and brought to the prison office, where she was reunited with Polikhov and met the innocent baker's assistant. They were taken by a troop of Cossacks to the headquarters of the 4th Artillery Corps. After 5 hours waiting under armed guard, they were brought tea by Izmailovich's lawyer. They were then taken to the hall where they would be court martialled; Izmailovich saw her sister Mariya and her father waiting for her. They were tried by military officers. Governor Kurlov himself was present, and he remained standing while the others sat. The three defendants were charged with "conspiracy with intent to kill". When the prosecution's witnesses gave testimony against them, Izmailovich's lawyer managed to induce Police Chief Norov into admitting he had shot at Izmailovich while she was disarmed and under arrest.
In his opening argument, Izmailovich's lawyer pointed out that officers in that courtroom had ordered their soldiers to shoot peaceful protestors in Minsk on 18 October 1905 and asked why they had not been charged with murder. Beneath a portrait of Izmailovich's father, Kurlov responded to questioning without looking at the defendants, the attorneys or the judges. Izmailovich had thought him the victor, but when he walked past her, she saw fear in his eyes. She took comfort in having frightened such a powerful figure of the Tsarist autocracy. When Izmailovich and Pulikhov made their final statements, they focused on the killings of 18 October 1905. In his own final statement, the prosecutor requested capital punishment. After a few minutes of deliberation, the judges found Izmailovich and Pulikhov guilty of the charges of conspiracy to murder and sentenced them to execution by hanging. In her memoirs, Izmailovich reported feeling "calm and cheerful" when her death sentence was read out, as she felt happy that she would be dying for her political beliefs.