1
The two figures featured as round-framed portraits are twp condemned members of the terrorist group Narodnaia volya (The People’s Will,) Sofia Perovskaia and Andrei Zhelyabov. These portraits are placed above the crime for which they were executed: the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. In the accompanying text the tsar is referred to as “the richest landowner,” and the chapter concludes, “And the life of the people did not get any better.” Having shown readers the young martyrs who sacrificed their lives for the goals of the revolution, the following three chapters are dedicated to showing a martyr closer to Lenin’s heart, his older brother Alexander (Sasha,) who was condemned and executed for plotting to assassinate Tsar Alexander III in 1887, at age 21.
2
"S. A. Perovskaya"
3
4
The bomb has just gone off under the imperial carriage, leaving a huge white cloud, rearing horses and leaping figures.