Sergei Kravchinskii

Sergei Kravchinskii, the son of an army doctor, was born in 1851. He attended the Military Academy and the Artillery School before joining the Russian Army. He reached the rank of Second Lieutenant before resigning his commission in 1871.

In 1874 Kravchinskii went to the Balkans to assist revolt of Southern Slavs against the Turks. Olga Liubatovich met him for the first time in 1876: "There were a number of people in the room by the time Kravchinskii walked in, but I felt my attention shift involuntarily to his strong, manly figure and distinctive face. He carried a top hat and was dressed like a gentleman; his Napoleonic goatee made him look like a foreigner. Although several other women were present, he walked directly toward me and extended his hand in a free, comradely gesture. He was older than me and had more experience among the people; I regarded him as a senior comrade. Although I was extremely shy with people in my youth, we somehow struck up a sincere, unconstrained conversation; and as we talked, I glanced freely at his open, bold face, a face in which ugly, irregular features and broken lines became beautiful. We became friends immediately.

In 1878 he joined the Land and Liberty group. Along with Nikolai Morozov and Olga Liubatovich, Kravchinskii, edited the party journal Land and Liberty. Kravchinskii became convinced that individual acts of political terrorism would help persuade Alexander II to introduce democratic reforms. According to Liubatovich he believed that a campaign of terror was the best strategy: "All of us knew from our personal experience, he argued, that extensive work among the people has long been impossible, nor could we expect to expand our activity and attract masses of the people to the socialist cause until we obtained at least a minimum of political freedom, freedom of speech, and the freedom to organize unions." In August, 1878, Kravchinskii assassinated the chief of the gendarme corps.

After the killing Kravchinskii left Russia and lived in several countries including the United States. He eventually settled in England where he established the Friends of Russian Freedom and the Russian Free Press. Sergei Kravchinskii was knocked down and killed by a train in London in 1895.

Primary Sources

(1) Olga Liubatovich first met Sergei Kravchinskii in 1876.

There were a number of people in the room by the time Kravchinskii walked in, but I felt my attention shift involuntarily to his strong, manly figure and distinctive face. He carried a top hat and was dressed like a gentleman; his Napoleonic goatee made him look like a foreigner. Although several other women were present, he walked directly toward me and extended his hand in a free, comradely gesture.

He was older than me and had more experience among the people; I regarded him as a senior comrade. Although I was extremely shy with people in my youth, we somehow struck up a sincere, unconstrained conversation; and as we talked, I glanced freely at his open, bold face, a face in which ugly, irregular features and broken lines became beautiful. We became friends immediately.

(2) In her autobiography Olga Liubatovich described how Vera Zasulich and Sergei Kravchinskii reacted to the news that Alexander Soloviev had attempted to kill Alexander II.

In the spring of 1879, the unexpected news of Alexander Soloviev's attempt on the life of the Tsar threw Geneva's Russian colony into turmoil. Vera Zasulich hid away for three days in deep depression: Soloviev's deed obviously reflected a trend toward direct, active struggle against the government, a trend of which Zasulich disapproved. It seemed to me that her nerves were so strongly affected by violent actions like Soloviev's because she consciously (and perhaps unconsciously, as well) regarded her own deed as the first step in this direction.

Other émigrés were incomparably more tolerant of the attempt: Stefanovich and Deich, for example, merely noted that it might hinder political work among the people. Kravchinskii rejected even this objection. All of us knew from our personal experience, he argued, that extensive work among the people has long been impossible, nor could we expect to expand our activity and attract masses of the people to the socialist cause until we obtained at least a minimum of political freedom, freedom of speech, and the freedom to organize unions.

© John Simkin, March 2013