Читать книгу Catastroika - Charles Rammelkamp - Страница 15

Narodnaya Volya

Papa and Uncle Lev never forgave

“The People’s Will” for assassinating Alexander II.

Hailed as Alexander the Liberator,

the Tsar’d liberated the serfs in 1861,

reorganized the judicial system,

promoted university education,

sold Alaska to America.

Life improved even for us Jews.

There’d been three or four attempts on his life already

before Narodnaya Volya succeeded in Saint Petersburg,

March, 1881, that snake, Nikolai Rysakov tossing a bomb

when the bulletproof carriage crossed the Catherine Canal

over the Pevchesky Bridge, the streets flanked

by narrow pavements: the most vulnerable spot.

The bomb killed a Cossack,

but the emperor was unhurt, though shaken.

Still, he left the carriage to inspect the damage.

Another People’s Will stooge, Ignacy Hryniewiesky,

hurled another bomb, shouting,

“It is too early to thank God!”

His Majesty’s legs shattered, blood pouring,

his feeble cry for help came like a kitten’s mew.

Scattered over the snow, bits of clothing,

epaulets, sabers, bloody chunks of human flesh.

Alexander’s brutal son, Alexander III, took over,

reversing so many of his father’s reforms,

life a greater hardship for Jews especially.

Fourteen years after the assassination,

at my birth in Kiev, over Mama’s mild objections,

Papa named me for the Liberator.