Remembering Sophia Perovskaya (1860-1910)

The New York Times recently added a section to the Obituaries called "Overlooked".   I've read about numerous interesting people whom I otherwise would never had heard of.  Sophia Perovskaya is one such person.

Sophia Perovskaya was was born into an aristocratic family in 1853.  Her authoritarian father and she did not get along, and she left home at an early age.  She enrolled in the Alarchin Women's College in St. Petersburg, and joined the women's circle and became friends with other like minded men and women, with revolutionary ideas.  Eventually she joined the secret society Land and Liberty.  This group, led by Mark Natanson, demanded that the Russian Empire be dissolved, and that 2/3of the land be transferred to the peasants and organized into self governing communes.  Well, you know that this idea was never going to fly without a fight, which did come decades later.

Sophia was executed by hanging, along with her four conspirators for attempting to assassinate Alexander 11 of Russia.  She was the first woman in Russia sentenced to death for an act of terrorism.

Three decades later, Perovskaya would be the inspiration for Japanese feminist Kanno Sugako, who was involved in an assassination attempt on the emperor of Japan.  She was also executed by hanging.