In the winter of 1878, a shy aristocratic woman named Vera Zasulich walked up to the governor of St Petersburg, pulled a revolver from underneath her shawl and shot him, point blank – revenge, she cried, for the governor's brutal treatment of a political prisoner. Her murder trial that year became Russia's first "trial of the century", closely followed across Europe and America; the Russian courtrooms filled with the cream of Russian society.
Vera was celebrated martyr to all Russian social classes and a public face of the burgeoning revolutionary fervour. Dostoyevsky (who attended the trial), Tolstoy, Bakunin, and Turgenev all wrote supporting her cause. Her astonishing acquittal was cheered across Europe and marked the changing face of Russia. Vera became Russia's most famous terroristka, inspiring a generation of revolutionaries to embrace violence and martyrdom, culminating in the assassination of Alexander II in 1881.
In the forgotten story of Russia's most notorious terrorist, Ana Siljak captures Vera's extraordinary life story – from privileged child of nobility to revolutionary conspirator to assassin and then saint – all while offering a vivid window into the fiery political upheaval of Russia.
