The Case of Vera Zasulich

Abstract

N January 24, 1878, Vera Ivanovna Zasulich, 28 years old, daughter of a captain, appeared in the reception room of General Fyodor Trepov, Governor of the City of St. Petersburg, allegedly in order to present a petition to the General. When Trepov approached Zasulich, she fired a shot, wounding him. He recovered after a short illness. Arrested, Zasulich declared that she fired at Trepov because he had given the order to flog a political prisoner, Bogolubov, for rude behavior. According to the records and the testimony of witnesses, on July 13, 1877, General Trepov entered the prison yard where several prisoners were taking their morning walk. A political prisoner, Arkhip Bogolubov, took off his hat when the General passed him the first time. But when the General, returning through the yard again passed, Bogolubov failed to doff his headgear. Hat off! shouted Trepov, and knocked off Bogolubov's hat. Trepov ordered that twenty-five rod strokes be administered to Bogolubov. Although Bogolubov had already been sentenced to forced labor and deprived of all rights for having taken part in a political demonstration, Trepov's order was unlawful, since the sentence was not yet in force. Three hours later the flogging took place, in the corridor of the jail amid the frantic protests of all the political inmates. Vera Zasulich was indicted for attempted murder. Count Palen, Minister of Justice, had been sharply criticized because of a political trial,l shortly before this case, was anxious to avoid another and decided to present the case of Vera Zasulich as a pure act of vengeance, devoid of any political character. Therefore, he assigned the case to the St. Petersburg Circuit Court with the participation of the jury. Anatoly Fyodorovich Koni was President of the Court and of the session in which Zasulich was tried. His memoirs on the Zasulich case, written in 1904 and published in Russia in 1933 after his death (1927), are illuminating. Koni describes the pressure he was sub-