Angel of Vengeance: The "Girl Assassin," the Governor of St. Petersburg, and Russia's Revolutionary World

The book got to me in a very timely manner and was in excellent condition. Not to mention that it was pretty interesting if you like the Russian revolution.

One could draw up a very long list of the ways Russia has influenced the world - artistically, politically, economically, militarily. Somewhere on that list, likely buried halfway down, hiding in shame, would be "political terrorism." Russia did not invent terrorism. That "distinction" traces back at least to the Jacobin Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. But Russian anarchists and revolutionaries, impatient with the pace of reform in Tsarist Russia, employed new, easily portable technology (handguns, bombs secreted on their person) to assassinate political leaders in hopes of inciting revolution or in retribution for "crimes against society." They initiated the idea that one could carry out murder for a "greater good." It was revenge for the brutal beating of a prisoner that seems to have driven Vera Zasulich, a shy, distraught noblewoman, to shoot the governor of St. Petersburg in 1878. Her trial and subsequent acquittal, alongside her transformation into an "avenging angel" on behalf of socialism, helped place terrorism on Russia's political menu. Three years later, Tsar Alexander II was blown up by one of the world's first suicide bombers. Siljak uses the Zasulich case (offering plenty of useful backstory) to paint a vivid portrait of Russia in the second half of the 19th century, when no side in the political debates seemed to understand or tolerate the other, when lines were being drawn for a civil war that would break out three decades on. Rich with first-person accounts and well-placed citations from literature, this is far more than the account of the trial which forms its narrative core. For what Siljak wants to get at is what motivated terrorists like Zasulich - how love for one's fellow humans can lead one to kill. (Reviewed in Russian Life)

I recently finished reading Angel of Vengeance by Ana Siljak. The story was rich with vivid descriptions of the life of the Russian people, those oppressed, the privileged, and those who endeavored to change the status quo. In light of events in the world today, I was intrigued with the background given on the various radical groups that attempted to engage the peasants to overthrow the government. Intertwined with all of this is the fascinating personal story of a young woman. The journey documented in the book of Vera Zasulich's internal outrage toward public officials, the validation of her feelings gleaned from her veracious readings of radical publications and her interactions with infamous terrorists, to her decision to act on her own and assassinate the governor is a winning combination. The unintended consequences of her actions extend the story to show us the impact she had on the world and individuals already familiar to us such as Oscar Wilde. This book is educational, thought provoking and very entertaining.

Ana Siljak's "Angel of Vengeance" is proof positive that every once in awhile, an extraordinarily talented academic historian can breathe life into a long-dead era and make it accessible to an audience far broader than his or her professional peers. This book is an absolute gem, impeccably researched, engagingly written with a narrative style that reflects the tensions and drama of her subject matter. The book chronicles the first act in the "Age of Assassinations," when an aristocratic woman with revolutionary sentiments killed the governor of St. Petersburg with a revolver she'd concealed under her clothing. Her subsequent trial became a spectacle, the pre-revolutionary Russian equivalent of the Lindberg trial of the 1930's. The assassination and trial became one of the keystone moments that fueled the revolutionary fever which ultimately toppled the Tzar's regime a few decades later. Siljak has done an outstanding job of blending craft and research into a highly readable, fascinating snapshot of late-nineteenth century Russia. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. [...]