Grigorii Prokofevich Isaev

Born Jan. 10 (22), 1857, in Mogilev; died Mar. 25 (Apr. 6), 1886. Russian revolutionary Narodnik (Populist); member of the Executive Committee of the People’s Will.

Isaev was the son of a postal employee. He studied at the University of St. Petersburg (1876–78) and the Medical and Surgical Academy (after 1878). He became involved in the student movement in 1878–79. A proponent of political struggle and terror, he became a member of Svoboda ili Smert’ (Freedom or Death), a terrorist organization, in May 1879, and in the summer of that year joined the People’s Will. He served as a technician for the organization, preparing dynamite bombs, and took part in assassination attempts against Alexander II in Moscow, Odessa, and St. Petersburg. Arrested in April 1881, he was condemned to death at the Trial of the Twenty in February 1882. The sentence was commuted to hard labor for life. Four years later, Isaev died of tuberculosis in the ShlissePburg Fortress.