Igor Sazonov

Igor Sazonov (died 1910) was a student, a railway worker and a Russian Socialist Revolutionary, who assassinated the Russian Minister of the Interior, Vyacheslav von Plehve.To revolutionaries, Von Plehve had been guilty of "the wholesale deportation of all discontents; massacres of the Jews... an orgy of wholesale bribery..."Sazonov committed suicide in prison, shortly before he was to be released, in protest of the mistreatment of Russian prisoners.

Son of a rich merchant in Ufa, Sazonov was initially deeply religious and monarchist as a student, wanting to become a doctor.But after being arrested, flogged, and expelled, he became a Socialist Revolutionary, organized studies of socialism, and turned forever against the government.He said "It is not easy to reject the fundamental laws of humanity, but I have been forced to it.From now on I dedicate myself to open warfare with the government..."

After life as a student, he learned the trade of cab-driver in St. Petersburg.

This famous assassination was committed on July 15, 1904. It was done with a bomb weighing seven kilograms, , which had been prepared by a local professor, Professor Rouher.Sazonov threw the bomb at the window of the carriage of Von Plehve, according to the instructions of Yevno Azef, an agent-provocateur who was working for the Russian secret police.

After assassinating Von Plehve, Sazonov was asked by a revolutionary how he felt, and he responded, "Pride and joy...only that."

On November 28, 1910, Sazonov committed suicide in prison, "in protest [of] the cruel prison regime in the men's prisons of Nerchinsk. When his suicide became known, mass demonstrations took place..."

Sazonov was treated as a hero to Jewish and Russian communities in the United States.He received so much applause that the Chicago Daily News said that "the Cubs should hire him as a pitcher."Boris Savinkov, a simple worker accused of terrorism against the Soviet Union in 1923, made his defense by saying he was too revolutionary to be accused, because he was once "comrade of Yegor Sazonov."