New York Times | 23Dec1906 | Unknown

Count Ignatieff Slain By Russian Workman
Had Once Been talked of for Dictator of the Empire
Bullet Pierces His Heart
Blamed for Drumhead Court-Martial of Terrorists---Crime Committed in Tver Hall Of Nobles

TVER, Russia, Dec 22.---Count Alexis Ignatieff, a member of the Council of the Empire and ex-Governor General of Kief, Volhynia, and Podolia, was shot and killed here to-day in the refreshment room of the hall occupied by the Nobles Assembly. The assassin fired six bullets from a revolver into his victim's body and then tried to commit suicide, but was seized before he could do so, and is now in custody of the police.

Count Ignatieff was sitting with other members of the Zemstvo in the refreshment room. Suddenly a young man who had been sitting apart arose and approaching the Count emptied the contents of a revolver, one piercing his heart, and the Count died almost instantly.

The murderer, followed by some members of the Zemstvo, fled to an adjoining room, where he turned his revolver, two chambers of which he had reloaded, toward his own breast. One shot missed his body entirely, and the other pierced his shoulder. He was then seized, and at the moment his pursuers laid hold of him he shouted out:

"I did what I came here to do."

A card of admission to the Zemstvo bearing the name of Kulikoff was found in the assassin's pocket. His appearance is that of a workingman.

The obnoxious drumhead court-martial law, under which hundreds of the Terrorists have been put to death during the last few months, was worked out at a special conference of which Count Ignatieff was a member, and to him the revolutionists attribute the authorship of this measure. Since M. Stolypin has been Premier the Count has been several times reported as intriguing with other members of the so-called Camarilla to oust M. Stolypin and induce the Emperor to dispense entirely with the lower house.

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General Count Alexis Pavlolich Ignatieff was born in 1842, and, after completing the usual course in the Corps of Pages, entered a regiment of Hussars of the Guard. In 1863 he was appointed commander of the regiment of Chevalier Guards, the most coveted post in the Russian Army, and in 1881 he became Chief of Staff of the Guard Corps.

Count Ignatieff entered the administrative service in 1885 as Governor General of Irkutsk, and in 1889 he was recalled to St. Petersburg to become Assistant Minister of the Interior. But while on a train on his way to the capital Ignatieff was appointed Governor General of Kief, which office he held until 1897.

As a result of the disorders which occurred throughout Russia, after Red Sunday, Jan. 22, 1905, Ignatieff was sent by the Emperor to investigate the situation in Southern Russia, and on his return his report on the immediate necessity for granting reforms was one of the chief reasons which induced the Emperor to proclaim the first Russian Parliament. During the debates preceding the adoption of the parliamentary law of Aug. 5, 1905, Ignatieff advocated the granting of a large measure of power to Parliament, but the success of the repressive measures following the Moscow revolt changed his opinion, for he became the active coadjutor of Gen. Trepoff in supporting the repressive policy of Minister of the Interior Durnovo and in the intrigue which resulted in the downfall of Count Witte. It was said at the time that the plan was to proclaim Ignatieff Premier and Dictator, turn the Guard Regiments against Parliament when it had assembled, and supply the iron rule which Trepoff and Ignatieff and their colleagues considered to be the sole thing lacking to govern Russia successfully under the old absolutism.