Stepniak, S.

Stepniak, S.

(styĭpnyäk`), 1852–95, Russian revolutionary and writer, whose real name was Sergei Mikhailovich Kravchinski. He fled Russia in 1878 after taking part in the assassination of the czarist chief of police. His first book, Underground Russia (1882, tr. 1888) was written in Italian and consisted of profiles of Russian revolutionaries. He is best known for his novel The Career of a Nihilist; or, Andrei Kozhukhov (1889), which he wrote in English. He was killed in London by a train.