Gershuni, Grigorii

Born Sept. 17 (29), 1870, in Šiauliai; died Mar. 16 (29), 1908, in Zürich. One of the founders and leaders of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, an organizer and leader of its combat organization, and a member of its central committee. By profession Gershuni was a pharmacist. In 1902 he organized the assassination of the minister of internal affairs D. S. Sipiagin and the attempt on the governor of Kharkov, I. M. Obolenskii, as well as the assassination in 1903 of the governor of Ufa, N. M. Bogdanovich. In May 1903 he was arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. In early 1904 he was condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. In the fall of 1905 he was moved to Akatui Prison in Eastern Siberia. He escaped in October 1906 and reached Western Europe by way of China and the USA. Gershuni’s memoirs, From the Recent Past, were published in 1907.