The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1890-12-16
WILL HANG A WOMAN.
The Awful Fate of Beautiful
Sophie Guenzburg.
a VICTIM OF THE DEMON CAR.
Strange Career OF . Gifted Jewess
Whom Russia Drove Into NihiIism--
Death for Political Onense.
Chicago Herald.

Il
be hanged, and for whose life Russians in
the United States and all over Europe are
interceding. She is girl of rare beauty,
keen mind, careful education, unbounded
pride and amazing enthusiasm, all of
which she sacriuced gladly to the cause Of
enlightening the poor and ignorant of
her native land. With her fair face she
attracted adorers by the dozens, who tried
to give her their names, their honors, and
their fortunes, but she rejected all to work
under the disguise of dishonored woman
of the town for her ideal of Russians
mission
Sophie Guenzburg was born in south
Russian village twenty-one years ago. Her
father was a considerable landowner of
education and social position. She re-
ceived elementary instruction in the viii
lage school, and at the age of seventeen
was graduated from a high school in a
neighboring city. She was then slender,
yet we'll developed, of medium height, yet
giving an impression of unusual dignity,
with wayy brown hair. deep brown eyes,
a slightly tinted skin of surprising
smoothness and softness, and spring
ing gait. She was the belle of the
city where she studied, and had before
her at home the prospect ofchoosing whom
she would for husband. She aspired,
however. to be student and, if possible,
a physician. Her unusual cleverness in
her books led her father to consent to edu-
cate her in medicine, as her two sisters
had been educated, in st. Petersburg. She
was already to go to the capital TO begin
work when the university was closed
against women. Her resolution to learn
was not shaken She decided at once to go
abroad for the knowledge her native land
refused to give her. She arrived in Berne,
Switzerland, late in 1856, with the pur-
pose OF carrying on in free Switzer-
land her studies in medicine and civil gov
eminent. She lived economically in one
room, ate at restaurants and cafes, as do
all Russian students abroad, and associated
only with her own countTymen and wo-
men, although her mastery of French and
German, her beauty and her brilliancy
offered her repeated opportunities of living
on the sunny side OF society. Her Russian
friends were radicals; some were reyolu-
tionists. They told her all their plans and
aspirations, touched her heart with their
stories of the sufferings of the poor and
oppressed, of conditions of Russian life
she had never seen, and finally diverted
her thoughts entirely from herself and her
own career to the unfortunate lot of Rus
ton, returned to Russia and
got school teachers certificate
In order that she might teach
growing Russians what they ought to be
and what they should be in the empire of
the car. The government police learned
of the radicalness of her instructions before
she had been home many months and be-
gan harassing her every STEP She moved
from town to town as often aspossible for
the purpose of escaping their vigilance.
In vain. She was watched at every turn,
was interrupted in her work, and wss
threatened with arrest. She became dis
couraged eventually by the smallness
of the results to which her work had
been reduced. She decided to go abroad
again. The government refused her pass.
She appealed for aid to her radical friends
and they struggled her by night over the
western frontier. She hurried across Ger
many to Paris and thence to Switzerland.
The bitterness of her experience at home
had transformed her political ideas. She
was nihilist without nihilist's belief in
forcible revolution. This Iiaw in her COM
cal radicalism was removed by Wilhelm
Liebknecht, leader of the social demo-
cratic party in Germany. After series of
conversations with Liebknecht concerning
the political agitations that shake the con-
tinent, she asked him whether he advised
the use of force in political emergencies.
In Germany and similar countries,
where bloodless revolution is possible, no, :"
was the answer. "In Russia, where all is
so black, it is the only hope"
Early in 1889 she returned to Russia with
mass of revolutionary literature in her
clothes and baggage. She went because
she felt that she must do her utmost to
work out her convictions, and that in
foreign land she must always remain
skirmisher rather than a tighter. She
travelled to st. Petersburg via CONSTANT
nople with an English passport, in order
that she might hoodwink the Russian po-
lice. To prevent her cause from suffering
for her religion, she gave up her Jewish
creed and Joined the orthodox Greek Cath
Ollie church. But that was little
or nothing compared with her final
sacrifice. When concealment of her mis-
sion was becoming daily more difficult.
when the whole work in which she had
infused her strong nature began to tren-
bic on the verge of discovery, she hastens
to the police asked to be registered as a
woman of the town, and received the GER
tincate supposed TO prove her dishonor.
She remained pure, but in the disguise of
impurity she was enabled TO do unsTls-
pected the work of spreading the propo-
ganda and organizing the revolutionary
forces. AS Jewess her residence in ST
Petersburg would have been difficult to
maintain; as an honest woman she would
have been suspected at every turn by the
police. As Christian and woman of the
town, however. she was fairly safe from
suspicion and interruption.
The discovery of her identity and work
was pure accident. She was shopping
one afternoon in st. Petersburg while OH
her way to the house of nihilistic friend.
With her she carried a little handbag full
of revolutionary pamphlets. As she left
shop she forgot the bag. 1t was picked up
by the proprietor, and turned over as lost
property to the police. They opened it,
found the literature and Sophie Guenz-
burg's address within, and when she re-
turned home at night had searched her
apartments successfully for other evil
dences of her completely in nihilistic plots.
Several men suspected of being her accom-
pilees were also thrown into prison at the
same time.
The trial of Sophie Guenzbure. Stoilanof
sky and Friefeld, civilians, and Dooshefsky
and Crotchko, artillery officers. all ofwhom
were suspected of working TO the same end
with her, began behind closed doors on No
vember 10. Ii was before a special court of
i've members of the senate. The COM
plant was that Sophie Guenzburg had been
found to have in her possession placards
announcing the death OF Alexander ILL.,.
and that one or more bombs had been dis
covered in her apartment. She was there
fore accused of being q chief actor in plot
TO murder the car. She. Stoilanofsky
and Friefeld were found guilty. on Noyeni-
Der Ii. Dooshefsky and Crotchko. the artil-
lery officers, were acquitted. All three
guilty ones have been condemned 10 be
hanged, although Stoilanofsky and Erie
field have been recommended fora conanau-
tatlon OF their sentences to hard labor in
Siberia for four and ten years respectively.
For Sophie Guenzburg no voice was raised
The sentence passed on her viii probably
be carried out despite all American