Fanny Kaplan

Fanny Kaplan
Фанни Каплан
Born
Feiga Haimovna Roytblat

(1890-02-10)February 10, 1890
DiedSeptember 3, 1918(1918-09-03) (aged 28)
Cause of deathExecution by shooting

Fanny Efimovna Kaplan (Russian: Фанни Ефимовна Каплан; real name Feiga Haimovna Roytblat; Фейга Хаимовна Ройтблат; February 10, 1890 – September 3, 1918) was a Russian Socialist-Revolutionary who attempted to assassinate Vladimir Lenin. She was arrested and executed by the Cheka in 1918.

Born into a Jewish family, Kaplan served a sentence of hard labor during the tsarist years for her revolutionary activities.[1][2] As a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, Kaplan viewed Lenin as a "traitor to the revolution" when the Bolsheviks enacted one-party rule and banned her party. On August 30, 1918, she approached Lenin, who was leaving a Moscow factory, and fired three shots, which badly injured him. Interrogated by the Cheka, she refused to name any accomplices and was executed. The Kaplan attempt and the Moisei Uritsky assassination were used by the government of Soviet Russia for the reinstatement of capital punishment, which had been abolished by the Russian Provisional Government in March 1917.

  1. ^ Shrayer, Maxim D. (2015). An Anthology of Jewish-Russian Literature: Two Centuries of Dual Identity in Prose and Poetry. Routledge. p. 210. ISBN 978-1-317-47696-2.
  2. ^ Engelstein, Laura (2018). Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, Civil War, 1914–1921. Oxford University Press. p. 273. ISBN 978-0-19-979421-8.