The study of Nikolai Troitsky is the first biography in historical science of the world-famous Russian revolutionary, one of the leaders of the People's Will party, executed by the verdict of the tsar's court. The biography of Sophia Perovskaya, based on a wide range of archival sources, is given in the context of complex socio-political processes and touches upon important problems in the history of the second half of the 19th century. The author not only reconstructed the era of the tragic confrontation between the intelligentsia and the authorities, but also created a vivid portrait gallery of Perovskaya’s contemporaries: crowned heads, state and public figures, revolutionaries, their friends and foes.