{{short description|Russian politician}} thumb|Aizik Aronchik
'''Aizik Borisovich Aronchik''' ({{langx|ru|Айзик Борисович Арончик}}; 28 December 1859 {{endash}} 2 April 1888) was a Russian revolutionary, who took part in a failed attempt to assassinate the Tsar Alexander II.<ref name="Chronos">{{cite web |title=Арончик, Айзик Борисович |url=http://www.hrono.info/biograf/bio_a/aronchik.html |website=Chronos}}</ref><ref name=jebe>Aronchik, Aizik Borisovich on Brokhaus and Efron Jewish Encyclopedia in 16 volumes, Moscow 1908-1913</ref>
==Career == Aronchik's family were Jewish traders, from Gomel, present day Belarus, he studied at the St Petersburg Institute of Railway Engineers, but dropped out in 1879, without finishing the course, after having made contact with revolutionaries.<ref name=GSE>Great Soviet Encyclopedia 1st edition (1926) v.3 p.451</ref>
He was one of only two revolutionaries entrusted with meeting and exchanging messages with Nikolai Kletochnikov, the revolutionaries' agent inside the police department.<ref name="Chronos"/> In 1879-80, he and a fellow revolutionary, Galina Cheryavskaya posing as a married couple, under the name of Silantiev, occupied a safe house where members of Narodnaya Volya could meet.
In November 1879, he was involved in an attempt by Narodnaya Volya to kill the Tsar by exploding a mine under the Moscow - Kursk railway as his train passed. Aronchik was arrested on 17 March 1881, he was one of the defendants at the Trial of the Twenty. He told the court: "I never distinguished, and don't do so now, between the principles of the Narodnaya Volya and Chernyi Peredel factions. Each is founded on the struggle to bring about a revolution in Russia. I stand with them, though I am socialist first and a revolutionary second."<ref name=GSE/>
He was sentenced to life imprisonment. After four years in the {{ill|Alekseyev Ravelin|ru|Алексеевский равелин Петропавловской крепости}}, he was showing signs of mental illness, and was transferred in August 1884 to Shlisselburg Fortress, where his mental state was compounded by physical illness. He never left his cell, until he died, after prolonged suffering, on 2 April 1888.<ref name="Chronos"/>
== References == {{Reflist}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aronchik, Aizik}} Category:Narodniks Category:Russian Jews Category:1859 births Category:1888 deaths Category:Prisoners of Shlisselburg fortress Category:Russian prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Category:Russian people who died in prison custody Category:Prisoners who died in Russian detention Category:19th-century people from the Russian Empire