Dora Vul'fovna Brilliant was a revolutionary, a member of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party (SRs) and their combat organization, a participant in the assassination attempts on the Minister of Internal Affairs Vyacheslav Pleve and Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. Dora Brilliant was born in 1879 into a fairly influential merchant family of Orthodox Kherson Jews. Trade brought a good income, and her parents were able to provide for their daughter's education. Dora was enrolled in a Jewish school for girls, after graduating from which she studied for four years at a gymnasium. The young woman had a strong thirst for education, so after burying her mother who died early, she left her parental home against her father's wishes and enrolled in midwifery courses at one of the oldest higher education institutions of the Russian Empire – Yuryev University. To continue her studies, in the fall of 1900 Dora Brilliant moved to Kiev, where she fully immersed herself in the turbulent student life. In progressive youth circles, the girl first came into contact with revolutionary ideas. For participating in a mass student protest demonstration against administrative abuses and the unjust expulsion of classmates, she was arrested and placed in Lukyanovskaya prison. After a short stay in the penitentiary, Dora was exiled under supervision to Kishinev. Soon her place of exile became Ekaterinodar, then Poltava.

Dora's knowledge of chemistry determined her role in the terrorist organization – she was to make bombs. The SRs’ immediate plan was the assassination of the Minister of Internal Affairs Vyacheslav Pleve. At one time, in Kishinev, under his alleged inaction, Jewish pogroms occurred. For the former midwife, this act of public justice became a personal matter. This operation caused the organizers a lot of trouble: the first attempt failed, and during the preparation of the second, Alexei Pokotilov accidentally died. Seeking to avenge a close person, Dora begged to be allowed to be a bomb thrower, but she was not permitted. The execution of the sentence was entrusted to Yegor Sozonov, and he succeeded. However, at the explosion site, Savinkov, accustomed to failures, did not notice Pleve’s corpse and took the bloody pieces of human flesh for the remains of a comrade. Only after seeing the minister’s portrait in a mourning frame in the newspaper did he realize the deed was done.

The next target of the terrorist attack was the Moscow Governor-General, Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. Despite Dora’s repeated requests to allow her direct participation in the assassination, the leadership again entrusted her only with making and keeping two bombs until the right moment. The first attempt did not take place: the terrorist Ivan Kalyayev, who was assigned to throw the bomb, could not bring himself to raise his hand against the Grand Duke’s wife and his young nephews who were in the carriage. On February 4, 1905, Sergei Alexandrovich went out alone – and was torn apart by the “infernal machine” created by Dora Brilliant and thrown by Kalyayev.

According to Boris Savinkov, a strange contradiction lived in Dora: in both cases, she reached a hysterical state and wept, but mourned not only the fallen comrades but also her victims, blaming herself for their deaths.

Despite the terrorists’ careful secrecy, at the end of 1905 two secret chemical laboratories in Saint Petersburg were discovered by the police. Dora Brilliant, who was in one of them, was arrested, convicted for criminal activity against the emperor and members of the imperial family, and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The stay in a dark, damp cell revived the horror previously experienced in the oppressive confined walls of Lukyanovka. Physically and mentally exhausted, Dora could not endure the nightmare and lost her mind. This was triggered by an episode when the electricity went out in the casemate, and guards appeared at her cell door with candles. Not reacting to the dim light, the girl saw only sinister figures advancing on her from the darkness. After this incident, Dora was transferred to the hospital of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker, where she, constantly begging for poison to end her suffering, died in October 1907.

Sources:

https://kulturologia.ru/blogs/210919/44213/

https://dic.academic.ru/dic.nsf/ruwiki/1485925

https://zen.yandex.ru/media/id/5efc65127716483f5c42ac29/chudovisce-v-iubke-na-slujbe-svoemu-narodu-pechalnaia-sudba-dory-brilliant-607ad139298124331e9e576c