Background
Kannegisser was born in Nikolaev, Russian Empire, in a wealthy Jewish family. His father, Akim (Ioakim) Kannegisser was a mechanical engineer and the head of Russia"s largest shipyards at Nikolaev. His mother was a doctor.
Kannegisser was born in Nikolaev, Russian Empire, in a wealthy Jewish family. His father, Akim (Ioakim) Kannegisser was a mechanical engineer and the head of Russia"s largest shipyards at Nikolaev. His mother was a doctor.
He graduated from a private school and studied economics from 1915 to 1917 at the Petrograd Polytechnic Institute.
In 1913 Kannegisser became a military cadet in the Mikhailov Artillery School of the Imperial Russian Army. On 30 August 1918 around nine o’clock Kannegisser, wearing a leather jacket and an officer’s cap, turned up at the People"s Commissariat of Internal Affairs. He left his bicycle by the door and entered the building.
Uritsky arrived in his car at around ten o’clock.
A few moments later Uritsky was fatally shot in his head and body by Kannegisser. After shooting Uritsky, he ran out into the street and tried to escape on his bicycle.
He rode quickly but was chased by car. He threw away his bicycle and ran into the British Embassy.
He left the Embassy after having donned a longcoat and opened fire on Red Guards but he was arrested.
He was tortured and declared that he had acted alone. He was executed shortly afterwards in Petrograd. Filonenko had close links with Boris Savinkov who gave the order to assassinate Uritsky.
After Viktor Pereltsveig, an Army officer lover (Kannegisser was homosexual) was executed with a group of officers by the Extraordinary Commission Against Counterrevolution, Sabotage and Speculation in the summer of 1918, he decided to take revenge by killing Uritsky who signed the execution orders.
Mark Aldanov, who knew Kannegisser and his family, wrote that was intended to restore the "good name of the Russians Jews" (Uritsky, as well as Kannegisser, were born to Jewish families)., along with the attempted murder of Vladimir Lenin by Fanny Kaplan on the same day, sparked the beginning of the "Red Terror" campaign by the Bolsheviks.
During the Bolshevik armed insurrection on the night from 25 to 26 October 1917 (Old Style Julian Calendar) along with several other cadets Kannegisser defended the Provisional Government at the Winter Palace.
He was a member of Popular Socialist Party. After the arrest, the Bolshevik authorities also arrested several members of his family and friends.