A Child of Christian Blood: Murder and Conspiracy in Tsarist Russia: The Beilis Blood Libel

Cast of Characters

THE LEAD PLAYERS

Andrei Yushchinsky (yoosh-CHIN-skee), also known as “Andrusha” (an-DROO-shuh), a thirteen-year-old-boy murdered in Kiev in March 1911

Mendel Beilis, a clerk at a Kiev brick factory accused of Andrei’s murder

Vera Cheberyak (chih-burr-YAHK), the mother of Andrei’s best friend, Zhenya, and head of a den of thieves

THE SUSPECTS

Vera Cheberyak (see Lead Players, above)

Ivan “Red Vanya” Latyshev, a member of Vera Cheberyak’s gang

Boris “Borka” Rudzinsky, a member of Vera Cheberyak’s gang

Peter “Velveteen” Singaevsky, Vera Cheberyak’s half brother

THE MEN WHO FRAMED BEILIS

Ivan Shcheglovitov, the minister of justice

Nikolai Maklakov, the minister of the interior, brother of Beilis’s attorney Vasily Maklakov

Stepan Beletsky, the head of the national Department of Police

Grigory Chaplinsky (chap-LIN-skee), the chief prosecutor of the Kiev Judicial Chamber. His position is comparable to a state attorney general

Alexander Liadov, a top Justice Ministry official dispatched to Kiev in May 1911 to oversee the investigation

Vladimir Golubev, a Kiev university student and head of a right-wing youth group, Society of the Double Headed Eagle

A. A. Karbovsky, a senior prosecutor in Chaplinsky’s office

Nikolai Kuliabko (koo-lib-KAW), head of the Kiev division of the Okhrana, or secret police

Adam Polishchuk (pah-lish-CHOOK), a former police officer

BEILIS’S DEFENDERS: OFFICIALS, POLICE, AND JOURNALISTS

Detective Nikolai Krasovsky, a provincial police official and former Kiev police detective brought in to investigate the Yushchinsky murder

Detective Evgeny Mishchuk (mish-CHOOK), chief of Kiev’s investigative police, or chief detective

Vasily Fenenko, Kiev’s Investigating Magistrate for Especially Important Cases

Nikolai Brandorf, a prosecutor in the Kiev regional court, comparable to a district attorney (referred to as “the local prosecutor”), who tries to stop the Beilis prosecution

Stepan Brazul-Brushkovsky (brah-ZOOL broosh-KAWF-skee), an ambitious Kiev journalist

Arnold Margolin, a scion of one of Russia’s wealthiest families and Beilis’s first attorney

Vladimir D. Nabokov, a leading liberal jurist and journalist (and father of the novelist Vladimir V. Nabokov)

Vasily Shulgin, an anti-Semitic newspaper editor and politician

BEILIS’S ATTORNEYS

Oskar Gruzenberg, Russia’s most prominent Jewish attorney and head of the legal team

Nikolai Karabchevsky, one Russia’s most famous attorneys

Vasily Maklakov, brother of interior minister Nikolai Maklakov

Alexander Zarudny, well-known defender of revolutionaries

Dimitry Grigorovich-Barsky, a Kiev attorney

THE PROSECUTION

Oskar Vipper, the lead prosecutor

Alexei Shmakov, technically an attorney for Andrei’s mother (referred to as a “civil prosecutor”)

Georgy Zamyslovsky, a right-wing member of the State Duma, technically an attorney for Andrei’s mother (referred to as a “civil prosecutor”)

WITNESSES FOR THE DEFENSE

Amzor Karaev, a young revolutionary

Sergei Makhalin, a young revolutionary who teamed up with Amzor Karaev to help Beilis

Mikhail Nakonechny, a shoemaker and neighbor of Beilis’s

Evdokia [Dunya] Nakonechnaya, his daughter

Ekaterina Diakonova, an acquaintance of Vera Cheberyak’s

Zinaida Malitskaya, Vera Cheberyak’s downstairs neighbor

Professor P. K. Kokovtsov, one of Russia’s most distinguished Hebraists

Professor I. G. Troitsky, an expert on the Jewish religion at the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary

Rabbi Jacob Mazeh, the chief rabbi of Moscow

WITNESSES FOR THE PROSECUTION

Vera Cheberyak (see Lead Players, above)

Vasily Cheberyak, her husband

Ludmila Cheberyak, her daughter

Father Justin Pranaitis, a Catholic priest who testifies as an expert on Judaism

Dr. Ivan Sikorsky, a professor of psychiatry at a Kiev university

Dr. Dimitry Kosorotov, a forensic pathologist

Kazimir Shakhovsky and Ulyana Shakhovskaya (known as “the Lamplighters”), witnesses who saw Andrei on the morning he disappeared

Anna “the Wolf” Zakharova, an alcoholic derelict

ASSORTED RIFFRAFF

Pavel Mifle, Vera Cheberyak’s former lover

Ivan Kozachenko, a cellmate of Beilis’s

Anna Darofeyeva, a woman who murdered her husband

ASSORTED POLITICIANS AND OFFICIALS

Peter Stolypin, Russian prime minister and minister of the interior. Assassinated in September 1911.

Vladimir Kokovtsov, successor to Peter Stolypin as prime minister

General Pavel Kurlov (koor-LAWF), deputy minister of the interior and head of the Corps of Gendarmes

Colonel Alexander Shredel, head of the Kiev division of the Corps of Gendarmes

ANDREI YUSHCHINSKY’S FAMILY

Alexandra Prikhodko, Andrei’s mother

Luka Prikhodko, Andrei’s stepfather, Alexandra’s husband

Natalia Nezhinskaya, Andrei’s aunt, Alexandra Prikhodko’s sister

Fyodor Nezhinsky, Andrei’s uncle, Alexandra Prikhodko’s brother