The 1905 Bloody Sunday massacre took place in Saint Petersburg, Russia. On 22 January 1905 (9 January under the Russian Empire’s Julian calendar), thousands of workers and their families marched toward the Winter Palace to present a petition to Tsar Nicholas II.
The procession was led by Father Georgy Gapon, an Orthodox priest who organized the Assembly of Russian Factory Workers. Many marchers carried religious icons and portraits of the tsar, expecting him to hear complaints about low wages, long hours, poor working conditions, and the lack of political representation.
Imperial troops and Cossacks blocked routes into the city centre. Soldiers eventually fired on parts of the crowd, killing and wounding large numbers of people. Estimates vary considerably, partly because the authorities suppressed information about the casualties.
A common mix-up is confusing this event with later revolutionary violence in Moscow. Bloody Sunday occurred in Saint Petersburg and helped trigger strikes and unrest that became the active phase of the 1905 Russian Revolution. It also badly damaged the popular belief that Nicholas II was a protective “little father.”