(Film poster). “His Excellency.”

This silent film directed by Grigori Roshal was based on the life of Hirsch Lekert (1880-1902), a Jewish shoemaker and militant Bund member, who carried out an unsuccessful assassination attempt of the governor of Vilna, General Victor von Wahl, to avenge the flogging of workers who participated in a May Day rally. At his trial, Lekert refused to ask for forgiveness and gave an eloquent speech on the dignity of the Jewish worker. Sentenced to death, Hirsch Lekert subsequently became a folk hero in the workers’ movement.