Nikolai Ivanovich Kibalchich (Russian: Николай Иванович Кибальчич; Ukrainian: Микола Іванович Кибальчич, romanized: Mykola Ivanovych Kybalchych; 19 October 1853[1] – April 3, 1881[2][3]) was a Russian revolutionary who took part in the assassination of Tsar Alexander II as the main explosive expert for Narodnaya Volya ("People's Will"), and was also a rocket pioneer.

[4] Born in the town of Korop, Krolevetsky Uyezd, Chernigov Governorate (present-day Ukraine) in 1853 into a clerical family,[5] Kibalchich was the son of an Orthodox parish priest.

[6] During the night from February 28 to March 1, 1881, Kibalchich and his assistants, Fleet Lieutenant Sukhanov and Mikhail Grachevsky, prepared four explosive projectiles that were used in the assassination of Alexander II later that day.

Gerard noted that when his men came to see Kibalchich as his appointed counsel for the defense, they were surprised to find his mind occupied with things that had no bearing on the trial.

He seemed to be immersed in research on some aeronautic missile and he greatly desired the opportunity to write down the calculations involved in the discovery.

At 7:50 AM on the sunny spring morning of April 3 two "chariots of shame" with the condemned prisoners rode out of the house of the detention to Shpalernaya Street.

Zhelyabov was in the first, and by his side was Rysakov, who had tossed the first bomb at the coach of Alexander II and then betrayed his comrades during the interrogation.

Thus, Kibalchich and other Narodnaya Volya plotters including Sophia Perovskaya, Andrei Zhelyabov, Nikolai Rysakov and Timofei Mikhailov were hanged on April 3, 1881.

In fact, the combustion of explosive substance results with a comparative rapidity in large quantity of gases possessing a huge energy at the instance of their formation.

This is possible only if the huge energy of explosive combustion, rather than last instantaneously, will be generated during a more or less prolonged period of time.The fate of the invention, mentioned in Kybalchych's last letter, proved to be as tragic as that of its 27-year-old creator.

Kibalchich's design was buried in the archives of Police Department, but the tsar authorities failed to consign the name of the inventor and his idea to oblivion.

In 1917, Nikolai Rynin rediscovered the manuscript in the archives and published an account of it 1918 in the historic magazine Byloye (Былое, The Past).