On December 11, 1827, a certain Nikolai Lushnikov, the son of a Simbi landowner, came to the main guardhouse in the Kremlin, who arrived in 1826 to enter Moscow University, but for some reason was not accepted there. After asking the sentry about the guard officers (captain Botsan and ensign Kovalevsky) with whom he was familiar, he entered them and in a frank conversation began to tell them about the form of government in Russia, said that the Constitution would soon prevail, scolded Nikolai and mentioned, that he and his friends had formed a secret society to exterminate the Imperial family, that they kept a dagger made in 1826, finally announced that on August 22 the society intended to dissolve several thousand posters to incite the people and issue proclamations to incite their hatred of monarchical rule while he pointed to the Cretans.
The officers in the evening of the same day reported this to their colonel commander (the commander of the Siberian grenadier regiment was Colonel Yunitsyn), he reported further and the next day the sergeant major rushed to St. Petersburg with letters from the military governor-general Prince Golitsyn and commandant Verevkin. Not wanting to remain unknown, Yunitsyn, contrary to the order of service and on his own behalf, sent a report to Nikolai, but in this report he showed the wrong day on which he learned about the incident, and he also confused some stupid rumor about the makers of fake banknotes to either the village or the city. .
The commander of the 3rd Grenadier Division, Adjutant General Khrapovitsky, having learned about this, hastened to inform the sovereign himself, asking for forgiveness for Yunitsyn's "illegal action" and justifying him with excessive zeal, so that Yunitsyn subsequently got off with only a severe reprimand.
The entire mass of reports received by Mr. Saken handed it over to Dibich by royal command, adding that "Moscow students, apparently, are all infected with outrageous thoughts."
From August 14 to 15 at 4 am, by order of the Moscow Governor-General, the following were taken: Lushnikov (18 years old), who served in the 7th department of the Senate, 12th grade, Pyotr Kritsky (21 years old), his brothers, students of Moscow University: Vasily (17 years old) and Mikhail (18 years old).
To analyze the case, an investigative commission was composed of Adjutant General Khrapovitsky, Moscow commandant Verevkin, head of the 2nd district of the gendarme corps, Major General Volkov, Moscow chief police chief General Shulgin and State Councilor Turgenev. The chief auditor was the famous N.D. Orange.
On August 20, the commission opened its meetings and, after the first interrogation, the following were also taken: Nikolai Popov (18 years old), who lived with his father in the Voronezh province, and the architect of the Kremlin expedition. assistant Danilo Tyurin (19 years old), then clerk Saltanov (20 years old), collegiate registrars Matveev (24 years old) and Tomanovsky (17 years old), students Rogov and Palmin (the last from the estate of the mother of the Tambov province), clerks Nikolai Tyurin (17 years old) and Shikhmarev (18 years old) and the 6th Carabinieri Junker Kurilov.
[Note: they were taken and imprisoned: 1. Lushnikov - in Sretensky part from August 15 to December 24, 2. Peter of Crete - to Tver, from August 15 to September 8, then to Yakimanskaya until December 24, 3. Mikhail of Crete - to the butcher's from August 15 to November 7 and to the Yauzskaya until December 19, 4. Vasily Kritsky - to Presnenskaya - from August 15 to December 19, 5. Popov - to Tverskaya, from December 8 to December 21, Arbatskaya, from August 19 to December 21, 7. Saltanov - to the bourgeois, from August 26 to January 9, 9. Nikolai Tyurin - from September 1 to January 9, 10. Palmin - to Prechistenskaya from September 11 to January 9, 11. Rogov - to the city, from August 26 to September 10].
The commission from questioning discovered that a small circle of "accomplices" did not belong to any secret society, that they only tried to multiply comrades, approaching different people, posing as members of a secret society and desiring constitutional government.
Lushnikov testified that from his arrival in Moscow from the Simbirsk province, upset by the failure of entering the university, he was bored and was looking for acquaintances to his heart, which he found in Kritsky. He met them in January 1826, but the conversations did not conclude anything special. On Good Friday, Lushnikov went to the Moskva River to watch the ice and there he met with Vasily of Kritsky. They talked among other things about the general use of a foreign language in Russia and customs, and regretted that the Russians were alienated from their own native language. A similar conversation took place a few days later under Michael of Crete, who greatly praised the constitution of England and Spain, represented the unfortunate people under monarchical rule, called the Decembrists great, saying that they wished the good of the Fatherland. The decisive nature of the Cretans attracted Lushnikov. After frequent meetings, they revealed to him their desire to see constitutional government in Russia and said that one could sacrifice one's life for this. Lushnikov declared himself to be their like-minded, but doubted their success due to the small number of comrades. Vasily Kritsky remarked to this that the Decembrists' society did not come together suddenly.
After some time, the Kritskys introduced Lushnikov to Danilo Tyurin, who thought that first of all it was necessary to try to increase the number of members, and over time already to take decisive measures in the reasoning of the Emperor, who, in case of disagreement to accept the constitution, force him to do so by force.
Then they introduced Lushnikov to Popov, who, according to them, had previously been a "slave", as the Cretans called everyone who did not belong to their society.
At meetings in this society, proposals were made: to spread one's thoughts at the university among the students. (this is how one Danilo Tyurin showed, but Vasily Kritsky did not agree), and to elect Alexander Pushkin as chairman (the thought of Mikhail Kritsky, but Lushnikov refuted it, saying that Pushkin is now devoted to the big world and thinks more about fashion and sharp rhymes than about the good of the Fatherland ).
But both were abandoned. They even talked about an attempt on the life of the Sovereign (the first one showed it to Danilo Tyurin, Lushnikov confirmed it, and Peter of Crete said that he had forgotten). Once, in conversations, "It is necessary to kill the Sovereign," Mikhail of Crete said to Danil Tyurin. "It will be useless," Tyurin objected. - "The death of the Sovereign will frighten other persons of the royal family and force them to retire to Germany," continued Mikhail of Kritsky, "on the contrary, they will take terrible measures and for one careless word they will be sent to Siberia," continued Tyurin.
"So much the better," said Kritsky, "because then the people will harden."
When the conversation was resumed at another time, it was supposed to do this deed by lot, so that the chosen one would kill himself. We intended to postpone it for 10 years. For the 3rd time, Mikhail of Crete, under Vasily Popov and Tyurin, turning to Lushnikov, said: “What do you think, to the root or with the root? - that is, to take the life of the entire imperial family or leave an heir.“ If the well-being of my Fatherland and the change of government demand this sacrifice, then I am ready for anything, but why destroy the royal baby? He can't hurt us! ""That's good! - objected Basil of Crete, - Can not be harmful? Doesn't the serpent, growing up, get snake venom?" "Besides," Popov added, "all Germans will stand up for the heir, as for their own blood." that there are already several weapons "for gifts", and Vasily asked Lushnikov "does he want to sacrifice himself for the good of the Fatherland or is he pleased to see his oppression and death?"
After that, Popov left for Vacation in the Voronezh province. Michael of Crete suggested dissolving outrageous notes in the city. At first this idea was approved, but then it was recognized as dangerous and abandoned. Pyotr Kritsky, occupying an apartment in the Kremlin building, often talked with sentries as he passed through the corridors, trying to develop in them a dislike for the authorities. One of these sentries, Frank Kushneryuk, a private in the Astrakhan regiment, was later brought to trial and punished extremely severely.
[Note: When Peter of Kritsky was put in a private house in Tver, on the next day of his arrest, he saw Frank Kushneryuk from the window of the sentry and called him. Kushneoryuk recognized Kritsky and asked: "How did you get there, your honor?" "Yes, yesterday I drank too much in Sokolniki, and they took me. Please take the note to your mother so that she can help me out as soon as possible." Then he threw away the note on a piece of paper torn from his wallet. Kushneryuk picked it up after the shift and carried it away. When the Cretan story about this commission, he could not indicate which regiment of the soldier and what his nickname was, he only knew that the name was Frank. Therefore, they got there and appointed a military court over Kushneryuk, which sentenced him: to drive him through the ranks four times through a thousand and then forever to work in Bobruisk. This is fulfilled and reported to the "unforgettable"].
Lushnikov thought he wrote proclamations to the inhabitants of Moscow and put on the monument to Minin and Pozharsky. Michael of Crete approved of this, saying: "The idea is good, but the enterprise can be destroyed from this." He believed that they could get it by handwriting and wanted to have a printing press so that by the time of the coronation (August 22) it would be printed and scattered around Red Square. They all hoped for General Yermolov, as a man offended, for the Simbirsk governor, the marshal of the nobility, Barataev, and for General Ivashev, his son grieved by the exile.
At this time, the society was open.
This is Lushnikov's testimony. Others showed: Basil of Crete did the same, Peter of Crete added that love for independence and aversion to monarchical rule were aroused in him by reading the works of Pushkin and Ryleev. The consequence of this was that the death of the Decembrists gave birth to indignation and regret in him, arousing a desire to imitate them. Michael of Crete did not confess to anything. D. Tyurin did not admit his intention to destroy the imperial family.
Their testimony was made touchy by other persons who testified and were accused:
Aleksey Saltanov, an employee in the 7th department from the nobility, listened to free conversations; said that the army was kept strictly, that during the then Persian war they described the damage of the enemy, but not their own.
Aleksey Matveev, who served on the board of trustees, agreed with Lushnikov that there were no positive laws in Russia and that it was bad for officials to live, that the government should be changed, read harmful poems heard from Palmin.
[Note: The poem given in the special report to Nicholas was:
Whenever instead of a lantern,
What shines dimly in bad weather
Hang the despot...
That would shine a ray of freedom.
It was attributed to Polezhaev, who had just been demoted for escaping to the ranks from non-commissioned officers with deprivation of the nobility and without seniority (this is from the same report). Nikolai Pavlovich wrote: to ask Polezhaev whether he wrote this before being sent to the soldiers or after? If before return - leave, if after - transfer to the court. Polezhaev was imprisoned, but it turned out (from his interrogations and from other testimonies) that the poem was written before being sent to the soldiers. He was released. Otherwise, he was threatened with punishment: through the ranks.]
The Kremlin expedition's assistant architect, collegiate registrar Pyotr Tomanovsky, believed that a constitution was needed in Russia ("hardly understanding the meaning of this word," the commission notes).
University student Alexei Rogov often returned from a lecture with the Kritskys and on the way he often talked about the government, about the injustice of the trial of the Decembrists, said that foreigners should not be bosses, talked about Justinian laws and the constitution.
The clerk Nikolai Tyurin - from the answers it is clear that he listened to impudent conversations, but "from his explanation one really does not see a distant mind," the commission notes. He himself announced that he wanted to be an accomplice, but due to his narrow-minded mind he moved away. He was surprised to learn that the tsar was "of the Germans."
The Kremlin expedition clerk Alexei Shikhmarev agreed to the eradication of foreigners, but hearing from Lushnikov: Do you wish happiness for the fatherland and do you have so much firmness to sacrifice your life to achieve this?" answered: "Without a doubt, for what loyal subject would not want to die for the sovereign and the fatherland ?" He tried to find out the target, so that later he would report to the government and received the name of the faithful.
[Note: Like Sherwood, traitor to the Decembrists]
A former student of the 12th grade, Pyotr Pelmin, gave Matveev a harmful poem.
The bookseller, the Moscow merchant's son Ivan Kolchugin, entering the shop asked about the price of Ryleev's "Dum" and, praising his genius, regretted his fate. Kolchugin said: "What he died for will perpetuate his memory; the commission of inquiry made them fools, they would, in our opinion, simply, from around the corner." Lushnikov said ironically: "Go pray for the tsar and light a candle for him." Kolchugin added: "Yes, and from me put the tallow." Kolchugin did not confess against this testimony of Lushnikov, saying that he did not remember, and that due to his youth this could be excusable, "however, asking for indulgence from those present."
Kremlin Forwarding Agent Nikolay Gamburtsev, titular adviser, assistant architektursky collegiate registrar Alexander Timofeev, clerks: Alexander Kosov, Alexander Pashkov and Ivan Meyen. The latter turned out to be completely untouchable to the case. He, meeting with Tyurin in the Alexander Garden, said: What, haven’t they taken you yet? to the point.
The commission, presenting the foregoing, concluded that, due to the lack of facts, it was impossible to bring to trial, and that the case was generally unimportant, so that, in its opinion, young people should be charged with detention under arrest. "Unforgettable" wrote on the report
"Do not betray the court, but send two at a time: to Shvartholm, to Shlisselburg and to Solovetsky Island. To the members of the commission to express gratitude. November 21, 1827."
In the report itself, against the surname, he indicated with his own hand:
"Lushnikov and Nicholas of Crete to Schwartholm, Mikhail of Crete and Nikolai Popov to Solovetsky Island, Vasilis of Crete and Daniil Tyubrin to Shlisselburg to the fortress." Against the rest, he noted: Saltanov "to serve in Orenburg", Matveev - "forgive", Tomanovsky "to Perm", Rogov "choose the type of service and send where he wishes", Nikolai Tyurin "to Vyatka", Alexander Shikhmarev "forgive", Palmina "to Vologda", Kolchugina "forgive, but have strict supervision." Others are forgiven, but from the Kremlin expedition they were ordered to be transferred to service outside Moscow. Meyer is "forgiven".
Mikhail and Basil of Crete were mistakenly sent to Solovki. "Unforgettable" asked a head-washer for this and ordered that Vasily of Kritsky be transferred to Shlisselburg, and Popov to Solovki, as they had previously been appointed. There Basil of Crete died on May 31, 1831 from a debilitating fever... The fate of others is sad. They didn't even get "relief" like the Decembrists, who three times during the celebrations had their term of hard labor reduced by a year or two. These were completely forgotten.
CRETAN CIRCLE
secret revolutionary. circle in Moscow in 1826-27. Participants: brothers Peter, Mikhail and Vasily Kritsky, Nikolai Popov - students of Moscow. un-ta, Nikolai Lushnikov (preparing to enter the un-t) and Daniil Tyurin - an official. Kruzhkovtsy considered themselves the successors of the Decembrists and intended to create a big secret political. org-tion in order to introduce a constitution in Russia; reading and distributing freedom-loving poems. A. S. Pushkin and K. F. Ryleev, discussed the possibility of regicide and appeal to the people with a proclamation, tried to lead a revolution. propaganda among officials, soldiers and students of Moscow. university 13 people were involved in the investigation. By personal order of Nicholas I, the participants of the K. k. were imprisoned in the fortress for various periods, "touched persons" were exiled or dismissed.
Lit .: Nasonkina L.I., On the question of revolution. student movement Moscow. un-ta (Club of students of Crete, 1827), "VMGU", 1953, No 4; Fedosov I. A., Revoluts. movement in Russia in the second quarter. XIX century., M., 1958.
L. I. Nasonkina. Moscow.
Soviet historical encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Ed. E. M. Zhukova. 1973-1982 .
See what the "CRETAN CIRCLE" is in other dictionaries:
Circle of revolutionaries of commoners, students of Moscow University in 1826 27. 6 members (brothers P., M. and V. Kritsky, N. Lushnikov, and others). Political program of the Decembrists. Plans for the creation of an illegal printing house and revolutionary agitation in ... ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary
A circle of students of Moscow University in 1826 27 (brothers P., M. and V. Kritsky, N. Lushnikov, and others). The participants shared the political program of the Decembrists, developed plans for the creation of an illegal printing house and revolutionary agitation among the masses. ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary
Secret revolutionary circle in Moscow in 1826 27. Participants: brothers Peter (born around 1806) the founder of the society, Mikhail (born around 1809) and Vasily (born around 1809) Crete, Nikolai Popov, students of Moscow University, ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia
Lit. philosophy association of progressive-minded sinks, youth, grouped around N. V. Stankevich. It arose in the winter of 1831 32. Initially, it included Stankevich, Ya. M. Neverov, I. P. Klyushnikov, V. I. Krasov, S. M. Stroev, Ya. Pocheka ... Philosophical Encyclopedia
Vasily Lvovich Davydov Decembrist, Russian poet Date of birth: March 28, 1793 Date of death ... Wikipedia
- "Constitution" by Nikita Mikhailovich Muravyov, a draft program document of the Northern Society of Decembrists. Compiled in 1821-1825. Along with "Russian Truth" by P. I. Pestel is the most important source for the study of political ... ... Wikipedia
Alexander Bestuzhev (Marlinsky) Alexander Alexandrovich Bestuzhev (pseudonym Marlinsky; October 23 (November 3), 1797, St. Petersburg June 7 (19), 1837, Fort of the Holy Spirit, now the Adler microdistrict of the city of Sochi) Russian writer, critic, publicist; ... ... Wikipedia
Alexander Bestuzhev (Marlinsky) Alexander Alexandrovich Bestuzhev (pseudonym Marlinsky; October 23 (November 3), 1797, St. Petersburg June 7 (19), 1837, Fort of the Holy Spirit, now the Adler microdistrict of the city of Sochi) Russian writer, critic, publicist; ... ... Wikipedia
POLITICAL PRISONERS OF THE XIX CENTURY
Members of the secret society of the Kritsky brothers in the cells of the Solovetsky jailThe first prisoners of the Solovetsky prison, walled up there for revolutionary activities, were members and organizers of the underground anti-government society of the Kritsky brothers, defeated by the reaction.
In two special articles devoted to this organization, in the corresponding sections of generalizing studies on the history of the revolutionary movement in Russia in the post-Decembrist years, and finally, in consolidated works on the history of Moscow and the first Russian university, the ideology of the circle of followers of the Decembrists, the views and statements of the circles are fully and thoroughly disclosed. on programmatic and tactical issues. At the same time, it is not uncommon in our literature for the number of Solovki prisoners not those members of the “malicious society” who actually were there. An explanation for this is provided by the investigation.
The circle of the Cretan brothers began to take shape in the second half of 1826 under the fresh impression of the reprisal of tsarism against the best people of Russia. The core of the organization consisted of 6 people aged 17 to 21: three Kritsky brothers - Peter, Mikhail and Vasily, Nikolai Lushnikov, Nikolai Popov and Daniil Tyurin. Of these, the eldest, Peter Kritsky, graduated from Moscow University and served as an official in one of the Moscow departments of the Senate, his two brothers and Popov studied at the university, Lushnikov was preparing to enter the university. D. Tyurin served as an assistant architect in the Kremlin expedition. All the founders of the Society came from families of raznochintsy and were themselves firmly connected with the democratic environment.
The investigation revealed the “implication” of 13 more people who themselves “did not belong to society and did not know their innermost criminal intentions”, but “seeing with the intents, they heard free judgments from them, while others themselves said impermissible” . It is possible that not all the connections of the circle members were able to be revealed by the commission of inquiry. Most of the people connected in one way or another with the main "criminals" belonged to the circle of petty officials, collegiate registrars, clerks (Alexei Matveev, Alexei Saltanov, Nikolai Tyurin, Pyotr Palmin, Pyotr Tamansky and others). Involved in the Society were university student Alexei Rogov, cadet of the 6th Carabinieri Regiment Porfiry Kurilov, bookseller Ivan Kolchugin. Thus, in terms of its class composition, the Society of the Cretan Brothers differed from the Decembrist unions. It united not the guards and the nobility, but the student and bureaucratic youth. All the young men grouped around the brothers of Crete were literate, thinking people, painfully looking for ways to further develop their country, wishing her happiness and prosperity.
Each member of the Society of the Cretan Brothers, to one degree or another, was influenced by the liberation ideas of the Decembrists. The very creation of the "seditious" circle convincingly testified that the suppression of the Decembrist uprising did not lead to the eradication of the ideas sown by them. It is not surprising that rumors circulated in Moscow that the "malicious enterprise of the Kritsky brothers with the comrades of their community" was "remnants of the aftermath of December 14th."
The suppression of the uprising on Senate Square and the trial of the Decembrists were a kind of impetus for the formation of the Cretan circle. Peter of Crete admitted during interrogation that “the death of criminals on December 14 gave birth to indignation in him. This he revealed to his brothers, who were of the same mind with him. This is where the circle originated from, this is where its origins were.
By the time of government repressions (mid and second half of August 1827), the circle of the Cretan brothers had not yet had time to take shape organizationally, had not finally developed its program and tactics, and had not begun practical activities. He was a group of political like-minded people who embarked on the path of creating their own revolutionary organization, taking as a model the program and tactical plans of the Decembrists. Therefore, no material, compromising the founders of the Society, materials fell into the hands of the commission of inquiry, except for a note found in Lushnikov’s pocket, on which a seal with the mottos “Liberty and death to a tyrant” was drawn with a pen.
The activities of the circle were mainly reduced to "seditious" conversations in a narrow comradely circle and to attempts to "spread" the Society by "multiplying its members."
Vigorous energy in this direction was developed by Vasily and Mikhail of Crete. The first of them met Lushnikov in January 1827. They then spoke about the general use of foreign languages in Russia and regretted that Russians were alienated from their native language. This conversation was repeated between them a few days later in the presence of Michael of Crete, the most resolute of the three brothers. The latter "praised the constitutions of England and Gishpania, represented the unfortunate people who are under monarchical rule, and called great criminals on December 14, saying that they wished the best for their fatherland."
Lushnikov liked the reasoning of the younger Kritskys. After several meetings, Mikhail and Vasily revealed to the interlocutor "their secret desire to see Russia under constitutional rule with assurances that they would sacrifice their very lives for that." N. Lushnikov declared himself a supporter of the Cretans. Some time later, the “instigators of the community” introduced Lushnikov to their associates N. Popov and D. Tyurin. In this composition, the six political like-minded people repeatedly discussed the goals, plans and tasks of their circle, recruited new members.
Once Michael of Crete began to convince his friends of the need to make an attempt on the king. The Commission became interested in the intent of such a "crime". The investigation found that when the conversation was resumed at another time, it was proposed to commit regicide by lot so that the chosen one “to conceal accomplices” committed suicide, but they thought to postpone the execution of this intention for 10 years.
N. Popov, N. Lushnikov and others were full of the same hatred for despotism and the tsar. According to the records of the commission of inquiry, Popov testified: “My thought about the life of the sovereign at one time was terrible, which shows my letter to the Cretans ...” In the mentioned letter, Popov assured that he was intensifying the flame of hatred for the king, which burns in all of them. Popov's "terrible" thought was expressed on paper as follows: he designated the tsars and members of the imperial family with the initial letters of their names ("A" - Alexander I, "N" - Nicholas I, etc.). Arrows fell on each of these letters from the letter “H” placed above them, denoting the people. This was supposed to symbolize the people's revenge on the kings.
Hatred of the autocrats also found its expression in the reading of A. I. Polezhaev’s “daring poems” by the circle members:
Whenever instead of a lantern,
That shines dimly in bad weather.
hang the king's despot,
That would shine a ray of freedom.
Raznochinsk youth, united around the Cretans, was characterized by ardent patriotism. The Cretan brothers, according to Lushnikov, were filled with "exalted love for the Fatherland." And Lushnikov said about himself: “I loved my Fatherland, loved its glory and prosperity; and the first thoughts, the first observations of the mind, stopped on it. Like true patriots, the members of the Society of Cretan Brothers condemned everything that fettered the strength of the people and retarded the development of their homeland: autocracy, the dominance of foreigners, serfdom and all its offspring in the social, economic and political fields.
The founders of the Society started anti-government conversations with N. Tyurin, A. Saltanov, A. Matveev, A. Rogov, P. Tamansky and others, who were "prepared to be like-minded people." P. Kritsky and N. Lushnikov met and talked with the soldiers of the Kremlin garrison; they also propagandized the private Astrakhan grenadier regiment Frank Kushneryuk.
At one of their meetings, the circle members agreed to write a proclamation to the citizens of Moscow "in the sense that it is time to restore the power of the constitution" and on the day of the coronation on August 22, 1827, put it on the pedestal of the monument to Minin and Pozharsky on Red Square.
The Moscow military governor, referring to Lushnikov, reported to the tsar that the "intruders" wanted to scatter "outrageous notes" throughout the city, and to post information at the monument to Minin and Pozharsky about how many were innocently hanged and exiled to Siberia. In this way, they were going to “make a revolution” on August 22, that is, raise an uprising, but on the night of August 15, arrests began.
From the materials collected by the investigation, it is clear that the circle of the Cretan brothers set as its goal the struggle for the abolition of serfdom and the conquest of a constitution for Russia through a popular uprising. This is no longer a blind copying of the tactics of the Decembrists, but an amendment to their plans for a military revolution for the people. The intentions of the Kritsky brothers' group "manifested an independent work of thought on understanding the experience of the Decembrists, on the use of some new methods of broader agitation."
Nicholas I punished his enemies without trial, personally, with his inherent merciless severity.
On the report of the commission of inquiry, next to the names of the main accused, the tsar wrote: “Send Nikolai Lushnikov and Peter of Crete to the Shvartholm fortress, Mikhail and Vasily of Crete to the Solovetsky monastery, Nikolai Popov and Danila Tyurin to the Shlisselburg fortress.” The term of imprisonment in the fortress and in the monastery prison was not stipulated.
People close to the circle were sent to serve in Orenburg, Vyatka, Perm, Vologda and placed under police supervision. The soldier F. Kushneryuk, according to the verdict of the military court, was driven through the system of a thousand people four times and sent to the Bobruisk fortress for hard labor.
At the end of December 1827, the organizers of the secret society began to be transported in pairs to prisons. None of them was allowed to see and say goodbye to relatives and friends. Therefore, no one knew exactly what the Cretans had done to their comrades and what the government had done to them.
The grief-stricken mother of the Kritskys tearfully asked Volkov, head of the II district of the gendarme corps, to inform her about the fate of her sons. Only on April 9, 1830, Benckendorff allowed Volkov to notify Kritskaya that “her sons Mikhail and Vasily are in the Solovetsky Monastery, and Peter is kept in the Neishlot Fortress,” and allowed her to correspond with them through the III branch. In May 1830, through the hands of the gendarmes, two letters from Kritskaya - addressed to Vasily and Mikhail - were sent to the Solovetsky Monastery. It is not known to whom they were given. One of the prisoners, namely Vasily of Crete, was not brought to Solovki and he did not sit in the monastery prison. The chief of the gendarmes himself did not know where Basil of Crete was being held, he misled his subordinates, the unfortunate mother and some historians.
There are allegations in the literature that someone corrected the king’s mistake and did not place both Cretan brothers in the Solovki prison department together. There is another opinion. Vasily, allegedly by mistake, contrary to the resolution of the king, was sent to Solovki. Both of these statements sin against the truth. If we consider the sentence of Nicholas I in relation to Basil of Crete a “mistake”, then it must be said that he himself “corrected” it. Therefore, no one had the slightest trouble.
In January 1828, when the brothers were halfway to the Solovetsky Monastery, Nikolai separated them. Vasily, at his command, was returned from the road and taken to Shlisselburg, and from there Popov was sent to Solovki. The "operation" for the exchange of prisoners took place along the line of the main headquarters, bypassing the III branch and Benckendorff.
On May 13, 1828, the Solovki archimandrite Dositheus reported to the synod that he had imprisoned Mikhail Kritsky and Nikolai Popov in prison "chambers" under the strict supervision of "state criminals". They arrived on the islands from Arkhangelsk on May 12 on the first navigation flight of 1828. There is information that M. Kritsky and N. Popov were brought to Solovki "in iron rivets."
We have extremely scarce information about the life of Kritsky and Popov on Solovki. Until 1833, in the semi-annual statements of prisoners against the names of "exposed in complicity in a malicious society" we find an unchanged entry: "These Kritsky and Popov, from the time of their arrival at the Solovetsky Monastery, spend their lives humbly and are kept in a common position." What this "general position" meant is well known: stinking, cramped and cold cells, a half-starved diet.
Since 1834, the characterization of N. Popov has changed. The Solovetsky jailer writes that “Popov at times shows rudeness, is absurd in his temper,” but he does not explain what exactly these rudeness manifested.
In the spring of 1835, the military ministry unexpectedly became interested in the fate of Mikhail of Crete and Nikolai Popov. From there, a request was made to the Synodal Chief Prosecutor: “Do the lists of prisoners of the Solovetsky Monastery sent to the spiritual authorities show Mikhail Kritsky and Nikolai Popov sent to the monastery by the highest command in 1827; if they were transferred from there, then where exactly and when. The fate of the young men, locked up in a terrible isolation ward on the end of the world island, was forgotten, and the chief prosecutor had to make inquiries himself in order to answer the question of the military authorities.
In 1835, at the suggestion of Ozeretskovsky, M. Kritsky and N. Popov, they were transferred from the Solovetsky prison as privates to military service. The “government that has lost its mind” took the Russian army “for a correctional institution or for hard labor,” sums up A. I. Herzen.
In October 1835, Mikhail of Crete and Nikolai Popov were assigned as privates to Mingrelia, to the active army. Mikhail of Crete was soon killed in a battle with the Lezgins, but it is not known how the fate of Nikolai Popov turned out.
Decembrist Alexander Semyonovich GorozhanskyAmong those imprisoned in the Solovetsky Monastery for political reasons was the Decembrist Alexander Semyonovich Gorozhansky. Difficult trials befell him. Only in solitary confinement Solovkov Gorozhansky spent over 15 years - from May 21, 1831 to July 29, 1846 - and never during all this time did he regret his participation in the events for which he was so severely punished. Until the end of his life, Gorozhansky hated the tsar, despotism and arbitrariness.
The Commission of Inquiry on the case of the Decembrists collected the following information about Lieutenant of the Cavalier Guard Regiment Alexander Semenovich Gorozhansky:
“He joined the Northern Society a year and a half ago; accepted as members two and three more people together with the cornet Muravyov. According to him, the goal of the Society, known to him, was to introduce a monarchic constitution. But Svistunov accused him that in June 1824 he revealed to him the intention of the Southern Society to introduce republican government and that after that he repeated to him, Gorozhansky, what he had heard from Vadkovsky, that in order to exterminate the sacred persons of the imperial family, one could use a big ball in the White Hall and divulge there that is established by the republic. Moreover, cornet Muravyov testified that Gorozhansky, being an ardent member, incited him to jealousy in favor of the Society and, when reading the constitution of his brother, Muravyov, expressed that he did not like it because of its moderation, and referred to Pestel's constitution, saying that it should be much more liberal; but Gorozhansky did not confess to anything even at the confrontations with Svistunov and Muravyov. He himself testified that, after the death of the late sovereign, he heard about the intention to take advantage of this opportunity, and that it was necessary to try to arouse in the regiments the obstinacy to the oath. On December 14, after the oath, he instructed non-commissioned officer Mikhailov to tell people that the manifesto was fake and that the crown prince did not renounce the throne. He himself said the same to the sentry, who was standing at the apartment of General Depreradovich, and to some people. He was not at the meetings of the Society, but during the indignation he approached the square, took Odoevsky by the hand and, to the latter’s question: “what is their regiment?”, He answered: “it’s coming here.” After this, he went to the Senate and stayed there until it was all over. From the information delivered from the commander of the guards corps, it is clear that during the oath, Gorozhansky was not with his team, and upon his return he told some lower ranks that they swore in vain and that they were deceived, and also that he sent a non-commissioned officer to persuade the lower ranks so they don't leave."
December 29 A.S. Gorozhansky was arrested and taken to the Peter and Paul Fortress. The Decembrist was then 24 years old. The tsar decided not to bring Gorozhansky to court, but to punish him administratively "with a corrective measure: after keeping another 4 years in the fortress, transfer him to the Kizilsky garrison battalion with the same rank and report monthly on his behavior." It was a severe punishment.
After a four-year imprisonment in the St. Petersburg fortress, A.S. Gorozhansky was sent to serve in the 7th line Orenburg battalion (the former Kizilsky garrison battalion) "under the vigilant supervision of his superiors." However, the Decembrist did not have to be free, although under supervision, for a long time. On December 16, 1830, the duty general of the main headquarters notified Benckendorff that, according to the reports received from the commander of the separate Orenburg corps, Adjutant General Count Sukhtelen, the exiled officer did not reconcile himself, he was rampant, dissatisfied with the existing order and authorities, he found "especially bitterness against everything." The Decembrist did not hide his anti-government views. He announced to the battalion adjutant, lieutenant Yanchevsky, that he did not recognize the power of the tsar over himself and at the same time "uttered various impudent words against the person of his majesty." He “dared to repeat this to his battalion commander and commandant of the Kizil fortress, who, having learned from Gorozhansky that he was completely healthy and making sure that he had impudent intentions, ordered him to be placed under strict supervision.”
Seeing that the fortress and exile did not re-educate Gorozhansky, the tsar commits a new extrajudicial reprisal against the revolutionary. He ordered Lieutenant Gorozhansky to be sent to the Solovetsky Monastery, which in government circles was "famous for the severity of the order established in it," and kept there under guard.
Nicholas I deliberately doomed the recalcitrant Decembrist to certain death. The term of his imprisonment in Solovki was not specified.
On December 15, 1830, the head of the main headquarters, Adjutant General Count Chernyshev, notified the Synodal Chief Prosecutor Prince Meshchersky that, by order of Nicholas I, Gorozhansky "for a daring act and uttering indecent words at the expense of His Majesty's person" was sent to Solovki under strict supervision. At the same time, the chief prosecutor of the synod was informed that Gorozhansky would be sent to the monastery by the military governor of Arkhangelsk.
The next day, Meshchersky reported the contents of Chernyshev's letter to the synod, and he, having heard the suggestion of the chief prosecutor, decided: under strict supervision and to be used both personally by him, the archimandrite, and through skillful monastics, meek and decent measures to bring him to repentance for the crime he committed and about his way of life it was reported to the most holy synod for six months. At the request of Meshchersky, at the same time, in December 1830, the Minister of Finance ordered the Arkhangelsk Treasury to release 120 rubles (36 silver rubles - G. F.) for the maintenance of Gorozhansky per year from the day he entered the monastery at the request of the rector.
On February 11, 1831, Gorozhansky was brought to Arkhangelsk and placed in a separate cell of the provincial prison under strict guard. Since in winter there was no connection with the islands of the Solovetsky archipelago, the Decembrist was sent to the monastery only with the opening of navigation.
On May 17, 1831, under the guard of officer Benediksov and gendarme Pershin, the revolutionary was taken to the White Sea islands. On the road he was given 2 rubles 50 kopecks of fodder.
On May 21, 1831, Archimandrite Dosifey “respectfully reported” to the synod and to Arkhangelsk that on that day the “state criminal” Gorozhansky was delivered to the monastery, who “was received properly and is now being kept with other prisoners behind a military guard.”
On December 31, 1831, the “zealous Solovki pilgrimage” sent the first semi-annual report “on the way of life” of the Decembrist to the synod, in which he wrote that Gorozhansky “leads a quiet life, but does not admit to anything in his crimes. The insanity of the mind is remarkable in him. From subsequent reports, it can be seen that Gorozhansky's mental disorder increased, although, according to the abbot, "hidden in him secretly and only at times turned out to be from some of his extravagant speeches." The guard officer, Lieutenant Inkov, drew attention to the fact that Gorozhansky "repeatedly shouted and talked to himself even at night," although he could not notice anything from private conversations with him.
Gorozhansky's mental disorder began, obviously, even before his arrival in Solovki. The first to notice this was the brother of the Decembrist Pyotr Gorozhansky during the hours of meetings with Alexander Semenovich in the casemate of the Peter and Paul Fortress in April 1829. While serving in the 7th Line Orenburg Battalion, Gorozhansky, being on guard duty, slightly wounded Private Stugin, who was standing on guard, who did not call out to him. He was saved from the then threatened Gorozhansky military court by the conclusion of a doctor who discovered that the repressed officer had a disorder of the nervous system and mental abilities - a consequence of the exhaustion of physical and spiritual strength.
On August 10, 1832, the mother of the Decembrist, 60-year-old Maria Gorozhanskaya, addressed the tsar for the first time with a letter in which she asked to subject her son to a medical examination and, if it turned out that he had lost his mind, to bail him out "under the strictest supervision of the local authorities" . The mother guaranteed the care and "safe condition" of her son. On this petition of M. Gorozhanskaya, the tsar imposed a resolution: "To examine and what will open to convey." But the fulfillment of the "highest will" was delayed. Archimandrite Dositheus and the Arkhangelsk military governor Gall considered it necessary to bring Gorozhansky to Arkhangelsk for examination. Benckendorff strongly opposed this. He suggested "for such an examination, it is better to send a trustworthy doctor to the Solovetsky Monastery."
In the meantime, while the correspondence was going on, the chief Solovki jailer, Dosifei, began to “treat” the sick revolutionary in his own way. He decided that the prisoner was ignoring his sermons because “from a solitary life he came to arrogance about himself” and, in order to humble the obstinate political, he walled up Gorozhansky in an earthen prison, which survived until the 19th century only in one Solovetsky monastery.
It would not be superfluous to recall that the decree of 1742 commanded to immediately fill up the earthen prisons located in the Solovetsky Monastery. But these terrible remnants of the Middle Ages were preserved in the monastery after reports about their liquidation, composed by "holy" hypocrites and hypocrites.
Let's give just one example. On December 25, 1788, a “secret convict”, a demoted lieutenant of the “Volotsk nation” Mikhail Popeskul, fled from the casemate. On the same day, he was caught and “on the orders of the father, Archimandrite Jerome, from his former guard cell in the evening he was transferred to the prison under the Assumption Porch (earthen “Saltykov” prison. - G.F.), where the convict Mikhailo Ratitsov was, and that Ratitsov (by the way, a countryman of Popeskul. - G.F.) was transferred to his guard cell, Popeskul.
Of course, the synod was not informed that Ratitsov was in an earthen prison. The monks also hid Popeskul's imprisonment in this prison. For the sake of this, they even had to keep silent about the escape of the demoted officer.
According to archival materials, it can be established that the last prisoner of the earthen prison on Solovki was the Decembrist A.S. Gorozhansky.
In the case of A.S. Gorozhansky, in the III department, there is a report of the gendarme captain Alekseev dated March 24, 1833, which paints a terrible picture of mockery and mockery of the imprisoned Decembrist. This document was not used in literature about the Decembrists. We present it with minor denominations: “The state criminal Gorozhansky was sent to the Solovetsky Monastery. His mother, a wealthy woman, sent him clothes, underwear and other necessary things, as well as money for his maintenance through the local archimandrite; finally, having received permission, she went to visit (her son) herself and found him locked in the dungeons (emphasized by us. - G. SR.) in only a worn, dirty shirt, eating only rotten fish, which they threw him into a hole made from above. Gorozhansky was completely damaged in mind, did not recognize his mother, and she could not get a single word from him, she was only extremely happy when she put on a new shirt for him and kissed it. ... Mrs. Gorozhanskaya gave the archimandrite two thousand rubles and they immediately transferred him from the dungeon to a room (emphasized by us - G.F.) and began to feed better, but the monks secretly announced to her that after her departure, the archimandrite would again put him in his former place and will still contain. It is very likely that if she sends anything there, then everything is kept by the archimandrite in his own favor, and does not reach her unfortunate, mad son ... ".
In the margins opposite Alekseev's report, the following notes were made in pencil by an unknown hand: "When you get a review of the medical certificate produced by the Gorozhansky, then report this paper." And the second with the other hand: "Let's talk." However, it is not clear from the file that a conversation was conducted with anyone according to the mentioned report. For the mockery of Gorozhansky, the monks should have been held accountable. The government did not want this. Alekseev's report was shelved.
The gendarme calls the closet of the prison building, up to 3 arshins long and 2 arshins wide, resembling a dog kennel, the “room” into which Gorozhansky was transferred after his mother’s visit. In these "cabins" the prisoners could not move: they lay or stood. "Imagine what it's like to sit in these cages all your life!" - wrote in 1838 one of the founders of the Union of Welfare A.N. Muravyov in a letter clarified by the III Department. Here, in the corridors of the prison, at the very doors of the prisoner casemates, guard soldiers were stationed. They irritated A. Gorozhansky, mocked him.
Driven by the Solovki regime to extreme mental disorder, on May 9, 1833, Gorozhansky stabbed sentry Gerasim Skvortsov to death. He explained the reason for the murder by the fact that the soldiers do not give him rest, they constantly “shout, make noise, and he, the sentry, must calm them down and why he does not calm them down.” Only after this "emergency" obstetrician Grigory Rezantsev, a member of the Arkhangelsk medical council, went to Solovki to examine Gorozhansky "in the state of his mind".
In the presented conclusion, G. Rezantsev wrote that he found the former cavalry guard silent, cloudy, busy with "gloomy thoughts, with complete inattention to everything around him." The prisoner perked up when the conversation touched on his present position. In this case, apathy left Gorozhansky, and he loudly uttered complaints about the injustice of those who imprisoned him, about incessant insults and harassment from everyone both in the Orenburg province and in the monastery from the soldiers and the archimandrite. Gorozhansky did not justify his act and did not look for extenuating circumstances. He told the obstetrician that he had been brought to a desperate state by “insults and harassment”, patience had come to an end and, in order to get rid of torment and “at once decide his fate, he was ready to do everything.” Based on observations of Gorozhansky's behavior and conversations with him, Rezantsev made the following conclusion: "I conclude that Lieutenant Gorozhansky has a private insanity of mind."
The diagnosis made by Rezantsev did not allow the government to commit a new act of tyranny planned by Nikolai against Gorozhansky. The military ministry already had the tsar's order to try Gorozhansky by a military court for the totality of all the crimes he had committed in the event that, according to the doctor's examination, he turned out to be feigning insanity.
On June 16, 1833, according to the report of Benckendorff, the tsar ordered “to leave him (Gorozhansky. - G.F.) in a real monastery, and in disgust that there could be similar incidents during the attacks of this illness and to curb him from daring enterprises, use the invented for such patients, a jacket that prevents the free use of hands. On July 31, the III branch notified the Arkhangelsk military governor Galla about this. In August 1833, Benckendorff informed Maria Gorozhanskaya of the will of the tsar and, on this basis, rejected her repeated requests for the return of "the lost and ill-fated son in his now upset state" or for him to be placed in an "institution for the mentally ill." Such an answer, of course, could not satisfy her. She tried to convince Benckendorff that "the continued maintenance of the unfortunate prisoner in the monastery prison is his gravest suffering and inevitable death." Maria Gorozhanskaya tearfully and insistently repeated her requests to “remove her son from this murderous imprisonment” and put him in a hospital for the insane in the center of the country.
The murder of a sentry by Gorozhansky forced the government to become more familiar with the Solovetsky prison. The revision of the prison by Ozeretskovsky in 1835 led, as is known, to a change in the order of exile to Solovki and to an alleviation of the fate of individual prisoners.
The royal "favors" did not extend to lieutenant Gorozhansky. There was no improvement in his position after the revision of Ozeretskovsky. The further fate of Gorozhansky was determined by the synod and the government on the basis of the characteristics that the cassock jailer gave his victim. Dosifey several times sent to the synod the same characterization of Gorozhansky, as if rewritten as a carbon copy. It said that Gorozhansky “cannot hear any words of admonition, which is why he even becomes furious and considers himself entitled and powerful to always kill anyone, and if he were given freedom now, he would rush at everyone with murderous anger. And so that he could not harm anyone, he is kept in a closet without release. Such certification, repeated from year to year, deprived Gorozhansky of the opportunity to ever see freedom.
The mockery of the monks over Gorozhansky continued. We do not know if the Decembrist was wearing the “straight jacket” recommended by the tsar, but there is reason to believe that after the revision of 1835, Gorozhansky was transferred from the cell of the general prison, as predicted by the gendarme Alekseev, to the casemate of the Golovlenkov tower. Two circumstances lead us to this assumption. Firstly, on one of the stones of the chamber of the named tower, local historians found the inscription "December 14, 1825". It seems that, except for Gorozhansky, hardly any of the prisoners of those years could make such an inscription, especially since the lists of prisoners sent to the synod twice a year did not mention the prisoners of the Golovlenkov Tower. Secondly, since 1836 we do not find any mention of Gorozhansky's name in papers coming from the "office" of the Solovetsky Monastery. This is in the spirit of monastic traditions. Jailers in cassocks always kept silent about the convicts imprisoned by the abbot in secret prisons.
July 29, 1846 on Solovki A.S. Gorozhansky "died by the will of God." So the abbot of the monastery wrote to the synod the day after the death of the Decembrist.
In total, A.S. Gorozhansky spent 19 years in solitary confinement in the St. Petersburg Fortress and the Solovetsky Monastery. He suffered the same severe punishment as the main leaders of the Decembrist organizations and the main participants in the uprisings on Senate Square and the Chernigov regiment, convicted in the first category. In the Peter and Paul Fortress, in the Orenburg exile, in the Solovetsky Monastery, Alexander Semenovich Gorozhansky, despite periodic bouts of severe mental illness, behaved courageously, never asked for mercy from punishers, believed in the rightness of the cause for which he fought at large and suffered in the dungeons of Nikolaev prisons.
Exile to Solovki on suspicion of revolutionary propagandaSince the beginning of the 30s of the 19th century, a new category of “criminals” has appeared in the prison population of Solovki. They were imprisoned on charges of propaganda against serfdom by distributing leaflets among the people. The appearance of such prisoners testified to the wide scope of the anti-feudal democratic movement in the country.
The first prisoner of the Solovetsky prison, whose charge was associated with the struggle for the social and political liberation of the people, was the priest of the Trinity maiden monastery in the city of Murom, Vladimir province, Andrei Stepanovich Lavrovsky. He was announced as one of the organizers of the revolutionary protest of the masses against serfdom in the Vladimir province, a protest that resonated in other regions of the country and acquired an all-Russian character.
At the beginning of 1830, in the Murom, Kovrovsky and Sudogodsky districts of the Vladimir province, "all sorts of outrageous papers appeared, inciting the people to liberty." Letters that angered the peasants against the landlords were found by gendarmes in whole bundles in different places: on the streets of cities and villages, on country roads leading to the Tambov province, in villages located along the large Siberian tract, etc. In total, several hundred were collected unknown who threw anonymous sheets.
There is no need to retell the content of the leaflets, such work has already been done by historians. Let us only note that some appeals outlined a political program and contained a direct call for an uprising (“it is better for everyone to die with weapons in their hands, defending their freedom, than to live innocently forever as a slave and slave”), others did not raise important issues of Russian life, retained faith in tsar and for the sake of the nobility and merchants infringed on the rights of the people.
But with all the differences, one common idea runs like a red thread through all appeals: an inspired protest against serfdom, a denial of the legality and justice of serfdom.
In an early “libelous essay”, raised in March 1830 in Murom, we read: “No earthly king dares to say“ you are mine ”to a person, and in the whole world this is nowhere to be found, and in our country, the nobles, by teaching the enemy of man - the devil - have mastered For two hundred years people have been selling us like cattle, and they are selling us like pigs. The one who found this proclamation was recommended to pass on its contents to neighbors, as well as to make copies of the appeal and send the lists to acquaintances in all cities and villages.
Obviously, literate peasants, artisans, courtyards, rural clergy followed this advice: they propagated, modified and threw up sheets. This is the only way to explain the enormous dimensions that the scattering of "libels" and their multi-darkness have assumed. The proclamations were the fruit of collective folk creativity.
Thoughts about serfdom, expressed in the cited letter, are repeated in various versions in subsequent papers. So, in a leaflet found on April 5, 1830, it was said: “Russians! Tsar V.I. Shuisky issued a decree prohibiting the free passage of peasants in 1607. From this, the landowners took possession of people like cattle, and even began to sell them. Good God! 222 years have already passed since we were slaves, and not a single head has dared to tell the truth.
Some "outrageous" writings called on the peasants to write letters to the army, to their sons, soldiers, to raise them to fight for the abolition of serfdom. This particularly worried the tsar and the government.
The provincial and metropolitan administrations were alarmed. On April 15, 1830, the Vladimir civil governor Kuruta scribbles the first denunciation to Benckendorff about the distribution of “rebellious” appeals in the province entrusted to him. At the end of April, the chief of gendarmes conveys the contents of Kuruta's letter to Nicholas I. The tsar orders to use "all possible means to unfailingly discover the writer or sweepers of these leaves."
Colonel Maslov, head of the 5th district of the gendarme corps, showed particular zeal in searching for the "criminals". Before starting a formal investigation, Maslov collected information about all the suspicious persons living in the places where the leaflets were scattered. At the request of the capital, inquiries were made about some namesakes of the Decembrists. Then began mass arrests, interrogations, confrontations.
The investigation drew attention to the fact that many letters of "unauthorized content" were found in the vicinity of the village of Ivanova, owned by the landowner Naryshkin. Therefore, a large group of Naryshkin's courtyard intelligentsia was attracted to the inquiry: painters, architects, bandmasters, teachers, governesses. It turned out that many courtyard people knew the contents of anonymous letters. There was a case when the freed musician Gerasim Khitrov, with the architect Desetirov and the artist Nikonov, read the leaflet he found to the peasants and concluded the reading with the words: “Well done, who wrote, it’s true, the masters went bust.”
The investigation file grew to five voluminous volumes and amounted to a total of 1257 sheets, but it was not possible to find "guilty of compiling and planting those libels".
The greatest suspicion fell on the priests Gabriel Lektorsky, Andrei Lavrovsky and deacon Kanakin. These persons of the clergy were known to the authorities as liberals and freethinkers, people of a rebellious temperament.
The talented and metropolitan-educated archpriest G. Lektorsky was once fond of the writings of "daring French writers" - Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, Helvetius, he himself composed the constitution. Fifteen years before the appearance of "thieves' papers" in the Vladimir province, in 1815, G. Lektorsky addressed the pulpit of the cathedral in Murom with a sermon to the townspeople, brought public repentance for sins. This event produced the impression of an exploding bomb at the time. Lektorsky was declared insane and imprisoned in the Suzdal Monastery. Since then, he was imprisoned indefinitely, ceased to exist for the light. For this reason alone, G. Lektorsky could not participate in the drafting of appeals.
Suspicion of A. Lavrovsky, a learned and intelligent man, who also had a reputation as a freethinker, was reinforced by an anonymous denunciation, which directly, without any pretense, reproached the priest for writing "malicious" pieces of paper.
A. Lavrovsky and G. Lektorsky were childhood friends, they once studied together, before Lektorsky's arrest they maintained close contact with each other and corresponded in a "secret way". A. Lavrovsky admitted during interrogations that he always treated Lektorsky with great respect, until the end "breathed a fiery feeling for his ill-fated friend." After weighing all this, Colonel Maslov suggested that Lavrovsky "could be the author of these outrageous leaflets."
And Kanakin loved to talk about freedom, about the plight of a disenfranchised people. The philosophizing deacon found various extracts with "free" reasoning, political articles, a satirical poem in verse called "The Bulletin from Hell".
A. Lavrovsky, G. Lektorsky and Kanakin were searched and interrogated. Kanakin confessed that one day a yard man handed him the found proclamation, but he supposedly immediately burned it.
Colonel Maslov proposed to A. Lavrovsky in Murom 18 questions on three points: 1) whether he participated in the composition of the constitution and the new spiritual regulations, providing for the introduction of polygamy; 2) what kind of leaflets were sent to him by Lektorsky 15 years ago, and where did he put them? 3) whether deacon Kanakin showed him, Lavrovsky, a letter he had received for reading from a householder, or, at least, whether Lavrovsky knew the contents of that letter. To the first question, Lavrovsky replied that although Lektorsky had indeed been his friend before his imprisonment in the Suzdal Monastery, he had never composed any compositions with him. To the second question, Lavrovsky replied that the letters he received from Lektorsky did not contain anything reprehensible, and in due time he destroyed them. To the last question, Lavrovsky replied that deacon Kanakin "did not show me the letters, and did not tell me about their content."
A month and a half has passed since the interrogation. A. Lavrovsky had completely calmed down, when suddenly a new storm broke out over his head. On the morning of March 3, 1831, a cart with a courier rolled up to the priest's house. Without legal grounds, Lavrovsky was arrested, taken to St. Petersburg and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. The same fate befell his associates.
On March 26, 1831, the commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress, Sukin, informed Benkendorf that he received Lavrovsky and Kanakin that day and put them in the casemates of the Nevsky Curtain in special detention cells. On July 11, Lektorsky was also placed there. For persuasive interrogations, Archpriest Myslovsky, the same one who was entrusted with the Decembrists, was assigned to the prisoners.
In the fortress, the arrested were continuously interrogated. More than others went to Lavrovsky. Over the course of a whole year, he periodically had to answer the same, approximately, questions that were posed by Maslov in Murom. However, the interrogations, like Myslovsky's eloquence, did not achieve their goal. The prisoners strongly denied their involvement in the case in which they were accused.
In the end, Myslovsky himself, in a note submitted to Benckendorff on November 8, 1831, expressed the opinion that Lektorsky could not be the author of the proclamations, and supported his views with convincing evidence. This did not prevent him from suggesting that Lektorsky be kept in custody as before. Lavrovsky, on the other hand, an agent of political investigation in a priest's cassock gave such a description that aggravated his fate and brought on a heavy punishment: “He became closed and silent, like a deserted grave. Lavrovsky is a dry figure, reminiscent of a skinny Egyptian cow that ate the well-fed and fat ones. Lavrovsky, in whose sly gaze something extraordinary is always reflected, seems to have forever established himself in this idea that where there is no direct evidence, one can lie fearlessly.
It seems that Lavrovsky, Lektorsky and Kanakin did not take a direct part in compiling leaflets calling for the abolition of serfdom, and their energetic denial of their involvement in this matter cannot be questioned. However, all of them had an indirect relation to anti-government proclamations. Lavrovsky and Kanakin communicated with the people, many were aware of their "free reasoning." Sometimes both very carelessly expressed "seditious" thoughts to the flock. The expansive Kanakin, for example, told the people that “the mob is oppressed, justice is turned into crooked judgment,” and in a conversation with people with whom he had only a captive acquaintance, he declared: “We have one law, like a clear day, but it is overshadowed by clouds and dark clouds, for the mob is oppressed and the rich guilty is right, and the poor right is guilty. Similar thoughts were expressed in a conversation with parishioners by A. Lavrovsky, who was known among the local population as a freedom lover.
Due to the lack of direct evidence and irrefutable evidence of the guilt of A. Lavrovsky and his comrades, as well as the resolute denial by the arrested of their involvement in the case, the autocracy dealt with them in an illegal extrajudicial way. In March 1832, the following order of the tsar appeared: “Archpriest Lektorsky, as a person harmful to society with his ardent mind, directed to strange transformations, should be returned to the Suzdal Monastery under the strict supervision of the local authorities. Priest Lavrovsky to be imprisoned in some remote monastery with a ban on him from serving as a priest until he completely corrects himself and purifies himself by repentance and monastic temptation. Deacon Kanakin is also to be imprisoned in a monastery with the prohibition of priestly service and with the permission of it only if he manages to make amends for everything that has happened through experiences of deep repentance and true humility.
On March 31, the synod decided to exile Kanakin to the Valaam Monastery. A. Lavrovsky was assigned the Solovetsky Monastery as a place for “correction” and “purification”.
The Solovetsky abbot was instructed that, upon bringing Lavrovsky to the island, he should be kept under the strictest supervision and that efforts should be made to bring him to repentance. Three times a year the monastery had to notify the synod of the way of thinking and behavior of the new prisoner.
On May 25, 1832, the Solovki Archimandrite Dosifey notified the synod that on May 23 he had received and placed under military custody the prisoner A. Lavrovsky.
For three and a half years, A. Lavrovsky was in Solovki in prison, which, according to him, was "an unbearable yoke." In a tiny closet (three arshins by two), always locked, two prisoners were placed. There was no window in the cell, which is why "the cramped air became suffocating." They fed the prisoners from hand to mouth. There was no lighting in the cells during the long winter nights. To this was added mental torture: Lavrovsky's neighbors in prison were sectarians who abhorred the Orthodox and did not want to talk with the priest. In prison, Lavrovsky left his health and damaged his eyesight. The physical and spiritual strength of the prisoner were strained to the limit. He was ready to commit suicide. Fortunately for him, Lieutenant Colonel Ozeretskovsky came to the Solovetsky prison for an audit. A. Lavrovsky swore to Ozeretskovsky with all terrible oaths that he was an innocent sufferer. In this way, the prisoner managed to beg for relief from his fate. In 1835, Nicholas I released Lavrovsky from prison and placed him under the supervision of the Solovetsky monks.
From the time he entered the Solovetsky Monastery, A. Lavrovsky answered all the questions and exhortations of the monks that he was not guilty of anything and did not even know why he had been sent to prison. The Solovetsky rector reported this to the synod in every report. In the statement for the second half of 1832, in which the name of Lavrovsky is mentioned for the first time, it is said about him: “This prisoner does not admit to anything and allegedly does not know why he was sent here”1. The same entry about Lavrovsky was repeated verbatim in all subsequent prison records of the Solovetsky Monastery. Sometimes a prefix was made to already known words: “However, he lives quietly and goes to the church of God.”
Having studied the reports concerning Lavrovsky (it took more than 6 years!), on September 30, 1838, the synod ordered Archimandrite Ilarius by a special decree to inspire the prisoner that “his recall, allegedly does not know why he was sent to the Solovetsky Monastery, is not at all substantiated, because from of the circumstances preceding his imprisonment in the monastery and the interrogations made to him, he could already clearly understand what exactly was the guilt attributed to him, Lavrovsky, and therefore, with prudent advice and exhortations, arrange him, Lavrovsky, so that he directly and frankly explained the degree of his guilt in a certain case ; if he really feels innocent of what he is suspected of, then he would explain in detail why the suspicion fell on him, and inform the Holy Synod about what answer he, Lavrovsky, will receive.
On June 10, 1839, the synod received Hilarius' answer to his decree of September 30, 1838. Lavrovsky's handwritten letter dated May 10, 1839 to the Solovki archimandrite was enclosed with the reply. On June 28, 1839, the synod listened to the report of Ilarius, in which the already well-known phrases were repeated that Lavrovsky did not admit any guilt. This was also discussed in Lavrovsky's letter, where it was suggested that the compilation and "scattering" of the leaflets could be the work of the Poles, who "deciding to declare open war on Russia, first intended to disturb her inner peace."
In September 1839, according to Benckendorff’s report, the tsar “deigned to order: the priest Andrei Lavrovsky, imprisoned in the Solovetsky Monastery, be released from the monastery and, not allowing him to continue until the discretion of the priesthood, send him to live in his homeland with the establishment of supervision by the civil authorities and local Reverend." Due to the termination of navigation, A. Lavrovsky stayed in the Solovetsky Monastery until the summer of 1840.
In 1842, Lavrovsky was allowed to serve in the priesthood, but the authorities retained tacit supervision over him. Even earlier, in 1837, Kanakin returned to Murom under police supervision, and on April 9, 1841, Lektorsky died in the Suzdal Monastery "from a long illness." Such severe trials fell on the lot of three advanced Russian people suspected of propaganda against serfdom and the arbitrariness of the autocracy.
Cyril and Methodius Georgy Lvovich AndruzskyIn the 19th century, not only Russian revolutionaries languished in the prison castle of the Solovetsky Monastery. Participants in the national liberation struggle of other peoples of Russia were exiled there. One of these prisoners was G.L. Andruzsky, imprisoned in the Solovetsky prison for belonging to the Cyril and Methodius Society and "dispersing the ideas that worried him."
The Cyril and Methodius Society, referred to in the investigative materials as the Ukrainian-Slavic, took shape in Kyiv at the turn of 1845-1846. A prominent member of this organization was the brilliant Ukrainian poet and thinker T.G. Shevchenko. The conspiratorial political society lasted little more than a year. By the time of the defeat, it had not yet had time to take shape in organizational terms, did not clearly define its tactical positions, but showed itself as a progressive circle of Ukrainian intelligentsia that adhered to and spread anti-government views. There was no complete unanimity of opinion among the members of the Society. The left, radical direction of the Cyril and Methodius people was sharply negative about the autocratic form of government in general and towards Russian tsarism, which oppressed Ukraine, in particular, opposed serfdom and all its offspring in the economic, social and legal fields, tended to recognize the need for revolutionary methods of combating tsarism and feudalism.
The history of the emergence and composition of the Cyril and Methodius Society, the ideology and tactical outlines of the organization are covered in sufficient detail in a special study by Professor P.A. Zaionchkovsky.
From the program documents of the Ukrainian-Slavic Society, as well as from the confiscated papers and testimonies of Cyril and Methodius during interrogations, it can be seen that the political ideals of the Society consisted in the desire to create a single all-Slavic federal democratic republic, in which the leading role was assigned to Ukraine, and to destroy serfdom.
Not the last role in the Cyril and Methodius Society was played by G. Andruzsky. Investigative materials call him "an ardent Ukrainophile." Andruzsky was initiated into all the secrets of the Society, he knew its innermost goals and participants, including T.G. Shevchenko, himself composed poems of "outrageous content and projects on state transformation."
Georgy Andruzsky was born on May 26, 1827 in the village of Vechorki, Piryatinsky district, Poltava province, in the family of a small landowner, a retired major. He joined the Cyril and Methodius Society during his studies at Kiev University.
On March 3, 1847, following a denunciation by a provocateur, the government became aware of the existence of a secret society. In April, G. Andruzsky was taken into custody and taken to St. Petersburg to the III department.
The head of the Kyiv province reported to the commission of inquiry that during his arrest, Andruzsky was found to have “a notebook of various poems and, moreover, two projects on the transformation of Russia, written by Andruzsky himself and, according to him, composed by himself, in which no one else took part” .
"Trophies" were delivered to St. Petersburg after the owner.
Andruzsky's personal papers are preserved in the archives of the III branch. Of these, two of his draft sketches are of the greatest interest, one of which is entitled "Project for achieving a possible degree of equality and freedom (mainly in the Slavic lands)", the second - "The Ideal of the State". The first document, the most interesting in terms of content, says: “Now any impulse for reform would be useless and an obstacle to this is: 1) The division of the people into estates that are alien to each other and often hostile; 2) The arbitrariness of the monarch; 3) Wrong direction of education.
It is required: a) To merge the estates or tie them together by a common noble interest; b) To give obstacles to the will of the monarch by laws and indoctrination both to the monarch and the subjects of Christian concepts of man and human duties; c) To train the heart more than the mind, more for family and service life than for the world. Love for the Fatherland and faith should enliven and introduce all knowledge.
In addition, the project provided for the destruction of the privileged classes, the personal freedom of citizens, etc.
The author of the project was going to carry out the outlined plans by gradually spreading education, depriving incapable and uneducated nobles of their exclusive rights and titles, and appointing people of all classes to responsible positions.
The project, called the "Ideal of the State", put forward the demand for the creation of the People's Seimas, which should approve state laws. However, the author of the project did not explain how the People's Seimas is being created, who is included in it and what it is. In addition to the People's Seimas, the project included the publication of the People's Opposition Newspaper, which should criticize the government and demand reforms.
Even more contradictory propositions are encountered on the peasant question. Condemning slavery and feudal oppression, Andruzsky did not put forward demands for the immediate abolition of serfdom. The author of the projects believed that every peasant should have movable and immovable property in personal possession, he proposed to mitigate the feudal exploitation of the peasants, introduce it into a “legal” framework, and “the weakened will fall by itself”.
The opinion of the authorities about the papers of G. Andruzyuki is interesting. Let us cite it: “In the same projects, Andruzsky first thought to leave autocratic rule in Russia and limit the sovereign only to laws issued by him, then limit the sovereign to representative authorities (deputies), allowing opposition journals and so on; finally, he found it better to introduce republican government. Regarding the estates of the people, he thought first to destroy the nobility and leave only the productive classes: merchants, workshops and farmers, adding to them the clergy; then, without destroying the nobility, determine the exact rights of the nobles and take measures to gradually redeem the peasants from serfdom ... Andruzsky’s projects are written in this way: without a system, without firm convictions, first he says one thing, and then another, and everywhere he contradicts himself. To the question “why did this happen?” Andruzsky answered that he tried to draw up the best, in his opinion, state decree and wrote down everything that came to his mind in his notebook.
We find a different assessment in the review of the poems: “The poems of Andruzsky himself are mostly in the Little Russian dialect and only a few in Russian. Some of them are full of free ideas. For example, in one ("Ukraine") he describes the imaginary disasters of Little Russia; in another (“Burner”) he says that the Russians invited the Little Russians to their place as brothers, but put fetters on them, in the third (without a name) he threatens the oppressors with a popular uprising and their death.
Government reviewers are right in the sense that Andruzsky's notes and drafts are far from perfect. They are so confused and contradictory that they do not allow to establish the ideological position of the author. The youngest member of the anti-government society did not have time to develop a harmonious theory and his own system of views. Andruzsky's papers are interesting only as evidence that, under the influence of older and more politically sophisticated comrades in the "seditious" Society, the 19-20-year-old student realized that the existing monarchical system was unsuitable, painfully thought about what and how to replace it, but so far a positive decision did not find. Another thing is also clear: the views of G. Andruzsky, as government officials correctly noted, evolved, developed in a republican direction.
The first interrogation of Andruzsky took place on April 14, 1847. The arrested man made rather frank confessions, although on the whole his testimony was as contradictory as the notes. In an effort to show off his knowledge, Andruzsky blurted out everything he knew, named the members of the Society, mixed up a lot, and speculated something. Quite accurately, he defined the main tasks of the Society. “The main goal that united everyone,” Andruzsky declared, “was: uniting the Slavs together, taking the United States or the current constitutional France as a model.” Even in this successful formulation there is an element of Andruzsky's fiction. Not a single program document of the secret organization spoke of a constitutional monarchy as a model for the future state structure of a pan-Slavic state. Andruzsky later confessed to this. Cyril and Methodius fought for a democratic republic. G. Andruzsky himself, according to the definition of the indictment, reached in his poems and writings "to republican thoughts."
The first testimony of Andruzsky is also valuable because it contains evidence of the enormous popularity of T.G. Shevchenko in Ukraine and an indication of the influence of the creativity and revolutionary-democratic activity of the beloved folk poet on the Cyril and Methodius people. According to Andruzsky, the poetic fame of Taras Shevchenko "thundered all over Little Russia", the writer-fighter "was praised to the skies." Member of the Society A. Navrotsky "almost knew Shevchenko's works by heart", another member of the circle, student I. Posyad, "I considered Shevchenko a great poet."
At the next interrogation on May 17, 1847, Andruzsky retracted his testimony, made on April 14, stating that they had no basis in fact, they were fictitious from beginning to end. He explained: "Wishing to reveal the whole truth, I wrote my false accusations, exaggerating everything I saw and heard and read to the utmost." The arrested student repented of his initial testimony, asked for forgiveness from the government and the comrades he had stipulated, but here he added that “he does not renounce either his homeland or its language.”
No matter how Andruzsky fantasized, his testimony, although replete with inaccuracies and errors, was the first to reveal to the government the goals of the Society and helped to establish the composition of the organization.
The government, taking into account the youth and repentance of Andruzsky, treated him rather condescendingly. G. Andruzsky was sent to complete a course of sciences at Kazan University, after which it was supposed to appoint him to serve in one of the Great Russian provinces under police supervision without the right to travel to Ukraine. Andruzsky himself explained the reason for his displacement with "papers and poems of rebellious content, with the aim of restoring the Little Russian people."
On June 7, 1847, Andruzsky arrived in Kazan. From Kazan, he continued to send letters to state institutions, in which he justified his friends in the Society. The government was unhappy with this. It wanted to avoid unnecessary talk about arrests, interrogations on a secret matter, which already worried the population. By order of the chief of gendarmes, Andruzsky was warned that if he continued to behave in this way, he would "be subjected to strict responsibility." Not hoping for a verbal suggestion, Andruzsky signed a signature that he "would not disclose information about the secret Ukrainian-Slavic society."
By his behavior in Kazan, Andruzsky, in the opinion of those in power, did not make amends for the past. If A. Navrotsky and I. Posyada behaved "modestly and nobly" (the first - in prison, and the second - in exile), then Andruzsky, according to the inspector of Kazan University students, turned out to be "a man of obstinate character and mediocre behavior." For violating the internal regulations at the university, arbitrariness and insulting officials, he was arrested for one day.
It is not known how much trouble the disgraced student would have brought to the university authorities if the opportunity had not presented itself to get rid of him.
On December 24, 1847, the Minister of Education, Uvarov, informed the chief of the gendarmes, Orlov, that "because of his vision, which is becoming duller every day," Andruzsky could no longer continue his studies. In view of this conclusion of the medical commission, the government decided to send Andruzsky to serve in Petrozavodsk under police supervision. If health does not allow recording lectures of professors, let him rewrite papers in the office in the far north, far from his homeland, the guardians of law and order decided. It was a cynical mockery of a man. Andruzsky understood that he was transferred to Petrozavodsk not only because of eye damage, but also because of "restless behavior."
On February 18, 1848, under the escort of a gendarme, Andruzsky arrived in Petrozavodsk. The instruction that accompanied him obliged the local authorities to have secret surveillance over Andruzsky and report every six months about his behavior to the III department, and also not to allow the supervised person to travel to Ukraine.
On March 12, 1848, Andruzsky was appointed a clerical employee of the Olonets provincial government. There he was listed as a scribe at the newspaper table.
As expected, the transfer of G. Andruzsky from Kazan to Karelia did not improve his vision. Rather the opposite. Already on October 12, 1848, the local ophthalmologist M. Lebedev informed the governor that Andruzsky's "scrofulous thin" eye was progressing "from the local cold climate." By this time, the exile could no longer see in his right eye, and his left eye was "myopic in the strongest degree." It would seem that there were good reasons to give the Andrusocians freedom in the choice of occupation and place of residence. But the gendarmes thought otherwise. On the report of the Olonets civil governor Pisarev, Dubelt's own visa appeared with the following content: "Andruzsky must remain in Petrozavodsk and engage in the performance of his duties as far as possible." Such a decision, despite all its cruelty, freed Andruzsky time for affairs far from those that the officials of the provincial government lived on.
Andruzsky's illness did not save him from secret supervision. As ordered, the head of the 1st district of the gendarme corps, which included Petrozavodsk, General Polozov sent reports to his patron about the behavior of the exile twice a year. The first three reports contain a laudatory attestation of the supervised person. General Polozov reported to the capital that "Andruzsky serves very diligently, lives quietly and secluded, his behavior is very modest and nothing is imperceptible that could serve as a pretext for an unfavorable conclusion about him." However, it soon turned out that the gendarme general was wishful thinking.
In Petrozavodsk, Andruzsky met and became close friends with the Cyril and Methodius Belozersky, who was serving his sentence there. Two members of the defeated secret society often met at Belozersky's apartment, recalled the past, talked about the present, and made plans for the future. We learn about this from Belozersky's letter dated March 31, 1850. The friendship of the Cyril-Methodians did not allow Polozov, in a letter dated January 8, 1850, to speak in the affirmative "about the purity of Andruzsky's morality." However, he expressed confidence that "these young people, under the vigilant supervision of the head of the province, will improve."
Hopes were not justified. In March 1850, rumors reached the governor that Andruzsky had "some suspicious papers" in his possession. Immediately, on March 19, the exile's apartment was searched. The result was unexpected. Andruzsky was found to have 14 large notebooks filled with writing, which he had been working on for more than a year.
Simultaneously with Andruzsky’s papers, notes were confiscated from his countryman, a nobleman of the Kyiv province Viktor Lippoman, who lived with him in the same apartment, also a political exile, exiled for 6 years to the Olonets province “for writing outrageous poems.”
As a hypothesis, it can be assumed that G. Andruzsky and V. Lippoman tried to propagate their views and, in particular, the ideas of national and social liberation of Ukraine among the Petrozavodsk officials, sought to create a circle on the model of the Cyril and Methodius Society, and someone from employees who visited their apartment were handed over to the government. This idea is suggested by a letter from N. Pisarev to Orlov dated March 28, 1850.
In Andruzsky's first notebook was the constitution of the republic, the states of which consist of Ukraine, Black Sea, Galicia with Krakow, Poland with Poznan, Lithuania and Zhmud, Bessarabia with Moldavia and Volakhia, Ostsee, Serbia, Bulgaria and the Don.
In subsequent notebooks, poems by T.G. Shevchenko, folk songs, as well as the author's attempts to compile a new Ukrainian alphabet and dictionary, to collect Ukrainian sayings and proverbs.
In Notebook E 6, Andruzsky, with malicious irony, ridicules the reptilian behavior of the close-minded ancestors of his compatriots, who, having lost their sense of patriotism and national pride, dutifully submitted to tsarism, which enslaved Ukraine.
Recalling the events of the hetmanate, Andruzsky makes the following notes:
“Sheremetiev shamelessly kicks out Hetman Yuri. What is Ukraine doing? And what do I care!
Bryukhovetsky grovels before Moscow, gives out the Cossacks for execution. What is Ukraine? And what do I care!
Aleksey ordered the Lithuanian status to be translated into Russian and judged in courts according to the same translation. What is Ukraine? And what do I care!
Peter no longer confirms the Cossack rights, calls Polubotok and others to the capital, dishonors them, starves them in shackles, sends the Cossacks to hard labor in Ladoga, Voronezh and beyond. What is Ukraine? And what do I care!
Peter, as a sovereign, rules in Kyiv, ruins Baturin, while Romain slaughters the Cossacks. What is Ukraine? And what do I care! .
Interesting views are expressed by Andruzsky about censorship and its influence on the moral education of young people: “Censorship only sees that the tsar is not scolded and written against God, and does not pay attention to the harm that these gray books produce, accustoming children to the wrong view, pictures and scriptures fill their heads. What after the amazing thing that young people are early accustomed to cards, wine and girls, fearing the abyss of wisdom.
Through all the papers of Andruzsky, the desire for national self-determination of the Slavic tribes on a republican basis, love for Ukraine, its people, language, and customs runs like a red thread. Therefore, in the gendarmerie correspondence about Andruzsky, it is said that his manuscripts prove the "criminal way of thinking" of the author.
On March 28, 1850, the governor sent Andruzsky's notebooks to the chief of gendarmes with his review, in which we find the following summary: year under the command of your commission ... ”Based on acquaintance with the contents of the confiscated notebooks, the governor was forced to state that“ Andruzsky’s mental direction and his dreams and even knowledge did not change or improve. At the same time, verses of “unseemly content” found at Lippoman's were also sent to the same address.
On April 5, 1850, Count Orlov presented the Tsar with a report on Andruzsky, in which, listing all his “sins”, he made the following conclusion: “From the above description of Andruzsky’s actions and way of thinking, as well as from what he says about himself in his notebooks, Obviously, to such an extent this young man is harmful to society and how little influence his first arrest and the convictions that I made him had had on him. I consider it completely superfluous to further consider the case about him and I dare to ask if, your majesty, would you please order Andruzsky, as an incorrigible person, to prevent the harm that may result from him for society, to imprison him in the Shlisselburg fortress.
Nikolai ordered to send Andruzsky to the Solovetsky Monastery for correction without specifying a deadline. The tsar knew that the prison of the Solovetsky Monastery was not inferior to the Shlisselburg fortress in terms of the severity of the regime.
On April 6, 1850, Orlov wrote to the Synodal Procurator. “The Sovereign Emperor, according to my most submissive report on the harmful way of thinking and malicious writings of the former student George Andruzsky, who lives in the city of Petrozavodsk under the supervision of the police, the highest command deigned to send him to the Solovetsky Monastery, entrusting the strictest supervision of the monastery authorities.” Further, the chief of gendarmes asked the chief prosecutor to do appropriate order for your department.
The wheel has turned. On April 30, 1850, the synod, on the proposal of the chief prosecutor, ordered the Solovki archimandrite Dimitry to place the "state criminal" Andruzsky in a separate cell, establish the strictest supervision over him and instruct "an elder experienced in spiritual edification to exhort him to correct his life and harmful way of thinking, reporting to the synod on the consequences of supervision and exhortations at the end of each six months.
On April 19, 1850, Andruzsky was sent from Petrozavodsk to Arkhangelsk under escort of gendarmes.
Until the opening of the Northern Dvina, Andruzsky was kept in a secret cell of the Arkhangelsk prison castle, strictly making sure that he did not have any meetings or contacts with anyone.
On May 19, 1850, under the escort of the gendarme Bykov, the prisoner was sent to Solovki on the monastery ship.
On May 23, 1850, Archimandrite Dimitri issued Bykov a certificate stating that Andruzsky had arrived on the island on that day and was “received properly.” On June 2, 1850, the Arkhangelsk military governor, Rear Admiral Boyle, reported for Andruzsky to the Minister of the Interior, informing him that the prisoner had been safely delivered to his destination.
The completion of the troubles for the provincial authorities associated with Andruzsky was the beginning of the troubles for the owners of the Solovetsky Monastery.
The obligation to make exhortations to Andruzsky "to correct his life and bring him to repentance for the crime he committed" voluntarily assumed the archpastor himself.
On December 30, 1850, Demetrius, with a sense of complacency, reported to the synod that he "with the help of God" corrected the "criminal." As proof of this, the archimandrite sent to the synod a handwritten letter he had received from Andruzsky on December 29, in which the prisoner spoke about his life and political views. He wrote: “I never rebelled against the monarchy, nor against the personal foundations of tsarist power, but only, believing that in the all-Russian state there should be all-Russian domination, I armed myself for the exclusive domination of the Great Russians and in defense of the long-obsolete Little Russian people.” The archimandrite especially liked the following lines: “I confess, Your Reverence, that my stay in the Solovetsky prison brought me great spiritual benefit. Your edifying conversations, going to church and reading books completely changed my concepts in many ways ... “There are also ironic phrases in the letter, such as this: “Conclusion, loneliness, order, supervision teach me modesty, moderation, humility, obedience, reflection on the past life about Christian duties."
The quoted letter does not do credit to Andruzsky even if it did not express the true thoughts of the prisoner. It can be assumed that Andruzsky flattered and lied to the monks, hoping to gain freedom in this way. By the way, the prisoner's mentor also had such suspicions. It is no coincidence that he promised the synod to continue the “re-education” of Andruzsky and to observe whether “the repentance he brings will be sincere and permanent during his further imprisonment here” (emphasized by us - G.F.). One thing can be said for sure: Andruzsky did not achieve his goal - he was not released from prison and was not going to do this.
In synodal and gendarmerie circles, Andruzsky's penitential letter was not given any significance at all.
It is difficult to say when Andruzsky would have seen freedom and whether he would have ever seen it at all, if not for the Crimean War. G. Andruzsky distinguished himself in repulsing the attack of the Anglo-French squadron on the Solovetsky Monastery on July 6-7, 1854. As a reward for this, the owners of the monastery asked to release Andruzsky from prison and give him the right to choose his place of residence. Agreeing with this, the spiritual authorities considered it necessary to maintain police supervision over Andruzsky at his place of residence. The chief of the gendarmes, Orlov, had his own opinion on this matter. On August 28, 1854, he replied to the chief prosecutor of the synod, who, at the request of the monastery, made a presentation on Andruzsky: “To the former student of Andruzsky, not relying on the sincerity of his words and on the assurance that he felt his guilt (meaning the letter dated December 29, 1850. - G.F.), because the one who was pardoned already once, again was especially guilty, I do not find it possible to allow him to serve in the Great Russian provinces, as the spiritual authorities intercede, but at first, for a greater assurance of his repentance, appoint him to serve in Arkhangelsk until his perfect corrections and under the strictest supervision of the local authorities.
Orlov's arguments prevailed. G. Andruzsky was released from the monastery prison and sent to Arkhangelsk under the strictest supervision of the police "until the perfect and complete correction."
In 1858, at the request of his sister, Andruzsky was allowed to return to his homeland, to the Poltava province, under police supervision.
Participants of the Kazan demonstration in the prison of the Solovetsky fortressThe political prisoners of the monastery prison on Solovki were two young St. Petersburg workers Yakov Potapov and Matvey Grigoriev. Both of them were arrested and tried for participating in “the first social revolutionary demonstration in Russia”, as V. I. Lenin called the famous demonstration that took place on December 6 (18), 1876 in St. Petersburg on the square near the Kazan Cathedral. An 18-year-old Thornton factory worker, Yakov Potapov, played a particularly active role in this manifestation. Raised during a demonstration by his comrades, for the first time in the history of Russia, he unfurled over the crowd the combat red banner of the revolution with the inscription "Land and Freedom" embroidered on it, and became the first standard-bearer of the Russian revolution.
Tsarism brutally cracked down on the participants in the first open political demonstration: 32 people were arrested, 21 people, on the orders of the tsar of December 17, 1876, were brought to trial by the special presence of the ruling senate. The high court accused the demonstrators of "impudent denunciation of the form of government established by state laws" and sentenced them to various kinds of punishments - from exile to a settlement in Siberia to hard labor in the mines.
On May 19, 1877, at the request of the same special presence of the Senate, the Tsar commuted the sentence of these three demonstrators. It was ordered that Y. Potapov, M. Grigoriev and V. Timofeev be sent to remote monasteries “for repentance” for 5 years each “with the assignment of them there to the special care of the monastic authorities to correct their morality and establish them in the rules of Christian and loyal duty” .
The government hypocritically explained the alleviation of the fate of the demonstrators-workers by the youth of Y. Potapov and his comrades. G.V. Plekhanov, not without reason, sees in this a deliberate policy, a kind of demagogic step by the authorities. The government tried to convince itself and public opinion that the workers would cease to be loyal subjects of the monarch only under the influence of "an intellectual milieu alien to them." Therefore, while leaving in force the original verdict against the majority of the "rebellious students", they considered it possible to commute the sentence for the "rebellious workers".
However, the authorities miscalculated. Not a single "rebellious" intellectual caused the spiritual authorities as much trouble as Y. Potapov and M. Grigoriev did. Both of them, in exile under monastic supervision and in prison under the guard of sentries, behaved independently, adamantly maintained their convictions, fearlessly fought against despotism and arbitrariness.
Fulfilling the will of the king, on August 3, 1877, the synod decided to place Y. Potapov in the Vologda Spaso-Kamensky Monastery. M. Grigoriev - to the Churkinskaya cenobitic Nikolaev hermitage of the Astrakhan diocese and V. Timofeev - to the Holy Monastery of the Onega district of the Arkhangelsk province. By the same resolution of the synod, the local bishops were ordered that “upon the delivery of the aforementioned peasants to the aforementioned monasteries, a due order should be made to submit them to the strictest supervision.”
On November 16, 1877, Yakov Potapov arrived at the place of exile. The head of the Vologda province suggested that the local lord establish the most vigilant supervision over Potapov during his stay in the monastery in order to prevent the possibility of the exile escaping.
The third branch was so convinced that the monastery "will mitigate the harmful direction of thought received by Potapov in his youth" and the "rebel" will get rid of "delusions", which did not require the monks to periodically provide information about the behavior of the exile. However, the Spaso-Kamensky "educators" did not justify the hopes placed on them by the gendarmes. The monks did everything in their power to break Potapov's rebelliousness, but the revolutionary turned out to be unshakable in his views.
Some two months after the exile to the monastery, the third department became aware that Y. Potapov wrote a letter to the student of the Medical and Surgical Academy Nikolsky, in which he spoke about the work assigned to him by the monks. In the same letter, the revolutionary informed his friend that he did not intend to remain in exile for a long time and asked Nikolsky for money for a dress.
Having received such a message, the guardians of the "legal order" in blue uniforms were alarmed. On January 26, 1878, the chief head of the III department, Mezentsov, formally proposed to the synod to strengthen monitoring of Potapov. On February 11, the chief procurator of the synod reported to the chief of gendarmes just as officially that “the local consistory ordered the rector of the Spaso-Preobrazhenskaya Belavinsky Hermitage to increase supervision of the peasant Yakov Potapov contained in it, assign reliable people to him day and night and fully adapt the premises to in order to deprive Potapov of any opportunity to escape, especially at night, if he decided on it.
A year later, a more serious signal came. On April 11, 1879, the Bishop of Vologda Theodosius informed the chief prosecutor of the synod about the following unpleasant events in his possessions: where and why, and to just comments from the builder, he answers only with rudeness, and does not even hide his intention to leave the monastic supervision. 2) He, Potapov, often receives letters and parcels in money and things from no one knows where or from whom, and he himself is in correspondence with no one knows whom. 3) Appearing to the builder often untimely, almost forcibly demands something in which there is not the slightest possibility to satisfy ... Having received what he asked, he almost always remains dissatisfied and expresses his dissatisfaction not only with insulting words for the builder, but repeatedly expressed his intention, at a convenient opportunity case, beat him up. 4) The main thing is that he disturbs the peace of the brethren, trying to settle discord and quarrels among them. Why is the builder asking my petition to the Holy Synod to remove him, Potapov, from the Belavinskaya Hermitage, since the monastery has neither a comfortable room to keep Potapov from escaping, nor a person to supervise him, while looking after him, due to his violent nature , not a monastic, but a strict policeman is required.
The "holy" Vologda fathers were seriously alarmed. Y. Potapov, despite all the misfortunes of exile life, not only retained his convictions, but by the power of revolutionary agitation and personal courage influenced the lower monastic brethren, not without success, as can be judged from the bishop's reports, spread his anti-government views, corrupted the monastic community. It is not surprising that the Vologda spiritual administration sought to get rid of the presence of such a dangerous guest in the Spaso-Kamensky Monastery as soon as possible.
Father Theodosius supported the opinion of the builder of the Belavinsky Hermitage on the need to transfer Potapov from the Spaso-Kamensky Monastery "to a more trustworthy place." At the same time, the bishop reported to his hosts in the capital that the local consistory ordered the builder of the desert "to take all possible measures to strengthen the strict supervision of Potapov."
The anxiety of the Vologda clergy was shared by the synodal elders. On April 18, 1879, the chief prosecutor of the synod, having received Theodosius’s message, handed over its content to the head of the III department, Drenteln, and, for his part, asked to transfer the recalcitrant worker from the monastery to one of the outlying regions of the country.
The chief of the gendarmes believed that “the expulsion of Potapov to a remote area, outside the monastery walls, would be a violation of the will of the monarch that followed about him,” ordered to send the revolutionary for five years to one of the remote monasteries under the supervision and care of the spiritual authorities, and advised the synod to transfer the young man to the Solovetsky Monastery, where he will be "subject to stricter discipline and deprived of the possibility of unauthorized absences."
The synod accepted Drenteln's advice for execution and, at its meeting on May 18, 1879, found it expedient to place Y. Potapov in the Solovetsky Monastery. The Vologda diocese and the Moscow synodal office were immediately notified of this. The latter was asked to immediately make “a proper order to submit the peasant Yakov Potapov, upon his delivery to the Solovetsky Monastery, to the strictest supervision there, so that he could not hide from the place of detention, and to entrust him to the special care of the monastic authorities for correction and approval in the rules of Christian and loyal duty".
As you can see, the unanimity of the priests with the gendarmes was complete, close cooperation. They acted hand in hand, jointly eradicated "revolutionary sedition" and fought against its carriers, who equally threatened both secular and spiritual exploiters.
Fulfilling the directive of the synod, on July 3, 1879, the Moscow office sent a decree to the Solovki archimandrite Melety on its own behalf, which obliged him to establish strict supervision over Potapov and make efforts to “correct” the worldview and “spoiled morality” of the revolutionary. To this end, the office advised the abbot to subordinate the “state criminal” to the spiritual guidance of such a monk who “is most capable of serving Potapov as an example for correction by the severity of his life and the conscious firmness of his convictions and rules.” In addition to purely police and educational functions, the duties of a censor were assigned to the archimandrite. He had to intercept and read all the correspondence of the revolutionary, if any, and report on its content to the III department.
On August 3, 1879, the Moscow office received a report from Meletius that Ya.S. Potapov was taken to the Solovetsky Monastery on July 22, 1879 and “imprisoned in one of the convict premises under the strict supervision of the guard team, and for the correction and approval of the rules of Christian and loyal duty, Potapov was entrusted to the hieromonk of the Solovetsky Monastery Paisius” .
The Solovetsky jailer carried out the instructions of the center regarding the maintenance of political enemies of tsarism with enviable efficiency. Contrary to the verdict of the Senate, which condemned Y. Potapov to a 5-year residence in a monastery for correction and spiritual edification, Meletius subjected the worker to solitary confinement. No one reprimanded the archimandrite for this. This alone testifies to the omnipotence of the local spiritual authorities at that time. The Solovetsky administrator himself was a judge and an executor of sentences. He, at his own discretion, changed the meaning of judicial decisions of state institutions and worsened, as can be seen from the example of Y. Potapov, the conditions for keeping revolutionaries. However, the Solovetsky prison, with its harsh rules and well-trained jailers, on whom the III department and the synod hoped, also failed to "correct" the revolutionary.
Petty nit-picking, exorbitant strictness, constant violations of the sentence on the conditions of exile embittered the young worker even more.
Less than two years later, on March 20, 1881, Melety sent the chief prosecutor of the synod K. Pobedonostsev a rare letter in its value, telling about an unprecedented incident that happened on the island:
“Upon arrival (to the Solovetsky Monastery. - G.F.), Potapov was placed under the strictest supervision in the prison department and, in order to correct his morality and the sacred duty of loyalty, he was entrusted to the experienced and intelligent hieromonk Paisius to instruct him in the rules of faith and morality. Hieromonk Paisios constantly went and goes three and four times a week to talk about the rules of Christian morality and the duty of loyal devotion, often spoke of Potapov that Potapov gives little hope from the proposed moralizing, which he does not listen at all or listens to, but inattentively, finally became with blasphemy to accept his instructions and good advice. The guards who escort him to the temple of God for divine service speak of Potapov in such a way that it is impossible to take him to church, because he behaves so indecently in the temple that it is a shame to look at him, does not pray, stands lounging on the wall, and only walks under compulsion, and not voluntarily, and asked that he not be taken to church at all.
Finally, when news was received at the Solovetsky Monastery of the sadly sad death of Sovereign Emperor Alexander Nikolayevich and on March 19 the first funeral liturgy was performed by the rector with the brethren of the cathedral and after the liturgy of a panikhida, during which everyone was the brotherhood of the monastery in the temple, all the annual pilgrims living in the monastery , and the military team and all the prisoners, of which Yakov Potapov, registered as I left the altar at the end of the service, comes up to me in the middle of the temple and says: “now freedom” and, waving, hit me on the right temple in the head, but no more could inflict insolence because both the sentry soldier and the strangers standing here immediately detained him and took him to their place of detention. After this, the non-commissioned officer of the guard team came up to me with a report and said: “Let Potapov not be taken to church, because nothing comes out of him except blasphemy and antics and mockery.” After this, I decided not to take him to church for the time being and until the discretion and order of the higher authorities, so that I would not produce any more unpleasant effect.
What act of Potapov and his insolence in the church on March 19 I dare to bring to your attention and ask you, Your Excellency, to bring to the attention of the highest authorities and how to keep him under strict supervision. His mentor, hieromonk Paisius, almost refuses to go to him for exhortations and moralizing, because he does not heed his instructions at all; I decided, until further orders from the highest authority, to keep him under strict supervision in custody and not to take him to church during divine services ...
Your Excellency, the humble, everlasting pilgrimage rector of the Solovetsky Monastery, Archimandrite Melety.
True, the presentation of the abbot was not entirely sincere.
Y. Potapov explained his act during the investigation by the unbearably difficult living conditions and the constant mockery of the monks. From the time of exile to the Solovetsky Monastery, the revolutionary did not enjoy any freedom at all. They kept him under lock and key in solitary confinement. Despite repeated requests, Y. Potapov was not allowed to go for walks. Exhausted by the prison regime and the ordeal of solitary confinement, he decided to protest.
After reviewing the report of the Solovetsky rector, Pobedonostsev made several notes in the margins, the content of which was summarized by him in a letter to Melety dated June 11, 1881: “The aforementioned Potapov should be kept in solitary confinement in the most strict manner, if he has any correspondence, then I humbly ask you to provide me with information about this.
In vain did Pobedonostsev worry. Meletius did not need to be taught strictness in dealing with victims.
Y. Potapov was kept under the strictest confinement in solitary confinement from the moment he entered the Solovetsky Monastery, and not after the emergency on March 19, 1881, as can be understood from Melety Pobedonostsev’s letter, and as for the prisoner’s correspondence, the “God’s elder” explained to the chief prosecutor June 26, 1881, that Y. Potapov "was forbidden any correspondence from the beginning of his placement in the prison department, and therefore he did not write to anyone and there were no letters to him from anyone."
While this correspondence was going on, a new scandal broke out on Solovki, which Pobedonostsev learned about from a letter from Meletius dated June 15. In the letter we read: “The head of the Solovetsky military team at the prison castle of Vertsinsky informed me verbally that on the 13th of this June at 10 pm, during my service of the all-night vigil, which was performed on Sunday in the Trinity Cathedral ... prisoner Yakov Semyonov Potapov escaped from Solovetsky prison premises ... to the monastery courtyard and ran through the herring gate to the monastery harbor, where the pilgrims seized him and brought him to prison at three quarters of the ninth hour and handed him over to a non-commissioned officer with a patrol who was already looking for him. And besides, the officer also said that Potapov was boasting, without being ashamed: “I won’t do such a thing yet,” and again he promises to run away and calls himself a non-believer in God and his holy icons and considers it unnecessary to have them in his cell. After that, he assigned a special guard to his cell, shackling him in shackles. The letter does not need comments
M.A. Kolchin and using his book about the exiles and imprisoned in the prison of the Solovetsky Monastery as the primary source of M.N. Gernet date Y. Potapov 's attempt to escape from prison in 1880 . This is a clear mistake. Our compatriot did not accurately convey the individual details of this event, although it was not at all difficult to restore them from fresh traces - witnesses of the desperately courageous act of the prisoner lived in the monastery.
According to Y. Potapov, whom we can take with full confidence, he decided to escape after new sophisticated bullying that rained down on him after "the violence committed against the archimandrites." Suffice it to say that since March 19, the "rebel" was put on bread and water. He was denied other food. Such a mockery of the human personality was patiently endured by the sectarians imprisoned in the Solovetsky casemates, various "heretics", noble revolutionaries, but the revolutionary worker could not endure it.
Flipping through the pages of archives, one involuntarily imbued with respect for the brave, unsubdued revolutionary. It was necessary to have extraordinary courage, to hate your class enemies and executioners of freedom, to have unlimited faith in the rightness of your cause in order to continue single combat with the Russian bastille.
Y. Potapov developed a plan to escape from the cell, located on the third floor of the prison stone castle. Y. Potapov himself spoke well about how it was carried out and why it did not lead to a happy ending: he tied three towels together and tore one of them as a wider one in half and made one whole from these four separate parts; he tied one end to the window bars and descended on these towels into the courtyard of the monastery, being unnoticed by anyone. Since it was about seven o'clock in the evening, the gates of the monastery were not yet locked. I went beyond the fence and went into the harbor where the ships are, with the idea of getting some kind of boat and sailing on it to the city of Kem. For this, I even turned to some of the pilgrims, unknown to me, but was refused. And when, to their question, “who I am,” I explained that I was a prisoner, they wanted to take me to prison, but I went myself, accompanied by them, seeing that the escape had failed.
In front of the prison, Y. Potapov was handed over to the guard team, which was already looking for the fugitive. The non-commissioned officer who accepted the captured prisoner threatened to stab Y. Potapov, to which the exhausted revolutionary replied: "If it will be better." In the courtyard of the prison, the soldiers beat Y. Potapov and tied him with ropes on his hands. After that, he was imprisoned in a cell on the second floor of the prison and the most severe regime was applied to him. In order to avoid new troubles for the monks, the revolutionary was shackled in leg shackles, in which “I am now,” Ya. Potapov explained during the investigation.
It becomes scary when you get acquainted with the sheets of interrogation of the monastery martyr, yellowed from time to time. It is hard to believe that what Y. Potapov is talking about happened in the Solovetsky Monastery in the post-reform period. But you can't believe it. No one refuted the testimony of Y. Potapov, and none of the jailers was punished for mocking a man who fell into the clutches of monsters "in the rank of an angel."
The investigation into the case of Y. Potapov, who was accused of hitting Melety on the head and escaping from the place of detention, was led by Pleshcheev, an investigator for the Kemsky district. Responsible officials of the empire in the rank of ministers took part in the execution of this unusual criminal case. The provincial prosecutor, referring to the order of the Minister of Justice, several times in an irritated tone demanded from the Arkhangelsk Chamber of the Criminal and Civil Court "to take measures for the speedy drafting of a verdict in the case of ... the peasant Yakov Potapov." And the case on the charge of the revolutionary was completed by the proceedings in a record short time for that time. In June 1881, Pleshcheev was assigned to investigate the case. On July 3, the materials of the inquiry were received by the Arkhangelsk Chamber of the Criminal and Civil Court. On September 4, 1881, the chamber pronounced its verdict.
The Arkhangelsk Chamber of the Criminal and Civil Court considered it possible not to subject Y. Potapov to special punishment for escaping from prison, since it was not accompanied by violence against the guards. As for the “insult by the action” of the archimandrite, in this matter the chamber found a circumstance that aggravated Y. Potapov’s guilt. It consisted, according to the judges, in the fact that Y. Potapov struck the clergyman in the temple itself, when he was blessing the pilgrims, that is, he was performing one of his official duties. Therefore, the chamber interpreted the actions of Y. Potapov as an insult not only to the personality of the clergyman, but to the church and the shrine. Based on this, the Arkhangelsk Chamber of the Criminal and Civil Court decided to deprive Y. Potapov of all the rights of the state and exile him to a settlement in the most remote places of Siberia with the tradition of church repentance.
On January 26, 1882, the ruling Senate, which received the case of Y. Potapov for revision, approved the verdict of the Arkhangelsk Chamber of the Criminal and Civil Court. Then followed the attitude of Comrade Minister of Internal Affairs Durnovo (dated March 22, 1882) to the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia, in which the place of Yakov Potapov's new exile was named ... Yakutsk region.
On May 23, 1882, Y. Potapov was shackled in the Solovetsky Monastery in hand and foot shackles and handed over to the police to be sent to Yakutsk.
Having failed to “correct” the revolutionary worker with a 20-month exile in the Spaso-Kamensky monastery and almost three years of solitary confinement in the Solovetsky prison, the government recalled the initial verdict of the Senate, according to which Siberia was waiting for Yakov Potapov and his comrades. Only in this case, they did not mean the Siberia that Potapov was threatened by the special presence of the Senate. According to the verdict of 1877, the place of exile for Y. Potapov was to be "less remote places in Siberia." Now Potapov was exiled to the remotest region of Siberia. On January 20, 1884, he was taken to Yakutsk and sent to a settlement in the Vilyui district.
For a long time, nothing was known about the life of Y. Potapov in the Yakut exile. His name was mentioned only in the memoirs of Yu. M. Steklov, who at the beginning of the second half of the 90s of the XIX century met Ya. Potapov in distant Yakutia.
In the 30s of our century, the biographer of Y. Potapov G. Lurie made attempts to make inquiries about the Siberian period of the life of Y. Potapov, but they were unsuccessful.
And only quite recently the Soviet researcher S.S. Shusterman, working in the archives of the Yakut Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, found documents there that filled this gap. The historian established that Ya. Potapov did not change his views and behavior in Siberian exile. He was in conflict with the Yakut rich (toyons) and priests. The local priest was dissatisfied with the new exile and complained that Potapov did not fulfill the church repentance imposed on him, did not attend confession and communion, and mocked the "words of God."
The standard-bearer of the first political demonstration in Russia lived in Siberian exile until the victory of the socialist revolution in our country, for which he fought all his life.
Just as restless and "difficult to educate" as Potapov was the second participant in the revolutionary demonstration, Matvey Grigoriev. The monks of the Churkinsky cenobitic Nikolaev hermitage, where M. Grigoriev was brought to repentance on November 17, 1877, could not boast of success in fulfilling their duties. The political exile brought a lot of trouble to his "tutors". The matter ended with the fact that the monks achieved the transfer of Grigoriev to the Solovetsky Monastery. It happened in the following way.
On August 30, 1878, the St. Petersburg gendarmerie informed the III department that a letter from Matvey Grigoriev of “outrageous content” fell into their hands, which he sent from the Churkinsky monastery to his brother Ivan, who lived in the capital. As a result of this, at the same time, it was proposed to the Astrakhan authorities and the spiritual authorities of the Churkinsky monastery to take measures "to suppress the harmful direction ... of Matvey Grigoriev." Measures "for the correction and admonition of Grigoriev" were taken by the monks, but they, in priestly language, "remained invalid" and did not change the anti-government convictions of the worker.
In the summer of 1879, Bishop Gerasim of Astrakhan and Enotaevsky, referring to a report from the rector of the desert, Archimandrite Augustine, reported to the synod that M. Grigoriev was behaving in the monastery “disapprovingly” and “extremely impudent”, mockingly treats worship, and dares the rector when he makes him "admonishment and instruction", arbitrarily absents himself to neighboring villages, talks for a long time with the peasants of the surrounding villages and exerts a "harmful influence" on them.
The anti-government agitation of M. Grigoriev especially intensified after Solovyov's unsuccessful shot on April 2, 1879 at Alexander II.
On April 5, 1879, when a “service of thanksgiving” was performed in the monastery on the occasion of the deliverance of the monarch “from the hand of a villain”, M. Grigoriev asked the rector for a telegram about this event and, having read it, said publicly: “The fool, he started to shoot, but did not knew how to hit the target. And when the archimandrite tried to exhort Grigoriev and told him. “Fear God what you say,” the revolutionary did not listen to him and left. On the same days, M. Grigoriev accidentally witnessed the conversation of the monk Innokenty with the novice Leonty Grebenkin. The monk, condemning “the barbaric act of the emperor who encroached on the life of the emperor,” concluded his conversation with the words: “... The words of the prophet David were fulfilled: “let not the hand of my ungodly anointed one touch.” M. Grigoriev interrupted these loyal rantings with the phrase: “What is the importance, one anointed one would be killed, and another would be anointed.”
Shortly thereafter, a new denunciation of the exile came from a monk. The spy reported that M. Grigoriev, having read an article in the newspaper about the murder of the chief of gendarmes Mezentsov (killed on August 4, 1878 by Kravchinsky. - G.F.), spoke about this terrorist act “approvingly, at the same time referring to the personality of the late Adjutant General Mezentsov extremely impudent and vulgar scolding."
One can imagine the degree of anxiety of the monks, if we add to what has been said that during a search in Grigoriev's cell, a book of revolutionary content, "The Figures of the Forty-Eight Year" by Vermorell, was found.
The officials of the monastery and the Astrakhan province were most frightened by the revolutionary agitation of the exile among the rank-and-file monastic brethren, pilgrims and, mainly, among the peasants. Such activity of M. Grigoriev was fraught, according to the bishop, with "harmful consequences", and the local authorities decided to stop it.
A hail of new repressions rained down on M. Grigoriev. After a preliminary investigation, carried out on May 6, 1879, by the adjutant of the Astrakhan provincial gendarmerie department, ensign Marchenko and fellow provincial prosecutor Golubkov, the revolutionary was arrested and put in an Astrakhan prison.
The governor of Astrakhan considered it necessary to send M. Grigoriev "to one of the headquarters in the Kalmyk people." The Minister of the Interior was afraid that the revolutionary would run away from the Kalmyks, and suggested exiling Grigoriev to Eastern Siberia. The chief of the gendarmes was of the same opinion. However, the tsar decided that the prison of the Solovetsky fortress could be the most suitable place for the correction of a revolutionary-minded worker. On July 6, 1879, he signed a corresponding order, about which the III department informed the head of the Arkhangelsk provincial gendarme department.
On August 5, 1879, Matvey Grigoriev was brought from Arkhangelsk to the White Sea island, imprisoned in solitary confinement and transferred "under the strict supervision of the Solovetsky military team." Solovetsky jailers believed that solitary confinement is the most effective means of humbling dissidents.
M. Grigoriev, like Y. Potapov, was turned from an exiled under supervision into a prisoner of one of the most terrible dungeons of the autocracy. This is what the tsar's "mercy" towards the two workers who took part in the Kazan demonstration ultimately came down to.
In the monastery prison on Solovki, M. Grigoriev, according to Melety's reports, behaved "well and calmly."
It is difficult, of course, to assume that in such a short period of time M. Grigoriev changed his convictions, which he publicly expressed many times. It seems that the Solovetsky archimandrite deliberately exaggerated his merits. M. Grigoriev did not hit the rector in the face, did not break the bars in the prison cell, in a word, he favorably differed in the eyes of Melety from Y. Potapov, and this pleased the jailer.
In July 1882, when Y. Potapov was on his way to Yakutia, the tsar, at the request of Archimandrite Melety, released M. Grigoriev from the Solovetsky prison and allowed him to settle in his homeland under open police supervision for one year. August 8, 1882 M. Grigoriev left Solovki.
Yakov Potapov and Matvey Grigoriev ended their imprisonment in the Solovetsky prison on political charges. But the exile to the monastery on religious matters did not stop. Solovki continued to receive clergymen who were guilty of contravention of the monastic charter, and various "heretics" guilty or only suspected of religious freethinking.
The Solovetsky Monastery remained a stronghold of frenzied reaction, a hotbed of superstition, a hotbed of religious fanaticism and obscurantism.
* * *For about four centuries, the Solovetsky Monastery was a place of suffering for fighters from among the Russian people for their political and religious beliefs. Representatives of all three generations of Russian revolutionaries visited the casemates of a cruel spiritual jailer.
The Solovetsky prison existed until the beginning of the current century. The first blow to the monastery prison was dealt in 1886, when a military team was withdrawn from the Solovetsky archipelago, whose duty it was to guard the prisoners. On the eve of the first Russian revolution, in the autumn of 1903, the prison itself was abolished. The prison building was transferred to the ownership of the Solovetsky Monastery and rebuilt as a hospital for monks and pilgrims. After the internal redevelopment and numerous alterations, there was nothing specifically prison-like left in it. In the two-story outbuilding, previously occupied by an officer and soldiers, a pharmacy and apartments for a doctor and paramedic were arranged. So the notorious prison of the Solovetsky Monastery, one of the most terrible prisons of the tsarist autocracy, ceased its centuries-old existence.
It tells about the tragic fate of a small group of political prisoners in the serf casemates and cells in the prison of the Solovetsky Monastery. The same ordeals befell many hundreds of religious freethinkers, who at various times languished in the stone sacks of the Solovetsky Kremlin.
It is necessary to tear off the pious masks from the "holy fathers" and resolutely rebuff the churchmen, who today idealize the historical role of monasteries and hide their vile deeds from their flock.
The Kritsky Brothers Circle is an association of progressively minded youth around the three Kritsky brothers - Peter, Mikhail and Vasily - students of Moscow University.
Prerequisites for the emergence
After the Decembrist uprising, a difficult time came. There was an "awakening" of society, understanding the past and present of Russia, the history and culture of the country.
The main centers for the development of Russian philosophical thought were circles of like-minded people who were opposed to the policies of Nicholas I. Thanks to the circles, students could discuss issues of literature and philosophy that worried them. Some associations were anti-government in nature.
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An excerpt characterizing the Circle of Cretan Brothers
“It’s time for us, my dears. You don't need this world anymore...She took them all into her arms (which I was surprised for a moment, as she seemed to suddenly become larger) and the luminous channel disappeared along with the sweet girl Katya and her whole wonderful family ... It became empty and sad, as if I had lost again someone close, as happened almost always after a new meeting with the "leaving" ...
"Girl, are you all right?" I heard someone's worried voice.
Someone bothered me, trying to “return” me to a normal state, since I apparently again “entered” too deeply into that other world, far away for the rest, and frightened some kind person with my “frozen-abnormal” calmness.
The evening was just as wonderful and warm, and everything around remained exactly the same as it was just an hour ago ... only I didn’t want to walk anymore.
Someone's fragile, good lives had just been cut off so easily, flew away into another world like a white cloud, and I suddenly felt very sad, as if a drop of my lonely soul had flown away with them ... I really wanted to believe that the dear girl Katya would find at least some kind of happiness in anticipation of their return "home" ... And it was sincerely sorry for all those who did not have coming "aunts" to at least slightly alleviate their fear, and who rushed about in horror, leaving in that arc, unfamiliar and frightening world , not even imagining what awaits them there, and not believing that this is still going on their “precious and only” LIFE ...
The days flew by unnoticed. Weeks passed. Gradually, I began to get used to my unusual everyday visitors ... After all, everything, even the most extraordinary events that we perceive at the beginning almost as a miracle, become commonplace if they are repeated regularly. This is how my wonderful “guests”, who at the beginning amazed me so much, became almost a common occurrence for me, in which I honestly invested part of my heart and was ready to give much more, if only it could help someone . But it was impossible to absorb all that endless human pain without choking on it and without destroying itself. Therefore, I became much more careful and tried to help without opening all the “gateways” of my raging emotions, but tried to remain as calm as possible and, to my greatest surprise, very soon noticed that in this way I can help much more and more effectively. , while not getting tired at all and spending much less of their vitality on all this.
Circle of Cretan Students
The Kritsky student circle testifies to the penetration of the Decembrist ideas among young people, their desire to critically master the experience of the Decembrists. The students, whose ranks were increasingly replenished by raznochintsy, enthusiastically perceived censored political poetry. The massacre of the Decembrists aroused the oppositional moods of a part of the students, increased its patriotic activity. In the heterogeneous environment of student youth, new revolutionary ideas were ripening. Its best representatives considered themselves the direct successors of the Decembrists. This is how a large group of young people, united around the three Kritsky brothers, the sons of a petty official, graduates of Moscow University, understood their purpose. In addition to 6 members of this circle, 13 more persons familiar with the Kritskys were brought to the investigation on charges of “freethinking”.
The circle began to take shape in 1826 under the direct impression of the massacre of the Decembrists. “The death of criminals on December 14 gave birth to indignation in him,” the investigation materials say about the motives for the revolutionary activities of Peter of Crete. At the same time, it was emphasized that "love for independence and disgust for monarchical rule aroused in him most from reading the works of Pushkin and Ryleev."
The Cretan circle accepted the political program of the de-Kembrists, setting as its goal "to find means for the transformation of the state, to introduce constitutional government." The members of the circle talked about the need for regicide and an armed coup, but unlike the Decembrists, they considered the implementation of revolutionary changes possible only with the active participation of the people. From this followed the program of their practical activities - first propaganda to attract new members of the secret organization, and in the future - agitation among the masses. Particular importance was attached to this propaganda among the soldiers of the Moscow garrison. For distribution among officers and students, one of the members of the circle, Nikolai Lushnikov, wrote in the spring of 1827 the poems “Friends, not a Russian rules us”, “Dream” and “Song of a Russian”, imbued with revolutionary patriotic ideas.
The circle discussed plans to create a printing house for printing leaflets with an appeal to the people, the idea of creating an illegal magazine was put forward. On the anniversary of the coronation of Nicholas 1 - August 22, 1827 - it was supposed to put a proclamation near the monument to Minin and Pozharsky on Red Square, exposing the crimes of tsarism against the Russian people. Naively exaggerating the role of their circle, six young people dreamed of making it the leader of the Ku-world of revolutionary youth A.S. Pushkin and attracting the disgraced General A.P. Yermolov to participate in the society being created.
As a result of the provocation and extreme recklessness of the actions of its members, the circle was crushed at the very beginning of its activity. On the night of August 15, Lushnikov and the three Kritsky brothers were arrested, and then the other two members of the circle. The plans of the circle of Cretans became for Nicholas I a formidable reminder of December 14th. Without trial, by his personal order, all six members of the circle were imprisoned indefinitely in fortress casemates. Their fate was tragic. Basil of Crete died in 1831 in the Shlisselburg fortress. Mikhail, transferred in 1835 to the Caucasus as a private, was soon killed in battle. Peter Kritsky and Lushnikov in 1834 were transferred to prison companies. Their comrades, Popov and Tyurin, were subjected to years of imprisonment.
The reprisal committed against the members of the Cretan circle did not bring "calm" to the student environment. The continuity of the anti-government trend that did not fade away within the walls of Moscow University caused undisguised fear and hatred in Nicholas I. He demanded from the chief of gendarmes to carefully trace the connections of the "criminals" with their living and dead "friends" (Decembrists). The reports that continued to come from secret informants allowed Benckendorff to consider Moscow University a "hotbed of infection," from where "the forbidden poems of Ryleyev and Pushkin are being spread throughout the country ..." "The Decembrists and Their Time." M.-- L., 1951, p. 232.
Contemporaries unanimously noted the exceptional enthusiasm that the revolutionary events of 1830-1831 aroused among the progressive Russian youth. The Polish uprising made a particularly strong impression. According to one of the students of the Moscow University of those years, the war of tsarism in Poland was considered "unfair, barbaric and cruel: the Poles were seen as suffering for their homeland, and in our government - cruel tyrants, despots" J. Kostenetsky. Memories from my student life. Russkiy Arkhiv, 1887, No. 5, p. 75. The massacre of the insurgent Poland was perceived as a manifestation of the same despotism that crushed the Russian people. The enemy was common, and that is why the sympathy for the rebellious Poles was so great, the Russian student circles were in such close contact ideologically and organizationally with the revolutionary-minded Polish students.
In these dark years of the Nikolaev reaction, when objective conditions for a broad revolutionary struggle did not yet exist in Russia, elements of a revolutionary-democratic ideology were ripening in friendly circles of like-minded people.