27 (14) in December 1825 on the Senate Square in St. Petersburg there was a revolt of the capital regiments / Image: klin-demianovo.ru
190 years ago, the morning of December 27 1825, officers of the Guards (staff-captains, lieutenants, lieutenants …) and several civilians brought to the Senate Square in St. Petersburg, about three thousand soldiers. Thus began the famous uprising of the Decembrists. Subsequent events have shocked the whole country and largely determined its destiny for decades to come.
For the present king
The pretext for the uprising which occurred on November 19 served as the death of the Emperor Alexander I. succeeded to the throne of the Russian Empire was supposed to be his brother – Constantine, but he was, like Alexander, childless. In addition, married to a Polish noblewoman – and his future children will not be able to inherit the throne. Therefore, even in 1822, Constantine abdicated, and the following year Alexander I secretly is a manifesto on the transfer of the throne of the next most senior brother, Nicholas.
unsuspecting society continues to consider the successor of Constantine. In the army, too, Nicholas did not enjoy love. And 27 November it began an oath to Constantine – the first had to swear allegiance to Nicholas. But there came to light a will of Alexander I – and began a two-week interregnum. As a result, Constantine abdicated on December 14, was to be published manifesto on the accession to the throne of Nicholas. This is a chance to “drive a wedge” between legitimate monarchs and decided to take advantage of the Decembrists – and brought their subordinate troops under the pretext of defending the “right” of the king – t. E. Constantine, who was kept in chains.
If you compare the memories of participants in the events, the eye catches a striking difference in the behavior. Decembrists withdrawal of troops in the area, but then they passively hour after hour standing still and at the best defense – and they do so belatedly. The whole energy of the conspirators was enough for individual impact saber, bayonet and shot at the officers tried to talk with the soldiers. The soldiers shoot with hands and without aiming, more often – up, or even blank.
Nicholas and his supporters – for example, the chief of artillery Ivan Suhozanet, fought past from Pultusk to Paris – even though they do not know what is happening, but do not lose control soldiers available at hand. And act. In the Senate, the Synod, and have time to swear allegiance to the new emperor about eight o’clock in the morning. The generals and regimental commanders and guards swore Nicholas and went on their part – even before the rebels in the eleventh hour, go to the square. The Winter Palace is occupied personally loyal to Nicholas engineers. Orders are given a loud and confident, the troops are actively moved for commanders. Nicholas himself is Preobrazhensky battalion. Cavalry attack. Sent envoys. And, as a decisive argument – it is (and is used) artillery. Even before the uprising planned and executed operation to arrest leaders of the Southern Society of the Decembrists Pavel Pestel.
The suppression of the uprising fired four guns. According Sukhozanet, “inducing guns were not needed, the distance was too close.” The third salvo in place no one is left. In total, the area was made at least seven shots of buckshot – some of which, according to some historians, may be issued up.
Data on casualties vary tenfold – from a few dozen to more than a thousand killed. In Soviet times, considered the most reliable information the police officer Sergei Nikolaevich Korsakov. According to his notes, only 1271 people had been killed, including 39 “in dress coats and uniforms,” 903 “Black” and 9 “female.” 1 General (Miloradovich) and one staff officer (probably Colonel Styurler) – were fatally injured Decembrist Kakhovskii. The lower ranks of the Life Guards Moscow Regiment – killed 93, although estimates of the regimental historian would together killed, wounded and missing no more than 29 people. The same discrepancy notes files are often found in other cases – in the aggregate has killed 189 of the lower ranks to 27, together with the missing.
What would Decembrists
And until now, virtually every participant in those events, their actions and behavior are valued highly emotional and controversial. Decembrists – the rebels and traitors, almost holy “warriors forged from pure steel” (Herzen). Nicholas I – the bloody despot and the gendarme of Europe, the wise and benevolent ruler. Alas, the volume of the article did not reveal all aspects of the movement of the Decembrists (yes it is possible) – only to put some questions.
«fighters against centuries of slavery?” But it is assumed the dictator was to be Prince Troubetzkoy – Gediminas. One of the most active participants in the uprising – Ruric Prince Obolensky. Representatives of such ancient and noble families technically even Romanov could be viewed as a rootless upstart.
Colonel Pestel, the first edition of the Corps of Pages, awarded five battle honors, a century ago called “izuverom- doctrinaire, “which supposedly zaparyval his soldiers,” to teach them to hate the boss “- that is refuted by documents Regiment. At the same time the future revolutionary Republican loved his father, the governor-general of Siberia, and often consulted him. Some relatives cursed the Decembrists – Pestel but Sr. (story about the last conversation Pestel invented Herzen). Another paradox – in 1821 Pestel is unfavorable reports about the Greek rebels – alleged members of the World revolutionary conspiracy.
«The desire to see in his own representative device”? But this does not mean a desire to overthrow the royal power – in fact, after the foreign campaigns of the Russian army of Alexander I looked on as the liberator of Europe from Napoleon. A first idea is to kill the emperor appeared in 1817 – after the announcement that “the Emperor intends to return Poland is conquered our region and leave Warsaw with all the court».
The liberation of the peasants as the main goal? But the first Home Rule “Russian Truth” states: “ the liberation of peasants from slavery should not deprive them of income Nobles from the estate of his received “. The second point is no less revealing: «The release of these things should not make the events and disturbances in the State for which also obliges the Supreme Board of merciless rigor use resists any Violators total serenity». At the same time farmers were exempted would not immediately and most importantly – without land. And according to the decree on free cultivators Decembrists already had the opportunity to release their own farmers.
In general, the plans of the Decembrists best characterized by the phrase: «Distribution of people on the parish unites all the benefits and all conveniently averting all injustice and all 3atrudneniya ». In other words – literally fight for the good against the bad things. With that, among themselves, and the Decembrists it was not close unity of views. Even the proposals for a political system ranged from a constitutional monarchy headed by the federation of thirteen states and two provinces (Nikita Ants, Northern Society) to a unitary republic (Pestel, the Southern Society).
Pestel advocated legal equality all people. But in practice it turned to the confiscation of land from the landlords, the expulsion of all Jews stand apart from Asia Minor – in the case of disobedience, the resettlement of the Caucasian peoples in the central provinces, etc. etc. Any national identity would have destroyed the principles of equal opportunity, “edinorodstva, uniformity and unanimity».
The results of the failed uprising
The Decembrists, like their opponents, were men of his era. Age of romance at the turn of the XVIII century, and cynical pragmatism century the XIX-th. When the secret societies grew, as today’s hobby groups, and Mason socialite became even as a youth, in between card games and other wine drinking and pleasant. An era when the conspirator, businessman and poet Rileyev could be friends with the poet and an agent of the secret police Bulgarin. Enlightenment – a lot of the Decembrists received not just good, but elite education, but in closed institutions that a certain effect on the personality. Although Rileyev, by contrast, was a self-taught. Age of the set of conspiracies and revolutions, from Spain to Greece – where even the generals were intriguing duels and shoot. And one could see young military career of Napoleon artillery lieutenant, and in 1820 – the success of the battalion commander Riego, converted Spain into a constitutional monarchy and became president of the Cortes. “Weight is nothing, it is the fact that they want the person who all” – said Sergey ants, one of the most active members of the Southern Society of the Decembrists.
But time passed. Old enthusiastic boys grew older statesmen. Many of the founders and active members of the Decembrists (the founder of the “Union of Salvation” Alexander Ants Lunin who offered to kill Alexander I) to the time of the uprising has already moved away from the old ideas. Many members of the secret societies safely make a successful career. Some of the former general of the Decembrists took part in suppressing the rebellion. Troubetzkoy, being close to the Senate Square, is not involved in the uprising – for which he is accused of cowardice and even meanness, the praise for sobriety assess the situation. Colonel Moller, the battalion commander, carrying guards at the Winter Palace, just refused to take part in the uprising.
The person of the XXI century may seem incredible, for example, such a situation – the emperor himself, almost alone, “in focus “interrogates the most dangerous conspirators, many of whom have spent many years in the army and then fought bravely. It is worth noting that some of the conspirators previously offered to solve the problem by killing Nicholas. However, participants in the events themselves were brought up in the traditions of the society has the XVIII century, in which the nobility of chivalry primarily required behavior. Perhaps this also explains another “unthinkable” in our view behavior – almost all members of a secret society (except Lunin and Pestel) in interrogations is not concealing anything – including the other members. And earlier Decembrists indignantly rejected the idea of Pestel about the conspiracy, and the creation of his secret police, “the Office of the impenetrable darkness».
The state of secrecy “secret societies” than anything else, the phrase of Pushkin: “But who, apart from the police and the government did not know about it? We are shouting about the plot for all lanes ». And the fact that in 1823 Alexander I makes a clear reference to General Sergey Volkonsky (incidentally, the only really general among the Decembrists) engage in his team, but not controlled by the Russian Empire, shows that the government has long been aware of. Subsequently, part of the contemporary troubled not so much the fact of conspiracy as a fake print Volkonski breech for the opening of government securities. Not surprisingly, for the entire period of the Decembrist movement holistic organizations almost non-existent, and elaborate strict rules in practice is not followed. Some companies even existed in name only. In St. Petersburg almost every Decembrists had a program of action. Pestel, theorist and practitioner of the secret police, will give the man himself, and brought into the secret society.
According to the 19th military article, «if someone citizen army of armed, or predpriimet arms to resist his Majesty, or conspired to commemorate Highness full, or kill, or to inflict him a vio », he helped him, and all should be quartered with confiscation of property. That is, strictly according to the letter of the law then in effect, five hundred hanged and sent to Siberia for two of the uprising, including the Chernigov Regiment in Ukraine – it is very soft. Especially by the standards of later epochs, when the death toll in the “social experiments” tens of thousands, or even millions. But on the other hand, in the age of enlightenment and hope for the progress of all kinds of arrests and punishment untouchable elite of society – the nobility and officers – seemed unheard of crime. And the fate of the soldiers, who were first brought to the area under the canister, and then sent to the Caucasus, then one is not particularly worried.
It is difficult to say whether the Decembrists chance to win, and the more – which way to go when Russia. In our reality the saddest consequence was mutual bitterness for many decades, both the authorities and the opposition. From the first hours of the reign of Nicholas I by example I Make sure there is a huge conspiracy and ill – threatens both life of Nicholas and his family. Equally, the opposition decided that with such a bloody power no other way.
Pushkin in hot pursuit and have very ambitious, and imbalances in the education of the younger generation: «He is in the light, without any thorough knowledge, without any positive rule: every thought is new to him, every news has influenced him. He can neither believe nor object; he becomes blind follower or hot repeater first mate, who wants to be on him the superiority or make him his weapon. “ as an antidote Pushkin proposed reform of public education. Unfortunately, both supporters and opponents of the government are usually preferred more radical Methods.
Sources and Literature:
- Gordin YA Mutiny of reformers: When the fate of Russia. Saint-Petersburg, Amphora, 2015.
- Kersnovskaya AA History of the Russian army. – M .: The Voice, 1993.
- Kiyanskiy Oksana. Pestel. M. Young Guard, 2005.
- Lomovskii E. The most tragic day // Science and Life. – 2014. – № 6.
- Margolis AD On the number of victims of December 14, 1825 // AD Margolis prison and exile in Imperial Russia. Research and archival discoveries. M., 1995.
- The memoirs of the Decembrists. Northern Society // Comp. VA Fedorov. – M .: Publishing House of Moscow University in 1981.
- Pushkin AS About the national education. Op. by http://rvb.ru/
- Suhozanet IO 14 December 1825, the story of the chief of artillery Sukhozanet / Messaging. AI Suhozanet // Russian olden, 1873. – T. 7. – № 3.
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