Battleship Potemkin history of the uprising. History and ethnology

June 12 "Potemkin", the newest and best battleship of the Black Sea Fleet, went to fire from Sevastopol towards Odessa. His officers already had information about an uprising being prepared on board. Before firing, the commander of the ship, Golikov, wrote off 40 sailors ashore as unreliable, another 50 were written off themselves, not wanting to participate in the expected mutiny.

On June 14, at sea, a group of instigators of a mutiny found fault with the staleness of the meat hanging on deck for airing. Many sailors began to shout that they would not eat borscht with him. Captain Golikov promised to send a sealed bowl of borscht for examination to Sevastopol. He almost managed to remove the conflict. The commanders suggested that everyone who agreed to eat borscht should move to the turret of the 12-inch gun. Almost the entire team moved there except for 20-25 people. Starpom Gilyarovsky ordered the arrest of these latter. The Soviet version that he ordered them to be covered with a tarpaulin and shot is false.

In response to the arrest order, non-commissioned officer Vakulenchuk began to loudly call for a riot. Part of the crew rushed to disassemble the weapons. Vakulenchuk was the first to kill Lieutenant Neupokoev, but then he himself was killed either by Gilyarovsky or by guard sailors. The shooting went up. During it, 6 more officers were killed (including Golikov and Gilyarovsky). Four sailors were also killed by the bullets of their own randomly firing comrades. Either two, or three, or five officers were killed by Afanasy Matyushenko, who became the main leader of the rebellion.

Investigation of the circumstances of the uprising on the battleship "Potemkin" (the first series "Spontaneous rebellion")

"Potemkin" raised a red flag and on June 15 came to the harbor of Odessa, where revolutionary unrest was raging. Here, the revolutionaries Brzhezovsky and Feldman immediately arrived on the ship, who began to direct the riot. Under their leadership, proclamations were written to the population of the city and the troops: with a call to go over to the side of the rebellious sailors in order to achieve Constituent Assembly and cancellation traits of Jewish settlement. The revolutionaries persuaded the sailors to land in the city and capture it, but the majority of the crew stuck to the rebellion only involuntarily and did not dare to do so.

Under the threat of shelling the city from an armadillo, the Odessa authorities allowed the solemn funeral of the murdered Vakulenchuk. Feldman later claimed that 30 thousand people had gathered for them, but, according to the recollections of the writer’s brother who saw the procession Korolenko, only a few dozen people participated in it. After the funeral, the Potemkins clashed with a soldier's patrol, and two sailors were killed in it. In response, "Potemkin" fired three blanks and two live shells at Odessa. One of these two hit the attic of a residential building, the second, breaking through the other house, fell unexploded on the factory territory. There were no casualties just by chance. The arrival of the Potemkin inflamed the revolutionary crowd, and it set off a huge fire in the port warehouse, causing damage to several million rubles.

Riot "Potemkin" was the first military uprising revolutions of 1905.Lenin, having learned about him in Geneva, he sent the Bolshevik M. Vasiliev-Yuzhin to Odessa with the order: to persuade the sailors of the battleship to the landing, capture Odessa and then rebel the whole south of Russia. Vasiliev-Yuzhin was supposed to carry out this grandiose program alone, even without money- and send a small ship for Lenin to Romania, so that he would sail on it to Russia to lead the uprising. However, the Bolshevik emissary was late to events.

On June 17, a Black Sea squadron of four battleships approached Odessa to capture the Potemkin. But he, using his high speed, cut through the squadron twice and went to sea. At the same time, another battleship, George the Victorious, joined him. However, the next day, the sailors of "George" who did not shed the blood of their officers came to their senses, returned to Odessa and surrendered to the authorities.

Potemkin went to the Romanian Constanta, but there they agreed to accept only as military deserters. The rebels did not agree to this. Anarchy grew among them. Without officers, the lower ranks did not cope well with managing a complex ship. On June 22, the Potemkin sailed to Feodosia, presenting an ultimatum: provide water, coal and food - otherwise the city will be destroyed by gunfire. Four live bulls, 200 pounds of flour, 40 pounds of bread, 40 pounds of meat, 30 pounds of cabbage, 30 buckets of wine were brought to the ship, but the Feodosian authorities refused to give coal and water. When trying to capture them by force, the Potemkinites were fired upon by ground forces, losing six people killed and wounded. Some of the rebels demanded to start firing at the city from cannons, but among them the “moderates” nevertheless prevailed, who decided not to do this and again leave for Romania.

June 24 through the mediation of a Bolshevik Christian Rakovsky"Potemkin" surrendered to the Romanian authorities in Constanta. Dividing the ship's cash desk, the sailors dispersed across Europe. The battleship was returned to Russia.

The instigator of the rebellion, Afanasy Matyushenko, began to travel around Europe like a celebrity, meeting with Lenin and Gorky. Even the revolutionary Feldman characterized Matyushenko as a cowardly sadist who used to please officers, then began to kill them without mercy, and at critical moments of the rebellion he panicked almost the most. Eventually Matyushenko returned to Russia as a revolutionary, with a load of bombs, but was arrested in Nikolaev and hanged in the autumn of 1907.

Athanasius Matyushenko in Constanta

Despite the extremely unattractive moral character, Athanasius Matyushenko is heroized not only by communist propaganda, but also by modern Ukrainian nationalists. They argue that "Panas" (like Vakulenchuk) read Ukrainian literature, loved to play the bandura and revolted against the "Muscovite empire" as a patriot of Ukraine.

The scenes of executions by the tsarist troops in Odessa, shown in Eisenstein's film "Battleship Potemkin", are completely fictional.

This page of history has firmly entered all textbooks and has long become a textbook. The very name of the armadillo has become almost a household name.

Uprising on the battleship "Potemkin"

After the execution of a demonstration of workers in St. Petersburg in January 1905, unrest broke out in Russia. Historians will later call this time. By the summer, hundreds of thousands of workers were already on strike.

However - and this was the main factor for the ruling regime - everything remained calm in the army and navy. What a surprise it was when news of a riot came from the recently commissioned battleship Potemkin.

From June 5, the ship's sailors refused to eat borscht, which was made from rotten meat, in which worms had already started. The supply of spoiled meat for the needs of the fleet was then commonplace, because the technologies for its processing remained imperfect.

And, perhaps, everything would have worked out this time if the sailors had not been agitated by the revolutionary propaganda actively waged by the Bolsheviks and members of their allied parties. The boorish, dismissive attitude of the battleship commanders towards their subordinates also played a role. So the sailors, driven to despair, decided on a direct rebellion.

The captain of the ship, Golikov, gathered the crew and, it would seem, almost reassured her, but the defiant statement of the ship's doctor that the meat was of good quality and one of the crew members ate it personally and at the same time praised it became a spark in the barrel of gunpowder. The captain said that the team had grown fat, and made an attempt to punish those who were the first to fall under his hot hand in unrest. Then there was a call to take up rifles and cartridges and beat the boorish commanders. The sailors quickly armed themselves. The captain was shot. The same fate befell several more, especially hated officers. The battleship completely came under the control of the rebellious ordinary sailors.

A logical question arose: what to do next? By the way, later it turns out that not all sailors supported the uprising - only about a third of the battleship's personnel actively participated in the rebellion that opened. The rest silently and passively looked at the tragedy that had unfolded. It was decided to sail the ship to Odessa, where a general strike broke out on the same days. There it was planned to replenish food and fuel supplies. The hottest heads even raved about the beginning of a real revolution there. The red flag, which has become extremely famous, was raised on the ship.

Director Sergei Eisenstein, who made a film about these tragic events in 1925, personally, frame by frame, painted on black and white film the episode with the raising of the flag on the rebellious battleship. Odessa really seethed, but the government troops managed to take control of the situation in a relatively short time. The Potemkin was blockaded in the port, but the troops did not enter the port itself due to the threats of the rebellious sailors to bombard the city if an attempt was made to seize the ship. As a deterrent and confirmation of their words, they actually fired several shells into the city.

The commander of the Black Sea Flotilla, Vice Admiral Chukhnin, received an order from the emperor to suppress the uprising by any means, up to the flooding of the battleship. The squadron, consisting of the battleships "George the Victorious", "Three Saints", "Twelve Apostles" urgently went to sea. "Potemkin" decided to meet the squadron at sea. The sailors prepared for the worst. However, the "Potemkin" passed close under the muzzles of the guns, but there were no shots. The sailors refused to shoot at the rebellious brothers. It was a silent fight. The squadron turned back.

The Potemkin decided to leave for Romania and soon arrived at the Romanian port of Constanta. As a result of the negotiations, the sailors received freedom, the ship passed to Romania, and then was returned to Russia. The leader of the rebels - Matyushenko - divided the ship's cash desk, the sailors scattered around the city. The riot is over. Many remained in exile, most returned to the country only after.

In 1955, the surviving participants in the uprising by that time were awarded.

The dark times of the Russian Empire began in the first decade of the 20th century. Forerunner of the events of 1905-07. became Narodnaya Volya, their daring challenges to power in the 80s of the nineteenth century. Then the power structures had the courage and patriotism to restore order in the country, and the monarchy believed in the prudence of the people. But the audacity shown by the members of Narodnaya Volya, its attractive force of challenge, gave birth to a new generation of rebels who were ready for a spontaneous act, but did not appreciate the consequences. A vivid example of a spontaneous rebellion was shown by the crew of the new battleship Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky in June 1905.

Start

The uprising on the battleship "Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky" was an absolutely spontaneous event. Its start date is June 27, 1905, and the reasons can be listed in a few lines:

anti-war sentiments, caused by defeats on land and at sea in the war with Japan, allowed the Bolsheviks to other revolutionaries to inflame society to riots and provocations;
southern seaside towns with a motley population and its explosive character were a good place for propaganda of rebellion and disobedience, a vivid example is Odessa in the early summer of 1905;
the young crew of the battleship, consisting of 80% of the peasants, whose life was very difficult, but they were not familiar with hunger and deprivation;
impudent behavior and foolishness of officers.

Due to the closure of most retail outlets in Odessa due to the fear of pogroms in June 1905, in the conditions of the southern heat, food was delivered on board the one that could be obtained on the shore. The suppliers, who did not bother to look for good provisions, provoked the sailors by offering them to eat rotten meat. A mutiny broke out on an armadillo while preparing to sight the ship's guns, about 100 miles from Odessa.

Development

The uprising of the sailors could well come to naught, the commander almost managed to bring down the wave of indignation from stale food. But the desire of the officers to punish the sailors without fail, not even the instigators, served as a spark. And at that moment, the elements were unstoppable. The call "We will not let our people be offended!" within an hour he turned into partly shot, partly arrested officers.

Realizing the impossibility of backing down, quartermaster Matyushenko led the rebels. But poor preparation and the obvious untimeliness of the rebellion allowed the “Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky” to cruise the Black Sea for 2 weeks in search of water and fuel. At sea, he met with the Black Sea squadron, but was not attacked. The sailors of the battleships "Catherine II" and "George the Victorious" wanted to join the uprising, but their rebellion was crushed. On the Potemkin itself, the lack of a clear plan and a competent organizer did not give confidence to the participants, and the euphoria of easy freedom and impunity wore off very quickly.

All these events led to pogroms in the port of Odessa, several people were killed.

denouement

After two weeks of sailing, desperate to find understanding and an opportunity to replenish water, food and coal supplies from the Romanian authorities, the crew surrendered in the port of Constanta. As deserters, they received a residence permit. The ship was returned to the Russian Empire on July 9, some of the sailors also returned to their homeland, where they were put on trial.

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The day has passed.

Wrapped up in a smokescreen

The sailor shouted into the shout of the sailors:

The battleship went to Odessa,

Along the harsh ridge

Orange dotted

B. Pasternak

Who among us has not heard about the uprising on the squadron battleship of the Black Sea Fleet "Prince Potemkin-Tavrichesky"! Who does not remember the famous film by Sergei Eisenstein, which has become not only a classic of world cinema, but also a hymn to all revolutions in the world. And therefore, it is not at all accidental that the very uprising on the battleship Potemkin, from the moment of which a hundred years have already passed, we voluntarily or involuntarily perceive it through the famous film.

However, let us ask ourselves the question: why, when and who in general had a need to create this particular film, because the director and screenwriter had at his disposal many other heroic stories from the recent revolutionary past of Russia? Why, then, were the events not of the socialist 1917, but the bourgeois revolution of 1905, sung in the film? Why not "Aurora", but "Potemkin"? We will try to answer this, seemingly, at first glance, completely unimportant question, because it is in it that many secrets of the tragic events of the summer of 1905 lie.

There is no doubt that the film, which claimed a romantic version of one of the bloodiest uprisings of the Russian fleet, was made so talentedly and convincingly that it found its way to the hearts of millions of viewers. However, let's try to figure out how truthfully the famous film reflects the real course of events on the Potemkin. And do we all know what actually preceded the uprising on the armadillo and how it actually took place?

Chapter one. Classic version of rebellion

The history of the uprising on the battleship "Potemkin" in the "classic" presentation of numerous books, publications and textbooks in general terms is as follows. By the middle of 1905, unbearable service conditions had developed on the battleship of the Black Sea Fleet "Potemkin". The command of the ship constantly and quite consciously mocked their sailors. The sailors had a particularly hard time during the training voyage to the Tendrovskaya Spit.

After breakfast, when the tidying began, the sailors allegedly smelled spoiled meat. Then sailor Grigory Kulkov saw hanging meat, teeming with worms. He called his comrades, the excitement began. The chief of the watch, ensign Liventsov, after listening to the sailors, reported to the commander of the ship, Captain 1st Rank Golikov. The ship's commander and senior doctor Smirnov came to the Spardek. The doctor, cutting a piece of meat, said that the meat is good, and not worms crawl on it, but larvae, which are enough to wash with sea water.

The patience of the hungry and bewildered team was overwhelmed by the news that they would be fed worm meat borscht for lunch. Sailors refuse low-quality borscht. The enraged commander builds a team on the deck and orders everyone to eat borscht! In order not to bring things to the point of extreme aggravation, the most conscious Bolshevik sailors, led by Grigory Vakulenchuk, go out of order and say that they agree to eat borscht. They believe that the time for the uprising on the battleship has not yet come and that it must be staged in the entire fleet at the same time, and somewhat later. After the Bolshevik sailors, everyone else agrees to eat borscht. The incident seems to be settled, but the ship's commander suddenly decides for everyone to severely punish the sailors who did not want to dine. He orders to separate part of the team for a public mass execution here on deck. Sailor Vakulenchuk tries to prevent the massacre, but an enraged senior officer mortally wounds the sailor with a revolver.

The murder of Vakulenchuk serves as a signal for an uprising. Vakulenchuk's closest friend and ally, sailor Afanasy Matyushenko, immediately kills a senior officer with a rifle, after which the sailors kill especially hated officers, raise a red flag, elect a sailor's committee to lead the ship and rush to Odessa to help the rebellious workers. There they organize the funeral of Vakulenchuk, fire guns at government troops, and then leave the port to meet the government squadron and, in a silent duel, force the tsarist admirals to admit defeat. However, the officers do not allow the rest of the ships to join the uprising. The battleship "George the Victorious" joins the rebellious battleship, but the traitors of the revolution quickly disable it, and the "Potemkin" is left alone again.

During the week, the Potemkin plows the Black Sea, sowing fear in the souls of those in power. He once again terrifies the royal power in Feodosia, and then, when the coal runs out, he leaves for Romania. There, the Potemkinites go ashore and join the ranks of émigré revolutionaries.

The significance of the uprising on the Potemkin was highly appreciated in a number of his works by V. I. Lenin, as the first uprising against the tsarist regime of an entire military unit in full force. It was V.I. Lenin who characterized the rebellious "Potemkin" as "the undefeated territory of the revolution."

With more or less details, but it is precisely such a “classical” version of the uprising on the famous battleship that has been wandering for more than a century from one scientific work to another. History textbooks and popular books are written on its basis.

Surprisingly, despite the abundance of all kinds of literature about the Potemkin, very little is known about the events on the battleship. And this is no coincidence! We must start at least with the fact that for some reason there are no investigative materials about the uprising on the Potemkin in the archives of the Navy. There are plenty of documents on the uprising on the cruiser Ochakov, on the uprising in Sveaborg and Kronstadt, but there is practically nothing about the Potemkin. Why? Nobody knows. When and who seized the "Potemkin" documents is unknown. Where they are now is also unclear. Apparently, this was done a long time ago, since none of the historians has ever used the materials of the investigation of the “Potemkin case”. Why? Maybe because there is a lot of things that are fundamentally at odds with the official version imposed on us?

That is why practically the only source of information about the uprising on the battleship "Potemkin" has traditionally always been the memories of the participants in those memorable events. They were printed, they were quoted, they were referred to. Surprisingly, the more time passed since the uprising, the more and more memories, and then scientific works (referring to these memories) became like two drops of water similar to the script for the movie about Potemkin. And therefore, starting a conversation about the uprising on the battleship Potemkin, it is best to turn to the memories that were separated from the uprising by very little time.

In 1925, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the revolutionary events in the Black Sea Fleet, the All-Union Society of Political Convicts and Exiles published a book of memoirs of participants in those memorable events, entitled: “The Revolutionary Movement in the Black Sea Fleet in 1905. Collection of memoirs and materials. This small book is interesting for several reasons. Firstly, the memoirs were written before the period of the Stalinist dictatorship, during the period of the so-called party freedoms, and therefore it is completely free from censorship of subsequent years. Secondly, we have before us the memoirs of the direct participants in the uprising, written in the relatively fresh wake of revolutionary events before the release of the famous movie on the wide screen, and therefore free from Eisenstein's version.

Walks, gatherings, rallies, accompanied by clashes with the police. In the spring in Odessa, the "general strike" lasted for more than a month, engulfing all Odessa plants, factories and small workshops, paralyzing city life and greatly complicating the living conditions of the inhabitants. Cossack units were introduced into the city, which patrolled the streets together with reinforced police squads.

Events on the battleship

Photograph of the members of the crew of the battleship Potemkin. In the center of the group is Lieutenant L. K. Neupokoev, one of the victims of the riot.

The battleship "Prince Potemkin Tauride" was at that time the newest and one of the strongest ships of the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The construction of the ship went longer than planned (due to the fire that occurred during the construction in the boiler room and the defects found in the armor of the main battery guns). The formation of the crew of the battleship began simultaneously with its laying. For this, the 36th naval crew was created. At the time of entry into service in May 1905, the crew consisted of 731 people, including 26 officers. Due to prolonged contact with the workers of shipyards, the crew of the ship was decomposed by revolutionary agitation.

Shortly before the events described, the ship successfully passed sea trials and began testing weapons. On June 12 (25), 1905, the battleship, accompanied by destroyer No. 267, which was supposed to set up targets, left Sevastopol and the next day arrived at the traditional fleet training camp for experimental firing from main caliber guns - Tendrovskaya Spit, which was separated from Odessa for about 100 nautical miles. The crew consisted of 781 sailors and coastal specialists who went to sea to eliminate various factory defects, and 15 officers. To monitor the firing on the ship were two specialists who arrived from St. Petersburg - the head of the artillery drawing workshop of the MTC, Colonel I. A. Shults and a member of the commission for naval artillery experiments N. F. Grigoriev.

The course of the uprising

June 14th. The beginning of the uprising. Killing officers. Destroyer Capture No. 267

In the morning, part of the meat brought to the battleship was put into a cauldron for cooking borscht. On June 14 (27), 1905, at 11 o'clock, the signal for dinner was given on the battleship. The team refused to take the borscht bins and ostentatiously ate crackers and washed them down with water. A line formed in the ship's shop. The refusal of the team to eat borscht was reported to the senior officer I. I. Gilyarovskiy and the commander of the ship E. N. Golikov.

The commander ordered to assemble a team. The borscht was examined by the chief doctor of the battleship S. E. Smirnov, who recognized it as good. After that, the commander threatened the sailors with punishment for mutiny and ordered those who want to eat borscht to go to the 12-inch tower. About a hundred people went out of order to the tower. Seeing the stubbornness of the sailors, the commander ordered to call the guard, after which most of the team moved to the tower. When about 30 people remained in the ranks, the senior officer detained the remaining ones, ordered to rewrite their names and bring a tarpaulin. The order to bring a tarpaulin was regarded by the crew as preparation for the execution of the sailors detained in the ranks.

Part of the team ran to the battery deck, broke into the pyramids with rifles and armed themselves. Attempts by the officers to calm the crew and win over the sailors who did not participate in the mutiny did not lead to anything. The first shot fired from the battery deck by G. N. Vakulenchuk killed a senior artillery officer, Lieutenant L. K. Neupokoev. In the ensuing fight, the senior officer mortally wounded G. N. Vakulenchuk with a shot from a rifle. The next moment he was killed by several sailors.

During the uprising, 6 officers were killed: ship commander captain 1st rank E.N. Golikov, senior officer captain 2nd rank I.I. Gilyarovsky, senior artillery officer lieutenant L.K. Neupokoev, senior mine officer lieutenant V.K. Ton, navigation officer ensign N. Ya. Livintsev and lieutenant of the 12th naval crew N. F. Grigoriev, member of the naval artillery experiments commission of the Naval Ministry. S. E. Smirnov, the senior doctor of the battleship, was also killed. The surviving officers were arrested. The rebels were led by the mine-machine quartermaster A. Matyushenko.

The rebels, having decided that the destroyer No. 267 accompanying the battleship, would be able to blow it up, began to fire at the last of the rifles and even from 47-mm guns. The commander of the destroyer, Lieutenant Baron Pyotr Mikhailovich Klodt von Jurgensburg, realizing that there was a riot on the battleship and fire was being fired from it, tried to weigh anchor and leave, but could not do this due to the breakdown of the anchor machine. The rebels landed their crew on board the destroyer, arrested the commander and transferred him to the battleship.

A meeting was organized at which the battleship was declared "the territory of Free Russia." The leaders who spoke urged the crew to continue to carry out their daily duties with no less diligence than before. For the positions of officers, the assembly selected persons from their midst. In particular, senior boatswain F. V. Murzak was chosen for the position of senior officer of the ship.

June 15th. Arrival in Odessa. Contacts with the shore. Pogrom in Odessa port

Odessa port is on fire, set on fire by the mob

June 17. In the sea. Meeting with the Black Sea squadron. Uprising on the battleship "George the Victorious"

June 18th. Two battleships are returning to Odessa. The transition of "George the Victorious" to the side of the legitimate authorities

"Potemkin" and "George the Victorious" returned to the raid of Odessa. Meanwhile, on the "George" that part of the team that refused to rebel began to take over. At that moment, the revolutionary Potemkin represented a danger to the repentant "George". Announcing that the battleship was anchoring for a trip to Sevastopol, the crew of "George" on the evening of June 18 (July 1), 1905, passing by the "Potemkin", anchored between it and the Odessa coast, thus, as if protecting it, and surrendered to the authorities . Now "George the Victorious" posed a threat to the "Potemkin". On the Potemkin, they decided to leave Odessa.

June 19. Leaving for Constanta

June 20th. In Constanta

On the "George the Victorious" sent by the authorities, a military team arrested 67 participants in the uprising. The destroyer Swift arrived from Sevastopol to Odessa, having a command to find and destroy the rebellious battleship. "Swift" was staffed exclusively by officers.

When the Potemkin arrived in Constanta, the Romanian government offered the sailors to surrender on the terms of military deserters, which freed them from forced deportation to Russia, guaranteeing their personal freedom, but forbade supplying the battleship with coal and provisions. The ship commission of the battleship rejected this proposal. On the afternoon of June 20 (July 3), 1905, the Potemkin and destroyer No. 267 left Constanta.

June 21 - 22 - at sea. Arrival in Feodosia

The battleship "Potemkin", which arrived in Constanta

Sailors of the battleship "Potemkin", who went ashore in the port of Constanta

On June 24 (July 7), 1905, the battleship was again in Constanta. The next day, the team was brought ashore, they were guaranteed freedom. The Romanian authorities lowered the St. Andrew's flag on the battleship and raised the Romanian one, and the sailors were transported to the places reserved for their residence.

Destroyer No. 267 left for Sevastopol, not wanting to surrender to the Romanian authorities. Already on July 9, a squadron from Sevastopol arrived in Constanta under the command of Rear Admiral S.P. Pisarevsky, consisting of the battleships Chesma and Sinop, destroyers No. 261, 262, 264, 265. there were ten officers and about 200 sailors on the Potemkin. There was a change of guards, the Romanian flag was lowered, and at 14:10 Andreevsky was raised. A Russian priest served a prayer service and sprinkled the ship with holy water to exorcise the "devil of the revolution."

The ship was in a satisfactory condition, so already on July 11 at 19:20 Pisarevsky's squadron left Constanta. "Sinop" led in tow "Potemkin", on which 47 sailors and conductors returned to Russia, Ensign D.P. Alekseev and Lieutenant P.V. Kalyuzhny. With them was an active participant in the uprising, the machinist F. Ya. Kashugin. He did not have time to leave the ship, and the Russian officers grabbed him.

July 14 "Sinop" entered the "Potemkin" in the South Bay of Sevastopol. The remnants of the former team were removed from the battleship and sent under arrest to the training ship Prut. Even before that, the sailors of destroyer No. 267 were imprisoned in Bombora.

The fate of the rebels

On July 13, 1905, court cases began against the rebels. The trial of the sailors of the Prut training ship, which was trying to join the rebel battleship, was the first to begin in Sevastopol. There were 44 sailors in the dock, 28 were convicted. The court sentenced Alexander Mikhailovich Petrov, 23 years old, Ivan Ferapontovich Adamenko, 24 years old, Dmitry Matveyevich Titov, 25 years old, and Ivan Arefyevich Cherny, 27 years old, to death; 16 sailors - to hard labor; one - to return to correctional convict departments; six - to return to disciplinary battalions and one - to arrest. The rest were acquitted for lack of direct evidence of revolutionary activity.

The death sentence was carried out at dawn on September 6, 1905 near the wall of the Konstantinovskaya battery.

The trial in the case of participants in the uprising on the battleship "George the Victorious" lasted from August 29 to September 8. The leaders of the uprising Semyon Panteleimonovich Deynega, 27, Dorofey Petrovich Koshuba, 26, and Ivan Kondratyevich Stepanyuk, 27, were sentenced to death. The remaining 52 sailors were sent to eternal penal servitude or sentenced to hard labor for a term of 4 to 20 years, to return to prison correctional departments for a term of 3 to 5 years.

On September 16, two active participants in the uprising on the battleship "George the Victorious" were shot (with the help of lawyers, Stepanyuk managed to replace the execution with indefinite hard labor).

Several hundred sailors from the "Prut", "George the Victorious", "Potemkin" and other ships were sent to the Far East in the Amur flotilla. After the end of the service, they were left there to settle.

All the "Potemkin" and the sailors of the destroyer No. 267 who returned to Russia were also put on trial. Initially, they wanted to be tried by a civil court as political criminals. But then the government considered it more profitable to consider the Potemkin uprising as a military crime, and the case was transferred to the naval court of the Sevastopol port. 68 people were judged (54 Potemkin, 13 sailors from the destroyer No. 267 and one sailor from the Vekha vessel), dividing them into four groups. The first included those who belonged to a revolutionary organization and deliberately started an uprising with the aim of overthrowing the existing system (among them - A. N. Zauloshnov, F. P. Lutsaev, T. G. Martyanov); in the second - those who voluntarily or under the threat of violence joined the first, but did not share all of its political convictions (including S. Ya. Guz, I. P. Zadorozhny, F. Ya. Kashugin); in the third - those who helped the rebels under the threat of violence (such as D.P. Alekseev, A.S. Galenko, F.V. Murzak and several sailors); fourth - those who did not take part in the uprising, but did not actively resist it and were on the ship, having the opportunity to flee and surrender to the authorities.

Part of the foremast of the battleship "Potemkin" in the Museum of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol. In 1924, the fore mast was installed as a rear alignment mark on Pervomaisky Island. In 1957, it was removed and cut into pieces, which, like relics, are kept in a number of museums of the former USSR.

The trial of the Potemkinites began on February 17, 1906, after the defeat of the November uprising in Sevastopol. Three Potemkinites - Alexander Nikolaevich Zauloshnov, 22 years old, Fyodor Panteleimonovich Lutsaev, 28 years old, and Tikhon Grigoryevich Martyanov, 23 years old - were sentenced to death. But on the basis of the royal decree of October 21, 1905 on the mitigation of punishments for political crimes committed before the publication of the manifesto on October 17, 1905, the execution was replaced by 15 years of hard labor. Sailors Sergey Yakovlevich Guz, 28 years old, Ivan Pavlovich Zadorozhny, 23 years old, and Feodosia Yakovlevich Kashugin, 27 years old, were also sentenced to hard labor: the first - for ten, the second - for three and a half years, the third - for six years. The rest were sent to prison companies and subjected to other punishments. Ensign D.P. Alekseev, doctor A.S. Galenko and second lieutenant P.V. Kalyuzhny were dismissed from service. On February 23, Vice Admiral G.P. Chukhnin (Commander of the Black Sea Fleet) approved the verdict by Order No. 293.

The convicted "Potemkin" were transported along the route Sevastopol-Samara-Ural-Irkutsk-Aleksandrovsky Central. In Samara, they were joined by convicted participants in the uprising on the cruiser Ochakov. A group of six convicts, including sailors from the Potemkin and Ochakov, sawed through the railing of the wagon along the way, and tried to escape to the Yushala station. Soon they were caught by the guards and shot. All fugitives are buried in the city of Kamyshlov. In 1951, through the efforts of local enthusiasts - the director of the Uralizolyator plant V. Shevchenko and an employee of the city council V. Zavyalov - a monument was erected to them on the territory of the plant.

A. N. Zauloshnov also tried to escape, but was captured. On March 9, 1910, he died in solitary confinement in a Saratov prison.

The trials of the Potemkinites continued until 1917. In total, out of a crew of 784 sailors, 173 people were brought to trial. And only in relation to one - Afanasy Nikolaevich Matyushenko - the death penalty was carried out. In 1907 he illegally returned to Russia, was arrested in Nikolaev as an anarchist and executed in Sevastopol on November 15 of the same year as a Potemkin.

Most of the Potemkinites lived in exile in Romania. Separate groups of sailors left for Switzerland, Argentina and Canada, sailor Ivan Beshov went to Ireland, where he founded the popular Beshoffs chain of eateries.

In total, until March 1917, 245 people returned to Russia (31% of the team). The majority returned to Russia after the February Revolution, which freed the rebel sailors from the judicial responsibility that threatened them.

In 1955, all the living participants in the uprising were awarded the Orders of the Red Star, and two were awarded the Orders of the Red Banner.

The memory of the uprising

In the monuments

Monuments to the rebels

Monument to the Sailors of the Battleship Potemkin
in Zaqatala, Azerbaijan

Monument to the rebels in the city of Odessa, located
on the Customs Square at the main gate of the Odessa port

Monument to the instigator of the uprising non-commissioned officer G. N. Vakulenchuk,
located on the Customs Square at the main gate of the Odessa port

In, and 1985, postage stamps depicting an armadillo were issued in the USSR:

Battleship "Potemkin" on postage stamps

The USSR also issued postcards dedicated to the uprising on the battleship Potemkin:

Battleship "Potemkin" on postcards

The uprising was depicted in