Investigation and trial of the case of the Decembrists. Verdict to the Decembrists

Arrests of members of secret societies went on until mid-April 1826. A total of 316 people were arrested, but in the case of the Decembrists, 579 people were involved in the investigation and trial (many of them were investigated in absentia), of which 80% were military men. In the Winter Palace, those arrested were interrogated by Nicholas I himself - he acted as an investigator. After interrogation, state criminals were sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress, in most cases with personal notes of the sovereign; in them the highest indicated how this prisoner should be kept. Speransky played an important role in organizing the court.

After the first interrogations of the Decembrists in the Winter Palace by Nicholas I, further interrogations were already conducted in the commandant's house of the Peter and Paul Fortress. As a rule, interrogations were always carried out at night. Not for a minute did not stop walking along the prison corridors, the loud knock of doors being opened and locked, and the clang of shackles did not give rest.

The trial of the Decembrists took place behind closed doors and looked more like a parody than an objective trial: the summoned defendants were offered to testify signatures under their previously given testimony, after which a pre-prepared verdict was announced.

These night meetings of the Commission of Inquiry resembled the courts of the medieval Inquisition. The Decembrists were taken to interrogations blindfolded. In the first hall, they were seated behind the screens with the words: "You can now open." Sitting behind the screens, the Decembrist could hear the shuffling of the feet of numerous parade grounds - adjutants and gendarmes. Laughter was heard, jokes were told, complete indifference to the fate of the Decembrists was emphasized.

Through a tiny hole in the screens, almost made on purpose, one could see how the comrades were being led for interrogation with their hands twisted and with shackles on their hands and feet.

In another room - the same screens, behind them - two burning candles on the table, and not a single person in the whole room.

Finally, the prisoner was led, again wearing a blindfold, into the third room.

And then, after a minute of dead silence, the abrupt order of Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich:

Take off your scarf!

Blinded by many candles, the Decembrist suddenly found himself in front of the Investigative Committee.

In the center sat the chairman of the Investigative Commission, Minister of War A. I. Tatishchev, on the sides - Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, Adjutant General Dibich, Golenishchev - Kutuzov, Benkendorf, Chernyshev, Potapov, Levashev and civil dignitary Prince A. N. Golitsyn.

The Decembrists were deprived of the opportunity to defend themselves. This was not an investigation in the usual sense of a trial, but an interrogation, where investigators were at the same time judges. Here the interrogations begun by Nicholas I in the Winter Palace continued, but only more in-depth, with endless face-to-face confrontations.

The Decembrists behaved differently during the investigation. Some swore loyalty to the existing order and betrayed their comrades. Many repented. Among those who behaved with dignity were M. S. Lunin, I. D. Yakushkin, P. I. Borisov, A. V. Usovsky and others. give detailed information.

Many Decembrists were kept in dark casemates, where not a single ray of light penetrated, they had shackles on their hands and feet, from time to time they reduced their food and drink ration to a hungry norm. Naturally, some of them, in an effort to get rid of the torment, in desperation, under pressure from the committee, took upon themselves something that actually did not exist and about which they had no idea.

The work of the Commission of Inquiry was directed by the emperor himself. As a result, 289 people were found guilty. Of these, 121 were brought before the Supreme Criminal Court. In addition, in Mogilev and Bialystok, another 40 members of secret societies were tried. On July 5, 1826, the court sentenced P. I. Pestel and K. F. Ryleev, who were placed outside the categories. S. I. Muravyov-Apostol, M. P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin and P. G. Kakhovsky to death by quartering. However, the fear of being branded as a savage in enlightened Europe led Nicholas to replace this medieval execution by hanging. Other convicts were divided by the Supreme Court into 11 categories. Of the 72 members of the Supreme Court, only one person was found - Admiral Mordvinov, who openly voted against the death penalty. He found that it contradicted the decrees of Elizabeth Petrovna, the Order of Catherine II and the decree of Paul of April 13, 1799, which once again abolished the death penalty. Mordvinov's opinion was not taken into account.

I category. This category included the Decembrists, who gave personal consent to regicide, and also committed murder on Senate Square: members of the Northern Society - S. P. Trubetskoy, E. P. Obolensky, V. K. Kyuchelbeker, A. I. Yakubovich, Alexander Bestuzhev , Nikita Muravyov, I. I. Pushchin, I. D. Yakushkin, A. P. Arbuzov, D. I. Zavalishin, N. A. Panov, A. N. Sutgof, D. A. Shchepin - Rostovsky, V. A. Divov N. I. Turgenev; members of the Southern Society - Matvey Muravyov - Apostle, A. P. Baryatinsky, A. V. Poggio, Artamon Muravyov, F. F. Vadkovsky, V. L. Davydov, A. P. Yushnevsky, S. G. Volkonsky and V. I. Povalo - Shveikovsky; members of the Society of United Slavs - brothers Peter and Andrey Borisov, I. I. Gorbachevsky, M. M. Spiridonov, V. A. Bechasnov, Ya. M. Andreevich and A. S. Pestov. Only 31 people, of which N. Turgenev was abroad and was convicted in absentia.

All of them are declared the same sentence: the death penalty by beheading.

II category. Among them: M. S. Lunin, brothers Nikolai and Mikhail Bestuzhev, N. V. Basargin, K. P. Torson, I. A. Annenkov, V. P. Ivashchev, Dr. F. B. Wolf and others. All of them they had to put their heads on the executioner's chopping block - such was the rite of political death - after which it was announced to them that they were sentenced to eternal hard labor. All of them were accused of agreeing with the intent of regicide.

III category- two people: V. I. Shteingel and G. S. Batenkov, sentenced to eternal hard labor.

IV category- 16 people, including: M. A. Fonvizin, P. A. Mukhanov, N. I. Lorer, poet A. I. Odoevsky, M. M. Naryshkin, P. S. Bobrischev - Pushkin, A. M. Muravyov, brothers Alexander and Pyotr Belyaev and others. Sentence - 15 years of hard labor, after which - an eternal settlement in Siberia.

V category- 5 people: Mikhail Kuchelbeker, brother of the lyceum comrade Pushkin, A. E. Rosen, N. P. Repin, M. N. Glebov and M. A. Bodisko 2nd. All of them were sentenced to 10 years of hard labor and after that to eternal settlement.

VI category- two people, A. N. Muravyov and Yu. K. Lyublinsky: 6 years of hard labor and a settlement.

VII category- 15 people sentenced to 4 years of hard labor and settlement. Among them were: A. V. Entaltsev, Z. G. Chernyshev, P. F. Vygodovsky, A. F. Briggen and others.

VIII category- 15 people. Sentence: deprivation of ranks and nobility and exile to the settlement.

IX category- 3 people sentenced to deprivation of rank and nobility and surrender to soldiers in especially distant garrisons.

X rank- 1 person, Mikhail Pushchin, brother of the lyceum comrade Pushkin, sentenced to deprivation of rank and nobility and demoted to soldiers with the right to long service.

XI category- 8 people. Sentence: deprivation of rank and demotion to the soldiers with the right to length of service.

The verdict struck everyone with its terms. Nicholas I dictated it to the Commission of Inquiry, but the Supreme Court did not judge, but only unconditionally, without any criticism, accepted what was dictated to him.

In order to show the deep repentance of the prisoners, who seemed to admit the fallacy of their speech, and the mercy shown to them by the tsarist authorities, the latter officially distributed a document through the police and the provincial administration, which consisted of three letters from the arrested - Ryleev's suicide letter to his wife, Obolensky's letter to his father and a letter of repentance Yakubovich to his father.

On the night before the execution, Archpriest P. N. Myslovsky, archpriest of the Kazan Cathedral, who had been appointed by him as confessor, came to those sentenced to death. He confessed, admonished and exhorted the executed. When Myslovsky left them a few hours later, he was crying. With difficulty, he said: They are terribly guilty, but they were mistaken, and were not villains! .. We must pray that God would soften the heart of the king! He further added that Ryleev was a true Christian and thought that he was doing good, and was ready to lay down his soul for his friends.

On the night of July 13, 1826, in the courtyard of the Peter and Paul Fortress, a rite of civil execution was performed on those convicted in 11 categories. They were read a verdict on punishment measures, as a sign of demotion, their uniforms and orders were torn off and thrown into blazing fires, sawn-off swords were broken over their heads. In the early morning of the same day, five Decembrists were executed on the rampart of the fortress crownwork.

In the early morning of July 13, on the crown work of the Peter and Paul Fortress, by the light of fires, an execution took place. On the chest of the condemned hung boards with the inscription: Kingslayer. By royal command, a board with the name and surname of Ippolit Muravyov-Apostol was also nailed to the gallows. Ryleev, Kakhovsky and Muravyov-Apostol's ropes broke during the execution and they fell. According to the priest Myslovsky, Muravyov, whose eyebrow was cut during the fall, exclaimed: My God! And they don’t know how to hang decently in Russia! After a long delay, the execution was repeated. The governor-general immediately reported this to the king.

Special commissions and courts that considered the cases of soldiers who participated in the uprising issued cruel sentences: about 180 people were driven through the ranks and sent to hard labor, 23 were punished with sticks and rods. Of the rest, a consolidated regiment was formed and sent to the army in the Caucasus. The entire Chernigov regiment was sent there.

Investigation and trial of the Decembrists

On December 12, Nicholas I ordered the arrest of Nikita Muravyov, but they managed to find him only on the 25th, since he was on a four-month vacation and spent it on his estate. But on December 14, during the persecution of the rebels, retreating from the Senate Square, they managed to detain D. Shchepin-Rostovsky, N. Panov and A. Sutgof - active members of the Northern Society. From here, the whole ball began to unwind. The first arrested pointed to a dozen other Decembrists, among whom they mentioned Ryleyev as the leader of the society. Late in the evening of the same day, Kondraty Fedorovich was arrested and, during interrogation, mentioned the dictator of the uprising, Trubetskoy. The investigation was successfully gaining momentum, on December 14-15, 56 people were seized. It is indicative and instructive how the growing wave of arrests affected people, forcing them to forget both family feelings, and friendships, and simply mercy. Here we must recall the different understanding of honor and duty by "children" and "fathers". For the first, the duty of an honest man was to protect the freedom of citizens and the progress of the country from the despotism of the authorities. The second considered loyalty to the oath and the sovereign as the main feature of an honest citizen. As a result, Senator D. Lanskoy and Adjutant General Shcherbatov hastened to extradite their nephews to the government, and General Depreradovich himself brought his Decembrist son to the Winter Palace.

The bulk of the revolutionaries were arrested in the second half of December 1825 - the first half of January 1826. The authorities acted on a large scale, preferring to arrest a dozen innocent people than to leave at large even one guilty person. As soon as the name of Junker Skaryatin or Lieutenant Krasnoselsky was heard during the investigation, two Skaryatin brothers and three Krasnoselsky brothers were immediately brought to St. Petersburg.

The seizing of the guilty and the innocent left and right led to the fact that 64 of those arrested had to be released soon after. For various reasons, some members of secret societies were also released. A.S. Griboyedov - at the request of his relative, Field Marshal Paskevich; grandchildren of Suvorov and Wittgenstein - for the merits of their grandfathers; son of the personal secretary of Empress Maria Feodorovna - at her request; M.F. Orlov - at the tearful petition of his brother Alexei.

In the hands of the investigation, despite all his efforts, very few secret documents of the Decembrists fell into the hands of the investigation. There were several reasons for this. P.D. Kiselev and A.P. Yermolov, having received orders for the arrest of N.V. Basargin and A.S. Griboedov, warned them about this and gave them the opportunity to burn the papers that compromised the latter. In St. Petersburg, Yermolov reported the following about Griboyedov: “He was taken in such a way that he could not destroy the papers that were with him, but those were not found with him, except for very few, which I am forwarding with this.”

After the first interrogations, the arrested are escorted to the commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress A.Ya. Sukin. In the notes sent to Sukin by Nicholas I, the conditions for the detention of one or another prisoner were stipulated. These conditions did not differ in great variety: “put them under strict supervision at their discretion”, “keep them strict, allowing them to write what they want”, “chain and keep strict”, “shackle in leg and hand irons, treat them strictly and not otherwise contain like a villain."

However, despite the wave of arrests that swept through, the authorities did not immediately manage to arrest all the actors in the events of December 14 and 29. So, until the end of January 1826, they did not know anything about the existence of the Society of United Slavs, and therefore proceeded to arrest its members only after some time. In addition, three active participants in the uprisings - N.A. Bestuzhev, V.K. Kuchelbecker and I.I. Sukhinov - made attempts to run across the cordon. Bestuzhev was detained in Kronstadt, dressed in a sheepskin coat and with fake documents in the name of the sailor Vasily Efimov. Kuchelbecker was taken to Warsaw, where he was looking for his lyceum friend S.S. Esakov, hoping to cross the border with his help. Sukhinov was arrested in Chisinau wearing a particular dress and a false passport.

All three attempts to escape could have been successful if not for the indecision and hesitation of the Decembrists, most likely caused by a sense of duty and camaraderie, a desire to share the fate of like-minded people. This can also explain the refusal of I.I. Pushchin to use a foreign passport, which was brought to him on December 15 by lyceum comrade A.M. Gorchakov. Could run N.V. Basargin, who served as a senior adjutant to P.D. Kiselev, and M.S. Lunin, whom the Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, who did not want to extradite his adjutant, even sent in April 1826 to the border area "to hunt bears." Only N. Turgenev managed to avoid arrest, who from 1824 was abroad, and from 1826 he moved to the position of an emigrant.

The first interrogations of the Decembrists began on December 14 and lasted 17 hours without a break. The authorities were in a hurry, fearing the start of an uprising in Ukraine and the appearance of the Caucasian Corps.

Already in the evening of December 14, Nicholas I compiled the Secret Investigative Committee, which included: Minister of War Tatishchev, the new St. Petersburg Governor-General P.V. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich, A.Kh. Benkendorf, Golitsyn, V.V. Levashov, A.N. Potapov, A.I. Chernyshev and I.I. Dibich. In other words, 8 generals and 1 civilian (Golitsyn). At the end of the 19th century, even Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich was indignant about the composition of the investigators: “You are amazed at the insignificance of these investigators, with the exception of a very few.” However, the point is not the insignificance of the emperor's chosen ones. Mikhail Pavlovich, for example, turned out to be a judge in his own case, because the uprising of December 14 was directed against the Romanov family, to which he belonged. Count Zakhar Chernyshev was convicted only because he bore the same last name as investigator A.I. Chernyshev, who had long and stubbornly laid claim to the vast possessions of Zakhar. Upon learning of this story, A.P. Yermolov reasonably remarked: “No, this is not lawless: after all, according to ancient custom in Russia, the fur coat, hat and boots of the executed belong to the executioner.” And the inclusion of P.V. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a famous bastard and one of the murderers of Pavel I. Once he tried to shame N. Bestuzhev by asking: “Tell me, captain, how could you dare to commit such a heinous attempt?” Bestuzhev instantly retorted: “ I'm surprised you're talking to me."

Those arrested were interrogated twice, first at the Winter Palace and then at the Investigative Committee. In Zimny, they were usually met by the emperor's furious scolding: "Bastards, scoundrels, villain, rubbish!"

The Investigative Committee adhered to a very sophisticated tactics of conducting the case. Having received the materials of the first interrogations in his hands, he had the opportunity to exert strong pressure on those arrested, since even before the start of the work of the Committee, the composition and structure of secret societies, their goals and objectives were revealed.

As a result, Trubetskoy named 79 names of members of the secret society, Obolensky - 71, Burtsov - 67, Pestel - 17. After a series of meetings with the emperor, the Investigative Committee decided to focus on the following areas: investigation of the Decembrists' foreign relations; investigation of their links with Polish revolutionaries; revealing secret societies in the Caucasus and Ukraine; clarification of involvement in the conspiracy of Speransky, Mordvinov; revealing plans for regicide.

The romantic attitude of the Decembrists made them almost defenseless during the investigation: firstly, many of them had a sense of civic responsibility and honor of the nobility in the face of the Investigative Committee manifested itself in servility, the habit of obeying superiors in rank, especially the emperor. Secondly, the same feelings forced another part of the progressives to be frank with the authorities, since civic responsibility implied the need to answer for their actions, no matter what the retribution for them threatened. The code of noble honor in the understanding of the Decembrists demanded not only not to hide behind the backs of others, but also not to shield these "others".

Contributed to the confessions of the arrested and the constant threats of investigators to torture them. A. Yakushkin later admitted: "Threats of torture for the first time embarrassed me". True, torture as such was not used against the Decembrists, but they were successfully replaced by hand and foot shackles, in which the defendants were periodically shackled.

Long-term (from two to four months) detention in shackles broke Andreevich, Obolensky, Yakubovich, Semenov, Volkonsky. You can also add sleep deprivation, the darkness and dampness of the casemates, as well as the fact that the Decembrists were in the described position for six months. After all this, one can assess the validity of the words of N.V. Basargin, who wrote: “Those who have not experienced serfdom in Russia cannot imagine that gloomy, hopeless feeling, that moral decline in spirit, I will say more, even despair, which does not gradually, but suddenly takes possession of a person who has crossed the threshold of a casemate.”

But even in such conditions, many Decembrists tried not to surrender to the mercy of the winner. It is difficult to say how and why D. Zavalishin chose his method of defense, but this method was interesting. At first, he managed to convince the investigators that he was not a member of a secret society, and he was released. Being arrested a second time, Zavalishin stubbornly stood by the fact that he penetrated society in order to extradite him to the government. Batenkov and Pushchin adhered to similar tactics.

By the summer of 1826, documents on the case of the Decembrists were finally prepared and sent to the emperor. In the annexes to the capital's newspapers dated June 12-13, the "Report of the Investigative Commission" was published, followed by the "Code of testimonies of members of a malicious society on the internal state of the state" and "Alphabet for members of former malicious secret societies."

On July 1, 1826, the Supreme Criminal Court was established to pass judgment on the Decembrists. The investigation failed to present the December 14 uprising as a performance of regicides and muffle the political significance of this event, which means that now this duty was assigned to the judges. By order of Nicholas I, the court included 72 people, among whom were Speransky and Mordvinov. This was a vile revenge of the monarch on people who shared many of the views of the Decembrists and were planned by them to be part of the new government.

The Supreme Criminal Court worked for forty days. Only four meetings were allotted for passing all sentences, that is, the Decembrists were tried practically in absentia. On July 12, the emperor was presented with a verdict prepared on the instructions of the court by Speransky. The court recommended that the emperor sentence 36 people to death; 19 - to life hard labor; 40 - to hard labor (from four to twenty years); 18 - to life exile; 9 - demoted to the soldiers.

The emperor, as promised, showed "mercy", agreed to the execution of "only" five Decembrists and replaced them with hanging. Nicholas I personally painted how the ceremony of punishing the rebels should look like. In the early morning of July 13, 1826, the rite of "execution" was performed on the convicts. In accordance with the ritual developed by the emperor, the convicts were put on their knees and the profos (an official in military units who performed police duties) broke a sawn-off sword over their heads as a sign of demotion. This was done in a hurry and so ineptly that several Decembrists had their heads hurt. After the execution of the “execution”, all those who were subjected to it were dressed in prison clothes and again placed in the casemates of the Peter and Paul Fortress. The uniforms and insignia plucked from the Decembrists were burned at the stake.

At four o'clock in the morning of the next day, those sentenced to be hanged were led out into the courtyard of the Peter and Paul Fortress. By order of Nicholas I, the five condemned to death (Pestel, Ryleev, S. Muravyov-Apostol, Bestuzhev-Ryumin and Kakhovsky) were buried alive in the fortress church, and then taken to the place of execution. They were dressed in long white shirts or shrouds, on each chest hung a plaque with the inscription: "State criminal." Before the gallows, the convicts embraced for the last time, and then the execution was to go according to plan ...

But when the benches were knocked out from under the feet of the convicts, the ropes broke and three fell into the pit. Yakushkin later wrote that one of them, S. Muravyov-Apostol, broke his leg in a fall, but still managed to joke: “Poor Russia! And we don’t know how to hang decently!”

There were no spare ropes, we had to send them to the nearest shops, which were closed due to the early time. In the end, the rite of execution was repeated once more, and in the course of its execution, every half an hour, a courier was sent to Tsarskoe Selo, where the emperor was, with the news that everything was going well.

On the afternoon of July 14, 1826, Nicholas I held a "cleansing service" on Senate Square. The troops brought to the square were built in the same way as they stood on the day of December 14, 1825. After the end of the prayer service, an order was read to the troops, which said: “Now the trial of them and the execution they are subject to have been fulfilled, and the faithful regiments have been cleansed of the infection that threatened us and all of Russia.”

The Decembrists were arrested until mid-April 1826. A total of 316 people were arrested. In total, more than 500 people were involved in the Decembrists' case (many of them were investigated in absentia). 121 people appeared before the Supreme Criminal Court. In addition, forty members of secret societies were tried in Mogilev, Bialystok and Warsaw.

Usually the Committee interrogated the accused first orally, and then the same questions were sent to the casemate, where the prisoner answered them in writing.

The course of the investigation was tirelessly monitored by the tsar himself, who personally interrogated in the early days of many leaders of the Northern Society. The fear he experienced on December 14, the fear that the investigation might miss one of the rebels, forced Nicholas I to stoop to the role of a police investigator. Pleasing the emperor, the members of the Committee in every way sought repentance from the Decembrists and sought to extort recognition by threats and false promises.

As a result, the arrested, not feeling any public support behind the walls of the fortress and frightened by the fear of torture, often lost heart and slandered themselves and their comrades.

Although the government tried to clarify the question of the sources of the “freethinking” of the members of the secret society, perhaps the main task of the Committee was to present all the Decembrists as regicides. The entire course of the investigation was subordinated to this goal, as P. Pestel's closest assistant N.I. Laurer wrote: “The Investigative Committee was biased from beginning to end. Our accusation was illegal, the process and the very questions were rude, deceitful and deceitful.”32. "A Sip of Freedom" (author - Bulat Okudzhava) - "Political Literature Publishing House", 1971, (introductory article by Doctor of Historical Sciences S. Volk), pp. 12-13.

The behavior of the Decembrists during the investigation was different. Many of them did not show revolutionary fortitude, lost ground under their feet, repented, wept, betrayed their comrades. But there were also cases of personal heroism, refusal to testify and extradite the conspirators. Among those who were persistent and behaved with dignity were Lunin, Andreevich - the second, Pyotr Borisov, Usovsky, Yu. Lyublinsky, Yakushkin. After interrogations, "state criminals" were sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress, in most cases with the tsar's notes, which indicated the conditions under which this prisoner should be kept. The Decembrist Yakushkin was sent with the following royal note: treat him strictly and keep him as a villain.”33. "Decembrists" (author - academician M.V. Nechkina) - publishing house "Nauka", 1984, p. 130.

When P. Pestel was arrested, he told his comrade Sergei Volkonsky: "Don't worry, I won't reveal anything, even if they tear me to shreds." But, having learned that the investigators were well aware of the affairs and plans of the secret society, P. Pestel lost heart and even turned to General Levashov with letters of repentance. But then he regained his composure and to the end held himself with dignity, despite the weakened strength.

Two points especially aggravated the guilt of P. Pestel: Russkaya Pravda and plans for regicide. That is why in the notes of Nicholas I he is called "a villain in all the power of the word, without the slightest trace of repentance."34. "A Sip of Freedom" (author - Bulat Okudzhava) - "Political Literature Publishing House", 1971, (introductory article by S. Volk, Doctor of Historical Sciences), p. fourteen.

P. Pestel first answered all questions with complete denial. “Not belonging to the society mentioned here and not knowing anything about its existence, all the less can I say what its true goal is striving for and what measures it envisaged to achieve it,” he answered, for example, when asked about the goal of a secret society. Later, betrayed by many, he was forced to give detailed answers.

The Decembrist Lunin was steadfast during interrogations. “I was not accepted by anyone as a member of a secret society, but I myself joined it,” he proudly answered the investigators. “I consider it contrary to my conscience to open their names (Decembrists), because I should have discovered Brothers and friends.”

But at the same time, many investigative cases of the Decembrists contain numerous repentant appeals to the tsar and members of the commission, tearful letters from repentant "criminals", and oaths to earn forgiveness. Why didn't so many members of the secret society stand up? The answer seems clear. There was no revolutionary class behind the participants in the uprising of December 14 imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Outside the prison walls, they felt no support, and many lost heart. There have also been cases of suicide in the prison. So, the Decembrist Bulatov smashed his head against the wall of the prison cell. Chaining "in iron" was a form of physical torture (other forms, apparently, were not used), but moral torture was no less severe - intimidation, reassurance, influence on the family, threats of the death penalty, and so on.

The tsarist authorities were interested in widely informing the noble society about the supposedly “deep repentance” of the prisoners, who recognized the fallacy of the speech and praised the mercy of the tsarist government. For this purpose, for example, one document was widely distributed through the police and the provincial administration, which was a combination of three letters - Ryleev's suicide letter to his wife, the Decembrist Obolensky's letter to his father, and Yakubovich's penitential letter, also to his father. All three letters were distributed by the government in an official way. This is clearly evidenced by a special "file" of the St. Petersburg civil governor's office, in which these letters of repentance are neatly filed with official reports on the investigation and trial, excerpts from Senate statements and other documents.

In essence, there was no trial of the Decembrists. The parody of the trial took place behind closed doors, in deep secrecy. The summoned Decembrists were hastily offered to testify their signatures under the testimony during the investigation, after which they read a pre-prepared verdict and called the next "discharge". “Have we been judged? the Decembrists asked later. “And we didn’t know that it was a trial.”

Five Decembrists were placed "out of the ranks" and sentenced to be quartered. But Nicholas I replaced the quartering with hanging.

An extract from the protocol of the Supreme Criminal Court dated July 11, 1826 read: “Consistent with the high monarchical mercy shown in this case ... The Supreme Criminal Court, according to the highest authority presented to it, sentenced: instead of the painful death penalty by quartering, Pavel Pestel, Kondraty Ryleev, Sergey Muravyov-Apostol , Mikhail Bestuzhev-Ryumin and Pyotr Kakhovsky, by the verdict of a certain court, hang these criminals for their grave atrocities.

The execution took place on July 13 at the crown of the Peter and Paul Fortress. On the chest of those sentenced to hanging hung boards with the inscription: "Regicide".

The head of the kronwerk later said: “When the benches were taken away from under the feet, the ropes broke and three criminals (Ryleev, Kakhovsky and Muravyov) collapsed into the pit, breaking through the boards laid above it with the weight of their bodies and fetters ... However, the operation was repeated this time too done well."

All other imprisoned Decembrists were taken to the courtyard of the fortress. All sentences were accompanied by demotion, deprivation of ranks and nobility: swords were broken over the convicts, epaulettes and uniforms were torn off them and thrown into the fire of blazing bonfires.

Over 120 Decembrists were exiled for various periods to Siberia, to hard labor or to a settlement. Demoted to the ranks were exiled to the army in the Caucasus. There were Decembrists who visited both Siberia and the Caucasus (Lorer, Odoevsky and others): after serving a certain term of punishment in Siberia, they were identified as “mercy” as privates in the Caucasian army, where military operations were carried out, under bullets.

To the number of those executed should be added the Decembrist soldiers, flogged to death, some of whom were driven through the ranks twelve times, that is, they received twelve thousand gauntlets. Less active soldiers were stripped of their insignia and exiled to the Caucasus. The entire penal Chernihiv regiment was also sent there. Documents were found in the Siberian archives showing that some soldiers were exiled to Siberia, and the authorities took all measures to ensure that they did not encounter the exiled Decembrists there.

Shipping to Siberia began in July 1826. Hard labor was served at first mainly in the Nerchinsk mines. Many of the Decembrists were visited here by their wives. They did not take advantage of the permission of Nicholas I to remarry and abandoned their free and well-to-do noble life for the sake of their Decembrist husbands.35. "Decembrists" (author - academician M.V. Nechkina) - publishing house "Nauka", 1984, p. 130-136.

As the wives of exiled convicts, they were deprived of civil rights and noble privileges. The first to arrive at the Nerchinsk mines at the beginning of 1827 were E.I. Trubetskaya, M.N. Volkonskaya, A.G. Muraviev. After them came A.I. Davydova, A.V. Entaltseva, E.P. Naryshkina, A.V. Rosen, N.D. Fonvizina, M.K. Yushnevskaya, as well as Polina Gobl (P.E. Annenkova) and K. Le-Dantyu (K.P. Levashova).36. "Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary" (editor-in-chief A.M. Prokhorov) - publishing house "Soviet Encyclopedia", 1986, p. 369. The selfless act of the wives of the Decembrists was of great social significance.

In 1856, after the death of Nicholas I, in connection with the coronation of the new emperor Alexander II, a manifesto was issued on the amnesty of the Decembrists and permission for them to return from Siberia. Only forty people remained among the living Decembrists. About a hundred people have already died in hard labor and in exile.37. "Decembrists" (author - academician M.V. Nechkina) - publishing house "Nauka", 1984, p. 140.

How to explain these confessions, this purely Russian frankness,
not allowing an insidious, treacherous purpose in interrogators?
A.V. Poggio. "Notes"

The behavior of the Decembrists during the investigation and trial, perhaps, somewhat lowers them in our eyes. M. Lunin behaved heroically, I. Pushchin, S. Muravyov-Apostol, N. Bestuzhev, I. Yakushkin, M. Orlov, A. Borisov, N. Panov behaved with dignity.
However, almost all the rest (not excluding Pestel and Ryleev) repented and gave frank testimony, even betraying persons not disclosed by the investigation: Trubetskoy named 79 names, Obolensky - 71, Burtsev - 67, etc. Here, of course, objective reasons affected: "fragility", as M.V. Nechkin, noble revolutionary; lack of social support and experience in combating the punitive power of the autocracy; a kind of code of noble honor, obliging the vanquished to humble themselves before the victor-sovereign. But, without a doubt, the subjective qualities of such different people as, for example, Trubetskoy, who was instinctively devoted to servility, and the impudent, independent Lunin, also appeared here.

O.V. Edelman.
Memoirs of the Decembrists about the investigation as a historical source

As you know, the main sources of information about the Decembrist movement are the materials of the investigation of them and the memoirs and notes of the Decembrists themselves. Both of these types of sources are quite difficult to study and pose a number of specific source studies problems that cannot be considered exhausted, despite the vastness of the literature on the Decembrists. The ability to compare both types of sources with each other and identify their informational capabilities is provided by an analysis of that part of the Decembrist memoir heritage, which is devoted to the actual story of the investigation. This kind of research has not yet been carried out, although a rare work on the Decembrists did not compare information from investigative materials and memoirs, but as a rule, the object of consideration was various aspects of the history of secret societies and Decembrist uprisings, the content of their programs. The history of the actual investigation attracted less attention, and the researchers who turned to it, using information from memoirs to clarify or refute these sources of official origin, did not set a special goal to analyze the memoirs themselves. However, it is precisely the appeal to the history of the investigation that provides an excellent opportunity to evaluate the memoir as a whole, the features of the memory and the manner of presentation of the author, since the course of the investigation is known to us quite accurately, unlike other plots on the history of Decembrism.

All descriptions of the investigation by the Decembrists have much in common, and not only in terms of facts, which is natural, but also in the very approach to narration. Starting a story about this dramatic period of their lives, the Decembrists clearly preferred to describe prison life, their hardships and experiences, paying much more attention to them than to the actual investigation. This is due to a certain polemical orientation of the notes and the desire of the authors to write not so much their biography as the history of the movement in which they participated; romantic literary stereotypes of that era, suggesting a story about the suffering of a noble prisoner, the injustice of his oppressors, and not about much more mundane things - the course of interrogations in the Investigative Committee, the content of the questions asked and answers to them, explaining the motives of behavior. In addition, for the Decembrists, memories of the circumstances of the investigation were among the difficult and unpleasant. As a result of all this, E.P. Obolensky, N.R. Tsebrikov, A.V. Poggio, although they told about the imprisonment in the fortress, but the investigation procedures were not touched at all; M.S. Lunin, M.A. Fonvizin, A.M. Muravyov, V.I. Steingel (with the exception of one episode) described him by summarizing the memories of his comrades and avoiding talking about himself personally. Finally, it may not be accidental that S.G. Volkonsky, which he did not finish, break off just at the scene of the first interrogation.

Turning to the actual investigation, the authors of the notes, as a rule, cover its beginning in more detail: the arrest, the first interrogations at V.V. Levashov, a conversation with the tsar (if he took place), an impression made for the first time by the appearance of the meeting of the Investigative Committee. Speaking of interrogations, the Decembrists tried to mention episodes that testify to the courage of the prisoners, their resourceful and daring answers, as well as the partiality of the Committee and its desire to get material to convict the arrested at all costs.

It is the denunciation of the dishonesty of the investigation that is the central theme of almost all the notes. For the most part, the Decembrists unanimously report that during interrogations in the Investigative Committee they were presented with fictitious testimonies of their comrades. According to N.A. Bestuzhev, “The Committee used all impermissible means<...>knowing our friendship with him, we were often asked on his behalf about such things that we had never thought of before. A.M. Muraviev testifies: “All means seemed good for them. They presented false testimony, resorted to threats of confrontation, which then did not occur. Most often they assured the captive that his devoted friend confessed everything to them. Accused, hounded, tormented without mercy or mercy, in dismay gave his signature. When his friend was brought into the meeting room, he could not confess anything, since there was nothing. According to V.I. Steingel, "restored one against the other, announcing that he was showing in his accusation"; N.I. Laurer writes about "deceptive, deceitful" questions, M.S. Lunin and M.A. Fonvizin - about the testimony invented by the investigation. S.P. Trubetskoy expresses himself more cautiously and remarks that “some of the rumors that were about me in the Society of Slavs<...>, have been offered as members' testimony".

The investigation of the Decembrists was organized in such a way that during oral interrogations the Committee asked questions, which were then sent to the Decembrist in writing to the casemate. Oral and written questionnaires were largely the same. Thus, the question points available in the investigative files and the written answers to them quite fully reflect the course of the inquiry. And from them it is clear that when drawing up questions Committee officials not only did not falsify the testimony of other Decembrists when they were presented to the person under investigation, but did not even express them, but rewritten verbatim with the replacement of the first person by the third and, if necessary, omitting the names of the authors of the testimony and the persons mentioned. There are no cases when fictitious testimonies of comrades that are absent in their investigative files were presented to anyone.

We have the opportunity to compare the story about false testimony in the memoirs of N.V. Basargin with specific documents of the investigation. The Decembrist, having reported how during the interrogation in the Committee, General A.I. Chernyshev listed to him the persons who called him a member of the secret society, adding in brackets: "He lied all this." However, the question points sent later to Basargin contain such a list of persons; they all really showed that he was a member of the Southern Society. Even more remarkable is the passage from Basargin's memoirs, where he tells the story of M.A. Bestuzhev-Ryumin and M.M. Naryshkin. According to him, Bestuzhev-Ryumin received from the Committee a question about the content of his conversation with Naryshkin about plans for regicide and shared his hesitations with Basargin, a neighbor in the casemate: Bestuzhev believed that no one except Naryshkin himself could tell the investigation about this conversation, but he could not understand to what extent Naryshkin's frankness extended, and fearing to harm him, he confirmed what was said in general terms. And soon, to his horror, he was summoned to a confrontation with Naryshkin, who denied his knowledge of the intention of regicide. From the documents of the investigation it is clear that this episode really took place, the question was sent to Bestuzhev on May 8, and on May 10, not allowing a confrontation, he took back his testimony, citing that he did not remember exactly the conversation mentioned. The difference with Basargin's story is that in the question Bestuzhev received, it was indicated that the investigation had the testimony of M.I. Muravyov-Apostol, to whom Bestuzhev-Ryumin once retold a conversation with Naryshkin. In this way, the accusation against the investigation of presenting false testimony is not confirmed here. Nevertheless, it is typical for the Decembrist memoirs. One can imagine that for those locked in the same prison in Chita and Petrovsky Zavod, who in the recent past survived the difficult and painful investigation of the Decembrists, it was, of course, very difficult to re-establish relations with each other, to get along together in many years of imprisonment, in which many of them ended up from -for each other's frankness during the investigation. Researchers have noted many times that the Decembrists in Chita discussed the investigation, shared their memories, that many of them later recounted the stories of their comrades in their notes. And it wasn't just an exchange of information. In order to survive the exile together, the Decembrists needed not cruel truth, but mitigating insults, justifying comrades and giving the opportunity for mutual forgiveness and reconciliation to explain what happened. Those of them who felt guilty, naturally tried to present the events in a more favorable light for themselves, by no means told everything. These circumstances, coupled with the very limited awareness of each individual about the course of their case as a whole, led to the fact that in the minds of the Decembrists there was a version of events that in places even displaced their own real memories, distorting them. They began to attribute exaggerated deceit and deceit to the Investigative Committee and to explain their mistakes, imprudence, and breakdowns by them. Those of the Decembrists who had nothing to reproach themselves with - Mikhail and Nikolai Bestuzhev, Lunin and others who behaved quite worthily during the investigation - believed in this explanation and repeated it. From the Siberian exile, it seemed clear that all members of secret societies were doomed in advance, that investigation and trial were only a method of punishment, and that all the numerous promises of royal mercy and forgiveness were pure hypocrisy. Let us add to this that, both in an effort to tell contemporaries and descendants about the nobility of their work, and simply out of elementary human decency, the Decembrists tried to avoid giving details that cast a shadow on their comrades, in particular they could not afford anything that could darken the memory of the executed, which also left an imprint on their memories, contributed to the emergence of a kind of "tradition". This "Decembrist tradition" is present in almost all memoirs. Notes by A.M. Muravyova, V.I. Steingyl, M.S. Lunin and close to the latter in the text - M.A. Fonvizin, in terms of describing the investigation, are entirely based on him, to the detriment of the real memories of their authors. I.D. Yakushkin and A.E. Rosen, although they did not speak directly about the presentation of false testimony, they noted the partiality of the Committee and the deliberate doom of the prisoners. Illustrations of this provision are devoted to the notes of P.I. Falenberg, who told how, in a fit of depression, he slandered himself in his testimony and then could not justify himself. The only memoirist (except for A.S. Gangeblov, who was not together with the others in Siberia) who avoided repeating the collective opinion of his comrades, was A.P. Belyaev.

Let us now consider those main monuments of Decembrist memoirs relating to the investigation, in which, in addition to the “tradition” common to the Decembrists, there is also a story about what the author himself experienced.

Notes of S.P. Trubetskoy, as well as the personality of the prince, caused conflicting opinions in historiography. So, N.M. Druzhinin, who wrote an interesting article "S.P. Trubetskoy as a memoirist", considered them "a tendentious journalistic work" aimed both at proving the liberal nature of the secret society and at self-justification of the author. A similar opinion was shared by M.K. Azadovsky. And V.P. Pavlova, on the contrary, believes that “the reliability of the facts presented by Trubetskoy is confirmed in most cases”, that one should not look for a conscious desire to distort the truth where there is only a subjective perception of reality. The reason for such different estimates is undoubtedly the fact that we are dealing with a rather complex source.

Trubetskoy's notes do not represent an integral, complete text. They consist of several parts written at different times, and fragmentary notes and comments on the notes of V.I. Steingel. The history of the text and its publications was thoroughly studied by N.M. Druzhinin and V.P. Pavlova. V.P. Pavlova noted that the main text is conditionally divided into three parts: the first two contain information on the history of secret societies and the period of the interregnum and the preparation of the December 14 uprising. The third is devoted to the arrest of Trubetskoy and the investigation of him. This part is already distinguished by the fact that at the beginning of the story about the arrests, the author switches to the presentation in the first person, while in the previous text he speaks of himself in the third person.

Trubetskoy's description of the initial period of the investigation is distinguished by many accurately conveyed details. So, he writes that at the first interrogation on December 15, 1825, General K.F. Tol showed him the testimony, saying that it belonged to Pushchin. It said that on December 14 "there is a matter for society," which has a large industry in the 4th corps, of which Trubetskoy was the duty headquarters officer. Trubetskoy "saw that the handwriting was not Pushchin", but pretended not to doubt its authorship. Indeed, in his first testimony, written, as he recalled, with his own hand, Trubetskoy claims that Pushchin's testimony about the secret society in the 4th building is not true. Meanwhile, such testimony of Pushchin is not only not in the materials of the investigation, but it cannot be, since Pushchin was arrested a day later, on December 16th. V.P. Pavlova rightly points out that in fact it was Ryleev's testimony. In this regard, it is curious that Ryleev made a postscript to them about the rank and place of service of I.I. Pushchin, and Trubetskoy in his notes recalled how he was asked where Pushchin lives, “whether he is with his father now”; such questions could not be asked about an already arrested person.

Trubetskoy also described other circumstances of the first interrogation and conversation with Nicholas I, for example, how the tsar ordered him to write to his wife that he was alive and well, and when the Decembrist wrote simply “I am alive and well”, the tsar ordered to add “I will” at the top. Such a letter, with the word “I will” inscribed above the line, exists.

V.P. Pavlova, commenting on Trubetskoy's notes, showed that most of the details of the investigation he mentioned are confirmed in the investigative materials. Moreover, it is worth paying attention to the fact that the very beginning of the investigation - the second half of December 1825 - is described by the prince to the nearest day, and then he starts to stray, greatly confuses the dates of interrogations. Perhaps it was the first days that so strongly etched into his memory, but it seems that during this period Trubetskoy could keep some kind of diary that has not come down to us, which he used when working on notes. But in the future, despite the confusion in numbers, Trubetskoy also remembered the interrogations themselves quite clearly. He reports what time he was asked, lists confrontations. Indeed, it can be said that almost all of his memories are confirmed by investigative materials. But the latter also shows how much the prince kept silent about. In his notes, he appears before us as a courageous man, confident in the correctness of his convictions, tortured by difficult interrogations, after which he has bouts of consumption, and at the same time understanding that “that the Committee and all its actions are nothing more than a comedy, that my fate and all the others who have been kept with me have long been resolved in the mind of the emperor, and that no matter how things go, I am destined to rot in serf imprisonment. He describes his tactics during interrogations as follows:<...>I answered questions in detail when it concerned my own assumptions or actions, trying to avoid asserting evidence against other persons.

Turning to the investigative case, we see a completely different picture. Trubetskoy defended himself stubbornly and prudently. At the first interrogation, he made it clear that he did not approve of the intentions of Pushchin and Ryleev, who were strongly interested in his participation in the uprising, that he did not want bloodshed and considered the uprising senseless and impossible. Moreover, he repented that he had not prevented it with due determination. Later, he tried to claim that although he was one of the most active conspirators, deep down he did not share their convictions, but he remained in a secret society in order to follow dangerous plans, especially Pestel, and be able to prevent them, in which his ally was S. Muravyov-Apostol. As for the uprising in St. Petersburg, he, Trubetskoy, only expressed his passive consent to the position of dictator, since he understood that the true leaders - Ryleyev and Obolensky - did not need him, but only his name and rank, and did not interfere in their orders. Thus, Trubetskoy tried to shift all responsibility for December 14 onto his comrades, while assuring the investigation of his complete sincerity and repentance, not only in direct appeals to the Committee, but also using correspondence with his wife for this. At the same time, his characterization of his own behavior is not without truth: he did “answer in detail” to questions about his role in the events, but in the sense of justification. And although he submitted a list of members of the society to the Committee on December 27, in principle he did not seek to testify against other persons, unless this was required by his chosen defensive tactics. Many examples can be cited when Trubetskoy testified in defense of his comrades, especially those who were little or not at all involved (for example, on December 17, after being interrogated by Levashov, he, as he writes in his notes, wrote an additional testimony, once again confirming the innocence of I.M. Bibikov ).

Trubetskoy's answers could have affected mainly those on whom he shifted his share of responsibility (Ryleev, Obolensky, Pushchin), and Pestel, whom Trubetskoy deliberately "drowned". At the same time, in his notes, he told how surprised he was that, after being interrogated by Levashov on December 17, he did not receive questions about the Southern Society, adding modestly that "The Committee had the most important information that could be expected from me." Indeed, he was not asked about it; but nowhere did he mention his extensive testimony of December 25-27 directed against Pestel.

Trubetskoy, a memoirist, skillfully manipulates facts, giving the appearance of accuracy and detail of the story, which can be misleading. His main opponent during the investigation was Ryleev, with whom Trubetskoy had a confrontation on May 6. Trubetskoy described it with characteristic half-truthfulness; the executed Ryleev could no longer convict him, and Trubetskoy explains the reasons for the contradiction in their testimony by the excessive frankness of Kondraty Fedorovich.

Trubetskoy's memoirs contain a lot of accurate and valuable information, but we must not forget for a minute about his desire to justify himself both before his comrades and before posterity. During the investigation, he showed cowardice; just as cowardly he could not tell the truth about himself.

M.A. devoted many pages in his famous notes to the imprisonment in the fortress. Bestuzhev. The author of a detailed study of the memoir heritage of the Bestuzhevs M.K. Azadovsky highly appreciated M. Bestuzhev, a memoirist, noting both the accuracy, reliability, and literary merits of his memoirs. Turning to them, we will see, firstly, that having expressively described the prison life, our mood, visiting the priest S. Kolosov, who unsuccessfully tried to “exhort” the prisoner, the invention of the prison alphabet and communication with brother Nikolai with its help, Mikhail Alexandrovich touches only in passing on the actual course of the investigation.. He only reports that he was “tortured with question points in which we were bitten and baited like dogs,” he says about himself that he held firm, tried not to give evidence that could be used to accuse his comrades; that the questions put to him were mainly directed against Ryleyev and the brothers Nikolai and Alexander. In the stories of M.A. Bestuzhev, recorded by the collector and publisher of the Decembrist legacy M.I. Semevsky, it is also mentioned that he appeared before the Investigative Committee for interrogations four times (“They brought me 4 times for these curses”). But it is evident from the evidence that even in these few pieces of information, Bestuzhev is very inaccurate. In the Committee, he was interrogated only once, on January 6, and on May 12 he was brought to a confrontation with Shchepin-Rostovsky. Mikhail Alexandrovich really, as he later stated in his memoirs, adhered to the tactics of “I don’t know, I don’t know”, at first pretending to be a simple-minded officer who remained faithful to the oath to the crown prince, and then constantly referring to the members of the Secret Society allegedly distrustful of themselves. In this way, he managed to evade answers to almost all questions of a general nature, his testimony relates mainly to the circumstances of the uprising of the life guards. Moscow regiment. They practically did not ask him either about Ryleev or about his brother Nikolai, but about Alexander - only in so far as it concerned his participation in the withdrawal of the regiment to Senate Square.

Perhaps the most famous episode from the prison life of the Decembrists was the invention by the Bestuzhev brothers of the alphabet, with which they tapped over the wall, and which subsequently served more than one generation of Russian prisoners. The main source of information about this alphabet is the notes of M.A. Bestuzhev; it was also mentioned by N.A. Bestuzhev, E.A. Bestuzheva, I.I. Pushchin, D.I. Zavalishin.

Judging by the memoirs of Mikhail Alexandrovich, the way he discovered to knock over the wall helped the brothers coordinate their testimony: “Question points were usually brought to us by Lilienanker and asked:“ How many sheets do you need for answers? I announced the number of sheets according to consideration, and he retired behind a writing set. Then this period of time was enough to tell my brother briefly the essence of the question and my answer. For his part, he did the same. And sometimes we got both question points at the same time, and how we laughed then, telling each other gossip invented by our friends the inquisitors. The same, but more briefly and specifically, is contained in his story by M.I. Semevsky: “They will bring papers, how many sheets of paper, I already let him know what the paper is, how to answer, and we agreed.”

This story needs to be treated with caution. Mikhail Aleksandrovich himself testifies that he began to knock with his brother after receiving a letter from his mother, roughly referring this to Palm Week. Easter in 1826 fell on April 18, therefore, the brothers mastered the alphabet in early April. Meanwhile, Mikhail Alexandrovich himself received question points throughout the entire investigation on January 6 and March 16; neither in April nor in May he was summoned to the Committee, except on May 12 for the mentioned confrontation with the book. D. Shchepin-Rostovsky. Thus, on the testimony of M.A. Bestuzhev's relationship with his brother could not be reflected.

Nikolai Alexandrovich was interrogated more. In the period of interest to us, i.e. from the beginning of April, he was summoned to the Committee on April 26, May 6, 9 and 15, and on May 10 and 16 he had face-to-face confrontations with Kakhovsky. Whether he consulted with his brother about the content of his answers is difficult to verify, since M. Bestuzhev was not asked questions of a similar content. But judging by all the stories of M. Bestuzhev, the relationship between the brothers was strongly influenced by a significant difference in age, Nikolai Alexandrovich always behaved like an elder, and hardly needed the advice of his younger brother. We also note that from the very beginning of the investigation, N. and M. Bestuzhev chose different lines of behavior. Nikolai Alexandrovich, unlike Mikhail, from the first interrogation tried in every possible way to emphasize the loyal nature of the Northern society, his testimony is more lengthy; after the beginning of April, his tactics had not changed much, as might have happened if he had decided to adopt the behavior of his brother. And although N. Bestuzhev himself claimed that, having unraveled the tricks of the Committee, he and his brother “took their own measures,” this is not evident from his investigative file.

The only place similar in the testimony of Nikolai and Mikhail Bestuzhevs is the answers to questions “about education”. These question points are not dated, but they were handed out to the Decembrists at the end of the investigation. The answers to item 7 (“Since when and from where did you borrow a free way of thinking ...”) are very similar for both brothers: they refer to impressions from visiting constitutional states, from European events, which they learned about from Russian newspapers. However, this similarity can also be explained simply by the similarity of the Bestuzhevs' biographies. After all, many of the Decembrists who participated in the Napoleonic Wars referred to impressions taken from foreign campaigns, which does not at all make us suspect the consistency of these testimonies.

Thus, apparently, the Bestuzhevs used their invention mainly for communication and moral support for each other.

M.A. Bestuzhev was undoubtedly a very truthful and conscientious person. And, unlike Trubetskoy, he had nothing to hide about the investigation, he could be proud of his behavior in those difficult circumstances. However, we clearly see that his notes misrepresent the course of events. This is explained, apparently, by the fact that Mikhail Alexandrovich, like his brothers, and Ryleev, was a writer of the era of romanticism. He romanticizes his past, emphasizes the heroic confrontation of the shackled rebel against the punishing wrong authorities. Of course, in addition to book influences, there was also a natural desire for a person to justify the correctness of his life path, in this case, the correctness of the cause that led the Decembrist to Siberia; consciousness that he is a historical person, and his image should correspond to such a role, and, finally, also a rather natural idealization of his own youth. All this taken together turns the notes of M.A. Bestuzhev more into a literary work than into a monument of the memoir genre.

I.D. Yakushkin and A.E. Rosen are among the few memoirists who avoided repeating the story of false testimony, but emphasized the partiality of the investigation. The memoirs of both are distinguished by their thoroughness, the preservation of the sequence of events, and fairly accurate indications of the dates.

I.D. Yakushkin, as noted by S.Ya. Streich, deservedly enjoyed "the reputation of the truthful man of his time". I.A. Mironova also noted the thoroughness, truthfulness and reliability of his notes, although both researchers pointed to a number of factual inaccuracies and errors in the author's memory. Comparing the notes with the investigation file of the Decembrist, one can see that he accurately describes the course of the investigation. His story about the first interrogation almost completely coincides with the record made by Levashov. Then, as the Decembrist recalled, he was summoned to the Investigative Committee in the first days of February, and he wrote the answers to the points sent after this "for ten days." And in fact, Yakushkin was in the Committee on February 7, and the answers were signed by him on the thirteenth. In the notes, he sets out the content of the questions received: they concerned his summons to regicide in 1817 in Moscow and the subsequent exit from the secret society. Yakushkin told how refused to give any names, but having already sent written testimony, he decided that the chosen tactics did not give him the opportunity to testify in favor of his comrades, and the next day he wrote to the Committee and repeated the answers to previous questions, naming those names that were already known to the investigation, as well as the deceased Passek and Chaadaev, who went abroad. The materials of the Yakushkin case confirm all this, it can only be noted that he was asked much more questions, there are 22 written points. The Decembrist conscientiously described his behavior, strictly evaluating it as “a series of transactions with himself” and “prison depravity”; I must say that this respectable severity of self-esteem does not allow the reader to imagine the internal state of Ivan Dmitrievich in the fortress, all his drama, read in the lines of testimony. In the story of the interrogation on February 7, Yakushkin, in addition to the question of the Moscow conspiracy of 1817, also highlighted the fact that twice, explaining the reasons why he did not swear allegiance to the new sovereign and had not been at communion for a long time, he told the members of the Committee that he was not an Orthodox Christian . Such answers are contained in his affidavit; however, it is also known that on April 12, Archpriest P.N. Myslovsky reported to the Committee that Yakushkin, "convinced of the truths of the holy faith, came to complete repentance and asked for confession, and after it he was honored with the sacrament of the holy mysteries." The message of the priest led to the decision to remove the shackles from the Decembrist. In his notes, Yakushkin argued that his decision to take communion was a purely formal act to alleviate his position, and with some irony said that Myslovsky, with whom he developed friendly relations, took advantage of this episode to everywhere announce his merit in the conversion of an inveterate atheist. It seems that here his words should not be trusted. By nature, Yakushkin, truthful, restrained and strict with himself, who later returned to the same atheistic worldview, did not want to describe the spiritual crisis that happened to him in the prison casemate, but he also did not consider it possible to keep silent about it and put forward an acceptable explanation for his act. In describing the further course of the investigation, the Decembrist does not change his conscientiousness, and the inaccuracies that can be found in his text do not significantly change the picture of events, and do not go beyond the usual errors of memory. On the whole, in his notes, the Decembrist, due to his severe self-criticism, gives the impression of a man more firm and unshakable than he was in life.

An exceptionally conscientious and punctual memoirist was A.E. Rosen. He was not one of those who went through numerous and extensive interrogations. In addition to the first interrogation by General V.V. Levashov, he was brought to the Investigative Committee only once, after which they sent written points, and left him alone almost until the end of the investigation, only once calling for a confrontation. Rosen not only sets out the content of the questions and answers with exhaustive completeness, but also accurately names the dates: that Levashov had him on December 22 (the record of the interrogation was read at the Committee meeting the next day), and that the Committee was summoned on January 8. Such accuracy makes us treat with great confidence all other information reported by Rosen.

Truthful and sincere notes of A.P. Belyaeva and A.S. Gangeblova, but unlike Rosen, they do not give any dates, and from this the text does not allow us to trace the sequence and number of interrogations, the events are confused and layered on top of each other. The memoirs of these two Decembrists differ from all others in that they do not hide, do not avoid talking about the testimony of other Decembrists against them: Belyaev tells how he and his brother, A.P. Arbuzov and D.I. Zavalishin suffered from the reckless frankness of V.A. Divova; Gangeblov - about the testimony against him P.N. Svistunova and M.D. Lappa (the name of the last Gangeblov encrypted, calling him Zeta).

Of the Decembrists - members of the Southern Society, detailed notes on the investigation were left by N.I. Laurer and N.V. Basargin.

N.I. Lorer, talking about the investigation, does not say much, omits and combines events. For example, describing his arrest, he says that on December 24 in Tulchin, General A.I. Chernyshev threatened him with a confrontation with the scammer Mayboroda, Lorer asked him to give him time to think, and then revealed “everything that concerns me” to the Chief of Staff of the 2nd Army, General P.D. Kiselev, and then A.I. Chernyshev, who gave him written questions. After reading the answers, Kiselev told the Decembrist: “You confess to nothing,” after which he was released home, and the next day he was taken to St. Petersburg. In fact, this story was more dramatic: on December 24, Laurer wrote responses in which he denied his belonging to society; On December 25, he was confronted with Mayboroda, whose testimony he rejected, but then asked for time to think, after which he admitted that he was a member of a secret society, but had long wanted to leave it, because he felt too "soft-hearted" for such cases, and wrote new lengthy answers, in which he nevertheless continued to deny most of Mayboroda's testimony, and on the same day he received additional questions and was sent to Petersburg, probably on December 26. Describing the further course of the investigation, Lorer is silent about the two letters he wrote to the Committee, in which he justified himself, wrote that he had long since retired from society and asked for forgiveness; about the confrontation he had with G.A. Kanchiyalov. As a result, his behavior looks more persistent than it was in reality.

N.V. Basargin is more accurate in the story about the beginning of the investigation, but his and Lorer's notes are brought together by one circumstance: both are trying to pass over in silence the unseemly role played during the investigation by P.I. Pestel. Decisively denying his belonging to secret societies during interrogations in Tulchin, in St. Petersburg, he immediately began to give extensive testimony, in which he did not spare any of his comrades. The only thing that he tried to hide for a long time was his own participation in the plans for regicide. Moreover, he did not just try to divert the accusation from himself, but resolutely shifted it to others.

The southern Decembrists reacted differently to the betrayal of their leader. Lorer, apparently, did not want to believe in him and was looking for excuses for the behavior of Pestel, whose friendship he recalled with great warmth. In the notes, he tells how he refused to tell the investigation where Russkaya Pravda was until he was shown Pestel's testimony, which he confirmed. “Until Easter, the committee could not discover where Russkaya Pravda was kept, and it was found only when Pestel, fully understanding his position - he knew very well that death awaited him - feeling that this denial alone would not save him, and fearing that his 12-year-old work would not perish completely in vain without a trace, he decided to indicate both the place where it was stored and the person who buried it there. Meanwhile, Pestel's testimony about the whereabouts of Russkaya Pravda was presented to Lorer on January 16, the next day he received an additional question about participation in the concealment of the manuscript by N.A. Kryukov. Kryukov stubbornly locked himself up, and on April 3 a confrontation was prepared for them, and Lorer "expressed his complete readiness to convict" Kryukov, but he, not allowing it to happen, admitted that he had indeed received papers from Pestel. The manuscript of Russkaya Pravda was already brought to St. Petersburg on February 13th. Perhaps Lorer unintentionally partially forgot, mixed up and shifted these events two months later because of the trust in Pestel and the desire to find an explanation for the actions of the executed friend.

But N.V. Basargin had no doubts about Pestel's behavior. Until the end of March 1826, Basargin stubbornly denied that he was a member of the Southern Society, admitting only that he had not been a member of the Union of Welfare for long, had long since departed from it and considered it an empty idea. When the Committee began to incriminate him, and he found out that the information compromising him came from Pestel, then in responses dated March 30 he stated that it was Pestel who was the main figure in the secret society, dragged the rest into it, and now “having made us victims of misfortune, becomes our accuser and even an unjust accuser, because he accuses us of such actions, which were known to him alone, were spoken to by him alone, and which, I am sure, were not shared by any of the members known to me. Basargin accused Pestel of giving false testimony: “relying completely on the testimony of members of the<...>I just can’t trust him alone, and therefore I ask most convincingly the Committee, established by the highest authority, to give me the means of justification. After the answers on March 30, Basargin wrote to the Committee four times, giving details about the meetings of the secret society, trying to show their insignificance and justify himself and his friends. On April 22, a confrontation with Pestel was prepared for him in order to force Basargin to admit that already in 1821, when establishing the Southern Society in Tulchin, his goal was to introduce republican rule and regicide. Basargin agreed with Pestel's testimony, not allowing a confrontation, but subsequently again appealed to the Committee four times with letters stating that he resolutely did not remember the circumstances that Pestel spoke about, and agreed with him "solely because not to raise doubts in my candor,” and asked nevertheless to give them a confrontation, adding that the Committee “won’t believe how hard it is for me to ask for this and how terrible it will be for me to see a person who has become an instrument of our misfortune.”

In his memoirs, N.V. Basargin tried not to say anything that could cast a shadow on Pestel, and therefore his story about the investigation is evasive and unclear. He describes his first interrogation in the Committee, then focuses on the story of life in the fortress, about M. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, who was sitting in a neighboring casemate; Basargin mentions a call for a confrontation with Pestel, and even sets out the essence of the disagreement in the testimony: Pestel claimed that at the meeting in 1821 it was said about the establishment of a republican government, and Basargin did not consider this meeting a meeting of the society and did not remember exactly what happened there, but agreed with Pestel's testimony. Basargin did not comment on Pestel's behavior in any way, but used this episode to discuss how the Committee biasedly exaggerated the criminality of the Decembrists' intentions, presenting fleeting conversations as decisions of a secret society.

Thus, we see that the memories of the Decembrists about the investigation in many cases do not quite adequately reflect the events that really took place. The reasons for this lie not only in natural errors of memory (the notes were written many years after the events) and the limited awareness of the Decembrists about the course of the investigation as a whole, forcing them to invent the missing links, but also in the circumstances of their Siberian exile. The exiles were faced with the need to live for many years together, in a close, closed and largely isolated from the outside world collective. We know that they made a number of conscious efforts to ensure peace and harmony among themselves (for example, they created an artel to conduct a common economy and redistribute funds in favor of the poor, banned gambling in their environment, etc.). In addition, silences and certain distortions were made psychologically inevitable when discussing the situation of the investigation, which was extremely painful for most of the Decembrists. The peculiar "tradition" that arose as a result was reflected in memoirs, which must be taken into account in the further study of both the memoirs of the Decembrists and the circumstances of the investigation in their case.

Boris Bashilov.
How the "knights of liberty" behaved during the investigation
I

Nicholas the First took over the investigation into the Decembrists' conspiracy in order to find out personally the goals and scope of it. After the first testimony, it became clear to him that this was not a simple act of disobedience. The conspiracy was not an invention of some scammers - it was a reality. The purpose of the conspiracy was the destruction of Russia as he imagined it to be.
“The revolution is at the gates of the Empire,” he said on that tragic night to the Grand Duke. Michael, but I swear that she will not penetrate her while I am alive and while I am the Sovereign by the grace of God. And further: “This is not a military revolt, but a broad conspiracy that wanted to achieve meaningless goals with vile actions ... It seems to me that we have all the threads in our hands and we can pull out all the roots.” And one more thing: “They can kill me, every day I receive threats with anonymous letters, but no one will intimidate me.”
“From the very beginning, I decided not to look for the guilty, but to give everyone the opportunity to justify themselves. It came true exactly. Everyone against whom there was only one evidence and was not caught at the scene of the crime was subjected to interrogation; his denial, or lack of evidence, resulted in immediate release.”
“This statement of Nicholas I is correct,” writes Grunwald. - Nikolai felt the pleasure of being philanthropic, especially at the beginning of the investigation. He refused to admit the guilt, even admitted, of the young Prince Suvorov, a cadet of the Life Guards Cavalry Regiment. "Suvorov is not able to betray his Sovereign." He sends lieutenant Konovnitsyn to his mother, "so that she whips him."
Nicholas I was convinced of the need to apply harsh penalties, but tried to exclude from the list of those punished all worthy of indulgence. “It's terrible,” he writes Vel. Book. Constantine, - but it is necessary that their example be a different science, and since they are murderers, their fate must be dark. And further:
“You had to see all this, hear all this from the lips of these monsters in order to believe in all these nasty things ... It seems to me that we need to quickly end these scoundrels, who, however, can no longer have any influence on anyone, after they confessions, but cannot be forgiven, as those who were the first to raise their hands against their superiors.”
In early February, Nicholas I told Ferdinand of Austria:
"These fanatics, who owed everything to the Emperor Alexander and who paid him with the blackest ingratitude."
Nicholas I characterizes Pestel as “a criminal in the full sense of the word: a brutal facial expression, impudent denial of his guilt, not a shadow of remorse.” Artamon Muraviev: "a vulgar killer in the absence of other qualities."
The Empress mother wrote: she hoped that "they will not escape their fate, as the murderers of Paul I escaped it." Nicholas I writes further to his brother Konstantin: “Fathers bring their sons to me; everyone wants to set an example and wash their families from shame.”
In a letter to Tsarevich Konstantin, Emperor Nicholas wrote:
“The testimonies of Ryleev, the local writer and Trubetskoy, reveal all their plans, which have a wide branching in the Empire, the most curious thing is that the change of the Sovereign served only as a pretext for this explosion, prepared for a long time, with the aim of killing us all, in order to establish a republican constitutional government : I even have a draft constitution made by Trubetskoy, the presentation of which stunned him and prompted him to confess everything.

Zeitlin tries to portray that the Decembrists were tortured:
“There was no torture. But the disobedient were put on bread and water, fed with salty food, without giving water. Near the casemates, the prison soldiers were noisy, and it seemed to the nervous prisoners that this was being done on purpose to prevent them from sleeping. They put shackles on them and this measure made a tremendous impression.” That's true - it is written "tram", and it is pronounced - "horse".
They gave everyone away without torture, frightened only by the transfer to bread and water, the shackles put on their hands.
“Only a few of the Decembrists- writes Zeitlin - continued to courageously defend those convictions for which yesterday they were ready to give their lives. Let's not forget their names: Pushchin, Yakushkin, Borisov, seemingly prone to expansiveness, but restrained in his testimony Muravyov.
“Honorable Russian fellows”, who do not care whether to go to the Greek uprising or shoot at the head of their own state in the name of implementing chaotic revolutionary plans, with rare exceptions, are usually very liquid when the hour of reckoning comes. This is precisely what turned out to be Kakhovsky, in his letters from the fortress to Emperor Nicholas I, shifting his guilt to the society of conspirators.
“... My intentions were pure, but in the ways I see I was mistaken. I don’t dare to ask you to forgive my error, I’m already torn to pieces by your mercy towards me: I didn’t cheat on society either, but society (the society of the Decembrists - B.B.) betrayed itself with its madness.
And then Kakhovsky makes the following confession:
“I understand very well that a drastic upheaval to the very good can cause harm.” Such is the moral portrait of a man without a core, tyrannicide No. 2, Kakhovsky.
Trubetskoy, as Nicholas I recalls, at first denied everything, but when he saw the draft manifesto written by his hand, he fell at the feet of the Tsar and begged him for mercy.
Nicholas I was right when he told the arrested cavalry guard Vinenkov:
- They wanted to rule the destinies of peoples. You don't know how to lead a platoon.
“Trubetskoy,” writes M. Zeitlin, “did not appear on the square and left the troops without a leader, a crime punishable by death in war. Whether with this, or with complete frankness during interrogations, he bought himself a pardon, for which he begged on his knees.
As for the most important leader of the Decembrists, Pestel, he renounced in advance all the heroism that is attributed to him and all the conspirators, for he crossed out all his past activities with a repentant word in a letter to General Levashov:
“All bonds and plans that bound me to the Secret Society are severed forever. Whether I'm alive or dead, I'm separated from them forever... I can't justify myself to His Majesty. I only ask for mercy ... May he deign to show in my favor the most beautiful right of his royal crown and - God is my witness that my existence will be dedicated to the rebirth and boundless affection for His sacred person and His August family.
Kakhovsky began to "adore" the Tsar. Nicholas reminded him:
- They wanted to kill us all.
Kakhovsky did not have the courage to admit that he most wanted to kill all the Romanovs.
Kakhovsky burned with a fierce hatred for Ryleyev when he found out what a cynical game he was playing with him and Yakubovich.
Odoevsky, who exclaimed:
- We'll die! Oh, how gloriously we will die..., - according to Zeitlin, - a panic fear seized. “His letters are an animalistic, hysterical cry,” Zeitlin writes.
Odoevsky wrote a denunciation of all the Decembrists.
But Odoevsky was not the only one to blame for this. “The most serious sin of the Decembrists: they betrayed soldiers. Even Sergey Muravyov, even the Slavs told everything about ordinary people who blindly trusted them, who were threatened with gauntlets” (M. Zeitlin).
We know all too well how modern admirers of the Decembrists are now tormenting only those suspected of conspiring against the government. And how Nicholas the First dealt with all those only suspected of participating in the conspiracy, we learn from the memoirs of I.P. Liprandi.
“It is impossible to describe the impressions of the unexpectedness with which I was amazed: the door opens, in the front there are two young soldiers of the Carabinieri training regiment without combat ammunition; from the hallway there is a glass door, through which I see several people around the table at the samovar; and all this in the second hour of the midnight struck me.
Even more curious than Liprandi's description is the confession that the Soviet literary critic Nechkina is forced to make in her book The Decembrists and Griboyedov. Despite all the efforts of Nechkina to portray the investigation of the Decembrists in the form pleasing to the Bolsheviks, Nechkina states on page 499 of her book:
“But the picture drawn by Liprandi is obviously basically correct as a general description of the life of prisoners.
This life was far from being a typical prison sentence. The prisoners were kept at their own expense, lunches were taken from the restaurant and could, if desired, go out in the evening with a non-commissioned officer for walks. The boss gave them the most unexpected benefits. According to the stories of the guards, Zhukovsky accepted bribes from the arrested and Zavalishin, he took him and Griboyedov to the Loredo confectionery on the corner of Admiralteiskaya Square and Nevsky Prospekt. There, in a small room adjoining the confectionery, unusual visitors ordered refreshments, read newspapers, and right there Griboedov, a passionate musician, played the piano. With the permission of the same Zhukovsky, Griboyedov visited Gendre and returned from him late at night. He managed, while under arrest, to correspond with Bulgarin, from whom he received response letters, books, newspapers, magazines, and through whom he communicated with persons who were busy for him, for example, with Ivanovsky.
“... The Decembrist prince Obolensky wrote in 1864: “none of the companions in Siberian life has ever spoken about the deliberate distortion of the truth, nor about the biased transmission of his words by the Investigative Commission.”

From the book "Masons and the Decembrist Conspiracy". Publishing house "Rus"

Militsa Nechkina.
Investigation and "trial" of the Decembrists

Immediately after the uprising on Senate Square, on the night of December 15, arrests began in St. Petersburg. The Decembrists were taken for interrogation directly to Nicholas I himself in the Winter Palace, from which, according to the apt expression of the Decembrist Zakhar Chernyshev, these days they “arranged an exit”. Nikolai himself acted as an investigator and interrogated the arrested (in the rooms of the Hermitage). After interrogations, “state criminals” were sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress, in most cases with personal notes from the tsar, which indicated the conditions under which this prisoner should be kept. The Decembrist Yakushkin was, for example, sent with the following royal note: “The sent Yakushkin should be chained in foot and hand irons; deal with him strictly and do not otherwise contain, as a villain.

The investigation was focused not on the ideology of the Decembrists, not on their political demands, but on the issue of regicide.

The behavior of the Decembrists during the investigation was different. Many of them did not show revolutionary fortitude, lost ground under their feet, repented, wept, betrayed their comrades. But there were cases of personal heroism, refusal to testify and extradite the conspirators. Lunin, Yakushkin, Andreevich 2nd, Pyotr Borisov, Usovsky, Yu. Lyublinsky and others were among those who were persistent and behaved with dignity. Pestel first answered all questions with complete denial: “Not belonging to the society mentioned here and not knowing anything about its existence, all the less I can say what its true goal is striving for and what measures it envisaged to achieve it,” he answered, for example, when asked about the purpose of the secret society. Later, betrayed by many, he was forced to give detailed answers.

“I was not accepted by anyone as a member of a secret society, but I myself joined it,” the Decembrist Lunin proudly answers the investigators.

There is one remarkable place in the investigation file of Mikhail Orlov. Even under arrest, during interrogations, the thought suddenly broke through him that the uprising could have won under other circumstances. When asked why he did not extradite the conspirators, although he knew about their plans and even very recently, Mikhail Orlov replied: “Now it’s easy to say:“ It should have been reported, ”because everything is known and the crime has been committed. But then, wasn’t it permissible for me to at least postpone the report for a while? But, to their misfortune, circumstances ripened before their plans, and that's why they disappeared. Nicholas I underlined the words typed in italics twice, and put eleven exclamation points above the words “but unfortunately”;

But at the same time, many investigative cases of the Decembrists contain numerous repentant appeals to the tsar and members of the commission, tearful letters from repentant "Criminals", oaths to earn forgiveness. Why did so many members of society fail to stand firm? The answer seems clear. There was no revolutionary class behind the participants in the uprising of December 14 imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Outside the prison walls, they felt no support, and many lost heart. Cases of suicide also occurred in the prison (for example, the Decembrist Bulatov smashed his head against the wall of the prison cell). Chaining "in iron" was a form of physical torture (other forms, apparently, were not used), but moral torture was no less severe - intimidation, reassurance, influence on the family, threats of the death penalty, etc.

Immediately after the uprising on Senate Square, on the night of December 15, arrests began in St. Petersburg. The Decembrists were taken for interrogation directly to Nicholas I himself in the Winter Palace, from which, in the apt expression of the Decembrist Zakhar Chernyshev, these days they “arranged an emigrant”. Nikolai himself acted as an investigator and interrogated the arrested (in the rooms of the Hermitage). After interrogations, “state criminals” were sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress, in most cases with personal notes from the tsar, which indicated that this prisoner should be kept in such conditions. The Decembrist Yakushkin, for example, was sent with the following royal note: “The sent Yakushkin should be chained in foot and hand irons; deal with him strictly and do not otherwise contain, as a villain.

The investigation was focused not on the ideology of the Decembrists, not on their political demands, but on the issue of regicide.

The behavior of the Decembrists during the investigation was different. Many of them did not show revolutionary fortitude, lost the ground under their feet, repented, wept, betrayed their comrades. But there were also cases of personal heroism, refusal to testify and extradite the conspirators. Lunin, Yakushkin, Andreevich 2nd, Pyotr Borisov, Usovsky, Yu. Lyublinsky and others were among those who were persistent and behaved with dignity. Pestel, at first answering all questions with complete denial: “Not belonging to the society mentioned here and not knowing anything about its existence, all the less I can say what its true goal is striving for and what measures it envisaged to achieve it,” he answered, for example, when asked about the purpose of the secret society. Later, issued by many, he was forced to give detailed answers.

“I was not accepted by anyone as a member of a secret society, but I myself joined it,” the Decembrist Lunin proudly answers the investigators. “I deem it contrary to my conscience to reveal the names of their [members], for I should have discovered Brothers and friends.”

There is one remarkable place in the investigation file of Mikhail Orlov. Even under arrest, during interrogations, the thought suddenly broke through him that the uprising could have won under other circumstances. When asked why he did not extradite the conspirators, although he knew about their plans and even very recently, Mikhail Orlov replied: “Now it is easy to say:“ It should have been reported, ”because everything is known and the crime has been committed. But then, wasn’t it permissible for me to at least postpone the report for a while? But, to their misfortune, circumstances ripened before their plans, and that's why they disappeared. Nicholas I underlined the words typed in italics twice, and put eleven exclamation points above the words “but unfortunately”;

But at the same time, many investigative cases of the Decembrists contain numerous repentant appeals to the tsar and members of the commission, tearful letters from repentant "criminals", oaths to earn, forgiveness. Why did so many members of society fail to stand firm? The answer seems clear. There was no revolutionary class behind the participants in the uprising of December 14 imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Outside the prison walls, they felt no support, and many lost heart. Cases of suicide also occurred in the prison (for example, the Decembrist Bulatov smashed his head against the wall of the prison cell). Chaining “in iron” was a form of physical torture (other forms, apparently, were not used), but moral torture was no less severe - intimidation, reassurance, influence on the family, threats of the death penalty, etc.

The tsarist authorities were interested in widely informing the noble society about the supposedly “deep repentance” of the prisoners, who admitted the fallacy of the speech and praised the mercy of the tsarist government. By the way, for this purpose, one document was widely distributed through the police and the provincial administration, which was a combination of three letters - Ryleev's suicide letter to his wife, the Decembrist Obolensky's letter to his father and Yakubovich's repentant letter, also to his father. All three letters were distributed by the government in an official way: this is clearly evidenced by a special “file” of the office of the St. Petersburg civil governor, in which these letters of repentance are neatly filed with official reports on the investigation and trial, excerpts from Senate statements, etc.

During the investigation, very quickly - at the very first questions - the name of A.S. Pushkin was mentioned. It was revealed what great significance his poems had for the Decembrists. A lot of free-thinking poems - Ryleev, Yazykov and other well-known and unknown poets - were found during the search and were recorded during interrogations. Unknown army poets (Zhukov and others) who composed poems in imitation of Pushkin and Ryleev were discovered.

Nicholas I was especially afraid of poetry; they could easily spread, they could be written off or memorized even by the scribes of the Commission of Inquiry. Therefore, during the investigation, the tsar gave an order that the history of Russian literature will never forget: “Remove and burn all outrageous poems from the cases.” The order was carried out, the poems were burned; among them, probably, there were many works that remained unknown to us, and quite a few Pushkin's poems. By chance, only one Pushkin's poem "The Dagger" survived. At the request of the investigation, the Decembrist Gromnitsky (a member of the Society of United Slavs) wrote it down as a keepsake. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, he testified, “in his conversations, he praised the works of Alexander Pushkin and read by heart one ... no less free-thinking. Here it is ... ”The text of Pushkin's“ Dagger ”was written down by heart. It was not possible to “take it out and burn it” according to the royal order: it was located on two adjacent pages of testimony, the turns of which were occupied by important interrogation texts that were not subject to destruction. Then Minister of War Tatishchev, chairman of the Commission of Inquiry, nevertheless found a way out: he thickly crossed out the text of Pushkin's poems, putting a “clip” at the beginning and end with the following content: “With the highest permission, Minister of War Tatishchev has blacked out.”

“Under the present circumstances, there is no way to do anything in your favor,” Zhukovsky wrote to the poet, who was languishing in exile in Mikhailovsky. - You're not involved in anything, it's true. But in the papers of each of those who acted there are your poems. It's a bad way to befriend the government."

In essence, there was no trial of the Decembrists. The parody of the trial took place behind closed doors, in deep secrecy. The summoned Decembrists were hastily offered to testify their signatures under the testimony during the investigation, after which they read a pre-prepared verdict and called the next “discharge”. “Have we been judged? the Decembrists asked later. “And we didn’t know that it was a trial…”

Five Decembrists were placed “outside the ranks” and sentenced to be quartered. But Nicholas replaced the quartering with hanging.

An extract from the protocol of the Supreme Criminal Court dated July 11, 1826 read: “Consistent with the high monarchical mercy shown in this case ... The Supreme Criminal Court, by the highest authority granted to it, sentenced: instead of the painful death penalty by quartering, Pavel Pestel, Kondraty Ryleev, Sergey Muravyov-Apostol, Mikhail Bestuzhev-Ryumin and Pyotr Kakhovsky, by the verdict of a certain court, hang these criminals for their grave atrocities.

On the night of July 13, on the crown work of the Peter and Paul Fortress, by the light of bonfires, a gallows was arranged and, early in the morning, the imprisoned Decembrists were taken out of the fortress to be executed. On the chest of those sentenced to hanging hung boards with the inscription: "Regicide". Their hands and feet were shackled in heavy shackles. Pestel was so exhausted that he could not cross the high threshold of the gate - the guards were forced to lift him up and carry him over the threshold.

The morning was gloomy and foggy. At some distance from the place of execution, a crowd of people had gathered.

The head of the crownwork later said: “When the benches were taken away from under the feet, the ropes broke and three Criminals ... collapsed into the pit, breaking through the boards laid over it with the weight of their bodies and shackles. There were no spare ropes, they were in a hurry to get them in the nearest shops, but it was early in the morning, everything was locked, so the execution was delayed. However, the operation was repeated and this time it was successful. To this terrible story, one can add a cynically laconic “most subservient report” of the St. Petersburg Governor-General Golenishchev-Kutuzov, where the names of those who escaped the gallows are indicated: “The execution ended with due silence and order, both from the side of the troops who were in the ranks, and from few spectators. Due to the inexperience of our executioners and the inability to arrange gallows at the first time, three, namely: Ryleev, Kakhovsky and Muravyov, broke, but were soon hanged again and received a well-deserved death. What I most submissively report to Your Majesty.”

All other imprisoned Decembrists were taken out into the courtyard of the fortress and placed in two squares: in one - belonging to the guards regiments, in the other - others. All sentences were accompanied by demotion, deprivation of ranks and nobility: swords were broken over the convicts, epaulettes and uniforms were torn off them and thrown into the fire of blazing bonfires.

The sailors-Decembrists were taken to Kronstadt and that morning they were sentenced to be demoted on the flagship of Admiral Kroun. Their uniforms and epaulettes were torn off and thrown into the water. “It can be said that they tried to destroy the first manifestation of liberalism with all four elements - fire, water, air and earth,” the Decembrist V.I. writes in his memoirs. Steingel.

Over 120 people of the Decembrists were exiled for various periods to Siberia, to hard labor or a settlement. Demoted to the rank and file were exiled to the Caucasus. There were Decembrists who visited both Siberia and the Caucasus (Lorer, Odoevsky and others): after serving a certain term of punishment in Siberia, they were assigned as “mercy” as privates in the Caucasian army where military operations were carried out. They were sent under bullets.