In the early morning of July 13, 1826, on the ramparts of the Kronverk bastion of the Peter and Paul Fortress, the leaders of the armed uprising on Senate Square. Five of more than one and a half hundred arrested in the “December 14th” case: Pavel Pestel, Kondraty Ryleev, Sergei Muravyov-Apostol, Vladimir Bestuzhev-Ryumin and Pyotr Kakhovsky were hanged. The bodies of the executed Decembrists were not given to their families for burial. The burial place of the leaders of the uprising is still a mystery.
This was the highest will of the emperor. And they carried it out so thoroughly that after forty years the new governor-general of the capital, acting at least with the knowledge of Nicholas’s son, Emperor Alexander II, could not even detect traces of the mysterious burial.
However, based on the principle: “Everything in Russia is a secret, but nothing is a secret” a large number of contemporaries of the execution left written evidence of the burial place of the Decembrists. Here are some of them:
“They were buried in the fortress ditch with quicklime, near the gallows”;
“The bodies were taken to the seaside and there thrown with stones tied to them into the depths of the waters”;
“A box with the naked bodies of five people was taken to some island in the Gulf of Finland and buried in a hole along with lime”;
“At night, the bodies were transported in a boat in matting and buried on the shore of Goloday Island.”
The last statement is believed to be closer to the truth. At least, it is on this island, currently part of St. Petersburg, that there are two monuments in honor of the Decembrists. On each of them it is written that this is where the remains of the leaders of the December uprising are buried. The straight line distance between the monuments is one kilometer. The island itself Soviet times was renamed Dekabristov Island."
Let's try to trace the path of the bodies of the executed Decembrists until the moment of their burial. After doctors recorded the death of all five hanged men, the bodies were placed in an empty barn located next to the merchant shipping school. Officially it is believed that due to the authorities' fear of transporting bodies during daylight hours. However, already in the morning a rumor was spread among the people that the bodies were thrown into the water of the fortress canal.
“People came and went all day, looked, saw nothing and nodded their heads,” one of the eyewitnesses of the execution recorded. All this time the bodies continued to lie in the barn. The authorities waited until nightfall. By the morning next day the barn was already empty. Only shrouds taken from the deceased and boards with the inscription “regicide” remained in it.
In the report of the head of the Kronverk bastion, Colonel Berkopf, it is written: “The next night, a driver from the butchers came with a horse to the fortress, and from there he carried the corpses towards Vasilyevsky Island. But when he took them to the Tuchkov Bridge, armed soldiers came out of the booth and, having taken possession of the reins, put the cabman in the booth. A few hours later the empty cart returned to the same place. The driver was paid and he went home.” According to Chief Police Chief Tuchkov, the bodies of those executed were buried in a common grave in the bushes on the shore of the Gulf of Finland so that no signs of burial were left.
However, there were rumors in St. Petersburg that the burial place was known to Ryleev’s widow. But, as it turned out, not only her. Every St. Petersburger knew about a certain secret grave on a secluded island for at least four months before the first snow fell. A relative of Bestuzhev later wrote: “They were buried on Golodai behind the Smolensk cemetery, and probably not far from Galernaya harbor, where there was a guardhouse. Because the guards from this guardhouse were dressed up to prevent people from going to the grave of the hanged men. This circumstance was the reason for people to flock there in droves.”
The sentries stood at the “grave” for only four months. After this, interest in her fades away, moreover, she soon turns out to be completely forgotten. Soon a rumor spread throughout St. Petersburg that the bodies of those executed had been stolen. Late autumn In 1826, the third department of the Chancellery of His Imperial Majesty received a denunciation from the famous informer Sherwood, awarded by Nicholas the First for revealing plans for an uprising under the second name Verny. The denunciation reported that someone dug up the bodies of the executed Decembrists and secretly reburied them in another place.
Who this someone was remained unknown. But it is known that Benckendorf’s department did not even open a case on this denunciation. There can only be one reason - he didn’t find anything, and he couldn’t find it. The fake grave diverted the attention of potential grave diggers until snow fell, which hid all traces of the real grave.
After 1917, the search for the grave of the Decembrists is more like a joke.
At the beginning of June 1917, Petrograd newspapers exploded with sensational headlines: “The grave of the executed Decembrists has been found!” Since the February Revolution that recently occurred in Russia seemed to be a continuation of the work of the Decembrists, the report of this find aroused unprecedented interest in the widest circles of the public.
Here is how it was. In 1906, the city authorities decided to develop Goloday Island with a complex of buildings called “New Petersburg”. Owner construction company, Italian Richard Gualino heard that the Decembrists were buried somewhere on the site of the current construction site, and tried to find the grave. However, in 1911, the police learned about the Italian’s activities and forbade him to carry out excavations.
After the February Revolution of 1917, he left for Turin, leaving engineer Gurevich in his place as manager, whom he asked to continue the search. The newly created Society for the Memory of the Decembrists in Petrograd made a similar request.
On June 1, 1917, Gurevich informed the secretary of the society, Professor Svyatlovsky, that while digging a trench for a water supply behind the garrison outbuilding in an area previously called the “dog cemetery”, where animals were once buried, someone’s coffin was found. The next day, at the request of the professor, General Schwartz allocated soldiers of the 1st Automobile Company for further excavations.
As a result of the measures taken, 4 more coffins were dug out of the ground, which lay in a common grave along with the first. Thus, a total of 5 human skeletons were found, which corresponded to the number of executed Decembrists. In the first, best-preserved coffin, a skeleton was found, dressed in an officer's uniform from the time of Alexander I. The coffin was rich, once upholstered in brocade, had wooden legs in the form of lion paws.
The rest of the dominos were much more modestly made and were less well preserved. Therefore, the bones in them represented only fragments of human skeletons. Judging by the surviving remains of clothing, three of the people buried here were military, and two were civilians. This was completely true - Pestel, Muravyov-Apostol and Bestuzhev-Ryumin were military men, and Ryleev and Kakhovsky were civilians.
Another surge of interest in the grave of the Decembrists arose in 1925 in connection with the upcoming 100th anniversary of their execution. Then an organization engaged in studying the history of the party and revolutionary movement in Russia. Skeletons found earlier were found in the basements of the Winter Palace. As it turned out, in 1918 they were placed in a box, sealed and transported to the Museum of the Revolution, which was then located in the palace.
At the site where the skeletons were found in 1917, it was decided to conduct new excavations, and medical experts from Military Medical Academy, Vikhrov and Speransky, were instructed to give an opinion on the bones stored in the basements of the palace. As a specialist in military uniform An expert from the Main Science Department, Gabaev, was invited.
Before new excavations were carried out on Golodai, it was found out that in fact in 1917, not 5, but 6 coffins were dug (nothing had been previously reported about the last one, and it disappeared somewhere). Medical examination of the remains found in 1917 gave sensational results. It turned out that they belonged not to five, but to only four people: three adults and one teenager aged 12-15 years!
A historical examination of the uniform found in one of the coffins showed that it belonged to an officer of the Life Guards of the Finnish Regiment of the 1829-1855 model. Thus, the Istpart commission came to the conclusion that the remains found in 1917 on Goloday “cannot belong to the executed Decembrists.” The fact that the executed Decembrists had to be naked - remember the shrouds in the barn of the Merchant Shipping School - was not even remembered then.
All this did not prevent a monument from being erected on Goloday in 1939, and the island itself being renamed Decembrist Island.
Currently, Dekabristov Island is densely built up. And, if the Decembrists are really buried there, and not drowned in the waters of the Gulf of Finland, the real grave will apparently never be found.
“Hang for such atrocities,” the sentence ended with these words Supreme Court, which was read by the chief of police on the night of July 25, 1826 in one of the fortifications of the Peter and Paul Fortress. A few minutes later, five ideologists and participants in the Decembrist uprising were executed - some not even on the first attempt: Pestel, Ryleev, Muravyov-Apostol, Bestuzhev-Ryumin and Kakhovsky.
Ryleev, like his comrade Kakhovsky, left with military service in order to fully devote himself to literature - the first examples of so-called “civil poetry” belong to his pen. In addition to poetic tasks, he also had to fulfill the duties of an official in various government departments: for example, Ryleev served in the chamber of the criminal court and the office of the Russian-American Trading Company.
Several years before the uprising, Ryleev headed the Northern Society of Decembrists. He, as it turned out later, was one of the main organizers of the riot, since he “participated in all plans for outrage and gave instructions on how to excite the lower ranks and act in the square.”
It is no coincidence that during interrogations Ryleev took all the blame on himself - he tried to justify his comrades and relieve them of at least part of the responsibility. In the prison fortress, the poet scrawled his last quatrain on the wall: “Prison is an honor to me, not a reproach / I am in it for a just cause, / And should I be ashamed of these chains, / When I wear them for the Fatherland!”
“Father, pray for our sinful souls, don’t forget my wife and bless your daughter,” these were Ryleev’s last words. However, according to one version, having fallen from the rope due to an error by the executioner and falling inside the scaffold, Ryleev managed to add: “An unfortunate country where they don’t even know how to hang you.”
On the eve of the Decembrist uprising, Kakhovsky, who had retired from service and was left without friends and connections, succumbed to radical ideas for those times: he traveled around Europe, inspired by the revolutionary ones in Spain, Portugal and Spain, and did not let go of books about the formation of democracy in Ancient Greece.
Having become a staunch republican, Kakhovsky became friends with Kondraty Ryleev, through whom he got into the Northern Society of Decembrists. Kakhovsky faced a difficult choice: to participate in political activities in Russia or to leave to fight for the independence of Greece. Still, the former lieutenant remained in his homeland and began, together with his comrades, to hatch plans to overthrow the autocracy. Kakhovsky, by the way, although he was considered radical at that time, he did not try on the role of a regicide - when he was offered to get into Winter Palace and kill Nicholas I, he did not hesitate, but still refused.
On December 26, the day of the uprising, Kakhovsky went around the barracks and agitated the soldiers to join the rebellion. Already on Senate Square, Kakhovsky wounded - as it turned out later, mortally - the Governor-General of St. Petersburg Miloradovich, who was trying to persuade the rebels to disperse. As a result, the court named him one of the main criminals: the quartering was replaced by hanging, but due to the inexperience of the executioner it had to be carried out several times - Kakhovsky fell from the noose.
During the Decembrist uprising on Senate Square, Bestuzhev-Ryumin was still listed as a second lieutenant, which allowed him to conduct widespread agitation among the troops. Bestuzhev-Ryumin also took an active part in the compilation of the revolutionary “Catechism”, which was read to the rebel soldiers.
The military man, according to the memoirs of his contemporaries, was convinced that the revolution in Russia would take place without a single drop of blood, similar to the Spanish one, since it would be carried out by the army without the participation of the people. Perhaps that is why, having met government troops during the uprising of the Chernigov regiment, Bestuzhev-Ryumin did not use weapons, but simply allowed himself to be arrested, relying on the mercy of the authorities.
After his execution, he, as well as the other four hanged men, were presumably buried on Goloday Island, which is now called Decembrist Island.
Like many other Decembrists, Ant-Apostol was a member of the Masonic lodge. Perhaps from there he developed a love for secret societies, which he subsequently joined. Muravyov-Apostol was among the co-founders of the Union of Prosperity and the Union of Salvation, and was also responsible for establishing connections with foreign secret societies.
Among the Decembrists, Muravyov-Apostol was one of the most radical: he carried out active propaganda work in the ranks of the army (where, by the way, like everyone else, he had previously served) and even agreed to personally kill the tsar, but it was never possible to develop a plan.
Muravyov-Apostol did not participate in the general performance on Senate Square, but after that he headed the Chernigov regiment in the Kyiv province. He was executed along with four other comrades; Muravyov-Apostol became one of those who had to be put on the scaffold again.
Of all the Decembrists, Pestel was perhaps one of the most honored military men: the discipline in his regiments was praised by Emperor Alexander I himself. Pestel participated in countless battles, Patriotic War In 1812 he was even wounded, which, however, did not prevent him from speaking out against the existing political system.
One of the founders of the “Union of Welfare” and the Southern Secret Society, Pestel even compiled “Russian Truth” - this is a constitutional project, the main expression of the ideas of the secret society, written in a clearly republican spirit. Actually, for the most part, Pestel paid for it. The charges of the investigative commission against Pestel were built precisely around this document. History also includes the last words of Pestel, spoken before his execution: “What you sow must come back and will certainly come back later.”
Here, on the eastern earthen rampart of the crownwork, on the night of July 13 (25), 1826, the leaders of the Decembrist uprising P. I. Pestel, K. F. Ryleev, S. I. Muravyov-Apostol, M. P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin were executed and P. G. Kakhovsky.
Nicholas I ordered that every half hour, through horse couriers, the situation in and around the Peter and Paul Fortress be reported to him in Tsarskoe Selo during the execution of the sentence.
At three o'clock in the morning, the civil execution of the Decembrists, sentenced to various terms of hard labor, took place on the crownwork. Following this, five people sentenced to death by hanging were taken out of the fortress.
Pestel Pavel Ivanovich (1793-1896) The last report from the Governor-General of St. Petersburg, Nicholas I, said: “The execution ended with due silence and order, both on the part of the Weisks who were in the ranks, and on the part of the spectators, of whom there were few. Due to the inexperience of our executioners and inability to arrange gallows, the first time three, namely: Ryleev, Kakhovsky and Muravyov-Apostol, fell through, but were soon hanged again and received a well-deserved death. Which I most faithfully report to your Majesty.”
Due to an unforeseen delay, the execution ended later than planned... It was already dawn and passers-by appeared. The funeral of the executed Decembrists had to be postponed. The following night their bodies were secretly taken away and buried, it is believed, on Golodai Island.
In connection with the centenary of the execution of the Decembrists, on July 25, 1926, an obelisk monument made of black polished granite was erected at the site of the supposed burial of the Decembrists, and Goloday Island was renamed Decembrist Island. Senate Square, where the rebel regiments were lined up on December 14, 1825, was renamed Decembrist Square. The names of the leaders of the uprising - Pestel, Ryleev, Kakhovsky - are immortalized in the names of streets, alleys, bridges of St. Petersburg.
In 1975, in connection with the 150th anniversary of the Decembrist uprising, a granite obelisk was built on the shaft of the crownwork - a monument to the five best representatives of the first generation of Russian revolutionaries. It was created according to the design of architects V. Petrov, A. Lelyakov and sculptors A. Ignatiev and A. Dema. (During earthworks During the construction of the monument, the remains of a decayed pillar and shackles rusted from time to time were found.)
On front side monument - the date of execution and a bas-relief with the profiles of the Decembrists. Such a bas-relief was first made at Herzen’s request and placed on the cover of the Polar Star magazine he published in recognition of the freedom-loving ideas of the Decembrists.
Under the bas-relief on the monument there is an inscription: “At this place on July 13/25, 1826, the Decembrists P. Pestel, K. Ryleev, P. Kakhovsky, S. Muravyov-Apostol, M. Bestuzhev-Ryumin were executed.” On the other side of the obelisk are carved the fiery words of A. S. Pushkin:
Comrade, believe: she will rise,
Star of captivating happiness,
Russia will wake up from its sleep,
And on the ruins of autocracy
They will write our names!
In front of the obelisk, on a square granite pedestal, there is a forged composition: a sword, epaulettes, broken chains.
190 years ago, Russia experienced events that, with a certain convention, can be considered an attempt to carry out the first Russian revolution. In December 1825 and January 1826, two armed uprisings took place, organized by the Northern and Southern secret societies of the Decembrists.
The organizers of the uprising set themselves very ambitious goals - changing the political system (replacing autocracy with constitutional monarchy or republic), the creation of a constitution and parliament, the abolition of serfdom.
Until that moment, armed uprisings were either large-scale riots (in terminology Soviet period- peasant wars), or palace coups.
Against this background, the Decembrist uprising was a political event of a completely different nature, hitherto unprecedented in Russia.
The large-scale plans of the Decembrists crashed into reality, in which the new emperor Nicholas I managed to firmly and decisively put an end to the action of the fighters against the autocracy.
As you know, a failed revolution is called a rebellion, and its organizers face a very unenviable fate.
A new court was established to consider the “case of the Decembrists”
Nicholas I approached the matter carefully. By decree of December 29, 1825, a Commission was established to investigate malicious societies under the chairmanship of the Minister of War Alexandra Tatishcheva. The manifesto of June 13, 1826 established the Supreme Criminal Court, which was supposed to consider the “case of the Decembrists.”
About 600 people were involved in the investigation of the case. The Supreme Criminal Court sentenced 120 defendants in 11 different categories, ranging from the death penalty to deprivation of ranks and demotion to soldiers.
Here we must keep in mind that we are talking about nobles who participated in the uprising. Soldiers' cases were considered separately by so-called Special Commissions. According to their decision, more than 200 people were subjected to being marched through the gauntlet and other corporal punishment, and more than 4 thousand were sent to fight in the Caucasus.
“Guning” was a punishment in which the condemned man walked through the ranks of soldiers, each of whom struck him with a spitzruten (a long, flexible and thick rod made of willow). When the number of such blows reached several thousand, such punishment turned into a sophisticated form of death penalty.
As for the Decembrist nobles, the Supreme Criminal Court, based on the laws Russian Empire, handed down 36 death sentences, of which five included quartering, and another 31 included beheading.
“An exemplary execution will be their just retribution”
The emperor had to approve the verdicts of the Supreme Criminal Court. Nicholas I commuted the punishment for convicts in all categories, including those sentenced to death. The monarch spared the lives of everyone who was supposed to be beheaded.
It would be a gross exaggeration to say that the Supreme Criminal Court decided the fate of the Decembrists independently. Historical documents published after February 1917 show that the emperor not only followed the process, but also clearly imagined its outcome.
“As for the main instigators and conspirators, an exemplary execution will be their fair retribution for the violation of public peace,” Nikolai wrote to the members of the court.
The monarch also instructed the judges on exactly how criminals should be executed. Nicholas I rejected quartering, as provided for by law, as a barbaric method, unbecoming European country. Execution was also not an option, since the emperor considered the convicts unworthy of execution, which allowed the officers to maintain their dignity.
All that remained was hanging, to which the court eventually sentenced the five Decembrists. On July 22, 1825, the death sentence was finally approved by Nicholas I.
The leaders of the Northern and Southern societies were subject to the death penalty Kondraty Ryleev And Pavel Pestel, and Sergey Muravyov-Apostol And Mikhail Bestuzhev-Ryumin, who directly led the uprising of the Chernigov regiment. The fifth person sentenced to death was Pyotr Kakhovsky, who mortally wounded the Governor General of St. Petersburg on Senate Square Mikhail Miloradovich.
Inflicting a mortal wound on Miloradovich on December 14, 1825. Engraving from a drawing owned by G. A. Miloradovich. Source: Public Domain
The execution was carried out on sandbags
The news that the Decembrists would ascend the scaffold came as a shock to Russian society. Since the time of the Empress Elizaveta Petrovna Death sentences were not carried out in Russia. Emelyan Pugacheva and his comrades were not taken into account, since we were talking about rebel commoners. The execution of the nobles, even if they encroached on political system, was an extraordinary event.
The accused themselves, both those who were sentenced to death and those who were sentenced to other types of punishment, learned about their fate on July 24, 1826. In the house of the commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress, judges announced sentences to the Decembrists, who were brought from the dungeons. After the verdict was announced, they were returned to their cells.
Meanwhile, the authorities were busy with another problem. The absence of the practice of executions for a long time led to the fact that in St. Petersburg there were neither those who knew how to build a scaffold, nor those who knew how to carry out sentences.
On the eve of the execution, an experiment was conducted in the city prison in which a hastily made scaffold was tested using eight-pound bags of sand. The experiments were personally supervised by the new Governor-General of St. Petersburg Pavel Vasilievich Golenishchev-Kutuzov.
Considering the results satisfactory, the Governor-General ordered the scaffold to be dismantled and taken to Peter and Paul Fortress.
Part of the scaffold was lost along the way
The execution was scheduled in the crownworks of the Peter and Paul Fortress at dawn on July 25, 1826. This dramatic act, which was supposed to put an end to the history of the Decembrist movement, turned out to be tragicomic.
As the head of the control department of the Peter and Paul Fortress recalled Vasily Berkopf, one of the cabbies transporting parts of the gallows managed to get lost in the dark and appeared on the spot with a significant delay.
From midnight in the Peter and Paul Fortress there was an execution of those convicts who escaped execution. They were taken out of the dungeons, their uniforms were torn off and their swords were broken over their heads as a sign of the so-called “civil execution”, then they were dressed in prisoner mantles and sent back to their cells.
Meanwhile, the police chief Chikhachev with an escort of soldiers of the Pavlovsk Guards Regiment, he took five people sentenced to death from their cells, after which he escorted them to the prison camp.
When they were brought to the place of execution, the condemned men saw how carpenters, under the guidance of an engineer, Matushkina They are hastily trying to assemble the scaffold. The organizers of the execution were almost more nervous than the convicts - it seemed to them that the cart with part of the gallows had disappeared for a reason, but as a result of sabotage.
The five Decembrists were seated on the grass, and they discussed their fate with each other for some time, noting that they were worthy of a “better death.”
“We must pay our last debt”
Finally they took off their uniforms, which they immediately burned. Instead, the condemned were put on long white shirts with bibs on which the word “criminal” and the name of the condemned were written.
After this, they were taken to one of the nearby buildings, where they had to wait for the completion of the construction of the scaffold. Communion was given to four Orthodox Christians in the house on death row - a priest Myslovsky, Lutheran Pestel - pastor Rainbot.
Finally the scaffold was completed. Those sentenced to death were again brought to the place of execution. The Governor General was present when the sentence was carried out Golenishchev-Kutuzov, generals Chernyshev, Benckendorff, Dibich, Levashov, Durnovo, Chief of Police Knyazhnin, police chiefs Posnikov, Chikhachev, Derschau, head of the control department Berkopf, archpriest Myslovsky, paramedic and doctor, architect Gurney, five assistant quarter wardens, two executioners and 12 Pavlovian soldiers under the command of the captain Pohlman.
Police Chief Chikhachev read the verdict of the Supreme Court with the final words: “Hang for such atrocities!”
“Gentlemen! We must pay our last debt,” noted Ryleev, addressing his comrades. Archpriest Peter Myslovsky read a short prayer. White caps were placed over the heads of the convicts, which caused dissatisfaction among them: “What is this for?”
Execution turned into sophisticated torture
Things continued to go wrong. One of the executioners suddenly fainted and had to be urgently carried away. Finally, drumming began to sound, nooses were placed around the necks of those being executed, the bench was pulled out from under their feet, and a few moments later, three of the five hanged men fell down.
According to the testimony of Vasily Berkopf, the head of the Peter and Paul Fortress's crown guard, initially a hole was dug under the gallows, on which boards were placed. It was assumed that at the moment of execution the boards would be pulled out from under the feet. However, the gallows were built in a hurry, and it turned out that the death row prisoners standing on the boards did not reach the loops with their necks.
They began to improvise again - in the destroyed building of the Merchant Shipping School they found benches for students, who were placed on the scaffold.
But at the moment of execution, three ropes broke. Either the executors did not take into account that they were hanging the condemned with shackles, or the ropes were initially of poor quality, but three Decembrists - Ryleev, Kakhovsky and Muravyov-Apostol - fell into the pit, breaking through the boards with the weight of their own bodies.
Moreover, it turned out that the hanged Pestel reached the boards with his toes, as a result of which his agony stretched out for almost half an hour.
Some of the witnesses to what was happening felt sick.
Muravyov-Apostol is credited with the words: “Poor Russia! And we don’t know how to hang properly!”
Perhaps this is just a legend, but we must admit that the words were very suitable at that moment.
Law versus tradition
The leaders of the execution sent messengers for new boards and ropes. The procedure was delayed - finding these things in St. Petersburg early in the morning was not such an easy task.
There was one more nuance - the military article of that time prescribed execution before death, but there was also an unspoken tradition according to which the execution was not supposed to be repeated, because this meant that “the Lord does not want the death of the condemned.” This tradition, by the way, took place not only in Russia, but also in other European countries.
Make a decision to stop the execution in in this case Nicholas I, who was in Tsarskoe Selo, could. From midnight, messengers were sent to him every half hour to report on what was happening. Theoretically, the emperor could have intervened in what was happening, but this did not happen.
As for the dignitaries who were present at the execution, it was necessary for them to complete the matter so as not to pay with their own careers. Nicholas I banned quartering as a barbaric procedure, but what happened in the end was no less barbaric.
Finally, new ropes and boards were brought, the three who fell, who were injured in the fall, were again dragged onto the scaffold and hanged a second time, this time achieving their death.
Engineer Matushkin answered for everything
Engineer Matushkin, who was demoted to soldier for poor quality construction of the scaffold, was made the worst offender for all the omissions.
When the doctors confirmed the death of the hanged men, their bodies were removed from the gallows and placed in the destroyed building of the Merchant Shipping School. By this time it was dawn in St. Petersburg, and it was impossible to remove the corpses for burial unnoticed.
According to Chief Police Chief Knyazhnin, the next night the bodies of the Decembrists were taken out of the Peter and Paul Fortress and buried in a mass grave, on which no sign was left.
There is no exact information about where exactly the executed were buried. The most likely place is considered to be Goloday Island, where state criminals were buried since the time of Peter I. In 1926, the year of the 100th anniversary of the execution, Goloday Island was renamed Dekabristov Island, and a granite obelisk was installed there.
The accession to the throne of Nicholas I was marked by an uprising on Senate Square on December 14, 1825, its suppression and execution of the Decembrists.
It was the strangest rebellion that has ever risen against the existing system. In any case, it started out as the most bloodless.
More than three thousand guardsmen under the command of noble officers gathered on Senate Square in the capital. The Moscow Guards Regiment was the first to enter the square. He was inspired to revolt by the revolutionary speech of officer Alexander Bestuzhev. The regimental commander, Baron Frederick, wanted to prevent the rebels from entering the square, but fell with a severed head under the blow of the saber of officer Shchepin-Rostovsky.
The soldiers of the Moscow Regiment came to Senate Square with the regimental banner flying, loading their guns and taking live ammunition with them. The regiment formed a combat square near the monument to Peter I. St. Petersburg Governor-General Miloradovich galloped up to the rebels and began to persuade the soldiers to disperse and take the oath.
Pyotr Kakhovsky mortally wounded Miloradovich. Under the command of naval officers Nikolai Bestuzhev and Arbuzov, rebel sailors came to the square - the Guards Marine Crew, followed by a regiment of rebel life grenadiers.
“I had to decide to put this end soon, otherwise the rebellion could have been communicated to the mob, and then the troops surrounded by it would have been in the most difficult situation,” Nikolai later wrote in his “Notes.”
After three o'clock in the afternoon it began to get dark. The Tsar ordered the cannons to be rolled out and shot point-blank with buckshot.
The arrested began to be taken to the Winter Palace.
Justice over the Decembrists was not supposed to be administered by the highest judicial body of Russia - the Senate, but by the Supreme Criminal Court, created by circumventing the laws on the orders of Nicholas I. The judges were selected by the emperor himself, who feared that the Senate would not carry out his will. The investigation established that the conspirators wanted to raise an armed uprising among the troops, overthrow the autocracy, abolish serfdom and popularly adopt a new state law - a revolutionary constitution. The Decembrists carefully developed their plans.
First of all, they decided to prevent the troops and the Senate from taking the oath to the new king. Then they wanted to enter the Senate and demand the publication of a national manifesto, which would announce the abolition of serfdom and the 25-year term of military service, the granting of freedom of speech, assembly, and religion.
If the Senate did not agree to publish the revolutionary manifesto, it was decided to force it to do so. The rebel troops were to occupy the Winter Palace and the Peter and Paul Fortress, royal family should have been arrested. If necessary, it was planned to kill the king.
The trial of the Decembrists took place with many procedural violations. The death sentence was imposed on 36 Decembrists. The verdict determined the method of application of the death penalty: quartering. Nicholas I approved only five death sentences.
For the rest of those sentenced, the death penalty was commuted to hard labor.
In pursuance of the tsar's decree, the Supreme Court had to choose punishment for the five condemned to quartering.
By his decree, the emperor seemed to leave it to the Supreme Court itself to decide the fate of the five main convicts. In fact, the king clearly expressed his will here too, but not for general information. Adjutant General Diebitsch wrote to the Chairman of the Supreme Court regarding the punishment of five people placed outside the category: “In case of doubt about the type of their execution, which may be determined by this court for criminals, the Emperor Emperor deigned to order me to preface Your Grace that His Majesty does not deign in any way only to be quartered, as a painful execution, but also to be shot as an execution typical of military crimes, not even to a simple beheading and, in a word, to no death penalty, associated with the shedding of blood...” The draft of this letter was compiled by Speransky. The Supreme Court, therefore, had only one option left - replacing quartering with hanging, which it did.
In general, Nikolai did not allow the outcome of the trial without the death penalty. “As for the main instigators and conspirators, an exemplary execution will be their fair retribution for the violation of public peace,” Nicholas I admonished the members of the court long before the verdict was pronounced.
The verdict of the Supreme Criminal Court, after approval by the emperor, entered into legal force. On July 13, 1826, the following were executed on the crownwork of the Peter and Paul Fortress: K.F. Ryleev, P.I. Pestel, S.I. Muravyov-Apostol, M.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin and P.G. Kakhovsky.
The five Decembrists, sentenced to hanging by the will of the tsar, like all the other convicts, did not know the sentence. The announcement of the verdict took place on July 12 in the premises of the commandant of the Peter and Paul Fortress. A long line of carriages with members of the court moved here from the Senate building. Two gendarmerie squadrons accompanied the carriages. In the designated room, the judges sat at a table covered with red cloth. The prisoners were brought from the casemates to the commandant's house. The meeting was unexpected for them: they hugged and kissed, asking what it meant.
When they found out that the verdict would be announced, they asked: “What, were we judged?” The answer was: “Already tried.” The convicts were placed according to the categories of the sentence in separate rooms, from where they were brought into the hall in groups to hear the verdict and its confirmation. They were taken out of the hall through other doors into the casemates. The condemned bravely met the verdict, which was read to them by the chief secretary, while the judges examined them through lorgnettes.
This calmness of those sentenced to death did not leave them, as we will see below, even during the painful hours of execution.
The story of an anonymous witness about the execution was published in Herzen's almanac "Polar Star".
“... The construction of the scaffold was carried out in advance in the St. Petersburg city prison... On the eve of this fateful day, the St. Petersburg military governor-general Kutuzov carried out an experiment on the scaffold in the prison, which consisted of throwing bags of sand weighing eight pounds on the very ropes on which the criminals were supposed to be hanged, some ropes were thicker, others thinner. Governor General Pavel Vasilyevich Kutuzov, having personally verified the strength of the ropes, decided to use thinner ropes so that the loops would tighten faster. Having completed this experiment, he ordered Police Chief Posnikov, having dismantled the scaffold piece by piece, to send it to different time from 11 to 12 o'clock at night to the place of execution...
At 12 o'clock at night, the Governor General, the chief of gendarmes with their staffs and other authorities arrived at the Peter and Paul Fortress, where the soldiers of the Pavlovsk Guards Regiment also arrived, and a square of soldiers was made on the square opposite the Mint, where they were ordered to be taken out of the casemates where they were kept criminals, all 120 convicted, except five sentenced to death... (These five) at the same time at night were sent from the fortress under the escort of Pavlovian soldiers, under the police chief Chikhachev, to the Kronverk to the place of execution.
The scaffold was already being built in a circle of soldiers, the criminals were walking in chains, Kakhovsky walked forward alone, behind him Bestuzhev-Ryumin arm in arm with Muravyov, then Pestel and Ryleev arm in arm and spoke to each other in French, but the conversation could not be heard. Walking past the scaffold under construction at a close distance, even though it was dark, you could hear that Pestel, looking at the scaffold, said: “C"est trop” - “This is too much” (French). They were immediately seated on the grass at a close distance, where they stayed the most a short time. According to the recollection of the quarterly overseer, “they were completely calm, but only very serious, as if they were thinking about some important matter.” When the priest approached them, Ryleev put his hand to his heart and said: “Can you hear how calmly it beats?” Convicted in last time hugged.
Since the scaffold could not be ready soon, they were taken to the crownwork different rooms, and when the scaffold was ready, they were again taken out of the rooms, accompanied by a priest. Police Chief Chikhachev read the maxim of the Supreme Court, which ended with the words: “... hang for such atrocities!” Then Ryleev, turning to his comrades, said, maintaining all his presence of mind: “Gentlemen! We must pay our last debt,” and with that they all knelt down, looking at the sky, and crossed themselves. Ryleev alone spoke - he wished for the well-being of Russia... Then, getting up, each of them said goodbye to the priest, kissing the cross and his hand, moreover, Ryleev said to the priest in a firm voice: “Father, pray for our sinful souls, do not forget my wife and bless your daughter "; Having crossed himself, he ascended the scaffold, followed by others, except for Kakhovsky, who fell on the priest’s chest, cried and hugged him so tightly that they took him away with difficulty...
During the execution there were two executioners who first put on the noose and then the white cap. They (that is, the Decembrists) had black skin on their chests, on which the name of the criminal was written in chalk, they were in white coats, and there were heavy chains on their legs. When everything was ready, with the pressing of the spring in the scaffold, the platform on which they stood on the benches fell, and at the same instant three fell: Ryleev, Pestel and Kakhovsky fell down. Ryleev’s cap fell off, and a bloody eyebrow and blood behind his right ear were visible, probably from a bruise.
He sat crouched because he had fallen inside the scaffold. I approached him and said: “What a misfortune!” The Governor-General, seeing that three had fallen, sent adjutant Bashutsky to take other ropes and hang them, which was done. I was so busy with Ryleev that I did not pay attention to the rest of those who had fallen from the gallows and did not hear if they said what something. When the board was raised again, Pestel’s rope was so long that he could reach the platform with his toes, which was supposed to prolong his torment, and it was noticeable for some time that he was still alive. They remained in this position for half an hour, the doctor who was here announced that the criminals had died.”
Governor General Golenishchev-Kutuzov officially reported to the Tsar: “The execution ended with due silence and order both from the troops who were in the ranks and from the spectators, of whom there were few.” But he added: “Due to the inexperience of our executioners and the inability to arrange gallows the first time, three, namely Ryleev, Kakhovsky and Pestel, fell through, but were soon hanged again and received a well-deserved death.” Nikolai himself wrote to his mother on July 13: “I am writing to a quick fix two words, dear mother, wanting to inform you that everything happened quietly and in order: the vile ones behaved vilely, without any dignity.
Chernyshev is leaving this evening and, as an eyewitness, can tell you all the details. Sorry for the brevity of the presentation, but knowing and sharing your concern, dear mother, I wanted to bring to your attention what has already become known to me.”
The day after the execution, the king returned with his family to the capital. On Senate Square, with the participation of the highest clergy, a cleansing prayer service was held with the sprinkling of the land “desecrated” by the uprising.
The Tsar issued a Manifesto about consigning the whole matter to oblivion.