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Decembrists, Rebels, and Martyrs in Siberian Exile: The “Zerentui Conspiracy” of 1828 and the Fashioning of a Revolutionary Genealogy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Daniel Beer
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Abstract

In May 1828 the authorities in eastern Siberia uncovered plans, hatched by the Decembrist Ivan Sukhinov, to stage an armed rebellion among the penal laborers of the Nerchinsk mines. Sukhinov was planning to march on Chita in order to liberate his fellow Decembrists from captivity. Found guilty of the charges, the ringleaders were executed and Sukhinov committed suicide. Yet the conspiracy was a fantasy, conjured into being by the chaotic conditions of penal labor and official fears of exiled revolutionaries directing insurgencies in Siberia. The state's destruction of Sukhinov and his alleged co-conspirators created the fictional memory of a revolutionary hero and a noble, if doomed, rebellion. In their memoirs published in the postreform era, the Decembrists offered contemporaries an inspiring tale of insurgency and martyrdom in Siberia. The “Zerentui conspiracy” articulated new possibilities of revolutionary protest in exile

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Slavic Review , Volume 72 , Issue 3 , Fall 2013 , pp. 528 - 551
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 2013

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References

A Leverhulme Research Fellowship funded the research and writing of this article. My thanks to Ilya Magin, Susan Morrissey, Alexandra Oberländer, Andrew Gentes, Stephen Lovell, Gavin Jacobson, Jonathan Waterlow, Amanda Vickery, and Mark D. Steinberg for their invaluable comments on its earlier drafts. Insightful suggestions from participants in research seminars at Royal Holloway, Reading, Oxford, and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London, in late 2012 and early 2013 have much improved my arguments.

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2. Andrew A. Gentes, £xi'/e to Siberia, 1590-1822 (Basingstoke, Eng., 2008), 124-25. On the history of the Nerchinsk mining district from the 1830s to the 1880s, see Vasilii I. Semevskii, Rabochie na sibirskikh zolotykh promyslakh, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1898).

3. The Zerentui mine, headed by Chernigovtsev personally, had already accommodated seven leading Decembrists in 1827. See “Iz proshlogo,” Istoricheskii vestnik 45, no. 7 (1891): 219-28.

4. RGIA, f. 468, op. 25, d. 244 (1828), 11. lob.-2.

5. The literature on the Decembrist Uprising and its aftermath is, of course, voluminous. See, for example, Raeff, Marc, ed., The Decembrist Movement (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1966)Google Scholar; Gentes, Andrew, Exile, Murder and Madness in Siberia, 1823–1861 (Basingstoke, Eng., 2010), chaps. 3–4 Google Scholar; Nevelev, Genadii, Dekabristskii kontekst: Dokumenty i opisaniia (St. Petersburg, 2012)Google Scholar.

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20. RGIA, f. 468, op. 20 (326/487), d. 625 (1828 “0 vozmushchenii ssyl'norabochikh pri Klichkinskom rudnike“), 11.1–3. Their sentences were milder than those of the Zerentui conspirators because no military court was convened.

21. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voenno-istoricheskii arkhiv (RGVIA), f. 410, op. 1, d. 71 (1827 “0 vosstanii“), 1.2. Proximity to the Chinese border proved an ongoing headache for administrators of eastern Siberia with convicts repeatedly seeking to escape the clutches of the Russian state by fleeing to Bukhara. In 1840 seven fugitives were turned over to the Russian authorities, having been detained in Urgi. See RGIA, f. 1286, op. 7, d. 334 (1840 “Po otnosheniiu G. Vitse-kantslera kasatel'no usileniia nakazaniia ssyl'nykh v Sibiri, po sluchaiu chastykh pobegov ikh za Kitaiskuiu granitsu“), 11. 1-11.

22. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Irkutskoi Oblasti (GAIO), f. 24, op. 3, karton 49, d. 297 (1828 “0 povedenii dekabristov na Blagodatskom rudnike“).

23. GAIO, f. 24, op. 3, karton 49, d. 273 (1828 “0 bunte ssyl'nykh“), 1. 2. At that time a number of prominent Decembrists were prisoners of the Blagodatsk mine: Sergei Volkonskoi, Sergei Trubetskoi, Artamon Murav'ev, Vasilii Davydov, Evgenii Obolenskii, Aleksandr Iakubovich, Andrei and Petr Borisov. See GAIO, f. 24, op. 3, karton 49, d. 297,1.33.

24. GAIO, f. 24, op. 3, karton 49, d. 273,1.7.

25. RGIA, f. 468, op. 25, d. 244 (1828), 1.159.

26. Ibid., 1. 52ob.

27. Ibid., 11. 55–57ob.

28. Ibid., 11.158ob., 70ob., 68.

29. Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GARF), f. 109, 1-aia ekspeditsiia, 1826, d. 61, ch. 154,11. 1–8.

30. Sukhinov maintained that he had intervened, after “Murav'ev-Apostol’ had given me strict orders to murder and destroy him,” to save the life of the regiment's commander Gebel', something Gebel’ roundly rejected in his own account of the revolt. Sukhinov was, he declared, “a criminal, an unfortunate led astray by thoughtlessness … forgive me magnanimously, my sovereign, my crime. I am not a murderer or a barbarian. If I am guilty, then it is only of following the orders of Murav'ev-Apostol'. This was my only error.” Sukhinov's petition did not reach St. Petersburg until sometime in May 1825 and was received unsympathetically by Nicholas I. These details emerge in lu. Oksman's extensive commentary accompanying Solov'ev's article. See V. N. Solov'ev, “Zapiski o 1.1. Sukhinove,” in lu. Oksman, G., ed., Vospominaniia i rasskazy deiatelei tainykh obshchestv 1820-kh gg. 2 vols. (Moscow, 1933), 2:41–43 Google Scholar; lu. Oksman, G., ed., Vosstanie dekabristov (Moscow, 1929), 6 :108 Google Scholar. Expressions of remorse, gratitude, and petitions to Nicholas for clemency were common among the Decembrists. See Barratt, , ed., Voices in Exile 19 Google Scholar; Murav'ev, A. N., Sochineniia ipis'ma (Irkutsk, 1986), 263, 288Google Scholar.

31. RGVIA, f. 36, op. 4, sviazka 17, d. 132 (1826 “0 poruchike Aleksandriiskogo Gusarskovo polka Sukhinove, uchastvovavshem v vozmushchenii Chernigovskogo pekhotnogo polka“), 11.4-4ob.; RGVIA, f. 1, op. 1, d. 19203 (1850 “0 Sukhinove“); Oksman, , ed., Vosstanie dekabristov 6:144 Google Scholar; lu. G. Oksman, “Poimka poruchika 1.1. Sukhinova,” in lu. Oksman, G. and Mozdalevskii, B. L., eds., Dekabristy: Neizdannye materialy i stat'i (Moscow, 1925), 64–70 Google Scholar; Solov'ev, “Zapiski o 1.1. Sukhinove,” 2:44. On the empire-wide search for Sukhinov in January 1826, see “Otnoshenie upravliaiushchego ministrom vnutrennykh del arkhangel'skomu grazhdanskomu gubernatoru,” Russkaia starina 1899, no. 6: 586Google Scholar.

32. Oksman, “Poimka poruchika 1.1. Sukhinova,” 70.

33. Mikhil F. Shugurov, “0 bunte Chernigovskogo polka,” Russkii arkhiv 1902, no. 2: 298-301. On the testimony of the Chernigov Regiment's other insurgents, see “Vosstanie Chernigovskogo polka v pokazaniiakh uchastnikov,” Krasnyi arkhiv 13 (1925): 1–67 Google Scholar.

34. Bazilevskii, B., ed., GosudarstvennyeprestupleniiavRossiivXIXveke: Sbornik izvlechennykh iz offitsial'nykh izdaniipravitel'stvennyikh soobshchenii vol. 1 (1825–1876 god) (St. Petersburg, 1906), 65 Google Scholar.

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36. Oksman, , “Dekabrist V. N. Solov'ev i ego vospominaniia,” in Oksman, and Modzalevskii, , eds., Dekabristy 16–17 Google Scholar. In an encounter in Tobol'sk with State Senator Prince B. A. Kurakin, Sukhinov continued to express despair and regret: “he was moved and said that he terribly regretted [his actions], but had been blinded for too long.” See Kurakin, , “Dekabristy na puti v Sibir',” in Oksman, and Modzalevskii, , eds., Dekabristy 114 Google Scholar. On the transportation of the other Decembrists, see Margolis, A. D., “Etapirovanie dekabristov v Sibir',” in Margolis, A. D., Tiur'ma i ssylka v imperatorskoi Rossii: Issledovaniia i arkhivnye nakhodki (Moscow, 1995), 53–60 Google Scholar; Fedorov, V. A., ed., “Krestnyi put’ dekabristov v Sibir': Dokumenty ob otpravke osuzhdennykh na katorgu i v ssylku i ob usloviiakh ikh soderzhaniia, 1826-1837,” Istoricheskii arkhiv 2006, no. 6:46–56 Google Scholar.

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38. Sukhinov, Solov'ev, and Mozalevskii were not exiled to Chita along with the majority of their fellow Decembrists because they had been sentenced not by the Supreme Court in St. Petersburg but by the military court in Mogil'ev.

39. RGIA, f. 468, op. 25, d. 244 (1828), 11.76-79. The anticipation of an amnesty was, in the years immediately following the Decembrists’ arrival in eastern Siberia, widespread. See Barratt, , ed., Voices in Exile 227 Google Scholar

40. Nepomniashchii's second testimony on the same day comprised a similar denial of his earlier statements. He said that he gave his earlier testimony “in order to spare himself further questioning.” RGIA, f. 468, op. 25, d. 244 (1828), 11.61ob.-62ob., 69ob.

41. Ibid., 1.63ob.

42. Ibid., 1.148ob.

43. RGVIA, f. 410, op. 1, d. 71,11.4–4ob.; RGIA, f. 468, op. 25, d. 244 (1828), 1.45ob. On Leparskii, see Timoshchyk, Vera, “Stanislav Romanovich Leparskii, komendant Nerchinskikh rudnikov i Chitinskogo ostroga, 1759-1838 gg.,” Russkaia starina 1892, no. 7: 143–77Google Scholar.

44. On the same day, Leparskii wrote to the head of the General Staff, Count Ivan Ivanovich Dibich-Zabalkanskii, informing him of the discovery of the conspiracy. Fon Frish also wrote to Nikolai Ivanovich Seliavin, the vice president of the Cabinet of his Imperial Majesty on 8 June. Their letters finally reached their addressees almost two full months later, on 28 and 31 July, respectively. Nechkina, , ed., “Zagovor v Zerentuiskom rudnike,” 260 Google Scholar.

45. Sometime shortly afterwards, Kirgizov fell ill and Nesterov took over the reins of the investigation. RGIA, f. 468, op. 25, d. 244 (1828), 1.48.

46. Ibid., 1.150. Responsibility for the investigation was transferred from Nesterov and Anisimov to two senior figures in Nerchinsk, Ober Gitten ferval'ters Rik and Chebaevskii. The latter had been in charge of the investigation into the earlier disturbances in the Klichkin mine. See RGIA, f. 468, op. 19, d. 547 (1828), 1.38.

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49. Ibid., 11.55-57, 71.

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51. Nechkina, ed., “Zagovor v Zerentuiskom rudnike,” 263,269.

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81. “Zapiski neizvestnogo,” 531.

82. “I. I. Sukhinov,” 917-18.

83. Ibid., 920; “Zapiski neizvestnogo,” 544.

84. “Zapiski neizvestnogo,” 545.

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88. “Zapiski neizvestnogo,” 554.

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90. “K istorii zagovora Sukhinova,” 130-35.

91. “K epilogu zagovora.“

92. “I. I. Sukhinov,” 925-26.

93. “Zapiski neizvestnogo,” 553.

94. On the ennobling qualities of shame in the 1880s, see also Oberlander, Alexandra, “Shame and Modern Subjectivities: The Rape of Elizaveta Cheremnova,” in Steinberg, and Sobol, , eds., Interpreting Emotions 82–101 Google Scholar.

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97. Morrissey cites an obscure article about the self-killing of a young revolutionary in Odessa published at the same time. “Neobyknovennoe samoubiistvo,” Nedelia 1879, no. 22: 638–39Google Scholar (cited in Morrissey, Suicide and the Body Politic 273).

98. Fomin, A., “Kariiskaia tragediia,” in A. Dikovskaia-Iakimovaia, and Pleskov, V., eds., Kara i drugie tiur'my Nerchinskoi katorgi: Sbornik vospominanii dokumentov i materialov (Moscow, 1927), 137 Google Scholar. See also Morrissey, , Suicide and the Body Politic 280–81Google Scholar. G. F. Osmolovskii's account of the mass suicide in Kara was published in Byloe in 1906 (the same year in which the journal published documents from the Zerentui conspiracy). Osmolovskii, G. F., “Kariiskaia tragediia,” Byloe 1906, no. 6: 77–79 Google Scholar.

99. See the mass suicide of revolutionaries in 1909 following a failed attempt at an escape from the Aleksandrovsk Central Kudriavtsev, Prison. F., Aleksandrovskii tsentral (iz istorii sibirskoi katorgi) (Irkutsk, 1936), 54–58 Google Scholar. Hours before he took his own life in the Tobol'sk prison in 1910, one young radical, Sergei Vilkov, wrote, “you have sentenced me to death but I've had enough of you and I can hang myself on my own and I'll manage without an executioner!” He addressed his suicide note, “to the bloodsuckers from an insurgent.” Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Tiumen'skoi oblasti v gorode Tobol ‘ske, f. 1, op. 1, d. 1074 (1910 “Delo po povesivshemsia arestante Sergee Vilkove“), 11.1-4. See also Korolenko, Vladimir G., “Bytovoe iavlenie” (1910), in Sobranie sochinenii 10 vols. (Moscow, 1953), 9:488 Google Scholar.

100. Morrissey, , Suicide and the Body Politic 277 Google Scholar.

101. See, for example, Klivenskii, M. M., ed., Dekabristy: Khrestomatiia (Moscow, 1926), 149–50Google Scholar; Barvins'kii, V., “Do biografii poruchika I. I. Sukhinova,” Dekabristi na Ukraini (Kiev, 1926), 1:167–70Google Scholar; Kubalov, B., “Sibir’ i samozvantsy: Iz istorii narodnykh volnenii v XIX v.,” Sibirskie ogni 1924, no. 3:155 Google Scholar. On the centenary celebrations of the uprising, see Trigos, , Decembrist Myth in Russian Culture chaps. 3–4 Google Scholar.

102. Nechkina, , ed., “Zagovor v Zerentuiskom rudnike,” 258 Google Scholar.

103. In passing, Nechkina did note that Zavalishin had responded with skepticism to the events in Zerentui but the overwhelming tone of her commentary endorsed the existence of the conspiracy. Nechkina, , ed., “Zagovor v Zerentuiskom rudnike,” 263 Google Scholar.

104. Ibid., 276.

105. Gessen, , Zagovor dekabrista Sukhinova 13–14 Google Scholar.

106. Ibid., 55. Sukhinov promptly disappeared from Soviet accounts of the Decembrists in the 1930s and 1940s, presumably because the story of rebellion and heroic suicide in Siberian labor camps became a problematic topic as the gulag expanded. He reappeared only in Nechkina, M. V., Dvizhenie dekabristov, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1955), 2:435–36Google Scholar and in glasnost-era publications such as Dvorianov, V. N., V sibirskoi dal'nei storone … (Ocherki istorii politicheskoi katorgi i ssylki. 60-e gody XVIII v.—1917g.) (Minsk, 1985), 49 Google Scholar.

107. Gessen, , Zagovor dekabrista Sukhinova 11 108 Google Scholar. Steinberg, Mark D. and Sobol, Valerie, “Introduction,” in Steinberg, and Sobol, , eds., Interpreting Emotions 5 Google Scholar. Emphasis in the original

108. Mark D. Steinberg and Valerie Sobol, “Introduction,” in Steinberg and Sobol, eds., Interpreting Emotions, 5. Emphasis in the original.