From the Presidential Library collections: Ivan Pushchin in memoirs and correspondence with friends

May 15, 2018 marks the 220th anniversary of one of the leaders of the uprising on the Senatskaya Square on December 14, 1825, a member of the secret society "Union of Prosperity", a lyceum student of the first issue Ivan Ivanovich Pushchin. "My first friend, my priceless friend! .." A. S. Pushkin wrote a poem dedicated to him. And this title of "priceless friend" the closest companion of the poet from the Lyceum times confirmed his whole life.

The evidence to this are some rare books from the Presidential Library collections: book "I. I. Pushchin’s Notes about Pushkin" in 1907 (it is presented on the website of the Presidential Library), ""Notes on Pushkin" I. I. Pushchin" (1925) and "Letters of G. S. Batenkov, I. I. Pushchin and E. G. Toll” (1936) (they are available in the electronic reading rooms of the Presidential Library).

Notes by Pushchin are created in 1858 at the insistence of E. I. Yakushkin, son of the Decembrist Ivan Yakushkin, who was still in Siberia in 1853, recorded the oral stories of Pushchin. The reason for writing them was the emergence in 1855 of "Materials" by Annenkov, where the political views of the poet and his connection with the Decembrist movement barely covered as the censorship, and with characteristic Annenkov conviction that these relations were accidental. But this is far from the case. "If Pushchin hesitated to take Pushkin to the secret society, there is no doubt that his conversation was maintained. So the mindset that expressed in his poems and preparing him a quick link. The same influence was to have the very life of Pushchin", - we read in the preface to the “Notes”.

... They were introduced by the exam, which took at the ministerial level at the future high school lyceum students: "I was surprised: it seems I was not the shy a dozen, but then somehow lost, - Pushchin says in his "Notes", - looked at everyone and I saw no one. An official came in with paper in his hand and began to call out names. I hear: Alex Pushkin! - stands a live boy, curly, quick-eyed, also somewhat embarrassed. By the similarity of names or for something else, unconsciously bringing together, I noticed him at first sight".  

"We all saw that Pushkin was ahead of us, read a lot, which we did not hear, everything that I read, I remembered; but his dignity consisted in the fact that he did not at all think to show himself and be more important", - Ivan Pushchin wrote later, recalling the Lyceum years, Pushkin's neighbor in the Lyceum cell. - The situation of Pushkin in his father's house and his uncle, among writers, in addition to his natural talents, accelerated his education, but did not make him arrogant - a sign of good soil. He considered everything scientific in nothing and as if he only wished to prove that the master was running around, jumping over chairs, throwing a ball, etc. His pride was even involved in this - there were collisions, very awkward. How then to understand the combination of our different internal engines!"  

The "engines", however, had a common nature. Also, like Pushkin, ironically refers to his chambers-Junkerdom and never having attained titles and ranks, Pushchin after leaving the Lyceum entered the Guards horse artillery, but did not stay in the military. Once, in the palace at the exit, Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich sharply remarked to him that he had a badly tied sword on his saber. Pushchin immediately filed a petition for resignation - this is reported in the preface to "Notes by I. I. Pushchin about Pushkin" E. I. Yakushkin. In order to show that any service to the state and the people is not humiliating, a graduate of the Imperial Lyceum of Pushchin decided to occupy a lower police post (quarter warder). This angered his relatives, the sister on her knees urged him to abandon such an intention. He heeded requests and replaced the police post with a judge in the Criminal Department of the Moscow Court. Judge Pushchin firmly stood guard over the law. On his daily administration of justice, many looked like a civil feat.

Entered at the end of the Lyceum in the secret society "Union of Prosperity" Ivan Pushchin met December 14, 1825 at the Senatskaya Square. And judging from eyewitness accounts, he was one of the few who retained the presence of the spirit. "When a horse-pioneer squadron received orders to take the Promenade des Anglais, the empty square trot between Moscow Regiment and the Senate, the soldiers, thinking that the horse Pioneers go on the attack, opened fire on them, - writes in the foreword to the "Notes" Yakushkin. - Officers who saw that this was not an attack, shouted to the soldiers that they would stop shooting, but they did not stop the fire, as the shots drowned out the orders given. One Pushkin was found at that moment. He shouted to the drummer: "beat off"; the drummer struck off, and the shooting ceased. Pushchin left the square one of the last; The former cloak of his grandfather, Admiral Pushchin, was punched in many places with grape shot".

There was an arrest, the Shlisselburg fortress, a painful waiting for the sentence, by which the execution was replaced by a reference to Siberian mines - and a long way to the place of serving the sentence. In December 1827 (this is already information from the "Letters of G. S. Batenkov, I. I. Pushchin and E. G. Toll", an electronic copy of which is available in the Presidential Library's collections), Pushchin writes from Irkutsk to his father: "We moved on to philistine horses with gendarmes and a private bailiff who is so kind that he lets us take off the chains for the night, which we do with caution, for these people are looked after, and any good can make them unpleasant".

Much is said about the exile program lines to the son of the first director of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum E. A. Engelgardt from Chita in March 1830: "I have nothing special about myself, I can safely assure you that, whatever my position may be, I will be able to firmly endure it and will always find in myself such comforts that no human power can deprive me of. I've already suffered a lot and will be even more in the future if God wants to prolong my insecure life; but all this I expect as a man must, who understands the cause of things and their indispensable connection with what, sooner or later, must triumph, despite the effort of people - the deaf to the teachings of the century".