Eyewitness memories of the Decembrist uprising illustrated in the Presidential Library’s materials

December 14 (26), 2020 marks the 195th anniversary of the uprising on Senate Square in St. Petersburg.

The attempted coup d'état in 1825 was organized by a group of noble officers who would later be called the Decembrists. The Presidential Library’s portal in the digital collection Decembrists in the History of Russia features unique materials that enable the reader to learn about different assessments of the uprising on Senate Square and get their own idea of ​​the events of that day.

The reason that prompted the young people, who visited high-society salons, to go against the existing government, Konstantin Dubrovsky, the author of the anthology The Decembrists (1925), explains: “These were the majority of those Russian officers who after 1812 had to visit Europe and breathe its revolutionary air and which later had to compare with it the wretched Russian reality, full of poverty, arbitrariness and lawlessness". This is confirmed by the words of Mikhail Fonvizin, one of the founders of the Northern Society of Decembrists: "The great events of the Patriotic War, leaving deep impressions, made...a restless desire for activity". His memoirs were published in the 1906 edition Memoirs of the Decembrists: (notes, letters, testimonies, draft constitutions, extracts from the investigation).

“In 1815, a small circle of young officers of the Semyonovsky regiment, deciding to give up carousing and empty high society life, formed an artel to read foreign newspapers and talk about contemporary issues, especially Russian life. Alexander I, having learned about this artel, ordered to close it. This was quite enough to initiate secret societies", - according to the book The Decembrists: The History of the Armed Uprising of December 14, 1825 (1923).

The moment of active action came when Alexander I died. His brother Constantine was supposed to take the throne, but he renounced the throne in favor of his younger brother Nicholas. But this was not announced publicly, and the oath of allegiance was taken to Constantine. It became necessary to conduct a swearing-in ceremony. It was scheduled for December 14, 1825. “No other case could have been more favorable for the implementation of the intentions of the secret society”, - notes the head of the uprising, Colonel of the General Staff Sergei Trubetskoy, who left behind memories of those events, published later and presented on the Presidential Library's portal. It should be noted that on December 14, Trubetskoy himself did not appear on Senate Square. To some extent, this is explained by the fact, according to him, that he was sure: "changing the way of government forcibly is a terrible thing, which will inevitably entail all the horrors of the French Revolution". 

The conspirators planned to withdraw troops to the Senate building and read out the "Manifesto to the Russian people", according to which autocracy and serfdom were abolished, civil liberties were introduced, and a constitution was established.

But that was the task of the "top", and the "bottom" did not even hear such a word: "constitution". The book Emperor Nicholas I and His Reign (1859) conveys the atmosphere of general confusion that reigned on Senate Square: "The conspirators added the exclamation "Hurray, Constantine! "To the cry of "Hurray, Constitution!" But the soldiers did not understand the last expression. “Is this the wife of the Grand Duke?” They asked innocently. “Yes”, - the conspirators said. Alexander Belyaev in his book Memoirs of a Decembrist about what he experienced and felt (1882) wrote: "All our officers constantly instilled in the soldiers that they are not rebels, but people honestly performing the duty of the oath...".

The situation was heating up. “It was ordered...to fire several shots with blank charges; but the crowd, in their blindness, seeing no harm, received even more courage. Then the real buckshot spoke! The ranks of the rebels wavered and fled. Large masses rushed across the ice to Vasilievsky Island, but squadrons of the Horse Guards were catching up with them... ", - this is how the uprising is described in the book Emperor Nicholas I and His Reign.

The authors of the memoirs recall the cases of courage of the Decembrists. For example, Ivan Pushchin - Pushkin's closest friend. The publication Notes of Ivan Pushchin about Pushkin (1907), the author of the preface, the son of the Decembrist Ivan Yakushkin, Yevgeny Yakushkin, says: "Pushchin was one of the last to leave the square; the cloak of his grandfather, Admiral Pushchin, who was wearing it, was pierced in many places with buckshot”.

Speaking about the further fate of the leaders of the uprising, Evgeny Obolensky in his book In exile and imprisonment. Memoirs of the Decembrists (1908) writes: "Protecting them from buckshot, fate could not save them from the power of the victor; besides all the bitterness of defeat, horror of execution, they had to endure shackles, torture, imprisonment and, finally, some tragic death, other hard labor, the third Siberian casemates".

The participants in the conspiracy were arrested and sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress. The emperor himself was the investigator. Five of them - Kondraty Ryleev, Pavel Pestel, Pyotr Kakhovsky, Mikhail Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Sergei Muravyov-Apostol - were sentenced to death. The rest were in hard labor. In the above-mentioned notes of Prince Trubetskoy, there is a fragment of his conversation with Nicholas I: “The Emperor. (shouting). You know that I can shoot you now! I. (Hands folded and also loudly). Do shoot, Emperor! You have the right. Emperor. (Also loud). I do not want. I want your fate to be terrible!"

The historical essay Decembrists in Western Siberia (1905), the scientist Alexander Dmitriev-Mamonov tells about the life of the exiled Decembrists. Yes, their life was hard, but the convicts tried to give meaning to her every day - they taught children to read and write, opened schools...

In 1830, Ivan Pushchin wrote: “I have already endured a lot and there is still more to come...but I expect all this as it should for a person who understands the reason for things and their indispensable connection with the fact that sooner or later must triumph, despite the efforts of people who are deaf to teachings of the century"...