Rashevsky, Sergey Alexandrovich

Sergei Rashevsky came from an old noble family ^[1] .

He graduated from the Poltava Cadet Corps and the Nikolaev Engineering School in St. Petersburg , enlisted in the army. Not taking part in hostilities by the age of thirty he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

In the 1890s he served in the Dvina fortress . After the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War, he was sent to Port Arthur , where he became one of the closest advisers to the head of defense, General R. I. Kondratenko .

Rashevsky took an active part in the construction of defensive structures, led the mine war with the Japanese. According to eyewitnesses, he photographed a lot. So, Rashevsky took 4 photos of the moment of the death of the battleship “ Petropavlovsk ”. ^[2]

Sergei Rashevsky died on December 2 (15), 1904, together with General R.I. Kondratenko as a result of shelling of the fort, where they were, with heavy artillery of the Japanese. According to one version, reflected, for example, in the novel by A. Stepanov Port Arthur, the shelling was not accidental, but was the result of the betrayal of one of the supporters of the early surrender of the fortress.

After the death of Colonel Rashevsky, his diary was found, which he kept from January 26 to November 29, 1904, and which described in great detail the situation in Port Arthur. Probably, out of fear of new scandals and revelations among the generals, the diary was bought from the Rashevsky family by the military department and transferred to the archive in sealed form. Now the original diary is kept at the Russian State Television and Radio Museum It was first published only in 1954 with significant notes.

Spouse: Poliksena (Polina) Vladimirovna Schulz, daughter of a court counselor (wife: Zinaida Sverchkova from the family of the artist Sverchkov ). Son - Vladimir (1892-1967 Paris ). Daughters - Natalya (1893-1962 Leningrad) and Zinaida (1896-1963 Paris). Natalia became an actress in theater and cinema, a director, a famous Soviet theater teacher. Zinaida was the beloved of Grand Duke Boris Vladimirovich . After the revolution, she and Boris went abroad, where they got married.

Among the great-great-grandchildren of S. A. Rashevsky (along the lines of Natalya’s daughter) is French writer Tatyana de Ronet , whose great-great-grandfather on his mother’s side, the British specialist in ballistics and explosives, Andrew Noble , was proud to say that all the shells that allowed the Japanese army to win in Tsushima were produced by his company. His descendant through the son of Vladimir is Countess Zina Rachevsky , a Buddhist nun.

• Medal in memory of the reign of Emperor Alexander III (March 17, 1896), Order of St. Stanislav 3 degrees (December 6, 1897), Light bronze medal in memory of the campaign in China 1900-1901. (March 11, 1902), Order of St. George, 4th Degree (November 23, 1904) - “In reward of the excellent courage and courage shown in cases against the Japanese during the bombing and blockade of Port Arthur”, Golden weapon “For Bravery” - "For differences in cases against the Japanese" (January 4, 1905)

• Diary of Colonel S. A. Rashevsky: (Port Arthur, 1904) / Comp. A. A. Bregman; S. A. Zalessky; D.K. Zherebov; Ed. and with the foreword. A. L. Sidorova; USSR Academy of Sciences. Institute of History; GAU Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR. Branch of TsGVIA in Leningrad. S. 343: photo, schemes, map, fax., Adj.

• The Most Serene Princess comes from Dvinsk // Our newspaper: newspaper. - Daugavpils, 02/09/2006.
• Rashevsky, Sergei Alexandrovich at the Rodovod . Tree of ancestors and descendants