Yakut tragedy

March 22, 1889 33 exiles (according to other sources - 34: 29 Jews and 5 Russians ^[1] ) gathered in the house of Yakut Monastyrev, protesting against toughening the rules of transfer to the Vilyui, Verkhoyansk and Kolyma districts and the arbitrariness of the authorities. The protest was brutally crushed by armed force. During the clash of exiles with punishers, six exiles were killed, seven were injured.

In the autobiographical book of the Soviet writer A. Ya. Brushtein " The road goes into the distance ... " the events of the Yakut tragedy are presented on behalf of one of the exiles. He talks about the fact that upon arrival in Yakutsk they were not given time to buy the necessary provisions and warm clothes to continue their journey further to Srednekolymsk, and the path went through uninhabited territory, it was necessary to bring short fur coats, pima, linen, bread , meat and other provisions. When the exiles wrote a statement to the governor asking them to postpone the dispatch, they were ordered to collect from someone alone the next day and wait for an answer. The next day, when everyone gathered, they were ordered to go out into the yard and wait. Then an armed detachment came under the command of two officers and started firing. Some of the exiles had weapons and resisted, but not successfully. At the end of the battle, the survivors were sent to prison (before that, the exiles in Yakutsk lived in free apartments), and the wounded were sent to a prison hospital. An order came from Petersburg to judge for the “riot” with all severity - by a military court. ^[2]

The surviving rioters appeared before the Yakut military court. Three of them - A. L. Gausman , N. L. Zotov , L. M. Kogan-Bernshtein were sentenced to death by hanging, four were sentenced to indefinite penal servitude, and the rest were sentenced to various terms of penal servitude. The death sentences were carried out at 4 a.m. on August 7, 1889, outside the Yakutsk prison fence. The seriously injured L. M. Kogan-Bernstein was hanged directly from the bed to which he was confined.

The Jewish community buried the Jewish revolutionaries in the local Jewish cemetery. A monument was erected on the grave of A. L. Gausman, but the inscriptions on it were destroyed in March 1890 by order of the police.

The events caused a sharp reaction of the liberal Russian and world public. At the beginning of 1890, the New York newspapers Volkzeitung , Gerald, and The Banner published revealing articles. The English " Times " under the heading "Yakut Massacre" posted letters of Boris Geyman .

The Russian government was forced to satisfy the demands of the rebels and restore the old rules for sending exiles.

Killed

• S. Ya. Gurevich
• P. A. Mukhanov
• J. Sh. Notkin
• S. A. Peak
• P.P. Podbelsky (father of V.N. Podbelsky )
• G. E. Shur

Executed

• A. L. Gausman
• N. L. Zotov
• L. M. Kogan-Bernstein

Wounded

• M. I. Fondaminsky

• Yakut tragedy of 1889 - an article from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia .
• Yakut riot - events in the description of O.S. Minor
• Men shot down like dogs. The true story of Yakutsk massacre. - events presented by George Kennan