Vetoshnikov, Pavel Alexandrovich

P. A. Vetoshnikov was born into a noble bureaucratic family. He graduated from the St. Petersburg Commercial College , where a few years later studied V.I. Kelsiev , N.M. Vladimirov , I.A. Ashmarinov, A.I. Nichiporenko , who in the near future became employees of A.I. Herzen and Herzen emissaries in Of Russia. After graduating from the school, Vetoshnikov served in the Taurida order of public charity , then in the Ministry of the Interior , after which he retired with the rank of college secretary . Retired from the civil service, Pavel Alexandrovich began work in the trading house “Frum, Gregory and Co.”, where N. M. Vladimirov also worked ^[1] . As an employee of the shipping company, he was supposed to leave London on June 27 for St. Petersburg. As Herzen later recalled in Her past and Thoughts :

Photo by Herzen by S.L. Levitsky

Indeed, a whole crowd gathered, including very few familiar faces, and, unfortunately, Vetoshnikov himself ... But this is what happened. In order to thank the participants of the dinner, I asked them to accept from my choice of something from our publications or a large photo of my Levitsky . Vetoshnikov took a photograph; I advised him to trim the edges and roll into a tube; he did not want to and said that he would put the suitcase at the bottom, and therefore wrapped it in a sheet of Themes . This could not be overlooked. ...

All together was stupid and imprudent to the highest degree ... It was possible to stop Vetoshnikov until Tuesday, send on Saturday. Why didn’t he come in the morning? Anyway, why did he come by himself? ... And why did we write? It is said that one of the guests cabled immediately to Petersburg.

- A. I. Herzen, “The Past and Thoughts,” part seven, chapter I.

Herzen did not know that among his guests, writer Grigory Grigoryevich Peretts, was an agent of Division III , who had warned the gendarme administration about Vetoshnikov’s mission ^[2] .

On July 6, 1862, Vetoshnikov arrived in Kronstadt , in the port of which he was detained, searched and arrested with an illegal press party, with letters from M. A. Bakunin , A. I. Herzen, N. P. Ogaryov , V. I. Kelsiev ^{[ 1]} . On July 7 (19) he was imprisoned in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress . Emigrants' letters were intended to N. A. Serno-Solovievich , who was also immediately arrested. In addition, Vetoshnikov carried with him letters from M. A. Bakunin to Mikhail Nalbandyan , a famous writer and democrat. The letter intercepted from Vetoshnikov by A. I. Herzen to N. A. Serno-Solovievich was also the reason for the arrest of N. G. Chernyshevsky ^[3] .

Vetoshnikov's explicit testimony was the cause of the failure and arrest of M. L. Nalbandyan ^[4] . The arrest of Vetoshnikov marked the beginning of the “Case of Persons Accused of Relations with London Propaganda”. In this case (or the “32-bit trial”), Vetoshnikov was convicted by a Senate court. On December 10, 1864, he was sentenced to deprivation of all state rights and hard labor in Siberian factories for a period of 8 years, followed by settlement in Siberia without the right to enter European Russia. The sentence handed down by Vetoshnikov, along with similar sentences to N. M. Vladimirov and N. A. Serno-Solovievich, was the most severe among other car participants in the “32-x trial”.

Later, "in view of his remorse," the hard labor was replaced by a reference to a settlement in Siberia forever. The verdict was highest approved on March 30, 1865, after which on June 5 Vetoshnikov was sent from the Peter and Paul Fortress to the Petersburg transit prison. On July 3, 1865, a sentence was publicly announced on Mytnaya Square in St. Petersburg ^[5] . Since 1866, Vetoshnikov settled in the Udinsky district of Irkutsk province . Arriving in exile, Vetoshnikov married, had several children.

• Kelsiev V.I. - Confession, part I and the appendix. In the book: Literary Legacy, vol. 41-42, M., 1941, p. 253-470;
• Pisemsky A.F. - The agitated sea. Novel. M., 1863;
• Tatishchev S. S. - The Revolutionary Movement, Ch. VI;
• Burtsev V. L. - For a hundred years, II, p. 52, 65;
• Bogucharsky V. Ya. - State crimes, I, pp. 232–235 (123–129);
• Bogucharsky V. Ya. - Public movement of the 60s. - Voice of the past, 1915, IV, 201;
• Glinsky B. B. - The revolutionary period, I, p. 206;
• Lemke M.K. - The 32nd Process. - Essays on the sixties liberation movement. St. Petersburg, 1908, p. 33, 67;
• Lemke M.K. - Political Processes in Russia in the 1860s According to archival documents. - M.-P., State Publishing House, 1923, pp. 179-182;
• Herzen A.I. - Past and Thoughts, Sobr. op., t. 11, M., 1957;
• Ogaryova-Tuchkova N.A. - Memoirs, 207;
• From Moscow. Arrests - Bell, l. 147, 1862, Art. 1216;
• Vedomosti St. Petersburg City Police, 1865, No. 116;
• Mixture. - Bell, l. 199, 1865, Art. 1636;
• The case of N. Serno-Solovievich . - Bell, l. 200, 1865;
• Senate Gazette, 1865, No. 44;
• List. - “Historical and revolutionary collection”, III, 1926, p. 301.

• Benny, Arthur Ivanovich
• Kelsiev, Vasily Ivanovich
• Nichiporenko, Andrey Ivanovich
• Herzen, Alexander Ivanovich
• Vladimirov, Nikolai Mikhailovich