Rudenko, Semyon Vasilievich

Born on September 1, 1866. He came from a spiritual rank. He graduated from the course at the Imperial University of New Russia at the Faculty of Law and was selected as a candidate for judicial positions at the Vilnius Court of Justice on September 18, 1891.

From 1891 to 1907, he successively held the following positions: assistant secretary in the criminal department of the Vilnius Court of Justice, judicial investigator at the Irkutsk district court, fellow prosecutor of the Irkutsk district court, professor of law at the Irkutsk industrial school and mining legislation at the Irkutsk mining school, commissioner for peasant affairs in the Livonia province, the ruler of the office of the head of the Kuban region and the ataman of the Kuban Cossack army and the head of the clerk Bansko presence of the mining tax, the Secretary of Kuban Statistics Committee, the director of the Kuban Regional custody of prisons, the Secretary of urban affairs presence, May 25, 1902 appointed editor of the informal part of the Kuban Oblast Gazette. The newspaper took the form of a purely official body. Rudenko advocated "Russian foundations, the awakening and development of national identity." He actively opposed the preaching of "cosmopolitanism, atheism and anarchy." For this, the North Caucasian Regional Committee of the Party of Social Revolutionaries bombarded him with menacing letters and death sentences. But Rudenko did not change his beliefs and official duty.

He consistently defended the interests of the Throne and the Fatherland, which caused the anger and anger of the revolutionaries, for which he was killed by them.

On September 21, 1907, at 8:30 in the morning, Rudenko walked from his apartment to the statistical committee. Having reached the committee building, on the corner of Krasnaya and Headquarters Streets, he turned to the porch. Here an unknown person shot him, a bullet hit him in the back of his head and got stuck in his cervical vertebra. Rudenko fell, but rose a few seconds later. Then the killer fired three more shots: two in the stomach and one in the leg, after which the killer rushed to run along Red Street towards the fortress square. Having reached the Armenian church, the killer jumped over the fence and headed across the churchyard to Grafskaya Street. Where he shot a church watchman who was trying to catch him.

The wounded Rudenko employees of the printing house of the regional government picked up and carried him closer to the porch of the committee. A few minutes later he was taken to a military hospital, where he was provided with possible medical assistance. With the help of morphine and oxygen, it was possible to maintain life for 4 hours, but at one o'clock in the afternoon from the received wounds Rudenko died. On the same day, the head of the KOZHU, M. I. Voronin, told the head of the Kuban region and the ataman of the Kuban Cossack army, N. I. Mikhailov, “that under the existing conditions, I am powerless in the fight against revolutionaries and I consider the establishment of a security department the only way to suppress this movement” . During the investigation, the police managed to establish that the assassin was Social Revolutionary Morozov Alexander Dmitrievich. During the arrest, he shot at a non-commissioned officer and jumped on a cab, rushed to the railway yards, where he tried to hide on a steam train. However, the engine was not started and the terrorist took refuge in one of the huts in the Dubinka area. There Morozov fired back to the last, killing two policemen, and put the last bullet in his temple ^[1] .

Rudenko was buried on September 23, 1907. A funeral procession accompanied by hundreds of Cossacks and half a company of soldiers at two orchestras, performing successive funeral marches, slowly followed from the Resurrection Church to the city cemetery.

At the cemetery - soulful speeches, flowers, tears, wreaths. But the funeral of Semyon Vasilyevich did not become an act of reconciliation. Everyone noticed that there was no wreath from the city council. Her representatives were also absent. Stressed opposition.

The terrorists used the funeral procession for revolutionary propaganda. Responsibility for the murder took the Socialist-Revolutionary Party. On her behalf, leaflets were scattered on Cathedral Square and in the cemetery:

“The North Caucasian Regional Committee of the Party of Socialists-Revolutionaries informs that a member of the flying military detachment of the North Caucasus Region P. S. R. carried out a sentence on September 21 against the ruler of the regional Kuban office of Rudenko .”

As one of the revolutionaries Merkul later recalled

to the arbitrariness and violence of the tsarist government and its minions, police gendarmes, the workers took up arms and started firing. There was such an official named Rudenko. The sovereign ruler of the office of the ataman of the Kuban Cossack army, Babich, so to speak, was the right hand of the tsar’s satrap, who had unlimited rights, executed to death or sent anyone he wanted to Siberia. Rudenko condemned the working community of the Kuban and one July day going to serve in the Ataman Palace, at the moment when he got on the tram on the corner of Krasnaya and Shtabnaya, Sasha Morozov slammed several bullets in his head and back ^[1] .

Semyon Vasilievich Rudenko repeatedly received threats in his address, after the funeral his letter was found addressed to those who threatened him:

“Recently, in various ways, sometimes even through third parties, threats have come to me to take my life because I oppose the“ liberation ”movement and am responsible for the repressions against different people. At the last threat, I was even taught advice - to leave my service in the Kuban region as soon as possible, since my fate was decided; so far I have been spared, as it was said in the threat, only thanks to my impeccable honesty.

If it were not for my expected transfer from the Kuban region, I would have ignored these threats, but in view of my new appointment in the future related to leaving the region, so that those wishing to carry out their threats would not think that I would leave the service here precisely in view of their threats, I consider it necessary, with the help of the press, to tell the murderers that no threats resulting from my strict performance of service duties will deter me from fulfilling my duty and loyalty to the service of the Emperor.

As for the recognition by the murderers of my honesty, I do not need such recognition on their part, since the best connoisseur of my honesty is for me my conscience, which has not reproached me for all the time of my nine-year service in the Kuban region, although my detractors and they say that I brought a lot of evil.

For killers, I inform you that, despising all sorts of threats in general, even after the first threat sent to me at the beginning of the “liberation” movement, I stopped carrying the weapons that I had before, and at the same time I did not change or change, like others , neither his convictions, nor his duty. ” ^[2] .

• Book of Russian Sorrow

• Yuri Luchinsky. Victim of sedition / Krasnodar news. September 7, 2007, issue No. 138 (3812).
• Yuri Luchinsky. Shots at the Headquarters / Electronic periodical “MK.ru” - Krasnodar, October 10, 2013