Mukhanov, Petr Aleksandrovich

He came from a noble family of the Mukhanovs of the Mogilyov province : the son of Alexander Ilyich Mukhanov and Natalya Alexandrovna, the daughter of senator A. A. Sablukov . His father's grandfather, Rear Admiral I. K. Mukhanov , was the best man at the wedding of Peter I and Catherine I. The father's brother, the chief stallmeister S.I. Mukhanov , had influence at the court of Empress Maria Fedorovna ^[2] .

He was educated at home by professors of the Theological Academy of Oryol and Speransky, then he studied at Moscow University and at the Moscow educational institution for column leaders , where he entered on June 18, 1815. August 30, 1816 released in the quartermaster warrant officers . May 6, 1818 received the rank of second lieutenant . March 27, 1819 transferred to the 2nd Pioneer Battalion. October 14, 1819 for the difference was transferred to the Life Guard Battalion of the Sapper . March 9, 1821 transferred to the Life Guards Izmailovsky Regiment . January 1, 1822 with the rank of lieutenant . From April 15, 1823 - Adjutant N. N. Rajewski . January 1, 1824 - the captain with the remaining adjutant. May 22, 1825 returned to the front, from October 14, 1825 was on vacation ^[3] .

In 1818 he entered the Union of Welfare . He knew about the existence of the Southern and Northern societies (membership in none of them has not been proved). He participated in meetings in Moscow after the uprising on Senatskaya Square in the apartments of M. F. Orlov and M. F. Mitkov , where plans for supporting St. Petersburg comrades were discussed. Mukhanov declared his readiness to go to St. Petersburg to release the arrested Decembrists from the Peter and Paul Fortress ^[4] .

On January 6, 1826, an order was issued for his arrest. He was arrested in Moscow on January 9, taken to St. Petersburg on January 11, on the same day transferred to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Convicted on the IV category and on confirmation July 10, 1826 sentenced to hard labor for 12 years. August 22, 1826 prison term reduced to 8 years. October 23, 1826 sent to Sveaborg , from there to the Vyborg fortress . On October 8, 1827, he was sent to Siberia (on the way he was brought to the Shlisselburg fortress ). Punishment served in the Chita prison , and from September 1830 - in the Petrovsky Plant .

In November 1832, he was relieved of hard labor and turned into a settlement, the place of which, at its option, the Bratsk ostrog of the Nizhneudinsk district of the Irkutsk province was appointed as the general governor of Eastern Siberia A. Lavinsky . Engaged in the study of the Angara River , including the famous Padun rapids. Its hydrological calculations were used in the 1950–1960s by the builders of the Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Plant ^[5] .

On August 31, 1833, Mukhanov appealed to Irkutsk civil governor I. B. Tseydler for permission to marry Princess Varvara Mikhailovna Shakhovskaya (1792–1836) by one of the daughters of Prince M. A. Shakhovsky ; November 6, 1833 A.H. Benkendorf through the injunction of the Governor-General A.S. Lavinsky was denied marriage, because " according to the rules of the Greek-Russian church, Mukhanov cannot marry her through Princess Shakhovskaya ^[6] . The brother of Varvara Mikhailovna — V. M. Shakhovskaya — was the husband of Elizabeth Alexandrovna Mukhanova (1803–1836), the sisters of Peter Alexandrovich. Varvara Mikhailovna came after the fiancé into exile with her sisters Ekaterina and Praskovya , the wife of the Decembrist A. N. Muravyev

When re-applying for a marriage in the name of the new Governor-General of Eastern Siberia S. B. Bronevsky, Mukhanov was given an order to stop even official written intercourse with his former bride. According to the gendarmerie, a significant part of the secret correspondence of the Decembrists went through it. However, in the fall of 1834, I. B. Tseidler detained letters from Tobolsk to Princess V.M. Shakhovskaya and P.M. Muravyova, addressed to Mukhanov, hidden in a parcel with seeds under a double bottom. A. H. Benkendorf demanded an explanation, to which Muravyov wrote that it was all due to excessive “female reverie”. Shakhovskaya and Muravyova had to write explanatory letters of apology.

In 1836, both sisters, Varvara and Praskovya, died of tuberculosis, and on the first anniversary of their death, Mukhanov wrote poems: "At the grave of a new ...".

On November 19, 1841, after repeated requests from Mukhanov’s mother, he was allowed to transfer to the settlement in the village of Ust-Kuda of the Irkutsk District, where he arrived in April 1842. Received permission to go for treatment to Irkutsk , and in 1848 - to the Turkinsky mineral waters . He died in Irkutsk, where he was treated. Buried in the Znamensky Monastery ^[7] .

In 1822, together with P. N. Arapov, he compiled a libretto for Alyabiev ’s opera Moonlit Night, or Brownies. His articles were published in the Son of the Fatherland, the Northern Archive, the Moscow Telegraph, in the almanac of M.P. Pogodin “Urania” his essay from the Moscow life “Bright Week in Moscow” was placed. He was close to K. F. Ryleyev , who had dedicated his Yermak Duma to him, and to A. S. Griboyedov , whom he encouraged and admonished in his enthusiasm for Russian history ^[8] .

The Caucasian service was inspired by Mukhanov's “Red Bridge”, “Elisavetpolskaya Valley”, “The Taking of the Ganji”, and the story “Uli”.

• Medvedkova T. , Muravyov V. A Tale of the Decembrist Peter Mukhanov. - M .: Children's literature , 1975. - 256 p. - 100 000 copies
• Decembrists. Biographical directory. Ed. Academician M. V. Nechkina . - M .: Nauka, 1988. - p. 123-124.

• Peter Mukhanov in the project “A. S. Griboyedov and the Crimea "
• Tulyakova M.V. "Exiles in Bratsk. Decembrist Peter Aleksandrovich Mukhanov"