Gorozhansky, Alexander Semenovich

Origin and education

Belonged to the noble family of Gorozhansky , descended from the Polish gentry .

Father - college assessor Semyon Semenovich Gorozhansky ^{[~ 1]} . He earned a fortune in repayable operations. Large landowner, merchant of the first guild. He lived in Pskov, in 1789 he was elected the vowel of the Pskov City Council ^[1] . Mother - Maria Egorovna, nee Aksyonova.

In 1801, S. S. Gorozhansky confirmed his noble origin ^[2] and began to equip his family estate in the Korytovo estate ^{[3] [4]} acquired in the same year near Pskov.

Brothers - Gabriel, Peter . Sisters - Avdotya, Anna, Catherine .

In the estate of Korytovo, the childhood of the youngest of the sons, Alexander, passed. First brought up at home, and since 1815 - at the University of Dorpat . Knew German and French. He showed himself well in the natural sciences.

Military Service

In 1819, he left his studies at the university after his father insisted on his election as a son of a military career. The hereditary nobility enabled Alexander on November 12, 1819 to enter the service as a cunker in the privileged Life Guards Cavalier Guard regiment.

February 11, 1821 received the rank of Cornet - junior officer rank in the cavalry.

On August 2, 1822, he was appointed regimental treasurer for honesty and his own material wealth.

December 12, 1824 was promoted to lieutenant . He commanded a platoon.

Since 1823, he talked with free-thinking regiment officers P. N. Svistunov , A. M. Muravyov and a confidant of one of the ideologists of the secret society P. I. Pestel F. F. Vadkovsky ^{[~ 2]} . At meetings held at Gorozhansky’s apartment, colleagues also touched on political issues, “ not missing the chance to interpret any government order for the worse .”

The head of the Southern Secret Society, P. I. Pestel, instructed F. F. Vadkovsky and P. N. Svistunov to “ try to spread our industries ” in St. Petersburg, which was an “ extremely important point ” for the implementation of the programmatic goals of the republican reorganization of Russia formulated in “ Russian Truth ” ^[5] .

Participation in the secret society of the Decembrists

Gorozhansky was admitted to the secret society by P.N. Svistunov at the end of 1824. According to A. M. Muravyov, who had already joined the Union of prosperity back in 1819, A. S. Gorozhansky turned out to be one of the “ hottest members ” of society, whose goal was to introduce a constitution restricting monarchical power in Russia. Participated in the discussion of the constitutional draft of N. M. Muravyov and critically evaluated it.

Supporting plans to attract mainly military men to secret activities “ so that the army is in the hands of society ”, in 1825 he accepted as a member of the officers of the cavalry guard regiment — Colonel A. L. Kologrivov, captain of the count Z. G. Chernyshev and lieutenant P. P. Svinjina ^{[~ 3]} .

December 12, 1825, at the apartment of Gorozhansky there was a discussion of the plans of K. F. Ryleyev and E. P. Obolensky in case " if the news of the abdication of the crown prince is approved " ^[6] .

On the morning of December 14, regiment commander Colonel S. F. Apraksin convinced the cavalry guards to take the oath to Nicholas I ^[7] . All officers, members of a secret society, except Gorozhansky, who was absent at that time on official business, also swore allegiance. He learned about the incident from A.M. Muravyov, who asked him to check what was happening in other regiments and after that try to sow doubts among the soldiers about the justice of the oath and persuade them not to leave by order against the rebels.

Even before the Kavalergard regiment was withdrawn to Admiralteyskaya Square in order to block the rebels to the Winter Palace ^[8] , Gorozhansky appeared near the square of rebels on Senate Square and asked A. I. Odoyevsky , “ what is your regiment answered: here " ". But contrary to the plans of the organizers, who counted on the participation of the cavalry guards in the uprising, the hopes that the “ soldier would follow the officer ” when the time came to act did not materialize ^{[~ 4]} .

Gorozhansky continued to observe the development of events from the Senate building ^{[9] [~ 5]} and left the square only after dispersal of the rebels by artillery.

On December 16, in the regimental church, he took the oath to the new emperor.

Arrest and Punishment

The Secretary of the Investigative Committee, A. D. Borovkov, wrote in his Alphabet that A. S. Gorozhansky " himself appeared to the Emperor with confession and repentance for his guilt ." On December 19, 1825, he was questioned in the Winter Palace by adjutant general V.V. Levashov and testified that a year and a half ago he was accepted into a secret society and knew that " it was his intention to introduce a constitution in Russia ." He named the members of the society known to him and admitted in the plans agreed with them to use the death of Alexander I “ to fulfill our intention ”, and that he told the lower ranks in the regiment that the manifesto of December 12 about accession to the throne was “ false and that Konstantin Pavlovich did not refuse the throne . ” After an explanation with Nicholas I, A. S. Gorozhansky was released home the same day.

He was again arrested on December 29, 1825 at the guardhouse of the Cavalier Guard regiment. At the highest command - " Gorozhansky put where it is more convenient, under strict arrest " - was sent to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

On February 7, 1826, the Highest Institutional Committee for the Investigation of Malicious Societies, in consultation with the emperor, “ for a final determination of the guilt of everyone ” requested information from the Chief of the General Staff I. I. Dibich about the actions of officers of the Guards Corps “ who participated in the indignation of December 14, 1825 ” ^{[ 9]} . In the list of officers of the Cavalry Guard regiment, about whom it was required

“ Explain everything from the swearing in to the arrest ”,

the name of Lieutenant Gorozhansky was indicated first.

The investigation, based on the testimony of Gorozhansky’s fellow soldiers, repeatedly tried to find out the degree of its radicalism and its support for the Decembrists' program documents. A member of the Northern Society A. M. Muravyov testified that “ when reading the Constitution of his brother, Nikita Muravyov, he, Gorozhansky, did not like her in moderation and that he referred to the Constitution of Pestel, who should be much more liberal, that he knows the existence of society in the south, for ... he belongs to it . " In answers to the questions of the investigation and at the confrontation, Gorozhansky denied acquaintance not only with the draft constitution of Pestel, but also with the “ division of societies ” ^{[~ 6]} .

Until the end of the investigation, A. S. Gorozhansky, as deserving of punishment for participating in a military rebellion, answered question points and participated in confrontations. In May – June 1826, he answered questions sent to the accused related to their property status, including the presence of “ litigation cases ” and “ recognition of debts of various persons ” ^[10] .

The historian P.V. Ilyin named him among the members of the St. Petersburg branch of the Southern Society who took part in the armed uprising of 1825-1826. and those who were punished in an administrative (non-judicial) order ^[11] , since the emperor who showed " condescension " to Gorozhansky ordered not to betray him to the Supreme Criminal Court, but to " punish him with a corrective measure, after holding him for another four years in the fortress, write him with the same rank to a distant battalion " and report behavior every month.

By order of July 7, 1826, he was expelled from the lists of the Cavalier Guard regiment, attached to the staff of the Kizil garrison battalion, and imprisoned in cell No. 4 of the Zotov bastion of the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress.

By the grace of the emperor

In the garrison battalion

After his release on July 7, 1830, he was sent to the duty station in the 7th Linear Orenburg Battalion ^{[~ 7]} from the fortress , stationed in the Kizil fortress .

The four-year sentence affected the officer’s state of health. The commander of the Orenburg corps, adjutant general Count P.P. Sukhtelen reported to Petersburg in November 1830 that A. S. Gorozhansky was " obsessed with weak nerves, with a suspicious mental disorder " ^[12] . The nervousness of the supervisor led to the fact that during one of the duties he wounded with a sword for the negligence of the guard. In the next report, Sukhtelen reported on the hardening of A. S. Gorozhansky and that he declared that he recognized only Christian authority over himself and " uttered various impudent words to the person of His Majesty ."

In December 1830, a decision was made to send Gorozhansky to the Solovetsky Monastery without specifying the term of imprisonment and to keep him there “ by force of the highest order ”.

According to the decision of the Synod ’s Chief Prosecutor, Archimandrite Solovetsky Monastery Dosifei was sent a decree so that “ upon delivery of Lieutenant Gorozhansky to the Solovetsky Monastery, he should be kept in it under strict supervision and used both by him personally, archimandrite, and through the skillful meek and decent measures to bring him to repentance for the crime he had committed and the way of his life were delivered to the Holy Synod six months later . ”

In the prison of the Solovetsky Monastery

February 11, 1831 was delivered to Arkhangelsk , and May 21 - with the beginning of navigation - to the Solovetsky Island .

On December 31, 1831, Archimandrite Dosifei wrote to the synod in his first report that Gorozhansky was behaving quietly, but “ did not admit anything to his crimes. The insanity of the mind is remarkable in him . ”

On August 10, 1832, Maria Egorovna Gorozhanskaya, who found out about her son’s imprisonment in the Solovetsky Monastery, in a letter to Nicholas I asked to examine his health condition and, if it was confirmed that he had lost his mind, entrust her with home care “ under the strictest supervision of local authorities ” . But the tsar’s resolution - “to examine and, what will open, to convey ” - under various pretexts remained unfulfilled. M.E. Gorozhanskaya, who obtained permission to see her, saw her son, who was imprisoned by the archimandrite " for arrogance " in an earthen prison, " in only one worn, dirty shirt, eating only rotten fish that they threw into the hole made from above. " According to the report of the gendarme officer Alekseev, " Gorozhansky was completely damaged in his mind, did not recognize his mother and she could not get a single word from him ."

May 9, 1833 in a state of extreme mental disorder killed the sentry. Only after that Gorozhansky was examined by the doctor of the Arkhangelsk medical board Rezantsev, who diagnosed him as a private insanity of the mind ( lat. Mania partialis ), " based on the imaginary injustice of others against him ." The mother’s petitions to finally transfer the sick son to her care or to transfer him to the insane asylum was finally refused - at the direction of Tsar Gorozhansky they left in the monastery so that during fits he would put on “a jacket invented for such sick people, which impedes free possession of hands ”. In 1838, the new archimandrite of the Solovetsky Monastery, Ilariy (Herodionov), in reporting to the Chief Prosecutor of the Synod, N. A. Protasov , regarding the state of health of the prisoners of the monastery, named Lieutenant Alexander Gorozhansky among the three insanely “ whom it would be very necessary to send to Arkhangelsk for use in the house of the insane ” ^[13] .

A. S. Gorozhansky died July 29, 1846. In 1975, a memorial was erected on the building of the former Solovetsky prison: "The Decembrist A. S. Gorozhansky was imprisoned in the Solovetsky Monastery from 1831 to 1846. "

In the summer of 1834, the literature historian and censor A. V. Nikitenko , who inspected educational institutions in the northern provinces of Russia, left a note in his diary ^[14] :

“August 1 ... We visited the Solovetsky Monastery ... It is wonderful at the monastery the department where state criminals are kept. They refer here to indefinite imprisonment, mostly for life ... Recently, one of the prisoners, Gorozhansky, exiled to the monastery for complicity with the Decembrists, killed a watchman in a fit of insanity. Each of the prisoners has a separate closet, a closet - or rather a grave: from here he goes directly to the cemetery . "

L. N. Tolstoy , collecting in the 1870s materials for the conceived novel about the Decembrists, noted someone’s words in a notebook ^[15] :

“ Citizens. The son of a farmer killed a woman in Orenbur. In Solovetsk [ohm] finished . "

Comments

• Decembrists. Biographical reference book / Edited by M.V. Nechkina. - M .: Nauka, 1988 .-- S. 56-57, 248-249. - 448 p. - 50,000 copies.
• The Case of A. S. Gorozhansky // Rise of the Decembrists: Documents. T. 18. - M .: Nauka, 1984. - 367 p. - S. 253-268.
• The Case of F.F. Wadkovsky // Rise of the Decembrists: Documents. T. 11. - M.: Gospolitizdat, 1954.- 435 p. - S. 189—238.
• Frumenkov G. G. Prisoners of the Solovetsky Monastery - Arkhangelsk: North-West. Prince Publishing House, 1968. - 200 p.

• Nechkina M.V. Decembrists