I wanted you to see them young...

Such when they made their fateful decision.. Them and their husbands..

...following their husbands and continuing their marital relationship with them, they will naturally become involved in their fate and lose their previous title, that is, they will no longer be recognized otherwise than wives of exiled convicts..." (From an order to the Irkutsk civil governor).

Until December 14, 1825, 23 Decembrists were married. After the verdict and execution, the wives of the Decembrists K. Ryleev and I. Polivanov, who died in September 1826, remained widows.

11 wives followed their husbands to Siberia, and with them 7 more women: mothers and sisters of exiled Decembrists.

Almost all the women who left left children in Russia - Volkonskaya left a son, Alexander Muravyov - four, and Alexander Davydov - as many as six children, placing them with relatives.

Here are the names of the women who followed their husbands exiled to hard labor in Siberia:

Praskovya Egorovna Annenkova (Polina Gebl), Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya,

Alexandra Ivanovna Davydova, Alexandra Vasilievna Entaltseva,

Kamilla Petrovna Ivasheva, Alexandra Grigorievna Muravyova,

Elizaveta Petrovna Naryshkina, Anna Vasilievna Rosen, Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya,

Natalia Dmitrievna Fonvizina, Maria Kazimirovna Yushnevskaya.

These were very different women: in their social status and age, in character and level of education... But they had one thing in common: they sacrificed everything in order to be close to their husbands during the trying years.

Only 8 of them survived prison, hard labor and exile. After the decree of amnesty for the Decembrists on August 28, 1856, only five returned with their husbands ( M. Volkonskaya, P. Annenkova, E. Naryshkina, A. Rosen, N. Fonvizina).

Three returned from Siberia as widows ( M. Yushnevskaya, A. Entaltseva, A. Davydova).

A. Muravyova, K. Ivasheva, E. Trubetskaya died and were buried in Siberia.

Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya (1805-1863)

P. Sokolov "Portrait of Princess M. Volkonskaya with her son Nikolai"

BELOW THE LINKS - GREAT ARTICLES ABOUT THEM!

She was the youngest of the Decembrist wives. She was born into the family of General N. Raevsky, a hero of the Patriotic War of 1812. On her mother’s side, she is the great-granddaughter of M.V. Lomonosov.

She was educated at home, spoke fluent French and English, played the piano and sang, and had a beautiful voice.

Since 1817, Pushkin was friends with the Raevsky family, they had especially friendly relations during Pushkin’s southern exile; he dedicated several of his poems to Maria Raevskaya: “The flying ridge of clouds is thinning...” (1820); "Tavrida" 1822); “The stormy day has gone out...” (1824); “Storm” (You saw the maiden on the rock...).

Prince Sergei Volkonsky was also fascinated by her singing and charm. He often began to visit their house and finally decided to propose to Maria, but through his father and in writing - and through him he received consent. And the father said to his daughter: “ Who's rushing you? You will have time to make friends.. The prince is a wonderful person…”

At the end of 1825, Maria lived on her parents’ estate, expecting a child, and did not know about the events on Senate Square, and did not know anything at all about his participation in the secret society. On January 2, their son Nikolai was born, and on January 7, Volkonsky was arrested. His arrest, as well as the arrest of her brothers, Alexander and Nikolai, and the arrest of her uncle Vasily Lvovich Davydov, were hidden from Maria for a long time.

In 1825, Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya turned 20 years old.

P. Sokolov "Portrait of S. Volkonsky"

Having recovered from childbirth, she went to St. Petersburg to see her husband, but for this she needed an appeal to Emperor Nicholas I, which she did. And after the verdict was announced against the Decembrists, she immediately decided to follow her husband. All her relatives dissuaded her, her father even agreed to her divorce from Volkonsky, but it was all in vain: Maria disobeyed her father for the first time. And when she was asked if she was sure that she would return, she replied: “I don’t want to return, except with Sergei, but, for God’s sake, don’t tell this to my father.”

When Maria came to her father with permission to travel to Siberia, he angrily told her: “ I'll curse you if you don't come back in a year“... And only in 1829, before his death, he called his beloved daughter “the most amazing woman I have ever known.”

On December 22, 1826, Princess Volkonskaya leaves to join her husband in Siberia. Along the way, she stops in Moscow with a relative, Zinaida Volkonskaya, who is throwing an evening in her honor. Pushkin was present at this evening.

...The first meeting with S. Volkonsky, who was in the Blagodatsky mine, took place in full view of everyone. Maria knelt before her husband and kissed his shackles...

Together with E. Trubetskoy, she settled in a peasant house. They helped their husbands, as well as other Decembrists, with everything they could: they prepared food for them, fixed their laundry, kept in touch with relatives, and wrote letters. They were highly respected by local residents, they knew how to create an atmosphere of goodwill and comfort around themselves, their behavior was distinguished by a complete absence of aristocratic arrogance. They even helped fugitive robbers with money and clothing, who, being caught, did not give them up.

Everything that the Decembrists received from their relatives was distributed equally among everyone; they lived there as one family.

The years 1828-1829 were years of loss for Maria Volkonskaya: their son Nikolai, father, General Raevsky, died, as well as their newborn daughter Sophia. But in 1829, the convicts' shackles were removed and they were transferred to the Petrovsky Plant, where they received permission to live with their husbands in prison. Each one had their own room, which they tried to decorate as homely as possible.

Volkonsky's room in the Petrovsky plant

And after some time, all family Decembrists were allowed to settle outside the prison, and their lives gradually began to improve. They have children: Mikhail and Nellie. In 1835, Nicholas I freed Volkonsky from hard labor, and the family left to settle in the village of Urik, not far from Irkutsk. When their son Mikhail entered the gymnasium, she and the children settled in Irkutsk, and a year later Sergei Volkonsky also arrived. Their house becomes the first salon in the city, where musical and literary evenings are held, and an intellectual living room gathers.

Daggerotypes of the Decembrists are here -

In the year of the coronation of Alexander II, news comes of the amnesty of the Decembrists. Out of 120 people, only 15 return... Among them is the Volkonsky family. Their son Mikhail was restored to the princely title.

But Maria is already seriously ill. Despite treatment abroad, she died in 1863. Sergei Volkonsky survived her by 2 years. He was buried, according to his will, at the feet of his wife in the village of Voronki near Chernigov...

Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya (1800-1854)

N. Bestuzhev "Portrait of Ekaterina Trubetskoy"

“The two main centers around which the Irkutsk Decembrists were grouped were the Trubetskoy and Volkonsky families, since they had the means to live more widely, and both housewives - Trubetskoy and Volkonskaya with their intelligence and education, and Trubetskoy - with their extraordinary cordiality, were, as it were, created to unite all comrades into one friendly colony...", wrote N.A. White-headed, a contemporary and friend of some Decembrists, a doctor by profession, author of memoirs.

Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya, née Laval, is the daughter of a French emigrant, a member of the Main Board of Schools, and later the manager of the 3rd expedition of the special chancellery of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Her mother comes from a very rich family. Catherine (like her two sisters) received an excellent education and lived in Europe for a long time.

The Laval family was known in St. Petersburg not only for its wealth, but also for its cultural level: the Lavals collected a large art collection - paintings by Rubens, Rembrandt, antique marble statues, Greek vases, a collection of Egyptian antiquities, porcelain dishes with monograms, a home library of 5 thousand books ... In their house, magnificent balls, diplomatic receptions were held, performances were staged, holidays were held, literary and musical evenings with the participation of famous artists, and gourmet dinners for up to 600 people. The entire St. Petersburg society, headed by Emperor Alexander I, visited here, Karamzin, Zhukovsky, Griboyedov, Vyazemsky, Pushkin read their works here...

Ekaterina was short, plump and charmingly playful with a beautiful voice. She met Prince Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoy in Paris, Trubetskoy was ten years older than her, he was noble, rich, smart, educated, went through the war with Napoleon and rose to the rank of colonel. One circumstance darkened this happy marriage: they had no children.

Catherine knew about her husband’s participation in a secret society, and there were open conversations with her about the need to restructure society. But terror and violent actions were unacceptable to her; she told Muravyov-Apostol: “For God’s sake, think about what you are doing, you will destroy us and lay down your heads on the chopping block.”

She was the first of the Decembrist wives to obtain permission to follow her husband into exile.

“I really feel like I can’t live without you. I’m ready to endure everything with you, I won’t regret anything when I’m with you.
The future doesn't scare me. I will calmly say goodbye to all the blessings of this world. One thing can make me happy: to see you, to share your grief and to devote all the minutes of my life to you. The future sometimes worries me about you. Sometimes I fear that your difficult fate may seem to you beyond your strength... For me, my friend, everything will be easy to bear with you, and I feel, every day I feel more strongly, that no matter how bad things may be for us, from the depths of my soul I will bless my lot , if I’m with you” (From a letter from Ekaterina Trubetskoy to her husband in the Peter and Paul Fortress, December, 1825).

The very next day after Trubetskoy was sent to hard labor, she also went to Siberia. Her parents, unlike the Volkonskys, supported her. Her father even sent his secretary with her, but he could not stand the harsh road and, having already reached Krasnoyarsk, returned back to St. Petersburg, and then left Russia altogether

In September 1826, she arrived in Irkutsk, and her husband was already sent with a party of exiles to the Nerchinsky mines, which she did not know about. Trubetskaya spent 5 months in Irkutsk, all this time Governor Zeidler, on orders from St. Petersburg, persuaded her to return back. However, Ekaterina Ivanovna remained firm in her decision. After some time, Maria Volkonskaya also arrived there.

Only in February 1827 did a meeting between Catherine and Sergei Trubetskoy take place in the Blagodatsky mine.

House of Trubetskoy and Volkonskaya in the Blagodatsky mine

Together with Maria Volkonskaya, for 3 rubles 50 kopecks, they settled in a rickety hut with mica windows and a smoking stove. " You lie with your head against the wall - your legs rest against the doors. You will wake up on a winter morning - your hair is frozen to the logs - there are icy cracks between the crowns". Through a crack in the prison fence, Ekaterina Trubetskaya saw her prince, in shackles, thin and haggard, overgrown with a beard, in a tattered sheepskin coat - and fainted.

The first months in the Blagodatsky mine were the most difficult for them. What was it like for a woman who grew up in luxury in a palace to light the stove herself, carry water, wash clothes, cook food, and mend her husband’s clothes. She gave all her warm clothes to the prisoners, but she herself walked in tattered shoes and had frostbitten feet.

From the memoirs of the Decembrist E.P. Obolensky: “The arrival of these two tall women, Russian at heart, high in character, had a beneficial effect on us all; With their arrival, we became a family. Common feelings turned to them, and their first concern was us. With their arrival, our connection with our relatives and those close to our hearts began, which then did not stop, to deliver to our relatives the news that could comfort them in complete uncertainty about our fate.

But how can we calculate everything that we owe to them for so many years that they devoted to caring for their husbands, and with them, for us?

How not to remember the improvised dishes that were brought to us in our barracks at the Blagodatsky mine - the fruits of the labors of princesses Trubetskoy and Volkonskaya, in which their theoretical knowledge of kitchen art was subordinated to a complete ignorance of the application of theory to practice. But we were delighted, and everything seemed so delicious to us that it is unlikely that the bread half-baked by Princess Trubetskoy would not have seemed tastier to us than the best work of the first St. Petersburg baker.”

In September 1827, the Decembrists were transferred to Chita, where conditions became much easier. They built a whole street of wooden houses for the wives of the Decembrists and called it Damskaya. And in 1829 the Decembrists were allowed to remove the shackles.

In Chita, the Trubetskoys had their first child: daughter Alexandra. And this was a real miracle after 9 years of childless marriage. And then their children began to appear one after another. At the end of 1839, after serving his term of hard labor, Trubetskoy went to settle in the small Buryat village of Oyok, Irkutsk province. There, Prince Trubetskoy began farming, became acquainted with the peasants and their way of life, began gardening, hunting, kept a diary of observations of birds and natural phenomena, and even participated in the development of gold mines. And Ekaterina Ivanovna raised children, taught them to read and write, languages, music, and singing.

In 1845, the Trubetskoy family was allowed to settle in Irkutsk. Countess Laval, Trubetskoy’s mother, helped buy the house.

Trubetskoy House in Irkutsk

In total, they had 9 children in Siberia, but five of them died at a young age, leaving three daughters alive - Alexandra, Elizaveta and Zinaida and son Ivan. The Trubetskoy family also brought up the son of the political exile Kuchevsky and two daughters of the Decembrist Mikhail Kuchelbecker. There was enough room for everyone in this hospitable house. During her stay in Irkutsk, the Decembrists described Ekaterina Ivanovna as follows: “In a simple dress, with a large embroidered white collar, a wide braid is laid in a basket around a high tortoiseshell comb, in front, on both sides, long, curled curls, radiant eyes, sparkling with intelligence, shining with kindness. and God's truth."

All the disadvantaged in Irkutsk knew the Trubetskoys' house. Ekaterina Ivanovna always provided assistance to poor peasants and did not spare donations for the church. The entire surrounding population came to her for medicines, which she received from St. Petersburg and distributed to the sick. Many contemporaries called Ekaterina Ivanovna the personification of inexhaustible kindness, an amazing combination of a subtle mind and a kind heart.

Ekaterina Trubetskaya did not live to see the amnesty for 2 years: she died on October 14, 1854 from lung cancer. The whole city came to her funeral - from the poor to the Governor-General of Eastern Siberia. She was buried in the fence of the Znamensky Monastery next to the dead children.

The prince was very sad about his wife, stopped going out in society and did not even want to leave Irkutsk after the amnesty. But he was persuaded to do this for the sake of his son, who was only 13 years old and who needed to be given a good education. Before leaving, he cried for a long time at his wife’s grave.

Anna Vasilievna Rosen (1797-1883)

Her father, V.F. Malinovsky was the first director of the Tsarskoye Selo Lyceum. Lyceum students treated Malinovsky with great respect and love, appreciating his intelligence and kindness.

Anna received a good education, knew foreign languages ​​(English and French), and read a lot. She met her future husband Andrei Evgenievich Rosen through her brother Ivan - they were both officers and participated in the Italian campaign.

The Rosens' marriage was very happy, distinguished by mutual understanding, tenderness, kinship of interests and outlook on life.

Decembrist Andrey Evgenievich Rosen

He was not a member of a secret society, but on the eve of the uprising he was invited to a meeting with Ryleev and Prince Obolensky, who asked him to bring as many troops as possible to Senate Square on the day of the emperor’s new oath. On the night of December 14, Andrei Rosen told his wife about the impending uprising in which he would take part. During the uprising, he did not fulfill the order to pacify the rebels.

He was arrested on December 22, 1825 and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress, he was sentenced to 10 years of hard labor. Later the term was reduced to 6 years. Anna Vasilievna Rosen came with her son, who was 6 weeks old, to see off her husband to hard labor. She wanted to immediately follow him to Siberia, but he himself asked her to stay with her son at least until he began to walk and talk. When the boy grew up a little, he was taken in by Anna Vasilievna’s sister, Maria, and in 1830 Anna went to Siberia, first to the Petrovsky plant, where they had a son, Kondraty (named in honor of Ryleev), and in 1832 to settlement in Kurgan. On the way from Chita to Kurgan, their third son, Vasily, was born.

House of Decembrist Rosen in Kurgan (modern photo). Now here is the School of Arts

Other Decembrists already lived in Kurgan: the Decembrist I.F. was the first to settle. Focht, who lived here for twelve years, then V.N. Likharev, M.A. Nazimov and others. The Rosens first lived in an apartment, and then bought a house with a large garden. “There are few gardens, little shade and greenery,” he said after arriving in Kurgan.

Here Andrei Evgenievich took up agriculture, and also began writing memoirs “Notes of the Decembrist”, which are considered the most reliable and complete materials about the history of Decembrism.

In 1870, “Notes of the Decembrist” were published in Leipzig. This work by A.E. Rosen was published by N. Nekrasov.

Anna Vasilievna raised children and practiced medicine. They ordered a lot of literature from St. Petersburg, including medical literature. The family lived in Kurgan for 5 years; in 1837, a group of Decembrists were sent as privates to the active army in the Caucasus. Among them, A.E. went there. Rosen and family.

After the amnesty of 1856, the Rosen family lives in Ukraine, Andrei Evgenievich is engaged in social work. For almost 60 years, this happy family lived in peace and harmony, despite the vicissitudes of fate that befell them, and they died almost together, with a difference of 4 months.

Praskovya Egorovna Annenkova (1800-1876)

Portrait by P.F. Sokolova. 1825

N. Bestuzhev "Portrait of Praskovya Annenkova" 1836

Born in Lorraine, in the Champigny castle (France). Her maiden name was Zhanetta Polina Gebl. Her father was a Napoleonic officer, awarded the Legion of Honor.

She came to Moscow in 1823 to work as a milliner at the Dumancy trading company. The Dumansi store was often visited by A.I. Annenkov, she was always accompanied by her son, Ivan Annenkov, at that time a brilliant officer and handsome man. The young people immediately noticed each other, love broke out. Annenkov was the only heir to a huge fortune, and Polina understood perfectly well that his mother would never consent to an unequal marriage. Despite this, Annenkov invited her to get married secretly, but Polina did not consent to this. On December 19, 1825, I. A. Annenkov was arrested (he was a member of the Northern Society), sent to Vyborg, and then to the Peter and Paul Fortress. During the investigation he behaved with dignity. Convicted of category II and sentenced to 20 years of hard labor, later the term was reduced to 15 years.

I. A. Annenkov. Portrait by Bestuzhev. Chita fort. 1828

All this time Polina was in Moscow. She knew about the events in St. Petersburg, she was worried, but she was pregnant and would soon give birth. Immediately after the birth of her daughter, she goes to St. Petersburg and looks for an opportunity to meet Annenkov, paying the non-commissioned officer to give him a note. She returns to Moscow again to Annenkov’s mother and asks her to help her son, using all her connections, and at this time Annenkov himself, having not received any news from Polina for some time, tries to commit suicide: he thinks that Polina abandoned him. He is barely saved.

On December 10, Annenkov is sent to the Chita prison, and Polina immediately begins to petition for permission to follow him. Having learned that the emperor will be at maneuvers near the city of Vyazma in May 1827, Polina goes there and, having broken through to the emperor, falls on her knees in front of him. Emperor Nicholas I was touched by the power of love of this foreign woman, who knew almost no Russian and who had gone to Siberia not even after her husband, but after her loved one. He told her:

This is not your homeland, madam! You will be deeply unhappy there.

I know, sir. But I'm ready for anything!

Leaving her daughter with Annenkov’s mother, she went to Siberia. In Irkutsk, Zeidler detained her, persuading her to return, as he had previously persuaded Trubetskoy and Volkonskaya. But Polina was adamant and at the end of February she followed further. Polina's arrival was very important for Annenkov. “Without her, he would have completely died,” wrote the Decembrist I.D. Yakushkin.

On April 4, 1828, in the wooden St. Michael the Archangel Church of Chita, Polina’s wedding to Ivan Alexandrovich took place. Only at the time of the wedding were the shackles removed from the groom.

On May 16, 1829, their daughter Anna was born. In 1830 - Olga. Sons: Vladimir, Ivan, Nikolai. She had 18 births in total, but only 6 children survived. The love story of Polina Gobl and Ivan Annenkov became the basis of A. Dumas’ novel “The Fencing Teacher,” and director V. Motyl spoke about their love in the film “Star of Captivating Happiness.” Composer Yu. A. Shaporin wrote the opera “Decembrists”, which in the first edition was called “Polina Gobl”.

Polina - lively, active, hardworking - was busy with the housework from morning to evening: she cooked, looked after the garden, helped with everything she could, taught the wives of the Decembrists to cook and run the household. Often in the evenings her new friends came to visit her, Polina infected everyone with her optimism, it was easy and cozy to be around her.

Artist A. Pomerantsev. 1852

Then there was the Petrovsky plant, the village of Belskoye in the Irkutsk province, Turinsk... And Polina and her children followed her husband everywhere. Since 1839, Annenkov was allowed to enter the service, in 1841 they moved to Tobolsk, where they lived until the amnesty (1856), and after it - in Nizhny Novgorod, where A. Dumas visited them and where they lived the rest of the happy 20 years of my life. They were forbidden to live in the capitals.
Polina Annenkova dictated memories of her life to her daughter Olga. Olga Ivanovna translated them from French and published them in 1888.

Ivan Aleksandrovich served as an official on special assignments under the governor, was a member of the committee to improve the life of landowner peasants, participated in the preparation of reforms, worked in the zemstvo, and was elected to the justices of the peace.
For five terms in a row, the Nizhny Novgorod nobility elected Annenkov as their leader. Polina was elected trustee of the Nizhny Novgorod women's Mariinsky School.

Alexandra Grigorievna Muravyova (1804-1832)

P. Sokolov "Portrait of A.G. Muravyova"

The Decembrists called Alexandra Muravyova their guardian angel. There really was something poetically sublime about her, although she was simple-minded and unusually natural in her relationships with people.

She was the daughter of the actual Privy Councilor Grigory Ivanovich Chernyshev and the sister of the Decembrist Z.G. Chernysheva. Wife of Nikita Muravyov.

When her husband was arrested, she was expecting a third child, but decided to follow her husband and received permission on October 26, 1826. Leaving three young children with her mother-in-law, she went to Siberia. While passing through Moscow, she saw Pushkin, who gave her his poems addressed to the Decembrists, “In the depths of the Siberian ores...” and a message to I. Pushchin (“My first friend, my priceless friend...”).

Alexandra Grigorievna arrived in the Chita prison in February 1827. As best she could, she brightened up the life of not only her husband, but also the rest of the Decembrists. They had three children in Siberia, but only one daughter, Sophia, survived.

P.F. Sokolov, portrait of N. Muravyov, 1824

She died at the Petrovsky plant, she was only 28 years old.

Chapel in the Petrovsky plant over the grave of A. Muravyova

Over the grave of A. Muravyova, her husband built a chapel in which, they say, an unquenchable lamp shone for another 37 years after her death.

Alexandra Ivanovna Davydova (1802-1895)

A.I. Davydova

The least is known about this woman. She was the daughter of the provincial secretary I.A. Potapova. Unusually meek and sweet, she was captivated once and for all by the life hussar, the merry fellow and the witty Vasily Davydov.

The Davydov estate in Kamenka, Kyiv province, was their family estate, with which the names of many Decembrists, Pushkin, Raevsky, General Orlov, Tchaikovsky are associated. Vasily Lvovich Davydov, a retired colonel, participant in the Patriotic War of 1812, was a member of the secret Southern Society, chairman of the Kamensk Council of the Tulchin Duma. Alexandra lived in his house, but they got married only in 1825, when their fifth child was born.

When Vasily Davydov was convicted of category I and sent to hard labor, she was only 23 years old and already had six children, but she decided to follow her husband to Siberia.

“An innocent wife, following her criminal husband to Siberia, must remain there until the end.” Alexandra Ivanovna decided to do this and, having placed the children with relatives, set off on the road. She alone understood and felt that her cheerful husband really needed her, because... the sentence passed broke him. He later wrote to his children: “Without her, I would no longer be in the world. Her boundless love, her unparalleled devotion, her care for me, her kindness, meekness, resignation with which she carries her life full of hardships and labors, gave me the strength to endure everything and more than once forget the horror of my situation.”

She arrived in the Chita prison in March 1828. In Chita and at the Petrovsky plant, four more children were born to them, and later, in a settlement in Krasnoyarsk, three more. The Davydov family was one of the largest families of the Decembrists.

Davydov died in October 1855 in Siberia, before receiving the amnesty, which only his family could take advantage of. And Alexandra Ivanovna returned to Kamenka. There, in the 60s, P.I. met her. Tchaikovsky, who often visited his sister in Kamenka, who was married to the Davydovs’ son, Lev Vasilyevich.

And this is what P.I. wrote. Tchaikovsky about Alexandra Ivanovna: “The whole charm of life here lies in the high moral dignity of the people living in Kamenka, i.e. in the Davydov family in general. The head of this family, the old woman Alexandra Ivanovna Davydova, represents one of those rare manifestations of human perfection, which more than compensates for the many disappointments that one has to experience in clashes with people.

By the way, this is the only survivor of those wives of the Decembrists who followed their husbands to Siberia. She was in Chita and at the Petrovsky plant and spent the rest of her life until 1856 in various places in Siberia.

Everything that she endured and endured there in the first years of her stay in various places of detention with her husband is truly terrible. But she brought with her there consolation and even happiness for her husband. Now she is already a weakening and close to the end old woman, living out her last days among a family that deeply honors her.
I have deep affection and respect for this venerable personality."

Memoirists unanimously note Alexandra Ivanovna’s “extraordinary meekness of disposition, always even disposition of spirit and humility.”

Children: Maria, Mikhail, Ekaterina, Elizaveta, Peter (was married to E.S. Trubetskoy, daughter of the Decembrist), Nikolai. Born in Siberia: Vasily; Alexandra, Ivan, Lev (husband of P.I. Tchaikovsky’s sister), Sophia, Vera.

At the suggestion of Benckendorff on February 18, 1842, Nikolai l allowed children S.G. Volkonsky, S.P. Trubetskoy, N.M. Muravyov and V.L. Davydov will be admitted to state educational institutions on the condition that the children will not bear their father’s surnames, but will be called by their patronymics, i.e. Davydov's children were to be called Vasilievs. Only Davydov agreed with the proposal. In 1843, Vasily Ivan and Lev were admitted to the Moscow Cadet Corps.

After the death of V.L. Davydov’s family, with the highest permission that followed on February 14, 1856, returned to European Russia. According to the manifesto in 1856, children were restored to the rights of the nobility, and those of them who, when assigned to educational institutions, were named after their father, had their surname returned.

Alexandra Vasilievna Entaltseva (1783-1858)

Portrait Alexandra Vasilievna Entaltseva from the collection of the Chita Museum

She had a very difficult fate. She lost her parents early. Marriage with Decembrist A.V. Entaltsev was her second. A hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, he was a member of the Welfare Union and then the secret Southern Society.

Entaltsev Andrey Vasilievich (1788-1845).

Arrested and sentenced to 1 year of hard labor and settlement in Siberia. Alexandra Vasilievna came to pick up her husband in the Chita prison in 1827. She was the oldest of the Decembrist wives, she was 44 years old. She lived in the house with Trubetskoy and Volkonskaya. In 1828, Entaltsev was sent to settle in the city of Berezov, Tobolsk province. Their life was very difficult, there was nowhere to expect financial help, then they were transferred to Yalutorovsk.

Back in Berezovo, and then in Yalutorovsk, false denunciations were made against Entaltsev, which were not confirmed, but he had to refute these accusations - all this undermined his mental health, he began to show signs of mental illness, and in 1841 he became completely insanity. He ran away from home, burned everything that came to hand, then he was partially paralyzed... All this time, Alexandra Vasilievna looked after her husband and was faithful to him. This went on for 4 years.

When her husband died in 1845, she asked permission to return home, but she was refused. She lived in Siberia for another 10 years and only after an amnesty moved to Moscow.

Until the end of her life, she maintained contact with the Decembrists, and they did not leave her.

Elizaveta Petrovna Naryshkina (1802-1867)

N. Bestuzhev "Portrait of E.P. Naryshkina" 1832

She was a maid of honor at the Imperial Court and the wife of the Decembrist M.M. Naryshkina.

She is from the famous noble family of Konovnitsyn. Her father, Pyotr Petrovich Konovnitsyn, is a hero of the War of 1812. He took part in most of the military campaigns that Russia waged at the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries, and took part in the battles of Ostrovna, Smolensk, and Valutina Gora. The “Military Encyclopedia” of the 19th century reports: “On August 5, he defended the Malakhov Gate in Smolensk, and was wounded, but until the evening he did not allow himself to be bandaged and was one of the last to leave the city.”

Elizabeth was the eldest child in the family and the only daughter. Her two brothers also became Decembrists.

In 1824, Elizaveta Petrovna married Colonel of the Tarutino Infantry Regiment M. M. Naryshkin, a rich and noble socialite. He was a member of the Welfare Union, then the Northern Society. Participated in the preparation of the uprising in Moscow. He was arrested at the beginning of 1826.

Mikhail Naryshkin. unknown artist, early 1820s

Elizaveta Petrovna did not know about her husband’s membership in secret societies, and his arrest was a blow to her. MM. Naryshkin was convicted of category IV and sentenced to hard labor for 8 years.

They had no children (the daughter died in infancy), and the woman decides to follow her husband. In a letter to her mother, Elizaveta Petrovna wrote that a trip to hard labor to see her husband was necessary for her happiness. Only then will she find peace of mind. And her mother blessed her for this fate.

She arrives in Chita in May 1827, almost simultaneously with her A.V. arrives there. Entaltseva, N.D. Fonvizina, A.I. Davydova.

Elizaveta Petrovna is gradually drawn into life in exile. She is learning how to manage a household and goes on dates with her husband: officially they are allowed 2 times a week, but the cracks in the stockade of the prison made it possible to talk more often. At first the guards drove the women away, then they stopped doing this.

In the evenings, she wrote dozens of letters to relatives of prisoners. The Decembrists were deprived of the right of correspondence, and wives were the only channel through which news about prisoners reached their families. It’s hard to even imagine how many grief-stricken people were warmed by these letters written by the wives of the Decembrists from exile!

Naryshkina did not have a very sociable character, sometimes she was perceived as proud, but as soon as you got to know her better, the first impression went away. This is how the Decembrist A.E. wrote about her. Rosen: “She was 23 years old; The only daughter of a heroic father and an exemplary mother, she meant everything in her home, and everyone fulfilled her desires and whims. The first time I saw her on the street, near our work, in a black dress with a thin waist; “Her face was slightly dark with expressive, intelligent eyes, her head was raised imperiously, her gait was light and graceful.”

“Naryshkina was not as attractive as Muravyova. She seemed very arrogant and from the first time she made an unpleasant impression, she even pushed you away from you, but when you got close to this woman, it was impossible to tear yourself away from her, she riveted everyone to her with her boundless kindness and extraordinary nobility of character,” wrote P. E. Annenkova in her memoirs.

In 1830, she and her husband moved to a separate room in the Petrovsky plant, and at the end of 1832 they left to settle in Kurgan. Here they buy a house, M.M. Naryshkin is engaged in agriculture and even runs a small stud farm.

The Naryshkin house becomes a cultural center, new books are read and discussed here, music and singing of Elizaveta Petrovna are heard.

“The Naryshkin family was a true benefactor of the whole region. Both of them, husband and wife, helped the poor, treated and gave medicine to the sick for their own money... Their yard on Sundays was usually full of people who were given food, clothes, money,” wrote a friend of the Naryshkins, Decembrist N.I. Lorer, who also lived in a settlement in Kurgan. Having no children of their own, they adopted a girl, Ulyana.

In 1837, while traveling across Siberia, the heir to the throne, the future Emperor Alexander II, arrived in Kurgan. He was accompanied by his teacher, the famous Russian poet V.A. Zhukovsky.

Zhukovsky visits the Decembrists, among whom are many of his former acquaintances. This is A. Briggen, the Rosen and Naryshkin families.

“In Kurgan I saw Naryshkina (the daughter of our brave Konovnitsyn) ... She deeply touched me with her quietness and noble simplicity in misfortune,” V.A. later recalled. Zhukovsky. The Decembrists, through Zhukovsky, submit a petition for permission to return to Russia. The heir writes a letter to his father, but Nicholas I replies: “For these gentlemen, the path to Russia lies through the Caucasus.” Two months later, a list of six Decembrists was received from St. Petersburg, who were ordered to go as privates to the Caucasus, where the war with the highlanders was being waged. M.M. was also on this list. Naryshkin.

Almost the entire population of Kurgan gathered on the day of the Decembrists’ departure in a small birch forest on the edge of the city. A gala dinner was held in their honor. Elizaveta Petrovna goes to the Caucasus to pick up her husband. Mikhail Mikhailovich lived in the village of Prochny Okop. Former Colonel M.M. Naryshkin was enlisted in the army as a private. For his distinction, in 1843 he received the rank of ensign. In 1844, he was allowed to leave his service and live permanently with his wife on a small estate in the village of Vysokoye, Tula province. These restrictions were lifted by the amnesty of 1856.

Natalya Dmitrievna Fonvizina (1803-1869)

From a noble family. Her maiden name was Apukhtina.

Her husband, General M.A. Fonvizin, was taken to the Peter and Paul Fortress in January 1826 with the tsar’s parting instructions: “Plant where it is better, but strictly, and not allow him to see anyone.” Retired Major General Fonvizin, a member of the Northern Society of Decembrists, was convicted in the IV category as guilty of “intention to commit regicide by consent, expressed in 1817, in participation in the intention of rebellion by admitting members to a secret society.” The places of settlement of the Fonvizins were Yeniseisk, then Krasnoyarsk, and from 1838 - Tobolsk.

Natalya Fonvizina was pregnant with her second child at that time; her eldest son, Dmitry, was 2 years old. She arrived in Chita already in 1827. “An unforgettable day for me - after a sad, long separation from my friend Natalya, I saw her and came to life in my soul; I don’t remember that throughout my entire life I had such sweet moments, despite the fact that our feelings were constrained by the presence of a stranger. God! I thank you from the depths of my soul!” wrote M.A. Fonvizin.

She was 11 years younger than her husband, but spiritually and morally superior to him. She was an extraordinary person: in her youth she tried to escape to a monastery, but then she abruptly changed her views and married her cousin. Her character is compared with the character of Pushkin's Tatyana Larina, there is even an opinion that it was she who served as the prototype of this heroine.

She was very religious, and soon convinced her husband to believe. This is what brought her closer to F.M. Dostoevsky, with whom she had a sincere and lengthy correspondence.

In 1834, the Fonvizins left for a settlement in Kurgan, where the Decembrist Rosen and his family already lived.

The Fonvizins had two children in Siberia, but both died. And the remaining eldest sons died at a young age (25 and 26 years old). It was very difficult to go through. Natalya Dmitrievna finds solace in helping the disadvantaged; she helps exiled Poles, Petrashevites with money, food, warm things... Adopted children were raised in their family: Maria Frantseva, Nikolai Znamensky and others.

In 1850, in Tobolsk, she secured a meeting in prison with F. M. Dostoevsky, M. V. Petrashevsky and other Petrashevsky members. From Petrashevsky she learned that her son Dmitry also belonged to the Petrashevsky circle.

In 1853, the Fonvizins returned to their homeland and lived on the estate of Maryino’s brother, Bronnitsky district, Moscow province, with the establishment of the strictest police supervision and a ban on entry into Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Here Fonvizin died in 1854 and was buried in Bronnitsy near the city cathedral.

In 1856, N.D. Fonvizina traveled to Tobolsk and visited Yalutorovsk, where I.I. Pushchin lived.

In 1856, according to the manifesto of Alexander II, Pushchin was amnestied, and in May 1857, on the estate of his friend I. I. Pushchin, Pushchin’s marriage to Natalia Dmitrievna took place.

On April 3, 1859, Pushchin died and was buried along with Mikhail Aleksandrovich Fonvizin. After Pushchin's death, Natalia Dmitrievna moved from Maryino to Moscow. In the last years of her life she was paralyzed. She died in 1869. She was buried in the former Intercession Monastery.

Maria Kazimirovna Yushnevskaya (1790-1863)

M.K. Yushnevskaya

The wife of the Decembrist A.P. Yushnevsky since 1812. From a noble family. Her maiden name was Krulikovskaya.

A.P. Yushnevsky was a member of the Southern Secret Society and was sentenced to category I for life at hard labor.

Pyotr Khristoforovich Yushnevsky

In her petition to follow her husband, she writes: “To ease the fate of my husband, I want to follow him everywhere; for the well-being of my life, I now need nothing more than to have the happiness of seeing him and sharing with him everything that cruel fate has destined... Having lived I have been with him for 14 years as the happiest wife in the world, I want to fulfill my most sacred duty and share with him his plight. According to the feeling and gratitude that I have for him, I would not only willingly take upon myself all the misfortunes in the world and poverty, but would willingly give my life just to ease his lot.”

Siberia arrived only in 1830, although she submitted her petition back in 1826. The delay was due to the fact that her daughter from her first marriage wanted to go with her, but permission for this was not received.

In 1830-1839 she lived with her husband in the Petrovsky plant, and then in a settlement in the village of Kuzminskaya not far from Irkutsk. They raised adopted children.

In 1844, her husband suddenly died, but Yushnevskaya was not allowed to return; she remained in Siberia for another 11 years. She returned to her homeland as a widow and lived under police surveillance until her death.

Kamilla Petrovna Ivasheva (1808-1839)

N. Bestuzhev "K.P. Ivasheva"

Frenchwoman. Her father, Le Dantu, a republican by conviction, fled from Napoleon first to Holland and then to Russia, to Simbirsk. Her mother, Marie-Cecile, became a governess in the family of the landowner Ivashev. This is how Camilla and V.P met. Ivashev, the future Decembrist, cavalry officer, artist and musician. He was a member of secret societies: the Union of Welfare and the Southern Society. He was sentenced to 20 years of hard labor.

Ivashev Basil Petrovich

Camilla decided to join her fate with him precisely at the moment of his condition as a convict, she even fell ill with love, which she confessed to her mother, and she writes a letter to the Ivashevs: “I offer the Ivashevs an adopted daughter with a noble, pure and loving soul. I would be able to hide my daughter’s secret even from my best friend if anyone could suspect that I was seeking position or wealth.
But she only wants to share his chains, wipe away his tears and, without blushing for her daughter’s feelings, I could talk about them to the most tender of mothers, if I had known about them earlier.”

About Camilla's decision to come to him in Siberia He conceived a dangerous and doomed plan to escape from hard labor. What stopped him in this intention was the news of Camilla’s firm desire to unite her destiny with him. Ivashev agreed to Camilla’s arrival, although before the thought of marrying her had never been part of his plans. But he was in despair from the hardships of life as a convict.

Camilla writes a letter to the emperor asking him to allow her to go to Ivashev, the letter contains the following words: “I have loved him almost since childhood and, having felt since the time of his misfortune how dear his life is to me, I vowed to share his bitter fate.”

In June 1831 she left for Siberia. But she was not a wife, she was afraid of disappointment: in herself, in her love... Having arrived, she stayed with Volkonskaya, and a week later her wedding took place with Vasily Ivashev.

They lived for a month in a separate house, and then began to live in their husband’s casemate. Everyone fell in love with Camilla, a sweet, kind and educated girl.

At the beginning of 1839, Camilla’s mother came to Turinsk and helped her with family matters and raising children, but in December of this year Camilla caught a cold and died from premature birth.

V. Ivashev wrote in one of his letters: “On the night preceding our sad parting, the illness seemed to have lost its strength... her head became fresher, which allowed her to accept the help of religion with reverence, she blessed the children twice, was able to say goodbye to those around her distressed friends, say a word of consolation to each of his servants.

But her farewell to me and mother! ... We didn’t leave her side. She first joined our hands, then kissed each of us. She looked for us with her eyes one by one and took our hands. I pressed her hand to my cheek, warming it with my hand, and she tried to maintain this position longer.

Her whole life poured out in the last word; She took my hand, half-opened her eyes and said: “Poor Basil,” and a tear rolled down her cheek. Yes, terribly poor, terribly unhappy! I no longer have my friend, who was the consolation of my parents in the most difficult times, who gave me eight years of happiness, devotion, love, and what kind of love.”

She was only 31 years old. Ivashev survived her by only 1 year, he died suddenly, he was buried on the day of her death.

I.I. Pushchin, N.V. Basargin, the Annenkovs helped Camilla’s mother and her children (Maria, Vera, Peter), with difficulty they managed to take the children out of Siberia under the name Vasilyevs. Only 15 years later, after an amnesty, the Ivashev family name and nobility were returned to them.

I have always admired the fate of these women, their perseverance, their courage, the Great Love that lived in their hearts!!

On December 14, 1825, in St. Petersburg on Senate Square, the first organized protest in the history of Russia by noble revolutionaries against the tsarist autocracy and tyranny took place. The uprising was suppressed. Five of its organizers were hanged, the rest were exiled to hard labor in Siberia, demoted to soldiers... The wives of the eleven convicted Decembrists shared their Siberian exile. The civil feat of these women is one of the glorious pages of our history.

In 1825, Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya turned 20 years old. The daughter of the famous hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, General Raevsky, a beauty praised by Pushkin, the wife of Prince Major General Volkonsky, she belonged to a select society of people outstanding in intelligence and education. And suddenly - a sharp turn of fate.

At the beginning of January 1826, Sergei Volkonsky stopped in the village for a day to visit his wife, who was expecting their first child. At night he lit a fireplace and began throwing written sheets of paper into the fire. To the frightened woman’s question: “What’s the matter?” - Sergei Grigorievich said: - “Pestel is arrested.” "For what?" - there was no answer...

The next meeting of the spouses took place only a few months later in St. Petersburg, in the Peter and Paul Fortress, where the arrested Decembrist revolutionaries (among them were Prince Sergei Volkonsky and Maria Nikolaevna’s uncle Vasily Lvovich Davydov) were awaiting a decision on their fate...

There were eleven of them - women who shared the Siberian exile of their Decembrist husbands. Among them are ignorant people, like Alexandra Vasilyevna Yontaltseva and Alexandra Ivanovna Davydova, or Polina Gebl, who was severely poor in childhood, the bride of the Decembrist Annenkov. But the majority are princesses Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya and Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya. Alexandra Grigorievna Muravyova is the daughter of Count Chernyshev. Elizaveta Petrovna Naryshkina, née Countess Konovnitsyna. Baroness Anna Vasilievna Rosen, the general's wives Natalya Dmitrievna Fonvizina and Maria Kazimirovna Yushnevskaya belonged to the nobility.

Nicholas I granted everyone the right to divorce their husband, a “state criminal.” However, the women went against the will and opinion of the majority, openly supporting the disgraced. They renounced luxury, left their children, family and friends and followed the husbands they loved. Voluntary exile to Siberia received loud public resonance.

Today it is difficult to imagine what Siberia was like in those days: “the bottom of the bag,” the end of the world, far away. For the fastest courier - more than a month's journey. Off-road conditions, river floods, snowstorms and chilling horror of Siberian convicts - murderers and thieves.

The first - the very next day, following her convict husband - was Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya. In Krasnoyarsk, the carriage broke down and the guide fell ill. The princess continues her journey alone, in a tarantass. In Irkutsk, the governor intimidates her for a long time, demands - again after the capital! - written renunciation of all rights, Trubetskoy signs it. A few days later, the governor announces to the former princess that she will continue to walk the “tightrope” along with criminals. She agrees...

The second was Maria Volkonskaya. Day and night she rushes in a wagon, not stopping for the night, not having lunch, content with a piece of bread and a glass of tea. And so for almost two months - in severe frosts and snowstorms. She spent the last evening before leaving home with her son, whom she had no right to take with her. The baby played with a large beautiful seal of the royal letter, in which the highest command allowed the mother to leave her son forever...

In Irkutsk, Volkonskaya, like Trubetskaya, faced new obstacles. Without reading, she signed the terrible conditions set by the authorities: deprivation of noble privileges and transition to the position of the wife of an exiled convict, limited in the rights of movement, correspondence, and disposal of her property. Her children, born in Siberia, will be considered state-owned peasants.

Six thousand miles of journey behind - and the women are in the Blagodatsky mine, where their husbands mine lead. Ten hours of hard labor underground. Then a prison, a dirty, cramped wooden house of two rooms. In one - escaped criminal convicts, in the other - eight Decembrists. The room is divided into closets - two arshins long and two wide, where several prisoners huddle. Low ceiling, you can’t straighten your back, pale candlelight, the sound of shackles, insects, poor nutrition, scurvy, tuberculosis and no news from the outside... And suddenly - beloved women!

When Trubetskaya, through a crack in the prison fence, saw her husband in shackles, in a short, tattered and dirty sheepskin coat, thin and pale, she fainted. Volkonskaya, who arrived after her, shocked, knelt down in front of her husband and kissed his shackles.

Nicholas I took away all property and inheritance rights from women, allowing only miserable living expenses, for which women had to report to the head of the mines.

Insignificant amounts kept Volkonskaya and Trubetskoy on the brink of poverty. They limited food to soup and porridge and refused dinners. Lunch was prepared and sent to the prison to support the prisoners. Accustomed to gourmet cuisine, Trubetskoy at one time ate only black bread, washed down with kvass. This spoiled aristocrat walked in worn-out shoes and froze her feet, because from her warm shoes she sewed a hat for one of her husband’s comrades to protect his head from rock debris falling in the mine.

No one could calculate a hard life in advance. One day Volkonskaya and Trubetskaya saw the head of the mines, Burnashev, with his retinue. They ran out into the street: their husbands were being escorted. The village echoed: “The secret ones will be judged!” It turned out that the prisoners went on a hunger strike when the prison guard forbade them to communicate with each other and took away the candles. But the authorities had to give in. This time the conflict was resolved peacefully. Or suddenly, in the middle of the night, shots raised the entire village to its feet: criminal convicts tried to escape. Those caught were beaten with whips to find out where they got the money to escape. And Volkonskaya gave the money. But no one gave her up even under torture.

In the fall of 1827, the Decembrists from Blagodatsk were transferred to Chita. There were more than 70 revolutionaries in the Chita prison. The cramped space and the ringing of shackles irritated the already exhausted people. But it was here that a friendly Decembrist family began to take shape. The spirit of collectivism, camaraderie, mutual respect, high morality, equality, regardless of the difference in social and financial status, dominated in this family. Its connecting core was the holy day of December 14, and the sacrifices made for it. Eight women were equal members of this unique community.

They settled near the prison in village huts, cooked their own food, fetched water, and lit the stoves. Polina Annenkova recalled: “Our ladies often came to me to see how I was preparing dinner, and asked them to teach them how to cook soup. then make a pie. When I had to clean the chicken, they confessed with tears in their eyes that they envied my ability to do everything, and complained bitterly about themselves for not being able to take on anything.”

Visits with husbands were allowed only twice a week in the presence of an officer. Therefore, the favorite pastime and only entertainment of women was to sit on a large stone opposite the prison, sometimes exchanging a word with the prisoners.

The soldiers rudely drove them away, and once hit Trubetskoy. The women immediately sent a complaint to St. Petersburg. And since then Trubetskoy has demonstratively organized entire “receptions” in front of the prison: she sat on a chair and took turns talking with the prisoners gathered inside the prison yard. The conversation had one inconvenience: we had to shout quite loudly to hear each other. But how much joy this brought to the prisoners!

The women quickly became friends, although they were very different. Annenkov's bride came to Siberia under the name Mademoiselle Polina Gebl: “by royal grace” she was allowed to unite her life with the exiled Decembrist. When Annenkov was taken to church to get married, the shackles were removed from him, and upon his return they were put back on and taken to prison. Polina, beautiful and graceful, was seething with life and fun, but all this was like an outer shell of deep feelings that forced the young woman to abandon her homeland and independent life.

A common favorite was Nikita Muravyov’s wife, Alexandra Grigorievna. None of the Decembrists, perhaps, received such enthusiastic praise in the memoirs of Siberian exiles. Even women who are very strict towards representatives of their sex and are as different as Maria Volkonskaya and Polina Annenkova are unanimous here: “Holy woman. She died at her post."

Muravyova became the first victim of the Petrovsky plant - the next place of hard labor for revolutionaries after Chita. She died in 1832 at the age of twenty-eight. Nikita Muravyov turned gray at thirty-six - on the day of his wife’s death.

Even during the transition of convicts from Chita to the Petrovsky plant, the women's colony was replenished with two voluntary exiles - the wives of Rosen and Yushnevsky arrived. And a year later, in September 1831, another wedding took place: the bride Camille Le-Dantu came to Vasily Ivashev.

The Decembrist women did a lot in Siberia. First of all, they destroyed the isolation to which the authorities doomed the revolutionaries. Nicholas I wanted to force everyone to forget the names of the condemned, to erase them from memory. But then Alexandra Grigorievna Muravyova arrives and through the prison bars conveys to I. I. Pushchin the poems of his lyceum friend Alexander Pushkin. The poetic lines “in the depths of the Siberian ores” told the Decembrists that they were not forgotten, that they were remembered, they were sympathized with.

Relatives and friends write to prisoners. They are also forbidden to respond (they received the right to correspondence only with access to the settlement). This reflected the same government calculation of isolating the Decembrists. This plan was destroyed by women who connected the prisoners with the outside world. They wrote on their own behalf, sometimes copying letters from the Decembrists themselves, received correspondence and parcels for them, and subscribed to newspapers and magazines.

Each woman had to write ten or even twenty letters a week. The workload was so heavy that sometimes there was no time left to write to my own parents and children. “Do not complain to me, my kind, priceless Katya, Lisa, for the brevity of my letter,” writes Alexandra Ivanovna Davydova to her daughters left with relatives. “I have so much trouble now, and there are so many letters to write to me at this post office that I forcibly chose time for these few lines."

While in Siberia, the women waged a constant struggle with the St. Petersburg and Siberian administrations to ease the conditions of imprisonment. They called Commandant Leparsky a jailer to his face, adding that not a single decent person would agree to accept this position without striving to alleviate the lot of the prisoners. When the general objected that he would be demoted to soldier for this, they immediately answered: “Well, become a soldier, general, but be an honest man.”

The old connections of the Decembrists in the capital, the personal acquaintance of some of them with the tsar, sometimes restrained the jailers from arbitrariness. The charm of young educated women sometimes tamed both the administration and criminals.

Women knew how to support the discouraged, calm the excited and upset, and console the distressed. Naturally, the unifying role of women increased with the advent of families (since wives were allowed to live in prison), and then the first “convict” children - pupils of the entire colony.

Sharing the fate of the revolutionaries, celebrating the “holy day of December 14” with them every year, women came closer to the interests and affairs of their husbands (which they were not aware of in a past life), and became, as it were, their accomplices. “Imagine how close they are to me,” wrote M.K. Yushnevskaya from the Petrovsky plant, “we live in the same prison, suffer the same fate and console each other with memories of our dear, kind relatives.”

The years passed slowly in exile. Volkonskaya recalled: “At the first time of our exile, I thought that it would probably end in five years, then I told myself that it would be in ten, then in fifteen years, but after 25 years I stopped waiting, I only asked God one thing: so that he gets my children out of Siberia.”

Moscow and St. Petersburg became increasingly distant memories. Even those whose husbands died were not given the right to return. In 1844, this was denied to Yushnevsky’s widow, and in 1845, to Entaltseva.

New and new batches of exiles were coming from beyond the Urals. 25 years after the Decembrists, the Petrashevites, including F.M. Dostoevsky, were taken to hard labor. The Decembrists managed to get a meeting with them, help with food and money. “They blessed us on a new path,” Dostoevsky recalled.

Few Decembrists lived to see the amnesty that came in 1856 after thirty years of exile. Of the eleven women who followed their husbands to Siberia, three remained here forever. Alexandra Muravyova, Kamilla Ivasheva, Ekaterina Trubetskaya. The last to die was ninety-three-year-old Alexandra Ivanovna Davydova in 1895. She died surrounded by numerous descendants and the respect and veneration of all who knew her.

“Thanks to the women: they will give some beautiful lines to our history,” said a contemporary of the Decembrists, poet P.A. Vyazemsky, upon learning of their decision.

As far as I can remember in my youth, the expression “wife of the Decembrist” caused me some strange trembling throughout my body. This is because of the books that we read as part of the school curriculum, and because of the literature lessons in which these women were presented to us as ardent martyrs who wished to share the punishment of exile with their husbands.

I even imagined what she should look like: a woman with a sad but unshakable face, a piercing gaze and a confident gait, wandering in a sheepskin coat through the snowy expanses of Russia, and her faithful husband walked next to her in shackles.

It turned out that I was not far from the truth - 11 women who shared the Siberian exile of their Decembrist husbands, meekly accepted not only poverty and dullness, but also the excess of all their privileges, rights and status: Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya, Praskovya Egorovna Annenkova, Kamilla Ivasheva Petrovna, Muravyova Alexandra Grigorievna, Naryshkina Elizaveta Petrovna, Rosen Anna Vasilievna, Trubetskaya Ekaterina Ivanovna, Fonvizina Natalya Dmitrievna, Shakhovskaya Natalya Dmitrievna, Yushnevskaya Maria Kazimirovna, Yakushkina Anastasia Vasilievna.

The stable expression “wife of the Decembrist” is associated with the well-known uprising in Russian history that occurred on December 14, 1825 - suppressed as a result with severe punishment of the rebels, who went to serve their sentences in Siberia.

There were eleven wives of the Decembrists in total, and not all of them were noble, but regardless of their status, they decided to abandon social life and follow their husbands into the unknown. Of course, no one forced them, as it might seem - the wives of the Decembrists had a clear choice: either divorce the “state criminal” or reunite with him, but renounce luxury and follow their husband to hard labor.

For their disobedience and loyalty, these women were placed in conditions even worse than those in which their husbands stayed - this is in the sense that many of them left already born children to their parents, switched to the position of the wife of an exiled convict, lost the right of correspondence, and their children, already born in Siberia, were considered state-owned peasants. And this is for the rest of their lives, because even after the death of their husbands, wives did not receive the right to return.

And this story and these women would seem like holy martyrs, if not for one “but”: it is this that haunts me now, when I have grown up, become older and have partly tried on the fate of the Decembrist’s wife.

Reckless or wise?

We are accustomed to believe that the Decembrist’s wife is “a faithful wife who shared grief and misfortune with her husband and did not abandon him in difficult times.” However, let's look at this using the example of one of these wives - Maria Volkonskaya. As we remember, she married her husband being half his age. Maria practically did not know her husband and, perhaps, had no idea that he was participating in the conspiracy.

When Volkonsky is exiled to Siberia, Maria simply begs the Tsar to allow her to go after him - and this considering that she recently gave birth to a child from him. After all, according to the royal decree, they were not allowed to take children with them - after all, they could not choose their own fate, and there was no need for them to suffer in harsh conditions.

How can you call such an act? If you look at it in the context of universal love for your husband and the desire to be with him, it’s like heroism and a feat. And if not in it?

See for yourself: if in today’s world a woman abandons her child and leaves with her husband to another city or country, she will be called a cuckoo, leaving her own child, even with her own grandparents, but still leaving her. Doesn’t this rule work with the wives of the Decembrists? Why do we perceive the actions of most of those 11 women as a feat, and not recklessness or indifference?

As for me, their decision to leave the children and go with their husband to Siberia was not just cruel, but stupid! After all, Maria’s father also asked her to give up thoughts of moving - they say, if you’re not going to a resort, what are you dooming yourself and your children to? And she didn’t have any special love - I doubt that the girl understood and accepted all the actions of her husband.

Why respect such a woman? Because she fell for ideas and the fashionable tendency to jump from the frying pan into the fire? So that later they write about it and sing about your strong spirit in poetry and lines? Dubious benefit... Or should Mary be respected for her lack of love for her own son? The first, because in exile she gave birth to four more children, of whom only two survived. And this is not surprising - in the conditions of the Far North, without benefits, normal medicine, the right to vote and the opportunity to return back. Oh, yes, this wife of the Decembrist definitely thought only about the good of the family...

I looked - many of the eleven wives died from serious illnesses, in poverty and cold: Volkonskaya - in 1863 from heart disease, Ekaterina Trubetskaya - from cancer, Natalya Fonvizina was paralyzed. Is this the fate they were looking for? And most importantly, did their husbands consider their wives’ actions a heroic deed or recklessness? And the fact that, having gone into exile, they were no longer “considered” prominent suitors (who else would look at them later, except their own wives), who could not count on the love and loyalty of some other woman - should this be taken into account or not?

In this sense, Ivan Yakushkin acted nobly: his wife gave birth to one son before her husband’s arrest, and a second one during the investigation. Sentenced to 20 years of hard labor and permanent exile, he insisted that Anastasia remain in Europe and raise her children. Only in 1831 did Ivan Yakushkin agree to his wife’s arrival, but the sovereign refused her request - both times, considering that the request was submitted too late.

A modern Decembrist - perhaps?

You may disagree with me on some concepts - I would do it myself ten years ago, when I believed that only love could save the world - love for a man, and that being the wife of a Decembrist was terribly cool. And now I think that these women would change their minds a couple of years later, having plunged into poverty and ruin, separated from their children and dooming those born into exile to difficulties. But nothing could be returned...

And I also think that a woman, becoming a wife, can follow her husband to the ends of the earth, but, becoming a mother, she is deprived of the right to recklessness and this universal love for a man. Whatever it is.

Wives of the Decembrists... What a multifaceted concept this is, combining madness, heroism, eternal love, and the stupidity of women. After all, many of them, sharing the hardships of life with their husbands, did not share their beliefs. Of course, women of that time might not have had them - these same convictions, and in order to go down in history, one outstanding person was enough.

After all, even today we do not know all the women and wives of prominent personalities who remain behind the scenes and we perceive differently the actions of those who without looking back went to Siberia for their husbands. Are women today not the same or, on the contrary, have they become smarter, stronger, wiser and, having turned not only into wives, but also individuals, began to think with their heads, and not just with their hearts? And is it possible to talk about the hardships and decisions of the wives of the Decembrists without being at least partially in their position?

How often in today’s life do we hear this biting: “Are you the wife of a Decembrist, to go so far for your husband?” And although the image of the Decembrist’s wife remains in the head as an image of a strong and devoted woman who shares the fate of her husband and follows them into inhuman life, not everyone today will decide to do a similar act.

Let’s not go too far and say that to be faithful and devoted, like the wives of the Decembrists, is possible only in the harsh wilderness or in the cold. It is enough to imagine a common situation when a husband, due to some stupidity or coincidence, finds himself in a financial hole, unable to feed his family, and his wife does not run away from him into a well-fed life, but remains close to her beloved, supporting him and waiting for better times . This is also a kind of hard labor, in which a woman refuses benefits and the opportunity to live better for the sake of her love.

I can say that I know this situation well. When I started dating my husband (then still future), he was a simple bartender, and I worked on television. After a month of dating, we began to live together in a rented apartment. They paid for it from his salary and ate from mine.

Pretty soon there wasn’t enough money, because her husband kept delaying her, and she had to eat and pay rent on time. This was the first test that we successfully passed - and we are still passing it. As you know, my husband doesn’t have much work right now and we live on what I earn (ttt).

Of course, today we settled in our parents’ house and many will now think that in this state of affairs we are rolling around like cheese in butter: with everything ready-made, not thinking about food or utility bills. But this is not so: there are more working people in the family, but expenses have also increased. It usually turns out that at the end of the month I’m pulling the burden for all five of them - my grandfather didn’t have a pension yet, and my mother’s salary is no longer there, it’s spent. That is, in financial terms, I understand the Decembrist’s wives very well - they always had no income, and at that time I did too.

Of course, for this alone you definitely can’t call me the wife of a Decembrist. Then let's remember something else: the second test that I went through with my husband for three years, if not more. At that time, the husband had severe problems with alcohol and, as a consequence, with the global number of comrades and friends and their eternal adventures in clubs and taverns after work.

I practically didn’t see my husband, and if I did, it wasn’t always sober. I don’t want to remember this period, and therefore I won’t describe it in detail. It was enough that I waited for him at night and in the morning, rescuing him from a variety of situations (including fights and other things). This is due to the similarity about the “brightness” of the life of the Decembrists, who followed their beliefs and ideals, getting involved in various showdowns and uprisings. Without sharing my husband’s beliefs, I still followed my love.

Finally, the exile itself is the third test: without it, can the Decembrist’s wife be considered such? Of course, she was there too - and this was our trip to Tashkent for almost a year. This is generally the “problem” of our small family - we are still not tied to one place, but are forced to wander across two countries like tumbleweeds.

But that “almost a year” was the most difficult to date. Because in Tashkent, apart from a pleasant and warm climate, nothing awaited me except disappointment, quarrels, showdowns and division of territory. Of course, I went there for my husband, who was going to work, but for completely different “bread”: our mother-in-law called us very strongly, and her eldest son was ready to go through thick and thin for the sake of his nephew.

But time showed otherwise: I, as the wife of a Decembrist, had to give up most of the benefits that were familiar to me - let’s take the same human communication with friends, the opportunity to spend at least one day a week with loved ones, shopping trips and visiting the hairdresser. There is a lot to list, but even buying panties there was a problem for me: my mother-in-law, during her period of intense activity, told me that I was no longer a woman, I was a mother, and I should only think about “the child’s panties,” and not about my own. I may only have two of them...

But did anyone say that a woman should stop being herself when she gives birth? Any man, even a Decembrist, who has nothing to choose from, will run away from a little guy in curlers and stretched sweatpants. And sometimes I couldn’t even cut my bangs at the hairdresser - I was so short of money and free time.

In addition, I was “deprived” of the status of a noblewoman—let’s call it that. Because and my mother-in-law and her son, after a couple of months, began to experience discomfort from the fact that we lived in their apartment. They didn’t say it out loud, but they experienced it: it was no longer possible to do many things, given the presence of a small child in the house.

What was the best way to strengthen the belief that you are still the boss of your house? It’s right to point out the “legal place” to those who moved there later—that is, to us. Scold, teach, educate, throw scandals, hysterics, load us with work and all the time repeat that we are the authorities here.

P.S

In general, my hard labor was not eternal, but it still existed. I remember her well, given some current circumstances - we again have to leave for Tashkent for a while, and I am again going to pick up my husband with my child. Of course, now I’m battle-hardened and can fight back those who come at me with a poker, but I really don’t want to do this...

Being the wife of a Decembrist is not easy, no matter what time you live in. Of course, there’s no point in making a hero out of this, because we choose the person for ourselves and make decisions - no one is forcing us to go to that same “hard labor,” is it? But still, ordinary wives are different from those who follow their husbands to Siberia, change their place of residence, work, sacrifice status and comfort, experience financial difficulties, but firmly believe that everything will be fine - one way or another.

Of course, I do not consider myself the wife of a Decembrist in the literal sense - and the circumstances. thank God, not those times, and trying on someone else’s skin is also not right. But in a figurative, figurative sense, any woman can be the wife of a Decembrist at any moment in her life. Tolerate, love, make sacrifices, be content with little and believe in a happy future.

The most important thing is that your “December” does not last long, but rather that it is followed by summer, and happiness, and love, and eternal blessings for your family.

Have you ever considered yourself the “wife of a Decembrist”? And what do you mean by this concept? Do you consider it (using the example of 11 wives) to be reckless or does it have some amount of nobility and fidelity? Finally, who is this - the wife of the Decembrist? A devoted woman who will follow love without thinking, or a fool who simply forgets about herself?

December 1825 brought the Russian Empire not only a winter cold, but also a change of monarch. And along with this - an attempt at a coup d'état, unprecedented in its nature and essence. All the events of the era of palace coups could not be compared with what happened that day on Senate Square in St. Petersburg.

Representatives of the nobility did not want to replace the head of state, but not to allow his accession to the throne, to abolish autocracy as a form of state power and to abolish serfdom. One of the prerequisites for such a development of events was a short but very tense period of interregnum: after the death of Emperor Alexander I, his brother Constantine was supposed to ascend the throne, but the Grand Duke was in no hurry to take the oath, but did not abdicate either.

Tension in the country grew. As a result, Konstantin Pavlovich nevertheless signed a renunciation in favor of his younger brother, Grand Duke Nikolai Pavlovich. As is known from history textbooks and not only from them, the Decembrists’ attempt to make a revolution failed. Nicholas I nevertheless took the Russian throne, and the group of nobles who led this uprising was taken into custody and put on trial with all the ensuing consequences.

Sentence to the Decembrists

Almost 600 people were put under investigation for the uprising on Senate Square. Many of them were sentenced to death, but some of them had their sentence commuted to exile in Siberia for life or for a term of 20 years. Among those exiled, most were of noble origin, some with a princely title.

Due to the fact that many military officers in the ranks of officers took part in the uprising, many of them were demoted to soldiers and exiled to the Caucasus, as well as to the front of the Russian-Persian and Russian-Turkish wars. Of the nearly 170 people in the mid-1830s, just over thirty returned home.

This has never happened before in Russian history, and therefore contemporaries and even descendants were never able to formulate a single objective assessment of these events. Some people consider these people heroes, while others, on the contrary, condemn them. One way or another, a precedent took place and significantly influenced the course of Russian history.

Wives of the Decembrists

• Praskovya Egorovna Annenkova (Polina Gebl),
• Maria Nikolaevna Volkonskaya,
• Alexandra Ivanovna Davydova,
• Alexandra Vasilievna Entaltseva,
• Kamilla Petrovna Ivasheva,
• Alexandra Grigorievna Muravyova,
• Elizaveta Petrovna Naryshkina,
• Anna Vasilievna Rosen,
• Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya,
• Natalia Dmitrievna Fonvizina,
• Maria Kazimirovna Yushnevskaya.

Despite the fact that the ladies were of different origins, ages, education and even different social status, they were surprisingly unanimous in their decision to support their husbands. Not everyone survived the Siberian exile: after the announcement of amnesty for the Decembrists on August 28, 1856, only eight came back, five with their husbands.

Having decided to follow their disgraced husbands into exile, the ladies were deprived of all their privileges and titles. From now on they became the wives of exiled convicts. However, even the loss of status did not deprive them of their fortitude. Relatives and friends had different reactions to the decision to follow their husbands. Some were openly condemned and dissuaded in every possible way, while others, on the contrary, were supported.

In Siberia, the ladies took up what was allowed and available to them. Having settled near the places where their husbands were imprisoned, they made life easier for them in hard labor as best they could: they sewed and mended clothes, and provided treatment, including to the local population. For example, in Chita, with funds from the wives of the Decembrists, a hospital was organized, which both prisoners and local residents could go to.

After some time, the Decembrists were transferred from hard labor to a settlement, and from that moment on, it seems, we can talk about some improvement in their living conditions. In addition, many of them took up educational work: they taught peasant children literacy and writing, as well as the basics of mathematics. Some turned to studying the culture and life of Siberia and collected information on the history of the region.

Ekaterina Trubetskaya

Ekaterina Ivanovna Trubetskaya was the first of the Decembrist wives to decide to follow her husband to Siberia. Her husband was 10 years older than her, but, judging by the testimony of contemporaries and personal letters, some of which have survived, she loved her husband very much and committed her brave act not out of any calculation, but solely out of a desire to share the fate of her loved one.

Oddly enough, her parents supported Ekaterina Ivanovna’s decision and tried to provide her with all possible support in this difficult endeavor. She left for Siberia literally a day after her husband was sent from the Peter and Paul Fortress and already in September 1826 she reached Irkutsk.

In Irkutsk, local authorities managed to detain her for almost six months under a variety of pretexts and persuasion to abandon their idea. Princess Trubetskoy was adamant. She managed to meet her husband only in February 1827.

In September 1827, the Decembrists were transferred to Chita, where conditions became much easier. They built a whole street of wooden houses for the wives of the Decembrists and called it Damskaya.

Praskovya Annenkova

Born Jeanette Polina Gebl, perhaps the most striking example of sincere and selfless love. Being a simple milliner of French origin in the Moscow representative office of the Dumancy trading company, Polina Gebl met the young heir of the Annenkov family, Ivan, who often visited there with his mother.

The young people fell in love with each other, but despite all the persuasion of I.A. Annenkova, the girl refused, realizing that his family would not agree to accept a daughter-in-law like her. When Annenkov was arrested for participating in the uprising and sentenced to 20 years of hard labor, Polina Gebl decided to go after him.

She was not given permission, since she was not his wife or relative. Then the girl went to the emperor. She managed to get through to him during military maneuvers. The surprised Nicholas I, in response to Polina’s request, said:

This is not your homeland, madam! You will be deeply unhappy there.

I know, sir. But I'm ready for anything! - she answered.

She was allowed to go. They married on April 8, 1828. Polina and her husband went through all the hardships of exile life. After 1856, when Alexander II declared an amnesty for the Decembrists, the Annenkovs moved to Nizhny Novgorod, where they lived for another 20 years. The happiest in their difficult life.

• Free electronic encyclopedia Wikipedia, section "The Decembrist Revolt".
• Free electronic encyclopedia Wikipedia, section "Decembrists".
• Materials from the site "History of the Russian Empire", section "Wives of the Decembrists in exile".
• Memoirs of the Decembrists.
• ON THE. Nekrasov, poem "Russian Women".
• Alexandre Dumas, "Fencing Teacher".
• Film "Star of Captivating Happiness."