August 18, 2025 • 27 mins
In Memoirs of a Revolutionist, Vol. 1, Peter Kropotkin, a notable Russian anarcho-communist and scientist, invites readers into his captivating life journey. This autobiography not only chronicles his personal experiences but also sheds light on the intricate tapestry of 19th-century Russian society and politics. Born into nobility and educated in the military, Kropotkin ultimately rejected the values of his social class to champion anti-authoritarian socialism, standing against both the Tsarist regime and the authoritarian Bolsheviks. With a diverse range of interests spanning literature, biology, economics, and geographical exploration, Kropotkins memoirs begin with his childhood and education, leading to his transformative time in Siberia. (Introduction by Elin)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Siberia, chapter one of Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Peter Kropotkin.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Eilin.
In the middle of May eighteen sixty two, a few
weeks before our promotion, I was told one day by
the captain to make up the final list of the
(00:23):
regiments which each of us intended to join. We had
the choice of all the regiments of the Gods, which
we could enter with the first officer's grade, and of
the Army with the third grade of lieutenant. I took
a list of our form and went the round of
my comrades. Every one knew well the regiment he was
going to join, most of them already wearing in the
(00:43):
garden the officer's cap of that regiment, Her Majesty's cuirassiers,
the bodyguard Priyo Brashenski, the horse guards were the replies
which I inscribed in my list. But you Kropotkin, the artillery,
the Cossacks. I was asked on all sides. I could
not stand these questions, and at last, asking a comrade
(01:06):
to complete the list, I went to my room to
think once more over my final decision. That I should
not enter a regiment of the Guard and give my
life to parades and court balls. I had settled long
before my dream was to enter the university, to study,
to live the student's life. That meant, of course, to
(01:26):
break entirely with my father, whose ambitions were quite different,
and to rely for my living upon what I might
earn by means of lessons. Thousands of Russian students live
in that way, and such a life did not frighten
me in the least. But how should I get over
the first steps in that life? In a few weeks,
I should have to leave the school, to done my
(01:48):
own clothes, to have my own lodging, and I saw
no possibility of providing even the little money which would
be required for the most modest start. Then failing the university,
I had been often thinking of late that I could
enter the artillery academy. That would free me for two
years from the drudgery of military service, and by the
(02:09):
side of the military sciences, I could study mathematics and physics.
But the wind of reaction was blowing, and the officers
of the academies had been treated during the previous winter
as if they were schoolboys, And two academies they had revolted,
and in one of them they had left in a body.
My thoughts turned more and more towards Siberia. The Amor
(02:31):
region had recently been ennaxed by Russia. I had read
all about that Mississippi of the east, the mountains at Pierces,
the subtropical vegetation of its tributary, the Yusuri, and my
thoughts went further to the tropical regions which Humboldt had described,
and to the great generalizations of Ritter, which I delighted
to read. Besides, I reasoned, there is in Siberia an
(02:56):
immense field for the application of the great reforms which
have been made or on coming. The workers must be
few there, and I shall find a field of action
to my tastes. The worst would be that I should
have to separate from my brother Alexander. But he had
been compelled to leave the University of Moscow after the
last disorders, and in a year or two I guessed,
(03:17):
and guessed rightly, in one way or another we should
be together. There remained only the choice of the regiment
in the Ammu region. The Yusuri attracted me most, but
alas there was on the Yusuri, only one regiment of
infantry cossacks, a cossack not on horseback. That was too
bad for the boy that I still was, and I
(03:38):
settled upon the mounted cossacks of the Amur. This I
wrote on the list, to the great consternation of all
my comrades. It is so far, they said, while my
friend daubt of seizing the officer's handbook read out of it,
to the horror of all present uniform black with a
plain red collar without braids, fur bonnet made of dog's
(04:01):
fur or any other fur, trousers gray. Only look at
that uniform, he exclaimed. Bother the cap, you can wear
one of wolf or bear fur, but think only of
the trousers, gray, like a soldier of the train. The
consternation reached its climax after that reading. I joked as
(04:22):
best I could, and took the list to the Captain.
Kropotkin must always have his joke, he cried, Did I
not tell you that the list must be sent to
the Grand Duke? To day I had some difficulty in
making him believe that the list really stated my intention. However,
next day my resolution almost gave way when I saw
(04:42):
how Klasowski took my decision. He had hoped to see
me in the university and had given me lessons in
Latin and Greek for that purpose, and I did not
dare to tell him what really prevented me from entering
the university. I knew that if I told him the truth,
he would offer to share with me the little that
he had. Then my father telegraphed to the director that
(05:03):
he forbade my going to Siberia, and the matter was
reported to the Grand Duke, who was the chief of
the military schools. I was called before his assistant and
talked about the vegetation of the Amur and like things.
Because I had strong reasons for believing that if I
said I wanted to go to the university and could
not afford it, a bursary would be offered to me
(05:25):
by some one of the Imperial family, an offer which
by all means I wished to avoid. It is impossible
to say how all this would have ended, but an
event of much importance, the Great Fire at Saint Petersburg,
brought about, in an indirect way, a solution to my difficulties.
On the Monday after Trinity, the day of the Holy Ghost,
(05:48):
which was that year. On May twenty sixth o s,
a terrible fire broke out in the so called Apraxing d'vor.
The Appraxing d'voor was an immense space nearly half a
mile square, which was entirely covered with small shops mere
shanties of wood, where all sorts of second and third
hand goods were sold. Old furniture and bedding, second hand
(06:12):
dresses and books poured in from every quarter of the
city and were stored in the small shanties, in the
passages between them, and even on their roofs. This accumulation
of inflammable materials had at its back the Ministry of
the Interior and its archives, where all the documents concerning
the liberation of the serfs were kept. And in the
(06:33):
front of it, which was lined by a row of
shops built of stone, was the State Bank. A narrow lane,
also bordered with stone shops, separated the appraxined board from
a wing of the Corps of Paetes, which was occupied
by grocery and oil shops in its lower story and
with the apartments of the officers in its upper story.
(06:55):
Almost opposite the Ministry of the Interior on the other side,
of a canal, there were extensive timber yards. This labyrinth
of small shanties and the timber yards opposite took fire
almost at the same moment, at four o'clock in the afternoon.
If there had been wind on that day, half the
city would have perished in the flames, including the bank,
(07:18):
several ministries, the Gostinoid Voort, another great block of shops
on the Nevsky perspective, the Core of Paetus and the
National Library. I was that afternoon at the corps dining
at the house of one of our officers, and we
dashed to the spot as soon as we noticed from
the windows the first clouds of smoke rising in our
(07:39):
close neighborhood. The sight was terrific, like an immense snake,
rattling and whistling. The fire threw itself in all directions
right and left, enveloped the shanties, and suddenly rose in
a huge column, darting out its whistling tongues to lick
up more shanties with their contents. Whirlwinds of smoke and
(08:02):
fire were formed, and when the whirls of burning feathers
from the betting shops began to sweep about the space.
It became impossible to remain any longer inside the burning market.
The whole had to be abandoned. The authorities had entirely
lost their heads. There was not at that time a
single steam fire engine in Saint Petersburg, and it was
(08:25):
workmen who suggested bringing one from the iron works of Colpino,
situated twenty miles by rail from the capital. When the
engine reached the railway station, it was the people who
dragged it to the conflagration. Of its four lines of hose,
one was damaged by an unknown hand, and the other
three were directed upon the Ministry of the Interior. The
(08:48):
Grand Dukes came to the spot and went away again.
Late in the evening, when the bank was out of danger,
the Emperor also made his appearance and said what every
one knew already, but the core of pages was now
the key of the battle and must be saved by
all means. It was evident that if the corps had
taken fire, the National Library and half of the Nevsky
(09:10):
perspective would have perished in the flames. It was the crowd,
the people who did everything to prevent the fire from
spreading further and further. There was a moment when the
bank was seriously menaced. The goods cleared from the shops
opposite were thrown into the Sodovaya Street and lay in
great heaps upon the walls of the left wing of
(09:31):
the bank. The articles which covered the street itself continually
took fire, but the people roasting there in an almost
unbearable heat, prevented the flames from being communicated to the
piles of goods on the other side. They swore at
all the authorities, seeing that there was not a pump
on the spot. What are they all doing at the
(09:52):
Ministry of the Interior when the bank and the foundling's
house are going to take fire? They have all lost
their heads. Where's the chief of police that he cannot
send a fire brigade to the bank? They said. I
knew the Chief General Anenkov personally, as I had met
him once or twice at our sub inspector's house. Whereto
he came with his brother, the well known literary critic,
(10:15):
and I volunteered to find him. I found him, indeed,
walking aimlessly in a street, and when I reported to
him the state of affairs, incredible though it may seem,
it was to me a boy that he gave the
order to move one of the fire brigades from the
Ministry to the bank. I exclaimed, of course, that the
men would never listen to me, and I asked for
(10:37):
a written order. But General Anenkov had not, or pretended
not to have a scrap of paper, so that I
asked one of our officers L. L. Gosso to come
with me to transmit the order. We at last prevailed
upon the captain of one fire brigade, who swore at
all the world and at his chiefs, to move his
men and engines to the bank. The Ministry itself was
(11:01):
not on fire. It was the archives which were burning,
and many boys, chiefly cadets and Pages, together with a
number of clerks, carried bundles of paper out of the
burning building and loaded them into cabs. Often a bundle
would fall out, and the wind, taking possession of its leaves,
would strew them about the square. Through the smoke, a
(11:23):
sinister fire could be seen raging in the timber yards
on the other side of the canal. The narrow lane
which separated the core of Pages from the appraxin Dvore
was in a deplorable state. The shops which lined it
were full of brimstone, oil, turpentine and the like, and
immense tongues of fire of many hues, thrown out by explosions,
(11:46):
licked the roofs of the wing of the old corps
which bordered the lane on its other side. The windows
and the pilasters under the roof began a ready to smolder,
while the pages and some cadets, after having cleared the lodgings,
pumped water through a small fire engine, which received at
long intervals scanty supplies from old fashioned barrels which had
(12:07):
to be filled with ladles. A couple of firemen who
stood on the hot roof continually shouted out water, water,
in tones which were heartrending. I could not stand these
cries and rushed into the Sadovaya street, where by sheer
force I compelled the driver of one of the barrels
belonging to a police fire brigade to enter our yard
(12:29):
and to supply our pump with water. But when I
attempted to do the same once more, I met with
an absolute refusal from the driver. I shall be court martialed,
he said. If I obey you on all sides, my
comrades urged me go and find somebody, the chief of
the police, the Grand Duke, any one, and tell them
that without water we shall have to abandon the corps
(12:51):
to the fire. Ought we not to report to our director,
somebody would remark, bother the whole lot. You won't find
them with a lantern. Go and do it yourself. I
went once more in search of General Anankov, and was
at last told that he must be in the yard
of the bank. Several officers stood there, indeed around a
(13:12):
general in whom I recognized the Governor General of Saint Petersburg.
The gate, however, was locked, and a bank official who
stood at it, refused to let me in. I insisted, menaced,
and finally was admitted. Then I went straight up to
Prince Suvaroff, who was writing a note on the shoulder
of his aid de camp. When I reported to him
(13:34):
the state of affairs, his first question was, who has
sent you nobody the comrades, was my reply, So you
say the corps will soon be on fire? Yes, he
started at once, and, seizing in the street an empty
hat box, covered his head with it in order to
protect himself from the scorching heat. That came from the
(13:54):
burning shops of the Appraxin Dvoor and ran full speed
to the lane. Empty barrels, straw, wooden boxes and the
like covered the lane between the flames of the oil
shops on the one side and the buildings of our core,
of which the window frames and the pilasters were smoldering,
on the other side. Prince Suvarov acted resolutely. There is
(14:17):
a company of soldiers in your garden, he said to me,
take a detachment and clear that lane. At once. A
hose from the steam engine will be brought here. Immediately
keep it playing. I trust it to you personally. It
was not easy to move the soldiers out of our garden.
They had cleared the barrels and boxes of their contents,
and with their pockets full of coffee and with conical
(14:39):
lumps of sugar concealed in their capies, they were enjoying
the warm night under the trees, cracking nuts. No one
cared to move till an officer interfered. The lane was
cleared and the pump kept going. The comrades were delighted,
and every twenty minutes we relieved the men who directed
the jet of water standing by their side in an
(15:01):
almost unbearable heat. About three or four in the morning,
it was evident that bounds had been put to the fire.
The danger of its spreading to the core was over,
And after having quenched my thirst with half a dozen
glasses of tea in a small white inn which happened
to be open, I fell half dead from fatigue on
(15:21):
the first bed that I found unoccupied in the hospital
of the Corps. Next morning, I woke up early and
went to see the sight of the conflagration, when on
my return to the Corps, I met the Grand Duke Michael,
whom I accompanied, as was my duty, on his round
the pages. With their faces quite black from the smoke,
(15:41):
with swollen eyes and inflamed lids, some of them, with
their hair burned, raised their heads from the pillows. It
was hard to recognize them. They were proud, though, a
feeling that they had not been merely white hands and
had worked as hard as any one else. This visit
of the Grand Duke settled my difficulties. He asked me
(16:03):
why did I conceive that fancy of going to the Ahmud,
whether I had friends there, whether the Governor general knew me,
And learning that I had no relatives in Siberia and
knew nobody there, he exclaimed, But how are you going? Then?
They may send you to a lonely Cossack village. What
will you be doing there? I had better write about
you to the Governor General to recommend you. After such
(16:27):
an offer, I was sure that my father's objection would
be removed, and so it was I was free to
go to Siberia. This great conflagration became a turning point
not only in the policy of Alexander the Second, but
also in the history of Russia in that part of
the century. That it was not a mere accident was
(16:47):
self evident. Trinity and the Day of the Holy Ghost
are great holidays in Russia, and there was nobody inside
the market except a few watchmen besides the aprax In
market and the timber yards took fire at the same time,
and the conflagration at Saint Petersburg was followed by similar
disasters in several provincial towns. The fire was lit by somebody,
(17:10):
but by whom this question remains unanswered to the present time. Katkoff,
the ex Whig, who was inspired with personal hatred of
Hedson and especially of Bakunin, with whom he had once
defied a duel on the very day after the fire,
accused the Poles and the Russian revolutionists of being the
cause of it, and that opinion prevailed at Saint Petersburg
(17:34):
in Moscow. Poland was preparing then for the revolution which
broke out in the following January, and the secret revolutionary
government had concluded an alliance with the London refugees and
had its men in the very heart of the Saint
Petersburg administration. Only a short time after the conflagration occurred,
(17:54):
the Lord Lieutenant of Poland, Count Luders, was shot at
by a Russian officer, and when the Grand Duke Constantine
was nominated in his place, with intention it was said
of making Poland a separate kingdom for Constantine, he also
was immediately shot at on June twenty sixth. Similar attempts
(18:15):
were made in August against the Marquis Vielee Polski, the
Polish leader of the pro Russian Union party, Napoleon the Third,
maintained among the Poles the hope of an armed intervention
in favor of their independence. In such conditions, judging from
the ordinary narrow military standpoint, to destroy the bank of
Russia and several ministries, and to spread a panic in
(18:38):
the capital might have been considered a good plan of warfare.
But there was never the slightest scrap of evidence forthcoming
to support this hypothesis. On the other side, the advanced
parties in Russia saw that no hope could any longer
be placed in Alexander's reformatory initiative. He was clearly drifting
into the reactionary camp. To men of forethought, it was
(19:01):
evident that the liberation of the serfs under the conditions
of redemption which were imposed upon them, meant their certain ruin,
and revolutionary proclamations were issued in May at Saint Petersburg,
calling the people and the army to a general revolt,
while they educated classes were asked to insist upon the
necessity of a national convention. Under such circumstances, to disorganize
(19:25):
the machine of the government might have entered into the
plans of some revolutionists. Finally, the indefinite character of the
emancipation had produced a great deal of fermentation among the peasants,
who constitute a considerable part of the population in all
Russian cities, and through all the history of Russia, every
time such a fermentation has begun. It has resulted in
(19:49):
anonymous letters foretelling fires, and eventually in incendiarism. It was
possible that the idea of setting the approxing market on
fire might occur to o isolated men in the revolutionary camp.
But neither the most searching inquiries nor the wholesale arrests
which began all over Russia and Poland immediately after the fire,
(20:11):
revealed the slightest indication showing that such was really the case.
If anything of the sort had been found, the Reactionary
Party would have made capital out of it. Many reminiscences
and volumes of correspondence from those times have since been published,
but they contained no hint whatever in support of this suspicion.
(20:33):
On the contrary, when similar conflagations broke out in several
towns on the Volga, and especially at Saratov and Ghenisdanov,
a member of the Senate was sent by the Tsar
to make a searching inquiry. He returned with a firm
conviction that the conflagration at Saratov was the work of
the reactionary Party. There was among that party a general
(20:55):
belief that it would be possible to induce Alexander the
Second to postpone the final abolition of serfdom, which was
to take place on February nineteenth, eighteen sixty three. They
knew the weakness of his character, and immediately after the
Great Fire at Saint Petersburg they began a violent campaign
for postponement and for their revision of the emancipation law
(21:18):
in its practical applications. It was rumored and well informed
legal circles that Senator Zdanov was in fact returning with
positive proofs of the culpability of the reactionaries at Saratov,
but he died on his way back. His portfolio disappeared
and it has never been found. Be It as it may,
(21:40):
the Appraxing fire had the most deplorable consequences. After it,
Alexander the Second surrendered to the reactionaries, and what was
still worse, the public opinion of that part of society
at Saint Petersburg and especially at Moscow, which carried most
weight with the government, suddenly threw off its liberal garb
(22:01):
and turned against not only the more advanced section of
the Reform Party, but even against its moderate wing. A
few days after the conflagration, I went on Sunday to
see my cousin, the aide de camp of the Emperor,
in whose apartment I had often heard the horse guard
officers expressing sympathy with Tzernishevski. My cousin himself had been
(22:23):
up until then an assiduous reader of the Contemporary, the
organ of the Advanced Reform Party. Now we brought several
numbers of the Contemporary, and putting them on the table
I was sitting at, said to me, well, now after this,
I will have no more of that incendiary stuff. Enough
of it. And these words expressed the opinion of all
(22:44):
Saint Petersburg. It became improper to talk of reforms. The
whole atmosphere was laden with the reactionary spirit. The Contemporary
and other similar reviews were suppressed. The Sunday schools were
prohibited under any form. Whullsale arrests began. The capital was
placed under a state of siege. A fortnight later, on
(23:08):
June thirteenth or twenty five, the time which we pages
and cadets had so long looked for came. At last.
The Emperor gave us a sort of military examination in
all kinds of evolutions, during which we commanded the companies,
and I paraded on a horse before the battalion, and
we were promoted to be officers. When the parade was over,
(23:31):
Alexander the Second loudly called out the promoted officers to me,
and we gathered round him. He remained on horseback. Here
I saw him in a quite new light. The man
who the next year appeared in the role of a
bloodthirsty and vindictive suppressor of the insurrection in Poland rose
(23:51):
now full size before my eyes. In the speech he
addressed to us, he began in a quiet tone. I
congratulated you. You are officers. He spoke about military duty
and loyalty, as they are usually spoken of on such occasions.
But if any one of you, he went on, distinctly,
(24:11):
shouting out every word, his face suddenly contorted with anger.
But if any one of you, which God preserve you from,
should under any circumstances, prove disloyal to the Czar, the Throne,
and the fatherland, take heed of what I say, he
will be treated with all the severity of the laws,
without the slightest commiseration. His voice failed, his face was peevish,
(24:35):
full of that expression of blind rage which I saw
in my childhood on the faces of landlords when they
threatened their serfs to skin them under the rods. He
violently spurred his horse and rode out of our circle.
Next morning, June fourteenth, by his orders, three officers were
shot at Mudlin in Poland, and one soldier jud by name,
(24:59):
was killed under the rods reaction. Full speed backwards, I
said to myself. As we made our way back to
the corps. I saw Alexander the Second once more before
leaving Saint Petersburg. Some days after our promotion, all the
newly appointed officers were at the palace to be presented
(25:20):
to him. My more than modest uniform, with its prominent
gray trousers, attracted universal attention, and every moment I had
to satisfy the curiosity of officers of all ranks who
came to ask me what was the uniform that I wore.
The Ahmud Cossacks, being then the youngest regiment of the
Russian Army. I stood somewhere near the end of the
(25:42):
hundreds of officers who were present. Alexander the Second found
me and asked, so you go to Siberia. Did your
father consent to it? After all? I answered in the affirmative.
Are you not afraid to go so far? I warmly replied, no, Oh,
I want to work. There must be so much to
(26:02):
do in Siberia, to apply the great reforms which are
going to be made. He looked straight at me. He
became pensive. At last, he said, well, go, one can
be useful everywhere, And his face took on such an
expression of fatigue, such a character of complete surrender, that
I thought at once he is a used up man.
(26:24):
He is going to give it all up. Saint Petersburg
had assumed a gloomy aspect. Soldiers marched in the streets,
Cossack patrols rode round the palace. The fortress was filled
with prisoners. Wherever I went I saw the same thing,
the triumph of the reaction. I left Saint Petersburg without regret.
(26:47):
I went every day to the Cossack administration to ask
them to make haste and deliver me my papers, And
as soon as they were ready, I hurried to Moscow
to join my brother Alexander. End of ciber Beria, Chapter one,
Siberia, chapter one of Memoirs of a Revolutionist by Peter Kropotkin.
This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Eilin.
In the middle of May eighteen sixty two, a few
weeks before our promotion, I was told one day by
the captain to make up the final list of the
(00:23):
regiments which each of us intended to join. We had
the choice of all the regiments of the Gods, which
we could enter with the first officer's grade, and of
the Army with the third grade of lieutenant. I took
a list of our form and went the round of
my comrades. Every one knew well the regiment he was
going to join, most of them already wearing in the
(00:43):
garden the officer's cap of that regiment, Her Majesty's cuirassiers,
the bodyguard Priyo Brashenski, the horse guards were the replies
which I inscribed in my list. But you Kropotkin, the artillery,
the Cossacks. I was asked on all sides. I could
not stand these questions, and at last, asking a comrade
(01:06):
to complete the list, I went to my room to
think once more over my final decision. That I should
not enter a regiment of the Guard and give my
life to parades and court balls. I had settled long
before my dream was to enter the university, to study,
to live the student's life. That meant, of course, to
(01:26):
break entirely with my father, whose ambitions were quite different,
and to rely for my living upon what I might
earn by means of lessons. Thousands of Russian students live
in that way, and such a life did not frighten
me in the least. But how should I get over
the first steps in that life? In a few weeks,
I should have to leave the school, to done my
(01:48):
own clothes, to have my own lodging, and I saw
no possibility of providing even the little money which would
be required for the most modest start. Then failing the university,
I had been often thinking of late that I could
enter the artillery academy. That would free me for two
years from the drudgery of military service, and by the
(02:09):
side of the military sciences, I could study mathematics and physics.
But the wind of reaction was blowing, and the officers
of the academies had been treated during the previous winter
as if they were schoolboys, And two academies they had revolted,
and in one of them they had left in a body.
My thoughts turned more and more towards Siberia. The Amor
(02:31):
region had recently been ennaxed by Russia. I had read
all about that Mississippi of the east, the mountains at Pierces,
the subtropical vegetation of its tributary, the Yusuri, and my
thoughts went further to the tropical regions which Humboldt had described,
and to the great generalizations of Ritter, which I delighted
to read. Besides, I reasoned, there is in Siberia an
(02:56):
immense field for the application of the great reforms which
have been made or on coming. The workers must be
few there, and I shall find a field of action
to my tastes. The worst would be that I should
have to separate from my brother Alexander. But he had
been compelled to leave the University of Moscow after the
last disorders, and in a year or two I guessed,
(03:17):
and guessed rightly, in one way or another we should
be together. There remained only the choice of the regiment
in the Ammu region. The Yusuri attracted me most, but
alas there was on the Yusuri, only one regiment of
infantry cossacks, a cossack not on horseback. That was too
bad for the boy that I still was, and I
(03:38):
settled upon the mounted cossacks of the Amur. This I
wrote on the list, to the great consternation of all
my comrades. It is so far, they said, while my
friend daubt of seizing the officer's handbook read out of it,
to the horror of all present uniform black with a
plain red collar without braids, fur bonnet made of dog's
(04:01):
fur or any other fur, trousers gray. Only look at
that uniform, he exclaimed. Bother the cap, you can wear
one of wolf or bear fur, but think only of
the trousers, gray, like a soldier of the train. The
consternation reached its climax after that reading. I joked as
(04:22):
best I could, and took the list to the Captain.
Kropotkin must always have his joke, he cried, Did I
not tell you that the list must be sent to
the Grand Duke? To day I had some difficulty in
making him believe that the list really stated my intention. However,
next day my resolution almost gave way when I saw
(04:42):
how Klasowski took my decision. He had hoped to see
me in the university and had given me lessons in
Latin and Greek for that purpose, and I did not
dare to tell him what really prevented me from entering
the university. I knew that if I told him the truth,
he would offer to share with me the little that
he had. Then my father telegraphed to the director that
(05:03):
he forbade my going to Siberia, and the matter was
reported to the Grand Duke, who was the chief of
the military schools. I was called before his assistant and
talked about the vegetation of the Amur and like things.
Because I had strong reasons for believing that if I
said I wanted to go to the university and could
not afford it, a bursary would be offered to me
(05:25):
by some one of the Imperial family, an offer which
by all means I wished to avoid. It is impossible
to say how all this would have ended, but an
event of much importance, the Great Fire at Saint Petersburg,
brought about, in an indirect way, a solution to my difficulties.
On the Monday after Trinity, the day of the Holy Ghost,
(05:48):
which was that year. On May twenty sixth o s,
a terrible fire broke out in the so called Apraxing d'vor.
The Appraxing d'voor was an immense space nearly half a
mile square, which was entirely covered with small shops mere
shanties of wood, where all sorts of second and third
hand goods were sold. Old furniture and bedding, second hand
(06:12):
dresses and books poured in from every quarter of the
city and were stored in the small shanties, in the
passages between them, and even on their roofs. This accumulation
of inflammable materials had at its back the Ministry of
the Interior and its archives, where all the documents concerning
the liberation of the serfs were kept. And in the
(06:33):
front of it, which was lined by a row of
shops built of stone, was the State Bank. A narrow lane,
also bordered with stone shops, separated the appraxined board from
a wing of the Corps of Paetes, which was occupied
by grocery and oil shops in its lower story and
with the apartments of the officers in its upper story.
(06:55):
Almost opposite the Ministry of the Interior on the other side,
of a canal, there were extensive timber yards. This labyrinth
of small shanties and the timber yards opposite took fire
almost at the same moment, at four o'clock in the afternoon.
If there had been wind on that day, half the
city would have perished in the flames, including the bank,
(07:18):
several ministries, the Gostinoid Voort, another great block of shops
on the Nevsky perspective, the Core of Paetus and the
National Library. I was that afternoon at the corps dining
at the house of one of our officers, and we
dashed to the spot as soon as we noticed from
the windows the first clouds of smoke rising in our
(07:39):
close neighborhood. The sight was terrific, like an immense snake,
rattling and whistling. The fire threw itself in all directions
right and left, enveloped the shanties, and suddenly rose in
a huge column, darting out its whistling tongues to lick
up more shanties with their contents. Whirlwinds of smoke and
(08:02):
fire were formed, and when the whirls of burning feathers
from the betting shops began to sweep about the space.
It became impossible to remain any longer inside the burning market.
The whole had to be abandoned. The authorities had entirely
lost their heads. There was not at that time a
single steam fire engine in Saint Petersburg, and it was
(08:25):
workmen who suggested bringing one from the iron works of Colpino,
situated twenty miles by rail from the capital. When the
engine reached the railway station, it was the people who
dragged it to the conflagration. Of its four lines of hose,
one was damaged by an unknown hand, and the other
three were directed upon the Ministry of the Interior. The
(08:48):
Grand Dukes came to the spot and went away again.
Late in the evening, when the bank was out of danger,
the Emperor also made his appearance and said what every
one knew already, but the core of pages was now
the key of the battle and must be saved by
all means. It was evident that if the corps had
taken fire, the National Library and half of the Nevsky
(09:10):
perspective would have perished in the flames. It was the crowd,
the people who did everything to prevent the fire from
spreading further and further. There was a moment when the
bank was seriously menaced. The goods cleared from the shops
opposite were thrown into the Sodovaya Street and lay in
great heaps upon the walls of the left wing of
(09:31):
the bank. The articles which covered the street itself continually
took fire, but the people roasting there in an almost
unbearable heat, prevented the flames from being communicated to the
piles of goods on the other side. They swore at
all the authorities, seeing that there was not a pump
on the spot. What are they all doing at the
(09:52):
Ministry of the Interior when the bank and the foundling's
house are going to take fire? They have all lost
their heads. Where's the chief of police that he cannot
send a fire brigade to the bank? They said. I
knew the Chief General Anenkov personally, as I had met
him once or twice at our sub inspector's house. Whereto
he came with his brother, the well known literary critic,
(10:15):
and I volunteered to find him. I found him, indeed,
walking aimlessly in a street, and when I reported to
him the state of affairs, incredible though it may seem,
it was to me a boy that he gave the
order to move one of the fire brigades from the
Ministry to the bank. I exclaimed, of course, that the
men would never listen to me, and I asked for
(10:37):
a written order. But General Anenkov had not, or pretended
not to have a scrap of paper, so that I
asked one of our officers L. L. Gosso to come
with me to transmit the order. We at last prevailed
upon the captain of one fire brigade, who swore at
all the world and at his chiefs, to move his
men and engines to the bank. The Ministry itself was
(11:01):
not on fire. It was the archives which were burning,
and many boys, chiefly cadets and Pages, together with a
number of clerks, carried bundles of paper out of the
burning building and loaded them into cabs. Often a bundle
would fall out, and the wind, taking possession of its leaves,
would strew them about the square. Through the smoke, a
(11:23):
sinister fire could be seen raging in the timber yards
on the other side of the canal. The narrow lane
which separated the core of Pages from the appraxin Dvore
was in a deplorable state. The shops which lined it
were full of brimstone, oil, turpentine and the like, and
immense tongues of fire of many hues, thrown out by explosions,
(11:46):
licked the roofs of the wing of the old corps
which bordered the lane on its other side. The windows
and the pilasters under the roof began a ready to smolder,
while the pages and some cadets, after having cleared the lodgings,
pumped water through a small fire engine, which received at
long intervals scanty supplies from old fashioned barrels which had
(12:07):
to be filled with ladles. A couple of firemen who
stood on the hot roof continually shouted out water, water,
in tones which were heartrending. I could not stand these
cries and rushed into the Sadovaya street, where by sheer
force I compelled the driver of one of the barrels
belonging to a police fire brigade to enter our yard
(12:29):
and to supply our pump with water. But when I
attempted to do the same once more, I met with
an absolute refusal from the driver. I shall be court martialed,
he said. If I obey you on all sides, my
comrades urged me go and find somebody, the chief of
the police, the Grand Duke, any one, and tell them
that without water we shall have to abandon the corps
(12:51):
to the fire. Ought we not to report to our director,
somebody would remark, bother the whole lot. You won't find
them with a lantern. Go and do it yourself. I
went once more in search of General Anankov, and was
at last told that he must be in the yard
of the bank. Several officers stood there, indeed around a
(13:12):
general in whom I recognized the Governor General of Saint Petersburg.
The gate, however, was locked, and a bank official who
stood at it, refused to let me in. I insisted, menaced,
and finally was admitted. Then I went straight up to
Prince Suvaroff, who was writing a note on the shoulder
of his aid de camp. When I reported to him
(13:34):
the state of affairs, his first question was, who has
sent you nobody the comrades, was my reply, So you
say the corps will soon be on fire? Yes, he
started at once, and, seizing in the street an empty
hat box, covered his head with it in order to
protect himself from the scorching heat. That came from the
(13:54):
burning shops of the Appraxin Dvoor and ran full speed
to the lane. Empty barrels, straw, wooden boxes and the
like covered the lane between the flames of the oil
shops on the one side and the buildings of our core,
of which the window frames and the pilasters were smoldering,
on the other side. Prince Suvarov acted resolutely. There is
(14:17):
a company of soldiers in your garden, he said to me,
take a detachment and clear that lane. At once. A
hose from the steam engine will be brought here. Immediately
keep it playing. I trust it to you personally. It
was not easy to move the soldiers out of our garden.
They had cleared the barrels and boxes of their contents,
and with their pockets full of coffee and with conical
(14:39):
lumps of sugar concealed in their capies, they were enjoying
the warm night under the trees, cracking nuts. No one
cared to move till an officer interfered. The lane was
cleared and the pump kept going. The comrades were delighted,
and every twenty minutes we relieved the men who directed
the jet of water standing by their side in an
(15:01):
almost unbearable heat. About three or four in the morning,
it was evident that bounds had been put to the fire.
The danger of its spreading to the core was over,
And after having quenched my thirst with half a dozen
glasses of tea in a small white inn which happened
to be open, I fell half dead from fatigue on
(15:21):
the first bed that I found unoccupied in the hospital
of the Corps. Next morning, I woke up early and
went to see the sight of the conflagration, when on
my return to the Corps, I met the Grand Duke Michael,
whom I accompanied, as was my duty, on his round
the pages. With their faces quite black from the smoke,
(15:41):
with swollen eyes and inflamed lids, some of them, with
their hair burned, raised their heads from the pillows. It
was hard to recognize them. They were proud, though, a
feeling that they had not been merely white hands and
had worked as hard as any one else. This visit
of the Grand Duke settled my difficulties. He asked me
(16:03):
why did I conceive that fancy of going to the Ahmud,
whether I had friends there, whether the Governor general knew me,
And learning that I had no relatives in Siberia and
knew nobody there, he exclaimed, But how are you going? Then?
They may send you to a lonely Cossack village. What
will you be doing there? I had better write about
you to the Governor General to recommend you. After such
(16:27):
an offer, I was sure that my father's objection would
be removed, and so it was I was free to
go to Siberia. This great conflagration became a turning point
not only in the policy of Alexander the Second, but
also in the history of Russia in that part of
the century. That it was not a mere accident was
(16:47):
self evident. Trinity and the Day of the Holy Ghost
are great holidays in Russia, and there was nobody inside
the market except a few watchmen besides the aprax In
market and the timber yards took fire at the same time,
and the conflagration at Saint Petersburg was followed by similar
disasters in several provincial towns. The fire was lit by somebody,
(17:10):
but by whom this question remains unanswered to the present time. Katkoff,
the ex Whig, who was inspired with personal hatred of
Hedson and especially of Bakunin, with whom he had once
defied a duel on the very day after the fire,
accused the Poles and the Russian revolutionists of being the
cause of it, and that opinion prevailed at Saint Petersburg
(17:34):
in Moscow. Poland was preparing then for the revolution which
broke out in the following January, and the secret revolutionary
government had concluded an alliance with the London refugees and
had its men in the very heart of the Saint
Petersburg administration. Only a short time after the conflagration occurred,
(17:54):
the Lord Lieutenant of Poland, Count Luders, was shot at
by a Russian officer, and when the Grand Duke Constantine
was nominated in his place, with intention it was said
of making Poland a separate kingdom for Constantine, he also
was immediately shot at on June twenty sixth. Similar attempts
(18:15):
were made in August against the Marquis Vielee Polski, the
Polish leader of the pro Russian Union party, Napoleon the Third,
maintained among the Poles the hope of an armed intervention
in favor of their independence. In such conditions, judging from
the ordinary narrow military standpoint, to destroy the bank of
Russia and several ministries, and to spread a panic in
(18:38):
the capital might have been considered a good plan of warfare.
But there was never the slightest scrap of evidence forthcoming
to support this hypothesis. On the other side, the advanced
parties in Russia saw that no hope could any longer
be placed in Alexander's reformatory initiative. He was clearly drifting
into the reactionary camp. To men of forethought, it was
(19:01):
evident that the liberation of the serfs under the conditions
of redemption which were imposed upon them, meant their certain ruin,
and revolutionary proclamations were issued in May at Saint Petersburg,
calling the people and the army to a general revolt,
while they educated classes were asked to insist upon the
necessity of a national convention. Under such circumstances, to disorganize
(19:25):
the machine of the government might have entered into the
plans of some revolutionists. Finally, the indefinite character of the
emancipation had produced a great deal of fermentation among the peasants,
who constitute a considerable part of the population in all
Russian cities, and through all the history of Russia, every
time such a fermentation has begun. It has resulted in
(19:49):
anonymous letters foretelling fires, and eventually in incendiarism. It was
possible that the idea of setting the approxing market on
fire might occur to o isolated men in the revolutionary camp.
But neither the most searching inquiries nor the wholesale arrests
which began all over Russia and Poland immediately after the fire,
(20:11):
revealed the slightest indication showing that such was really the case.
If anything of the sort had been found, the Reactionary
Party would have made capital out of it. Many reminiscences
and volumes of correspondence from those times have since been published,
but they contained no hint whatever in support of this suspicion.
(20:33):
On the contrary, when similar conflagations broke out in several
towns on the Volga, and especially at Saratov and Ghenisdanov,
a member of the Senate was sent by the Tsar
to make a searching inquiry. He returned with a firm
conviction that the conflagration at Saratov was the work of
the reactionary Party. There was among that party a general
(20:55):
belief that it would be possible to induce Alexander the
Second to postpone the final abolition of serfdom, which was
to take place on February nineteenth, eighteen sixty three. They
knew the weakness of his character, and immediately after the
Great Fire at Saint Petersburg they began a violent campaign
for postponement and for their revision of the emancipation law
(21:18):
in its practical applications. It was rumored and well informed
legal circles that Senator Zdanov was in fact returning with
positive proofs of the culpability of the reactionaries at Saratov,
but he died on his way back. His portfolio disappeared
and it has never been found. Be It as it may,
(21:40):
the Appraxing fire had the most deplorable consequences. After it,
Alexander the Second surrendered to the reactionaries, and what was
still worse, the public opinion of that part of society
at Saint Petersburg and especially at Moscow, which carried most
weight with the government, suddenly threw off its liberal garb
(22:01):
and turned against not only the more advanced section of
the Reform Party, but even against its moderate wing. A
few days after the conflagration, I went on Sunday to
see my cousin, the aide de camp of the Emperor,
in whose apartment I had often heard the horse guard
officers expressing sympathy with Tzernishevski. My cousin himself had been
(22:23):
up until then an assiduous reader of the Contemporary, the
organ of the Advanced Reform Party. Now we brought several
numbers of the Contemporary, and putting them on the table
I was sitting at, said to me, well, now after this,
I will have no more of that incendiary stuff. Enough
of it. And these words expressed the opinion of all
(22:44):
Saint Petersburg. It became improper to talk of reforms. The
whole atmosphere was laden with the reactionary spirit. The Contemporary
and other similar reviews were suppressed. The Sunday schools were
prohibited under any form. Whullsale arrests began. The capital was
placed under a state of siege. A fortnight later, on
(23:08):
June thirteenth or twenty five, the time which we pages
and cadets had so long looked for came. At last.
The Emperor gave us a sort of military examination in
all kinds of evolutions, during which we commanded the companies,
and I paraded on a horse before the battalion, and
we were promoted to be officers. When the parade was over,
(23:31):
Alexander the Second loudly called out the promoted officers to me,
and we gathered round him. He remained on horseback. Here
I saw him in a quite new light. The man
who the next year appeared in the role of a
bloodthirsty and vindictive suppressor of the insurrection in Poland rose
(23:51):
now full size before my eyes. In the speech he
addressed to us, he began in a quiet tone. I
congratulated you. You are officers. He spoke about military duty
and loyalty, as they are usually spoken of on such occasions.
But if any one of you, he went on, distinctly,
(24:11):
shouting out every word, his face suddenly contorted with anger.
But if any one of you, which God preserve you from,
should under any circumstances, prove disloyal to the Czar, the Throne,
and the fatherland, take heed of what I say, he
will be treated with all the severity of the laws,
without the slightest commiseration. His voice failed, his face was peevish,
(24:35):
full of that expression of blind rage which I saw
in my childhood on the faces of landlords when they
threatened their serfs to skin them under the rods. He
violently spurred his horse and rode out of our circle.
Next morning, June fourteenth, by his orders, three officers were
shot at Mudlin in Poland, and one soldier jud by name,
(24:59):
was killed under the rods reaction. Full speed backwards, I
said to myself. As we made our way back to
the corps. I saw Alexander the Second once more before
leaving Saint Petersburg. Some days after our promotion, all the
newly appointed officers were at the palace to be presented
(25:20):
to him. My more than modest uniform, with its prominent
gray trousers, attracted universal attention, and every moment I had
to satisfy the curiosity of officers of all ranks who
came to ask me what was the uniform that I wore.
The Ahmud Cossacks, being then the youngest regiment of the
Russian Army. I stood somewhere near the end of the
(25:42):
hundreds of officers who were present. Alexander the Second found
me and asked, so you go to Siberia. Did your
father consent to it? After all? I answered in the affirmative.
Are you not afraid to go so far? I warmly replied, no, Oh,
I want to work. There must be so much to
(26:02):
do in Siberia, to apply the great reforms which are
going to be made. He looked straight at me. He
became pensive. At last, he said, well, go, one can
be useful everywhere, And his face took on such an
expression of fatigue, such a character of complete surrender, that
I thought at once he is a used up man.
(26:24):
He is going to give it all up. Saint Petersburg
had assumed a gloomy aspect. Soldiers marched in the streets,
Cossack patrols rode round the palace. The fortress was filled
with prisoners. Wherever I went I saw the same thing,
the triumph of the reaction. I left Saint Petersburg without regret.
(26:47):
I went every day to the Cossack administration to ask
them to make haste and deliver me my papers, And
as soon as they were ready, I hurried to Moscow
to join my brother Alexander. End of ciber Beria, Chapter one,
Popular Podcasts
Law & Order: Criminal Justice System - Season 1 & Season 2
Season Two Out Now! Law & Order: Criminal Justice System tells the real stories behind the landmark cases that have shaped how the most dangerous and influential criminals in America are prosecuted. In its second season, the series tackles the threat of terrorism in the United States. From the rise of extremist political groups in the 60s to domestic lone wolves in the modern day, we explore how organizations like the FBI and Joint Terrorism Take Force have evolved to fight back against a multitude of terrorist threats.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.