December 18 (December 29) 1787 (17871229), St. Petersburg - December 3 (December 15) 1845, Akatuysky mine, now Borzinsky district of the Chita region.

Lunin Mikhail Sergeevich - Decembrist, lieutenant colonel of the Life Guards (1822), was a member of the Northern Society, Catholic.

M. S. Lunin was born into the family of a state councilor and a wealthy Tambov-Saratov landowner who had 1,200 serf souls - Sergei Mikhailovich Lunin. Received an excellent education. In addition to French, he also knew English, Polish, Latin and Greek well. Served in the Cavalry Regiment.

He took part in a number of historical battles, where he was distinguished by displays of courage.

In 1815, M. S. Lunin retired from military service.
He went abroad and lived in Paris for a year, earning money by teaching lessons and practicing as a lawyer. In Paris, he met Saint-Simon and converted to Catholicism.

In 1817, after the death of his father, becoming the heir to a large fortune, he returned to Russia.
In St. Petersburg, he joined the “Union of Salvation”, and later was one of the founders of the “Union of Prosperity”, after the cessation of which Lunin became a member of the “Northern Secret Society”.

In 1822, M. S. Lunin entered service in the Life Guards Grodno Hussar Regiment.
He was appointed adjutant to Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich, who was the commander-in-chief of the Warsaw Military District.

After 1822, Lunin moved away from the ideas of the founders of the movement, remaining committed to the need for political changes in Russia, and above all, the liberation of the peasants.
He basically rejected the methods proposed by members of secret societies, which seemed unacceptable to Lunin.

M. S. Lunin did not take part in the events of December 14, 1825 in St. Petersburg, since at that time he was serving in Poland. In March 1826, he was called as a witness in the case of the uprising to the Warsaw Investigative Committee. Of the Decembrists, Lunin was the last to be arrested: on April 10, 1826, he was sent to St. Petersburg under escort and accompanied by a courier. On the night of April 16 he was placed in the Peter and Paul Fortress.

Lunin told the Investigative Committee: “I have made it an invariable rule not to name anyone by name.” He did not deny the fact of his participation in a secret society.

In 1826, M. S. Lunin was convicted mainly for the 1816 regicide plan.
Sentenced to life hard labor. On July 10, 1826, the term of hard labor was reduced to 20 years, according to the manifesto of August 22, 1826 - to 15 years, followed by permanent settlement in Siberia.
In 1832, the term of hard labor was reduced to 10 years.

Before the trial, all Decembrists were asked to write a will. Lunin, in his will, transferred his estate to his cousin with the condition that he would release the peasants. His sister, under pressure from her husband, challenged the will. The estate went to her.

After imprisonment in the Sveaborg fortress and Vyborg prison, he was sent to the Chita prison (delivered on April 11, 1828). Transferred to the Petrovsky plant in August 1830.
In 1836 he settled in the village. Urik.

Lunin's letters from Siberia

In 1837, Lunin created a series of political letters addressed to his sister: he set out to write the history of the Decembrist movement, it was assumed that the letters would become known to a wide circle of readers.
At the beginning of 1838, he wrote “Historical Search” (a brief overview of the past of the Russian state), in September 1838, “A Look at the Russian Secret Society from 1816 to 1826” (an essay on the history of secret societies), in November 1839, “Analysis of the Report, presented to the Emperor by the Secret Commission of 1826." (contains a critical study of the “Report” and the author’s view of the Decembrist movement, indicating its true goals).
Lunin planned to write “Analysis of the activities of the Supreme Criminal Court,” for which he asked his sister to send documents and materials related to the December 14 Uprising: newspaper publications, eyewitness accounts.
The plan was not implemented, since Lunin did not receive the required materials.

In Irkutsk, a circle of distributors of Lunin’s works formed: teachers of local schools Zhuravlev and Kryukov, Cossack officer Cherepanov, Decembrist P.F. Gromnitsky.
An official of special assignments under the Irkutsk governor, Rupert Uspensky, saw a list of one of Lunin’s works from Zhuravlev, took it supposedly to read, made a copy and sent it with a report to A. Kh. Benkendorf.
On the night of March 26-27, 1841, Lunin was arrested and his papers were confiscated.
Lunin himself was exiled to Akatui.

<ПИСЬМО-ВОСПОМИНАНИЕ О М.С.ЛУНИНЕ>

“He was transferred to Akatui on the Chinese border! He walked there along the corridor in which the criminals were chained to the wall! He used his natural eloquence to console them, preach religion to them, awaken remorse in them and give them hope for a better life.” life! "

Entrance to the Akatui prison. Nerchinsk penal servitude

Lunin was not at all surprised by his new arrest; he always expected that he would be sent to prison again, and always said that he should end his life in prison, although, however, he loved to roam freely with a gun and spent most of his life hunting. Once I was at his Christmas party, and he asked me what, in my opinion, would follow him for his letters to his sister?
I replied that four months had already passed since he resumed correspondence, and if there had been no consequences so far, then probably there would be none in the future.
This made him angry; he began to prove that this could not be and that he would certainly be locked up in prison, that he must end his life in prison.
“Recordings by S. P. Trubetskoy on the “Notes” of V. I. Shteingel”

On October 3, 1845, Lunin died in prison. According to the official version, the cause of death was apoplexy. Contemporaries, and later S. B. Okun and N. Ya. Eidelman, believed that Lunin was killed.

P.F. Sokolov “Portrait of M.S. Lunina"

Pushkin’s lines from the 10th chapter of “Eugene Onegin” dedicated to Lunin are well known:
Pushkin described such a meeting:

They are famous for their sharp orbit,
Members of this family gathered
From restless Nikita,
At the careful Ilya.
Friend of Mars, Bacchus and Venus,
Lunin sharply suggested to them
Its decisive measures
And he muttered with inspiration.
I read my<и>Noelie Pou<шкин>,
Mela<нхолический>Yakushkin,
It seemed to silently expose
Regicide Dagger
(VI, 524)

“Decisive measures” are, in particular, a plan for regicide, which Lunin was one of the first to propose to members of society.
An accurate and succinct description of Lunin as “a friend of Mars, Bacchus and Venus” is confirmed by countless memories and anecdotes about the young cavalry guard Lunin, who claimed to be the first in all the youth that was the norm of guards life:

“The cavalry guards and hussars go wild, strengthen their muscles, expend excess energy, and go to school. One flattens a stone pear with his hand, another eats snakes fed with milk at dinner, a third wins an argument by spending exactly a year in the saddle for 19 hours a day, a fourth build a system of blocks and, having invited a provincial society to a ball, suddenly lift their respectable mothers to the ceiling and run away with my daughters..."

Lunin believed that one must be able to “run, jump over ditches, climb walls and climb trees, handle weapons, ride horses,” such exercises “give health and bodily strength, without which a person is nothing more than a wet chicken.”

In 1805, 18-year-old cornet Mikhail Lunin took part in a three-month campaign and the battle of Austerlitz, where the cavalry guards lost every third.
In 1807 - during the Prussian campaign, he was awarded the Order of St. Anna 4th degree.
He runs into bullets, but doesn't get a single one. And when the regiment is inactive, it defiantly sets off in a bright white cavalry uniform to shoot at the Frenchman “like a private.”

Upon returning to Russia, Lunin was promoted to lieutenant, then to staff captain.
He lives with Sergei Volkonsky on the Chernaya Rechka, they amuse themselves by keeping “two bears and 9 dogs, causing panic among the surrounding residents.”
(Later in St. Petersburg they will get a dog that will rush at passers-by and tear off hats if he is commanded: “Bonaparte!”).

A black boat with a black coffin is moving along the Black River. Singers with torches sing “rest with the saints”, everyone is intrigued - suddenly the music becomes more cheerful, dozens of bottles are pulled out of the coffin, the cavalry singers throw off mourning clothes and feast “in frock coats without epaulettes, in blue knitted wool berets with silver tassels...”.

In one night, Lunin and several comrades swap the places of signs on Nevsky Prospekt on a bet...

They say that Lunin galloped around the capital at full speed in the clothes his mother gave birth to...

At the instigation of a colleague, Prince Biron, who is trailing the maiden Lunina, several cavalry guards, led by Lunin and Volkonsky, climb into the trees and scream a serenade in front of all the honest people.
“Maiden Lunina” is the cavalry guard’s cousin Ekaterina Petrovna, who managed to amaze Napoleon with her singing, and St. Petersburg with her frivolity...
They get a taste for it and, going on two boats to the Kamennoostrovsky Palace, give a serenade to Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna. The palace guards on a twelve-oar boat rushes in pursuit, but the cavalry guards go into shallow water where the boat cannot pass, and, jumping ashore, “retreat in loose formation”...

“Once Lunin was talking on the third floor balcony with the then famous beauty Valesskaya. The conversation was about the disappearance of chivalry in men.
Valesskaya gave the example that now not one of them would throw himself from the balcony at the order of his beauty.
Lunin was indifferent to Valesskaya, but could not refuse the feeling of some danger. He boldly and deftly threw himself from the balcony and safely reached the ground, since the streets were not paved at that time.”

“When there was no one to fight with, Lunin approached some unfamiliar officer and began a speech: “Dear sir! You said..."
- “Dear sir, I didn’t tell you anything.”
- “How, then, do you claim that I lied? I ask you to prove this to me by exchanging bullets..."
They went to fight, and Lunin usually shot into the air - but the opponents happened to hit, “so that Lunin’s body looked like a sieve.”

“One day someone reminded Lunin that he had never fought Alexei Orlov.
He approached him and asked him to do the honor of exchanging a couple of bullets with him. Orlov accepted the challenge...” “The first shot was fired by Orlov, who tore off Lunin’s left epaulette.
Lunin at first also wanted to aim not for fun, but then he said:
“After all, Alexey Fedorovich is such a kind person that it’s a pity for him,” and he fired into the air. Orlov was offended and began to aim again;
Lunin shouted to him: “You won’t hit me again if you aim like that. To the right, a little lower! Really, give me a miss! Not this way! Not this way!"
Orlov fired, the bullet pierced Lunin’s hat.
“I told you,” Lunin exclaimed, laughing, “that you would miss!” But I still don’t want to shoot at you!” And he fired into the air.
Orlov, angry, wanted them to charge again, but they were at odds.
Later, Mikhail Fedorovich Orlov often said to Lunin: “I owe you my brother’s life...”

The general is stern and hot-tempered; one day during a training exercise he shouts: “Staff Hornmaster Lunin, are you sleeping?” And he hears in response: “It’s my fault, Your Excellency, I was sleeping and saw in a dream that you were delusional.”

Friends claimed that Lunin found such pleasure in dangers of various kinds that he considered safety more disastrous for himself.

During the 1812 campaign, Lunin completed the entire campaign without a scratch. His distant relative Nikolai Muravyov (the future famous General Muravyov-Karsky) sleeps with him in the same tent.
Lunin writes something, and then reads to Nikolai Muravyov “a letter he had prepared for the commander-in-chief, in which, expressing a desire to sacrifice himself to the fatherland, he asked to be sent as a parliamentarian to Napoleon so that, while presenting papers to the French emperor, he would be stabbed in the side dagger. He even showed me a curved dagger that he kept under the head of the bed for this object. Lunin would definitely have done this if he had been sent.”

Lunin's unbridled protests

Lunin was a guards officer and stood in the summer with his regiment near Peterhof; the summer was hot, and officers and soldiers in their free time took great pleasure in refreshing themselves by swimming in the bay; the commanding German general unexpectedly issued an order to prohibit, under severe punishment, bathing in the future on the grounds that this bathing takes place near the road and thus offends decency; then Lunin, knowing when the general would pass along the road, a few minutes before, climbed into the water in full uniform, in a shako, uniform and boots, so that the general from afar could see the strange sight of an officer floundering in the water, and when he caught up, Lunin He quickly jumped to his feet, immediately stretched out in the water and respectfully saluted him. The puzzled general called the officer to him, recognized him as Lunin, the favorite of the great princes and one of the brilliant guards, and asked in surprise: “What are you doing here?” “I’m swimming,” answered Lunin, “and in order not to violate your Excellency’s instructions, I try to do it in the most decent form.”

Portrait of M.S. Lunina sent
Vladimir Leonidovich Chernyshev, associate professor of NTU “KhPI”, Kharkov.

Correspondence of M.S. Lunina

N. Ya. Eidelman

M. S. LUNIN AND HIS SIBERIAN WORKS

These thoughts, ripened in the silence of prisons, will not be rejected by those who seek the truth in simplicity of heart and who understand that the obligation to speak it for the common good is independent of any circumstances of our fleeting life.

M. Lunin.

The scientific, academic publication of Lunin's works is complicated by their extreme originality and extreme non-academic nature.

Almost every attempt at the studies and definitions necessary for such a publication convinces us of this. For example, the problem of dating seems relatively simple: Lunin’s Siberian works were created between 1836 and 1841, and it seems natural to correlate them with simultaneous historical and literary events: these are the last years of Pushkin, the period of the best poetic and prose works of Lermontov, the time of Gogol’s work on the first volume of “Dead Souls”; these are the years of external stabilization of the Nikolaev regime; the time following the acclaimed publication of Chaadaev’s “Philosophical Letter” and reflected in the book of the Marquis de Custine “Russia in 1839”; finally, this is the era of the first “mistakes” of Westerners and Slavophiles, when the voices of Stankevich, Belinsky, Herzen, Granovsky, Aksakov, Khomyakov are heard louder and louder.

Lunin's historical and political writings themselves are a response to the current state of his country; but for all that, the synchronicity of Lunin’s works and many of the events listed is largely illusory. What seemed so important in St. Petersburg and Moscow often did not reach Eastern Siberia or arrived there with great delay and transformation. The enormous distances that separated the exiled convict world of the Baikal region and European Russia, the artificial barriers erected by government supervision - all this gave rise to a bizarre, tragic situation when distances of thousands of miles determined many years of delay, when the thought and word of the exiled Decembrists, which undoubtedly belonged to Russian culture, were from she is disconnected.

It happened that history staged unique experiments, such as the movement of a number of convicted Decembrists from Siberia to the Caucasus. At the same time, it turned out that the “Siberians” retained a view of things that in the center of the country changed a lot after December 14, and therefore the first meetings of the middle-aged Decembrists with the new Russian youth (Lermontov and others) were not easy. Although there was constant mutual enrichment, an inevitable rapprochement of the best representatives of the old and new generations, the young often seemed more tired, sad, “old” than the Decembrists, who retained a reserve of youthful idealism.

Lunin was not among those transferred to the Caucasus, but the fate of his comrades highlights the relativity of chronological simultaneity in question. 1836-1841 on the “Siberian clock” - time that only partially coincides with the All-Russian calendar. Another confirmation of this is the narrow, Siberian distribution of Lunin’s works. The remarkable works created for readers of the 1840s reach their recipients in the publications of Herzen's Free Press only twenty years later, in a different hysterical era.

Starting with dating, we found ourselves in a complex interweaving of eras, from the last years of the 18th century to the 60s of the 19th century.

Genre characteristics are even more difficult.

The traditional literary form of “letters”, the mixture of genres observed in various Lunin’s works - political treatise, historical research, memoir and diary entries, religious and philosophical essays - all these definitions shift and retreat in the face of extra-literary circumstances. After all, Lunin’s creativity is a bold revolutionary act, an open political speech of an already convicted person. “There are two guides in Russia,” writes the Decembrist, “the tongue to Kyiv, and the pen to Shlisselburg.” Anyone who continues to write even in captivity must be prepared for new punishments, including deprivation of life. Therefore, unusual “genre clarifications” invade the usual literary assessments: the need to compare Lunin’s works with propaganda leaflets, free proclamations, and hidden literature. The usual research on the relationship between personality, the biography of the author and the content of his works is determined here by the fact that Lunin’s works are not only a creative action, but the most important extra-literary fact of biography, a “characteristic act”, the clearest identification of an original, active, gifted personality.

Therefore, analysis and commentary on Lunin’s works requires more than in other cases, a comparison of the texts being studied and the author’s biography; understanding how organically Lunin’s works are fused with his life. Works paid for with life.

Lunin's personality

Lunin's works

"Letters from Siberia" (1836-1840)

"A Look at the Russian Secret Society from 1816 to 1826"

"Historical Search"

“Analysis of the report of the Secret Investigation Commission”

"A Look at Polish Affairs"

“The social movement in Russia during the current reign. 1840"

"Plan of initial lessons..."

"Historical Studies"

"Notebook"

Apostles of Freedom

Epistolary heritage

Lunin's Siberian works as a historical and journalistic monument

Lunin - artist

Lunin's fate

LUNIN'S PERSONALITY

Mikhail Sergeevich Lunin was born in December 1787 in St. Petersburg1. Among prominent figures of secret societies, he is younger than only V.K. Tizenhausen (b. 1781), V.I. Steingeil (b. 1783), A.P. Yushnevsky (b. 1786). At about the same age as Lunin, M. A. Fonvizin, S. G. Volkonsky, M. F. Orlov. N.I. Turgenev is two years younger than Lunin, S.P. Trubetskoy by three, Yakushkin and Pestel by six, Ryleev by eight, Nikita Muravyov by nine; the majority of secret society figures belonged, // From 302 one might say, to another generation, having joined the movement shortly before December 142.

Lunin still manages to see a lot in the outgoing 18th century. and entered an independent field in the first years of the 19th century. Quite early on, he becomes the hero of semi-legendary or legendary stories; there are jokes about him that are difficult to distinguish from stories; he commits real actions similar to fables, starting with daring pranks, duels in the first years of his service (coinciding with the first years of the new century) and ending with mocking jokes at investigators in 1826.3

For more than 20 years, Lunin has been a living legend, an idol of youth; It is no coincidence that Pushkin many years later, as a dear memory of his youth, will preserve a lock of the Decembrist’s hair. On April 17, 1836, his sister informed Lunin that his affairs “are on everyone’s lips, from the guards regiment to the salons and even the palace... There is more than enough material for several volumes of memoirs” (Pavlyuchenko, p. 117). All these seem to be signs of an exceptional nature, sharply different from its surroundings. However, the very fact of the fascination of many contemporaries with a bright personality is a sign of affinity; proof that fans find in her the ultimate expression of their own ideal. Like other idols of that time (Denis Davydov, Yakubovich, Ermolov), Lunin is, first of all, brave, witty, daring with his superiors (most of the “Lunin jokes” reveal precisely these traits). Other outstanding properties of the Decembrist are much less noticeable and understandable to contemporaries. Only a narrow circle of friends and like-minded people are impressed by serious studies, deep moral searches - what, for example, delighted Saint-Simon in his young interlocutor. It is clear that hundreds of young hussars and guardsmen did not think so much as they drank, fought, and dragged around “like Lunin.” Lunin's intellectual merits received wide recognition to the extent that they were realized by the extraordinary behavior and actions of the famous officer. A peculiar act determines Lunin’s social reputation, just as, for example, Pushkin for many years will be a man of daring “mental acts”, above all his forbidden poems. The continuation of the established biography-legend of Lunin will be his affairs in the fortress and Siberia after 1825. The legend, under special circumstances, is realized in Lunin’s outstanding “works-deeds”, his suicidal works created in Siberian exile.

According to the calculations of a modern researcher, “officers - participants in the secret societies of 1825, as well as officers who were not members of the societies, but took an active part in armed uprisings, constitute // C 303 only about 0.6% of all officers and generals of the Russian army of that time (169 Decembrists for 26,424 officers and generals)" 4.

If we proceed from the well-known Alphabet of the Decembrists, which includes about 600 names, and take into account the tenfold number of “sympathizers” (which was discussed more than once by both the Decembrists and their enemies), then it turns out that a noticeable proportion of the adult male noble population of the country was involved in the movement .

Yu. M. Lotman rightly notes in a number of works that the main result of Russian culture in the 18th - early 19th centuries. there was precisely the formation of a new enlightened, progressive human type. It is these people who move forward, live Russian education, teach and study in the first universities and lyceums. These are the “children of 1812”, who shared with the soldiers all the hardships of the two-year campaign, who saw a lot in the West (in the opinion of their superiors, too much) and expected changes in their own country. They are the active readers of Karamzin's History and Pushkin's early poems.

The social significance of the thinking minority was multiplied by various forms of friendly, literary, political associations in which they participated (Arzamas, Green Lamp, Free Literary Societies, lyceums, regimental societies, “artels”, Masonic lodges, and finally, the first secret societies). These were people of that era, about which Chaadaev would later say “the time of hope.”

The appearance on the historical stage of such a bright, energetic layer seemed unexpected and partly mysterious to many contemporaries and later observers and researchers.

“You are not heroes!” - Lermontov’s hero exclaims, contrasting today’s with yesterday’s; and Lermontov himself, of course, agrees that the people of 1812-1825. his “gloomy crowd...” does not apply. Anything but gloom. The motto of that era is in Pushkin’s lines:

Let the cup of life cool

The other one pulls slowly;

We'll lose our youth

Together with dear life...

Most of the Decembrists did not undertake to evaluate the phenomenon of their generation. I. D. Yakushkin, for example, writes about his predecessors, the “old men”: “We left them a hundred years ahead,” and explains this by saying that “for two years we had before our eyes great events that decided the fate of nations.” (Yakushkin, p. 9). He does not analyze the prerequisites, the historical reasons why the new generation became like this, considering them understandable: the great events of world and Russian history.

Pestel also called the root cause “the incidents of 1812, 1813, 14 and 15, as well as the times that preceded and followed.”

Pushkin exclaimed in his unfinished message of 1836 addressed to his Lyceum friends -

What, what were we witnesses to!

Different peoples, however, responded to the great events in different ways, and the question - where did the Decembrists, Pushkin, the amazing noble youth of the early 19th century suddenly come from - required further reflection. Herzen later directly proclaims the mystery of such a stormy, sudden appearance of new people “on these ridges between the Arakcheevs and the Manilovs”: “It was between them that the people of December 14, a phalanx of heroes, developed... But who burned out their soul with the fire of purification, what kind of an untold power renounced in them their own filth, alluvial pus, and made them martyrs of the future?” (Herzen, XVI, p. 171).

To fully explain how this generation was formed, it would be necessary to present the main trends of Russian history, social thought, and literature, starting with Peter I. Without pretending to solve such problems, we will note only a few main features of the enlightened noble life and thinking that shaped such characters as Lunin.

Lunin’s first, “from childhood,” experience can be considered a parental, clan experience: from here the future Decembrist will receive and internalize noble virtues - the concept of military courage, a certain code of honor, and personal dignity. Of course, the nobles also spread “axioms” about their serfdom rights and the supreme authority of the autocracy.

In Russian life of the second half of the 18th century. to one degree or another, the nobility was divided into three main groups - overlapping, interpenetrating, but still quite noticeable. The first of them can be conditionally called enlighteners: a wide circle of educated nobility who, to one degree or another, believed in Russian progress along the paths of enlightenment.

The second group, which we will conditionally call “cynical,” included a significant part of the ruling stratum. These are people who sought to combine the incompatible - the successes of enlightenment with serfdom and unlimited absolutism (which ultimately led to a certain level of cynicism).

The third group, representing the patriarchal-conservative principle, hoped for a return to ancient relations and institutions, and desired certain “counter-reforms” against Peter’s enlightenment.

In the Lunin family, as in many others, the feudal loyalist tendency (the father of the Decembrist S. M. Lunin, the owner of 1200 serf souls 5, the uncle A. M. Lunin, one of the active suppressors of the Pugachev rebellion) coexists with the sublimely enlightened concepts of the mother F . N. Lunina, her brother M. N. Muravyov and other persons; the elders // From 305 the Lunins were friends with G.R. Derzhavin, a relative and friend of the younger ones was K.N. Batyushkov.

Mikhail Lunin was already separated by a whole historical epoch, a quarter of a century, from the law on the freedom of the nobility; two years before his birth, the liberties of the nobility were confirmed by the “Charter of Grant,” which secured various personal rights for the noble class, along with the right to serfs.

Naturally, without the Lunins and Muravyovs, who are being enlightened, the Lunins, the Muravyovs, “who are being hanged,” would never have appeared. Pushkin and the Decembrists would never have come straight from Biron’s time.

This is the historical, social, “class” context of Lunin’s personality.

The second essential element of Decembrist education was knowledge of the people. This is partly due to the “transparent”, relatively simple socio-political structure of Russian life: in the country of a poorly developed “third estate”, the upper and lower classes openly, more sharply than in the West, oppose each other. The nakedness of contradictions helps clear, sober thinking, and in the future it will affect political and artistic consciousness. The “transparency” of the Russian air helped the nobleman-soul owner to see the people clearly. The remoteness of noble revolutionaries and noble enlightenment from the people must be understood as the absence of real ideological, political ties between landowners and peasants. However, this circumstance cannot be confused with the fact that the enlightened Russian nobleman, on average, knew the people no worse than the later democratic common intelligentsia: a landowner in the village, an officer in the army, constantly deal with a peasant farmer or a peasant in military uniform. Of course, there is a considerable distance from knowledge of folk life to understanding of folk ideals, but we can safely say that the progressive Lunin generation sometimes directly, more often indirectly, unnoticed by itself, fed on the folk element; this same element will determine much in the development of great Russian literature - with the natural knowledge of people's life by Pushkin, Gogol and other great masters.

The self-awareness of the progressive nobility and understanding of people's life will be unusually strengthened by the experience of 1812. The formula of M.I. Muravyov-Apostol “we are the children of 1812” is often understood one-sidedly - only in connection with the prehistory of December 14th. Meanwhile, recently developed statistics of Russian memoirs show that many literate residents of Russia, nobles and even commoners, who previously had not thought about the value of their memories, about the correlation of their personality with the history of the country, with the destinies of the people, are beginning to write, print, “think out loud.” "precisely after 18126 These data, as well as a number of other observations, outline the fact that a certain part of the Russian nobility and other classes seemed to awaken to historical life: they discovered themselves, saw the people in a new way, developed a national feeling, // From 306 this process does not fade away with victory in the war. It further intensifies the intense internal work that had previously begun, taking place among those whom Kuchelbecker will call “lyceum students, Yermolovites, poets.”

Pushkin’s “what we witnessed” briefly defines the historical experience, the lessons taught to educated humanity from 1789 to the 1820s: the Great French Revolution and its fate, Napoleon’s victories, the Peace of Tilsit, the epic of 1812, the campaign in Europe, “ the Russian Tsar is the head of the Tsars,” military settlements and European reaction, a new round of European revolutions... It is curious that a number of young Decembrists, answering the investigation about the sources of their ideas, often cited the names of books and poems; more mature ones (for example, V.I. Steingeil) referred to such an “artistic” element as the course of world history over the past decades. The unusually accelerated world history demonstrated, in the course of one or two generations, a rich change of political forms, the collapse of thousand-year-old foundations, and the emergence of new, unheard-of, dizzying ideas. All this was an essential element of world culture, and Lunin and his generation perceived this culture directly, through events, and indirectly through reading.

Here it is appropriate to turn to an important cultural experience that greatly influenced the formation of the personality of the future author of “Letters from Siberia”: knowledge of languages ​​and the European level of education removed obstacles to high cultural exchange. We see Lunin in conversation with the socialist Saint-Simon and the reactionary Joseph de Maistre; he becomes acquainted with Polish Catholic thought and European Carbonari; In addition to French, he knows enough English, Polish, Latin, and Greek.

All this unusually expands and diversifies the palette of Russian education and determines a characteristic feature of the Russian liberation movement - the wealth of international connections.

The simultaneous impact of serfdom and enlightenment resulted in the emergence of the Russian nobility at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries. contradictory, paradoxical characters. For many, the spiritual world essentially boiled down to whimsicality and eccentricity. “In Russia,” Herzen wrote, “people who were influenced by this powerful Western trend did not emerge as historical people, but as original people. Foreigners at home, foreigners in foreign lands, idle spectators, spoiled for Russia by Western prejudices, for the West by Russian habits, they represented some kind of intellectual uselessness and were lost in artificial life, in sensual pleasures and in intolerable egoism” (Herzen, VIII, p. 87).

Lunin's famous tricks and eccentricities are, of course, associated with the noted circumstances. However, he and his friends found the strength and ways to become not only “original people,” but also “historical people.”

The most important school for such a transformation was the experience of secret societies, the real ten-year practice of participation in Russian secret // With 307 unions, acquaintance with the liberation struggle in Poland, Italy, France: here the idea was confirmed, later more than once formulated by K. Marx and V.I. Lenin, that the revolutionary movement teaches itself; that several years of fighting are worth decades of peaceful education.

The very act of Lunin and his comrades joining the revolutionary anti-government alliance was a phenomenon previously completely unthinkable: coups and conspiracies of the 18th century. basically did not go beyond the preservation of the dominant system and did not at all indicate the hostility of the conspirators to the existing system. Meanwhile, it was in 1812-1825. marks a sharp turn in Russian progressive thinking. We are talking about the situation described by Herzen: “There are almost no revolutionary ideas<до 1812 года>never met... But power and thought, imperial decrees and humane words, autocracy and civilization could no longer go hand in hand. Their union, even in the 18th century, is amazing” (Herzen, VII, p. 122).

Russian “Renaissance” optimism of the early 19th century. was generated by a still considerable degree of community, an incomplete ideological delimitation of the educated nobility. Of course, it is ridiculous to reduce the complex turn of social thought to a narrow chronological framework: even before 1812, Radishchev’s voice was heard, the opposition to the actions and thoughts of Lunin and his friends was growing; Also, after 1812, not all representatives of progressive Russian thought and culture decisively opposed themselves to the authorities. The historical fidelity of Herzen's thesis, however, is undoubted: the enlightened nobility of the 18th - early 19th centuries. in general, it was on the side of the authorities, and this unity is the most important reason for Russian successes and victories of that time.

Two or three decades will pass, and the same historical type that was active in the army and government around 1800 will find itself in disgrace, exile (like Lunin), under house arrest (like Chaadaev), and under suspicion (like Pushkin).

At the end of the 18th - beginning of the 19th centuries. the type of “superfluous person” is unknown: there were no superfluous people (although we can guess their origin, for example, in Lunin’s departure from service in 1816). In the same years when Lunin wrote his Siberian works, this type already existed both in its artistic and literary incarnation (Onegin, Pechorin), and in the real human one: after Chaadaev was declared crazy, Herzen notes, he “became an idle man,” after the persecution of Ivan Kireyevsky, he “became an extra person” (Herzen, XIV, p. 325).

Peter's reforms gave rise to a unique enlightened type - a non-divided figure, quite integral, despite all life's hardships, optimistically believing in some positive outcome. The development of a positive, progressive consciousness at some point led to the question of the relationship between words and deeds. In this case, the wise, mature leader of the secret alliance could not escape the necessary criticism and counter-criticism. The mental and emotional state of Lunin (and, of course, not him alone) requires special analysis for the 1820s.

In a greatly simplified form, the main contradiction in the consciousness of the Decembrist was as follows: on the one hand, he understood or felt the non-randomness, the organic nature of the Russian socio-political system; understood - and more and more over the years - that changing this system is an incredibly difficult task that cannot be solved by a “hussar attack”. But at the same time, all the accumulated moral experience - honor, dignity, freedom, the inseparability of word and deed - required a fight against this system, liberation of the country and ourselves from serfdom, autocracy, conscription, military settlements, the sinister judicial system, etc.

A thinker of the Lunin type realizes quite early on two types of danger: on the one hand, an epicurean fusion with existence, hope for future changes and obtaining maximum joys in the present; on the other, an excessive reliance on rapid violent changes associated with the frightening signs of Jacobin terror and Bonapartist dictatorship.

In other words, it was necessary to find the most natural, organic way to eliminate the unnaturalness of Russian life.

Hence a number of outwardly contradictory, but internally completely natural collisions in Lunin’s relations with secret societies.

Lunin is one of the founders of the Union of Salvation, the Union of Welfare, trying to expand the activities of the secret society by lithographing its materials and documents 7; in the last years before the uprising he was relatively passive.

Pestel, obviously, intended for Lunin a place at the head of the “doomed cohort”, which should neutralize or kill the Tsar and Grand Duke Constantine, and then take the blame upon himself (the secret society, having in mind the still unresolved monarchical illusions among the majority of the population, should dissociate itself from "regicides") We do not, however, have convincing evidence that Lunin knew about this plan or agreed with it.

A Russian-Polish revolutionary alliance is brewing; Lunin, who is in Warsaw, is an important figure for such contacts. Based on individual, indirect data, based on those judgments about Poland that will be expressed later in the Siberian works of the Decembrist, one can carefully determine the nature of Lunin’s social activities in Warsaw. He speaks fluent Polish and is close to the most enlightened circles of the country; in any case, Lunin’s very way of thinking, his special view of Poland objectively contributed to the revolutionary rapprochement of the two Slavic peoples. Recalling N. N. Novosiltsev in “Letters from Siberia,” Lunin reported: “When he was the head of affairs in Warsaw, I opposed the system he adopted, which also produced sad results for the kingdom<Польского>and empire." From the same text it is clear that Novosiltsev’s system was distinguished by “fiery jealousy for the exceptional benefits of Russia.” It is clear that Lunin defended “jealousy” also for the “benefits” of the Polish people; Apparently, hopes, illusions // From 309 Lunin about improving affairs in Poland, its new rapprochement with Russia were associated with the figure of Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich (see this ed., p. 285). At the same time, the Decembrist (as can be judged by his later responses) warned the Poles against unprepared riots.

In 1826, Lunin was convicted mainly for the regicide plan of 1816: the authorities did not find a single “sedition” after 1822; but he himself will not renounce Decembrism - and during the investigation he behaves like an active member of a secret society, who does not want any concessions if they must be paid for with repentance and humiliation.

The inconsistency of Lunin’s self-awareness (you have to speak out - you can’t speak out like that) is the background of the Decembrist’s religious sentiments: over the years, he became more and more inclined to believe that the contradictions of the spirit could be overcome at the religious and ethical level. The extensive religious discussions in the Notebook refer to a later period and can only be used with due adjustments in explaining Lunin’s faith in general, his Catholicism in particular. This side of Lunin’s thinking, where socio-political, religious and personal motives are intricately combined, unfortunately, has hardly been developed. Meanwhile, it is here that there is an important key to understanding the personality of the Decembrist. Even information about the time of Lunin’s conversion to Catholicism is contradictory. Later, in Siberia, he seeks in the dogmas of Catholicism a justification for his decision - to take the path of sacrifice; in the early 1820s, with the help of faith, he sought a way out of the impasse of political reflection (Trubetskoy, p. 303; Eidelman, pp. 94-103).

1826 forever divided Lunin’s biography into a period before and after. Previously, he was a guards lieutenant colonel, a warrior, a bretter, a socialite, an idol and a role model for noble youth. Afterwards - a prisoner of several fortresses “deprived of the rights of fortune”, then a convict, an exile, transferred from the capitals to a monstrously remote world of savagery and death, forever excluded from the usual guards, secular, elite life. Capital salons, military partnerships, wide communication with the cultural layer of Russia, Poland, Western Europe - all this has now been replaced by a circle of comrades in misfortune, seemingly doomed to fade away without contact with “big Russia”.

However, the external outline of Lunin’s biography seems surprisingly unchanged. Again, each stage of life (prisons 1826-1828, hard labor - 1828-1835, exile - 1836-1841, the last prison - 1841-1845) corresponds to sharp, extravagant actions that will eventually become legendary. During this period, the Siberian works of the Decembrist were conceived and created.

Subsequently, he will write: “The world, which no one can take away, followed me to the scaffold, to the dungeons, to exile...”

Meanwhile, in 1826-1845. Not only Lunin’s social status changed: the era changed. In the wild - the Nikolaev “freezes”, persecution, narrowing of the previously rather small sphere of personal freedoms.

“Under Catherine,” wrote Pushkin, “a guard officer rode behind his platoon in a cart and in a fox fur coat. At the beginning of Alexander’s reign, the officers were self-willed, arrogant, faulty - and the guard was in its flourishing state” (Pushkin, XII, p. 315).

The great poet-historian noted the decline in dignity both in his Diary and in his famous last letter to P. Ya. Chaadaev, composed approximately at the same time as Lunin began his offensive actions.

“Indeed,” Pushkin wrote to Chaadaev on October 19, 1836, “we must admit that our social life is a sad thing. That this lack of public opinion, this indifference to all that is duty, justice and truth, this cynical contempt for human thought and dignity - can truly lead to despair. You did well to say it loudly” (Pushkin, XVI, p. 172, 173 vile in French).

P. A. Vyazemsky in 1830 found that “the people have become numb and have lost their voice”; “We were born at the wrong time, I wish I had been born sixty years earlier or a hundred years later” 8.

The changes that took place in the military and guards environment were later stated by Herzen: “The prosaic, autumnal reign of Nicholas needed agents, not assistants, executors, not warriors.”

Those tricks that Lunin more or less got away with under Alexander I now ended in prison or other forms of disgrace, and all this against the backdrop of a much more intimidated, passive society than in the pre-December era.

Such escapades in the closed, supervised world of Siberian exile could seem even more “inappropriate”, inappropriate for the time and circumstances.

If in the 1800-1820s Lunin was imitated, his actions were interpreted enthusiastically or benevolently, now in the wild they even remember, legends are told, but usually as signs of another world, another century. Many “well-meaning people” consider Lunin and others like him hopelessly lost: they make little difference between political death and physical death; in the exiled convict world near Lake Baikal, Lunin’s behavior even to some fellow prisoners seems inappropriate, “out of time.”

According to I. D. Yakushkin, Lunin, “a state criminal at the age of 50, allows himself antics similar to those that he allowed himself in 1800, being a cavalry guard; of course, this is again done out of vanity and in order to force people to talk about themselves. For me, he has always been and is the Spears of our generation” (Yakushkin, p. 286).

Kopiev, a famous joker officer, punished by Paul I for parodying the uniform of that time by bringing it to the ugly-funny // From 311 limit (braid to the calves, cocked hat of enormous width, gloves to the elbows).

In the mouth of the serious Decembrist “Spears” this is a formula of condemnation: inappropriate bravado under conditions that do not correspond to it.

Yakushkin is not alone in his criticism: “Lunin is dashing, funny and cheerful and nothing more,” wrote F. F. Vadkovsky 9.

I. I. Pushchin, S. P. Trubetskoy saw in Lunin a voluntary martyr, believing that “vanity is involved a lot in his actions, but they alone cannot explain his most important actions, here the motivating reason was hidden in some stronger feeling” ( Trubetskoy, p. 303).

So, a number of Lunin’s actions, which obviously seemed to him as a continuation of the “old”, are now often assessed as anachronism, archaism.

This contradiction had to be judged by a historical court: if in Lunin’s suicidal “game” spearism really predominates, then it is destined for oblivion, to which the mocker of Pavlov’s form was ultimately subjected. If the originality, the paradoxical nature of Lunin’s position is the greatness of the spirit, a movement forward, then all this will be appreciated in the future and will find its own circle of readers and followers.

The interest of the next few generations in the personality and writings of Lunin, the need to publish his works, means that the word and deed of the Decembrist are recognized by history.

WORKS OF LUNIN

When did the idea of ​​offensive actions (“I started again...”) arise in the head of a “state criminal”, a convict and an exile? When is the idea of ​​writing about your business and in your spirit born? S. B. Okun found that this happened simultaneously with the Decembrist’s exit to the settlement - in 1836-1837. (Okun, p. 140). The first incentives for future action must, however, be traced back to an earlier period. Lunin himself noted that, “prisoned in the casemates, for ten years he did not stop... thinking about the benefits of his homeland.”

The hidden world of spiritual life in hard labor, in Chita, in the Petrovsky plant, is not yet known to us enough, despite authoritative evidence (Bestuzhevs, Basargin, Rosen, etc.). The ban on writing to loved ones (M.N. Volkonskaya usually wrote from Lunin’s dictation), a fairly strict prison regime (with all the concessions made by Commandant Leparsky), the constant threat of a search - all this made it extremely difficult to compile any significant manuscripts before moving to the settlement. At the same time, collective communication for several years, a “convict academy”, where there was a constant exchange of opinions and memories, sufficient time for active reading and thinking // C 312 (many books and newspapers sent from the capitals, regular letters from relatives), the undoubted existence of secret ways of connections, the possibility of various opportunities favored the emergence and maturation of Lunin’s plan. I. D. Yakushkin remembered that during hard labor “the significance of our society, which existed for nine years despite all the obstacles encountered during its actions, became more and more clear; the meaning of December 14 was also explained” (Yakushkin, p. 109). These lines define the main themes of Lunin's future works.

It is extremely important and interesting that in the distant Siberian Decembrist world, the need for theory, a theoretical understanding of the era arose simultaneously with a similar phenomenon in European thought, where the 1830s were the time of Hegel, utopian socialists, and complex philosophical and religious quests.

In Russia, the liberation movement of the 1830s-1840s, developing mainly in line with new thought, literature, philosophy, is represented by the circles of Stankevich, Herzen, the latest works of Pushkin, poems by Lermontov, articles by Belinsky, Chaadaev. Thought-action is one of the possible formulas for the social movement of this era. Lunin's thoughts and actions are internally related and address the same problems.

It is not easy to talk about the influence of Moscow and St. Petersburg spiritual quests on the world of Urikov’s exile. At hard labor, naturally, news gleaned from letters from relatives was warmly received and constantly discussed. Lunin did not know, of course, that his name, like his friends and like-minded people, was included in the encrypted stanzas of Chapter X of Eugene Onegin (“There L<унин>boldly proposed..."); however, he had impressive information from E. S. Uvarova, as Pushkin, having admitted (in 1835) that he kept a lock of Lunin’s hair, exclaimed: “Mikhail Lunin is a truly wonderful person!” 10.

Such news evoked ideas among the Decembrists (albeit at times exaggerated), which Lunin himself would later formulate in the finale of his “Look at the Russian Secret Society”: “The desire of the new generation strives for the Siberian deserts, where famous exiles shine in the darkness... could not be taken away They have people's love. It is revealed by the reverence that surrounds their distressed families; religious feeling that is felt towards wives who share the imprisonment of their husbands.”

On the other hand, Lunin constantly writes about “general apathy” in the country; completely independently of him, Vyazemsky in 1829 speaks of “a general numbness of mental activity”11, Pushkin states “the absence of public opinion, indifference to everything that is duty, justice and truth...”.

The contradiction between optimistic formulas (“people's love... reverence”) and pessimistic sentences was imaginary, because it contained an incentive for active activity.

Noting (in the Notebook) that “society in Russia is a monotonous spectacle of petty people, petty intrigues and insignificant results,” Lunin immediately explains that in morals “there were no or almost no civil and political prejudices.” In other words, slavery and despotism have not taken over morals, which means there is still a vast field of activity for the thinker and revolutionary.

It is clear that they were talking about the propaganda of their ideas among the educated minority: in one of the first entries, after entering the settlement, the secret society is given credit for the fact that it “never thought about the dubious and dangerous experience of appealing to the passions and violence of the people.”

The search for a form for the best action led, soon after leaving the settlement, to the idea of ​​​​combining “semi-legal” letters to his sister with a series of purely conspiratorial works.

Although the plan for “offensive actions” and its execution were basically a matter purely of Lunin’s, however, in each of his works one can, more or less likely, find facts and generalizations gleaned from conversations with other convicts and exiles: what Lunin himself was not a witness.

Casemate stories, as we know, served as the basis for many memoirs of secret society leaders, recorded later, when one or another narrator was no longer with the memoirist. Particular attention should be paid here to works similar in concept to Lunin’s: we are talking about recording and discussing such Decembrist themes as the history of the Society of United Slavs, the uprising of the Chernigov regiment; all this was later combined in the famous notes of I. I. Gorbachevsky, also largely compiled within the walls of the “convict academy”. They began to collect materials in the casemate, even sketched out memoir fragments by A. E. Rosen, N. A. Bestuzhev, N. M. Muravyov, I. I. Pushchin, M. A. Fonvizin.

Mikhail Bestuzhev noted that in a certain era, in penal servitude, “we wrote a lot” (Bestuzhevs, p. 286). Zavalishin found that “in the casemate of the Petrovsky plant, a period of thinking had already begun: scientific, philosophical, historical, and mainly economic treatises were already being written there” 12.

The portrait gallery of the Decembrists, created by Bestuzhev in penal servitude, was also, without a doubt, an important type of memoir, historical, and artistic consolidation of their cause.

Finally, there is information, although very scanty, about the first memoir experiments of Lunin himself. Among the records of Lunin’s nephew S.F. Uvarov, made in 1858-1859. from the words of the Decembrist Naryshkin and his wife, the following is found: “In prison - as the Naryshkins heard... - // Since 314, Michel has been very busy with his memoirs. Nobody knows what happened to them.” Perhaps, from S. F. Uvarov, a message about Lunin’s memoirs, which were written in hard labor, came into Herzen’s “Bell” (February 15, 1359, No. 36). D.I. Zavalishin claimed that Lunin himself told him: “Keeping truthful notes is the duty of every public figure” 13; the same memoirist, as is known, reported on the collective plan, born in Chita, to write history on December 14, 14. Published for the first time in this edition, Lunin’s notes on memoirs state the fact of the burning of some notes and the Decembrist’s Diary on March 15 and April 29, 1838. A trace of Lunin's plan is probably the dated (1836 and 1837), diary-like lines in the “Spare Book”. It cannot be ruled out that such active memoir activity immediately after leaving the settlement had a prehistory during the period of prison and hard labor. Unfortunately, Lunin’s archive contains very little material that would reflect the time before 1836: in addition to letters from E. S. Uvarova, three fables rewritten by Lunin’s hand should be highlighted; the first two, “Braga”, “Child and Spot”, are known as the work of the Decembrist P. S. Bobrishchev-Pushkin15. The third fable, “Nag, Firewood and Firewood,” is obviously by the same author. Their text was probably copied by Lunin during his joint stay with Bobrishchev-Pushkin in Chita and the Petrovsky plant (the author of the fables was transferred to the settlement on November 8, 1832). In the fable "Braga", an intoxicating drink breaks the barrel in which it is imprisoned; this did not happen, “... if the peasant was smarter / And would have given the brother as much freedom as necessary.” “The Child and the Stain” is a call not to stain your conscience at least once; after the first stain, it is easy to continue to get dirty “on tables, chairs, stoves and floors.” Finally, in the fable “The Nag, the Firewood and the Firewood,” the horse and the firewood are jealous of the idle passengers and the firewood; the same ones answer: “You probably haven’t seen grief, / Do you know why they are taking us?.. Burn!” Lunin was probably attracted by the allegorical similarity of his position and thoughts with the motifs of the fables. It is also possible that he thought about the possibility of propaganda dissemination of such texts. The long-standing plans for lithographing materials from the Union of Welfare, of course, were not forgotten, but required transformation in the new Siberian conditions.

In addition to discussions about the past, the first attempts at memoirs, in penal servitude there were also constant debates about the problems that prisoners must solve in connection with the emerging freedom of choice and life in the settlement.

A number of surviving statements by Lunin, recorded shortly after leaving the Petrovsky Plant, sound polemical: through them the voices of opponents can easily be discerned; echoes of casemate discussions can be heard.

“Some will get married, others will become monks, others will become drunkards.”

“Politics is a specialty... like medicine. It is useless to indulge in it without a calling... After the role of the reluctant doctor, the funniest one is: the reluctant politician. There are some among us... It is unclear how they could or why they wanted to be mistaken about them. This is the beating of infants - politicians."

“Political exiles constitute an environment outside society. Therefore they can be higher or lower than it. In order to be higher, they need unification and at least the appearance of complete agreement between them.

These are strong and glorious personalities...

They should not be confused with ambitions, aspirations, impulses, political currents (these are noble, but momentary impulses) ... seething on the surface of society ... ", etc.

Lunin believes that it was “difficult for his comrades to stay at the height of their calling,” since they were raised “in a drowsy citizenship based on the inaction of the mind”; he strongly condemns those who ask to go to the Caucasus to “atone for their sins.”

The number of participants in collective discussions gradually decreased; one after another, Decembrists of the fourth, third, and finally second category completed their hard labor. By the end of 1835 - beginning of 1836, only 23 prisoners of the first category would remain in the Petrovskaya convict prison. United by a prison wall, a common government verdict, and the unity of destinies, the Decembrists left for settlement in different moods. Let's try to identify several of the most noticeable groups by type of life in exile.

The official path (according to Lunin’s terminology, “repentance”): S. M. Semenov, A. N. Muravyov and some others, convicted of relatively low categories.

The Caucasian Path - A. A. Bestuzhev, A. I. Odoevsky, M. M. Naryshkin, N. I. Lorer, M. A. Nazimov, V. N. Likharev and some other Decembrists who had previously visited Siberia; finally, friend and relative Artamon Muravyov, who during these years unsuccessfully asked for a transfer to the Caucasian Corps.

The “agricultural” path - legally equating the Decembrists with state peasants (Volkonsky, V. Raevsky). Here, indeed, many got married, but, contrary to Lunin’s prediction, almost no one became an alcoholic.

The path of cultural, legal activity (sometimes associated with writing): Mikhail and Nikolai Bestuzhev, Pushchin, Yakushkin, M. Fonvizin.

The path of religious humility (“they will become monks”), which applies with considerable reservations, for example, to the biographies of P. Bobrishchev-Pushkin, Obolensky.

These were different options for “life on defense,” sometimes close, sometimes far from previous ideals, but - with rare exceptions - a clean, honest life.

Finally, the path is actively offensive: the clearest and most tragic example was given by I. I. Sukhinov, who tried to raise an uprising and died in the Zerentuisky mine in 1828. Another, more thoughtful and appropriate to the circumstances, but no less dangerous method of attack was chosen by Lunin, relying on the help and the sympathy of some friends: the creation of a number of works in which the Decembrist expressed himself to the utmost and thereby doomed himself to torment and death.

In June 1836, Lunin was settled in the village of Urik near Irkutsk. At the end of March 1841 he was arrested there for the second time and sent to Akatuy. In almost five years, several works were completed and finished and their distribution began or was planned: “Letters from Siberia”, “A Look at the Russian Secret Society” (and a probable appendix to this work - “Historical Search”), “Analysis of the Report of a Secret Investigative commission”, “A look at Polish affairs”, “The social movement in Russia during the current reign”.

In addition to six works (if “The Search” is considered a separate work), fragments, sketches, drafts, plans have been preserved, some of which relate to the prehistory, the “laboratory” of completed works, while others indicate unfinished or only planned works.

"LETTERS FROM SIBERIA" (1836-1840)

The main work, which was worked on during almost the entire period of exile, was “Letters from Siberia.” Before Lunin’s second arrest, a late edition of this work was formed: the author’s preface and 16 letters to his sister constituted the first series of “Letters,” a letter to the chief of gendarmes and 10 letters to his sister constituted the second series. The main chronological and textual problems associated with the history of this work will be discussed below (see this ed., p. 353). Here we will limit ourselves to some general considerations.

S. B. Okun convincingly substantiated the impossibility of mixing the entire complex of letters written by Lunin in Siberia and the special, deeply thought-out work “Letters from Siberia.”

Having copies of letters to his sister, relatives, and authorities, Lunin carefully grouped them, changing the order of arrangement within each series; finally, he edited the texts and clearly introduced “epistolary fictions” into his work, that is, letters that, in fact, had never been taken separately they were not sent to my sister and were written specifically for the intended work.

Work on the “Letters” moved towards greater rigor and harmony of the composition by reducing insufficiently typical, characteristic details (see Okun, pp. 144-176).

Lunin’s choice of the epistolary genre as a form of offensive action was determined by the special role of correspondence for the exiled Decembrists. This was the only channel (not counting illegal opportunities) that connected the Siberian Decembrist community with the usual cultural // With 317 centers and values. The ability to convey important information to the public without being subjected to new repressions developed a special kind of epistolary art, for which the subtle stylist Lunin had an undoubted inclination. The literary-epistolary form was familiar to Lunin and his generation based on a number of well-known examples, such as Rousseau’s “New Heloise”, Karamzin’s “Letters of a Russian Traveler” and many others. Of course, the “literary letters” of a prisoner, filtered through gendarmerie censorship, seemed to have no precedent for such a genre; but it was precisely the sharpness, novelty, as well as the beloved sense of danger and risk that stimulated the “state criminal in a settlement” to try his hand at a new kind of literature. In doing so, the author relies on a careful reading of the press, magazines of the Ministry of Public Education, materials of the newly formed Ministry of State Property; on Lunin’s desktop constantly is the Code of Laws, historical and political works published in the capitals. “Letters from Siberia” essentially touches on all the topics presented in other works of the Decembrist. The most constant, “dissolved” in almost all plots, is the motif of Decembrism; the historical correctness of the carriers of the liberation idea. At the same time, the peculiarities of the epistolary genre required at least external compliance with the “legal framework”, taking into account the almost absolute ban imposed by the authorities on the history of December 14. This event is covered more directly and in detail in other Siberian works of Lunin.

S. B. Okun considered Lunin’s first completed secret historical work to be “Historical Search.” We find that this is not an independent work, but a kind of commentary on another, incomparably more famous, completed essay.

“A LOOK AT THE RUSSIAN SECRET SOCIETY FROM 1816 TO 1826”

Lunin's first essay on the history of the Decembrists was completed in September 1838 under the direct impression of the ban on correspondence with his sister for a year (see Okun, p. 179). Lunin’s answers during interrogations in 1841, that he compiled this work back at the Petrovsky plant, at the request of the late commandant Leparsky, most likely had the purpose of “covering his tracks” (Okun, p. 178).

Luninsky “A Look at the Russian Secret Society” - the first history of Decembrism; here it is clearly and definitely listed what the Secret Society really wanted (and not what was attributed to it according to the official version): “It,” writes Lunin, “protested against slavery and trade in Russians, contrary to the laws of God and man. Finally, by its establishment and the combination of types, it proved that the system of autocracy no longer corresponded to the present state of Russia, that a government based on the laws of reason and justice alone could give it the right to celebrity among enlightened peoples.”

The transition from the semi-legal “Letters from Siberia” to the definitely illegal “Vzglyad” was also marked by a change in style, language, and the emergence of much clearer, sharper definitions of what was only hinted at in the “Letters”. With its quick, concise presentation, almost complete absence of references to documents, and hot accusatory pathos, “Vzglyad,” conceived as a historical and political essay, essentially approaches a revolutionary proclamation. What is new in Decembrist thought, even terminologically, is the obvious strengthening of the theme of the people in “Vzglyad”. Of course, even before the uprising, the Decembrists constantly talked about the nationality of their program, but Lunin examines this issue in more detail, multilaterally - and taking into account later historical experience. Long before the populist view of the “unpayable debt” of the intelligentsia to the people, the idea was formulated here about the obligation of the “upper classes” to “pay for the benefits that the combined efforts of the lower classes bring them.” Lunin is also studying the issue of popular sympathy and possible support for the movement. He, partly sincerely, partly campaigningly, “increases” the people’s awareness of December 14, but at the same time hopes that such events “break new paths to the improvement of present generations, direct the efforts of the people towards social objects.”

The people are presented by Lunin as a kind of single, inseparable multitude of people, united by similar conditions of existence, culture, and type of thinking. The understanding that this issue was the most important was connected with the news that came from the “big world”: an ever-increasing discussion of the problem of the people in Russian literature and the press, the government’s attempts to create an ideology of “official nationality”.

Understanding the dissatisfaction of the bulk of the population, the Decembrist sees the prospect not in the liberation of the still sleeping people without the participation of the people themselves (as the secret societies hoped before December 14), but in the gradual awakening of the people's consciousness: “the minds of the Russians may be eclipsed for a while, but never their national feeling.” .

The special character and extreme frankness of “Vzglyad” may also be related to its purpose for foreign readers: “Letters from Siberia” was understandable to an educated Russian; for the West it was necessary to create works that presented the facts more consistently. That is why, sending “A Look at the Secret Society” and part of “Letters from Siberia” to his sister in September 1839, Lunin insisted that she try to print “The Look” abroad, and limit the distribution of “Letters” to reproduction in handwritten copies. At the same time, “Vzglyad” was distributed and copied in the Baikal region, and the interception of this work by the authorities in 1841 played a fatal role in the fate of the Decembrist.

"HISTORICAL SEARCH"

The fact that this work was conceived in connection with “A Look at the Russian Secret Society” and is a kind of extended commentary, an addition to it, is convinced by the following considerations: // Since 319, the time of creation of “Look” and “Wanted” coincides: summer - autumn 1838 g. (Okun, pp. 178-180);

“Want” is preserved in a single manuscript, where it directly follows “Look” - even without moving to another page, which would have shaded the independent meaning of “Want”;

there is no clear logical connection between the chapters of “Search”: the first two concern the first centuries of Russian history - until the end of the Rurik dynasty; the third suddenly switches to English history of the 13th century. (it is compared with Russian history of the 19th century). Such a structure would be strange for a separate essay, but quite logical for an appendix commentary;

the motives touched upon in “Wanted” are, as it were, an echo of some lines of “Vzglyad”.

At the beginning of “Vzglyad” it is announced that “The Secret Society belongs to history... The Society illuminates our chronicles, like the Runymede Union of the everyday life of Great Britain.”

As we can see, the chronicle and recent past of Russia is compared here with the history of English liberties - exactly as in “Historical Search”. At the same time, “Search,” together with other historical materials and Lunin’s arguments, signified the Decembrist’s desire to give a free outline of not only history, but also the prehistory of the first revolutionary movement in the country.

The task of the work “Historical Search” is clearly formulated by the author himself: “History should serve not only for curiosity or speculation, but to guide us in the high field of politics. Our institutions clearly require transformation."

Lunin, relying on Karamzin’s “History of the Russian State” and other historical, official sources, defends a sharply expressed anti-Karamzin theory of the Russian historical process. The Decembrists’ disputes with the historian are well known: Nikita Muravyov’s main objection to Karamzin’s formula “The history of the people belongs to the tsar” was the aphorism - “The history of the people belongs to the people.” Other Decembrists, independently of each other, also came to this answer (for example, N.I. Turgenev).

Years pass, and in Siberian exile Lunin is faithful to the old criticism: a negative view of the princes, in particular of Rurik; skepticism towards Moscow's historical mission; interest, sometimes sympathy for the Lithuanian spread to Rus' in the 13th-14th centuries.

Karamzin’s general conclusion about the progressive role of autocracy is sharply challenged by the formula: “The root of evil was autocracy. It confuses by attributing unlimited ability to a person who is limited in everything by the laws of nature.”

What was new in “Wanted” (as in “Vzglyad”) was the strengthening of the theme of the people, nationality; a conclusion was drawn that was externally similar to Karamzin’s, but internally completely different: it was only thanks to the “national properties of Russians and faith” that the autocracy lasted so long in Russia; “popular opinion” is interpreted very similarly to the deepest view that is expressed // C 320 by Pushkin in “Boris Godunov”:

But do you know why we, Basmanov, are strong?

Not by army, no, not by Polish help,

And by opinion; Yes! popular opinion.

“Look” (together with “Search”) was the first part of the “Decembrist history”, composed by Lunin in exile.

“ANALYSIS OF THE REPORT OF THE SECRET COMMISSION OF INVESTIGATION”

The “analysis,” completed by Lunin and Nikita Muravyov in November 1839, contained a Decembrist analysis of the results of the political trial of the first revolutionaries.

In the summer of 1826, first in newspapers, then in the form of a separate book, in Russian and French, “Report of the Investigative Commission. Printed by the Highest command. In the military printing house of the General Staff of His Imperial Majesty." The author and compiler of the “Report” was D.N. Bludov, a man from the circle of Zhukovsky and Karamzin, a former resident of Arzamas, in the future a prominent dignitary, minister of Nicholas I; the main “editor” of the document was the tsar himself. For more than thirty years, this book was essentially the only printed document about December 14th. The document was tendentious, aimed at belittling and denigrating Decembrism, silent about the main goals and ideas of the revolutionaries, but at the same time it contained well-known information: the “Report” included large extracts from investigative files and documents, which allowed discerning minds to see something more behind the official version - something they tried to keep silent about.

Relying to a large extent on the “Report”, Pushkin wrote the secret X chapter of “Eugene Onegin” 16.

Later, the Decembrists more than once turned to this document, challenging it as an official falsification (Fonvizin, Rosen, V. Tolstoy, etc.). However, the first, main performance was Lunin's.

It is no coincidence that the government, feeling that even the “Report” was a dangerous document, did not later re-issue it, preferring complete silence about December 14 to any conversation; 20-30 years after 1825, this official collection became a bibliographic rarity.

In the 1840s, the loyal, apologetic work of M. A. Korf, “The Accession to the Throne of Emperor Nicholas I,” appeared. Related in spirit to the “Report of the Investigative Commission,” but supplementing it with a number of new facts, it was published twice, in 1848 and 1849, but “not for the public,” but only for the imperial family and other high-ranking officials. Only in 1857 did the third edition and the “first // C 321 for the public” appear. Refuting Korf, Herzen and Ogarev in the book “December 14, 1825 and Emperor Nicholas”, among other things, reprinted works borrowed “from the enemy camp” - Bludov’s “Report” of 1826, and materials from the Supreme Criminal Court of the Decembrists. The Free Press did not yet have any other documents or memoirs about December 14, but Herzen (in the preface to the first edition of the book) noted: “The report of the investigative commission is falling into oblivion, it is difficult to obtain in Russia, and it is necessary for the younger generation to confirm it. Let it look at these strong and powerful personalities, even through the dark heart of their persecutors and judges - and think, what were they when even such painters, with all their desire, did not know how to distort their noble features? (Herzen, XIII, p. 70).

20 years before Herzen and Ogarev, Lunin also clearly realized a certain value of the “Report” as a historical source.

The Decembrist, as it were, intercepted the stone thrown by the judges and sent it back: with clearly visible irony, Lunin praises the Commission for its “impartiality” when it “keeps silent about the liberation of the peasants, which was supposed to restore civil rights to several million of our compatriots. It says nothing about the new Code, about the structure of the judiciary, about the correction of legal proceedings, about the transformation of the army, about the destruction of military settlements, about freedom of trade and industry, about providing assistance to oppressed Greece”; Lunin proves - even using those quotes and characteristics given in the “Report” - how noble and strong Ryleev, Kakhovsky, Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Muravyov-Apostol, Pestel were. Based on the official text, the critic appeals to many educated readers who could, without much risk, re-read the “Report” and perceive the Decembrist analysis.

We can talk about three ways the Decembrist addressed the official text. Firstly, the just demonstrated use “for health” of the same facts that are given “for repose” in the “Report”. The second way is a refutation, denial of individual conclusions of the “Report”. The third is the addition of one-sided or false information with other, more objective information.

Lunin himself, of course, relies in his reasoning not only on the “Report”: in his “Analysis” there are quotes from documents of the Supreme Criminal Court (which the Decembrist skillfully contrasts with the “Report” on the Decembrist case, finding obvious contradictions between them); The famous Warsaw speech of Alexander I in 1818 was also used, where the tsar himself proclaimed the beneficence of the constitutional system.

Determining one of the reasons for the “misconceptions that crept into the report,” the Decembrist speaks of “the lack of written evidence, which consisted only of the Green Book, the two plans of the Constitutions, a literary passage called “Curious Conversation,” private letters and songs.” Here, we believe, Lunin transparently hinted to his readers about the existence of other sources, written and oral, in the Decembrist environment.

In “Analysis” (as before in “Vzglyad”), the memories of Lunin himself and his comrades, one might say, are constantly present. It is not always possible to distinguish them “in their pure form” from the various versions of what happened, however, the Decembrist memoirs are palpable in the lines devoted to the interregnum, interrogation techniques in the Investigative Committee, and the history of the “noisy meetings” of the Northern Society on the eve of December 14.

The “report” hides the name of “the agent of General Count Witt,” but Lunin, from the words of his comrades (primarily Volkonsky), knows that it was A.K. Boshnyak; information about the United Slavs and a high assessment of their activities could be based, among other things, on the reports of Pyotr Gromnitsky, a participant in Lunin’s secret activities. Anti-criticism regarding Nikita Muravyov’s attacks on the Constitution by “Report” was, of course, the result of constant consultations with N. M. Muravyov himself, Lunin’s cousin, exiled to the same village of Urik. The tradition attributing to Muravyov a historical commentary on the “Analysis” is only one of the confirmations of these connections.

The question of the coincidence and divergence of the political positions of two outstanding Decembrists requires special study. In any case, N. M. Druzhinin’s thought, supported by S. B. Okun, about the “fundamental difference” of views seems exaggerated (see Druzhinin, pp. 219-220; Okun, p. 218). What is known about the relationship between Lunin and Muravyov in the 1830-1840s testifies to constant friendship, the absence of any noticeable omissions or contradictions. The sad exclamation of Lunin, who learned about the death of N. M. Muravyov - “this man alone was worth the whole academy” - is the clearest result of their joint activities. Well-known differences, apparently, related only to external forms of political activity: N. Muravyov, who had his only daughter who was constantly ill, kept a low profile, not directly participating in the defiant, suicidal actions of his cousin.

In Bludov’s “Report,” Lunin found at least four groups of facts that the government did not “invent,” but isolated from the much broader context of Decembrist documents and testimonies; highlighted - with the aim of influencing inexperienced public opinion and creating a distorted image of the first revolutionaries.

Firstly, this is a version of the arbitrary actions of the Secret Society, which allegedly illegally assumed the rights and functions to speak on behalf of the people.

Secondly, numerous facts, carefully and unambiguously isolated from all testimony about plans or even fleeting conversations about regicide (Lunin himself was accused in 1826, mainly for a long-standing conversation in 1816 about a possible attack on Alexander I).

The third accusation of the same kind is about the allegedly treasonous relations of the Decembrists with the Polish conspirators.

The fourth accusation is plans allegedly leading to decentralization, disintegration of the country, and anarchy.

Calmly, documented, Lunin examines one accusation after another, showing that each contains some truth, reality, but inflated, distorted and thus turning into its opposite.

From the very beginning, the Decembrist writes not for defense, but for affirmation; not making excuses, but advancing; without reducing the matter to petty anti-criticism, but raising the most important, fundamental problems.

Constantly, unswervingly, Lunin, together with N. M. Muravyov, defends the idea that Decembrism is not accidental, but is historically conditioned, natural, logical and, therefore, is in the “nature of things.” This is also proven by references to prehistory - the ancient traditions of liberty, Russian constitutional ideas of the 18th century: “It must be admitted that the Secret Alliance is not a separate phenomenon and not new for Russia. He is associated with political communities that, one after another, for more than a century, arose in order to change the forms of autocracy; it differs from its predecessors only in the greater development of constitutional principles. It is only a form of that social transformation that has been taking place in our country for a long time and to the triumph of which all Russians are contributing, both its associates and its opponents.”

The need for civil reforms and strengthening of direct popular participation in governance is justified by similar events in different periods of world history (Ancient Rome, modern France) and, finally, by practice, recognition of the supreme power itself, which (Alexander I) directly and more than once spoke about the importance of indigenous reforms.

The idea of ​​a natural pattern of secret societies corresponds to Lunin’s special style, the language in which “Analysis” was written.

It was composed as if “detached”: there are no direct signs of authorship in the text; Only the last lines speak of the “sympathies of the people” for the Siberian prisoners, but even here one can imagine benevolent talk about the Decembrists from some “third party.” This is one of the significant differences between “Analysis” and the earlier “Vzglyad”, where the image of the Decembrist author is beyond doubt.

The themes of both works by Lunin are similar: the secret society and its historical significance. It is all the more interesting to compare the two works.

We can say that “Vzglyad” is to the left, formally more dangerous.

One of the central ideas of "Analysis" - the naturalness, the pattern of the emergence of secret societies - is, of course, presented in "Vzglyad", but there the subjective role of the Decembrists, their high historical mission, is more sharply emphasized. “Vzglyad” is designed for a narrower, more radical circle of Russian readers than “Analysis”: after all, “Report of the Investigative Commission” formally had the right to be read by everyone, and therefore “Analysis” has at least a ghostly legality; “The View” presents a more direct apology for secret societies.

When creating "Analysis", Lunin, of course, did not think of abandoning "Vzglyad". Perhaps he viewed these writings as an appeal to different groups of readers. The anonymity of Lunin's secret manuscripts easily allowed the author to change his angle of view and act either as a passionate, // With 324 sharp denouncer of evil, ready to sacrifice, or as a relatively moderate, objective critic of the “Report.”

“Analysis” was designed for a fairly wide circle - even if they did not share the Decembrist idea, but had common sense; like “Vzglyad”, it assumes Russian and foreign readers: unlike other offensive works presented in one or two languages, “Analysis” was the only one prepared by Lunin in three languages ​​- French, English and Russian.

Lunin rightly accused the court of 1826 of trying to turn minds back and “divert general attention from the revelations of the future.” To recall the revelation of the future, which the Decembrists spoke about back in the 1820s, is precisely the main task of Lunin’s “Analysis”. This was a new historical stage in the development of the Decembrist heritage; the uniqueness and immediacy of the former hot pre-revolutionary time was overcome - and, as it were, space was given to broader, eternal categories.

Expanding the critical conquests, Urikov's exile comprehends not only the decade of secret societies and the vast prehistory of that era, but also the social movement of another Slavic people.

"A LOOK AT POLISH AFFAIRS"

The offensive works of the Decembrist several times addressed the Polish question. Lunin's memories of his life and struggle in Poland, reflections on events in this country, on the fate of Polish exiles are included in “Letters from Siberia”; These problems are not avoided in the work “The Social Movement in Russia...”. In 1840, the special work “A Look at Polish Affairs” was also completed.

Moreover, in the papers of the Decembrist, seized during the second arrest, manuscripts in Polish were preserved - according to the gendarmerie inventory, “outrageous poems and prayers about Poland” (see Streich, I, p. 108). The question of the origin of these manuscripts and their significance for the formation of the Polish theme in the works of the Decembrist requires special study. Apparently, these texts interested Lunin in a certain consonance with his position and thoughts; it is possible that some documents, preserved in several copies, were intended for distribution 17.

Among the Polish poems written down by an unknown hand was “Hymn to God,” a work by Archbishop Voronich, where, according to the gendarmerie’s description, “remembering the former greatness and glory of his fatherland, the author complains about its present situation.” The poem “Blacksmith” by Stanislav Starzynski and all the following papers are also retold by the “expert” of the III department: “the old blacksmith, encouraging his children to work, says that Poland was formerly a hammer, fate turned it into an anvil, but tomorrow its enemy must experience the same fate."

Ode “Youth” (“To Youth”) by A. Mickiewicz is characterized as a composition of “outrageous content”: “a patriot, imprisoned in chains, complains in prison about the misfortunes of his fatherland and, awaiting execution, says that he will cause outrage in hell” . The song “To the Swallow” is “also a patriot remembering the fatherland.”

In addition to poems, Lunin’s Polish papers include “Prayer for May 3 for the granting of courage and patience to the Poles”; on another sheet, by Lunin’s hand, the “Prayer of the King of Judah Manasseh for liberation from Babylonian captivity” was rewritten in Polish.

Lunin, in his position, knowledge, and biography, was a unique, extremely important figure in the history of Russian-Polish cultural and social relations. Regardless of how deep his conspiratorial cooperation with the Polish secret societies of the 1820s was, the Decembrist undoubtedly stood for rapprochement, unification in a common struggle.

Another question is the forms of this unification, the tactics and strategy of the Russian and Polish liberation societies: news of the Polish uprising of 1830-1831. and its suppression came to Lunin and his friends at the Petrovsky plant. Later, parties of Polish exiles began to arrive in Transbaikalia: meetings and conversations with them were reflected in the subsequent writings of the Decembrist.

The reaction of Russian society to the Polish uprising cannot be examined in detail here. Pushkin, Chaadaev, Zhukovsky, Lermontov, Bakunin and many other artists and thinkers, due to very complex historical reasons, took a position most clearly expressed in Pushkin’s poems “Slanderers of Russia” and “Borodin Anniversary”: disapproval, denial of the “Warsaw Uprising” and sympathy for the victories Russian weapons. At the same time, Vyazemsky and Alexander Turgenev were dissatisfied with the “overcoat poems” glorifying the victories of Nicholas. “Our actions in Poland,” wrote Vyazemsky, “will set us back 50 years from European enlightenment... I’m so tired of these geographical fanfare of ours: From Perm to Taurida and so on. What is good here, what to rejoice at and what to boast about, that... we have five thousand miles from thought to thought...” 18.

Finally, in some circles of educated society, especially among Moscow youth, a spirit of sympathy for the suppressed Poland prevailed.

The Decembrists' responses to the events in Warsaw were also contradictory. The poems of A. I. Odoevsky, sympathetic to the rebels (“Also, friends, we are young at heart...”) and the opposite statements of A. A. Bestuzhev have been preserved.

30 years later (in connection with the Polish uprising of 1863-1864), Herzen recalled 1830: “The Polish question was vaguely understood at that time. Progressive people, people who went to hard labor for the intention of curbing imperial autocracy, were mistaken in it and, without noticing it, adopted Karamzin’s narrow state-patriotic point of view. It is worth remembering the facts told by Yakushkin, the indignation of M. Orlov, Lunin’s article, etc. They had a kind of jealousy towards Poland; they thought that Alexander I loved and respected the Poles more than the Russians” (Herzen, XVII, p. 93).

The “article by Lunin” mentioned in the above quotation - “A Look at Polish Affairs” - was received around 1860 by Herzen’s free press, but was not published. To the editors of Kolokol, who professed the slogan: “We are for Poland, because we are for Russia,” what Lunin wrote on this matter seemed insufficient; they were afraid of offending their Polish friends.

Meanwhile, the article deserves a special, historical approach: it is interesting not because of its similarities, but because of its differences with other Decembrist texts about Poland. In addition, the difference between Lunin’s two main addresses to the Polish theme requires special study.

The letter "Poles", included in the cycle of "Letters from Siberia", was completed in November 1839; "A Look at Polish Affairs" contains the author's note "1840".

The pathos of the first document is the fate of the Polish rebels of 1830, a sharp condemnation of tsarist repressions, which are “a loss for Poland without the slightest benefit to Russia.” The idea was expressed that it was the politics of St. Petersburg that was the main incentive for the rebellion. The Decembrist wishes for a union of two peoples - “the Poles are our brothers by origin, our advanced guard by geographical location and natural allies, despite the domestic quarrels between us.”

The letter “Poles” is mainly aimed at the Russian authorities, although there are also motives (later strengthened in the work “A Look at Polish Affairs”) about the weaknesses, mistakes of the Polish rebels, that a minority has rebelled in Warsaw, “carrying away the masses, unable to reason” .

The article “A Look at Polish Affairs” outwardly seems much more critical of the Polish rebels: Lunin cites numerous examples from the recent past when the unsuccessful, short-sighted policies of Polish leaders in some cases encouraged, and in others gave rise to, aggressive actions by neighboring powers. In the 1830s, the emigrant national committee (“Hotel Lambert”), according to the Decembrist, sought to “excite minds, causing measures of severity, and incite family discord to please the Western powers, rather hostile than indifferent to the Slavic peoples, whose unification they fear " It was precisely by polemics with this organization, headed by A. Czartoryski, that S. B. Okun explained the special tone of Lunin’s article (see Okun, pp. 223-226).

Agreeing with this, we add that, apparently, the intended addressee of “A Look at Polish Affairs” was the public of Western Europe. If in “Letters from Siberia”, intended for “internal circulation”, the defense of the vanquished was natural, then in “Vzglyad” a broader, general assessment was required: therefore “Vzglyad” does not begin in 1830, but examines the prehistory of the uprising, in particular - events // Since 327 in the Kingdom of Poland, which Lunin witnessed. The Decembrist contrasts the unilateral defense of the Polish position with a rather objective analysis of the fallacy and adventurism of many insurgent actions.

Reflecting on the uprising, Lunin tries to rise above the fray, to take a broader view: “The cause of the Poles, like the cause of the Russian government, has so far found only lawyers. Both lack a sincere friend who can dispel their common errors and point out the origin of disastrous discord.”

An attempt to escape from the captivity of one-sided sympathies was felt at that time by some other thinkers, Russian and Polish: Khomyakov, Tyutchev, Mitskevich cursed enmity and blood, but Lunin, in addition to emotions, represents a whole system of political thoughts, the like of which is almost impossible to find in the polemics of that time .

Knowing Poland in the 1820s well, the Decembrist competently analyzes the reasons for the uprising and comes to a bold and controversial conclusion: Russia is guilty, but Poland should not have rebelled. It is clear that both those who did not see Russian guilt and the Poles, who argued that the revolutions of 1830 in France, Italy and other places were encouraging and that it was necessary to rebel, only more decisively, could not agree with this conclusion!

Lunin agreed that the constitution of 1815 was constantly violated by Alexander I, Nicholas I, Konstantin, Novosiltsev, “but the Constitution provided legal means to protest against the illegality of these acts, and at the same time obeyed them. This mode of action, passive but effective, would be sufficient to prove the existence of rights, and then to force them to be respected, giving them the double support of principle and precedent."

Even the shortened constitutional diet, according to Lunin, was too important a gain to gamble with it. Approving of the English who did not rebel against the Tudors prematurely and valued their parliament, he, of course, remembered that later the English parliament led a rebellion against the Stuarts, and King Charles I lost his head. “There are eras,” the Decembrist noted, “when a combination of favorable circumstances gives even the most risky enterprises a chance of success.” However, 1830-1831, according to Lunin, is not such an era: Russia has just successfully ended two wars (with the Persians and Turks), in the Polish movement he finds more “animation” than a firm program of action, etc. “A Look at Polish affairs" states that "the immediate results of the uprising were: the loss of all rights, the devastation of cities, the devastation of villages, the death of many thousands of people, the tears of widows and orphans... It caused even greater evil, compromising the principle of fair and legitimate resistance to the arbitrariness of power. It is from this point of view that it will be pointed out to future generations as a temptation to be avoided and as a sad testimony to the spirit of our times.”

In addition to the unpreparedness of the uprising, Lunin probably also meant the reason that the government of Nicholas I found in the events of 1830-//From 328 to 1831. to intensify the reaction and abandon the proposed reforms in Russia.

At the end of the article “A Look at Polish Affairs,” Lunin reflects on a way out of the crisis. By the way, a very interesting thought was thrown: “Not bound by their past like other European peoples, they (Russians and Poles - Ed.) should not destroy or clear anything before building... They are definitely destined to begin a new social era by freeing the main principles from the heterogeneous elements that obscure them everywhere; and to spiritualize political life by returning liberties, rights and guarantees to their true source.”

In these lines one can guess the contours of the future theories of Herzen and the populists about the “advantages of backwardness”, which allow one to bypass some economic and political forms characteristic of Western European peoples. Lunin is sure that “only by shaking hands in a friendly manner will they be able to<русские и поляки.- Ред.>to master... the means of mutual influence that peoples exert on each other for the progress of mankind.” At the same time, the Decembrist takes a rather sober look at the extreme complexity, painfulness, and slowness of such historical processes: “Peoples and governments do not so easily leave the wrong paths where party interests or their own passions lure them. There is still an unequal struggle, harmful actions and useless sacrifices ahead. The sword of violence and the sword of justice will again be drawn in favor of error and prejudice.”

At the end of the 1820s, Pushkin and Mickiewicz dreamed of a time “when peoples, having forgotten their strife, will unite into a great family.”

Lunin, in his own way, also constantly advocates for this union: for this, in fact, he writes his work and begins distributing it.

“PUBLIC MOVEMENT IN RUSSIA DURING THE PRESENT REIGN. 1840"

This is probably Lunin's last work, completed in Urikov's semi-captivity and dedicated no longer to the prehistory or history of December 14, 1825, but exclusively to the subsequent period.

Summing up the fifteen years of Nikolaev, Lunin simultaneously celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of Decembrist prisons and exiles, the fifteenth anniversary of casemate reflections.

One of the most merciless, sharply accusatory Lunin’s pamphlets is closely, “genetically” connected both with the ideas of Lunin’s “Look at the Secret Society” and “Analysis”, and with Nikita Muravyov’s “Notes on the Secret Society” (see Druzhinin, pp. 216- 220; Okun, pp. 207-219). It is possible that N. M. Muravyov was Lunin’s co-author when compiling “The Social Movement.” It is also possible that in Nikita Muravyov’s house in Urik, lists or fragments of the “Social Movement” were burned when news of Lunin’s arrest arrived.

Lunin's article is an overview of almost all aspects of Russian life: peasant, Polish affairs, foreign policy, the press, // From 329 famine, fires, epidemics, recruitment, finance, army, police, court.

The Decembrist’s awareness and intensive use of important information obtained from the Russian and foreign press, various official documents, as well as from stories, conversations, rumors and other unofficial sources is striking.

This was the only uncensored history of the country for 1825-1840, written by a contemporary located in Russia, in Siberia. Some publications abroad (Custine, Schnitzler, etc.) were “an outside view,” where a number of valuable facts and considerations were combined with ignorance and tendentiousness. Later, Herzen would become the first Russian historian of the forbidden reign of Nicholas: a brilliant witness of the past, he, however, will describe the 1820-1840s from a certain historical distance, 15-20 years later. Lunin wrote as if from within events, being in the thick of it, being subjected to deprivation and repression.

The main thoughts of the last completed work of the Decembrist are the historical correctness of the Secret Alliance; continuous deterioration of the economic, political, moral state of the country: what modern historiography defines as a crisis of the socio-political system. Recognizing certain “useful orders” of the government, Lunin clearly, logically and inexorably predicts the collapse of this system.

Unfortunately, from the distance of exile, he sees almost no social forces that in the future can successfully resist the regime; the optimistic mercilessness of Lunin’s assessment is combined with the tragic pessimism of exile: thus, realizing that invisible mental work is going on in the country, the Decembrist believes at the same time that from 1825 to 1840 “not a single significant literary or scientific work appeared. .. periodicals express only lies or flattery.”

Meanwhile, over the years, “The Bronze Horseman”, “Hero of Our Time”, “The Inspector General” were created; the magazine "Telescope" was closed for Chaadaev's "Philosophical Letter"; Pushkin’s Sovremennik and Otechestvennye zapiski did not publish “lies and flattery.”

Lunin’s “Social Movement” is a historical and artistic work created according to pamphlet laws; While he was wrong in particulars, the Decembrist was right in general. His question is “what have you done for the good of the people over these fifteen years?” - was the verdict.

The flattering hopes for the personality of the tsar, suddenly expressed at the end of the article, as already noted by researchers, completely contradict its general course. S. B. Okun saw Lunin’s usual irony here (Okun, p. 219).

We believe that, in addition to the half-hidden ridicule, there was a certain tactic.

Just as “Analysis” had in mind a fairly wide circle of readers who did not necessarily share the Decembrist views, so “Social Movement” assumed the conquest, the conviction of those who are honest, vaguely aware of the disorder, but cannot yet formulate the main accusation.

Since Lunin, in a postscript to the manuscript, tells his sister to “deal with this according to previous instructions,” we can conclude that we are talking about disseminating the text among St. Petersburg acquaintances and abroad. Knowing well how often criticism of the Russian system froze before the need to “offend” the monarch, Lunin goes “to meet the reader halfway”; after all, even without that, the imperial family has been accused of treating the people as “family property”; it is said - “we professed the cult of the law, but you profess the cult of personality.” It is also possible that the “softening lines” were tactically introduced into the finale under the influence of Nikita Muravyov, who relied somewhat more than Lunin on the “natural course of things.”

An important addition to the completed six Lunin works intended for distribution are unfinished or fragmentary works, notes, as well as a notebook and letters that were not included in the “Letters from Siberia” cycle. They help to present the plan of Lunin’s offensive actions in all its integrity.

The variety of undertakings of the Decembrist during the period of his exile is a remarkable sign of activity, the search for various forms of effective propaganda.

“INITIAL LESSONS PLAN...”

Published for the first time in this edition, the training plan of Misha Volkonsky (the son of close friends, S. G. and M. N. Volkonsky) perfectly embodies several general ideas of the Decembrist, noticeable in a number of other works. Together with the pedagogical advice that later constantly came to the Volkonskys from Lunin, imprisoned in Akatui, the “Plan” presents deeply thought-out principles of education, the formation of a harmonious, free personality in difficult, unfree conditions. First of all, according to the advice that Lunin gives, some autobiographical details are restored (reading range, teachers, learning foreign languages, physical exercises). The ease, the “ordinariness” of the transition from the most general problems to personal ones and back, so characteristic of Letters from Siberia, is also present in Lunin’s pedagogical thoughts. The image of Maria Volkonskaya and her son of “Raphaelian beauty”, so skillfully outlined in the “Letters”, seems to be complemented by discussions about the upbringing of this son. The reading program for different years of study amazes with the enormous awareness and erudition of the Decembrist. In addition to a number of Russian and foreign authors, whom Lunin apparently met while still free, his list includes names and books that became famous already when the Decembrist was in prison, hard labor, and exile. Such is the work of G. Broom “The Pleasures and Benefits of the Sciences”, the works of the Taylor sisters, J. Bouilly and other authors; During Lunin’s stay in hard labor, the “Legend of Prince Kurbsky” (1833), which he mentioned, was published in full for the first time.

At the same time, the selection of literature for the Volkonskys’ son testifies to the originality, and at times tendentiousness, of Lunin’s literary attitudes. // From 331 Having added Prince Kurbsky to the list of recommended Russian authors, he also included, but then crossed out Krylov; the name of Karamzin and other contemporaries of the Decembrist is missing.

"HISTORICAL SKETCHES"

When publishing the collected works and letters of Lunin in 1923, only the finale of this work was given and it was reported that it represented “a series of extracts” from ancient authors (Streich, I, pp. 139-140).

Written around 1840-1841. “Etudes” were obviously considered by Lunin as part of a larger historical work, as evidenced by “No. 4” displayed by the Decembrist near the title; there is no doubt the typological similarity of this work with “Historical Search” and a number of historical fragments in the “Notebook”. At the same time, the white, outwardly completed nature of the manuscript, the entry in Lunin’s list of Siberian works (compiled around October 15, 1839) “History of Greece” - all this allows us to consider “Etudes” as a fairly autonomous work and probably in the future intended for distribution alongside with other “offensive” works. Indeed, “Historical Studies” is not a simple summary, but a unique, brilliant work by Lunin. Already the first “reviewer,” the head of the III department Dubelt, described it as “a historical work about ancient Greece with a description of the persecutions suffered by its great men for their love for the fatherland” (Streich, I, p. 107).

Referring to 15 ancient authors, Lunin presents more than 10 famous historical figures well known to his readers, grouping extracts and his brief comments in such a way that there is an emotional feeling of the unity of destinies, the tragic “normality” of exile, non-recognition, the lot of outstanding figures, patriots as ancient Greece and autocratic Russia.

Continuing the old liberation tradition - turning to ancient models - Lunin returns to the history of ancient heroes under very special circumstances, in exile, struggle, on the eve of death. In “Letters from Siberia,” the Decembrist directly compares his biography with the fate of Alcibiades and Themistocles; in the “Etudes” there are no such direct comparisons, and it is very likely that another form of legal activity was developed here - a collection of quotations, extracts from ancient authors; something that, in the case of a search or interrogation, can formally be interpreted as “harmless note-taking.”

It is likely that in Akatui, studying “religious beliefs in Homer” and fearing that “Greek daub” would fall into the hands of the authorities, Lunin continued to develop ancient motifs in relation to modernity and his position.

"NOTEBOOK"

The “Notebook” is an extensive complex of various records made throughout the Urikov period. A significant part of them are probable rough fragments of a diary burned in 1838. At the end // From 332 1836 and in 1837 similar entries are constant: 1, 2, 3, 7, 10, 14 and 25 December 1836; in 1837 - January 1, 20, 25, 30; February 1, 10, 15, 20, 25, 26, 27; March 1, 7, 15; April 9, 15, 16, 18; June 1, 7, 15, 16, 17; July 1, 17; August 1, 27; September 1, 29; October 14, November 1. Then permanent dating almost disappears: among the records of 1838 there is only a text marked February 4, as well as three or four dated drafts of letters to his sister; in 1839 - entries on July 18, October 16; in 1840 on May 25, August 26 and October 10.

The “Notebook” is a special, invaluable document, connected to one degree or another with all of Lunin’s works, helping to penetrate into the unique inner world of the Decembrist.

The publication of fragments from the “Notebook” undertaken in 1923, interspersed with a brief annotation of a number of sections, is clearly insufficient (see Streich, I, pp. 12-28): even simple extracts from chronicles, sacred scriptures, and historical works fulfill a certain purpose for Lunin historical and literary function. In the most intimate document, intended only for oneself, the impossibility of dividing texts into essential and secondary ones is especially obvious. On the very first page of the Notebook, Lunin placed three epigraphs, two Latin and one Russian, consolidating and emphasizing the unity of everything that follows: after the Latin saying “I loved justice and hated injustice, therefore I am in exile,” follows the Latin text from The first letter of the Apostle Paul to the Jews: “Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every burden and the sin that besets us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”

And all this closes with a Russian proverb, which sharply transfers the high pathos of Latin lines to the level of “low life”, prison, ridicule of jailers: “In Russia there are two guides: the tongue to Kyiv, and the pen to Shlisselburg.”

With all the huge variety of records, we can conditionally identify several of the most noticeable layers, where the motives of the first two Latin epigraphs and the “prose” of the third, Russian, are easily detected.

The most important permanent element of the “Notebook” are drafts and fragments of Lunin’s writings. These are individual letters included in the set of “Letters from Siberia”, other letters to my sister, to the Irkutsk police officer, English lines of epistolary addresses to an unknown person. The “Notebook” contains a number of sketches for the work “The Social Movement...” and quite a lot of historical discussions, extracts related to Russian, English, and ancient history; ideas and fragments of “The Search for the Historical,” “Historical Etudes” and other essays are easily discernible there, apparently connected by the unity of concept with the completed historical works of the Decembrist. A special place among the creative drafts and plans is occupied by “themes for development” and the painting of the second series of “Letters from Siberia”.

Despite the Decembrist’s desire to destroy his diary entries, a number of pages are filled with autobiographical prose, akin to // C 333 best texts of “Letters from Siberia”. These are the records of Maria Volkonskaya’s singing, memories of life in Poland; Of particular interest are Lunin’s judgments on the study of foreign languages. The most important autobiographical characteristic is the entry dated October 14, 1837: “Let us not confuse humility and self-abasement. The first elevates us, the second degrades us. When it comes to virtues, let us take last place; when it touches the mind, we will occupy what providence has assigned us.”

The Secret Society and its figures are mentioned repeatedly in the book; Lunin develops several thoughts presented in his completed works: about the actual guilt of the authorities, the ruling circles, which caused outrage with their policies and myopia; about the noble naturalness of Decembrist ideas (“in a few years, those thoughts for which they sentenced me to political death will be a necessary condition for civil life”). The “Notebook” contains characteristics of the exiles as “strong and glorious individuals” who “sealed the cause of freedom with their blood.” Not forgetting the mistakes and weaknesses of the Decembrists, Lunin notes that “the nature of the work they undertook allows us to treat them without the care that, at first glance, their position as exiles would seem to require.” At the same time, the Notebook, more sharply than any other work, reflected the characteristic Decembrist rejection of the active masses as a possible ally, the refusal to involve the “rabble” in the revolution. Constant reflections on the role of the people, the need to take into account popular opinion and criticism of the Decembrists for their obvious underestimation - all this did not at all mean Lunin’s transition to the position of the people’s revolution. The Decembrist considered the religious path to be one of the paths to success and mastery of common opinion.

APOSTLES OF FREEDOM

Lunin's appeal to religion in general, to Catholicism in particular, was analyzed by us in another work (see Eidelman, pp. 94-102). Among the reasons for this phenomenon, the “crisis of reason” that spread after the Great French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, the well-known disappointment of thinking circles in materialist philosophy, was named; Lunin’s adoption of Catholicism is associated primarily with a certain type of upbringing (influence in childhood by the Catholic abbot of Vauvilliers, stay in France and Poland, conversations with prominent theorists of Catholicism, including the political antipode, but talented preacher Joseph de Maistre). These relationships developed in Lunin a penchant for Catholic aesthetics, a conviction in the connection of certain forms of grace with the highest truth.

Another reason for Lunin’s Catholicism is the subordinate position of the Orthodox Church in relation to the autocracy (“ministers of the church are at the same time servants of the sovereign”). Finally, for Lunin, Catholicism was one of the elements of liberating enlightenment. The active // ​​C 334 side of this church (the creation of monastic orders, constant participation in politics) obviously corresponded to the social temperament of the Decembrist.

A significant part of the “Notebook” is filled with discussions about dogmas and theological arguments in favor of Catholicism. With this, however, the thought of the connection of true faith with true liberation is constantly, bizarrely combined. Lunin passionately, tendentiously tries to show; that political, civil, personal freedom was asserted precisely on the basis of the Catholic worldview. It is curious that from this religious thesis the idea of ​​​​the good for Russia is derived from the absence of ties between Orthodoxy and the liberation movement (“it is better to stumble on the right path than to run along the wrong one”).

For Lunin, the high morality and sacrifice of the Decembrists is a spiritual act, akin to a religious feat, which sooner or later will lead to the acquisition of true, in his opinion, forms of faith and church. Lunin does not rush this process, which seems natural to him: in his completed works intended for distribution there are almost no signs of religious, Catholic agitation; Only in some discussions about beauty, nature, incomprehensibility can one guess the motives that are constant in the composition only for oneself - “The Notebook”.

Ancient texts and religious forms in the book are constantly intertwined here with topical, modern things. Such, for example, are Lunin’s arguments about the inaccuracy of the Russian translation of a fragment from the “Acts of the Apostles”, where the Apostle Paul says to the Roman procurator Felix: “since I know that you have been judging this people fairly for many years, the more freely I can speak in defense of myself.” Lunin is confident (and in this confidence the personality of the Decembrist is clearly manifested) that the apostle, knowing Felix,; could not approve of his management and say: you judge fairly. This would be cowardly flattery on the part of the defendant. He who always spoke freely, sometimes too freely, could not say: “The more freely I can speak.”

The religious issues of the “Notebook” end with a remarkable conclusion about the Decembrists: “One can talk about the errors and misdeeds of these apostles of freedom, just as Scripture speaks of the tribute that the apostles of faith paid to human weaknesses.”

Apostles of freedom - Lunin's autocharacteristic and definition of the movement as a whole. Hidden in these words is the desire for sacrifice, suffering - what Lunin will achieve by creating and distributing his works.

EPISTOLARY LEGACY

The surviving letters of Lunin, which were not included in the cycle of “Letters from Siberia,” are classified in this edition as part of the main body of texts, primarily because of the closeness, and sometimes inseparability, of the Decembrist’s private and socio-political messages. The twenty-six letters that made up // From 335 the later edition of “Letters from Siberia” were created at the same time, in the same historical context with twenty-seven surviving Siberian letters from Lunin to different addressees. These messages, as well as several pre-December letters, reveal the role of the epistolary tradition, epistolary craftsmanship in Lunin’s life and work. A number of messages to E. S. Uvarova, which are directly related to fate, the dissemination of Siberian works, objectively, regardless of the will of the Decembrist, are also a kind of hidden cycle.

The last, Akatui cycle is of particular importance.

Deprived of the right of correspondence since the spring of 1841, cut off from his Siberian friends, the Decembrist for almost five years shared imprisonment in the most terrible convict prison in Siberia with a group of Polish rebels and many recidivist criminals. However, in Akatui, in the worst conditions of his entire life, on the verge of death, Lunin continues the same struggle, albeit in different forms. In addition to several vague legends, meager data from the Nerchinsk archive (mainly receipts for parcels received from his sister) 19, a unique source about Lunin’s life in the Akatuy hell has been preserved, a wonderful historical and human document - twelve letters from 1841-1845. to S. G., M. N. and M. S. Volkonsky, brought together for the first time in this edition.

Written in defiance of the strictest prohibition, today they make a strong impression by their appearance alone. The greatness and power of these letters makes us recognize them as one of the most remarkable Russian epistolary monuments. Well aware of his purpose, Lunin could see in these sheets a solid, unified cycle, although, naturally, he did not give any instructions for its dissemination.

Twelve Akatui letters are an epilogue that completes the remarkable Siberian complex of Lunin’s works.

SIBERIAN WORKS OF LUNIN AS A HISTORICAL AND PUBLICISTICAL MONUMENT

A brief analysis of individual elements of Lunin’s heritage must be concluded with general considerations about the historical and journalistic significance of Lunin’s Siberian works as a whole.

In the middle of Nicholas's reign, one of the centers of Russian freethinking emerged near Irkutsk. Over the course of four and a half years, Lunin, with the help of several friends and sympathizers, completed and prepared a number of artistic and journalistic works. At a great distance from the usual metropolitan society, journalism, in the second decade of forced isolation, he not only preserves the best traditions of Decembrist thinking and behavior, but also moves forward, significantly expanding and enriching previous ideas. // C 336 With all the diversity of Lunin’s Siberian works, they, as noted, represent an integral unity. It is unlikely that at the very beginning of offensive actions Lunin already had a clear, established plan for a certain series of works, but when, over time, new plans were born and implemented, their connection and interaction were naturally realized by the author. The later list (1839), entitled “Themes for Development” by Lunin, covered eight motifs, mainly implemented in a number of works. This publication, which for the first time brings together almost all of Lunin’s completed, unfinished, draft, barely outlined texts, fully helps to feel the significance and greatness of the overall plan.

It was based on the concept of tradition, “Tradition,” which was constantly and widely interpreted by the Decembrist. Several important texts are devoted to this in the Notebook. Such are the Decembrist’s arguments about “dead languages” as a special carrier of Tradition; about Homer’s poems, the meaning of which is not in “poetic beauty”, but in the preservation and transmission of essential, deep truth that forms the basis of history and human existence. The concept of Tradition, as we see, is applied in the latter case to a work of art composed many years before the advent of Christianity.

In all the diversity of historical events, Lunin sees some unshakable ideas that are discovered and transmitted to humanity by the bearers of Tradition. Without doubting the divine origin of natural ideas, Lunin also sees in his activities a desire to find and embody Tradition. “So, brothers, stand and keep the Traditions” - Lunin placed these lines from the Holy Scriptures immediately after the plan of “Letters from Siberia”. Having chosen Homer and Tacitus as a model, he finds the realization of Tradition in the events of subsequent centuries and millennia; tries to trace the general idea historically.

The most ancient historical themes of Lunin’s works are associated with antiquity: a work on Homer that has not come to us was written in Akatui; “Historical Sketches” are dedicated to antiquity, as well as sketches of sketches about Rome in the 1st-2nd centuries. in the "Notebook".

A number of Lunin’s works examine the history of the Middle Ages: “Historical Search” compared the fundamentally different, according to the Decembrist concepts, natural and unnatural historical conditions of England and Russia. The Magna Carta, the birth of the English Parliament, etc. are presented as natural forms of movement in human history that correspond to Tradition, won in a difficult struggle against the opponents of freedom. Russian history is interpreted as a deviation, a distortion, a long-term victory of autocracy and despotism over original freedom.

For the 1830-1840s, when the French historical school already existed and the spirit of historicism was increasingly established in science and literature (in Russia, Pushkin was one of its brightest exponents), such a view of the course of history was quite archaic and corresponded to the norms of the 18th century. XIX century At that time, in the works of Western historians // From the 337 era of the Enlightenment, in Karamzin’s “History of the Russian State”, in Decembrist historiography (Nikita Muravyov and others), - in these works written from different socio-political positions (Decembrists, for example, opposed Karamzin), historical and moral laws were usually spoken of as unchanged for thousands of years. At the same time, some historians of the old school in their practical activities constantly “challenged” themselves, resorting to spontaneous historicism. This fully applies to Lunin, who is by no means dogmatic: he subtly and correctly assesses the changing historical circumstances, the historical and political context of various events removed for centuries. Moreover, the collision in Lunin’s works of the general, “eternal” principles of Tradition, as well as real persons, passions and events creates a special artistic background, a dialectic of “high” and “low”, eternal and everyday: as in three epigraphs to the “Notebook” ...

It should be recognized that the outdated principles of the historical approach did not become outdated for Lunin and his friends as a flexible form of accumulation of progressive, emancipatory ideas. This is especially visible in Lunin’s works dedicated to closer times.

The immediate prehistory of the December events were N. Muravyov’s extensive notes on Lunin’s “Analysis” - essentially the first brief history of the liberation, “constitutional” movement in Russia in the 16th-19th centuries. Here, on Russian soil, the struggle of freedom against despotism was demonstrated: the regular revival of the former and the temporary successes of the latter. The very resumption of suppressed love of freedom was for the Decembrists a sign of the naturalness and invincibility of the progressive idea.

The center, the core of Lunin's plan was, of course, works on secret societies.

Interest in history aroused among the Decembrists and their contemporaries a heightened sense of possible loss, the disappearance of the most important evidence. In general, the historical self-awareness that intensified in the social thought of the 20-40s gave rise to the well-known definition of I.V. Kireevsky: “History in our time is the center of all knowledge, the science of sciences, the only condition for all development: the historical direction explains everything”20.

Referring to materials about the People's War of the 1770s, Pushkin noted: “The case about Pugachev, still unopened, was in the state St. Petersburg archive along with other important papers, once state secrets, now turned into historical materials. The Emperor, upon his accession to the throne, ordered them to be put in order. These treasures were taken out of the basements, where several floods visited them and almost destroyed them” (Pushkin, IX, p. 1).

20 years later, Herzen, who had just created the Free Printing House, appealed to his compatriots: “For the third time we are making a request // From 338 to all literate people in Russia to deliver to us lists of Pushkin, Lermontov and others, which are known to everyone in circulation...

The manuscripts will finally perish - they must be sealed” (Herzen, XII, p. 270).

In “Vzglyad”, “Analysis”, “Letters from Siberia” the Decembrist version of the ten-year history of secret societies, uprisings, and reprisals against the rebels is developed. From Lunin’s letters to his sister (1839-1840) it is clear that the Decembrist, following “View” and “Analysis,” conceived a third special work about December 14 - a detailed history of the investigation and trial of 1825-1826, but did not have time to write it.

Lunin's excursions into antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the Decembrist era were modern for the 1840s “like yesterday’s newspaper” (with these words Pushkin assessed Karamzin’s “History”); Some of Lunin’s works were directly devoted to recent events that unfolded already during the period of the Decembrist hard labor and exile. These are “Letters from Siberia”, “A Look at Polish Affairs”, “The Social Movement in Russia during the Current Reign” - the first free historical overview of the modern era, 1825-1840.

In general, Lunin’s historical and artistic plan, even if not fully realized, is in itself a significant achievement of Russian culture and free thought. Inside this huge structure there are many living, relevant thoughts and observations: the first history of Decembrism; a unique historical and political theory of the development of the Russian liberation movement; an original concept of the Polish question, rising above the characteristic one-sidedness and prejudices of the century; a new look has been cast at the problem of the people, popular opinion, and popular needs. Finally, all of Lunin’s works are permeated with the high idea of ​​a free personality - fearless, ironic, always internally free, objective towards enemies and friends, ready to sacrifice, devoid of fear. Unlike the previous, Ryleev, sacrifice, Lunin does not propose specific collective actions. The concept of freedom is more inward than outward, and he demonstrates a willingness to die to preserve personal dignity and profess what he believes to be true.

The brightest personal beginning and the most important historical and political tasks - all this was combined and embodied in the special artistic forms of Lunin’s journalism.

LUNIN - ARTIST

Lunin wrote in different genres: “Letters from Siberia” - an artistic, journalistic, epistolary complex; “Historical sketches” - one might say an artistic and journalistic summary. Historical and journalistic treatises predominate quantitatively, but nearby there are fragments of the memoir-diary type.

In search of the best way to “awaken apathy,” the Decembrist follows several paths. His social temperament is realized either in attempts // C 339 scientific in form to look at hot social phenomena from a detached perspective, or in extremely dangerous assessments of modernity, coupled with a clearly presented personal program.

In all this diversity, we can conditionally distinguish two main types of Lunin’s works: some, as if “in the first person,” with direct authorial participation; others - more objective in form - “in the third person”.

The first group includes “Letters from Siberia” along with other Siberian letters that form their background, as well as diary fragments from the “Notebook”.

The second group includes most of the Siberian works: the personality of the author is manifested here too clearly, constantly, but more disguised.

Judging by the surviving stories of his contemporaries, the Decembrist was inclined towards literary pursuits from his youth. I. Auger spoke about the novel “False Dmitry”, on which Lunin worked; the Uvarov family knew about Lunin’s Polish poems, which he allegedly competed with Mickiewicz in composing.

Regular communication with Russian writers, excellent knowledge of European literature, and constant reading in Siberia developed a certain original Luninist view of the role of literature and various literary movements. On June 7, 1837, the following was added to the Notebook: “Literature in France has experienced a kind of revolution, which is given excessive importance. Change is inherent in error. The new school, called romantic, is vilified just as unreasonably as the old, or classical, one is praised... The classical school had the goal of portraying a perfect person who does not exist, because our nature is sinful. This idea is inherited from paganism. Hence the slavish imitation of the ancients, exaggeration, dryness, pedantry and all the shortcomings for which this school is reproached.”

Continuing his thoughts, Lunin characterizes the romantics, obviously meaning by this name the growing realistic trend in Western literature (there seems to be no talk about Russian literature): “Finally, satiety sets in with imaginary perfection. They begin to depict, just as falsely, in the brightest forms and colors, the imperfection of human nature. Artificial beauty has been replaced by artificial ugliness. This is the origin of the romantic school. She sinks into the mud, just as her predecessor was lost in the clouds. The result remains the same; but its influence is likely to be less lasting and less harmful, for the devil is more likely to inspire disgust if his horns are visible than to appear in the form of a bright angel.”

Thus, both literary schools do not suit Lunin, although the first is “less harmful.”

Satire, especially the literary-satirical use of sacred scripture, was resolutely not accepted by the Decembrist, and he attacked Milton's Paradise Lost.

What is his literary ideal?

“One page of Tacitus,” writes Lunin, “is a better introduction to the Romans than the entire history of Rollin or the dreams of Gibbon. One should read and study the writings of the ancients not in order to discover in them the ideal of beauty, as rhetoricians claim, but in order to grasp the harmony of the whole along with dissonances, good and evil, light and shadows.”

So, Tacitus, the harmony of the whole with all the contradictions - this is one of the models for Lunin. In the “Plan of Initial Lessons,” among the authors recommended by the Decembrist, there are relatively few “pure” prose writers, poets, and playwrights: artistic publicists, essayists, and masters of the epistolary genre (Sevigne, Chesterfield, Broome, Rousseau, ancient Roman and English historians) predominate. Artistic journalism and history - those genres in which Lunin performed - obviously seem to him to be the most effective way of discovering and comprehending Tradition. We can say that Lunin wanted to become the Tacitus of his era: following the manner of the great Roman, imagine the world around him, illuminate it with his gaze, the presence of his personality, and ultimately tell his descendants what “no classic” “could” (in his opinion) notice, neither romantic.

Such claims might, under other circumstances, seem naive. However, in the depths of Eastern Siberia, an exile without rights, an original and talented thinker uses historical parallels to inspire himself, motivate him to action and sacrifice.

The Latin and Greek traditions - something that Lunin himself was aware of and never tired of emphasizing - is indeed one of the sources of his creativity. Much in his writings - brevity, restraint, aphorism, a style that Pushkin would call “important” - is similar to the works of Tacitus, Thucydides and other historical writers of antiquity. The old Decembrist freedom-loving tradition, addressed to ancient heroes (Aristides, Cato, Brutus) finds a worthy completion in Lunin. His writings, actions, exploits, and death were in many ways consciously oriented toward ancient examples.

Ancient masters were, of course, not the only predecessors of Lunin. Developing the most important problems of his century, the Decembrist coincided with a number of his contemporaries in solving purely literary problems. Lunin has original, deeply individual special forms of connecting the personal with the general; The dynamics of “Letters from Siberia” and other works are distinguished by unexpected, quick transitions that amaze the reader from the realm of abstract thought to problems of love, and suddenly, as if by the way, to social problems. Memories of distant years spent in Poland are supplemented by the “Siberian diary” (meetings with Maria Volkonskaya, a wonderful epistolary portrait of Vasilich’s servant). At the same time, quotes from the press, official documents are introduced - and again the personality and personal circumstances of the author.

Such free mixing was well known to Lunin and his readers from many examples. Such, by the way, are “My Dungeons” by Silvio Pellico (1832); These are the various works of European and Russian criticism and journalism of the 1830s-1840s. The speed, // C 341 lightness, irony, and free fluidity of Lunin’s presentation make it possible to see in “Letters from Siberia” one of the approaches to the genre that, 15-20 years later, would be brilliantly realized in Herzen’s “Past and Thoughts.”

It is impossible, of course, to deny the direct or indirect literary influence of Russian and European journalism on Lunin, but no less important are the ideological and stylistic similarities between Lunin and modern authors unknown to him: such a phenomenon was generated by a commonality of time, a commonality of thoughts and anxieties.

In this regard, it is very interesting to at least briefly compare the works of Lunin and Chaadaev. It is likely that the Decembrist knew the “Philosophical Letter,” but there are no responses in his manuscripts.

There are both similarities and curious differences in many elements in “Letters from Siberia” and “Philosophical Letters”.

Each wrote religious and philosophical works devoted to the most important problems of our time. The date of publication of the “Philosophical Letter” (1836) coincides with the beginning of Lunin’s offensive actions.

Both thinkers paid for their courage: Lunin was arrested a second time and sent to prison, Chaadaev was subjected to house arrest and declared crazy.

Both publicists wrote in French. At the same time, Lunin himself translated most of his works into Russian, as a result of which his original “bilingual” syllable was formed. Chaadaev himself did not translate his works, but constantly thought about the element of language, calling, among other things, on Pushkin to write to him in Russian (“You must speak the language of your calling”) (Pushkin, XIV, p. 176 21).

Both thinkers have brilliant literary talent. Chaadaev's style is more objective and abstract. Lunin is more free in variations of form, more specific, historical.

Finally, ideas: both have a palpable premonition of a new era, huge upheavals; Chaadaev’s prophetic motive is perhaps stronger, Lunin’s is more rational.

Both Lunin and Chaadaev, reflecting on Russia, attach great importance to religious consciousness and associate the achievements of Europe with the beneficial, in their opinion, influence of Catholicism; Chaadaev, however, mercilessly denies ancient culture, which prevents us from understanding the “secret of the century,” while Lunin holds the opposite opinion, and in this Pushkin agrees with him, who, in a letter to Chaadaev (July 6, 1831), in particular, stood up for Homer ( see Pushkin, XIV, p. 188).

Chaadaev (as can be seen from his letters to I.D. Yakushkin and some other materials) denies the necessity, the pattern of December 14, considers this event as an accident, as an episode aside from the general movement towards the “secret of the century.” Lunin, repeatedly annoyed by the mistakes of the rebels, unlike Chaadaev, finds in the very fact of the Decembrist movement the most important historical symptom.

The general view of Lunin and N. Muravyov on Russian history is generally more optimistic than Chaadaev’s. A philosopher who lived in freedom, sometimes fell into despair, denying the past, present and future of his country. Lunin, after many years of prison and Siberia, no worse than Chaadaev, sees the dark, dying forms of Russian life, “general apathy” - however, he believes in the indisputability of Tradition, in progress, albeit slow and invisible. He himself and his comrades, the “apostles of freedom,” are a living prediction of the future.

The historical fates of Chaadaev's and Lunin's ideas are different. The merit of these and other Russian thinkers of their time was a passionate search for liberating truth, at the cost of freedom and life. It was from the 1840s, from the time of these searches, that V.I. Lenin counted the period when “advanced thought in Russia, under the yoke of unprecedentedly wild and reactionary tsarism, greedily sought the correct revolutionary theory, following with amazing zeal and thoroughness every every “last word” of Europe and America in this area” 22.

THE FATE OF LUNIN

Lunin sought to disseminate his works; his assistants (N. Muravyov, Gromnitsky, Volkonsky) introduced other Decembrists to the texts and preserved copies of a number of works. Later, Lunin’s texts were also at the disposal of the Decembrists who were in Western Siberia (Pushchin, Yakushkin, Muravyov-Apostol, Fonvizin). This relatively narrow circle of readers will play a primary role in the subsequent fate of Lunin’s works.

Another opportunity for dissemination was realized in a certain circle of the Siberian intelligentsia. As the investigation of 1841 found out, Lunin’s works were copied, kept and read by his confessor priest Gatitsky, the Irkutsk gymnasium teacher Zhuravlev and his wife, the Cossack officer Cherepanov, the Kyakhta teacher Kryukov, the Kyakhta priest Dobroserdov, the police chief of the Irkutsk saltworks Vasilevsky; probably also the superintendent of the schools Golubtsov, the priest Goryainov, the teacher Yablonsky. Moreover, there was a circle of semi-informed, curious people like the official auditor L. F. Lvov, a witness to Lunin’s second arrest.

In an effort to familiarize not only like-minded people with his writings, the Decembrist eventually became a victim of a denunciation filed by P. N. Uspensky, an official of special assignments under the Irkutsk governor-general. // From 343 One must think that several more of Lunin’s secret assistants eluded the investigation. The system of secret connections of the Decembrist with St. Petersburg and Moscow, those “opportunities” (trade channels of several influential Irkutsk merchants) through which Lunin’s works and letters were delivered to E. S. Uvarova, were also not disclosed.

In the mediation activities of his sister, Lunin saw the third most important way of distributing his texts.

Having mastered the necessary secrecy, the Decembrist demanded similar actions from Uvarova, wanting to involve new adherents, both in the capital and abroad, in his mission. There was a version about the sending of Lunin’s works abroad (to France or England); Lunin’s direct reference to the supposedly existing Paris edition of “Analysis” was preserved; Vague evidence of this has been published at various times. Now, however, the issue can be considered resolved: the efforts of S. Ya. Gessen and S. B. Okun have shown the unreliability of all information about foreign publications. Moreover, in the second Lunin case there are no hints of such a possibility (see Okun, pp. 230-237).

Disputing the fact of foreign Lunin publications in the early 1840s, one must, nevertheless, treat this rumor as an important, alarming rumor for the authorities and encouraging friends, perhaps spread by Lunin deliberately - in anticipation of actual foreign publications in the near future. This exaggeration of some desired motives is generally one of Lunin’s techniques: such, for example, are the lines in a number of his works about “universal sympathy” for the Decembrists and their families.

The sister of the Decembrist E. S. Uvarova, apparently, did not follow the instructions regarding the secret distribution of manuscripts: firstly, she was afraid of worsening the fate of her brother; secondly, it was cut off from living social forces that could evaluate, absorb Lunin’s ideas, and move them to new readers.

Uvarova did not resort to uncensored publications, but still did not destroy her brother’s most dangerous letters and articles. Lunin demanded that they be shown to Alexander and Nikolai Turgenev and distributed “among acquaintances, starting with ministers.” Uvarova tries - and Alexander Turgenev (in his diary) scolds her:

March 31, 1840: “I had lunch with Chaadaev at Katerina Fedorovna Muravyova’s. Friendly conversation, mainly about Lunin. The chattering sister harms him, and he harms others, because he respects them too of the same opinion.”

From the “ministers” the “cavalry lady” Ekaterina Zakharovna Kankrina responded. Lunin's second cousin and full sister of the Decembrist Artamon Muravyov was the wife of the Minister of Finance E.F. Kankrin; After reading one or more Siberian letters, she sent an encouraging message to Urik, and Lunin (without naming the recipient by name) included his response to Kankrina in an early edition of “Letters from Siberia”: “I was happy to learn that my letters to my sister are of interest to you. They // From 344 set out the thoughts that led me to the scaffold, to the dungeon and into exile... The publicity that my letters acquire thanks to their diligent rewriting turns them into a political weapon, which I must use to defend the cause of freedom. The thought of your affection for me, madam, will be a powerful support for me in this dangerous struggle.”

Lunin's papers, however, were not preserved in the Kankrin archive; A.I. Turgenev did not destroy the manuscript of Lunin’s “Look at the Secret Society” given to him, but the autograph list was buried in his papers. Lunin's hopes that his work would be sent to the West, to the Decembrist emigrant Nikolai Turgenev, did not come true.

The circulation of “Letters from Siberia”, “Analysis”, “Vzglyad” both abroad and in the capitals in the 1840s is unlikely.

“People of the 40s” - Herzen, Ogarev, Granovsky, Belinsky, Ivan Turgenev, Annenkov, Ketcher, Korsh, Kavelin, Aksakov, Khomyakov, Kireevsky, as well as hundreds of readers, like-minded people of these people really missed the Decembrist voice from the East: works Lunin, one might say, walked “nearby” - after all, A.I. Turgenev was familiar with Herzen and many other progressive thinkers; Herzen’s friend was also Lunin’s cousin A.P. Poludensky. The similarity of views between many of the capital's freedom lovers and the Urikov exile was great; the difference would have caused important debate.

Lunin's personality, his position, his thoughts, the ancient importance of the syllable, the living transitions from the general to the personal, the firm confidence in the necessary awakening from apathy - all this would have entered the culture and thought of the 1840s. “Letters from Siberia”, “Analysis of the Report”, “A Look at the Secret Society”, “A Look at Polish Affairs”, “The Social Movement in Russia” would one way or another be reflected in dozens of serious books, articles, lectures - as happened with “ Philosophical letter" by Chaadaev.

However, the “people of the 40s” apparently did not read Lunin. More precisely, his works were received 20 years later, in the 1860s.

In the capitals, the earliest lists of Lunin’s works, discovered in the archives of S. D. Poltoratsky and P. I. Bartenev, date back to the 1850s (PZ, IX, p. 107).

Difficult conditions of exile, constant danger, apathy and fear that shackled many - all this reduced the circle of Lunin’s lifetime readers to, at best, a few dozen free and forced residents of Siberia. It is also worth noting the thoughtful tactics of the authorities, who found two ways to isolate Lunin from his potential readers. The first method is punitive: Lunin, Gromnitsky, several Siberian readers were arrested; they were intimidated and in most cases they obtained the necessary confessions (Lunin himself, of course, does not count). The Decembrist's manuscripts were captured, taken to St. Petersburg and hidden in the archives of the III department.

Another government way is to belittle the significance of the Lunin case. Realizing that major repressions could increase the interest of many who had not heard about the secret activities of the Decembrist, Nicholas I, Benckendorff // C 345 and Dubelt, in conditions of a relatively calm, apparently stable internal situation in the early 1840s, came to the conclusion about the benefits of maximum silence , creating the impression that the incident was insignificant.

Lunin rightly admitted that for continuing anti-government actions in Siberia, any punishment could befall him, including the death penalty (as was the case with I.I. Sukhinov); however, he was sent to Akatui without a sentence or publicity, by administrative order, until further orders from St. Petersburg. Gromnitsky, convicted of collaborating with Lunin, was left in his former place of exile under surveillance. Other Siberian prisoners were treated relatively mildly; Having information about the probable complicity of N. Muravyov, about assistance to Lunin from Volkonsky and other exiled Decembrists, the authorities did not consider it necessary to involve them in the case. Moreover, she seemed unwilling to notice how various texts were confiscated from Lunin. Dubelt and his “experts”, having sorted out the seized papers, clearly understood (as can be seen from the relevant documents) that in their hands were several works: “Letters from Siberia”, “View”, “Historical Search”, “Analysis”, “ Historical Studies”, “Notebook” and, on top of that, various “outrageous texts” by other authors. Many of the captured works were also presented in multiple copies. However, along the way from the secret police examination to the decision in the case of Lunin and his assistants, Dubelt’s initial information was surprisingly transformed. In subsequent official papers, only one Lunin’s essay appears everywhere - “A Look at the Secret Society”; others - as if they had never happened. It was to “Vzglyad” that Uspensky’s denunciation referred, and the authorities follow this denunciation exclusively, not wanting to go beyond its limits.

A year later, on February 27, 1842, in a brief summary of the results of the whole affair, Benckendorff conveyed to the Minister of War A.I. Chernyshev, without any comments, a fictitious version of Lunin, as if “the essay “A Look at the Secret Society” was written by him without the participation of others, during his presence in the Petrovsky plant at the pleasure of the already deceased commandant of this plant, Leparsky, who wanted to have a closer understanding of the existing secret society, and he did not show this work to anyone except Leparsky and the state criminal Ivanov, also already deceased.”

Benckendorff then listed several Siberians involved in this case and “compassionately” noted: “Nothing more has been discovered to explain this case and, except for the copies of Lunin’s works taken from the said persons and delivered to me, no others were again found in Eastern Siberia, and There was no reason at all to conclude that there was any complicity in the present case.”24

On December 3, 1845, the Decembrist “died suddenly” in Akatui, just short of his 58th birthday.

The spread of legends and stories about his murder (by secret order from above or on the initiative of “Akatuyev’s guards”), the suspicious obscurity of official documents - all this is a highly characteristic conclusion to the extraordinary biography of an extraordinary person, where reality and legend are sometimes difficult to distinguish, and sometimes completely inseparable (see Eidelman, pp. 335-344). The complex posthumous fate of Lunin's legacy began. Lunin's works forever remained one of the best examples of Siberian Decembrist journalism, created and (albeit in a very narrow circle) distributed. This was the first active Decembrist action after the Sukhinovo affair.

Without a doubt, the very fact of this speech and the content of Lunin’s works had a significant influence on the evolution of Decembrist thought in Siberia.

The first impressions of many comrades in exile were skeptical, even negative. The reprisal against Lunin, according to Decembrist letters and memoirs, caused the exiles to expect widespread reprisals: some memoir plans were postponed, some dangerous papers were destroyed 25; but Lunin’s thoughts and actions now existed forever in the minds of his comrades, one way or another influencing their new plans. Later, in the 1850-1870s, memories would become the main form of activity for the Decembrists (Yakushkin, Pushchin, Bestuzhevs, Rosen, Obolensky, Lorer, Gorbachevsky and many others). The historical review, the theoretical understanding of the first Russian revolutionary movement will mainly be undertaken by Herzen and Ogarev, then by the leaders of the next revolutionary generations.

However, before the period of memoirs began, i.e. in the 1830-1840s, the Decembrists themselves made the most important attempts at theoretical generalizations. Two initiatives are particularly significant. The first, early ones are Lunin’s letters and articles with the participation of Nikita Muravyov; the second is the recently revealed in full (thanks to the research of S. V. Zhitomirskaya and S. V. Mironenko) literary activity of M. A. Fonvizin. Fonvizin’s main works, with all their differences from Lunin’s, also had a predominantly historical and journalistic character; The Decembrist undoubtedly knew the works of his predecessors; among other things, he relied on a brief history of the Russian liberation movement, appended by N. Muravyov to Lunin’s “Analysis.”

The next stage in the history of Lunin’s legacy is associated with the publications of the Free Russian Printing House. At the end of the 1850s and in the 1860s, “Analysis of the Report”, “A Look at the Secret Society”, “Letters from Siberia”, as well as some memoirs were published for the first time in the “Polar Star”, “The Bell”, and the collections “Notes of the Decembrists” about Lunin and his activities; The main sources of free publications were lists of Lunin’s works and memoirs preserved in the Decembrist circle.

The significance of Herzen and his press as a continuation and development of Decembrist traditions is well known. Herzen and Ogarev constantly spoke of the first revolutionaries as “a phalanx of heroes,” “heroes forged from pure steel from head to toe.” Touching upon the mistakes and weaknesses of the movement, primarily its distance from the people, Herzen did not expand this topic, presenting to his readers the truth about Decembrism with an element of a certain idealization and legend. One of the main incentives for such an approach, we believe, was the fact that the first layer of Decembrist materials that ended up in the Free Printing House was associated with Lunin.

On February 15, 1859, the anonymous publication “From Memoirs of Lunin” appeared in the 36th page of “The Bell,” where the unique personality of the Decembrist was outlined for the first time. A number of true stories, interspersed with semi-legendary and unreliable versions, clearly went back to the information of Lunin’s friends. S. Ya. Streich believed that the article was sent by D. I. Zavalishin, but this fact was later disputed in the comments to Herzen’s collected works (see Herzen, XIV, p. 591). The authorship of Lunin’s nephew S.F. Uvarov is not excluded.

Herzen showed exceptional interest in the atom material and, while editing, apparently introduced several phrases into the text and added a significant ending: “Yes, our avant-garde was glorious and great! Such personalities are not developed by the people for nothing...” 26. Herzen also responded in the editorial note to the publication: “We endlessly thank the person who sent us this article” (Herzen, XIV, p. 362). In the same note, the publisher of Kolokol reported that he had a number of Lunin’s works, which were soon published in Polar Star.

The first meeting with Lunin, apparently, determined a lot in Herzen’s Decembrist concept. Later, the materials of Yakushkin, Pushchin, Bestuzhevs, Steingeil, Trubetskoy and other Decembrists brought to London enriched, expanded the views of Herzen and Ogarev on noble revolutionaries, and created the basis for a multilateral historical approach; and yet the fact that it was Lunin who “appeared” to Herzen and Ogarev first was the strongest impression on the publishers of “The Bell” and “Polar Star”, who actually met with “a hero, a hero of forged steel.” After that, Herzen would speak more than once about Lunin and his generation: “Lunin’s proud, unyielding, overwhelming courage”; “Lunin is one of the subtlest and most delicate minds”; "<«Разбор»)>- excellent article"; finally: “What an amazing generation it was, from which came the Pestels, Yakushkins, Fonvizins, Muravyovs, Pushchins.”

Thus began the second life of Lunin’s works - with the first life almost never realized.

Over the course of half a century, London publications were reprinted abroad several times; Only 1905 lifted the ban on Lunin’s word in Russia: 60 years after the death of the Decembrist, his works, according to the text of Herzen’s editions, were published several times in his homeland.

The first Lunin publications in Soviet times were also based on the texts of the Free Russian Printing House, and only since 1923 were the Decembrist’s manuscripts put into circulation.

Incomplete, not always accurate editions of Lunin’s legacy - several decades late - introduced the works of the extraordinary Decembrist into the mainstream of Russian progressive thought and culture.” At the same time, Decembrist themes burst through the pages of historical magazines, where memoirs about Lunin occupied a prominent place. In the 1860-1900s, stories by M. Bestuzhev, Zavalishin, Svistunov, Basargin, Lorer, Gangeblov, Volkonsky, Rosen, N. N. Muravyov, I. Auger, and other authoritative witnesses were published 27. New information about the personality, “anecdotes” about Lunin came to light more intensively than the new texts of the Decembrist. Nevertheless, after the 1860s, the previously almost forgotten image of this man constantly attracts the attention of writers and thinkers.

F. M. Dostoevsky, talking about the hero of “Demons” Nikolai Vsevolodovich Stavrogin, used the figure of Lunin for important, poignant characteristics and reflections 28.

Various evidence of L. N. Tolstoy’s interest in the figure of the Decembrist has been preserved. In 1878, the writer asked P.N. Svistunov about Lunin,29 and wrote down (obviously for the story “Decembrists”) Lunin’s “signs” - “red-haired, tall”30; according to the testimony of S. A. Bers, “the Decembrist Lunin surprised Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy with his indestructible energy and sarcasm.”

To fully review pre-revolutionary literature about Lunin, it would be necessary to analyze the entire controversy surrounding the Decembrists. It is curious that Lunin’s paradoxical personality attracted publicists, writers, historians of different directions, from revolutionaries to Merezhkovsky 31; representatives of warring currents often sought and found their own in Lunin’s contradictions. Thus, the publisher of the “Russian Archive” and a remarkable collector of historical materials P. I. Bartenev, by 1863 a man of already quite moderate Slavophile views, separated Lunin and a few other Decembrists from other, in his opinion, “blind” opponents of power. Noticing Ogarev’s words in “Polar Star” - “Lunin’s legally rational protest” (PZ, VI, p. 347), Bartenev writes in the margins of his own copy of Book VI of the almanac: “Of this conglomerate of protests, only Lunin’s protest can be called sober and completely seasoned. Lunin will take a high place in the history of revolutionary societies in Russia, too poor in such personalities as him, Pestel, Muravyov and Ryleev; however, people like them are never counted in dozens” 32.

The topicality of the Decembrist, Lunin theme was reflected, among other things, in the fact that, simultaneously with references to the Decembrist in serious historical works (A. N. Pypin, V. I. Semevsky), his manuscripts remained banned; stories about Lunin multiplied in the press - but the essay about him and some other Decembrists, prepared by S. A. Panchulidzev for the “Collection of Biographies of Cavalry Guards,” did not appear in print even in 1906.

At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, works by V.I. Lenin and G.V. Plekhanov were published, devoted to the problems of the revolutionary heritage. Lenin's pages about three generations of the Russian liberation movement, about the historical role of the Decembrists, paid tribute to the entire movement as a whole, and to each of the first revolutionaries in particular33. In the article “In Memory of Herzen,” Lenin quoted with approval and recognition Herzen’s lofty words about the Decembrists as “a phalanx of heroes”34; It has already been noted above that Herzen’s similar point of view on his predecessors was to a large extent formed under the influence of his first meeting with Decembrist thought, with the works and personality of Lunin.

A new stage in the posthumous fate of the Decembrist, naturally, begins in 1917.

In the 1920-1930s, thanks to the opportunity to use previously inaccessible sets of Lunin’s papers, a number of new articles and books about him were published: this was a formal revolution in the development of the legacy of the remarkable Decembrist writer. Simultaneously with the publication of writings and investigative documents, interesting materials were discovered in Siberia, previously unknown biographical materials and valuable memories of other Decembrists about Lunin were put into circulation.

Here is a chronological list of the most important publications.

1923 Publication of the book “Decembrist M. S. Lunin. Essays and letters." Edited and notes by S. Ya. Streich.

This publication is the main one for the next few decades; despite its considerable shortcomings, the autographed texts of four of Lunin’s works (“Letters from Siberia”, “Analysis”, “Look”, “Search”) are printed here for the first time, as well as large extracts from the Decembrist’s “Notebook” and important documentary applications.

1925 In the book by B. G. Kubalov “Decembrists in Eastern Siberia” Lunin’s letters and fragments of his second investigative case (1841) are published.

1926 Publication of the second collection of Lunin’s works, edited and with notes by S. Ya. Streich - “The Social Movement in Russia. Letters from Siberia".

1926 In Book III of the collection. “Athenaeus”, as well as the book by S. Ya. Gessen and M. S. Kogan “Decembrist Lunin and His Time”, Lunin’s letters from Akatuy and other materials are published.

1926. In collection. “Decembrists in hard labor and in exile” M. Muravyov publishes for the first time Lunin’s article “A Look at Polish Affairs.”

1927 The investigative file of Lunin (1825-1826) was published in volume III of the documentary series “The Decembrist Revolt”.

1930 V. S. Manassein publishes an inventory of Lunin’s Siberian library and an article about the Decembrist’s book collection (in the journal “Library Science and Bibliography”, 1930, No. 1-2).

In 1934, a new edition of the works of the Decembrist was prepared, but, unfortunately, did not materialize (in the series “classics of revolutionary thought of the pre-Marx period”)35.

A major event in the development of Lunin’s heritage was the appearance in those years of the most interesting topic of Lunin and Pushkin - in connection with the deciphering of the hidden X chapter of “Eugene Onegin” and other materials 36.

The achievements of the 1920-1930s created opportunities and stimulated the need for a monographic study of Lunin’s life and work. The task was extremely difficult due to the specific features of the biography and the difficulties of multilateral coverage of Lunin’s legacy. S. Ya. Streich, S. Ya. Gessen, B. G. Kubalov and other Decembrist scholars, publishing the most important Lunin documents, accompanied them with essays on the personality of the Decembrist and his ideological life.

In the following decades, monographic studies were published (S. B. Okun, N. Ya. Eidelman), accumulated materials were summarized and a number of new ones were introduced, a number of works by the Decembrist were re-published based on texts printed by S. Ya. Streich in 1923-1926.37

Public interest in the Decembrist movement, especially increased in connection with the 150th anniversary of December 14, was accompanied by increased interest in Lunin’s personality and struggle: new studies are being published about him, novels, stories, plays, and poems are being written. At the same time, Lunin’s works were republished and studied in the West 38.

As often happens, a new stage in the development of the past, relying on what has already been done, at the same time reveals weaknesses and gaps in previous studies and urgently requires new publications and research. The shortcomings of what was previously published about Lunin are obvious: firstly, the scattering of articles and documents in various, mostly rare, hard-to-find books and magazines. Suffice it to say that to get acquainted with the 12 letters from Akatuy, you need, for example, to combine four publications from different periods.

The second gap is the lack of a properly approved text of Lunin’s works - first in the original language (most often French), // C 351 then - in translation. The multilingual culture of a remarkable writer, thinker, and revolutionary can be quite fully represented only by combining both Russian and foreign texts by Lunin in one edition.

On this occasion, the Decembrist himself subtly noted that “the help of translation is insufficient. He conveys only thought, never [conveying] feeling in all its freshness and completeness.”

Researchers of Lunin's work have more than once noted the unfortunate fact that, due to the limited volume of previous editions, his works were reproduced only in Russian. Authoritative experts also criticized the shortcomings of the existing translations. Thus, M.K. Azadovsky wrote on IX 30, 1931 to S. Ya. Gessen: “When you publish Lunin, take care of the translations. Insist before the publishing house that some major artist be invited to translate. I don’t even know who can truly convey the charm of Lunin’s style.” Regarding the existing translations, the author of the letter found that “they do not have the charm that always distinguishes Lunin’s writings.”

The third significant disadvantage of the former “Luniniana” is the absence or insufficiency of textual and real comments on the works of the Decembrist.

The publication undertaken in the series of “Literary Monuments” should, as far as possible, overcome the gaps of previous publications.

Lunin's texts are printed from autographs in the original language, with newly verified translations. Lunin's legacy is combined in one book for the first time. The scientific commentary to the publication is compiled taking into account what has been achieved over the past decades in the study of the biography and creativity of the Decembrist.

Of course, the compilers and commentators are aware of how many blank spots in the study of Lunin will remain even after this publication.

The fate of some of the Decembrist’s works is unknown; special searches related to his library are required; there are many mysteries in almost every period of his biography; The place of Lunin’s activities in the history of the Russian liberation movement is a complex problem, which, undoubtedly, can be clarified in the future.

With all this, the compilers and commentators of this publication hope that the modern reader will find in it rich materials about Russia in the 1830-1840s, unique reports about Siberia and Siberian exiles, a large layer of Decembrist journalism, history, memoirs, important problems of Russian historiography, the topic of Polish-Russian relations and connections.

Finally, the very image of Lunin is a majestic manifestation of the human spirit, a high flight of free, beautiful thought.

M.S. Lunin. Letters from Siberia. M., Science. 1988. This online publication uses an electronic version of the book from the website http://www.dekabristy.ru/

Read here:

Decembrist movement(Bibliography).

Rumyantsev V.B. And they went out to the square...(A view from the 21st century).

"Russian Truth" P.I. Pestel.

Belogolovy N.A. From the memories of a Siberian about the Decembrists.

Russian memoirs. Banned pages. 1826-1856 M., 1990.

, Lieutenant Colonel of the Life Guards (1822), Catholic.

Biography

M. S. Lunin was born into the family of an actual state councilor and a wealthy Tambov-Saratov landowner who had 1,200 serf souls - Sergei Mikhailovich Lunin (1760-1817) and Fedosya Nikitichna Muravyova (1760-1792), sister of the writer M. Muravyov. Received home education. In addition to French, he also knew English, Polish, and Latin well. He was raised, in his own words, in Catholicism by one of his teachers, the Abbot of Vauvilliers. In his early years, Lunin spent most of his free time in the house of his uncle, Mikhail Muravyov, one of the most educated men of his time.

In 1815, M. S. Lunin retired from military service. Discharged from the Cavalry Regiment on September 14, 1815. The formal reason was a duel with “some Pole.” S. B. Okun noted: “Alexander, who by this time had formed a very definite impression of Lunin, ... simply decided to get rid of a man whose entire behavior indicated an unwillingness to put up with the existing order and all of whose actions were in the nature of open protest.”

They are famous for their sharp orbit,
Members of this family gathered
From restless Nikita,
At the careful Ilya.
Friend of Mars, Bacchus and Venus,
Lunin sharply suggested to them
Its decisive measures
And he muttered with inspiration.
In 1816 in St. Petersburg, he joined the “Union of Salvation”, and subsequently was one of the founders of the “Union of Prosperity”, after the cessation of which Lunin became a member of the “Northern Secret Society”.
Pushkin read his noels,
It seemed to silently expose
Melancholic Yakushkin,

Regicidal dagger.

At a meeting of union members in 1816, Lunin said that it would not be difficult to plot and kill Alexander I on the Tsarskoye Selo road, which he usually travels on without much security. To do this, it is enough to gather a group of determined people and dress them in masks (so that the king’s companions do not recognize the murderers).

After 1822, Lunin moved away from the ideas of the founders of the movement, remaining committed to the need for political changes in Russia, and above all, the liberation of the peasants. He basically rejected the methods proposed by members of secret societies, which seemed unacceptable to Lunin.

Lunin told the Investigative Committee: “I have made it an invariable rule not to name anyone by name.” He did not deny the fact of his participation in a secret society.

In 1826, M. S. Lunin was convicted mainly for the 1816 regicide plan. Sentenced to life hard labor. On July 10, 1826, the term of hard labor was reduced to 20 years, according to the manifesto of August 22, 1826 - to 15 years, followed by permanent settlement in Siberia. In 1832, the term of hard labor was reduced to 10 years.

Lunin's letters from Siberia

In 1837, Lunin created a series of political letters addressed to his sister: he set out to write the history of the Decembrist movement, it was assumed that the letters would become known to a wide circle of readers. At the beginning of 1838, he wrote “Historical Search” (a brief overview of the past of the Russian state), in September 1838, “A Look at the Russian Secret Society from 1816 to 1826” (an essay on the history of secret societies), in November 1839, “Analysis of the Report, presented to the Emperor by the Secret Commission of 1826." (contains a critical study of the “Report” and the author’s view of the Decembrist movement, indicating its true goals). Lunin planned to write “Analysis of the activities of the Supreme Criminal Court” for which he asked his sister to send documents and materials related to the December 14 Uprising: newspaper publications, eyewitness accounts. The plan was not implemented, since Lunin did not receive the required materials.

Arrest and imprisonment in Akatui

In Irkutsk, a circle of distributors of Lunin’s works formed: teachers of local schools Zhuravlev and Kryukov, Cossack officer Cherepanov, Decembrist P.F. Gromnitsky. An official of special assignments under the Irkutsk governor, Rupert Uspensky, saw a list of one of Lunin’s works from Zhuravlev, took it supposedly to read, made a copy and sent it with a report to A. Kh. Benkendorf. On the night of March 26-27, 1841, Lunin was arrested and his papers were confiscated. Lunin himself was exiled to the Akatui prison.

Lunin was not at all surprised by his new arrest; he always expected that he would be sent to prison again, and always said that he should end his life in prison, although, however, he loved to roam freely with a gun and spent most of his life hunting. Once I was at his Christmas party, and he asked me what, in my opinion, would follow him for his letters to his sister? I replied that four months had already passed since he resumed correspondence, and if there had been no consequences so far, then probably there would be none in the future. This made him angry; he began to prove that this could not be and that he would certainly be locked up in prison, that he must end his life in prison.

According to Lvov’s recollections, he managed to negotiate with the officer who accompanied Lunin to stop the horses for some time in the forest near Irkutsk so that his friends could meet him. 30 miles away, next to the postal road, Maria and Sergei Volkonsky, Artamon Muravyov, Yakubovich and Panov were waiting for the arrested man. Judging by Lvov’s story, there Mikhail Sergeevich was given 1000 rubles in banknotes, which Volkonskaya sewed into a fur coat intended for him. The fact of the meeting is confirmed by Lunin’s letter to Volkonsky dated January 30, 1842. The fact of the transfer of money is the result of a search of Lunin in Urik (then only 20 rubles in banknotes were found on him) and in Akatui (1000 rubles in banknotes, according to him, received “from relatives at different times.”

On December 3, 1845, Lunin died in prison. According to the official version, the cause of death was apoplexy. Contemporaries, and later S. B. Okun and N. Ya. Eidelman, believed that Lunin was killed.

Addresses in St. Petersburg

• 1814-1815, 1817-1822 - Rizhsky Avenue, 76 (Stepan Razin St., 6). Historical monument of Federal significance;
• 1815-1816 - Dubetskaya's house - Torgovaya Street, 14.

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Notes

1. , With. 10.
2. Lunin M. S. Letters from Siberia. - M., 1988. - P. 240. Lunin’s teacher was Malherbe, at that time a famous teacher in Moscow. He was the teacher of Lunin's friend Chicherin. According to the assumption of N. Ya. Eidelman, Lunin and his brother Nikita were converted to Catholicism in childhood by a French teacher, Abbot of Vauvilliers.
3. , With. 8, 10.
4. For example, during the Battle of Austerlitz in the famous attack of the cavalry guards, described by Leo Tolstoy in the novel “War and Peace”.
5. V.V. Veresaev “Pushkin’s Companions”, Moscow, 1993, p. 194: “He wrote a letter to Commander-in-Chief Barclay de Tolly and proposed sending him as a parliamentarian to Napoleon; he undertook, while handing papers to the Emperor of the French, to thrust a dagger into his side.”
6. , With. eleven.
7. , With. 22.
8. As N. Ya. Eidelman writes, “Pestel, apparently, intended for Lunin a place at the head of the “doomed cohort,” that is, those who were supposed to kill the king and heir, Grand Duke Constantine, and then take the blame upon themselves. However, perhaps Lunin did not even know about Pestel’s plans for himself. And later Lunin moved away from the point of view of the need for regicide.
9. , With. 262.
10. , With. 266-261.
11. , With. 243.
12. , With. 243-244.

Literature

• Gusev V. The Legend of the Blue Hussar: The Tale of Mikhail Lunin. - M.: Politizdat, 1976. - (Fiery revolutionaries) - 389 p., ill. The same - M.: Politizdat, 1980. - 389 p.: ill.
• Lunin M. S. Letters from Siberia / Ed. prepared I. A. Zhelvakova, N. Ya. Eidelman. - M.: Nauka, 1987. - 496 p.
• Decembrist M. S. Lunin. - L.: Leningrad State University, 1985. - 280 p.
• Gamzakova T. Decembrist Mikhail Lunin // “Truth and Life”. - 1992. - No. 7-8.
• N. Ya. Eidelman. M. S. Lunin and his Siberian works. // In the book: Letters from Siberia. - M.: Nauka, 1987. - P. 301-352.
• E. S. Uvarova. A letter of remembrance about M. S. Lunin. // In the book: Letters from Siberia. - M.: Nauka, 1987. - P. 286-289.
• Memoirs of the Decembrists. Northern Society / Compiled, general ed., intro. article and comment. prof. V. A. Fedorova. - M.: MSU, 1981.
• Tsimbaeva E. N. Russian Catholicism. The idea of ​​pan-European unity in Russia in the 19th century; 2nd ed., revised, additional. - M., LKI, 2008. - 208 p.

Links

• N. Eidelman.
• Edward Radzinsky.
• Zavalishin D. I.

An excerpt characterizing Lunin, Mikhail Sergeevich

Between the guns, at a height, the chief of the rearguard, a general, and a retinue officer stood in front, examining the terrain through a telescope. Somewhat behind, Nesvitsky, sent from the commander-in-chief to the rearguard, sat on the trunk of a gun.
The Cossack accompanying Nesvitsky handed over a handbag and a flask, and Nesvitsky treated the officers to pies and real doppelkümel. The officers joyfully surrounded him, some on their knees, some sitting cross-legged on the wet grass.
- Yes, this Austrian prince was not a fool to build a castle here. Nice place. Why don't you eat, gentlemen? - Nesvitsky said.
“I humbly thank you, prince,” answered one of the officers, enjoying talking with such an important staff official. - Beautiful place. We walked past the park itself, saw two deer, and what a wonderful house!
“Look, prince,” said the other, who really wanted to take another pie, but was ashamed, and who therefore pretended that he was looking around the area, “look, our infantry have already climbed there.” Over there, in the meadow outside the village, three people are dragging something. “They will break through this palace,” he said with visible approval.
“Both,” said Nesvitsky. “No, but what I would like,” he added, chewing the pie in his beautiful, moist mouth, “is to climb up there.”
He pointed to a monastery with towers visible on the mountain. He smiled, his eyes narrowed and lit up.
- But that would be good, gentlemen!
The officers laughed.
- At least scare these nuns. Italians, they say, are young. Really, I would give five years of my life!
“They’re bored,” said the bolder officer, laughing.
Meanwhile, the retinue officer standing in front was pointing something out to the general; the general looked through the telescope.
“Well, so it is, so it is,” the general said angrily, lowering the receiver from his eyes and shrugging his shoulders, “and so it is, they will hit the crossing.” And why are they hanging around there?
On the other side, the enemy and his battery were visible to the naked eye, from which milky white smoke appeared. Following the smoke, a distant shot was heard, and it was clear how our troops hurried to the crossing.
Nesvitsky, puffing, stood up and, smiling, approached the general.
- Would your Excellency like to have a snack? - he said.
“It’s not good,” said the general, without answering him, “our people hesitated.”
– Shouldn’t we go, Your Excellency? – said Nesvitsky.
“Yes, please go,” said the general, repeating what had already been ordered in detail, “and tell the hussars to be the last to cross and light the bridge, as I ordered, and to inspect the flammable materials on the bridge.”
“Very good,” answered Nesvitsky.
He called to the Cossack with the horse, ordered him to remove his purse and flask, and easily threw his heavy body onto the saddle.
“Really, I’ll go see the nuns,” he said to the officers, who looked at him with a smile, and drove along the winding path down the mountain.
- Come on, where will it go, captain, stop it! - said the general, turning to the artilleryman. - Have fun with boredom.
- Servant to the guns! - the officer commanded.
And a minute later the artillerymen ran out cheerfully from the fires and loaded.
- First! - a command was heard.
Number 1 bounced smartly. The gun rang metallic, deafening, and a grenade flew whistling over the heads of all our people under the mountain and, not reaching the enemy, showed with smoke the place of its fall and burst.
The faces of the soldiers and officers brightened at this sound; everyone got up and began observing the clearly visible movements of our troops below and in front of the movements of the approaching enemy. At that very moment the sun completely came out from behind the clouds, and this beautiful sound of a single shot and the shine of the bright sun merged into one cheerful and cheerful impression.

Two enemy cannonballs had already flown over the bridge, and there was a crush on the bridge. In the middle of the bridge, having dismounted from his horse, pressed with his thick body against the railing, stood Prince Nesvitsky.
He, laughing, looked back at his Cossack, who, with two horses in the lead, stood a few steps behind him.
As soon as Prince Nesvitsky wanted to move forward, the soldiers and carts again pressed on him and again pressed him against the railing, and he had no choice but to smile.
- What are you, my brother! - the Cossack said to the Furshtat soldier with the cart, who was pressing on the infantry crowded with the very wheels and horses, - what are you! No, to wait: you see, the general has to pass.
But Furshtat, not paying attention to the name of the general, shouted at the soldiers blocking his way: “Hey!” fellow countrymen! keep left, wait! “But the fellow countrymen, crowding shoulder to shoulder, clinging with bayonets and without interruption, moved along the bridge in one continuous mass. Looking down over the railing, Prince Nesvitsky saw the fast, noisy, low waves of Ens, which, merging, rippling and bending around the bridge piles, overtook one another. Looking at the bridge, he saw equally monotonous living waves of soldiers, coats, shakos with covers, backpacks, bayonets, long guns and, from under the shakos, faces with wide cheekbones, sunken cheeks and carefree tired expressions, and moving legs along the sticky mud dragged onto the boards of the bridge . Sometimes, between the monotonous waves of soldiers, like a splash of white foam in the waves of Ens, an officer in a raincoat, with his own physiognomy different from the soldiers, squeezed between the soldiers; sometimes, like a piece of wood winding along the river, a foot hussar, an orderly or a resident was carried across the bridge by waves of infantry; sometimes, like a log floating along the river, surrounded on all sides, a company or officer's cart, piled to the top and covered with leather, floated across the bridge.
“Look, they’ve burst like a dam,” the Cossack said, stopping hopelessly. -Are there many of you still there?
– Melion without one! - a cheerful soldier walking nearby in a torn overcoat said winking and disappeared; another, old soldier walked behind him.
“When he (he is the enemy) begins to fry the taperich on the bridge,” the old soldier said gloomily, turning to his comrade, “you will forget to itch.”
And the soldier passed by. Behind him another soldier rode on a cart.
“Where the hell did you stuff the tucks?” - said the orderly, running after the cart and rummaging in the back.
And this one came with a cart. This was followed by cheerful and apparently drunk soldiers.
“How can he, dear man, blaze with the butt right in the teeth…” one soldier in an overcoat tucked high said joyfully, waving his hand widely.
- This is it, sweet ham is that. - answered the other with laughter.
And they passed, so Nesvitsky did not know who was hit in the teeth and what the ham belonged to.
“They’re in a hurry, he let the cold one in, so you think they’ll kill everyone.” - the non-commissioned officer said angrily and reproachfully.
“As soon as it flies past me, uncle, that cannonball,” said the young soldier, barely restraining laughter, with a huge mouth, “I froze.” Really, by God, I was so scared, it’s a disaster! - said this soldier, as if boasting that he was scared. And this one passed. Following him was a carriage, unlike any that had passed so far. It was a German steam-powered forshpan, loaded, it seemed, with a whole house; tied behind the forshpan that the German was carrying was a beautiful, motley cow with a huge udder. On the feather beds sat a woman with a baby, an old woman and a young, purple-red, healthy German girl. Apparently, these evicted residents were allowed through with special permission. The eyes of all the soldiers turned to the women, and while the cart passed, moving step by step, all the soldiers' comments related only to two women. Almost the same smile of lewd thoughts about this woman was on all their faces.
- Look, the sausage is also removed!
“Sell mother,” another soldier said, stressing the last syllable, turning to the German, who, with his eyes downcast, walked angrily and fearfully with wide steps.
- How did you clean up! Damn it!
“If only you could stand with them, Fedotov.”
- You saw it, brother!
- Where are you going? - asked the infantry officer who was eating an apple, also half-smiling and looking at the beautiful girl.
The German, closing his eyes, showed that he did not understand.
“If you want, take it for yourself,” the officer said, handing the girl an apple. The girl smiled and took it. Nesvitsky, like everyone else on the bridge, did not take his eyes off the women until they passed. When they passed, the same soldiers walked again, with the same conversations, and finally everyone stopped. As often happens, at the exit of the bridge the horses in the company cart hesitated, and the whole crowd had to wait.
- And what do they become? There is no order! - said the soldiers. -Where are you going? Damn! There's no need to wait. Even worse, he will set the bridge on fire. “Look, the officer was locked in too,” the stopped crowds said from different sides, looking at each other, and still huddled forward towards the exit.
Looking under the bridge at the waters of Ens, Nesvitsky suddenly heard a sound that was still new to him, quickly approaching... something big and something plopping into the water.
- Look where it's going! – the soldier standing close said sternly, looking back at the sound.
“He’s encouraging them to pass quickly,” said another restlessly.
The crowd moved again. Nesvitsky realized that it was the core.
- Hey, Cossack, give me the horse! - he said. - Well you! stay away! step aside! way!
With great effort he reached the horse. Still screaming, he moved forward. The soldiers squeezed to give him way, but again they pressed on him again so that they crushed his leg, and those closest were not to blame, because they were pressed even harder.
- Nesvitsky! Nesvitsky! You, madam!” a hoarse voice was heard from behind.
Nesvitsky looked around and saw, fifteen paces away, separated from him by a living mass of moving infantry, red, black, shaggy, with a cap on the back of his head and a brave mantle draped over his shoulder, Vaska Denisov.
“Tell them what to give to the devils,” he shouted. Denisov, apparently in a fit of ardor, shining and moving his coal-black eyes with inflamed whites and waving his unsheathed saber, which he held with a bare little hand as red as his face.
- Eh! Vasya! – Nesvitsky answered joyfully. -What are you talking about?
“Eskadg “onu pg” you can’t go,” shouted Vaska Denisov, angrily opening his white teeth, spurring his beautiful black, bloody Bedouin, who, blinking his ears from the bayonets he bumped into, snorting, spraying foam from the mouthpiece around him, ringing, he beat his hooves on the planks of the bridge and seemed ready to jump over the railings of the bridge if the rider would allow him. - What is this? like bugs! exactly like bugs! Pg "och... give dog" ogu!... Stay there! you're a wagon, chog"t! I'll kill you with a saber! - he shouted, actually taking out his saber and starting to wave it.
The soldiers with frightened faces pressed against each other, and Denisov joined Nesvitsky.
- Why aren’t you drunk today? – Nesvitsky said to Denisov when he drove up to him.
“And they won’t let you get drunk!” answered Vaska Denisov. “They’ve been dragging the regiment here and there all day long. It’s like that, it’s like that. Otherwise, who knows what it is!”
- What a dandy you are today! – Nesvitsky said, looking at his new mantle and saddle pad.
Denisov smiled, took out a handkerchief from his bag, which smelled of perfume, and stuck it in Nesvitsky’s nose.
- I can’t, I’m going to work! I got out, brushed my teeth and put on perfume.
The dignified figure of Nesvitsky, accompanied by a Cossack, and the determination of Denisov, waving his saber and shouting desperately, had such an effect that they squeezed onto the other side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Nesvitsky found a colonel at the exit, to whom he needed to convey the order, and, having fulfilled his instructions, went back.
Having cleared the road, Denisov stopped at the entrance to the bridge. Casually holding back the stallion rushing towards his own and kicking, he looked at the squadron moving towards him.
Transparent sounds of hooves were heard along the boards of the bridge, as if several horses were galloping, and the squadron, with officers in front, four in a row, stretched out along the bridge and began to emerge on the other side.
The stopped infantry soldiers, crowding in the trampled mud near the bridge, looked at the clean, dapper hussars marching harmoniously past them with that special unfriendly feeling of alienation and ridicule with which various branches of the army are usually encountered.
- Smart guys! If only it were on Podnovinskoe!
- What good are they? They only drive for show! - said another.
- Infantry, don't dust! - the hussar joked, under which the horse, playing, splashed mud at the infantryman.
“If I had driven you through two marches with your backpack, the laces would have been worn out,” the infantryman said, wiping the dirt from his face with his sleeve; - otherwise it’s not a person, but a bird sitting!

. Nobleman. Got a pre-machine ob-ra-zo-va-nie. In childhood, I was under the influence of the vo-pi-ta-te-la ab-ba-ta Vau-vi-lie. He served in the Life Guards Jaeger Battalion (1803-1805), the Life Guards Ka-va-ler Guard Regiment (1805-1815; in 1808-1812 he was part of half a circle, churning from critical thoughts). Participant in the Russian-Austro-French war of 1805 and the Russian-Prussian-French war of 1806-1807 (from the Aus-ter-litz battle of 1805 year, the Helsberg and Friedland battles of 1807), the Patriotic War of 1812 (behind the Bo-ro-din battle -in-the-civilian gold sword with the over-pi-sue “For bravery”), foreign marches of the Russian army 1813-1814. In 1816-1817 he lived in Pa-ri-zhe, in-te-re-so-val-sya activity of car-bo-na-ri-ev, utopian social-liz- mom (pos-on-co-mil-xia with K. A. de Rouv-roy Saint-Si-mon), communicated with J. M. de Maest-rom. Again in military service: in the Life Guards Ulan Regiment (1822-1824), Life Guards Grodno Hussar Regiment (1824-1826; was ad-yu -tan-tom of the Grand Duke Kon-stan-ti-na Pav-lo-vi-cha, favored him with blood).

Member of the secret de-ka-brist-societies - Union for Spa-se-nia (1816-1818), Union for Blessed-den-st-via (1818-1821; member of the Ko-ren -no-go so-ve-ta Soyuz), Northern Society (1821-1822). You stood for constitutional rule with limited executive power “under the monarch or pre-zi-den” . Side-name from me of the post-right (un-follow-to-vav in 1817 after the death of his father, a significant state, Lunin improved the conditions of his own courtyards, as well as the serf-tenant peasants, and planned to give them a personal freedom, but without land). The author of the project of the assassination of Emperor Alexander I “par-ti-ey” in masks (“about-re-chen-in-a-row”) (into the distance -this is the main point in Lunin’s discussion and consideration). In Var-sha-ve, I became close to members of the Pa-trio-ti-ches-society.

April 9 (21), 1826, arrested on de-ka-bri-stov, sent to St. Petersburg and imprisoned in Petro-pav- fishing fortress. Next, from the hall, you will be given participation in secret societies. The Supreme Criminal Court at-the-go-ren to the eternal ka-tor-ge (re-placed by Emperor Ni-ko-la-I for 20 years -new, soon for a 15-year term, and in 1832 - for a 10-year term). Co-kept imprisoned in the Svea-borg and Vy-borg fortresses (1826-1828), served in captivity in the CBC - in the Chitinsky village (now not the city of Chi-ta; 1828-1830), the village of Petrovsky Zavod, Verkh-ne-Udinsky district of Ir. -Kut province (now not the city of Pet-rovsk-Za-bai-kal; 1830-1836), then - in the village of Urik, Ir-kut district Ir-kut province (now not Ir-kut district of Ir-kut region). In 1841, for the essay “A Look at the Russian Secret Society from 1816 to 1826” (1838), he was again arrested and placed in the Aka-Tui Ka- trade prison. He died under unclear circumstances, which gave rise to rumors about his violent death.

During the years of exile, Lunin was actively involved in publishing activities. Kri-ti-che-ski assessed the internal position of Emperor Nicholas I, pro-ti-in-put it as a reformer -tel-no-sti of Emperor Alexander I (“Social movement in Russia in the present-day kingdom”, 1840). He considered the Polish uprising of 1830-1831 unnecessary, since there was a representative government in the Kingdom of Poland , from Lunin’s point of view, from the opening of the la-kam to the par-la-ment-spo-bu of re-solving with the Russian government -vi-tel-st-vom of controversial issues (“A look at Polish affairs”, 1840). Is-po-ve-do-val ka-li-cism. He considered him the embodiment of religious and civil freedom, the beginning of the unity and equality of people, one to the under-going and “you-so-kim” and “zau-ryad-ny” minds, while pro-te-stan-ism is “re-li-gi- “she has a lot of minds,” and the right-to-glory is “we use the power.” In Lunin’s opinion, any political change should not be preceded by a “spiritual revolution”, perhaps Naya only in the lo-no-ka-li-tsiz-ma, I am-in-the-political sense “from-exactly no-one’s con- sti-tu-tsi-on-nyh prin-tsi-pov.” Translation of Av-gu-sti-na's co-chi-ne-niya into Russian. The author of a number of essays on the history of the movement of de-kab-rists: “Analysis of the secret trail of the de-kab-ristov -missions...” (1838-1839; together with N.M. Mu-ra-vyo-vym), etc. In Siberia, Lunin’s co-chi-ne-niya dis-pro-country appeared in the lists, first published by A. I. Herzen in the almanac “Polar Star” (1859, 1861), in Russia these - in 1905.

In exile to his sister, Lunin collected a unique library, which contained about 400 books, in particular, “Acta Sanctorum” - corpus of the lives of saints, from the bol-lan-di-sta-mi (1643-1793), 2nd edition “ Church history" by ab-ba-ta Fleury in 84 volumes (1768-1798), "About the is-ti-non-Christian re-li-gia" Gro-tion (1726), co-chi-ne-niya of Greek and Roman is-to-ri-kov and we-sli-te-ley (Ge-ro-do-ta, Ta-tsi-ta, Pli-nia Elder, etc.), Code of Laws of the Russian Empire, etc. (nowadays, some of the books are stored in the rare books department of the scientific library of Ir. Kut State University).

A street named after Lunin in Vybor-ga (since 1988).

Sources:

The case of M. S. Lu-ni-na // Resurrection of the Decem- rists. Ma-te-ria-ly. M., 1927. T. 3. P. 111-130.

Essays:

Letters from CBC. M., 1987;

So-chi-ne-niya, letters, do-ku-men-you. Ir-kutsk, 1988.

Born on December 29, 1787 in St. Petersburg into a noble family. Received home education. In 1803 he entered military service in the Life Guards Jaeger Regiment, and in 1805 he transferred to the cavalry guards. He took part in the Battle of Austerlitz (1805), the Prussian Campaign (1807), the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Foreign Campaigns of the Russian Army (1813-1814).

For the Battle of Borodino he was awarded a gold sword with the inscription: “For bravery.” In 1815 he retired with the rank of captain. The following year, the Salvation Union joined the first secret political organization. In 1816-1817 lived in Paris, where he met A. Saint-Simon and converted to Catholicism. After the death of his father (1817) he returned to Russia. In 1818, he became a founding member of the secret organization Union of Welfare, became part of its Root Council and, as a supporter of the republic, was the first to come up with a project for regicide. After the liquidation of the Welfare Union (1821)

Lunin is one of the founders and leaders of the Northern Society. At the beginning of 1822 he returned to military service, in 1824-1825. served in Warsaw as a squadron commander of the Grodno Hussar Regiment and at the same time was an aide-de-camp to the governor of Poland, Grand Duke Konstantin Pavlovich. After the uprising on Senate Square on December 14, 1825, Lunin was under surveillance in Warsaw.

Despite the intercession of the Grand Duke, on April 9, 1826, he was arrested, brought to St. Petersburg and convicted by the Supreme Criminal Court of the 2nd category (political death and eternal hard labor, later reduced to a 10-year sentence).

He served his sentence in the Sveaborg Fortress (now the city of Swanmenlinna in Sweden; 1826-1827) and Vyborg Castle (1827-1828); was at hard labor in Chita (1828-1830) and Petrovsky Factory (now the city of Petrovsk-Zabaikalsky; 1830-1836).

In June 1836 he went to settle in the village of Urik near Irkutsk. For harsh letters about Russian orders, as well as for the essay “A Look at the Secret Society in Russia (1816-1826)” discovered during a search, he was arrested (March 27, 1841) and imprisoned in Akatuy prison.