Nikolai Bestuzhev - who was he? This is an outstanding figure in the liberation movement, a Decembrist (“the smartest person among the conspirators,” according to Nicholas I), an artist, ethnographer, traveler, inventor, economist, historiographer of the fleet, critic. Such a vast field of activity draws attention to this outstanding personality. A brief biography of Nikolai Alexandrovich Bestuzhev is presented below.
Noble family of the Bestuzhevs
The Bestuzhevs are a numerous noble family (the coat of arms is below), whose representatives for some time even belonged to the circle of the highest aristocracy, having the title of a count. The last count in the family (Andrey Alekseevich Bestuzhev-Ryumin) died in 1766, that is, a quarter of a century before the birth of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bestuzhev (1791-1855).
Alexei Petrovich - the father of the last Count Bestuzhev - who is he? Under Catherine the Great, he was a cardinal, but the statesman and diplomat failed to become the favorite of the autocrat. Although it is known that the Empress treated him quite favorably.
Family of Nikolai Bestuzhev
Nikolai's father, Alexander Fedoseevich, received a prestigious military education, was the conference secretary of the Academy of Arts and the ruler of the office of the Stroganov Marble Expedition, state councilor, chief manager of the Yekaterinburg Lapidary Factory, participated in the creation of bronze casting workshops and a bladed weapons factory.
Alexander Fedoseevich was seriously wounded during the Russian-Swedish war. His petty-bourgeois girlfriend Praskovya, whom he later married, and the serf servant Fyodor came out (the reproductions of the paintings below show the parents of Nikolai Bestuzhev).
Five Decembrists were born in this marriage: Nikolai (born in 1791), Alexander (1797), Mikhail (1800), Peter (1804) and Pavel (1808). In addition, three daughters were brought up in the family: Elena (1792), Maria and Olga (born approximately 1794).
The Bestuzhev House was one of the few cultural centers of St. Petersburg at that time, where meetings of artists, writers and composers were held. A. I. Korsakov (senator, outstanding statesman, connoisseur of art, collector), V. L. Borovikovsky (Russian portrait painter), N. Ya. Ozeretskovsky (encyclopedic scientist, member of the Academy of Sciences), M. I. Kozlovsky (famous sculptor) and others.
When raising children, he applied the system of humane pedagogy developed by him. Alexander Fedoseevich defended the idea of state education and was an opponent of religious education. He outlined his views on issues of pedagogy in the treatise "On Education". Nikolai Alexandrovich Bestuzhev, thanks to his father, early joined the art: he knew music and painting well, loved literature.
Military career
Boys from noble families received, as a rule, a military education. At the age of eleven, Nikolai Bestuzhev became a pupil of the Naval Cadet Corps in St. Petersburg. His younger brothers Mikhail and Peter studied at the same educational institution. Five years later, Nikolai received the rank of midshipman, and two years later he became a midshipman.
In 1810, the young man was enrolled in the Naval Corps with the rank of second lieutenant. Three years later he was transferred to the Navy, and a year later he was promoted to lieutenant. During the Patriotic War of 1812, Nikolai, along with the corps, was evacuated to Sveaborg.
There, a 21-year-old youth began an affair with the wife of the director of the navigation school, L. Stepova. One of Bestuzhev's contemporaries claimed that this woman had a significant influence on the life of Nikolai until his civil death, that is, exile.
In May 1815, Bestuzhev participated in a campaign in Holland, in Rotterdam. The young officer saw with his own eyes the establishment of the republic, which gave him an idea of civil rights. Two years later, another voyage followed. This time the ship was heading to Calais in France.
Acquaintance with the state structure and culture of Western countries during their visits more and more confirmed the thoughts of young officers that the monarchy hinders the development of Russia. These thoughts soon led Nikolai Bestuzhev to the Masonic lodge of the Chosen Michael.
In 1820, Bestuzhev was appointed assistant lighthouse keeper in Kronstadt. In 1824, Nikolai Alexandrovich, as a historiographer, sailed to France and Gibraltar on the frigate Agile. In the same year he was promoted to lieutenant commander.
At the age of 33, the officer becomes the head of the Maritime Museum, begins to study the history of the Russian fleet. Interestingly, then he received the nickname "Mummy". At this time, Nikolai Bestuzhev was already an authoritative figure among the naval officers and even managed to gain some fame in the literary and scientific community. Bestuzhev joined a secret society whose representatives would later be called Decembrists.
Bestuzhev as a writer
Both before and after being exiled for revolutionary activities, Nikolai Alexandrovich Bestuzhev was engaged in translations of the prose of Byron, Walter Scott, Thomas Moore into Russian, wrote articles that were devoted mainly to maritime history, essays on European peoples (based on impressions from foreign voyages in his youth) , Siberian foreigners (in exile).
Nikolai Alexandrovich failed to become an outstanding writer, but his writings are of interest and are easy to read. His best stories and essays after the death of the Decembrist were published in one book under the title "Stories and Tales of an Old Sailor". The collection includes "Notes on Holland", "Goose Lake" (about the life of the Buryats), "Russians in Paris in 1814" and others.
By the way, Nikolai's brother Alexander is better known for his literary activity. The Byronist writer published under the pseudonym "Marlinsky". Each of his stories was eagerly awaited, passed from hand to hand, read, and the books became public property and sold like hot cakes. Below is a portrait of Alexander Bestuzhev-Marlinsky.
Technical ability
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bestuzhev was a versatile person. He also had outstanding technical abilities. Nikolai very quickly mastered all types of handicraft, constantly generating creative ideas. While serving in the corps, he came up with a lifeboat - "Bestuzhevka", and in exile in Siberia he built an economical "Bestuzhev stove".
In prison, the Decembrist Nikolai Alexandrovich Bestuzhev, without tools, made a watch that did not stop and was distinguished by the correct course. In Siberia, he repaired mills, sewed boots and caps, invented jewelry, meteorological instruments, set up greenhouses and vegetable gardens, and tanneries.
northern secret society
In 1824, the biography of N. A. Bestuzhev changed once and for all. He accepted the offer of Kondraty Ryleev and joined the Northern Secret Society. Members of the society were concerned about the fate of the Russian state, prepared projects for the transformation of the state in the manner of the Western republics.
Decembrist plans and preparation
The program document was Muravyov's "Constitution". According to the "Constitution", the introduction of a constitutional monarchy, the formation of a federation, the division into fifteen "powers" based on the economic characteristics of the regions, and the division of power into three branches were supposed. It also provided for the abolition of serfdom, the granting of equal rights to all citizens, freedom of speech, press and religion.
Bestuzhev (who ruled under him is known - this is Alexander I Pavlovich, who died a few days before the uprising, and Nicholas I) and his brothers became Ryleev's main assistants on the eve of the uprising. On December 14, 1825, it was Nikolai Alexandrovich who brought the guards to the Palace Square, although he had practically nothing to do with the naval service.
"Manifesto to the Russian people"
Decembrist Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bestuzhev worked on the "Manifesto to the Russian people", which was to be presented to the government by a delegation of revolutionaries. It was planned to publish the "Manifesto" after the uprising on behalf of the Senate. The theses of the document in fact proclaimed a republican system.
Investigation into the case of the Decembrists
During the investigation of the case, Nikolai Bestuzhev showed steadfastness and courage. He admitted only what was known, answered all questions with restraint, kept silent about the affairs of the Northern Secret Society and did not name names. During interrogations, he spoke succinctly about the plight of Russia and pointed out that the hearts of the "northerners" "shook in awe" the decline of trade, the lawlessness of the courts, the insignificance of methods in agriculture and the breakdown of finances.
After the first interrogation, Emperor Nicholas I Pavlovich said that Bestuzhev was "the smartest person among the conspirators." But subsequently the Decembrist will be condemned extremely severely. This fact, of course, was influenced by the behavior of Nikolai Alexandrovich during interrogations. In the materials of the investigation, all the conspirators were divided into 11 categories and one group. Bestuzhev was relegated to the second category, although largely unfounded. The Supreme Court sentenced him to "political (civil) death".
Nicholas I mitigated the punishment for some "criminals", replacing the eternal penal servitude with twenty years of deprivation of rank and exile in the settlements. On the occasion of the ascension to the throne of Nicholas I Pavlovich, the term of hard labor for convicts of the second category was reduced to fifteen years, and in 1829 it was reduced again - now to ten years. But then these changes did not affect Nikolai and Mikhail Bestuzhev.
Bestuzhev in hard labor
The biography of Nikolai Alexandrovich Bestuzhev continued with hard labor. On August 7, 1826, he (together with Mikhail, his younger brother) was taken to Shlisselburg, and then sent to Siberia. On September 13, 1827, the Decembrist arrived in the Chita prison, and three years later he was transported to where the convicted Decembrists traveled on foot.
Twice a day the Decembrists were taken to work. They dug ditches for the outflow of water, cultivated a garden, repaired roads, built workshops, and ground flour on hand millstones. The convicts were not allowed to work at the plant, fearing their influence on the workers. Only once Nikolay Bestuzhev and K. P. Thorson were allowed into the workshop to repair one of the machines.
Everyone in hard labor was engaged in a craft according to his inclinations and skills. Petrovsky prisoners founded a school for teaching factory children to read and write, and the wives of the Decembrists taught local residents needlework and music.
Portrait Gallery of the Decembrists
Only in 1832 was the term of hard labor reduced (at first to fifteen, and in 1835 to thirteen years). In the casemates, Bestuzhev began to actively engage in literature. He worked in watercolor and later used oils. Nikolai Alexandrovich painted about 150 portraits of the Decembrists (including his own self-portrait), their children and wives, urban residents, as well as views of the Petrovsky Plant and Chita - this is a unique phenomenon in Russian painting. N. Bestuzhev's self-portrait can be seen in the main photo.
Life in exile
In 1839, the brothers Nikolai and Mikhail Bestuzhev were transferred to a settlement in Selenginsk, this city is located in the Irkutsk province. Prior to this, the mother of Nikolai Alexandrovich applied for permission to move to Selenginsk with her daughters. After her death, the Bestuzhev sisters settled in Siberia. They were subject to all the restrictions prescribed for the wives of state criminals.
In hard labor and in the settlement, Nikolai Alexandrovich Bestuzhev was engaged in turning, jewelry and watchmaking. There he developed an innovative chronometer design, worked on a rifle lock, conducted meteorological, astronomical and seismic studies, grew watermelons and tobacco, and described the local coal deposit. In addition, the Decembrist collected Buryat fairy tales and songs.
Personal life
It is known that Nikolai Alexandrovich Bestuzhev lived in exile in a civil marriage with a local resident Dulma Sabilaeva. He had two children: Ekaterina, who died approximately in 1929 or 1930, and Alexei Startsev (1838-1900). Marriages between nobles and commoners were not welcome at that time, so Bestuzhev's children lived in the family of a local merchant D. D. Startsev and bore his last name. Nikolai Alexandrovich gave his consent to this, so as not to spoil the life of his descendants.
Death of the righteous
N. Bestuzhev died on May 15, 1866. B. Struve wrote in “Memoirs of Siberia” that the Decembrist, returning from Irkutsk to Selenginsk, caught up with two old wanderers, put them in his wagon, and he continued to cross on goats (and this was with a growing snowstorm). At the same time, he caught a cold. Arriving in Selenginsk, he fell ill, and a few days later "died like a righteous man." Buried on the banks of the Selenga.
The memory of Nikolai Bestuzhev
In memory of N. Bestuzhev, a museum was opened in the duma of the merchant Dmitry Startsev, who raised the children of the Decembrist. In addition, the film by B. Khalzanov “There is no foreign land” is dedicated to the life of Nikolai Alexandrovich in Siberia.
Nikolai Alexandrovich Bestuzhev
Self-portrait.
Bestuzhev Nikolai Alexandrovich (1791-1855) - Decembrist: from 1824 he was a member of the "Northern Society"; on December 14, 1925 he was a lieutenant commander. By the verdict of the court, he was deprived of his ranks and nobility, he served his sentence in Siberia - 20 years of hard labor; since July 1839 in the settlement. He was a farmer, married and had two children.
Bestuzhev Nikolai Alexandrovich, one of the leaders of the Decembrists, Lieutenant Commander (1824), the eldest of the Bestuzhev brothers. Mor graduated. cadet corps in 1809 and was left in it by an educator and teacher. In 1814 he was transferred to serve in Kronstadt. In 1815 and 1817 he participated in the sea. trips to Holland and France. In 1820 pr. Director of the Balt. lighthouses. In 1822 assigned to the Admiralty Department to compile the history of Russian. fleet, then the caretaker of the sea. museum. From the end of 1824 member. Northern Society of the Decembrists and its Supreme Duma, advocated for the rep. government and for the liberation of the peasants with land. During the preparations for the uprising, the closest assistant K. F. Ryleeva. Dec 14 1825 B. drafted a manifesto to the people and brought Guards to Senate Square. crew. The royal court was sentenced "as a criminal of the 1st category" to eternal hard labor, replaced by 20 years of hard labor, to which he served in the Nerchinsk mines. Since 1839 in a settlement in the Irkutsk province. B. occupies a prominent place in Russian military historiography. For the first time in his work "The Experience of the History of the Russian Fleet" (1822) he showed the organization of the naval forces, the process of creating shipbuilding on a wide historical basis. bases in Russia. He worked a lot in the field of science and technology, enriching them with his research on the nature of electricity, on the need for the construction of steam ships and their use in the Navy. Invented save. boat - "bestuzhevka". B. known as a painter, economist and writer. He owns "Stories and Tales of an Old Sailor" (1860), "Memoirs of the Bestuzhev Brothers" (1817), the treatise "On the Freedom of Trade and Industry" (1831).
Used materials from the Soviet military encyclopedia
BESTUZHEV Nikolai Alexandrovich, Decembrist, Lieutenant Commander (1824). He graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps (1809), left in it as an educator and teacher of naval tactics and practice. In 1820 he was transferred to the service in Kronstadt. Participated in voyages to Holland and France (1815 and 1817). In 1819-1824 assistant director of the Baltic lighthouses and head of the Maritime Museum. In 1822 he was transferred to the Admiralty Department as a historiographer of the Russian fleet. Since the end of 1824, a member of the Northern Society of the Decembrists and its Supreme Duma, advocated republican rule, the liberation of the peasants and the allocation of land to them. During the preparations for the uprising, the closest assistant to K. F. Ryleev. On December 14 (26), 1825, he drafted a Manifesto to the Russian people and brought the Guards crew to Senate Square. Sentenced "as a criminal of the 2nd category" to eternal hard labor, replaced by 20 years of hard labor, which he served in the Nerchinsk mines. Since 1839 in a settlement in the Irkutsk province. In Siberia, he was engaged in educating the population, crafts, made (80) several inventions (a chronometer of special accuracy, a device for registering earthquakes, a lifeboat called "Bestuzhevka", improved a rifle sight). Bestuzhev is known as a military historian, painter (in Chita he created a portrait gallery of the wives of the Decembrists), economist and writer. In 1822 he published the work "Experience in the history of the Russian fleet." In his works, he substantiated the need for the construction of steam ships, made an attempt to trace the development of Russian military art, to establish the patterns of this process in connection with the economic development of the country.
Used materials of the book: Military Encyclopedic Dictionary. M., 1986.
BESTUZHEV Nikolai Alexandrovich (April 13, 1791 - May 15, 1855). Lieutenant Commander of the 8th Naval Crew (brother of the previous ones).
Born in St. Petersburg. He was educated in the Naval Cadet Corps, where he entered - 03/22/1802, midshipman - 05/07/1807, midshipman - 12/29/1809, enlisted in the Naval Corps as a lieutenant - 01/07/1810, transferred to the fleet as midshipman - 06/14/1813, lieutenant - 07/22/1814 , from 1820 in Kronstadt, was appointed assistant keeper of the Baltic lighthouses - 15.6.1820, in 1821-1822 he organized lithography at the Admiralty Department, for which he was awarded the Order of Vladimir 4th class on 7.2.1823, in the spring of 1822 he was seconded to the Admiralty Department ”) to write the history of the Russian fleet, for distinction in service he was promoted to captain-lieutenant - 12/12/1824, in July 1825 he was appointed director of the Admiralty Museum, from 1807 he sailed the Baltic Sea, in 1815 he sailed to Holland, in 1817 to France, in 1824 on the frigate "Agile" as a historiographer - to France and Gibraltar.
Prose writer, critic. Member of the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature - 28.3.1821, full member - 31.5, in 1822 he was elected a member of the Censorship Committee, was the editor-in-chief of prose works and a candidate for assistant to the president of the society, a member of the Free Society for the Establishment of Schools on the Methods of Mutual Teaching (1818), member of the Free Economic Society - September 12, 1825, member of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists (1825), from 1818 collaborated in magazines ("Son of the Fatherland", "Polar Star", "Well-meaning", "Competitor of Education and Charity", etc.). He received his artistic education at home and while attending the classes of the Academy of Arts as a volunteer (teachers - A.N. Voronikhin and N.N. Fonlev). Freemason, member of the lodge "Chosen Michael" - 1818.
His historical research, which resulted in the essay "Experience in the History of the Russian Navy", and service in the Maritime Museum was the reason for the appearance of the comic nickname "Mummy" among friends.
Member of the Northern Society (1824), wrote the draft "Manifesto to the Russian people", an active participant in the uprising on Senate Square.
Arrested 12/16/1825 in the village. Kosnoy, 8 versts from Kronstadt, in the fireworks house of Belorusov, on the same day at 10 o’clock in the evening, he was taken to the Peter and Paul Fortress, chained in “hand irons” and placed in No. under strict arrest, allowing him to write what he wants”).
Convicted of the II category and on confirmation 10/7/1826 sentenced to hard labor forever. The subsequent fate completely coincides with the fate of brother Michael. Signs: height 2 arshins 6 1/2 inches, “clean, swarthy in face, dark-blond hair on the head and eyebrows, gray eyes, mediocre nose, sharp, reddish hair on the beard and sideburns, was wounded on the neck on the left side below the ear, warts natural on the forehead and on the left side of the neck."
He died in Selinginsk, where he was buried. Watercolor artist who created a portrait gallery of the Decembrists. Inventor.
PETROVSKY PLANT
Watercolor N.A. Bestuzhev. 1830s
Common-law Buryat wife Sabilaeva, they have two children: Alexei (1838 - 1900), a major Siberian merchant and industrialist, carried out diplomatic missions, and Ekaterina (married Gomboeva, died in 1929 - 1930 in Harbin at the age of about 90 years); lived in the family of the Selenga merchant D.D. Startsev and bore his last name.
VD, II, 57-98; GARF, f. 109, 1 exp., 1826, file 61, part 8? 49.
Used materials from the site of Anna Samal "Virtual encyclopedia of the Decembrists" - http://decemb.hobby.ru/
Read further:
Bestuzhev Alexander Feodosevich (1761-1810), Russian educator-democrat, father of Nikolai Alexandrovich.
Bestuzhev Alexander Alexandrovich (1797-1837), Decembrist, brother of Nkolay Alexandrovich.
Bestuzhev Mikhail Alexandrovich (1800-1871), Decembrist, brother of Nkolay Alexandrovich.
Bestuzhev Petr Alexandrovich (1804-1840), Decembrist, brother of Nkolay Alexandrovich.
I. I. Gorbachevsky. Notes. Letters. The publication was prepared by B. E. Syroechkovsky, L. A. Sokolsky, I. V. Gunpowder. Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Moscow. 1963. (see letters to Bestuzhev).
Literature:
Pavlova G.E. Decembrist N. Bestuzhev - historian of the Russian fleet. M., 1953;
Baranovskaya M. Yu. Decembrist Nikolai Bestuzhev. M., 1954;
Peshtich S. Sailor, Decembrist, historian of the Russian fleet. - “Military-ist. journal”, 1966, No. 4.
N. A. Bestuzhev
N. A. Bestuzhev
(Y. Levkovich)
The name of Nikolai Alexandrovich Bestuzhev has long entered the history of the Russian revolutionary movement. He is one of the most active "actors" in the preparation and conduct of the December 14 uprising. But his name with equal right belongs to Russian culture and Russian literature. He was a man of bright personality. The versatility of his talents is striking: an artist who created a unique gallery of the faces of his "companions" and their wives, a wonderful mechanic-inventor, historian, economist and political thinker, and finally, a writer whose talent was highly appreciated by his contemporaries. “Nikolai Bestuzhev was a man of genius,” writes N. I. Lorer, “and, my God, what did he not know, what was he not capable of?”
N. Bestuzhev began to write (but did not have time to complete due to the December events) the history of the Russian fleet, he wrote the treatise “On Freedom of Trade and Industry” (1831), which is the largest monument to the economic thought of the Decembrists, he was seriously engaged in natural sciences, worked on improvement of chronometers, invented a simplified rifle shutter. In addition, he was a good agronomist and craftsman - a turner, a goldsmith. At a settlement in Selenginsk, he set up an observatory for meteorological observations and, as his sister Elena recalls, “was even a shoemaker behind a dispute.”
An amazing fusion of talents manifests itself in various areas of his activity, in everything he touches. In the artist Bestuzhev, we see a historian who preserved for posterity the faces of the participants in the uprising, capturing in visual images their dwellings, life, and the nature that surrounded them. In Bestuzhev, the writer, one constantly feels the gaze of an observant scientist, in the historiographer of the Decembrist movement - a writer who knew how to combine the desire for maximum accuracy in depicting genuine events with expressing his own assessment of them.
Alexander Bestuzhev, at the zenith of his Marlinsky fame, exclaimed bitterly: “But you, Nikolai, why are you lost for our literature!” Siberian “prisoners” were forbidden to write, let alone publish. But the literary life of the Decembrists, both in the casemate and then in the settlement, was not interrupted. Nikolai Bestuzhev did not interrupt her either. However, he was no longer able to see his works in print. A collection of his essays and stories appeared only in 1860, after the death of the writer.
On the day of December 14, the name of the Bestuzhevs as “the main instigators of the rebellion” spread throughout the capital before the names of Ryleev, Pestel, Kakhovsky became known. Someone’s sharp word went around the city that the Bestuzhevs are always involved in all the unrest in Russia. “We were five brothers and all five died in the whirlpool on December 14,” wrote Mikhail Bestuzhev later. Nicholas was the eldest of the five.
N. Bestuzhev was born in 1791, in the family of the famous educator Alexander Fedoseevich Bestuzhev, "radishchevets", friend and colleague of I. P. Pnin, with whom he published the St. Petersburg Journal, an organ of radical political thought. A. F. Bestuzhev owns the treatise “On Military Education”, where he opposes class privileges, putting forward the only measure of a person’s importance in society is his personal dignity, his awareness of his duties to society. An excellent teacher, he managed to inspire his ideas in his own family - especially his eldest son Nikolai. And when in 1810 A.F. Bestuzhev died and the eldest son was responsible for raising the younger ones, Nikolai managed to become for them both a mentor and an ideal of a person and a citizen. The memoirs of Elena and Mikhail, the letters of Alexander Bestuzhev testify to the boundless love for his elder brother and his moral influence on all family members.
Nikolai Bestuzhev was preparing to become a sailor. After graduating from the cadet corps in 1809 and having spent several years as an educator in it, he went to serve in the navy, in 1815, 1817 and 1824 he sailed to Holland, France and Spain, from 1819 he was assistant director of the Baltic Lighthouses. In 1823 he became the head of the Maritime Museum, engaged in the history of the Russian fleet.
N. Bestuzhev was accepted into the Northern Society by Ryleev in 1824, and since 1825 he has already been a member of the society's Duma. Belonging to the most revolutionary-minded group of "northerners", who, like Pestel, insisted on expanding the rights of popular representation and on the liberation of the peasants with land, he, along with his brother Alexander, was one of Ryleev's main assistants on the eve of the uprising. On December 14, Bestuzhev brought the Naval Guards crew to the square, although he had been with the Admiralty Department for several years and had nothing to do with practical naval service. On was one of the few Decembrists who showed steadfastness during the investigation: he answered questions very restrainedly, recognizing only what was known to the Investigative Committee, keeping silent about the affairs of the secret society and hardly giving names. Many memoirists recall the courage of his answers during interrogations. I. D. Yakushkin wrote: “In the eyes of the highest authorities, the main guilt of Nikolai Bestuzhev was that he spoke very boldly before the members of the commission and acted very boldly when he was brought to the palace.” During interrogations, he succinctly portrayed the plight of Russia. Already in the first testimony, he reports: “Seeing the breakdown of finances, the decline of trade and the power of attorney of the merchants, the complete insignificance of our methods in agriculture, and most of all the lawlessness of the courts, our hearts trembled.”
After the first interrogation, the words of Nicholas I are transmitted that Nikolai Bestuzhev is the smartest person among the conspirators. In a year and a half, the tsar will also award Pushkin with the title of "smartest man", and both "smartest" he will cost dearly - Pushkin will be under secret supervision, and N. Bestuzhev will be condemned especially severely. It was his behavior during interrogations that apparently influenced the decision of the court. In the "List of persons who, in the case of secret malicious societies, are committed by the highest command to the Supreme Criminal Court," all the convicts were divided into eleven categories and one extra-class group. Nikolai Bestuzhev was assigned to the II category, although the materials of the investigation did not give grounds for such a high "rank". Obviously, the judges understood the real role and importance of the elder Bestuzhev in Northern society. "Second-rate" were condemned by the Supreme Criminal Court to political death, that is, "put your head on the chopping block, and then send forever to hard labor."
Nicholas I introduced a number of “modifications and mitigations” into the sentence by moving “criminals” from one category to another. Convicted in the second and third categories, eternal hard labor was replaced by twenty years with deprivation of ranks and nobility and subsequent exile to the settlement. On the occasion of the coronation of Nicholas I, the term of hard labor for the second category was reduced to 15 years. By the Manifesto of 1829, it was again reduced to 10 years, but this reduction did not affect Nikolai and Mikhail Bestuzhevs, and they entered the settlement only in July 1839.
Ryleyev, before the uprising, called Mikhail Bestuzhev "a man of action." Nikolai Bestuzhev was also a "man of action". "People of action" the Bestuzhev brothers remain in exile. In the casemates of the Petrovsky Plant, N. Bestuzhev writes memoirs and stories in which he tries to comprehend the lessons of the uprising. On the settlement, the works of the Bestuzhev brothers laid the foundation for historical, ethnographic and natural-scientific knowledge and description of Siberia, they participate in the education of the local population, teach peasant children in Selenginsk, as if remembering the testament of Pestel, who wrote about the peoples of Siberia: “May they become our brothers and cease to stagnate in their miserable position.
Before the December uprising, N. Bestuzhev actively participated in literary life. He wrote romantic stories, travel essays (“travels”), fables, poems, his translations appeared in magazines - from T. Moore, Byron, Walter Scott, Washington Irving, scientific articles were published - on history, physics, mathematics. Many of his manuscripts were destroyed after the defeat of the uprising, but there is enough printed material to judge the high skill and professionalism in all matters that he touched.
All the work of Nikolai Bestuzhev is organically connected with the Decembrist movement. Decembrist ideology spread in society through literature. “Opinion rules the world,” argued the advanced enlightenment philosophy of the 18th century. Pupils of this philosophy, the Decembrists, believed in the power of reason and considered it necessary and possible to influence "general opinion." The connection of political ideas with modern literature was formulated by Alexander Bestuzhev: “Imagination, dissatisfied with the essence, hungers for fiction, and under the political press, literature is swirling in society.”
The Union of Welfare (1818–1821) paid special attention to literature. The literary center of the "Union of Prosperity" (and then the Northern Society) was the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature - the literary springboard of the Decembrists, which played a significant role in the training of the Decembrist cadres. In 1821, the Free Society took over the functions of the dissolved Welfare Union in the field of education. It was in 1821 that Nikolai Bestuzhev became a member of the society and soon occupied a prominent place in it: from 1822 he was a member of the censorship committee (editorial board, according to modern ideas); in 1825 - prose censor, that is, the editor-in-chief of all prose works; at the same time he was elected a candidate for assistant to the president (F. N. Glinka was the president of the society).
The literary activity of N. Bestuzhev is closely connected with the Free Society - he repeatedly speaks at meetings reading his literary and historical works, his works are published mainly in the journal Competitor of Education and Charity, the official organ of the Free Society.
The society's literary program emphasized the "description of lands and manners". "The Competitor of Education ..." in 1818 (No. 10) announced his intention to have, among others, the following sections: "Description of lands and peoples. Historical passages and biographies of famous men. Travel scientists. Everything curious about the sciences and arts.
The first literary experiments of N. Bestuzhev include three sections of this program - travel, description of lands and peoples, history, and "everything curious about the sciences and arts." His "journeys" in external form are typical "travel essays", usual for that time "reports" of travelers about what they saw in foreign countries, so common in the literature of sentimentalism.
Under the pen of the Decembrists, the traditional genre of "travelling" was rebuilt. Sentimental travelers, according to A. Bestuzhev, “sighed until they fainted” and “dropped tears on lilies of the valley.” The Decembrists use the journey to study the "great deeds" of the peoples, the glory of the people. Instead of an idle collector of impressions in the Decembrist literature of "journeys", a thinking, progressive person of his era appears, combining a writer and a publicist.
Traveler Bestuzhev is an attentive and thoughtful observer of the socio-political life and way of life of Western European countries. Foreign trips were an instructive lesson for him, they played a significant role in the development of his socio-political consciousness. In his testimony to the Investigative Committee, he wrote: “My stay in Holland in 1815, for five months, when constitutional rule was established there, gave me the first idea of the usefulness of laws and civil rights. After that double visit to France, the voyage to England and Spain confirmed this way of thinking.
Bestuzhev gazes intently into the life of an unfamiliar country, he is interested in everything - the way of life and life, architecture and clothing, trades and crafts, folk entertainment and museums. In educational treatises, Holland has traditionally served as an example of diligence. “Indeed,” Reynal wrote, “should we not expect patriotic feelings from such a people who can say to themselves: I have made fruitful this land inhabited by me. I decorated, formed her! The waves of this formidable sea, which covered our fields, are lamenting over the barriers I have set up ... ”The industriousness of the Dutch with their“ patriotic feelings ”brings N. Bestuzhev too. His attention is drawn to the "active" life of the Dutch, their efforts to "conquer nature." In grandiose dams, in land reclaimed from the sea, he sees the material expression of the social activity of free people.
Faced with the republican form of government for the first time, he pays special attention to it. An excursion into the history of Holland, a look at its current economic and political state - everything is subordinated to one cross-cutting thought: only under a republican system can a country prosper. The Dutch, in his words, "showed the world what humanity is capable of and to what extent the spirit of free people can ascend." The epithets that accompany the word "republic" ("free", "proud") testify to a deep and interested sympathy for a representative form of government. The idea of a constitutional order became alive and concrete for him. Behind the text of the story about a prosperous republic, in Bestuzhev's mind, was feudal Russia with its disenfranchised population, despotic bosses, and a cane regime in the army. The preaching of the inviolability of laws and the right of the people to govern their country was objectively directed against the Russian autocracy.
Another travel essay "Gibraltar" was written at a time when a wave of revolutionary movements swept across Europe, and Bestuzhev himself, already a member of a secret society, was preparing to make a revolution in Russia. The author's position of the "traveler" is defined at the beginning of the essay. He warns the reader that this time he will not find detailed descriptions of the life and lifestyle of this walled city in his essay: “I don’t want to go into details that there is a garden outside the city where there are several busts that remind the British of great people and their deeds. ; that there are two libraries in the city, one for the garrison, the other for the merchant class; that there is a bad theater where good singers who have come from Lisbon are angry with the audience at bad music; I will not say that on this bare stone in some places, in the gorges, there are gardens and trees; that the inhabitants drink rain water, and bring fresh water there on donkeys from Spain, that a Moroccan owner sells beef to them under a contract - all this is an ordinary thing ... "
The central place in the essay is occupied by the struggle of the Spanish insurgents for independence, taking place beyond the steppes of the city. The essay is filled with signs of popular indignation: “confusion” in the city, “songs of liberty”, the execution of insurgents, and finally, the fate of the Spanish constitutional ministers who took refuge in Gibraltar - all this is depicted with ardent sympathy for the Republicans. "Notes on Holland" was a demonstration of the opportunities that the republican system brings to the country. In "Gibraltar" Bestuzhev displays images of not former freedom fighters, but contemporary revolutionaries. The romantic figure of a fighter for freedom is introduced into the consciousness of contemporaries and political betrayal is stigmatized.
A special place in the work of N. Bestuzhev is occupied by the marine theme. It is no coincidence that the posthumous collection of his selected works is called "Stories and Tales of an Old Sailor". Not only N. Bestuzhev himself was a sailor and historiographer of the Russian fleet, but the entire Bestuzhev family was predominantly connected with the sea. Father A.F. Bestuzhev was a naval officer (until his resignation after being wounded), brother Peter served in the navy, Mikhail was also a sailor (before moving to the guard). Involvement in the fleet undoubtedly contributed to the formation of revolutionary sentiments in the Bestuzhev family.
The disastrous picture of the gradual decline and decay of the Russian fleet in the "Alexander time", which historians of the fleet consider "the darkest era in its history", offended patriotic feelings and led thinking officers to the need to change the order of things, that is, to the need to change the existing system. Here is how Mikhail Bestuzhev talks about his entry into a secret society: “Seeing with his own eyes the destruction of our fleet under the control of the French minister (Marquis de Traversay), and then the German (Anton Vasilyevich Moller) and being personally offended by the blatant injustice in the case of the K.P. Thorson about the transformation of the fleet, I was involuntarily imbued with a feeling of disgust for the naval service and, drowning out my passion for the sea, I looked for an opportunity to hide my head anywhere. Brother Alexander<..>offered me to go to the service in the guards, explaining to me that my presence in the regiments of the guards might be useful for our cause - I agreed. There were many sailors in the secret society, including outstanding naval officers, who, in the words of D. I. Zavalishin, were “the best hope of the Russian fleet.” These are the Bestuzhevs, and their friend Thorson, Zavalishin himself, Mikhail Kuchelbeker, the Belyaev brothers, and others.
In the essay “On the Pleasures of the Sea”, Bestuzhev immerses the reader in an atmosphere of unanimity and unanimity that reigns among the officers on the ship: “Brought up in one place, like children of the same mother, with ... the same way of thinking, the society of officers of the naval service is distinguished by that friendly connection, that sincere frankness, which other societies, made up of people who came from different sides, cannot imagine.
Sea life, full of dangers, when the life of each and all can depend on the actions and deeds of one and all together, is presented as ideal conditions for educating the character and feelings of a person entering life. At sea, a person gets used to seeing the danger "without fear and in cold blood", from the first steps he becomes involved in the "competition of service and comradeship." The “competition of service and fellowship” subsequently led the Naval Guards crew to Senate Square.
A man in the face of the elements is the main collision of sea stories and Bestuzhev's essays. His narrations about events at sea, whether it be a romantic story (“Journey on a boat”, 1831), a description of a true incident (“The news of the crashed Russian brig Falke ...”) or a lyrical monologue of a romantic in love with the sea (“Tolbukhinsky Lighthouse”) - is a must include a description of the storm. Under extreme conditions, the business and moral qualities of a person are tested, his endurance, resourcefulness, and fearlessness are tested. The brig "Falk" is wrecked due to the professional unsuitability of one of the crew members. The hero of "Tolbukhinsky Lighthouse" emerges victorious from the battle with the sea element because his "firm hand controls the helm" and "art avoids blows and protects from drowning." But even in the very death of the sailors on the Falk brig, Bestuzhev emphasizes the high moral qualities of the sailors. One of the two surviving crew members was rescued by the sailors, who, freezing, covered him with their bodies.
The confidence in the confidence of the soldiers and sailors, in their selflessness and ability to sacrifice themselves, confirmed the future Decembrists in the possibility of accomplishing a military revolution. A. I. Arbuzov testified during the investigation that he was confident in the possibility of raising the Naval crew, because he knew the "love and power of attorney" for the sailors.
After the fateful date of December 14, Decembrism did not cease to exist as a social and literary movement. In penal servitude and in the settlement, the Decembrist writers continue to develop plans that, before the uprising, were pushed aside by the current service and revolutionary activities. In Siberia, a new stage began in the work of N. Bestuzhev.
Here, memoirs of December 14 were conceived and partially written, a number of works of art, also brought to life by the tragic events of the uprising. Both the memoir prose and the psychological story, in fact, reveal one topic - the paths that led the participants in the uprising to the square, and then to the "convict holes" - their worldview, their aspirations and hopes. We do not know the chronological sequence in which "Stories and Tales of an Old Sailor" (that part of them that was written in Siberia) came out from Bestuzhev's pen, but a single plot-psychological line can be drawn through all his Siberian works - ethical principles and the worldview of an advanced person of his time, the path of moral and social development of the personality of the future Decembrist, his attitude during the preparation of the revolution and at the very moment of the uprising.
In his prose, N. Bestuzhev tried to comprehend and summarize the lessons of the uprising. First of all, this applies to memoirs. The memoirs of the Decembrists conveyed to us their revolutionary program, the freshness of feelings and moods with which their authors prepared for revolutionary actions, conveyed everyday details, words, lively dialogues, remarks. The memoir prose of N. A. Bestuzhev, who had the sharp and precise eye of a painter, is especially noteworthy. His well-known "Memories of Ryleev" and a short passage "December 14, 1825" were conceived by him as part of a larger memoir of the December events. The idea remained unfinished - we know about this from the memoirs of Mikhail Bestuzhev, Nikolai Bestuzhev himself spoke about this with longing before his death.
The memoirs of Nikolai Bestuzhev equally belong to memoir and fiction prose; in it, as later in A. I. Herzen's Past and Thoughts, the past is really combined with artistic generalization. M. K. Azadovsky wrote that in "Memoirs of Ryleev" the image of the leader of the Northern Society is shown through the prism of a romantic story. Bestuzhev unfolds the narrative "in speeches and dialogues, sprinkled with literary quotations, portrait sketches, genre scenes, accompanied by an epigraph" . The image of a revolutionary tribune is presented in a romantic stylistic coloring - he is enthusiastic and sensitive, his eyes “sparkle”, “his face burns” and he “sobs”, etc., although we know that Ryleev was extremely restrained on the eve of the uprising.
“Memories of Ryleev” completes the “biographies of great men” laid down in the program of the Union of Welfare, bringing these biographies to December 14, 1825.
The passage, conditionally titled "December 14, 1825", combines autobiographical and fictional elements to the same extent as Ryleev's biography (as does the story "Schlisselburg Station"). To be convinced of this, it is enough to compare Bestuzhev's story about his stay in the house of an unknown benefactor on December 14, 1825 with the version of the same episode in Mikhail Bestuzhev's memoirs. According to Mikhail Bestuzhev, his brother is sheltered by like-minded people - a father and two sons. Nikolai Bestuzhev introduces a conflict situation into his story: the father sympathizes with the "cause" on the square, the son is a diligent servant of the new emperor. The real fact (asylum in an unfamiliar house) is supplemented by a situation typical for the day of December 14, when every citizen faced the problem of choice, when society split into two camps: sympathizers and haters. The biographical fact thus acquires the power of artistic generalization.
In his memoir prose, N. Bestuzhev, while maintaining an autobiographical basis, obscures the real faces and events with literary details and fiction. In the autobiographical story, the fictional narrative reflects his own experiences. But Bestuzhev's work is not a passive registration of his life collisions. He creates a generalizing image of the Decembrist positive hero. The Shlisselburg Station, like other stories by Bestuzhev, written in prisons and on the population, can be called an autobiographical Decembrist story.
"Schlisselburg station" has the subtitle "true incident". The connection with some personal moments is deliberately emphasized in the presentation (mentioning about one's family, about naval service, about the essay "On Pleasures at Sea", etc.). Therefore, at first glance, N. Bestuzhev refers to a particular case - he answers the question of "ladies" (wives of the Decembrists) why he remained a bachelor (there is evidence from Mikhail Bestuzhev about the origin of the story's idea). Shortly before the uprising, Bestuzhev wrote the story "Tavern Staircase" on the same plot. Both "Tavern Stairs" and "Shlisselburg Station" are inspired by relationships with a woman, the love for which N. Bestuzhev carried through his whole life.
Both stories have the same autobiographical basis, both highlight Bestuzhev's talent as a master of psychological storytelling, but the same collision is designed to reveal various social characters.
The Tavern Stairs deeply and subtly conveys the experiences of a man who, in his youth, loved a woman who was someone else's wife, and who, because of this, was left without his own family in his old age. Bestuzhev delves into the psychology of a man devoted to his only love and sacrificing happiness for her.
In the Shlisselburg Station, his own fate merges with the fate of his political associates. The plot of the rejection of personal happiness now serves to express the severe self-denial of a person who has chosen the path of a professional revolutionary. This moral credo of the Decembrist is clearly expressed in the very epigraph to the story:
"One head is not poor,
And poor - so alone.
A person who rebelled against autocracy sacrifices his freedom and therefore has no moral right to doom his beloved woman to suffering, who is expected to be separated from her husband, the father of her children. The problem of the personal happiness of a revolutionary was not an expression of the opinion of Bestuzhev alone, it was not invented by him. She was put before the captives of a secret society by life itself, it was backed up by real examples. It is known that some members of the early secret societies (M. F. Orlov, P. I. Koloshin, V. P. Zubkov, I. N. Gorstkin) associated their refusal from further revolutionary activity with marriage and family life. E. Obolensky testified during the investigation that "all these members are married, and therefore belong to society solely on the basis of their previous connections." The very example of the wives of the Decembrists who followed their husbands to Siberia, their heroic, but full of hardships, confirmed Bestuzhev in the correctness of his answer to the question posed.
The Russian revolutionaries of the next generation also thought about it. The researcher rightly notes that N. G. Chernyshevsky in the novel “What is to be done?”, Written in the Peter and Paul Fortress, “posed the same problem (“I need to give up all happiness”) in connection with the characterization of the socio-psychological appearance of “a special person » Rakhmetova .
The short story "The Funeral" introduces the motif of the failed Decembrist into Bestuzhev's series of stories about his contemporaries. The story has a social and accusatory theme. The man at whose funeral the narrator comes was not a stranger to "noble impulses" in his youth. This expression, translated into a prosaic register, from Pushkin's letter "To Chaadaev" testifies that the deceased was not just a "childhood friend" of the narrator, but for a certain time also a like-minded person. “But soon,” the narrator explains, “our different fate, which left me on the same step where I stood, and called him into the circle of great light, disappointed me.”
The late "friend" is the antipode of the hero of the "Schlisselburg station". Autobiographical details forced to guess in the hero of the "Schlisselburg Station" Bestuzhev himself, with his further fate of a man who went through an uprising, who was not broken by hard labor and exile and who, sacrificing personal happiness, remained a creative "doer" and in "hard labor holes". The narrator's "friend" was "surrounded by a lovely family, wife and children, in the midst of a brilliant circle of acquaintances", but, in fact, he was a living dead, because he ceased to be himself. "Noble impulses" disappeared, "amusements and duties and all that is called the life of high society" changed him. Simple-hearted wit" gave way to "irony, which the exterior bore the stamp of the strictest decency", and instead of "a clear and impartial presentation" appeared "an ambiguous opinion, from which he was ready to deny every minute."
In The Funeral, Bestuzhev is an accuser of the spiritual emptiness and hypocrisy of "the big world, where decency should replace all the sensations of the heart and where the outward sign of these puts the stamp of the ridiculous on every unfortunate person who will be so weak that he will let his inner movement be noticed."
The story "Funeral" was written in 1823, it can be recognized as "one of the first - in time - prose works in which the falsity and spiritual emptiness of aristocratic circles are exposed." At that time, anti-secular novels by V. F. Odoevsky and Alexander Bestuzhev had not yet been written. Pushkin's "Roslavlev" was not written either, where the "secular mob" is shown with the same journalistic fervor as in Bestuzhev's story.
The story "A Russian in Paris 1814" is also connected with reflections on the destinies and characters of the generation that entered into life on the eve of the Patriotic War.
“We were the children of 1812,” Matvey Muravyov briefly and deeply defined the attitude of the Decembrists to the Patriotic War of 1812. The year 1812 marked a turning point in their political life. N. Bestuzhev himself was not in Paris - his military fate turned out differently, and the story is based on the Parisian impressions of his comrades in hard labor, and primarily N. O. Lorer. The moment of the entry of Russian troops into the capital of France, the realities, faces, incidents, folk scenes that Lorer remembered - all this was conveyed by Bestuzhev with memoir accuracy. The historian and essayist manifested itself here in full measure. The hero of the story, Glinsky, was also given some character traits and biographies of Lorer.
In Glinsky, we see an apologetic image of the advanced Russian intelligentsia, from the ranks of which the main backbone of the leaders of secret societies was formed. He is smart, educated, conquers with spiritual nobility and a reserve of pure moral strength.
In the center of the plot are the love experiences of Glinsky and the young Frenchwoman Countess de Serval. With great knowledge of the human soul, Bestuzhev leads his heroes through numerous obstacles: here is the psychological barrier separating the two nations - the winners and the vanquished, and the awkward circumstances that Glinsky finds himself in in an unfamiliar country, and the recent widowhood of the graphite, her desire to remain faithful to the one who died in the war her husband, and her involuntary rivalry with her cousin, and the mutual uncertainty of lovers in each other's feelings.
The desire to reveal the finest nuances of the characters' love and moral vacillations, their inner attractions and repulsions leads to some lengthy narratives, and the image of Glinsky at first glance seems to be overly idealized. But weren't the future Decembrists endowed with all the qualities that the hero of the story possesses? Were these qualities not inherent in Nikolai Bestuzhev himself? Herzen called the Decembrists "heroes, forged from pure steel from head to toe."
Bestuzhev sympathizes with the feelings of the hero, justifies the behavior of the heroine and brings the romance of lovers to a happy end, because they are connected by simple, sincere human feelings. Bestuzhev's views on love and relationships between a woman and a man were determined in his youth. Among his papers, a notebook was preserved under the title "Natural Law", which he kept in 1814. One chapter is specifically devoted to the problem of marriage and the relationship between a man and a woman. Bestuzhev demanded from husband and wife "mutual purity of one to the other" and rejected marriages "not for love", but "by agreement". Marriages "by agreement" or "by calculation" he called "privileged debauchery".
The patriotic tendency of the story is emphasized by the title "Russian in Paris 1814". It seems to remind you that the moment the Russian army entered Paris is the culmination of Russian patriotism. In addition, Glinsky, with all his behavior, is called upon to show the true face of the Russian person and thereby discredit "the prejudice that all the French in general had against the Russians."
The main plot collision of the story - the spiritual closeness of the Russian officer, the hero of 1812, and the widow of the enemy of Russia, the French colonel - provides some grounds for recreating the circumstances that determined the emergence of the idea and the development of the plot. The story was written at the Petrovsky factory (that is, not earlier than 1831). In the same 1831, the novel by M. N. Zagoskin "Roslavlev" was published. Here we find a situation that mirrors the main storyline of Bestuzhev's story. The bride of the Russian officer Polina Roslavlev loves the French officer Count Senecour, whom she met in Paris before the war. When Senecourt is captured, Pauline marries him and follows her husband after he is released from captivity by French troops. Senecourt dies; Polina, abandoned by everyone, also perishes in a foreign land.
The heroine Zagoskin is a weak woman, devoid of a sense of patriotism. Her love for Senekour is presented in the novel as treason, and death as a well-deserved punishment for treachery. She is surrounded by general contempt, the French reject her, she even loses her husband's love. “Yes, madame,” he tells her. - We're dead. Russians triumph, but sorry! I was stupid enough to forget for a moment that you are Russian.
Zagoskin's novel was the impetus for Pushkin's polemical novel Roslavlev. The rise of national self-consciousness during the days of the Patriotic War appears in Zagoskin in official-patriotic coverage. This prompted Pushkin to give his version of the plot. Pushkin did not finish the story, but already at the beginning of it he repeats the main plot of Zagoskin's novel, bringing Polina closer to Senekur. This rapprochement does not prevent the heroine from remaining a true patriot. In Senecure, she is attracted by "knowledge of the matter and impartiality" - that is, intelligence and human dignity. Each of them is a patriot of his fatherland, and the true patriotism of a Frenchman is valued by Pushkin's Polina above the false, leavened patriotism of Russian bar. Pushkin countered Zagoskin's reactionary patriotism with his broad and genuinely democratic patriotism.
It is possible that Bestuzhev's story, like Pushkin's "Roslavlev", was a kind of polemic with Zagoskin. The Decembrists received all literary novelties from Russia, and the sensational novel about the Patriotic War could not bypass them.
Bestuzhev puts next to Glinsky not just a Frenchwoman, not just a secular lady, for whom the defeat of Napoleon and the restoration of the monarchy could be welcome events. The Countess de Serval is the widow of Napoleon's aide-de-camp, a Bonapartist, who fully shares her husband's convictions. People of the "light" enthusiastically meet the allies and in every possible way show devotion to Emperor Alexander. The countess, before the arrival of the allied troops, leaves Paris and is indignant when a statue of Napoleon is pulled from the Vendome column.
She does not utter patriotic tirades, like Pushkin's Polina, she does not declare her opinions, but her memory of her husband, participation in the wounded soldier who served under him, estrangement from secular conversations - everything shows an outstanding nature, a worthy wife of a brave colonel.
Her spiritual image, purity and moral beauty are also revealed through the image of Dubois devoted to her. The moral duel between him and Glinsky is especially significant in the story. The love conflict undoubtedly made it difficult to solve the problem of patriotism, and it is this problem that is already highlighted as the main one in the title of the story. The image of Dubois is intended to reveal what Bestuzhev understands by true patriotism. And here we find points of contact in the stories of Bestuzhev and Pushkin. Pushkin ironically writes about cosmopolitans and admirers of everything French, who, with the outbreak of war, poured French tobacco out of snuffboxes, burned a dozen French brochures, replaced lafite with sour cabbage soup, and “repented of speaking French.” Pushkin contrasts Polina with the "big world" in Russia; Bestuzhev contrasts Dubois with the "big world" in Paris. The Parisian nobility gladly welcomes the arrival of the allies in the hope of the return of the Bourbons - Dubois meets the allied troops not with bows, but with weapons in their hands. He does not hide his unwillingness to communicate with the winners, but he has a chivalrous respect for a worthy opponent, and in Glinsky he is conquered not only by intelligence and charm, but also by the same ability to appreciate fearlessness and military prowess in his enemies.
Dubois does not hide his convictions from Glinsky, and this is precisely what causes the interlocutor's reciprocal sympathy. It is clear from the text of the novel that Dubois will take part in the famous "Hundred Days" of Napoleon, and the French Bonapartist brings the Russian officer he loves closer to unraveling his secret. “Over time, you will not need explanations,” he says to Glinsky when asked about “his secret.”
In the images of Dubois and Glinsky, Bestuzhev brings together two true patriots of the motherland, and between these patriots - enemies on the battlefield - there is more spiritual closeness than between each of them and people of the "big society", both in Russia and in France. So once again an anti-secular theme appears in Bestuzhev's work.
Of course, Bestuzhev could not have known about Pushkin's intention. The first excerpt from Pushkin's story appeared only in No. 3 of the Sovremennik magazine for 1836, when work on The Russian in Paris was basically completed, but the coincidence of the general tendencies of these stories is significant - it once again demonstrates how the same thoughts owned the first poet of Russia and his "friends, brothers, comrades" in "hard labor holes". It is also significant that both stories were written in 1831, when the Polish uprising had not subsided yet and when it seemed that Russia was facing the danger of a new military threat from the West.
“A Russian in Paris in 1814” is one of the last works of art by N. Bestuzhev that have come down to us. In Siberia, he wrote a large local history article "Goose Lake" - the first natural-scientific and ethnographic description of Buryatia, its economy and economy, fauna and flora, folk customs and rituals. This essay once again showed Bestuzhev's many-sided talent as a novelist, ethnographer and economist.
Many of his plans Bestuzhev could not and did not have time to implement, some of his works of art were forever lost during searches, which were periodically subjected to exiled Decembrists. But even in his literary heritage that has come down to us, we see a talented writer who left in his essays, stories and short stories the image of an advanced person of his time, revealed with psychological depth and accuracy. N. Bestuzhev can be placed among the pioneers of the psychological method in Russian literature. An analysis of complex moral collisions in their connection with a person's duty to society reveals the genetic connection of his stories and novels with the work of A. I. Herzen, N. G. Chernyshevsky, L. N. Tolstoy.
Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bestuzhev died in 1855 in the difficult days of the Sevastopol defense for Russia.
Mikhail Bestuzhev recalled: “The successes and failures of the Sevastopol siege interested him to the highest degree. In the course of the seventeen long nights of his dying agony, I myself, exhausted by fatigue, hardly understanding what he was saying to me almost in delirium, had to use all my strength to reassure him about poor, perishing Russia. In the intervals of the terrible struggle of his iron, strong nature with death, he asked me:
Tell me, is there anything consoling?
So, until the end of his days, Nikolai Bestuzhev remained a citizen and patriot. The high moral structure of the personality of the Decembrist writer passes through all his work.
Yanina LEVKOVICH
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BESTUZHEV Nikolai Alexandrovich (13.4.1791, St. Petersburg - 15.5.1855, Selenginsk), Decembrist, lieutenant commander, historian, writer, critic, inventor, artist. He served in the Admiralty Department, organized a lithograph under him, was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th class. Worked on the history of Russian. fleet. Director of the Admiralty Museum (1825). Member The Free Island of lovers grew up. literature, the Free Island of the institution of the school, the Free Economics. Islands, Islands of Encouragement of Artists. Collaborated with the journal "Polar Star", "Son of the Fatherland", etc. Member. Sev. Islands, one of the authors of the Manifesto to Rus. the people." Member of the uprising in St. Petersburg. In Chit. prison was delivered on 12/13/1827, transferred to Petrovsky Zavod in Sept. 1830. In hard labor and a settlement in Selenginsk (from 1839) he developed a new design of the chronometer, improved the gun lock, was engaged in shoemaking, jewelry, turning and watchmaking. He taught comrades and local residents how to sew boots and harden steel. Conducted regular meteorological, seismic and astronomical observations, studied the climate of Zab. crops and hay grasses. Interested in the rhythms of nature. processes. A supporter of the creation in Russia of a meteorological network operating according to a unified program. He was engaged in gardening, grew tobacco and watermelons. He tried to introduce fine-wool sheep breeding. He noted the uncontrolled destruction of forests, causing shallowing of swamps, rivers and a decrease in agricultural yields. cultures. He drew attention to the traces of irrigation systems by the first farmers of Zab., to petroglyphs along the river. Selenga. Invented the so-called "Bestuzhev oven" and the crew. According to the results of nature studies in bass. Goose lake, households and various rituals of the Buryats published an essay "Goose Lake". Author of a number of other articles on archeology, ethnography, economics, and literature. works about the role of the people in history - "Russian in Paris in 1814", "Notes on the War of 1812". "Memories of Ryleev" - the best work of zab. period published by A. I. Herzen abroad in the 1860s. He worked in watercolor, later - in oil on canvas (portraits of the Decembrists, their wives and children, city dwellers, views of Chita and Petrovsky Zavod.
Lit .: Memoirs of the Bestuzhevs. - M.; L., 1951; Spector M. Memory for descendants // Zab. worker. - 1975. - November 20; Pasetsky V. M. Geogr. studies of the Decembrists. - M., 1977; Decembrists: Biogr. reference book / Ed. M. W. Nechkina. - M., 1988; Zilberstein S. I. Decembrist artist Nikolai Bestuzhev. - M., 1988; Tivanenko A. Archeol. hobbies N. A. Bestuzhev // Sib. and Decembrists. - Irkutsk, 1988. - No. 5; Konstantinov M. V. Oracles of the Ages. Sketches about the explorers of Siberia. - Novosibirsk, 2002.
ArtworksSelected prose/ Comp., intro. Art. and note. Ya.L. Levkovich. - M.: Sov. Russia, 1983. - 336 p.
From content: Levkovich Ya. N.A. Bestuzhev. - S. 3-18; Levkovich Ya. Notes. - S. 319-334.
Shlisselburg station: (Rough sketches)/ Pub. and comment. B.N. Kapelyush // Yearbook of the Manuscript Department of the Pushkin House for 1972 / IRLI; Rep. ed. K.D. Muratov. - L .: Nauka, 1974. - S. 72-77.
Buryat economy; Goose lake; Essays on the Trans-Baikal economy// Decembrists about Buryatia: Articles, essays, letters / USSR Academy of Sciences. Sib. Department Buryat. branch. Institute of Societies. sciences; Rep. ed. P.T. Khaptaev and S.F. Koval, comp., author. foreword and note. V.B. Bahaev. - Ulan-Ude: Buryats. books. publishing house, 1975. - S. 57-160, 223. - Bibliography: S. 228-230.
Biogr. reference - p. 61.
From content: Bestuzhev N.A. Remembrance of Ryleev. - S. 62-89; December 14, 1825. - S. 184-189.
[Verse.]// Decembrists: An anthology in 2 volumes / Comp. Vl. Orlov. - T. 1. Poetry. - L .: Artist. lit., 1975. - S. 380-382, 431-433 (biographical note), 481 (note)
Tavern staircase; Shlisselbugrskaya station. True incident; Remembrance of Ryleev; December 14, 1925 // Decembrists: An anthology in 2 volumes / Comp. Vl. Orlov. - T. 2. Prose. Lit. criticism. - L .: Artist. lit., 1975. - S. 267-343, 423-426 (note).
// Literary and critical works of the Decembrists / Enter. article, comp., prepared. text and notes. L.G. Frizman. - M.: Artist. lit., 1978. - S. 138-140, 322-323. - (Russian literary criticism).
Biogr. reference - p. 322.
Answers to the questions proposed in the first book of "The Well-Meaning"// "Their union with liberty is eternal": Lit. criticism and journalism of the Decembrists / Comp., entry. Art. and comment. Volka S.S. - M.: Sovremennik, 1983. - S. 198-199, 347. - (B-ka "For lovers of Russian literature": From the literary heritage). - Decree. names: S. 359-366.
Tavern staircase; Why am I not married!// Russian romantic story: (first third of the 19th century) / Comp., total. edition, intro. Art. and comment. V.A. Grikhin. - M.: Ed. Moscow. un-ta, 1983. - S. 415-445. - (University Library).
Monkey and razor; To the departed genius// Poetry and letters of the Decembrists / Comp., entry. Art. and note. Fomicheva S.A. - Gorky: Volgo-Vyatsk. books. publishing house, 1984. - S. 233-235. - (Rural Library of the Non-Black Earth Region).
[Verse.]// Poets-Decembrists: Poems / Entry. Art. N.Ya. Eidelman, comp. and biogr. references N.G. Okhotina. - M.: Artist. lit., 1986. - S. 355-357. - (B-ka "Russian muse").
Biogr. reference - p. 411
Hugo von Bracht: An Incident of the 14th Century// Russian historical story: In 2 volumes / Comp., prepared. text, intro. Art., comment. Yu.A. Belyaev. - M.: Artist. lit., 1988. - T. 1. - S. 134-145.
Tavern staircase// That wondrous world. XVIII-XIX centuries / Comp. N.D. Tkachenko. - M.: Sov. Russia, 1991. - S. 101-112.
Russian in Paris 1814// Russian historical story of the first half of the XIX century / Entry. Art. Nosova N.E. - M.: Pravda, 1986. - S. 531-714.
Experience of the history of the Russian fleet/ Head. archival ex. Centre. state military archive fleet; Prep. to ed. I.A. Livshits and G.E. Pavlova. Scientific ed. S.B. Perch. - L.: Sudpromgiz, 1961. - 172 p.; portrait - Bibliography. at the end of the book.
From content: Pavlova G.E. Decembrist Nikolai Bestuzhev and his "Experience in the history of the Russian fleet". - S. 5-29.
Fully publ. for the first time (TsGAVMF, f. 315, op. 1, d. 41). Portrait.
Letters
ON THE. Bestuzhev - I.P. Kornilov// Decembrists about Buryatia: Articles, essays, letters / USSR Academy of Sciences. Sib. Department Buryat. branch. Institute of Societies. sciences; Rep. ed. P.T. Khaptaev and S.F. Koval, comp., author. foreword and note. V.B. Bahaev. - Ulan-Ude: Buryats. books. publishing house, 1975. - S. 223. - Decree. names: pp. 228-230.
Biogr. reference (short) - p. 61.
Letter from S.G. Volkonsky// "Their union with liberty is eternal": Lit. criticism and journalism of the Decembrists / Comp., entry. Art. and comment. Volka S.S. - M .: Sovremennik, 1983. - S. 236-237, 351. - (B-ka "For lovers of Russian literature": From the literary heritage). - Decree. names: S. 359-366.
Zilberstein I.S. Farewell to the Motherland: (Letters from Nikolai and Mikhail Bestuzhev about Petersburg and Moscow) // Izv. USSR Academy of Sciences: Ser. lit. and yaz. - M., 1975. - T. 34, No. 6. - S. 542-544.
Neg. letters to N.A. Bestuzhev to his brother Pavel 1835, sister Elena b/d, neg. letters of M.A. Bestuzhev to his sister, July 1842 and b/d (without links to archives or publications).
Biographical materials
Decembrist writers in the memoirs of contemporaries: In 2 volumes / Comp. and note. Jezuitova R.V., Levkovich Ya.L., Mushina I.B. - M.: Artist. lit., 1980. - T. 2. - (Ser. lit. memoirs). - Bibliography: S. 431-484.
From content: Bestuzheva E.A. To the biography of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bestuzhev. - S. 190-192; Bestuzhev M.A. From "Memoirs of N.A. Bestuzhev". - S. 193-212; Shtukenberg A.I. From Memoirs. - S. 213-216.
Golubeva O.D."The smartest person among prisoners" // Golubeva O.D. Autographs spoke ... - M .: Book Chamber, 1991. - S. 34-37.
Autograph N.A. Bestuzhev on his book "The Voyage of the Agile Frigate in 1824", donated by Ya.D. Kazimirsky (RNB).
Darevskaya E.M.Several additions and clarifications about the daughter of N.A. Bestuzhev and her family // Siberia. - 1983. - No. 4. - S. 115-127.
Bahaev V.Decembrists Bestuzhevs and their letters // Baikal. - Ulad-Ude, 1971. - No. 5. - S. 153-157.
Bestuzhev M.A.[Alekseevsky ravelin] // Alekseevsky ravelin: Secret. state Russian prison in the XIX century / Comp. A.A. Matyshev. - L .: Lenizdat, 1990. - Book. 1. - S. 52-78. - (Voices of the Revolution).
See self portrait. B. and other portraits. his works.
Koval S.F.A page from the life of the Decembrists Mikhail and Nikolai Bestuzhev in a settlement in Selenginsk // Proceedings of Buryatsk. complex. scientific research in-ta / Academy of Sciences of the USSR. - Ser. historical and philological. - Ulan-Ude, 1961. - Issue. 6. - S. 161-175.
Review of the correspondence between the Bestuzhev brothers and I.P. Kornilov; publ. excerpts from letters to Kornilov - July, Dec. 1951, Aug., Dec. 1952, Apr. 1853 (GPB, architect Kornilov).
Shostakovich S.V.Unknown portraits by the Decembrist N.A. Bestuzhev // Angara. - 1961. - No. 3. - S. 127-130.
About portrait. Trapeznikov family (Irkutsk).
Glushankov I.Bestuzhev in science: (To the 140th anniversary of the uprising on the Senate Square) // Baikal. - 1965. - No. 6. - S. 138-142.
Zilberstein I.S. Parisian finds: Mother of four Decembrists // Ogonyok. - 1967. - No. 3. - S. 19-20.
About the parents of N. Bestuzhev (see their portraits by V.L. Borovikovsky).
Darevskaya E.M.HELL. Startsev - son of N.A. Bestuzhev // Siberia and the Decembrists / Ch. ed. Meilakh B.S. - Irkutsk: Vost.-Sib. book. publishing house, 1981. - Issue. 2. - S. 132-159.
Baraev V."In the descendants of your tribe will come to life ..." // Friendship of Peoples. - 1980. - No. 12. - S. 181-190.
About the fate of the Bestuzhev brothers and their descendants. About N. Bestuzhev - p. 184-192.
Toddes E.A.Bestuzhev N.A. // Russian Writers, 1800-1917: Biogr. words. / Institute of Russian. lit. (Pushkin House) RAS; Scientific publishing house "Great Russian Encyclopedia"; Chief editor Nikolaev P.A., editorial board: Baskakov V.N. and others. - T. 1. A - G. - M .: Sov. encyclopedia, 1989. - S. 258-260. - (Ser. biogr. dictionaries: Russian writers, 11-20 centuries).
Tugutov R.F.Decembrist brothers Bestuzhev in Kyakhta. - Ulan-Ude: Buryats. book. publishing house; 1964. - 19 s
From content:Personal belongings of the brothers N. and M. Bestuzhev, exhibited in the Kyakhta Museum of Local Lore. V.A. Obruchev.- S. 14-17.
Playback portraits by N.A. Bestuzhev and his self-portrait.
Zilberstein I.S. Decembrist artist Nikolai Bestuzhev. - 3rd ed., add.; 2nd ed., additional: 1977. - M .: Image. art, 1988. - 677 p.: illustrations. - Bibliogr. in note: p. 569-640. Decree. ill.: p. 641-655. Decree of names: p. 655-674.
Detailed biography. Neg. letters B to relatives, friends and acquaintances from different archives, etc. archive. materials. Portrait.
Fatyanov A. D.Decembrist artist N. A. Bestuzhev, his predecessors, contemporaries and followers in Irkutsk // Siberia. - 1976. - No. 4. - S. 122-126.
Darevskaya E. M.On some details of the stay of the Decembrists in Siberia // Siberia. - Irkutsk, 1986. - 1/86. - S. 112-119.
About the possible participation of N. Bestuzhev in the decoration of the building of the first Irkutsk theater; about the search for relics of the Bestuzhevs in Selenginsk.
Baraev V.V.Tree: the Decembrists and the Kandinsky family. - M.: Politizdat, 1991. - 268 p.
ON THE. Bestuzhev in Siberia; his descendants.
Literature about him
Vilchinsky V.P.At the origins of Russian marine painting. Brothers Bestuzhev. Dahl // Vilchinsky V.P. Russian marine writers / IRLI AN USSR. - M.; L .: Nauka, 1966. - S. 11-69.
Rec.:Osmakov N. Russian marine writers// Vopr. lit.- 1967.- No. 4.- S. 225-226.
About N. Bestuzhev - p. 11-23.
Bobina T.I.The Decembrist ethical ideal in the novel by N.A. Bestuzhev "Russian in Paris in 1814" // Ethical principles of Russian literature and their artistic embodiment / Permsk. ped. in-t; Rep. ed. V.E. Kaigorodova. - Perm, 1989. - S. 27-33. - Bibliography: p. 33.
Klibanov A.I.Unknown letters to N.A. Bestuzheva // Problems of the history of the Russian social movement and historical science / USSR Academy of Sciences. Dep. stories. Institute of History of the USSR; Rep. ed. EAT. Zhukov. - M.: Nauka, 1981. - S. 40-47.
Pub. 4 letters from B. to Ya.D. Kazimirsky - s. 43-46: b/d (Feb-March 1838), Dec. 1838, b/d, 9 Oct. 1842 (Krasnoyarsk Museum, manuscript collection; copies - GBL OR, f. 648).
Arkhipova A.V.Literary work of the Decembrists / IRLI AN USSR; Responsible ed. Levin Yu.D. - L.: Nauka, 1987. - 190 p. - Decree. names: s. 186-189.
About Bestuzhev, see the index.
Natanov N.Nikolai Bestuzhev: portrait of Ryleev // Prometheus. - M., 1967. - T. 2. - S. 346-347.
About portrait. Ryleev's work B., storage. in the OR GPB (f.179, album by N.V. Gerbel).
Adelman N.Selenginsk - London // Baikal. - Ulan-Ude, 1967. - No. 4. - S. 114-119.
The history of the publication of N. Bestuzhev's "Memoirs of Kondrat Fedorovich Ryleev" in Herzen's Bell in 1861-1862.
Azadovsky M.K.Pages of the history of Decembrism / Prepared. Blagovolina Yu.P. and others - Irkutsk: Vost.-Sib. book. publishing house, 1991. - 491 p. - Decree. names: s. 450-489.
From content:Nikolai Bestuzhev - ethnographer. - P. 55-75; Regional words of the Selenga district in the record of the Decembrist N.A. Bestuzhev.- S. 166-171; Memoirs of the Bestuzhevs as a historical and literary monument. - S. 231-315.
Kuznetsova M.V.Who is the author of the translation of D. Byron in the essay by N.A. Bestuzhev "On Pleasures at Sea" // Actual problems of philology at the university and school: Materials 6 Tver. interuniversity conf. philologists and school teachers / Tversk. un-t. - Tver, 1992. - S. 147-148.
Attribution to Bestuzhev of poems. translation separation. from 4 songs of "Childe Harold" and the fable "The Monkey and the Razor".
Demin E.The hunting world of Nikolai Bestuzhev // Baikal. - 1985. - No. 4. - S. 132-135.
Dugar-Nimaev Ts.-A. "Goose Lake" by N. Bestuzhev // Dugar-Nimaev Ts.-A. They live in the soul of the people. - Ulan-Ude: Buryats. books. publishing house, 1979. - S. 129-142.
Tivanenko A.V.Archaeological hobbies of N.A. Bestuzhev // Siberia and the Decembrists / Ed. ed. and comp. S.F. Koval. - Irkutsk: Vost.-Sib. book. publishing house, 1988. - Issue. 5. - S. 114-120.
Bakhaev V.B.Ethnographic studies of the Decembrists in Buryatia // Bakhaev V.B. Public educational and local history activities of the Decembrists in Buryatia. - Novosibirsk, 1980. - S. 134-147.
About Bestuzhev's activities and his essay "Goose Lake" - p. 137-147.
Poletaeva L.G.The Buryat theme in the work of N. Bestuzhev // Siberia - America: the interaction of ethnic groups and cultures in multi-ethnic regions / Zabaik. state ped. un-t im. N.G. Chernyshevsky and others; Rep. ed. T.V. Voronchenko. - Chita: ZabGPU, 1999. - S. 39-43.
Regional studies of Bestuzhev; an indication of the co-authorship of P.A. Kelberg (doctor and local historian) in the creation of Bestuzhev's essay "Goose Lake".
Reference materials
Masanov I.F.Dictionary of pseudonyms of Russian writers, scientists and public figures: In 4 volumes - M., 1956-1960.
Russian intelligentsia . Autobiographies and biographical documents in the collection of S.A. Vengerov: Abstract. decree. in 2 volumes / IRLI RAN; Ed. V.A. Myslyakova. - T. 1. A-L. - St. Petersburg: Nauka, 2001. 640 p. (448).
Ostrovskaya A.V.
