She went to the addressee, his beloved woman, for half a century.

Middle of the day, August 12, 1967 "Mikeshkin" descends by the Bykovskaya channel. We are marking time at the port side, already feeling the proximity of drifting ice with our nostrils. Mathisen and Kolchak, members of the Russian Polar Expedition of 1901-1902, once walked along the same channel.

Taking with him the boatswain from the "Dawn" and two sailors, Kolchak from the sloop-four in these places, where we have now stalled the course, made measurements of the depths. Maps compiled by Kolchak were printed by the Main Hydrographic Directorate of Russia. Most likely, they were also used in the sailing directions opened on our table: “The pilot chart of the Lena River from the city of Yakutsk to the port of Tiksi. Scale 1:50. Fairway 1964. Yakutsk, 1963.

Then it could not have occurred to me that in Moscow, on Plyushchikha, on this very day and hour when we are talking about the admiral, the name of Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak is repeated by Anna Vasilyevna Timireva, the beloved of the admiral, who returned from exile. “How strange - here is an impenetrable forest, / here, ten steps away, plots, dachas, / people are walking, somewhere children are crying, / but here, in the forest, that world seems to have disappeared ... " These diary lines of Anna Vasilievna are also dated August 12, 1967, when we, strangers to her, separated by 5 thousand kilometers, thought about one person, but I will find out about the mystical coincidence of dates after fate brings me together with Anna Vasilievna.

In the early 1970s, while collecting materials for the book “Siberia: where did it come from and where is it going. Facts. Reflections. Forecasts”, without any hope of success, I will turn to the Irkutsk department of the KGB with a request to request the case of Kolchak and Timireva from Moscow. They were arrested on January 15, 1920 at the Irkutsk railway station, the arrest was led by 23-year-old staff captain A.G. Nesterov, Deputy Commander of the Political Center.

Three or four months later, 19 volumes of "The Case on the Accusation of Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak and Others" will arrive in Irkutsk from the General Investigation Fund of the Central Archive of the KGB. Among the protocols, receipts, certificates, beaten off on the "Underwood" of the 1900s, but often by hand, sometimes impossible to read, there was a piece of gray paper, hastily written with an indelible pencil, folded many times until it became convenient for hiding.

I unfolded, and darkened in the eyes. This was Kolchak's last note to Anna Vasilievna Timireva, which did not reach her; it was taken away, apparently, during the night search before the execution.

When publishing and republishing the book, censorship blacked out the text of the note unconditionally; I had a hard time managing to defend only a fragment. The whole note shone with such love of 46-year-old Kolchak for 26-year-old Anna Timireva (Safonova), such a triumph of their defenseless mutual tenderness over the devastation that swept the earth, that there was no trace left of the image of the admiral, as he was represented in those days.

In the village of Zabitui near Irkutsk, I found Staff Captain Nesterov, a wizened old man, an employee of the local public utilities; he spent 40 years in camps and exile for his connection with the Socialist-Revolutionary Political Center. From him I heard the details of Kolchak's arrest.

The train stood without a locomotive, surrounded by two battalions of the 53rd Infantry Regiment, ready to blow up the track, but not to allow the trains with the admiral and the gold reserve to move east. There were 39 people in Kolchak's carriage; the telegraph mechanic, the clerk, and officials for special assignments crowded in the vestibule and in the aisle, not understanding why they were being pushed out into the cold. Kolchak and Timireva sat side by side in a separate compartment. The arrest of Anna Vasilievna was not envisaged. The staff captain did not even know about its existence. But she kept Alexander Vasilyevich's hands in hers, insisting that they would go to prison together. They walked under escort on the ice of the Angara, sliding and supporting each other.

Sitting over the archival folders, I could not imagine that a year later I would meet Anna Vasilievna Timireva, who lived on Plyushchikha in Moscow under a different name, and, like a postman from oblivion, I would transfer the text of the letter that had been sent to her for half a century, rewritten in my notebook.

But first, about other papers from the “Case on Charges ...” On the second day of arrest, languishing in a separate cell, not knowing what happened to Alexander Vasilyevich and not yet figured out who to intercede for the admiral, Anna Vasilyevna writes in pencil: “Please allow me a meeting with Admiral Kolchak. Anna Timireva. January 16, 1920.

They were allowed short joint walks around the prison yard. She was horrified by the situation in which Alexander Vasilyevich found himself, she did not think about herself, her heart was breaking from impotence to help, so that he would not be so cold in the cell.

She writes to freedom with the hope that kind people will pass the note to the car, where their things were left. The guard, apparently, promised to help her, but, not daring, gave the letter to the Investigation Commission:

“I ask you to transfer my note to the carriage of Admiral Kolchak. Please send the admiral - 1) boots, 2) 2 changes of linen, 3) a mug for tea, 4) a jug for hands and a basin, 5) cologne, 6) cigarettes, 7) tea and sugar, 8) some food, 9 ) a second blanket, 10) a pillow, 11) papers and envelopes, 12) a pencil.

Me: 1) tea and sugar, 2) food, 3) a couple of sheets, 4) a gray dress, 5) cards, 6) papers and envelopes, 7) candles and matches.

Hello to all of you, my dear friends. Perhaps there will be a free person who will bring me all this, from brave women.

Anna Timireva. We are sitting in jail separately.

She emphasized the request for candles: she was afraid of the dark.

For the time being, she was not disturbed, only the admiral was taken along the corridor for interrogations. For the Extraordinary Investigative Commission, it was unexpected with what dignity Kolchak behaved, how calmly he read the protocols, corrected inaccuracies before signing. The investigators were not allowed to know that his thoughts were far from these papers, all his anxiety was about Anna, this alone now occupied him, and he had to, answering questions, tell strangers about his expeditions to the Arctic, the search for Baron Toll, plan for the revival of the Russian Navy, defeated in the Russo-Japanese War.

He had nothing to give up. K. Popov, who conducted the investigation, in the preface to the publication of the verbatim report “The Interrogation of Kolchak” in 1925, found an explanation for the testimony that was strange to his hearing: “He gave them not so much for the authorities interrogating him, but for the bourgeois world ...”

On the reverse side of the sheet with the stamp “Adjutant of the Supreme Ruler and Supreme Commander-in-Chief” (apparently seized during the arrest of the adjutant and used for lack of other paper) there is another document: “The Extraordinary Investigative Commission, having considered the issue of the further detention of Anna Vasilievna Timireva, who voluntarily followed in prison during the arrest of Admiral Kolchak, decided: in the interests of the investigation into the Kolchak case and in order to avoid the possibility of outsiders influencing Timireva, leave A.V. Timirev in custody. Chairman S. Chudnovsky, comrade of the Chairman of the Investigative Commission K. Popov ... "

On the fateful night, when Kolchak was read the decision of the Revolutionary Committee on the execution, when the hole in the Angarsk ice was already smoking, to which they would drag the executed, Anna Vasilyevna heard the clatter of boots in the corridor, saw through the crack his gray hat among the black people.

She was not immediately informed about the execution, they did not decide for a long time, but, having learned about this and not suspecting that the Red Army soldiers had pushed the dead man under water, Anna demanded a body for burial from the commandant of the prison.

The Irkutsk Provincial Revolutionary Committee sends a resolution to the Extraordinary Investigative Commission:

“In response to Anna Timireva’s petition to hand over the body of Adm[iral] Kolchak to her, the Revolutionary [Committee] informs that the body has been buried and will not be handed over to anyone.

Business manager (signature).

A copy of this message is to be announced to Timireva.”

The authorities did not know what to do with a woman guilty only of loving a man named Kolchak.

She broke up with her husband Timirev, her second cousin, a naval officer, the hero of Port Arthur, in 1918, traces of him were lost in the Russian emigration that poured from the Far East to Manchuria.

In 1922, while temporarily at large, she met a railway engineer V.K. Kniper, got married, took his last name. This did not save from new arrests. When they took her away for the fifth time, she asked the investigator what she was accused of. The investigator was surprised: “But the Soviet government has already caused you so many insults ...” That is, you should already potentially be an enemy.

In the wild, she was looking for Volodya, the son from her first marriage; he was arrested and shot in the 38th, when he, a talented artist, was 23 years old. Engineer Kniper patiently waited for the next release of Anna Vasilievna; he died in 1942.

Anna Vasilievna went through the prisons of Irkutsk, Yaroslavl, camps in Transbaikalia and Karaganda, exile in cities and villages of Russia; she developed tuberculosis. In the late 50s, completely exhausted, she forced herself to write to the USSR Prosecutor General:

“On January 15, 1920, I was arrested in Irkutsk on Kolchak's train. I was then 26 years old. I loved this man and could not leave him in the last days of his life. This is, in essence, all my fault ... At present, I am 67 years old, I am a completely sick person, this work has long been beyond my strength, it requires great physical endurance, but I cannot quit it, because I have nothing else to live. I have been working since the age of 22, but due to continuous arrests and exiles, for a total of 25 years I have no work experience. I again ask for my full rehabilitation, without which it is impossible to exist in the future.

... We will meet in April 1972 on Plyushchikha, in her old apartment, where her sister and nephew now lived.

A small gray-haired woman will wrap herself in a knitted scarf thrown over a white blouse with a lace collar.

They talked about Siberia, went over in their memory places that were familiar to both, and for a long time I did not have the courage to tell what I had come with.

She brought from the next room a letter addressed to the Minister of Culture of the USSR, signed by Shostakovich, Sveshnikov, Gnesina, Khachaturian, Oistrakh, Kozlovsky...

“We earnestly ask you to assist in obtaining A.V. Kniper, nee Safonova, daughter of the outstanding Russian musician V.I. Safonov, who died in February 1918 in Kislovodsk. Anna Vasilievna is 67 years old, she is in poor health. Having no means of subsistence, she is forced to work as a props at the Rybinsk Drama Theater, which she cannot afford. At present, Anna Vasilievna, who was undeservedly spent many years in camps and administrative exile, has been fully rehabilitated and registered in Moscow. But she has nothing to live on ... ”And the answer is: citizen A.V. Timireva received a personal pension of 45 rubles.

"How do you live?!" I couldn't resist. Mosfilm put it on record: when “noble old women” are needed in mass scenes, they call me, I take a tram and rush. She starred in "The Diamond Hand", in "War and Peace". Remember Natasha Rostova's ball? Close-up of the princess with a lorgnette - that's me! “And all the income?” - “For a shooting day, 3 rubles ... Enough for Taganka, for a volume of Okudzhava, sometimes for the Conservatory.”

Time to talk about the note.

And I, stammering, tell how I was looking for documents on the history of Siberia, how the “Case on the Accusation ...” came to Irkutsk, and among the papers was the last note of Alexander Vasilyevich, taken from him, which then did not reach her. Here is my notepad...

Anna Vasilievna got up and went into another room. Where did the glasses go? Not finding them, she sank into a chair and in a weakened voice, with pauses unusual for her, asked me to read aloud. Such anticipation tightened in her pupils, which made me uncomfortable with confusion.

“My dear dove, I received your note, thank you for your kindness and concern for me. I don’t know how to relate to Wojciechowski’s ultimatum, but rather I think that nothing will come of it or that the inevitable end will be accelerated. I don’t understand what it means “on Saturday our walks are completely impossible”? Do not worry about me. I feel better, my colds are gone. I think that transfer to another cell is impossible. I only think about you and your fate, the only thing that worries me. I don't worry about myself, because everything is known in advance. Every step I take is being watched and it is very difficult for me to write. Write to me. Your notes are the only joy I can have…”

It was difficult for me to control myself.

“Go on,” said Anna Vasilievna.

“I pray for you and bow before your self-sacrifice. My dear, my beloved, do not worry about me and save yourself. I have forgiven Hyde.

Goodbye, I kiss your hands."

(General G. Gaida in the spring of 1919 commanded the Siberian Army, which was part of the Russian Army of Admiral A.V. Kolchak, was deprived of his general rank and awards for failure to comply with the order of the commander-in-chief; in Vladivostok he led the Social Revolutionary rebellion against the Kolchak government, was arrested and left Russia. )

Anna Vasilievna sat motionless, under a shawl that had wrapped around her shoulders, thinking in a distant terrible time, when the state collapsed, peoples were exterminated, anger and hatred spread over the scorched earth. A train was going through frozen Siberia, snowdrifts and pines were spinning in the frosty window, and two people were sitting side by side, drawn into terrible events and doomed to become their victims; both kept in their souls the feeling of love, the only value, forgotten by many, trampled by others, and by them, despite everything experienced, preserved.

Then Anna Vasilievna told me: “I don’t think that in my lifetime they will write the truth about Alexander Vasilyevich, fewer and fewer people who knew him, who experienced the charm of his peculiar mind and high mental attitude. The diary entries that I keep in fits and starts, tired, after work, I myself feel dry, not able to convey the greatness of this loving and beloved person. He entered - and everything around was done like a holiday. In all my years, wake me up and ask me what I want more than anything in the world, I would answer: to see him. I try to write about him in verse, but my pen is weak.

Yevtushenko asked me to help meet Anna Vasilievna. I sent a postcard to Anna Vasilievna from Irkutsk. I give the answer in full:

“Dear Leonid Iosifovich, I received your postcard at the hospital, where they are trying to repair me. I am at home now. I regret that we did not visit Moscow in the winter as we wanted. As for your friend, if he really wants to see me, let him call.

Although it is summer now and, of course, it is not in Moscow. What I will do next, I don't know yet. At 80, things get difficult. So, goodbye, problematic. Anna Kniper. May 27, 73.

Evgeny Aleksandrovich did not manage to get out on Plyushchikha for a long time. And in January 1978, Anna Vasilievna died. At her grave on Vagankovsky, I recall a half-empty room, a gray-haired, lean woman with piercing eyes wrapped in a scarf, I hear her calm voice tearing through crazy times - the beloved of Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak. The vanity that raged behind the fence, which seemed to be the meaning of life, had no power over him:

“I can’t accept half a century, nothing can help, and you all leave again on that fateful night. And I am condemned to go until the deadline passes, and the paths of well-worn roads are confused. But if I am still alive in defiance of fate, then only as your love and memory of you.

In 2008, Yevtushenko will include Anna Timireva's poems in the anthology Ten Centuries of Russian Poetry. It is a pity that Anna Vasilievna did not hear the poet's poems dedicated to her during her lifetime. She would again look for glasses and, embarrassed, would ask to read them.

Yevgeny Aleksandrovich was in the circle of "refined old women" who went through wars and camps, famous "for being loved by those who are famous," and, hearing their high style, he seemed to himself "absurd, like the Mytishchi Cahors in the Clicquot company" and Montillado.

(From the book "Old Rynda". See Novaya Gazeta, No. 127 of November 12, No. 131 of November 21, No. 140 of December 12)

Interrogation of Kolchak

Transcripts

Foreword

I had to participate in the interrogations of Kolchak, carried out by the Extraordinary Investigative Commission in Irkutsk. Created by the SR-Menshevik "Political Center", this commission was then, with the transfer of power to the Revolutionary Committee, was reorganized into the Provincial Extraordinary Commission; the composition of the Commission that interrogated Kolchak remained unchanged until the very last day of the interrogation ... The Revolutionary Committee quite deliberately retained it, despite the fact that this composition included Denike, a Menshevik, and two right-wing SRs - Lukyanchikov and Alekseevsky. All these persons were useful for interrogation already by the fact that they were closely acquainted with the work of the Kolchak government and, moreover, directly or indirectly participated in the preparation of the Irkutsk uprising against him, in inflicting the last blow on him, the results of which were already a foregone conclusion by the entry of the Red Army into Siberia and the capture of Kolchak's capital - Omsk. With the presence of these persons in the Investigative Commission, Kolchak's tongue was more loosened: he did not see them as his resolute and consistent enemies. The very interrogation of Kolchak, who was arrested, or rather, handed over to the "Political Center" from hand to hand by the Czechoslovaks - if I'm not mistaken - on January 17, 1920, began on the eve of the transfer of power by the "Political Center" to the Revkom, and, consequently, all interrogations, counting from the second, they were already made on behalf of the Soviet, and not the es-ero-Menshevik authorities.

The commission conducted the interrogation according to a predetermined plan. She decided, through this interrogation, to give the history not only of Kolchakism itself in the testimony of its supreme leader, but also Kolchak's own autobiography, in order to more fully describe this "leader" of the counter-revolutionary offensive against the young Soviet Republic. The idea was correct, but its execution was not brought to the end. Events on the Civil War Front, which had not yet been liquidated, and the threat of a temporary capture of the city by the remnants of Kolchak's gangs that hung over Irkutsk for several days, forced the Revolutionary Committee to shoot Kolchak on the night of February 6-7 instead of the intended sending after the investigation to Moscow for trial. The interrogation therefore ended where its most essential part began - Kolchakism in the proper sense, the period of Kolchak's dictatorship as "supreme ruler". Thus, the circumstances were such that the historical and biographical nature of the interrogation, due to random circumstances, led to negative results. The interrogation, undoubtedly, gave a good self-portrait of Kolchak, gave an auto-history of the emergence of the Kolchak dictatorship, gave a number of the most characteristic features of Kolchakism, but did not give a complete, exhaustive history and picture of Kolchakism itself.

The last interrogation was carried out on February 6, the day when the execution of Kolchak, in essence, had already been decided, although the final verdict had not yet been delivered. The fact that the remnants of his gangs are near Irkutsk, Kolchak knew. The fact that the commanding staff of these gangs presented an ultimatum to Irkutsk to extradite him, Kolchak, and his Prime Minister Pepelyaev, Kolchak also knew, and he foresaw the inevitable consequences of this ultimatum for him. Just in these days, during a search in the prison, his note was seized to his wife Timireva, who was sitting there, in the same solitary ward with him. In response to Timireva's question, how is he, Kolchak. refers to the ultimatum of his generals, Kolchak replied in his note that he "looks at this ultimatum skeptically and thinks that this will only accelerate the inevitable denouement." Thus, Kolchak foresaw the possibility of his execution. This was reflected in the last interrogation. Kolchak was nervous, the usual calm and restraint that distinguished his behavior during interrogations left him. The interrogators themselves were somewhat nervous. They were nervous and in a hurry. On the one hand, it was necessary to finish a certain period in the history of Kolchakism, the establishment of the Kolchak dictatorship, and on the other hand, to give several vivid manifestations of this dictatorship recorded by interrogation in its struggle against its enemies, not only the revolutionary, but also the right-wing socialist camp - the camp of those who this dictatorship prepared. This, running significantly ahead of this stage of the issue, was done, but it was done in a very crumpled form. [v]

At this last interrogation Kolchak. very nervous, nevertheless he showed great caution in his testimony; he was wary of the slightest opportunity to give material for accusing individuals who had already fallen or could still fall into the hands of the restored Soviet power, and of the slightest opportunity to discover that his power, aimed at combating the fiend of hell - the Bolsheviks, breathing only violence and arbitrariness, she herself could act outside any law, was afraid that his interrogation would not help to pull off the veil with which he tried to cover it during all his testimony, the veil of a steady desire for law and order.

V. I. Lenin, in his speech about deceiving the people with the slogans of freedom and equality, said:

“It is rather stupid to blame Kolchak only because he raped the workers and even flogged the teachers because they sympathized with the Bolsheviks. This is a vulgar defense of democracy, these are Kolchak's stupid accusations. Kolchak acts in the ways that he finds.

The commission, while clarifying some striking facts from the field of violence carried out by Kolchak and the Kolchak military, undoubtedly, to some extent, fell into the tone of such a "rather stupid censure of Kolchak." But at that time in Siberia this rape and persecution were felt too vividly to be able to talk about them with Kolchak, maintaining the attitude towards him that V. I. Lenin recommends to us. What is important, however, is not this feature of the interrogations, but the attitude that the bearer of the military, typically fascist counter-revolutionary dictatorship himself shows towards acts of violence. If the commission was inclined to "quite stupidly blame Kolchak for them", then Kolchak himself constantly reveals a desire either to gloss over these acts, or to blame them on the atrocities of individual limes and groups against the will of the dictator and his government, or to find a legal justification for them. Quite frankly, portraying himself as an unconditional supporter and conductor of the idea of ​​opposing the White Guard military dictatorship to the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks, he does not want, does not have the courage to take full responsibility for all the consequences of this dictatorship, for those methods of its implementation that were inevitable for it, and the only possible.

The White Guard military dictatorship (this is clearly seen from Kolchak's testimony) turned from a centralized dictatorship into a dictatorship of individual generals and Cossack atamans, from violence firmly directed from a single center - into violence over Siberia by individual gangs that eluded submission to the "supreme ruler" and his government . But all the same, it was a single dictatorship, from top to bottom, built on the same model, operating with the same methods. And there was only one difference between the top and the bottom of this dictatorship: the top tried to bashfully cover up in the eyes of its leaders - the imperialist powers of the Entente - what the bottom with their counter- reconnaissance and guard detachments; with their Volkovs, Krasilnikovs and Annenkovs.

This difference was reflected in Kolchak's testimony. He gave them not so much for the authorities interrogating him, but for the bourgeois world. He knew what awaited him. He didn't need to hide anything to save himself. He did not wait for salvation, he could not wait, and for his sake he did not attempt to clutch at any straws. But in the face of the bourgeois world, he had to show himself to be acting against the enemies of this world, against the proletarian revolution, firmly, resolutely, but at the same time within the framework of bourgeois legality. He knew little of the bourgeois world to whose defense he had been promoted by the Anglo-French imperialists. He did not know that the dictatorship that he headed in Siberia and which he so unsuccessfully sought to spread throughout the country was a model and likeness of Western European fascism, a fascist dictatorship put forward by the bourgeois world itself, in front of which he “wants to show himself as the bearer of legality”. and order, self-satisfied unwisely censuring the Semenovs, Kalmykovs, and so on., And so on. for the fact that without any legality and without any order they raped the workers, shot, flogged, etc.

The same stupid bashfulness in front of the bourgeois world makes Kolchak modest in another respect: he does not want to recognize himself as a monarchist, even in relation to the distant past. And he covers up his monarchism, the monarchist goals of his whole struggle against Bolshevism, with a veil of democratic aspirations, again for the sake of the bourgeois world and thanks to a poor understanding of this world.

This "Polittsentr", which the allies "frightened" so much, guaranteeing Kolchak immunity and protection, lasted only two and a half weeks, and then dissolved, giving power to the Bolsheviks. Kolchak was betrayed and doomed. The Czechs, under the command of General Zhanen, shared the gold reserves with the Bolsheviks and took their share through Vladivostok to Czechoslovakia, which, thanks to Russian gold, had the most stable currency until the occupation by Hitler.

Kolchak was arrested along with his beloved Anna Timireva. The sham Political Center created an Extraordinary Investigative Commission, headed by K. A. Popov, who was later replaced by the Revolutionary Committee with S. Chudnovsky.

The interrogations began. Admiral Kolchak was well aware of what awaited him, and therefore he used the last opportunity to turn to history, to his descendants, to Russia. Alexander Vasilievich spoke about his whole life, told in sufficient detail. Kolchak's interrogation protocols are a poignant document of the era. This is a first person conversation. In general, little is known about their existence. Even very educated and interested in history people do not know that there is such a document, there is such a book.

For the first time, the texts of the interrogations were published in Berlin in the early 1920s in the Archive of the Russian Revolution No. 10. However, there were many errors and typos in the publication due to the illegibility of the text, so in 1925 in Leningrad the Bolsheviks released a "clean" version with a preface Konstantin Popov, who led the investigation at the beginning. During interrogations, Admiral Kolchak behaved with dignity. Even Popov was forced to admit this: “How did he behave during interrogations? He behaved like a prisoner of war, the commander of an army that lost the campaign, and, from this point of view, behaved with full dignity. In this he differed sharply from his ministers, with whom I had to deal as an investigator There was, with rare exceptions, cowardice, a desire to present oneself as unwitting participants in someone else's dirty story, even to portray oneself as almost fighters against these others, turning from yesterday's rulers into today's serfs before the victorious enemy. There was nothing of this in Kolchak's behavior."

But what is the consequence? There was no trial of Kolchak. They just shot him. Moreover, reading the transcript of the interrogations, you will be convinced that you shot "very on time." The version that there was a threat of his release does not hold water. The white units, the very ones that crossed the taiga in the frost, approached Irkutsk, but could not take it by storm and moved on.

On the night of February 6-7, 1920, A. V. Kolchak was shot along with Prime Minister Pepelyaev, and their bodies were thrown into the hole in the Angara River.

Kolchak took the secret of gold with him. No one knows how much it was originally, how much was paid for military supplies to the "allies", how much of these supplies were, and what was never delivered.

There were many white leaders. Only Kolchak was handed over for execution. Why? Because there was no "Denikin's gold", there was no "Wrangel's gold".

And Kolchak's gold was...

Minutes of the meetings of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission on the Kolchak case
(Transcript)

Meeting of the Extraordinary Commission of Inquiry
January 21st, 1920

Popov. You are present before the Investigative Commission, consisting of its chairman: K. A. Popov, deputy chairman V. P. Denike, members of the commission: G. G. Lukyanchikov and N. A. Alekseevsky, for interrogation about your detention. Are you Admiral Kolchak?

Kolchak. Yes, I am Admiral Kolchak.

Popov. We warn you that you have the right, like any person interrogated by the Extraordinary Investigative Commission, not to give answers to certain questions and not to give answers at all. How old are you?

Kolchak. I was born in 1873, I am now 46 years old. I was born in Petrograd, at the Obukhov plant. I am formally legally married, I have one son at the age of 9 years.

Popov. Were you the Supreme Ruler?

Kolchak. I was the Supreme Ruler of the Russian Government in Omsk - he was called All-Russian, but I personally did not use this term. My wife Sofya Fedorovna used to be in Sevastopol, and now she is in France. He corresponded with her through the embassy. My son Rostislav is with her.

Kolchak. She is my old good friend; she was in Omsk, where she worked in my workshop sewing linen and distributing it to military ranks - the sick and the wounded. She remained in Omsk until the last days, and then, when I had to leave for military reasons, she went with me on the train. In this train, she got here until the time when I was detained by the Czechs. When I was driving here, she wanted to share the fate with me.

Popov. Tell me, admiral, is she not your common-law wife? We have no right to record this?

Kolchak. No.

Alekseevsky. Tell us your wife's last name.

Kolchak. Sofia Fedorovna Omirova. I got married in 1904 here in Irkutsk, in the month of March. My wife is a native of Kamenetz-Podolsky lips. Her father was a judicial investigator or a member of the Kamenetz-Podolsk court. He died long ago; I didn't see him and didn't know him. My father, Vasily Ivanovich Kolchak. served in the naval artillery. Like all naval gunners, he took a course at the Mining Institute, then he was at the Ural Zlatoust plant, after that he was an acceptance officer for the naval department at the Obukhov plant. When he retired, with the rank of major general, he remained at this plant as an engineer or mining technician. There I was born. My mother is Olga Ilyinichna, nee Posokhova. Her father comes from the nobility of the Kherson province. My mother is a native of Odessa and also from a noble family. Both my parents are dead. They had no status. My father was a serving officer. After the Sevastopol War, he was captured by the French, and upon returning from captivity, he married, and then served in the artillery and at the Mining Institute. My father's entire family was supported solely on his earnings. I am Orthodox; before entering school, he received family education under the guidance of his father and mother. I have one sister - Ekaterina; there was another little sister - Lyubov, but she died in childhood. My sister Ekaterina is married. Her surname is Kryzhanovskaya. She stayed in Russia; where she is now, I do not know. She lived in Petrograd, but I have had no information about her since I left Russia.

I began my education at the 6th Petrograd classical gymnasium, where I stayed until the 3rd grade; then in 1888 I entered the Marine Corps and completed my education there in 1894. I transferred to the Marine Corps both at my own request and at the request of my father. I was a sergeant-major, I always went first or second in my graduation, changing with my comrade, with whom I entered the corps. He left the corps second and received the Admiral Rikord award. I was then 19 years old. A number of awards were established in the corpus for the first five or six first coming out, and they were obtained by seniority.

Upon leaving the corps in 1894, I entered the Petrograd 7th naval crew; he stayed there for several months, until the spring of 1895, when he was appointed assistant watch officer on the armored cruiser Rurik, which had just been completed and was preparing to go abroad. Then I went on my first overseas voyage. The cruiser "Rurik" went east, and here, in Vladivostok, I went to another cruiser "Cruiser", as a watch officer, at the end of 1896. On it, I sailed in the waters of the Pacific Ocean until 1899, when this cruiser returned back to Kronstadt. It was my first big swim. In 1900 I was promoted to lieutenant and returned from this voyage as a watch commander. During my first voyage, the main task was often combatant on the ship, but in addition, I specially worked in oceanography and hydrology. From that time on, I began to engage in scientific work. I was preparing for a south polar expedition, but I did it in my spare time; wrote notes, studied the south polar countries. I had a dream to find the south pole; but I never ended up sailing on the southern ocean.

Alekseevsky. How was your service after your return? Have you entered the Academy?

Kolchak. No, I didn't manage to do it. When I returned to Petrograd in May 1899, I then went east again in December, already on a battleship, on the battleship Petropavlovsk. Summer and sailed in the naval cadet corps on the cruiser "Prince Pozharsky" and went to the Far East.

When I returned to Kronstadt in 1899, I met Admiral Makarov there, who went on the Yermak on his first polar expedition. I asked him to take me with him, but due to official reasons he could not do this and "Yermak" left without me. Then I decided to go again to the Far East, believing that maybe I would be able to get on some kind of expedition - I was very interested in the northern part of the Pacific Ocean in hydrological terms. I wanted to get on some ship that was leaving to guard the seal trade to the Commander Islands, to the Bering Sea, to Kamchatka. I got to know Admiral Makarov very closely these days, since he himself worked a lot in oceanography.

Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak left no memoirs. These transcripts of interrogations can serve as something like: the questions concerned almost the entire period of his life, the admiral answered the questions extensively and honestly, realizing that he would most likely not have another opportunity to sum up his life.

Foreword

I had to participate in the interrogations of Kolchak, carried out by the Extraordinary Investigative Commission in Irkutsk. Created by the SR-Menshevik "Political Center" (1), this commission was then, with the transfer of power to the Revolutionary Committee, was reorganized into the Provincial Extraordinary Commission; the composition of the Commission that interrogated Kolchak remained unchanged until the very last day of the interrogation. All these persons were useful for interrogation already by the fact that they were closely acquainted with the work of the Kolchak government and, moreover, directly or indirectly participated in the preparation of the Irkutsk uprising against him, in inflicting the last blow on him, the results of which were already a foregone conclusion by the entry of the Red Army into Siberia and the capture of Kolchak's capital - Omsk. With the presence of these persons in the Investigative Commission, Kolchak's tongue was more loosened: he did not see them as his resolute and consistent enemies. The actual interrogation of Kolchak, who was arrested, or rather, handed over to the "Political Center" from hand to hand by the Czechoslovaks - if I'm not mistaken - on January 17, 1920, began on the eve of the transfer of power by the "Political Center" to the Revkom, and, consequently, all interrogations, counting from the second, they were already made on behalf of the Soviet, and not the es-ero-Menshevik authorities.

The commission conducted the interrogation according to a predetermined plan. She decided, through this interrogation, to give the history not only of Kolchakism itself in the testimony of its supreme leader, but also Kolchak's own autobiography, in order to more fully describe this "leader" of the counter-revolutionary offensive against the young Soviet Republic. The idea was correct, but its execution was not brought to the end. Events on the Civil War Front, which had not yet been liquidated, and the threat of a temporary capture of the city by the remnants of Kolchak's gangs that hung over Irkutsk for several days, forced the Revolutionary Committee to shoot Kolchak on the night of February 6-7 instead of the intended sending after the investigation to Moscow for trial. The interrogation therefore ended where its most essential part began - Kolchakism in the proper sense, the period of Kolchak's dictatorship as "supreme ruler". Thus, the circumstances were such that the historical and biographical nature of the interrogation, due to random circumstances, led to negative results. The interrogation, undoubtedly, gave a good self-portrait of Kolchak, gave an auto-history of the emergence of the Kolchak dictatorship, gave a number of the most characteristic features of Kolchakism, but did not give a complete, exhaustive history and picture of Kolchakism itself.

The last interrogation was carried out on February 6, the day when the execution of Kolchak, in essence, had already been decided, although the final verdict had not yet been delivered. The fact that the remnants of his gangs are near Irkutsk, Kolchak knew. The fact that the commanding staff of these gangs presented an ultimatum to Irkutsk to extradite him, Kolchak, and his Prime Minister Pepelyaev (1.2), Kolchak also knew, and he foresaw the inevitable consequences of this ultimatum for him. Just in these days, during a search in the prison, his note was seized to his wife Timireva, who was sitting there, in the same solitary ward with him. In response to Timireva's question, how is he, Kolchak. refers to the ultimatum of his generals, Kolchak replied in his note that he "looks at this ultimatum skeptically and thinks that this will only accelerate the inevitable denouement." Thus, Kolchak foresaw the possibility of his execution. This was reflected in the last interrogation. Kolchak was nervous, the usual calm and restraint that distinguished his behavior during interrogations left him. The interrogators themselves were somewhat nervous. They were nervous and in a hurry. On the one hand, it was necessary to finish a certain period in the history of Kolchakism, the establishment of the Kolchak dictatorship, and on the other hand, to give several vivid manifestations of this dictatorship recorded by interrogation in its struggle with its enemies, not only the revolutionary, but also the right-wing socialist camp - the camp of those who this dictatorship prepared. This, running significantly ahead of this stage of the issue, was done, but it was done in a very crumpled form. [v]

At this last interrogation Kolchak. very nervous, nevertheless he showed great caution in his testimony; he was wary of the slightest opportunity to provide material for accusing individuals who had already fallen or could still fall into the hands of the restored Soviet power, and of the slightest opportunity to discover that his power, aimed at combating the fiend of hell - the Bolsheviks, breathing only violence and arbitrariness, she herself could act outside of any law, was afraid that his interrogation would not help to pull off from this power the veil with which he tried to cover it during all his testimony, the veil of a steady desire for law and order.

V. I. Lenin, in his speech about deceiving the people with the slogans of freedom and equality, said:

“It is rather stupid to blame Kolchak only because he raped the workers and even flogged the teachers because they sympathized with the Bolsheviks. This is a vulgar defense of democracy, these are Kolchak's stupid accusations. Kolchak acts in the ways that he finds.

The commission, while clarifying some striking facts from the field of violence carried out by Kolchak and the Kolchak military, undoubtedly, to some extent, fell into the tone of such a "rather stupid censure of Kolchak." But at that time in Siberia this rape and persecution were felt too vividly to be able to talk about them with Kolchak, maintaining the attitude towards him that V. I. Lenin recommends to us. What is important, however, is not this feature of the interrogations, but the attitude that the bearer of the military, typically fascist counter-revolutionary dictatorship himself displays towards acts of violence. If the commission was inclined to "quite stupidly blame Kolchak for them", then Kolchak himself constantly reveals a desire either to gloss over these acts, or to blame them on the atrocities of individual limes and groups against the will of the dictator and his government, or to find a legal justification for them. Quite frankly, portraying himself as an unconditional supporter and conductor of the idea of ​​opposing the White Guard military dictatorship to the dictatorship of the Bolsheviks, he does not want, does not have the courage to take full responsibility for all the consequences of this dictatorship, for those methods of its implementation that were inevitable for it, and the only possible.

The White Guard military dictatorship (this is clearly seen from Kolchak's testimony) turned from a centralized dictatorship into a dictatorship of individual generals and Cossack atamans, from violence firmly directed from a single center - into violence over Siberia by individual gangs that eluded submission to the "supreme ruler" and his government . But it was still a single dictatorship, from top to bottom, built on the same model, operating with the same methods. And there was only one difference between the top and the bottom of this dictatorship: the top tried to bashfully cover up in the eyes of its leaders - the imperialist powers of the Entente - what the lower classes with their counter- reconnaissance and guard detachments; with their Volkovs, Krasilnikovs and Annenkovs.

This difference was reflected in Kolchak's testimony. He gave them not so much for the authorities interrogating him, but for the bourgeois world. He knew what awaited him. He didn't need to hide anything to save himself. He did not wait for salvation, he could not wait, and for his sake he did not attempt to clutch at any straws. But in the face of the bourgeois world, he had to show himself to be acting against the enemies of this world, against the proletarian revolution, firmly, resolutely, but at the same time within the framework of bourgeois legality. He knew little of the bourgeois world to whose defense he had been promoted by the Anglo-French imperialists. He did not know that the dictatorship that he headed in Siberia and which he so unsuccessfully sought to spread throughout the country was a model and likeness of Western European fascism, a fascist dictatorship put forward by the bourgeois world itself, in front of which he “wants to show himself as the bearer of legality”. and order, self-satisfied unwisely censuring the Semenovs, Kalmykovs, and so on., And so on. for the fact that without any legality and without any order they raped the workers, shot, flogged, etc.

The same stupid bashfulness in front of the bourgeois world makes Kolchak modest in another respect: he does not want to recognize himself as a monarchist, even in relation to the distant past. And he covers up his monarchism, the monarchist goals of his whole struggle against Bolshevism, with a veil of democratic aspirations, again for the sake of the bourgeois world and thanks to a poor understanding of this world.

If we exclude these characteristic features of Kolchak's testimony and remember his fear, which we have already noted, of giving material to accuse his employees, assistants and servants, then it should be recognized that Kolchak's testimony, by and large, is sufficiently frank.

How did he behave during interrogations? He behaved like a prisoner-of-war commander of an army that lost a campaign, and from this point of view he behaved with full dignity. In this he differed sharply from most of his ministers, with whom I had to deal as an investigator in the case of the Kolchak government. There was, with rare exceptions, cowardice, a desire to present oneself as unwitting participants in someone else's dirty story, even to portray oneself as almost fighters against these others, turning from yesterday's rulers into today's serfs before the victorious enemy. There was nothing of this in Kolchak's behavior.

But in one respect he comes close to his civilian comrades-in-arms, who shared with him his stay in the solitary wing of the Irkutsk prison. All of them, as if by choice, were the most perfect political nonentities. Politically, their head, Kolchak, was also a nonentity. His testimony reveals this with sufficient clarity. He is a politically impersonal figure. He is a mere toy in the hands of the Entente powers. He, with his bare idea of ​​a military dictatorship and the hidden idea of ​​restoring the monarchy, has no policy other than that which is dictated to him by the contradictory influences of these powers, and the groups and small groups of the military and commercial and industrial circles surrounding him, with their dubious quality of political leaders. . In these contradictory influences, he is hopelessly confused and becomes more and more confused, the stronger the pressure of the advancing Red Army becomes, until, finally, he is betrayed by his yesterday's allies - the Czechoslovaks, of course, with the knowledge of the same powers of the Entente, who put him at the head of the counter- revolution.

I confine myself to these brief remarks.

No matter how one evaluates the arrangement of Kolchak's interrogation and his testimony, their publication will undoubtedly provide a lot of value for anyone who wants to study the history of the counter-revolution, and certainly for any historian of it.

Protocols of interrogation of Admiral Kolchak A.V. - this is a unique document of the era, a kind of his dying confession. It was first published in 1925 in Leningrad.

Here's what the editor's note says:

“The minutes of the meetings of the Extraordinary Investigative Commission on the Kolchak case published by the Central Archive are reproduced according to a shorthand record certified by the Deputy Chairman of the Investigative Commission, K.A. Popov, and kept in the Archive of the October Revolution (Fund LXXV, arch. No. 51). Some places in the transcript and individual words that could not be read were omitted in the original and dots were put in their place. There are few such omissions, and they do not have any significant significance. The protocols are reproduced by us with all the features of the original, and only some grammatical inaccuracies that prevented the understanding of the meaning of what is being stated have been corrected by us <…>the text of the testimony published by us is the only accurate and reliable reproduction of the original protocols of Kolchak's interrogation» .

The 1925 edition is preceded by a preface by K.A. Popov, where he writes the following:

« He gave them[testimony - S.Z.] not so much for the authorities interrogating him, but for the bourgeois world. He knew what awaited him. He didn't need to hide anything to save himself. He did not wait for salvation, he could not wait, and for his sake he did not attempt to clutch at any straws. But in the face of the bourgeois world, he had to show himself to be acting against the enemies of this world, against the proletarian revolution, firmly, resolutely, but at the same time within the framework of bourgeois legality.<…>The same stupid bashfulness in front of the bourgeois world makes Kolchak modest in another respect: he does not want to recognize himself as a monarchist, even in relation to the distant past. And he covers up his monarchism, the monarchist goals of his whole struggle against Bolshevism, with a veil of democratic aspirations, again for the sake of the bourgeois world and thanks to a poor understanding of this world.
If we exclude these characteristic features of Kolchak's testimony and remember his fear, which we have already noted, to give material for accusing his employees, assistants and servants, then we should admit that Kolchak's testimony, by and large, is fairly frank.
How did he behave during interrogations? He behaved like a prisoner-of-war commander of an army that lost a campaign, and from this point of view he behaved with full dignity. In this he differed sharply from most of his ministers, with whom I had to deal as an investigator in the case of the Kolchak government. There was, with rare exceptions, cowardice, a desire to present oneself as unwitting participants in someone else's dirty story, even to portray oneself as almost fighters against these others, turning from yesterday's rulers into today's serfs before the victorious enemy. There was nothing of this in Kolchak's behavior. .

Actually, when reading this text, the dignity and frankness of the admiral are very clearly visible. He talks about his life, about his activities, service. In the note to the publication of these protocols on the Militer website, the following note is made:

“Admiral Alexander Vasilyevich Kolchak left no memoirs. These transcripts of interrogations can serve as something like: the questions concerned almost the entire period of his life, the admiral answered the questions extensively and honestly, realizing that he would most likely not have another opportunity to sum up his life. .

And this is true - this text is worth reading precisely as such a kind of memoir of one of the outstanding figures of the White movement. In them you can find many very interesting moments for the reader and those who are especially interested in the history of Russia at the beginning of the 20th century and the White movement. Kolchak talked about how he planned the operation to seize the Straits in 1917 (the February revolution prevented its implementation), about how the war was waged in the Baltic, about the revolution of 1917, about a trip abroad, about the events in the Far East in 1918 and the events of the civil war in Siberia, the Urals and the Volga region. Kolchak never had a chance to finish this story - on February 6 there was the last interrogation, and already on the night of the 7th, he and Pepelyaev were shot and thrown into the hole in the Angara.

The reissue of these protocols was made as part of the series "Nikolai Starikov recommends reading" in the St. Petersburg publishing house PITER. Books in this series are sold in the St. Petersburg bookstore chain of supermarkets "Bukvoed", so if you have such an opportunity, look for such books there. All in all, I highly recommend this series. Very valuable and useful sources and books are published there. I already wrote about books from this series earlier: in the collection "White Russia" and.

I will not write much about the book, I will note only some particularly interesting moments. For example, the fact that during his trip abroad in the summer of 1917, in Washington, he met with the future US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt:

“Upon my arrival in Washington, I first of all paid a visit to our Ambassador Bakhmetiev and maritime minister, his assistant , the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Minister of War, in a word, all those persons with whom I then had to deal with " .

Franklin Delano Roosevelt at that moment was US Deputy Secretary of the Navy Josephus Daniels, which I spoke about in due time.
Reading the episode about Kolchak's visit to Britain, I noticed that in addition to the First Sea Lord (not to be confused with the First Lord of the Admiralty - the PML is the position of the 1st Deputy Naval Minister, which is occupied by the Navy, and the PLA is the Naval Minister, civil position) Jellicoe, he met in London with "Chief of the Naval General Staff General Holl" . I have not been able to determine exactly who he is and I would venture to suggest that it was the beginning nickname of the British naval intelligence Rear Admiral W. R. Hall. Then a lot of interesting questions arise.
While waiting for the ship to America, Kolchak was forced to spend two weeks in London. He decided not to waste this time: “I asked Jellicoe's permission to get acquainted with naval aviation and the establishment of naval aviation stations in England in order to illuminate this issue for myself. For this purpose, I traveled to various factories and stations, flew reconnaissance at sea, and so waited for the moment when an auxiliary cruiser was sent from Glasgow to the mouth of St. Lawrence, Halifax " .

It is also interesting to look at the political preferences and sympathies of Kolchak. This question aroused great interest among those who conducted the interrogation. Kolchak noted that in the service he was out of politics and was a monarchist in the sense that he was loyal to the monarchy to which he swore allegiance. He was among the first to reswear allegiance to the Provisional Government because it was determined to continue the war until victory. However, Kolchak resolutely refused to serve the Bolsheviks, who concluded the Brest Peace and refused to continue the war, and this led him to the camp of fighters against Bolshevism. During the interrogation, he spoke rather positively about a number of figures of the Provisional Government - Milyukov, Guchkov, Rodzianko, with whom he had contact even when they were deputies of the State Duma, and he was a naval officer and took part in the re-equipment and improvement of the Russian fleet. HeHe spoke of the leaders of the Cadets and Octobrists with sympathy, considering them intelligent people, patriots of Russia and suitable specialists for governing the country, and he considered the removal of Guchkov and Milyukov from power and replaced by Kerensky almost a tragedy.A curious detail: in the autumn of 1917in absentia, Kolchak was nominated (with his consent) as a candidate from the Cadets for the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets to the Constituent Assembly.

I recommend reading this unique document for a better acquaintance with the history of your Fatherland. This is a story about time and about yourself in the first person - the face of a person who directly took part in the creation of history, in the historical events of those difficult days.