The Great Soviet Encyclopedia claims that Pavlik Morozov created the first pioneer detachment // Photo: yaplakal.com
"Heroic" act of a pioneer
The village where the boy lived was split into two opposing camps. Some existed below the poverty line and were adherents of the Soviet regime. Others lived in just fine and were opponents of the regime. By the will of fate, some of the members of the Pavlik family belonged to the latter. The boy's father was the head of the village council with a rather notorious reputation. He took bribes and helped wealthy people evade taxes.The boy did not have warm feelings for him, not just because he was in the "nasty camp." But also because he left his mother for another woman, leaving her with four children and no means of subsistence. The new wife, in turn, also did not love Pavel. And after he became one of the pioneers, he completely turned into the main object of hatred not only for her, but also for his own grandfather.
In 1931, the elder Morozov acquired an extremely notorious reputation, which reached the relevant authorities. He was charged with malpractice. According to some reports, the cause of the case was Pavlik's denunciation of his own father. Others say that he, along with his mother, was simply a witness.
In 1931, the father of Pavlik Morozov acquired an extremely notorious reputation, which reached the relevant authorities // Photo: aif.ru
The boy confirmed the words of the mother, who provided the basic information. In addition, he was stopped by the judge because he decided that there was no need to ask a lot from a minor. However, this was enough for a 10-year prison sentence for Trofim Morozov.
Effects
Six months later, Pavlik was murdered. On that ill-fated day - September 3 - the boy, along with his younger brother, went to the forest to pick berries. After 2 days, the mother raised the alarm about the absence of children. During the search, bodies with signs of torture were found. A bag was put on his head, and there were deep cuts on his hands between the index finger and thumb. His brother lay at a distance of 15 meters. During the investigation, 9 suspects were detained on charges of murder. All of them were relatives of the deceased.Victim or hero
The act of the little boy was regarded by the Soviet authorities as heroic. The system believed that he made a huge contribution to the development of the socialist state. At the same time, a number of dubious facts from his biography were hidden. After some time, these events turned into an ordinary legend.
In the 30s, the murder of Pavlik Morozov turned into a real symbol of the struggle against those who were not adherents of the values and ideals of the USSR // Photo: tayni.info
If we evaluate objectively, then Pavlik was not a traitor to his father. It's just that the boy lived in times that were characterized by an acute confrontation of several versts of society. In the 30s, his terrible murder turned into a real symbol of the struggle against those who were not adherents of the values and ideals of the USSR. After the collapse of this large country, anti-Soviet forces, on the contrary, began to pour mud on the image.
In fact, from the point of view of that time, Pavel Morozov was a strong-willed boy with strong convictions. He stood up for what he thought was right. The boy was not afraid to speak out against a corrupt official in court, despite the fact that he was his own father. He also spoke out against the enemies of the system of his native country, but was severely punished for this.
Pavlik Morozov is a legendary person around whom there is always a lot of controversy. These disputes do not stop at the present time, since it is still impossible to answer the main question of who Pavlik Morozov is - a hero or a traitor. There is little information about what this boy did and what his fate is, so it’s impossible to figure out this story until the end.
There is only the official version of his date of birth and how the boy died. All other events remain an occasion for discussions about the act of this pioneer to continue.
Origin, life
It is known that Pavel Trofimovich Morozov was born in mid-November 1918. His father, Trofim Sergeevich, came to the village Gerasimovka, Tobolsk province in 1910. He belonged to ethnic Belarusians, therefore, in his own way origin he belonged to the Stolypin settlers.
The family of Trofim Sergeevich Morozov and Tatyana Semyonovna Baidakova, who lived in the Turin district, had five children:
- Paul.
- George.
- Fedor.
- Novel.
- Alexei.
There is information that the paternal grandfather was once a gendarme, and the grandmother was known for a long time as a horse thief. Their acquaintance was unusual: when my grandmother was in prison, her grandfather guarded her. There they met and then they began to live together.
In the family of the pioneer, besides him, there were four more brothers. But George died as a baby. It is known that the third son, Fedor, was born around 1924. The rest of the brothers' birth dates are unknown.
family tragedy
According to reliable information, Trofim Sergeevich until 1931 was the chairman of the village council of Gerasimovka. Soon after childbirth he left his wife and children and went to live with a neighbor. But despite the fact that Antonina Amosova became his civil wife, Trofim Morozov continued to beat his wife and children. Pavlik's teacher also spoke about this.
Grandfather Sergei also hated his daughter-in-law, as she was against living in one, common household. Tatyana Semyonovna insisted on the division as soon as she appeared in this family. Not only the father did not love his family and did not treat her respectfully, but the grandfather and grandmother behaved in this way towards their grandchildren as if they were strangers. Alexei, the youngest of the brothers, recalled that they never treated their grandchildren with anything, they were never friendly and affectionate towards them.
They were also negative about going to school. They also had a grandson Danila, whom they did not let into school. Constantly, both Tatyana and her children were told that Danila would be the owner even without a letter, but Tatyana's children had only one fate - become farmhands. At the same time, they did not skimp on rude expressions and, according to Alexei Morozov, Pavlik's younger brother, they even called them "puppies."
Everyone in the village lived in poverty, but Pavlik Morozov liked to go to school. Despite the fact that after the departure of his father from the family, he became an older man, and all the chores for the peasant economy fell on his childish shoulders, the pioneer still sought to learn something.
He was on good terms with his teacher so he often referred to her. He missed many lessons as he worked in the fields and at home, but he always took books to read. But even this was difficult for him, since there was always no time. He always tried to catch up with the material that he missed. He studied well. The desire to learn, according to the teacher L. Isakova, the boy was strong. Pavlik even tried to teach his mother to read and write.
The fate and crime of Trofim Morozov
As soon as Trofim Sergeevich Morozov became chairman of the village council, he soon began to use power for selfish purposes. By the way, this is also mentioned in detail in the criminal case that was opened against Trofim Morozov. There were even witnesses the fact that, using his power, confiscating some things from dispossessed families, he began to appropriate them for himself.
In addition, he, realizing that the special settlers needed certificates, gave them out for a fee, speculating on them. For their crimes Trofim Sergeevich Morozov was convicted in 1931. By this time, he had already been removed from the post of chairman of the village council. For all his crimes, he received 10 years.
The accusation stated that he "befriended the kulaks", "hid their farms from taxation", and then, when he was no longer in the village council, he contributed to "the flight of special settlers by selling documents." Fake certificates to people who were dispossessed gave them the opportunity to leave the place where they were exiled.
It is also known how later, after the trial, the life of Trofim Morozov developed. He, as a prisoner, participated in the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal. Having worked hard for 3 years, he returned to the village of Gerasimovka with a reward. For shock and excellent work he was awarded the order. And after a while he moved to Tyumen and settled there.
The fate of the family of Pavlik Morozov
Pavlik's mother looked very pretty woman. This was remembered by all the contemporaries of this tragic story. By nature, Tatyana was simple and kind. Of course, she was afraid of her ex-husband, and there was no one to protect her. Therefore, in order not to meet with her ex-husband and his relatives anymore, after the murder of her sons, she left.
It is known that only after the end of the Great Patriotic War, she settled permanently in the city of Alupka, where she died in 1983. There were several versions about how the life of the brothers Pavlik Morozov turned out. Yes, Roman younger brother, according to one version, died at the front. But there is another version: in the war he was seriously wounded, but survived and became disabled. Therefore, he died shortly after the end of the war.
All versions about the fate of the brothers claim one thing: Alexei became the only successor to the Morozov family. But his fate was not easy either, because during the war he was captured and for a long time he was considered an enemy of the people. He was married, in this marriage two children were born:
- Denis.
- Paul.
Alexey Morozov did not live long with his wife and soon after the divorce he settled in his mother's house in Alupka. The fact that he was the brother of Pavlik Morozov, Alexey tried to never tell anyone. For the first time, he voiced this only at the time when, at the end of 1980, during Perestroika, they began to talk badly about his brother.
The official version of Pavlik Morozov's story
At school, the pioneer studied well and was a ringleader and leader among his peers. Wikipedia says about Pavlik Morozov that he independently organized a pioneer detachment in the village, which became the first in Gerasimovka. By official version the boy, despite his young age, believed in communist ideas.
In 1930, according to historical data, he betrayed his father and informed him that he was forging certificates to the kulaks about their dispossession. As a result, because of this denunciation, Pavlik's father was arrested and sentenced to 10 years. Despite the fact that he was released three years later, there is a version that he was shot.
Currently, there are several assumptions as to why Pavlik Morozov denounced his father, because it is still impossible to decide who this pioneer is - a hero or a traitor.
Myths about the act of a pioneer
There are several myths about what really happened. All of them differ from the main official version:
- Version of the writer Vladimir Bushin.
- The version of the journalist Yuri Druzhnikov.
Vladimir Bushin was sure that there was no political intent in Pavlik's act. He wasn't going to betray him. According to the writer, the boy hoped that his father could be scared a little, and he would return to the family. After all, the boy was the eldest in the family, and his mother needed help. Pavlik did not think at all about what the consequences would be.
As the writer assures, the boy was not even a pioneer, and the pioneer organization in his village appeared much later. In some portraits, Pavlik is depicted in a pioneer tie, but, as it turns out, he was also completed much later.
There is a version that Pavlik did not write any denunciations about his father at all. And against Trofim, who was detained for those fictitious certificates that happened to be in the possession of the Chekists, his ex-wife Tatyana testified at the trial.
Yuri Druzhnikov, a historian, writer and journalist, claimed in his book that the child wrote a denunciation of his father on behalf of his mother. And it was not his father's relatives who killed him, but an OGPU agent. But later it was proved by the court that, nevertheless, the reprisal against the boy was arranged by his uncle and grandfather. Aleksei Morozov vehemently opposed this version. He was able to prove that his brother was not a traitor, but just a boy whose life was tragic. He was able to prove that his relatives specially went to the forest to kill Pavlusha.
tragic death
For his act, the boy paid with his life. When, after the trial of his father, he went to the forest to pick berries, he was slaughtered there along with his younger brother. It happened on September 3rd. The mother at that time left for Tavda to sell the calf. The children wanted to spend the night in the forest. They knew that no one would look for them.
And four days later, one of the local residents found their corpses. There were numerous stab wounds on the body. By this time, they were already looking for them, because the day before the mother returned home and, not finding the boys, immediately told the police. The whole village was looking for them.
Aleksey, the middle brother, told his mother, and then confirmed this in court, that on September 3 he saw Danila, who was walking from the forest. When the boy, who was already 11 years old, asked if he had seen his brothers, he just laughed. The child also remembered what Danila Morozov was wearing:
- Woven trousers.
- Black shirt.
When the house of my grandfather, Sergei Sergeevich Morozov, was searched, these things were found. As the mother of slaughtered children recalled, grandmother Aksinya Morozova, meeting her on the street, spoke with a grin about slaughtered children.
Upon discovery of the bodies of children, reports of examination of the bodies were drawn up, which were signed:
- Local policeman Titov Yakov.
- P. Makarov, paramedic.
- Pyotr Ermakov, witness.
- Abraham of the Book, understood.
- Ivan Barkin, witness.
In the first act of the crime scene inspection, it is written that Pavel was lying not far from the road, and a red bag was put on his head. He received several blows. The fatal blow was to the stomach. Scattered cranberries lay next to the body, and a basket lay a little further on. The shirt on the child was torn, and a huge blood stain spread on the back. The boy's blue eyes were open and his mouth was closed.
The corpse of the second boy was a little further from his brother. Fedor was hit on the head with a stick. First, most likely, he was hit in the left temple, and then they stabbed him in the stomach. There was a bloody streak on the baby's right cheek, his hand was cut with a knife to the bone. From the incision on the abdomen, which fell above the navel, the internal organs were visible.
The second act of examination was already done by paramedic Markov after he washed the bodies and examined them. So, the paramedic counted four knife wounds on Pavlik:
- On the chest on the right side.
- Substratum area.
- Left side.
- From the right side.
According to the paramedic, the fourth wound was fatal for the boy. He had another stab wound on the thumb of his left hand. Most likely, the boy was trying to defend himself somehow. The Morozov brothers were buried in Gerasimovka.
Trial
When the events of this crime were restored, it turned out that the initiator of this murder was Arseniy Kulukanov, a fist. He learned that the boys had gone into the forest, and offered their cousin to kill Pavel, giving 5 rubles for this. Danila went home, started harrowing, and then, passing the conversation on to his grandfather Sergei, took a knife and went into the forest. Grandfather went with him.
As soon as they met the boys, Danila immediately stabbed Pavlik with a knife. Fedya tried to run away, but his grandfather detained him, and Danila stabbed him too. When Fedor was already dead and Danila was convinced of this, he again returned to Pavlik and struck him a few more blows.
The murder of the Morozov brothers was widely publicized, and the authorities used it to finally crack down on the kulaks and organize collective farms.
The trial of the boys' killers took place in one of the clubs in Tavda, and it was indicative. All the accusations were confirmed by Danila Morozov himself. The rest of the defendants in this case pleaded not guilty. The following items were evidence:
- Economic knife of Sergey Morozov.
- The bloody clothes of Danila Morozov, which Alexei described. But the man himself claimed that he slaughtered a calf in these clothes for Pavlik's mother.
By court decision, the grandfather and cousin of the boys were guilty of this crime. And the uncle and godfather of Pavlik Arseniy Kulukanov was announced as the organizer. Grandmother Xenia was declared an accomplice. The verdict was harsh: Arseny and Danila were shot, and grandma and grandfather died in prison.
The act of Pavlik Morozov in literature.
The Soviet authorities regarded the boy's act as a feat that he accomplished for the good of the people. Hiding some of the facts of his life, the pioneer was made a hero and a role model. Therefore, literature could not pass by this act.
So, already in 1934, Sergei Mikhalkov and Franz Szabo created the touching “Song of Pavlik Morozov”. At the same time, Vitaly Gubarev wrote a story about a boy-hero for younger children. In the post-war period, poems were written about the brave boy by Stepan Shchipachev and Elena Khorinskaya. Children at school learned a poem about him by heart.
Today, there are many opinions about Pavlik's act, but this story has not yet been fully disclosed. And even in the archives there are many serious contradictions. Therefore, the question of what he did - a feat or a betrayal - remains open.
What is the real story of Pavlik Morozov? August 22nd, 2017
Many people mention it very often, but often know very little. And if they know, it is not the fact that the truth.
He twice became a victim of political propaganda: in the era of the USSR, he was presented as a hero who gave his life in the class struggle, and in perestroika times, as an informer who betrayed his own father.
Modern historians question both myths about Pavlik Morozov, who became one of the most controversial figures in Soviet history.
The house where Pavlik Morozov lived, 1950
This story took place at the beginning of September 1932 in the village of Gerasimovka, Tobolsk province. Grandmother sent her grandchildren for cranberries, and a few days later the bodies of the brothers with traces of violent death were found in the forest. Fedor was 8 years old, Pavel - 14. According to the canonical version generally accepted in the USSR, Pavlik Morozov was the organizer of the first pioneer detachment in his village, and in the midst of the struggle against the kulaks, he denounced his father, who collaborated with the kulaks. As a result, Trofim Morozov was sent to a 10-year exile, and according to other sources, he was shot in 1938.
In fact, Pavlik was not a pioneer - a pioneer organization appeared in their village only a month after his murder. The tie was later simply added to his portrait. He did not write any denunciations about his father. His ex-wife testified against Trofim at the trial. Pavlik only confirmed the testimony of his mother that Trofim Sergeevich Morozov, being the chairman of the village council, sold certificates to the migrant kulaks about being registered with the village council and that they had no tax debts to the state. These certificates were in the hands of the Chekists, and Trofim Morozov would have been tried even without the testimony of his son. He and several other district chairmen were arrested and sent to prison.
N. Chebakov. Pavlik Morozov, 1952
Relations in the Morozov family were not easy. Pavlik's grandfather was a gendarme, and his grandmother was a horse thief. They met in prison, where he guarded her. Pavlik's father, Trofim Morozov, had a scandalous reputation: he was a reveler, cheated on his wife and, as a result, left her with four children. The chairman of the village council was indeed dishonest - that he earned on fictitious certificates and appropriated the property of the dispossessed, all the villagers knew. There was no political connotation in Pavlik's act - he simply supported his mother, who was unjustly offended by his father. And the grandmother and grandfather for this hated both him and his mother. In addition, when Trofim left his wife, according to the law, his allotment of land passed to his eldest son Pavel, since the family was left without a livelihood. Having killed the heir, relatives could count on the return of the land.
Relatives accused of killing Pavlik Morozov
An investigation began immediately after the murder. Bloody clothes and a knife were found in the grandfather's house, with which the children were stabbed. During interrogations, Pavel's grandfather and cousin confessed to the crime: allegedly the grandfather held Pavel while Danila stabbed him. The case had a huge impact. This murder was presented in the press as an act of kulak terror against a member of a pioneer organization. Pavlik Morozov was immediately hailed as a pioneer hero.
Only many years later, many details began to raise questions: why, for example, Pavel's grandfather, a former gendarme, did not get rid of the murder weapon and traces of the crime. The writer, historian and journalist Yuri Druzhnikov (aka Alperovich) put forward a version that Pavlik Morozov denounced his father on behalf of his mother - in order to take revenge on his father, and was killed by an OGPU agent in order to cause mass repressions and the expulsion of kulaks - this was the logical conclusion to the story about villainous fists who are ready to kill children for their own benefit. Collectivization took place with great difficulty, the pioneer organization was poorly received in the country. In order to change people's attitudes, new heroes and new legends were needed. Therefore, Pavlik was just a puppet of the Chekists, who sought to arrange a show trial.
Yuri Druzhnikov and his sensational book about Pavlik Morozov
However, this version caused massive criticism and was crushed. In 1999, the Morozovs' relatives and representatives of the Memorial movement secured a review of the case in court, but the Prosecutor General's Office came to the conclusion that the murderers had been convicted justifiably and were not subject to political rehabilitation.
Monument to Pavlik Morozov in the Sverdlovsk region, 1968. Pavlik's mother Tatyana Morozova with her grandson Pavel, 1979
Pioneers visit the site of the death of Pavlik Morozov, 1968
Writer Vladimir Bushin is sure that it was a family drama without any political overtones. In his opinion, the boy only counted on the fact that his father would be frightened and returned to the family, and could not foresee the consequences of his actions. He only thought about helping his mother and brothers, since he was the eldest son.
The school where Pavlik Morozov studied, and now there is a museum named after him
Museum of Pavlik Morozov
No matter how the story of Pavlik Morozov is interpreted, his fate does not become less tragic. His death served the Soviet government as a symbol of the struggle against those who do not share its ideals, and in the perestroika era it was used to discredit this government.
Monuments to Pavlik Morozov
Monument to Pavlik Morozov in the city of Ostrov, Pskov region
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Pavel Timofeevich Morozov was born in 1918 in the village of Gerasimovka, Sverdlovsk Region. He organized the first in his native village and actively campaigned for the creation of a collective farm. The kulaks, which included Timofey Morozov, actively opposed the Soviet regime and plotted to disrupt the grain procurements. Pavlik accidentally found out about the impending sabotage. The young pioneer stopped at nothing and exposed the kulaks. The villagers, who learned that the son had handed over his own father to the authorities, brutally dealt with Pavlik and his younger brother. They were brutally killed in the forest.
Many books have been written about the feat of Pavlik Morozov, songs and poems were composed about him. The first song about Pavlik Morozov was written by the then unknown young writer Sergei Mikhalkov. This work made him overnight a very popular and sought-after author. In 1948, a street in Moscow was named after Pavlik Morozov and a monument was erected.
Pavlik Morozov was not the first
There are at least eight known cases of children being killed for denunciations. These events took place before the murder of Pavlik Morozov.
In the village of Sorochintsy, Pavel Teslya also denounced his father, for which he paid with his life five years earlier than Morozov.
Another seven similar cases occurred in various villages. Two years before the death of Pavlik Morozov, informer Grisha Hakobyan was stabbed to death in Azerbaijan.
Even before the death of Pavlik, the Pionerskaya Pravda newspaper told of cases when fellow villagers brutally killed young informers. The texts of children's denunciations were published here, with all the details.
Followers of Pavlik Morozov
The brutal reprisals against young scammers continued. In 1932, three children were killed for denunciations, in 1934 - six, and in 1935 - nine.
The story of Proni Kolybin, who denounced his mother, accusing her of stealing socialist property, is noteworthy. A beggar woman collected fallen spikelets on a collective farm field in order to somehow feed her family, including Pronya himself. The woman was imprisoned, and the boy was sent to rest in Artek.
Mitya Gordienko also noticed a couple on the collective farm field, who were collecting fallen spikelets. As a result, on the denunciation of the young pioneer, the man was shot, and the woman was sentenced to ten years in prison. Mitya Gordienko received a premium watch, "Lenin's grandchildren", new boots and a pioneer suit as a gift.
The Chukchi boy, whose name was Yatyrgin, learned that the reindeer herders were going to take their herds to Alaska. He informed the Bolsheviks about this, for which the enraged reindeer herders hit Yatyrgin on the head with an ax and threw him into a pit. Thinking the boy is already dead. However, he managed to survive and get to "his". When Yatyrgin was solemnly accepted as a pioneer, it was decided to give him a new name - Pavlik Morozov, with whom he lived to old age.
During the investigation and trial of his father, who left their family, Trofim Morozov, chairman of the Gerasimovsky village council, testified against him in support of his mother's testimony. A few months later, Pavel and his 8-year-old brother Fyodor, who went to the forest for berries, were found dead with stab wounds.
Their own grandfather Sergei (Trofim Morozov's father) and 19-year-old cousin Danila were accused of the murder, as well as grandmother Ksenia (as an accomplice) and Pavel's godfather, Arseniy Kulukanov, who was his uncle (as a village "fist" - as an initiator and organizer of the murder). After the trial, Arseny Kulukanov and Danila Morozov were shot, octogenarian Sergei and Ksenia Morozov died in prison. Another uncle of Pavlik, Arseniy Silin, was also accused of complicity in the murder, but during the trial he was acquitted.
According to the official version, the young pioneer Pavlik Morozov bravely exposed the crimes of the kulaks against the Soviet regime and was killed by them out of revenge.
Biography
Official portrait of Pavlik Morozov. Made on the basis of a photograph with classmates - the only one in his life.
A family
Born in the family of Trofim Morozov, a red partisan, then chairman of the village council, and Tatyana Semyonovna Morozova, nee Baidakova. The father, like all the inhabitants of the village, was an ethnic Belarusian (a family of Stolypin immigrants, in Gerasimovka with). Subsequently, the father left the family (wife with four sons) and started a second family with Antonina Amosova; as a result of his departure, all the worries about the peasant economy fell on the eldest son Pavel. According to the recollections of Pavel's teacher, his father regularly drank and beat his wife and children both before and after leaving the family. Grandfather Pavlik also hated his daughter-in-law because she did not want to live with him on the same farm, but insisted on a division. According to Alexei, Pavel's brother, the father "loved only himself and vodka", he did not spare his wife and sons, not like foreign migrants, from whom "he tore three skins for forms with seals." Pavel's grandfather and grandmother also treated the family abandoned by their father to the mercy of fate: “Grandfather and grandmother were also strangers to us for a long time. Never offered anything, never greeted. Grandfather did not let his grandson, Danilka, go to school, we only heard: “You can manage without a letter, you will be the master, and Tatiana's puppies you have laborers."
According to the memories collected and presented in his book by Yuri Druzhnikov, Pavel was a physically weak, sickly, nervous and unbalanced boy. According to Solomein's entry, Pavlik "loved to hooligan, fight, quarrel, sing bad songs, smoke." Druzhnikov, referring to the words of Zoya Kabina, writes that Pavel studied poorly and rarely attended school, liked to play cards for money and sing thieves' songs. He liked to tease, poison someone: “No matter how much you persuade, he will take revenge, he will do it his own way. Out of spite, he often fought, simply out of a tendency to quarrel. In view of the family's poverty, he wore bast shoes and a tattered father's coat; was the dirtiest in the class, rarely washed. He was tongue-tied: he spoke with interruptions, gekaya, it is not always clear, in a half-Russian-half-Belarusian language, like: “But you can’t get past anymore.” Druzhnikov points out that in 1931 Pavel entered the first grade for the third time and was transferred to the second grade in the middle of the year, as he finally learned to read and write. However, it should be noted that often Pavel was not up to studying - as the eldest in the family, he had to work hard to feed the large family left by his father and try to escape from poverty.
Pavel's teacher recalled the general appalling poverty in the village of Gerasimovka:
The school I was in charge of worked in two shifts. At that time we had no idea about the radio, electricity, we sat by the torch in the evenings, we took care of the kerosene. There was no ink either, they wrote with beetroot juice. Poverty in general was appalling. When we, teachers, began to go from house to house, enrolling children in school, it turned out that many of them did not have any clothes. The children sat naked on the beds, covered themselves with some rags. The kids climbed into the oven and warmed themselves in the ashes.
We organized a reading room, but there were almost no books, and local newspapers came very rarely. To some, Pavlik now seems like a kind of boy stuffed with slogans in a clean pioneer form form and did not see it in the eyes, did not participate in pioneer parades and did not wear portraits of Molotov, like Amlinsky, and did not shout “toast” to the leaders.
Forced in such difficult conditions to provide for his family instead of his father, Paul nevertheless invariably showed a desire to learn. According to his teacher L.P. Isakova:
He was very eager to learn, took books from me, only he had no time to read, he often missed his lessons because of work in the field and housework. Then he tried to catch up, managed to do well, and even taught his mother to read and write ...
Doom
Pavel and Fyodor went to the forest, intending to spend the night there, on September 2 (in the absence of their mother, who had gone to Tavda to sell the calf). On September 6, their bodies were found. The protocol, drawn up by the district policeman Yakov Titov, reports:
Morozov Pavel was lying from the road at a distance of 10 meters, with his head to the east. There is a red bag over his head. Paul was given a fatal blow to the stomach. The second blow was delivered to the chest near the heart, under which there were scattered cranberries. Near Pavel there was one basket, the other was thrown aside. His shirt was torn in two places, and there was a purple blood stain on his back. Hair color - light brown, white face, blue eyes, open, mouth closed. There are two birches at the feet (...) The corpse of Fyodor Morozov was fifteen meters from Pavel in a swamp and a small aspen forest. Fedor was stabbed in the left temple with a stick, his right cheek was stained with blood. A mortal blow was inflicted with a knife in the belly above the navel, where the intestines came out, and the arm was also cut with a knife to the bone.
Trial
The case of the murder of pioneer Pavel Morozov
Demonstration trial of the chairman of the village council with. Gerasimovka, Tavdinsky district, Morozov Trofim gathered hundreds of people.
Read the indictment. The interrogation of witnesses began. Suddenly, the condensed silence of the measured course of the trial was pierced by a sonorous childish voice:
- Uncle, let me tell you!
There was a commotion in the hall. The spectators jumped up from their seats, the back rows poured into those sitting, there was a stampede at the doors. The chairman of the court with difficulty restored order ...
- It was I who filed a lawsuit against my father. As a pioneer, I refuse my father. He created a clear counter-revolution. My father is not the defender of October. He helped kulukanov Arsentiy in every possible way. It was he who helped the fists escape. It was he who hid the kulak property so that the collective farmers would not get it ...
- I ask that my father be brought to severe responsibility so that others will not be given the habit of defending the kulaks.
The 12-year-old pioneer witness Pavel Morozov finished his testimony. No. It was not a witness statement. It was a merciless indictment by the young defender of socialism against those who stood on the side of the frenzied enemies of the proletarian revolution.
Trofim Morozov, exposed by his pioneer son, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for liaising with local kulaks, fabricating false documents for them, and hiding kulak property.
Pioneer Pavel Morozov, after the trial, came to the family of his grandfather Sergey Morozov. Unfriendly met in the family of a fearless whistleblower. A blank wall of hidden enmity surrounded the boy. The native was a pioneer detachment. Pasha ran there as if he were his own family, there he shared joys and sorrows. There they taught him a passionate intolerance for the kulaks and their sing-alongs.
And when Pasha's grandfather, Sergei Morozov, hid kulak property, Pasha ran to the village council and exposed his grandfather.
In winter, Pasha brought the kulak Silin Arseniy to fresh water, who did not fulfill a firm task, and sold a cartload of potatoes to the kulaks. In the fall, the dispossessed Kulukanov stole 16 pounds of rye from the village Soviet field and again hid them from his father-in-law, Sergei Morozov. Pavel again exposed his grandfather and kulukanov.
At meetings during sowing, at the time of grain procurements, everywhere the pioneer activist Pasha Morozov exposed the intricate machinations of kulaks and sub-kulakists...
And gradually, thoughtfully, preparations began for a terrible and bloody reprisal against the pioneer activist. First, Danila Morozov, Pavel's cousin, was dragged into the criminal conspiracy, and then his grandfather, Sergei. For a fee of 30 rubles, Danila Morozov, with the help of his grandfather, undertook to kill his hated relative. Kulukanov's fist skillfully fueled Danila's and grandfather's hostility towards Pavel. Pavel was increasingly met with brutal beatings and unequivocal threats.
“If you don’t leave the detachment, then I’ll slaughter you, the damned pioneer,” Danila wheezed, beating Pavel until he lost consciousness ...
On August 26, Pavel submitted a statement of threats to the district police officer. Either due to political myopia, or for other reasons, the district policeman did not have time to intervene in the matter. On September 3, on a clear autumn day, Pavel, together with his 9-year-old brother Fedya, ran into the forest for berries ...
In the evening, calmly in front of everyone, Danila Morozov and grandfather Sergei finished their harrowing and sat down and headed home.
Dear imperceptibly turned into the forest. We met Fedya and Pasha quite close ...
The reprisal was short. The knife stopped the rebellious heart of the young pioneer. Then, just as quickly, they finished with an unnecessary witness - nine-year-old Fedya. Danila and grandfather calmly returned home and sat down to dinner. Grandmother Ksenya also calmly and busily began to soak her bloody clothes. A knife was hidden behind the holy images in a dark corner...
One of these days, the case of the murder of pioneer activist Pavel Morozov and his nine-year-old brother will be heard on the spot in a show trial.
Active instigators of the murder are sitting on the dock - kulukanov, Silin, killers Sergei and Danila Morozov, their accomplice Ksenya Morozova ...
Pavel Morozov is not alone. People like him are legions. They expose the grain-crowders, the plunderers of public property, they, if necessary, bring their fist-fisted fathers to the dock...
Morozov's role in his father's case is not entirely clear. Together with his mother, he testified at the preliminary investigation, stating that his father beat his mother and brought into the house things received as payment for the issuance of false documents (in fact, he could not see this, because his father had not lived with his family for a long time). In the murder case, it is noted that “On November 25, 1931, Pavel Morozov filed a statement with the investigating authorities that his father, Trofim Sergeevich Morozov, being the chairman of the village council and being connected with local kulaks, was engaged in forging documents and selling them to special settlers.” The denunciation was connected with the investigation into the case of a false certificate issued by the Gerasimovsky village council to a special settler; he allowed Trofim to be involved in the case. Trofim Morozov was arrested and tried in February next year.
Pavel, following his mother, spoke in court, but in the end was stopped by the judge due to his infancy. In the case of the murder of Morozov, it is said: “At the trial, son Pavel outlined all the details about his father, his tricks.” The speech allegedly delivered by Pavlik is known in 12 versions, mainly dating back to the book of the journalist Pyotr Solomein. In the record from the archive of Solomein himself, this accusatory speech is transmitted as follows:
| Uncles, my father created a clear counter-revolution, I, as a pioneer, am obliged to say this, my father is not a defender of the interests of October, but is trying in every possible way to help the kulak escape, he stood up for him with a mountain, and not as a son, but as a pioneer, I ask that my father be held accountable , because in the future not to give the habit to others to hide the kulak and clearly violate the party line, and I will also add that my father will now appropriate the kulak property, took the bed of kulukanov Arseny Kulukanov (husband of T. Morozov’s sister and Pavel’s godfather) and wanted to take from him a haystack, but Kulukanov's fist did not give him hay, but said, let him take x ... |
The underlying reason, it is believed, was domestic: Tatyana Morozova wanted to take revenge on her husband who had left her and hoped, by scaring her, to return to her family.
The official version of the prosecution
The version of the prosecution and the court was as follows. On September 3, the “fist” Arseniy Kulukanov, having learned about the boys leaving for berries, conspired with Danila Morozov, who came to his house, to kill Pavel, giving him 30 rubles and asking him to invite Sergey Morozov, “with whom Kulukanov had previously colluded”, to kill him. Returning from Kulukanov and having finished the harrowing (i.e., harrowing, loosening the soil), Danila went home and relayed the conversation to grandfather Sergei. The latter, seeing that Danila was taking a knife, left the house without a word and went with Danila, telling him: "Let's go kill, look, don't be afraid." Finding the children, Danila, without saying a word, took out a knife and hit Pavel; Fedya rushed to run, but was detained by Sergei and also stabbed to death by Danila. " Convinced that Fedya was dead, Danila returned to Pavel and stabbed him several more times.».
The murder of Morozov was presented as a manifestation of kulak terror (against a member of the pioneer organization) and served as a pretext for widespread repressions on an all-Union scale; in Gerasimovka itself, it finally made it possible to organize a collective farm (before that, all attempts were frustrated by the peasants). In Tavda, in the club named after Stalin, a show trial of the alleged murderers took place. At the trial, Danila Morozov confirmed all the accusations, Sergei Morozov was contradictory, either confessing or denying his guilt. According to other sources, he did not confess to the murder at all. All other defendants pleaded not guilty. The main evidence was a household knife found at Sergey Morozov's, and Danila's bloodied clothes, soaked but not washed by Xenia (before that, Danila had slaughtered a calf for Tatyana Morozova). Of the accused, Arseniy Silin was acquitted, the rest were sentenced to death; Kulukanov and Danila were shot, octogenarian Sergei and Ksenia Morozov died in prison.
Yuri Druzhnikov's version
| There was no consequence. The corpses were ordered to be buried before the arrival of the investigator without examination. Journalists also sat on the stage as accusers, speaking about the political importance of shooting kulaks. The lawyer accused the defendants of murder and left to applause. Different sources report different methods of murder, the prosecutor and the judge were confused about the facts. A knife with traces of blood found in the house was called the murder weapon, but Danila was slaughtering a calf that day - no one checked whose blood it was. The accused grandfather, grandmother, uncle and cousin of Pavlik Danila tried to say that they were beaten and tortured. The shooting of the innocent in November 1932 was the signal for a massacre of peasants throughout the country. |
The decision of the Supreme Court of Russia
However, the attempt to present the murderers of the Morozov brothers as victims of political repression and subject to immediate rehabilitation ended in failure. The Prosecutor General's Office of Russia, having carefully considered the case, having studied all the documents, having weighed all the pros and cons, taking into account all the attendant circumstances, came to the following conclusion:
The verdict of the Ural Regional Court dated November 28, 1932 and the ruling of the judicial cassation board of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR dated February 28, 1933 in respect of Kulukanov Arseny Ignatievich and Morozova Xenia Ilyinichna should be changed: re-qualify their actions from Art. 58-8 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR at Art. Art. 17 and 58-8 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR, leaving the previous measure of punishment. To recognize Sergey Sergeevich Morozov and Daniil Ivanovich Morozov as reasonably convicted in the present case for committing a counter-revolutionary crime and not subject to rehabilitation.
This conclusion, together with the materials of the additional verification of case No. 374, was sent to the Supreme Court of Russia, which in 1999 made a final decision and refused rehabilitation to the murderers of Pavlik Morozov and his brother Fyodor.
Reaction to Druzhnikov's book
| What kind of trial did they put on my brother? It's embarrassing and scary. My brother was called an informer in the magazine. Lie it! Pavel always fought openly. Why is he insulted? Has our family suffered a little grief? Who is being bullied? Two of my brothers were killed. The third, Roman, came from the front disabled, died young. I was slandered during the war as an enemy of the people. He spent ten years in the camp. And then they rehabilitated. And now slander on Pavlik. How to endure all this? They doomed me to torture worse than in the camps. It is good that my mother did not live to see these days ... I am writing, but tears are choking. So it seems that Pashka is again defenseless on the road. ... The editor of "Ogonyok" Korotich at the radio station "Freedom" said that my brother is a son of a bitch, which means my mother ... Yuri Izrailevich Alperovich-Druzhnikov worked his way into our family, drank tea with my mother, sympathized with us, and then published in London a vile book - a bunch of such disgusting lies and slander that, after reading it, I got a second heart attack. Z. A. Kabina also fell ill, she kept trying to sue the author in an international court, but where is she - Alperovich lives in Texas and laughs - try to get him, the teacher's pension is not enough. The chapters from the book “The Ascension of Pavlik Morozov” by this scribbler were circulated by many newspapers and magazines, no one takes my protests into account, no one needs the truth about my brother ... It seems that I have only one thing left - to douse myself with gasoline, and that's it! |
Yuri Druzhnikov stated that Kelly used his work not only in valid references, but also by repeating the book's composition, selection of details, descriptions. In addition, Dr. Kelly, according to Druzhnikov, came to the exact opposite conclusion about the role of the OGPU-NKVD in the murder of Pavlik.
According to Dr. Kelly, Mr. Druzhnikov considered the Soviet official materials unreliable, but used them when it was advantageous to support his account. According to Catriona Kelly, instead of a scientific presentation of criticism of her book, Druzhnikov published a "denunciation" with the assumption of Kelly's connection with the "organs". Dr. Kelly did not find much difference between the conclusions of the books and attributed some of Mr. Druzhnikov's criticisms to his lack of knowledge of the English language and English culture.
Disagreements
Veronika Kononenko claims, with reference to Morozov's teacher Zoya Kabina, "that it was she who created the first pioneer detachment in the village, which was headed by Pavel Morozov." According to the testimony of a professor at the University of California, Yuri Druzhnikov, however, the cabin told him: “There was no talk of pioneers. I couldn’t tell Solomein about joining the pioneers.” He also cites a phrase from Solomein’s archive: “And if we stick to the historical truth, then Pavlik Morozov not only never wore, but also never saw a pioneer tie,” which contradicts the memoirs of Pavel’s first teacher Larisa Isakova: “I didn’t have a pioneer detachment in Gerasimovka then I managed to organize it, Zoya Kabina created it after me, but I also told the guys about how children are fighting for a better life in other cities and villages. Once I brought a red tie from Tavda, tied it to Pavel, and he joyfully ran home. And at home, his father tore off his tie and beat him terribly. It is also possible that Pavel did not see a pioneer tie, but a pioneer form: “To some now Pavlik seems like a kind of boy stuffed with slogans in a clean pioneer form. And he, because of our poverty, this form and did not see in the eye ... ".
Druzhnikov claims that after the events described, Morozov earned general hatred in the village; they began to call him "Pashka-kumanist" (communist). According to official biographies, Pavel Morozov actively helped to identify bread-crowders, those who hide weapons, plot crimes against the Soviet regime, etc. . Druzhnikov considers these descriptions to be too exaggerated both in terms of the number and duration of Pavel's cooperation with the authorities; according to fellow villagers, Pavel was not a serious scammer, since “to inform is, you know, a serious job, but he was like that, a nit, a petty dirty trick.” In the murder case, only two such denunciations were documented: “In the winter of 1932, Pavel Morozov informed the village council that Silin Arseniy<его дядя>, having not completed a solid task, he sold a cartload of potatoes to special settlers. Another denunciation was against the peasant Mizyukhin, in whose place Pavel's grandfather Sergei allegedly hid a "walker" (a cart; a search was made at Mezyukhin, but nothing was found).
In fact, the main informant in the village was Pavel's cousin Ivan Potupchik (later an honorary pioneer; convicted of raping a minor).
Similar processes
During the days of the campaign associated with the murder of Pavlik, another well-known case was opened about the murder of Kolya Myagotin, a pioneer in the village of Kolesnikovo, Kurgan Region, on October 25 with fists. In this case, 12 people were convicted, 3 of them were shot. In 1996, the convicts were rehabilitated, as it turned out that Kolya, who had never been a pioneer, was shot dead at night by a watchman while stealing sunflower seeds. Yuri Druzhnikov counted in 1932 (after the murder of Pavel and Fedya) - 3, in 1933 - 6, in 1934 - 6 and in 1935 - 9 cases of murders of children, qualified by the authorities as the murder of pioneers for denunciations; in total, during the Stalin era, he noted 56 such cases.
Among the "pioneer-heroes" of this kind, there were also simply fictitious figures, like Grisha Hakobyan from Ganja, allegedly killed by "kulak sons" in October 1930 (invented on the instructions of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Azerbaijan).
glorification
Pavlik Morozov denounces his father. Rice. from the newspaper "Pionerskaya Pravda"
Morozov's name was given to Gerasimov and other collective farms, schools, and pioneer squads. Monuments were erected to Pavlik Morozov in Moscow (, in the children's park named after him on Krasnaya Presnya; demolished in), the village of Gerasimovka () and in Sverdlovsk (). Poems and songs were written about Pavlik Morozov, an opera of the same name was written. In 1935, film director Sergei Eisenstein began working on the script for Alexander Rzheshevsky's Bezhin Meadow about Pavlik Morozov. The job could not be completed. Maxim Gorky called Pavlik "one of the little miracles of our era."
Pavlik Morozov in the public mind
Estimates of the personality of Pavlik Morozov and especially the propaganda campaign around his name have always been ambiguous. Along with glorification, there was a widespread negative attitude towards him, although in Soviet times it could not be expressed publicly.
In the adult environment, the attitude towards Pavlik Morozov was determined by the fact that he turned into a symbol of such a phenomenon that permeated Soviet society as denunciation. So, Galina Vishnevskaya wrote:
| And a worthy role model appears - the twelve-year-old traitor Pavlik Morozov, “heroically fallen in the class struggle”, awarded monuments, portraits for his betrayal, glorified in songs and poems, on which the next generations will be brought up. Pavlik Morozov, whom millions of Soviet children praise today for denouncing his own father and grandfather. Just as in Nazi Germany they taught German children to inform on their parents, so here in Russia they began to consciously educate a generation of informers, already starting from school. |
With the beginning of perestroika, this attitude found public expression and became dominant. Pavlik Morozov began to act as a symbol of betrayal, along with Judas. In this spirit, for example, pastor Stanislav Vershinin mentions him in a sermon on the theme of Judas sin: “Nevertheless, few people want to see Judas Iscariot in themselves - it’s better to admit the nature of a murderer, Cain, in their “I” than such a vile traitor ! Is it so? Have you never betrayed yourself or your neighbor? Is there Pavlik Morozov among us?» . In the song of the same name by the rock group "Crematorium" Pavlik Morozov is presented as an indestructible evil, passing from one era to another:
Not everything is for sale, but everything Buy or rent. On occasion, a janitor can become a prince, And the killer becomes the judge. All new verses are torn from the old ones, The new priests blame everything on the dead. And all because Pavlik Morozov is alive Pavlik Morozov is alive Pavlik Morozov is alive Pavlik Morozov is more alive than all the living ...Nowadays, the perception of Pavlik Morozov as a victim of political "games" of adults is becoming dominant. It must be emphasized that the overwhelming majority of those who argue are extremely politically biased and biased persons, uninterested in establishing an objective picture of what happened.
