We very often, when it comes to patriotism, like to cite the events of the war of 1812 as an example of its highest level. But there have always been, are and will be people who put their own interests above public interests and for whom the situation “the better” is “the better”. Sometimes this is pure calculation. Sometimes delusion. Sometimes a fatal coincidence. Very often such people are accused of being “bought” by the enemy and expecting to “get” a substantial jackpot for their betrayal. However, this is not always the case. On the contrary, this happens quite rarely, since such bribery is most easily suppressed by the special services. And sometimes this is how a mass protest is expressed, when people gathered in one place act on the basis of a certain social consciousness that replaces their own.
“M. I. Kutuzov is the head of the St. Petersburg militia. (Artist S. Gerasimov)
In a word, such cases are known in our history. And, turning to archival documents, we can get a reliable "picture" of how it was!
So, it is generally accepted that during the war of 1812 the patriotic enthusiasm of the Russian people was so high that the peasants were downright eager to join the militia and partisans. Yes, they were torn! But only those who directly fell under the Napoleonic invasion and suffered from it. Those who were not affected by it continued to live and act according to the principle: "Where are they telling me?" In addition, the collective popular memory warned that you should not expect good from the militia - you will have to fight in the same way, but you have no rights, and there is nothing to count on a reward. After all, a militia had already gathered in Russia in 1806 - 1807, so what?
Manifesto of Alexander I on the collection of the zemstvo militia within the state. 6 (18) July 1812
The peasants did not receive any "awards"! True, they were given medals, many of them: 2220 silver medals and 6145 gold medals, including 100 gold medals, which were supposed to be worn on the St. George ribbon. However, that was the end of it, while the peasants wanted much more [1].
Obverse. Gold.
The medals were gold and silver, 28 mm in diameter. On the reverse of the medal was a portrait of Alexander I, with the face turned to the right. Along the circumference along the edge there was an inscription: “ALEXANDRЪ I IMP. VSEROSS. 1807.
Reverse. Gold.
Under the portrait there was an ornate signature of the author-medalist - “C. Leberecht f. ". On the reverse of the medal there were two inscriptions, separated by a curly line: “FOR LIE AND FATHERLAND” and “ZEMSKY VOISKU”. Both inscriptions were enclosed in an oak wreath [1].
And since the aspirations of the peasantry to improve their lives did not take place in the past, and the new recruitment of the militia in 1812 in many provinces did not cause enthusiasm among the peasants. That is, where the French came to Russian lands, there - yes, the peasants beat and destroyed them with the "club of the peasant war." But where they were not … There their moods were completely different. "Peasantry must be!" - and then again the landlords are being driven into soldiers! And what about the army? As a result, when in the fall of 1812 a peasant militia was created in the Penza province, consisting of four infantry regiments, one cavalry regiment and, in addition, an artillery company, a riot broke out among the recruits.
Banner of the Penza militia
Each regiment in the Penza militia consisted of four thousand people. The militiamen in Penza, as well as in other provinces in 1812, surprised the local leaders with their very rapid successes in mastering military skills: "Diligence for the good of the fatherland worked wonders," wrote an eyewitness, Penza militia officer I. T. Shishkin [2]. It was supposed to launch a campaign in early December, when Napoleon, retreating from Russia, was at its western borders. And just at this time, the militias rebelled, and, in rebellion, the warriors demanded that they be sworn in as soon as possible.
Cossack militia
It is believed that the reason for such actions was … a rumor that there was supposedly news that all the sworn militias would not be returned to serfdom when the war ended, which was directly opposite to the order for the collection of the zemstvo army established in the highest Report on the composition Moscow military force”, but will be declared free in all respects. That is why the warriors demanded that they be sworn in as soon as possible, so that later they could not be returned to serfs. The 3rd militia regiment was the first to revolt and with all its weapons went to the main square of the city of Insare, where it was quartered. The regiment began to smash the officers' apartments, and the colonel and the major were locked in their houses. At the same time, many officers were beaten to blood. Then the warriors chose a leader for themselves and decided to do away with all the officers altogether.
The inhabitants of Insar were also attacked by the rebellious warriors, and in fear, a considerable part of them fled in all directions. So, the house of the collegiate assessor Goloviznin after this impromptu assault was a very sad sight. According to the description drawn up on December 15 by the district judge Bakhmetev, it looked like this: “everything in the windows of the frame with glass is knocked out and broken, as well as the doors and one glass in the carpenter's hut; furniture, such as armchairs, chairs, chambers, pianoforte, tables, beds, mirrors and portraits are broken, chopped into small pieces so that they are in no way suitable for repair; the salaries were removed from the images, they were scattered and some were broken; and in the pantry, cereal flour and other food supplies are scattered, plundered; down jackets and pillows are all cut, fluff is thrown away and is lying on the floor all over the house, and pillowcases are taken away; all property has been plundered”[3].
Having seized the city, the warriors took the officers to the city prison. They were accused of what and subsequently were repeatedly accused of people of noble rank: that they, they say, hide the true royal decree on the oath, and therefore only take peasants into the militia, and the king actually ordered to take the nobles. In front of the prison, the warriors erected three gallows and told the officers that they would all be hanged. But on the fourth day, troops sent from Penza entered Insar, along with artillery, and the rebels surrendered.
The militia's prayer.
In other regiments of the Penza militia, unrest also took place, but not so actively expressed for trivial reasons: theft of chiefs and life in difficult living conditions, although it cannot be ruled out that the instigator of this discontent was the example of the Insar warriors. The military court ruled to drive the instigators through the ranks, beat them with a whip and exile them to hard labor, to settlements, and to give them forever as soldiers in the garrisons of distant Siberian cities. In total, more than 300 people were punished. “The blood of the guilty warriors shed for three days, and many of them lost their lives under the blows of the executioners,” Shishkin wrote about what he saw. All other militias (minus those that were punished) were sent on a campaign and already during the campaign they received full forgiveness given to them by Emperor Alexander I.
It is interesting how the warriors, who were interrogated during the investigation, explained the purpose of their conspiracy: “The purpose of the rebels was the reckless intention of people immersed in ignorance: they wanted, after exterminating the officers, to go with a whole militia to the active army, appear directly on the battlefield, attack the enemy and smash it, then confess to face the monarch and, as a reward for your service, beg forgiveness and eternal freedom from the landlords' possession”[4].
That is, war is war, but give freedom to people! This is what the "non-cool militias" dreamed about and what they were trying to achieve in their usual "rebellious manner."However, the most interesting thing in this generally banal case is the official document: the report of the Penza governor, Prince Golitsyn, about these events. Transferred here in his contemporary spelling, he is a wonderful example of the Russian bureaucratic office of that time. Reading this pearl, you immediately understand that it was simply impossible not to rebel under such management, and it remains only to be amazed, looking at the truly angelic longsuffering of the Russian peasantry and soldiers, who had such leaders over them. The document has undergone only a little literary processing, since otherwise it would be almost impossible to read or understand it. But in general, both his vocabulary and punctuation were preserved practically unchanged, for they convey the very spirit of that historical era that has long gone from us!
Seeing off the militia
RAPORT
Penza Governor Prince Golitsyn To the Commander-in-Chief
in Sankpeterburg about the reasons why the soldiers of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd infantry Cossack regiments were indignant.
In fulfillment of the order of your Excellency of December 20, the honor to convey to them.
The 1st in the city of Inzar, the beginning of the indignation of the soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Cossack Regiment arose, how this consequence was revealed, from the hearing that reached them from one of the soldiers of the same regiment Fedot Petrov, who was sent to the horse Cossack town in the provincial regiment Penza, and being here I heard from a recruiting wife who did not know at all that they read at the bazaar a decree as if about the dissolution of the militia, about which Petrov, returning to Inzar, told other soldiers: Egor Popov and Yakov Fyodorov, whose confirmation in the same volume on the words of two more the peasant of the Nizhelamovsk district of the village of Yessenevki, that they allegedly have long been waiting for the return of their warriors to themselves, since in Tambov the militia was not only disbanded, but it was known that the soldiers and the oath were not ordered to make a common opinion meeting soldiers so that they do not have an oath to go on a campaign, and if they will give it, they will not be given a decree and that, if necessary, disband the militia.
Such disclosure of the warrior Fedorov had an effect to the point that as soon as, contrary to the expected by the soldiers of the event, their assumptions, there was an order to go on the campaign, the soldiers of the first battalion of the 1st hundred demanded an oath and the named order of the warrior, which forced the lieutenant colonel in command of the warrior who, after reading His Most High Imperial Majesty, the manifesto on the militia and the command to march, suggested the aftermath of their malice, and sent 12 people to custody of the main instigators.
But after that, the soldiers of the entire regiment, rushing through the yards of the centennial beginners, where the peaks were kept and grabbing them, did not only beat off the aforementioned 12 people from the underside of the crawl, but also decided on further rampages about which I had the honor to convey to your excellency on December 10 …
The military court is over the criminals in the city of Inzar, and the verdict that was tested by the commander of the 3rd district of the internal militia, Count Petrom Aleksandrovich Tolstoy, was delivered for execution by those who arrived in the Penza province to accept under the lord of the local army commander and began to take over the commander of the local army commander. His Friendship was ordered by the order of the confirmation of the military court made on the soldiers of the 2nd Penza regiment.
The 2nd indignation of the soldiers of the 1st Cossack Infantry Regiment in the city of Saransk was born from one of the non-commissioned officers of this regiment Baris Ilyin, who, being with the officer to withdraw the obsessed soldiers in the city of Nizhny Lomov,I was seen there with the retired saldats who were in the city of Saransk gathered there on the instructions of the Commander of the 3rd district of the internal militia for training soldiers, and converting as before in Nizhnyaya Lomov, from which two names and nicknames were told to him to Ilyaran by invisible they did not announce any decree to them about the definition of them, but they let them go back to their houses, and for this reason they would dismiss the recruited soldiers.
Ilyin settling in his thoughts the reluctance to go on a campaign and returning to Saransk tried to spread such a spirit and in all the soldiers instilling in them that, without a named decree and without an oath, they would go on a campaign, which was not only exposed, but honestly admitted himself only honestly. in Saransk from all soldiers of disobedience.
At the end of the military court in the city of Saransk, by the verdict of which he was approved as the commander of the 3rd district of the internal militia, it was determined: seven men of soldiers and one Cossack of which, hearing their reluctance to go on a campaign, did not only declare about seven in advance, nor did he tell his police chief. whoever wants to go for a walk, then with God punish with a whip and cut out the eyes and send them to Nerchinsk for hard labor with the decree of signs; 28 people to drive out the shpytsruten and 91 people to punish in front of the regiment with sticks and send them to further garrisons to determine which sentence of the military court has already been fulfilled.
During the investigation, the defendants were asked whether there was any offense or withholding of wages and provisions on the part of their superiors and the colonel, but all the defendants made sure that they received both the salary and the food in full, but only withholding from their own salary the amount.
The 3rd disobedience of the soldiers of the 2nd Cossack Infantry Regiment in the city of Chembar and the surrounding area in the village of Keevde arose from the opinion that they were given by the landowners as if they were only three months away, and they also acted on them and rumors that a similar militia was gathered in Tambov province but disbanded to their homes.
But how the parables of the former - before the indignation of the soldiers of the 3rd and 1st infantry Cossack regiments in the cities of Inzar and in Saransk made it necessary to bring them to the oath that they committed the warriors of the 2nd infantry regiment, remaining always prejudiced that from the houses and families came out of the overheard of their superiors. Now the militia is preparing for a campaign, and with the complete pacification of the soldiers in all three cities of Inzar Saransk and Chembar, and the use of possible precautions by me in all the mercy of the province entrusted to me, the situation is safe.
With the end of the executions over the soldiers in the cities of Inzar and Chembar, I will not leave to dispose of the measures and judgments of the people of the civilian domination subject to a special court, which in Inzar were opened already through the investigation of the military court involved in the aforementioned incidents.
On all this duty, I set all subjects to report to His Imperial Majesty as well as to the Minister of Police.
Militia on the march
The famous Penza sculptor German Feoktistov decided to create (and created!) A whole gallery of figurines of soldiers of the Russian army of this period for the anniversary of the 1812 war, and among them, of course, the Penza militias were also represented. Made with subtle humor and excellent knowledge of texture, they are both a work of art and a visual aid on the history of a military suit, all the necessary details are so reliably transferred to them. Actually, the following sculptures are dedicated to the militia: "The Prayer of the Militia", "The Horse Cossack of the Penza Militia", "The Foot Cossack of the Penza Militia", "The Militiaman on the Campaign" (he made the last one from himself!), "The Militia Banner" and "Seeing Off the Militia" …So the history of the Penza militia is now also "bronzed".
1. Peters D. I. Award medals of the Russian Empire of the XIX-XX centuries. Catalog. M.: Archeographic Center, 1996. S. 45-46.
2. State Archives of the Penza Region (GAPO). F. 132. Op. 1a. D. 3; Shishkin I. Militia riot in 1812. S. 112-151.
3. GAPO. F. 5. Op. 1. D. 411. L. 176.
4. GAPO. F. 132. Op. 1a. D. 3; Shishkin I. Militia riot in 1812.
P. 115.
