In the literature dedicated to the Patriotic War of 1812, the word "partisan" is certainly found. Imagination, as a rule, slips the corresponding picture: a bearded man hooking a French "musyu" on a pitchfork. Such a man did not know and did not want to know any "upper" superiors over himself, hence the term "partisanism".
But in those years, partisan units were also called parts of the regular army, intended for operations in the enemy's rear and subordinate to the main command. There was no smell of "partisanship" in such detachments. The discipline was iron, they acted according to a single plan. In modern terminology for units of this kind, another name has been established - "special forces".
Of the fighters of the then "special forces" the most famous are Seslavin, Dorokhov, Vadbolsky, Fonvizin, Prince Kudashev and, of course, Denis Davydov. But now we are talking about another person, whose life, as a contemporary wrote, "with its brightness and brevity was like a rapid glimpse of a meteor in the night sky …"
His name was Alexander Samoilovich Figner.
The beginning of the Russian branch of the old family was laid by the Ostsee Baron Figner von Rutmersbach, who entered the service of Peter the Great. His son, Samuel Samuilovich, did not inherit the baronial title and received a truncated surname - just Figner.
He had three sons. He loved the elder, the younger too, but for some reason he disliked the middle one - Sasha - and tirelessly regaled him with rods …
Fulfilling his parental will, Sasha went to study in the 2nd (former artillery) cadet corps. In 1805, he received an officer's rank, and after a short time was assigned to a special airborne regiment and departed with Senyavin's squadron for the Mediterranean Sea. The sea voyages of that time were a little like recreational cruises. The sailboats were incredibly crowded, damp, the "conveniences" were the most unpretentious, the quality of food was very bad. Hence the inevitable diseases that happened to inflict losses on the fleets comparable to those in combat. Ensign Figner also fell ill. The officer was taken to the shore, and later all sorts of accidents threw him to Milan. It was then for the first time that the special talents of the future partisan showed themselves: phenomenal visual memory and rare ability to learn languages. Figner brought home an excellent command of Italian, and, in addition to that, a technical curiosity: an almost silent pneumatic gun made in the form of a cane of terrible destructive power …
In 1809, after almost two years of armistice, another Russian-Turkish war resumed. Figner at the Danube Theater. Commanding a battery of eight barrels, he participates in many large and small "affairs", including the capture of the Turtukai fortress … One day, when preparations were underway for the storming of the Ruschuk fortress, the question arose about taking the exact dimensions of the fortress ditch. This business was extremely risky. But nothing can be done, someone still needs to go. The officers were about to throw lots on this matter, but then Lieutenant Figner spoke up:
- Gentlemen, do not be bothered by the lot. I'll go.
In the evening the lieutenant left, and by morning he returned all smeared with mud and handed the command a paper with numbers:
- Here, if you please. Depth, width … all the dimensions you need.
He was awarded the Order of St. George, 4th degree.
And then there was a severe wound in the chest and a long stay in the hospital …
Once General Kamensky invited him to his place:
“Don’t be offended, lieutenant, but I’m not letting you into business anymore.” You better go home. There you will sooner enter into force.
The year was 1810. Figner Sr. was already in the post of Pskov vice-governor and greeted his son with open arms:
- Well, Sasha, you are a hero! And here I looked after you a bride. Get ready! Let's go right now.
- Where?
- Where, where … I will introduce you to our governor.
Then the artillery lieutenant himself got into the habit of going to the governor's house. The four daughters of Governor Bibikov were one more beautiful than the other; besides, for each loomed a very good dowry.
But a disaster struck. On the denunciation of the St. Petersburg auditor, Governor Bibikov was accused of abuse of office and taken into custody. Decree of the sovereign: "To collect thirty thousand rubles from this Bibikov."
The amount is huge. The family was in ruin. The brilliant suitors were blown away by the wind. Fleeing from shame, the governor's wife and her daughters left the city and settled in her village.
Winter evening. It's frosty and impenetrable darkness outside. And the rest is like Pushkin's: “Three girls were spinning under the window late in the evening …” The only difference is that there were four girls.
A bell rang somewhere far away. Here he is closer, closer, closer … Mother baptized herself in fear:
- Lord have mercy! Is it possible that the courier again? Well, what else can they take from us?..
But it was not a courier. A slender young man emerged from the cart and, sweeping the snow with the flaps of his cavalry cloak, ran up the steps. I knocked.
- Who's there?
- Staff Captain Figner. Perhaps you remember this …
The captain entered, bowed:
- Madam! Do not be so angry … I understand my unworthiness, and yet I dare to ask you for the hand of your youngest daughter, Olga.
Alexander and Olga got married.
And soon Bonaparte's troops crossed the Neman River …
The year is 1812, the month of June. Captain Alexander Figner is back in the ranks, this time in charge of the 3rd Light Company of the 11th Artillery Brigade.
On the thirteenth of July a hot affair happened near Ostrovno, where the company suffered heavy losses, then there was a stubborn battle at the "Lubensky crossroads", where the batteries sometimes fought hand-to-hand; then, finally, Borodino, where the fiendish cannons also worked quite well …
On September 1, in the village of Fili, in the hut of the peasant Frolov, a military council was held, which Mikhail Kutuzov ended with the words:
- The loss of Moscow is not yet the loss of Russia.
The generals dispersed. One of them, Aleksey Yermolov, was also about to go to his apartment, but a young artillery captain with "George" in his buttonhole appeared on his way.
- What you need? the general asked gloomily.
- Your Excellency! Introduce me to his lordship. I want to stay in Moscow, in peasant clothes, to collect information about the enemy, causing him all kinds of harm along the way. And if the opportunity presents itself - to kill the Corsican.
- Who are you? Name yourself.
- Artillery Captain Figner.
- Good, - Yermolov nodded. - I will report to your lordship.
On September 2, the Russian army, passing through Moscow, stood sixteen versts from it, near the village of Panki. That very night Figner … disappeared. And the next night, the largest gunpowder warehouse in Moscow took off.
“It’s not good,” the captain said later, “for the enemies to load their cannons with our gunpowder.
His Moscow epic began with this sabotage.
“Very soon,” the historian wrote, “in the ruins of the burning capital, the French felt the methodical war of some brave and hidden avenger. Armed parties … ambushed, attacked invaders, especially at night. So Figner began to exterminate enemies with a hundred daredevils recruited by him.
- I wanted to get through to Bonaparte, - said Alexander Samoilovich. - But the canal guardsman, who was standing on the clock, hit me in the chest with a rifle butt … I was captured and interrogated for a long time, then they began to look after me, and I thought it best to leave Moscow.
Soon, on the personal orders of Kutuzov, Figner received a small cavalry detachment under command. A little later, such detachments were led by the Guard Captain Seslavin and Colonel Prince Kudashev (Kutuzov's son-in-law). “In a short time,” wrote Ermolov, “the benefits they brought were tangible. Prisoners in large numbers were brought in every day … On all messages were partisan detachments; the inhabitants … themselves taking up arms, joined them in droves. The first fiend can rightly be attributed to the excitement of the villagers to the war, which had fatal consequences for the enemy."
Figner's ability to transform was amazing. Here he is - the brilliant lieutenant of Murat's corps - freely drives into the enemy camp, chatting with the officers, walking between the tents … And here he is - a hunched-over old man helping himself when walking with a thick stick; and inside the stick is the same pneumatic gun, which has already been used more than once …
“I’ll go on a journey,” the captain said, leaving for another reconnaissance in another guise, in order to then inflict a precisely calculated surprise blow on the enemy.
General Wilson, an English observer at the headquarters of the Russian army, reported to his superiors: “Captain Figner sent to the camp a Hanoverian colonel, two officers and two hundred soldiers, whom he took six miles from Moscow, and, according to the colonel's stories … killed four hundred people, riveted six guns and blew up six charging boxes …"
This is just one episode, of which there have been dozens.
But the most glorious thing took place on November 28 at the village of Lyakhovo near Vyazma, when Figner, Davydov and Seslavin, supported by Orlov-Denisov's Cossacks, forced General Augereau's corps to surrender. Kutuzov wrote: "This victory is all the more famous because for the first time in the continuation of the current campaign the enemy corps laid down weapons in front of us." Put it in front of the partisans!
Kutuzov ordered Figner himself to deliver the victorious report to St. Petersburg. In the accompanying letter to the highest name, among others, there were the following lines: "The deliverer of this … has always been distinguished by rare military abilities and greatness of spirit, which are known not only to our army, but also to the enemy."
The emperor granted the partisan the rank of lieutenant colonel with a transfer to the guards artillery, appointed an aide-de-camp to his own retinue. At a personal audience, he smiled fatherly at him and said:
“You’re too humble, Figner. Why don't you ask for anything for yourself? Or do you have no need for anything?
The lieutenant colonel looked the emperor in the eye.
- Your Majesty! My only desire is to save the honor of Mikhail Ivanovich Bibikov, my father-in-law. Have mercy on him.
The Emperor frowned.
- The beetle is your father-in-law. But if such a hero asks for him … Okay! As you wish.
Soon, the highest decree was issued: "In respect of the excellent merits of the Life Guards Lieutenant Colonel Figner, the son-in-law of the former Pskov governor … who is on trial, we most mercifully forgive him, Bibikov, and release him from court and any punishment therefor."
The Life Guards Lieutenant Colonel was then twenty-five years old. And he had less than eleven months to live.
On October 1, 1813, seven versts from the German city of Dessau, a Figner detachment (five hundred people) met with the vanguard of Ney's corps, took an unequal battle and practically fell down, pressed against the Elbe …
She ordered:
- Find me Figner. I want to look at him.
They turned every dead man over, but Figner was not found. They did not find him among the wounded either. Not found among the few prisoners …
For a long time, Russian soldiers did not want to believe that Figner had died:
- Is it to kill Samoilych? You are naughty! Not that kind of person … Well, judge for yourself: no one saw him dead.
Yes. Nobody saw him dead …
