Bestuzhev Nikolai Alexandrovich (April 13, 1791, St. Petersburg - May 15, 1855, Selenginsk village, Verkhneudinsk district, Irkutsk province), captain-lieutenant. Navy, historian, writer, watercolor artist, draftsman, painter, Decembrist.

Biography

Born in St. Petersburg in the family of an officer, later the ruler of the chancellery of the Academy of Arts. He was educated in the Naval Cadet Corps (1802-1809). Upon completion of his studies, he was enrolled in the staff of the Naval Corps as an educator and teacher, and in 1813 he was transferred to the navy as a midshipman (from 1814 - lieutenant). In 1820 he was appointed assistant keeper of the Baltic lighthouses in Kronstadt. In 1821-1822 organized lithography at the Admiralty Department, for which he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, 4th century. (1823). In the spring of 1822, he was seconded to the Admiralty Department (“without being removed from the fleet”) to write the history of the Russian fleet. In 1824 he was promoted to captain-lieutenant. In July 1825 he was appointed director of the Admiralty Museum.

He served his sentence in Shlisselburg, Chita and Petrovsky Zavod. Here B. created a gallery of portraits of his fellow prisoners. At the “convict academy” he taught a course on Russian history. fleet. He organized a workshop and taught crafts to the Decembrists. In 1839, B., together with his brother Mikhail and K.P. Thorson, settled in the village. Selenginsk, Verkhneudinsk district, Irkutsk. lips Three sisters later came here to join the brothers. They were engaged in arable farming and sheep breeding, crafts, and opened a school for Russians. and drill. children. B. paid much attention to the study of the life and customs of the local population, the natural conditions of the region (articles “On the Buryat Economy”, “Goose Lake”), economics. and watered. provisions of the country (“On freedom of trade and industry in general”). Since his studies could not provide sufficient funds, B. was forced to leave home for a long time to paint portraits. Citizen wife – Buryat Sabilaeva. Had two children.

In the end 1841, at the invitation of a close friend, Dr. I. S. Persin, B. came to Irkutsk and stayed here for almost a year, painting 72 portraits, incl. families of Governor General Rupert, merchants Trapeznikovs, Sukachevs, Nakvasins, Basnins and others. Approx. B. spent a month and a half in . In 1855 he introduced Governor General Muravyov to the simplest design of a gun lock, which he worked on for several years. A prototype was also manufactured here and sent to St. Petersburg. During this visit, he painted children's portraits - the grandson of S. G. Volkonsky and the children of I. S. Persin, with whom he lived in Irkutsk. He was buried in Selenginsk.

Painting

He showed interest in painting, literature, and sciences from childhood. He studied drawing with teachers from the Academy of Arts - N.N. Fonyaeva, A.N.Voronikhina. Member of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts (since November 1825). He was engaged in literature, from 1818 he collaborated in the magazines “Son of the Fatherland”, “Polar Star”, “Well-Intentioned”, “Competitor of Education and Charity”, etc. Member of the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature (since 1821), in 1822 elected a member of the Censorship Committee , was the editor-in-chief of prose works and a candidate for assistant to the president of the society. Author of the books “Notes on Holland in 1815” (St. Petersburg, 1821) and “The Voyage of the Frigate “Provorny” in 1824” (St. Petersburg, 1825), as well as a partially published work “History of the Russian Fleet.”

Mason, member of the "Elect Michael" lodge (1818). Member of the Free Society for the establishment of schools using the method of mutual education (1818), member of the Free Economic Society (1825). Member of the secret organization "Northern Society" (1824), wrote the draft "Manifesto to the Russian people." Active participant in the uprising on Senate Square. He was arrested in December 1825 and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Convicted under category II. After the sentence, in August 1826, together with his brother Mikhail, he was taken to Shlisselburg, in September 1827 he was sent to hard labor in Siberia, in the Chita prison, in September 1830 he was transferred to the Petrovsky plant. In July 1839 he was sent to settle in the city of Selenginsk, Irkutsk province, where he lived until the end of his life with his brother Mikhail and sisters Elena, Maria and Olga who arrived later. He was in a civil marriage with a Buryat woman, Sabilaeva, and had children - Alexei (1838-1900), a major Siberian merchant and industrialist, and Ekaterina (married to Gomboeva, died in 1929-1930 in Harbin at the age of about 90 years). The children lived in the family of the Selenga merchant D.D. Startsev and bore his last name. Bestuzhev died in Selenginsk, where he was buried.

Throughout his stay in Siberia, he was actively involved in fine arts. He painted interiors of prison cells, views of Chita, Petrovsky Plant and other landscapes. He created an extensive portrait gallery of Decembrists and Siberians. He went to paint portraits in Kyakhta (November 1840 - February 1841), in Verkhneudinsk (late 1842), and was in Irkutsk twice: in January - October 1842 and in February - April 1855. As a result of two visits, he painted about 80-90 portraits . Due to deteriorating vision, in the last period of his work he began to switch to oil painting (from the first half of the 1840s). In the second half of the 1840s. performed works (painted the altar and painted several icons) for the Selenga Cathedral, built in 1846, which soon burned down. To this day, more than two hundred works by Bestuzhev have been preserved, located in Moscow - in the State Museum. Historical Museum, Russian State. library, State Museum of A.S. Pushkin, State. archive of the Russian Federation, State. Literary Museum, State. Tretyakov Gallery; in St. Petersburg - at the Institute of Russian Literature, the All-Union Museum of A.S. Pushkin, State. Hermitage, Museum of the Revolution, Russian National Library, N.A. Nekrasov Museum; in Tula - in the regional museum of local lore; in Irkutsk - in the regional art museum ("Portrait of P.P. Sukachev", 1842, "Portrait of P.S. Trapeznikova", 1842) and the regional museum of local history ("Portrait of I.S. Selsky", 1847 (?)); in Kyakhta - in the local history museum, as well as in private collections in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Irkutsk (collection of B.S. Shostakovich - “Portrait of N.P. Trapeznikov, 1842,” “Portrait of P.N. Trapeznikov, 1842,” “Portrait of A.I. .Trapeznikova", 1842, "Portrait of M.P. Boetticher with her daughter", early 1850s (?)).

Literature

1. IOCM archive, personal file of N.A. Bestuzhev.
2. Baranovskaya M.Yu. Decembrist Nikolai Bestuzhev. - M., 1954. 294 p. (indicative liters).
3. Decembrists: Biographical reference book. - M., 1988. - P.21-22.
4. Decembrists and Siberia: Album. - M., 1988. - 264 p.
5. Zilberstein I.S. Decembrist artist Nikolai Bestuzhev. Edition 2, additional - M., 1977. - 678 p.
6. Fine art of Siberia: Exhibition catalogue. - Irkutsk, 1986. - P.8, 31-32.
7. Irkutsk in the works of artists: [Catalogue]. - Irkutsk, 1961. - P.14.
8. Irkutsk Regional Art Museum: Catalog. Russian and Soviet art. Painting. Sculpture. Graphics. - L., 1961. P.15, 69.
9. Irkutsk Regional Art Museum. Russian art of the 18th - early 20th centuries: Catalog. Painting, sculpture, drawing and watercolor. - Irkutsk, 1976. - P. 12, 97.
10. Irkutsk Art Museum named after V.P. Sukachev: Painting. Graphic arts. Decorative and applied art. - St. Petersburg, 1993. P.249, ill.126-127.
11. History of Siberia. T.2. Siberia as part of feudal Russia. - L., 1968.- P.499.
12. Catalog of the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum. Painting, graphics and sculpture. Russian art of the 18th - 20th centuries - Irkutsk, 1952. - P. 11, 60.
13. Catalog of artistic works of the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum. - Irkutsk, 1939. - P. 4, 27.
14. Catalog of the exhibition of the department of Siberian pre-revolutionary art [IOKHM]. - Irkutsk, 1989. - P. 13, 14.
15. Lapshin V. From the history of art in Siberia in the 19th century // Khudozhnik.- 1968.- No. 11.- P.57, 60.
16. N.A. Bestuzhev in the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum: To the 150th anniversary of the Decembrist uprising. 1825-1875.- Irkutsk, 1975.- 12 p.
17. Polunina N., Frolov A. Collectors of old Moscow: Illustrated biographical dictionary. - M., 1997. - P.30.
18. Princeva G. Decembrists in monuments of fine art. From the Hermitage collection. - L., 1967. - 84 p.
19. Romanov N.S. Chronicle of the city of Irkutsk for 1902-1924. Irkutsk, 1994.- P.181, 186, 480.
20. Siberian portrait of the 18th - early 20th centuries in the collections of Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Kyakhta, Novosibirsk, Tomsk, Tyumen, Chita. St. Petersburg, 1994.- P.140-144, ill.29-40.
21. Siberia in works of fine art: [Catalogue]. - Irkutsk, 1949. - P.9, 17.
22. Siberia in works of fine art: [Catalogue]. - Irkutsk, 1958. - P. 17, 41.
23. Sidorov A.A. Drawing by old Russian masters. - M., 1956. P.251, 299, 354-355, 362, 365, 384, 411, 456, 463, 503.
24. Snytko L. Portrait gallery of Siberians in the collection of the Irkutsk Regional Art Museum // Siberia. - 1988. - No. 4.-P.118, 119, 120, 125.
25. Tokarev V.P. Artists of Siberia. XIX century. - Novosibirsk, 1993. - P.7, 10, 13, 47-51, 85, 98, 99, 100, 105, ill.29-30, 35.
26. Fatyanov A.D. Vladimir Sukachev. - Irkutsk, 1990. - P. 24, 25, 33, 35, 37, 40, 158, 218, 254, 267.
27. Fatyanov A.D. Irkutsk treasures. - Irkutsk, 1985. - P. 15, 19, 75, 76, 78.
28. Fatyanov A.D. Irkutsk Art Museum. - Irkutsk, 1958. - P. 102.
29. Fatyanov A.D. The fate of treasures. - Irkutsk, 1967. - P.30-33.
30. Fatyanov A.D. Decembrist artist N.A. Bestuzhev, his predecessors, contemporaries and followers in Irkutsk // Siberia. 1976.- No. 4.- P.122-126.
31. Fatyanov A.D. Artists, exhibitions, collectors of the Irkutsk province. - Irkutsk, 1995. - P.3, 35-37, 41, 54, 112, 113, 114, 146.
32. Artists of the peoples of the USSR: Bio-bibliographic dictionary. - T.1.- M., 1970.- P.391 (indicative literature).
33. Shostakovich S.V. Unknown portraits by the Decembrist N.A. Bestuzhev // Angara. - 1961. - No. 3. - P. 127-130.
34. Travel diary from Chita. L., 1926; Articles and letters. M.; L., 1933; Memoirs of the Bestuzhevs. M.; L., 1951; Favorite prose. M., 1983. Works and letters / Ed. preparation S. F. Koval. Irkutsk, 2003.
35. Azadovsky M. N. Bestuzhev – ethnographer. Irkutsk, 1925; Baranovskaya M. Yu. Decembrist Nikolai Bestuzhev. M., 1954; Zilbernstein I. S. Decembrist artist Nikolai Bestuzhev. 3rd ed., add. M., 1988.

N. A. Bestuzhev

N. A. Bestuzhev

(Ya. Levkovich)

The name of Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bestuzhev has long gone down in the history of the Russian revolutionary movement. He is one of the most active “actors” in preparing and carrying out the December 14 uprising. But his name belongs with equal right to Russian culture and Russian literature. He was a man of bright personality. The versatility of his talents is amazing: an artist who created a unique gallery of the faces of his “prisoners” and their wives, a remarkable mechanic-inventor, historian, economist and political thinker, and finally, a writer whose talent was highly valued by his contemporaries. “Nikolai Bestuzhev was a man of genius,” writes N. I. Lorer, “and, my God, what did he not know, what was he not capable of?”

N. Bestuzhev began to write (but did not have time to complete due to the December events) the history of the Russian fleet, he wrote the treatise “On Freedom of Trade and Industry” (1831), which is the largest monument to the economic thought of the Decembrists, he was seriously involved in the natural sciences, worked on improving chronometers, invented a simplified rifle bolt. In addition, he was a good agronomist and craftsman - a turner, a goldsmith. At a settlement in Selenginsk, he set up an observatory for meteorological observations and, as his sister Elena recalls, “he was even a shoemaker in an argument.”

An amazing fusion of talents is manifested in various areas of his activity, in everything he touches. In the artist Bestuzhev we see a historian who preserved for posterity the faces of the participants in the uprising, who captured in visual images their homes, everyday life, and the nature that surrounded them. In Bestuzhev the writer one can constantly feel the gaze of an observant scientist; in the historiographer of the Decembrist movement - a writer who knew how to combine the desire for maximum accuracy in depicting real events with the expression of his own assessment of them.

Alexander Bestuzhev, at the zenith of his Marlinsky fame, exclaimed with bitterness: “But you, Nikolai, why are you lost to our literature!” Siberian “prisoners” were forbidden to write, much less publish. But the literary life of the Decembrists, both in the dungeon and later in the settlement, was not interrupted. Nikolai Bestuzhev did not interrupt her either. However, he was no longer able to see his works in print. A collection of his essays and stories appeared only in 1860, after the death of the writer.

On December 14, the name of the Bestuzhevs as “the main instigators of the riot” spread throughout the capital before the names of Ryleev, Pestel, Kakhovsky became known. Someone’s sharp word spread throughout the city that the Bestuzhevs were always involved in all the riots in Russia. “There were five brothers and all five of us died in the whirlpool on December 14,” Mikhail Bestuzhev later wrote. The eldest of the five was Nikolai.

N. Bestuzhev was born in 1791, in the family of the famous educator Alexander Fedoseevich Bestuzhev, a “Radishchevite”, friend and ally of I.P. Pnin, with whom he published the St. Petersburg Journal, an organ of radical political thought. A. F. Bestuzhev owns the treatise “On Military Education,” where he opposes class privileges, putting forward the only measure of a person’s importance in society is his personal merits, his awareness of his responsibilities to society. An excellent teacher, he managed to instill his ideas in his own family - primarily in his eldest son Nikolai. And when in 1810 A. F. Bestuzhev died and the responsibility for raising the younger ones fell on the eldest son, Nikolai managed to become for them both a mentor and an ideal man and citizen. The memories of Elena and Mikhail, the letters of Alexander Bestuzhev testify to the boundless love for their elder brother and his moral influence on all family members.

Nikolai Bestuzhev was preparing to become a sailor. Having graduated from the cadet corps in 1809 and having spent several years as a teacher there, he joined the navy, in 1815, 1817 and 1824 he sailed to Holland, France and Spain, and from 1819 he was assistant director of the Baltic lighthouses. In 1823, he became the head of the Maritime Museum and studied the history of the Russian fleet.

N. Bestuzhev was accepted into the Northern Society by Ryleev in 1824, and since 1825 he has already been a member of the Duma of the society. Belonging to the most revolutionary-minded group of “northerners” who, like Pestel, insisted on expanding the rights of popular representation and the liberation of peasants with land, he, together with his brother Alexander, was one of Ryleev’s main assistants on the eve of the uprising. On December 14, Bestuzhev brought the Marine Guards crew to the square, although he had been with the Admiralty Department for several years and had nothing to do with practical naval service. On was one of the few Decembrists who showed steadfastness during the investigation: he answered questions very restrainedly, admitting only what was known to the Investigative Committee, keeping silent about the affairs of the secret society and almost not naming names. Many memoirists recall the courage of his answers during interrogations. I. D. Yakushkin wrote: “In the eyes of the highest authorities, the main guilt of Nikolai Bestuzhev was that he spoke very boldly before the members of the commission and acted very boldly when he was brought to the palace.” During interrogations, he succinctly portrayed the difficult state of Russia. Already in his first testimony, he says: “Seeing the disorder of finances, the decline of trade and the trust of the merchants, the complete insignificance of our methods in agriculture, and most of all the lawlessness of the courts, made our hearts tremble.”

They report the words of Nicholas I after the first interrogation that Nikolai Bestuzhev is the smartest person among the conspirators. In a year and a half, the tsar will reward Pushkin with the title of “smartest man,” and it will cost both “smartest” dearly - Pushkin will be under secret surveillance, and N. Bestuzhev will be judged especially harshly. It was his behavior during interrogations that apparently influenced the court's decision. In the “List of persons who, in the case of secret malicious societies, are brought before the Supreme Criminal Court by order of the highest order,” all convicts were divided into eleven categories and one extra-category group. Nikolai Bestuzhev was assigned to category II, although the investigation materials did not provide grounds for such a high “rank”. Obviously, the judges understood the actual role and significance of the elder Bestuzhev in Northern society. “Second-class people” were condemned by the Supreme Criminal Court to political death, that is, “put their heads on the chopping block, and then be sent forever to hard labor.”

Nicholas I introduced a number of “modifications and mitigations” to the sentence by moving “criminals” from one category to another. For those convicted of the second and third categories, eternal hard labor was replaced by twenty years with deprivation of ranks and nobility and subsequent exile to a settlement. On the occasion of the coronation of Nicholas I, the term of hard labor for the second category was reduced to 15 years. By the Manifesto of 1829, it was again reduced - to 10 years, but Nikolai and Mikhail Bestuzhev were not affected by this reduction, and they settled only in July 1839.

Before the uprising, Ryleev called Mikhail Bestuzhev a “man of action.” Nikolai Bestuzhev was also a “man of action”. The Bestuzhev brothers remain “men of action” even in exile. In the casemates of the Petrovsky plant, N. Bestuzhev writes memoirs and stories in which he tries to comprehend the lessons of the uprising. At the settlement, the works of the Bestuzhev brothers laid the foundation for historical, ethnographic and natural scientific knowledge and description of Siberia, they participate in the education of the local population, teach peasant children in Selenginsk, as if remembering the behest of Pestel, who wrote about the peoples of Siberia: “May they become our brothers and they will cease to be touched by their pitiful situation.”

Before the December uprising, N. Bestuzhev actively participated in literary life. He wrote romantic stories, travel essays (“travelling”), fables, poems, his translations appeared in magazines - from T. Moore, Byron, Walter Scott, Washington Irving, scientific articles were published - on history, physics, mathematics. Many of his manuscripts were destroyed after the defeat of the uprising, but what was printed is enough to judge his high skill and professionalism in all the issues he touched upon.

All of Nikolai Bestuzhev’s work is organically connected with the Decembrist movement. Decembrist ideology spread throughout society through literature. “Opinion rules the world,” asserted the advanced educational philosophy of the 18th century. Disciples of this philosophy, the Decembrists believed in the power of reason and considered it necessary and possible to influence “general opinion.” The connection between political ideas and modern literature was formulated by Alexander Bestuzhev: “The imagination, dissatisfied with the essence, hungers for inventions, and under the political seal literature swirls in society.”

He paid special attention to the literature of the “Union of Welfare” (1818–1821). The literary center of the Union of Prosperity (and then the Northern Society) was the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature - a literary springboard for the Decembrists, which played a significant role in the training of Decembrist personnel. In 1821, the Free Society took over the functions of the dissolved “Union of Welfare” in the field of education. It was in 1821 that Nikolai Bestuzhev became one of the members of the society and soon occupied a prominent place in it: since 1822 he has been a member of the censorship committee (editorial board, according to modern ideas); in 1825 - prose censor, that is, editor-in-chief of all prose works; at the same time he is elected as a candidate for assistant to the president (the president of the society was F.N. Glinka).

N. Bestuzhev’s literary activity is closely connected with the Free Society - he repeatedly speaks at meetings reading his literary and historical works, his works are published mainly in the magazine “Competitor of Education and Charity” - the official organ of the Free Society.

The society's literary program paid special attention to the "description of lands and customs." “Competitor of Enlightenment...” in 1818 (No. 10) announced his intention to have, among others, the following sections: “Description of lands and peoples. Historical passages and biographies of famous men. Scientists travel. Everything curious about the sciences and arts.”

N. Bestuzhev’s first literary experiments include three sections of this program - travel, description of lands and peoples, history and “everything curious regarding the sciences and arts.” His “travels” in external form are typical “travel sketches”, “reports” of travelers usual for that time about what they saw in foreign countries, so widespread in the literature of sentimentalism.

Under the pen of the Decembrists, the traditional genre of “travel” was restructured. Sentimental travelers, according to A. Bestuzhev, “sighed until they fainted” and “dropped tears on the lily of the valley.” The Decembrists use travel to study the “great deeds” of peoples and national glory. Instead of an idle collector of impressions, a thinking, progressive person of his era appears in the Decembrist “travel” literature, combining a writer and a publicist in himself.

Traveler Bestuzhev is an attentive and thoughtful observer of the socio-political life and way of life of Western European countries. Traveling abroad was an instructive lesson for him and played a significant role in the development of his socio-political consciousness. In his testimony to the Investigative Committee, he wrote: “My stay in Holland in 1815, for five months, when constitutional government was established there, gave me the first concept of the benefits of laws and civil rights. After that, a two-time visit to France and a voyage to England and Spain confirmed this way of thinking.”

Bestuzhev looks closely at the life of an unfamiliar country, he is interested in everything - lifestyle and way of life, architecture and clothing, trades and crafts, folk entertainment and museums. In educational treatises, Holland has traditionally served as an example of hard work. “Indeed,” wrote Raynal, “shouldn’t we expect patriotic feelings from such a people who can say to themselves: I have made this land that I inhabit fruitful. I decorated it, formed it! The waves of this formidable sea, which covered our fields, are crushing against the barriers that I have set...” The hard work of the Dutch with their “patriotic feelings” also brings N. Bestuzhev closer together. His attention is drawn to the “active” life of the Dutch, their efforts to “conquer nature.” In grandiose dams, in land reclaimed from the sea, he sees the material expression of the social activity of free people.

Having first encountered the republican way of government, he pays special attention to it. An excursion into the history of Holland, a look at its current economic and political state - everything is subordinated to one cross-cutting thought: only under a republican system can the country prosper. The Dutch, in his words, “showed the world what humanity is capable of and to what extent the spirit of free people can rise.” The epithets that accompany the word “republic” (“free”, “proud”) testify to a deep and interested sympathy for a representative form of government. The idea of ​​a constitutional system became alive and concrete for him. Behind the text of the story about a prosperous republic in the minds of Bestuzhev stood feudal Russia with its disenfranchised population, despotic commanders, and a brutal regime in the army. The preaching of the inviolability of laws and the right of the people to govern their country was objectively directed against the Russian autocracy.

Another travel essay, “Gibraltar,” was written at a time when a wave of revolutionary movements swept across Europe, and Bestuzhev himself, already a member of a secret society, was preparing to carry out a revolution in Russia. The author's position as a “traveler” is defined at the beginning of the essay. He warns the reader that this time he will not find in his essay detailed descriptions of the life and way of life of this fortified city: “I don’t want to go into details, that outside the city there is a garden where there are several busts that remind the English of great people and their deeds ; that there are two libraries in the city, one for the garrison, the other for the merchants; that there is a bad theater where good singers who came from Lisbon are angry along with the listeners at the bad music; I won’t say that on this bare stone, in places, in the gorges, there are gardens and trees; that the residents drink rain water, and bring fresh water there on donkeys from Spain, that beef is sold to them under a contract by a Moroccan owner - all this is an ordinary thing ... "

The central place in the essay is occupied by the struggle of the Spanish insurgents for independence, taking place beyond the steppes of the city. The essay is filled with signs of popular indignation: “confusion” in the city, “songs of liberty”, the execution of insurgents, and finally, the fate of the Spanish constitutional ministers who took refuge in Gibraltar - all this is depicted with ardent sympathy for the republicans. “Notes on Holland” was a demonstration of the opportunities that the republican system brings to the country. In “Gibraltar” Bestuzhev depicts images not of former freedom fighters, but of contemporary revolutionaries. The romantic figure of a freedom fighter is introduced into the consciousness of contemporaries and political betrayal is branded.

The maritime theme occupies a special place in the work of N. Bestuzhev. It is no coincidence that the posthumous collection of his selected works is called “Stories and Tales of the Old Sailor.” Not only N. Bestuzhev himself was a sailor and historiographer of the Russian fleet, but the entire Bestuzhev family was primarily associated with the sea. Father A.F. Bestuzhev was a naval officer (before he retired after being wounded), his brother Peter served in the navy, and Mikhail was a sailor (before joining the guard). Involvement in the fleet undoubtedly contributed to the formation of revolutionary sentiments in the Bestuzhev family.

The disastrous picture of the gradual decline and disintegration of the Russian fleet in the “Alexander era,” which naval historians consider “the darkest era in its history,” offended patriotic feelings and led thinking officers to the need to change the order of things, that is, to the need to change the existing system. This is how Mikhail Bestuzhev talks about his entry into the secret society: “Seeing firsthand the destruction of our fleet under the control of the French minister (Marquis de Traversay), and then the German (Anton Vasilyevich Moller) and being personally offended by the blatant injustice in the project of K.P. Thorson about the transformation of the fleet, I involuntarily became imbued with a feeling of disgust for naval service and, having drowned out my passion for the sea, I looked for an opportunity to hide my head anywhere. Brother Alexander<..>invited me to join the guard, explaining to me that my presence in the guard regiments might be useful for our cause - I agreed.” There were many sailors in the secret society, including outstanding naval officers who, in the words of D.I. Zavalishin, constituted “the best hope of the Russian fleet.” These are the Bestuzhevs, and their friend Thorson, Zavalishin himself, Mikhail Kuchelbecker, the Belyaev brothers, etc.

In the essay “On Pleasures at Sea,” Bestuzhev immerses the reader in the atmosphere of unanimity and unanimity that reigns among the officers on the ship: “Raised in one place, as if children of the same mother, with ... the same way of thinking, the society of naval service officers is distinguished by that friendly connection, that sincere straightforwardness that other societies, made up of people who came from different directions, cannot imagine.”

Marine life, full of dangers, when the life of everyone can depend on the actions and deeds of one and all together, is presented as ideal conditions for developing the character and feelings of a person entering life. At sea, a person gets used to seeing danger “without fear and in cold blood,” and from the first steps he becomes involved in the “competition of service and camaraderie.” “The competition of service and camaraderie” subsequently brought the Marine Guards crew to Senate Square.

Man in the face of the elements is the main conflict of sea stories and essays by Bestuzhev. His narratives about events at sea, be it a romantic story (“Boat Trip”, 1831), a description of a true incident (“News of the crashed Russian brig Falke…”) or a lyrical monologue of a romantic in love with the sea (“Tolbukhinsky Lighthouse”) - are a must include a description of the storm. In extreme conditions, a person’s business and moral qualities are tested, his endurance, resourcefulness, and fearlessness are tested. The brig Falk is wrecked due to the professional unsuitability of one of the crew members. The hero of “Tolbukhinsky Lighthouse” emerges victorious from the battle with the sea elements because his “steady hand controls the helm” and “his art avoids blows and protects against drowning.” But even in the very death of the sailors on the brig “Falk”, Bestuzhev emphasizes the high moral qualities of the sailors. One of the two surviving crew members was saved by the sailors, who, freezing, covered him with their bodies.

Conviction in the trust of soldiers and sailors, in their dedication and ability to sacrifice, confirmed the future Decembrists in the possibility of carrying out a military revolution. A.I. Arbuzov testified at the investigation that he was confident in the possibility of raising the Sea Crew, because he knew the “love and trust” of the sailors for him.

After the fateful date of December 14, Decembrism did not cease to exist as a socio-literary movement. In penal servitude and in the settlements, Decembrist writers continued to develop ideas that, before the uprising, were pushed aside by current service and revolutionary activity. A new stage in the work of N. Bestuzhev began in Siberia.

Memories of December 14, as well as a number of artistic works, also brought to life by the tragic events of the uprising, were conceived and partially written here. Both memoir prose and psychological stories, in fact, reveal one theme - the paths that led the participants in the uprising to the square, and then into the “convict holes” - their worldview, their aspirations and hopes. We do not know the chronological sequence in which “Stories and Tales of the Old Sailor” (that part of them that was written in Siberia) came from the pen of Bestuzhev, but through all of his Siberian work we can draw a single plot-psychological line - ethical principles and the worldview of a leading man of his time, the path of moral and social development of the personality of the future Decembrist, his worldview during the period of preparation for the revolution and at the very moment of the uprising.

In his prose, N. Bestuzhev tried to comprehend and generalize the lessons of the uprising. First of all, this applies to memoirs. The memoirs of the Decembrists conveyed to us their revolutionary program, the freshness of the experiences and moods with which their authors prepared for revolutionary actions, they conveyed everyday details, words, lively dialogues, and remarks. The memoir prose of N. A. Bestuzhev, who had a keen and precise eye as a painter, is especially noteworthy. His widely known “Memoirs of Ryleev” and the short passage “December 14, 1825” were conceived by him as part of more extensive memories of the December events. The plan remained unfinished - we know about this from the memoirs of Mikhail Bestuzhev, Nikolai Bestuzhev himself spoke about this with sadness before his death.

The memories of Nikolai Bestuzhev equally belong to memoir and fiction prose; in it, as later in “The Past and Thoughts” by A. I. Herzen, the truly past is combined with artistic generalization. M.K. Azadovsky wrote that in “Memories of Ryleev” the image of the leader of the Northern Society is shown through the prism of a romantic story. Bestuzhev unfolds the narrative “in speeches and dialogues, sprinkled with literary quotes, portrait sketches, genre scenes, accompanied by an epigraph.” The image of the revolutionary tribune is presented in a romantic style - he is enthusiastic and sensitive, his eyes “sparkle”, “his face is burning” and he “cries”, etc., although we know that Ryleev was extremely restrained on the eve of the uprising.

“Memories of Ryleev” completes the “biographies of great men” laid down in the program of the Union of Welfare, bringing these biographies up to December 14, 1825.

The passage, provisionally titled “December 14, 1825,” combines autobiographical and fictional elements to the same extent as Ryleev’s biography (as does the story “Shlisselburg Station”). To verify this, it is enough to compare Bestuzhev’s story about his stay in the house of an unknown benefactor on December 14, 1825 with the version of the same episode in the memoirs of Mikhail Bestuzhev. According to Mikhail Bestuzhev, his brother is being sheltered by like-minded people - a father and two sons. Nikolai Bestuzhev introduces a conflict situation into his story: the father sympathizes with the “cause” on the square, the son is a zealous servant of the new emperor. The real fact (shelter in an unfamiliar house) is complemented by the situation characteristic of the day of December 14, when every citizen was faced with the problem of choice, when society split into two camps: sympathizers and haters. The biographical fact thus acquires the force of artistic generalization.

In his memoir prose, N. Bestuzhev, while maintaining an autobiographical basis, obscures real persons and events with literary details and fiction. In an autobiographical story, the fictional narrative reflects his own experiences. But Bestuzhev’s work is not a passive registration of his life’s conflicts. He creates a generalized image of the Decembrist positive hero. “Shlisselburg Station,” like other stories by Bestuzhev, written in prisons and among the population, can be called an autobiographical Decembrist story.

“Shlisselburg Station” has the subtitle “true incident.” The connection with some personal moments is deliberately emphasized in the presentation (mention of his family, naval service, the essay “On the Pleasures of the Sea,” etc.). Therefore, at first glance, N. Bestuzhev concerns a particular case - he answers the question of the “ladies” (wives of the Decembrists) why he remained a bachelor (there is evidence from Mikhail Bestuzhev about the origin of the idea for the story). Shortly before the uprising, Bestuzhev wrote the story “Tavern Staircase” based on the same plot. Both “Tavern Staircase” and “Shlisselburg Station” are inspired by a relationship with a woman, whose love N. Bestuzhev carried throughout his life.

Both stories have the same autobiographical basis, both highlight the talent of Bestuzhev, a master of psychological storytelling, but the same collision is designed to reveal different social characters.

“The Inn Staircase” deeply and subtly conveys the experiences of a man who in his youth loved a woman who was someone else’s wife, and who because of this in old age was left without his own family. Bestuzhev delves into the psychology of a man devoted to his only love and sacrificing happiness for her.

In “Shlisselburg Station” his own fate merges with the fate of his political like-minded people. The plot of renunciation of personal happiness now serves to express the harsh self-denial of a person who has chosen the path of a professional revolutionary. This moral credo of the Decembrist is clearly expressed in the very epigraph to the story:

"One head is not poor,

And even if you’re poor, you’re alone.”

A man who has rebelled against autocracy sacrifices his freedom and therefore has no moral right to condemn his beloved woman to suffering, who is expected to be separated from her husband, the father of her children. The problem of the revolutionary’s personal happiness was not an expression of the opinion of Bestuzhev alone, and was not invented by him. Life itself confronted her with the captivity of the secret society; she was supported by real examples. It is known that some members of early secret societies (M. F. Orlov, P. I. Koloshin, V. P. Zubkov, I. N. Gorstkin) linked their refusal to further revolutionary activity with marriage and family life. E. Obolensky testified at the investigation that “all these members are married, and therefore belong to society solely through previous connections.” The very example of the Decembrist wives who followed their husbands to Siberia, their heroic but full of hardships life confirmed Bestuzhev in the correctness of his answer to the question posed.

Russian revolutionaries of the next generation also thought about it. The researcher rightly notes that N. G. Chernyshevsky in the novel “What is to be done?”, written in the Peter and Paul Fortress, “posed the same problem (“I need to give up all happiness”) in connection with the characteristics of the socio-psychological appearance of a “special person” » Rakhmetova.

The short story “Funeral” introduces the motif of the failed Decembrist into the series of Bestuzhev’s stories about his contemporaries. The story has a socially accusatory theme. The man whose funeral the narrator comes to was not alien to “noble impulses” in his youth. This expression, translated into prose, from Pushkin’s letter “To Chaadaev”, indicates that the deceased was not just a “childhood friend” of the narrator, but to a certain point also a like-minded person. “But soon,” the narrator explains, “our different fate, which left me on the same level where I stood and called him into the circle of great light, disappointed me.”

The deceased “friend” is the antithesis of the hero of “Shlisselburg Station”. Autobiographical details made one see in the hero of “Shlisselburg Station” Bestuzhev himself, with his further fate, as a man who went through the uprising, who was not broken by hard labor and exile, and who, having sacrificed personal happiness, remained a creative “activist” even in “hard labor.” The narrator’s “friend” was “surrounded by a lovely family, his wife and children, in the midst of a brilliant circle of acquaintances,” but, in fact, he was a living dead because he had ceased to be himself. “Noble impulses” disappeared, “entertainment and duties and everything that is called the life of the great world” changed him. Simple-hearted wit" gave way to "irony, whose appearance bore the stamp of the strictest decency," and instead of "a clear and impartial presentation" there appeared "an ambiguous opinion, from which he was ready to deny himself every minute."

In “Funeral,” Bestuzhev is an exposer of spiritual emptiness and hypocrisy “of the big world, where decency should replace all sensations of the heart and where the outward sign of them puts the stamp of the funny on every unfortunate person who is so weak that he allows his inner movement to be noticed.”

The story “The Funeral” was written in 1823; it can be recognized as “one of the first - in time - prose works in which the falsity and spiritual emptiness of aristocratic circles are exposed.” At this time, the anti-secular stories of V.F. Odoevsky and Alexander Bestuzhev had not yet been written. Pushkin’s “Roslavlev” was not written either, where the “secular mob” is shown with the same journalistic fervor as in Bestuzhev’s story.

The story “A Russian in Paris 1814” is also connected with reflections on the destinies and characters of the generation that entered life on the eve of the Patriotic War.

“We were children of 1812,” Matvey Muravyov briefly and deeply defined the attitude of the Decembrists to the Patriotic War of 1812. The year 1812 was a turning point in their political life. N. Bestuzhev himself was not in Paris - his military fate was different, and the story is based on the Parisian impressions of his comrades in hard labor, and first of all N. O. Lorer. The moment of Russian troops entering the capital of France, realities, faces, incidents, folk scenes remembered by Laurer - all this was conveyed by Bestuzhev with memoiristic accuracy. The historian and essayist showed himself here to the fullest. The hero of the story, Glinsky, also conveys some of Lorer’s character traits and biography.

In Glinsky we see an apologetic depiction of the advanced Russian intelligentsia, from whose ranks the main backbone of secret society leaders was formed. He is smart, educated, captivating with his spiritual nobility and reserve of pure moral strength.

The plot centers on the love experiences of Glinsky and the young Frenchwoman Countess de Serval. With great knowledge of the human soul, Bestuzhev guides his heroes through numerous obstacles: here is the psychological barrier separating two nations - the winners and the vanquished, and the awkward circumstances in which Glinsky finds himself in an unfamiliar country, and the recent widowhood of the Count, her desire to remain faithful to someone who died in the war her husband, and her involuntary rivalry with her cousin, and the lovers’ mutual uncertainty about each other’s feelings.

The desire to reveal the subtlest nuances of the characters’ love and moral fluctuations, their internal attractions and repulsions leads to some lengthiness in the narrative, and the image of Glinsky at first glance seems overly idealized. But weren’t the future Decembrists endowed with all the qualities that the hero of the story possesses? Were these qualities not inherent in Nikolai Bestuzhev himself? Herzen called the Decembrists “heroes, forged from pure steel from head to toe.”

Bestuzhev sympathizes with the hero’s experiences, justifies the heroine’s behavior and brings the lovers’ romance to a happy end, because they are connected by simple, sincere human feelings. Bestuzhev’s views on love and relationships between women and men were determined in his youth. Among his papers, a notebook entitled “Natural Law”, which he kept in 1814, has been preserved. One chapter is specifically devoted to the problem of marriage and the relationship between men and women. Bestuzhev demanded from husband and wife “mutual purity of one to the other” and rejected marriages “not out of love,” but “by agreement.” He called marriages “by agreement” or “of convenience” “privileged debauchery.”

The patriotic tendency of the story is emphasized by the title “Russian in Paris 1814.” It seems to remind us that the moment the Russian army entered Paris is the culmination of Russian patriotism. In addition, Glinsky, with all his behavior, is called upon to show the true face of the Russian person and thereby dispel “the prejudice that all the French generally had against the Russians.”

The main plot collision of the story - the spiritual closeness of the Russian officer, the hero of 1812, and the widow of the enemy of Russia, the French colonel - provides some grounds for recreating the circumstances that determined the emergence of the plan and the development of the plot. The story was written at the Petrovsky plant (that is, not earlier than 1831). In the same year, 1831, M. N. Zagoskin’s novel “Roslavlev” was published. Here we find a situation that mirrors the main plot line of Bestuzhev’s story. The bride of the Russian officer Roslavlev, Polina, loves the French officer Count Senecourt, whom she met in Paris before the war. When Senecour is captured, Pauline marries him and follows her husband after French troops free him from captivity. Senecur dies; Polina, abandoned by everyone, also dies in a foreign land.

The heroine of Zagoskina is a weak woman, devoid of a sense of patriotism. Her love for Senecur is presented in the novel as treason, and death as a well-deserved punishment for treachery. She is surrounded by general contempt, the French reject her, she is even deprived of her husband’s love. “Yes, madam,” he tells her. - We died. The Russians are triumphant, but excuse me! I was stupid to forget for a minute that you are Russian.”

Zagoskin's novel was the stimulus for Pushkin's polemical story "Roslavlev". Zagoskin presents the rise of national self-awareness during the days of the Patriotic War in an official-patriotic light. This prompted Pushkin to give his own version of the plot. Pushkin did not finish the story, but already at the beginning of it he repeats the main plot of Zagoskin’s novel, bringing Polina closer to Senecourt. This rapprochement does not prevent the heroine from remaining a true patriot. What attracts her to Senecourt is “knowledge of the matter and impartiality” - that is, intelligence and human dignity. Each of them is a patriot of his fatherland, and Pushkin’s Polina values ​​the true patriotism of the Frenchman above the false, leavened patriotism of the Russians. Pushkin contrasted Zagoskin's reactionary patriotism with his own broad and truly democratic patriotism.

It is possible that Bestuzhev’s story, like Pushkin’s “Roslavlev,” was a kind of polemic with Zagoskin. The Decembrists received all the literary novelties from Russia, and the sensational novel about the Patriotic War could not bypass them.

Bestuzhev places next to Glinsky not just a Frenchwoman, not just a socialite, for whom the defeat of Napoleon and the restoration of the monarchy could be desirable events. Countess de Serval is the widow of Napoleon's adjutant, a Bonapartist, who fully shares her husband's beliefs. People of the “light” greet their allies with delight and show their devotion to Emperor Alexander in every possible way. The Countess, before the arrival of the Allied troops, leaves Paris and is indignant when the statue of Napoleon is pulled down from the Vendôme Column.

She does not utter patriotic tirades, like Pushkin's Polina, does not declare her opinions, but her memory of her husband, sympathy for the wounded soldier who served under his command, aloofness from small talk - everything shows an extraordinary nature, worthy of the wife of a brave colonel.

Her spiritual appearance, purity and moral beauty are also revealed through the image of Dubois, who is devoted to her. The moral duel between him and Glinsky is especially significant in the story. The love conflict undoubtedly made it difficult to solve the problem of patriotism, and it is this problem that is highlighted as the main one already in the title of the story. The image of Dubois is intended to reveal what Bestuzhev understands by true patriotism. And here we find common ground in the stories of Bestuzhev and Pushkin. Pushkin writes ironically about cosmopolitans and admirers of everything French who, at the beginning of the war, emptied French tobacco from their snuff boxes, burned a dozen French brochures, replaced Lafite with sour cabbage soup and “repented of speaking French.” Pushkin contrasts Polina with the “Big World” in Russia; Bestuzhev contrasts Dubois with the “big world” in Paris. The Parisian nobility joyfully greets the arrival of the allies in the hope of the return of the Bourbons - Dubois greets the allied troops not with bows, but with weapons in hand. He does not hide his reluctance to communicate with the victors, but he is characterized by chivalrous respect for a worthy opponent, and in Glinsky he is conquered not only by intelligence and charm, but also by the same ability to appreciate fearlessness and military valor in his enemies.

Dubois does not hide his convictions from Glinsky, and this is what arouses the reciprocal sympathy of his interlocutor. From the text of the novel it is clear that Dubois will take part in Napoleon’s famous “Hundred Days”, and the Bonapartist Frenchman brings the Russian officer he loved closer to solving his mystery. “Over time, you will not need explanations,” he tells Glinsky when asked about “his secret.”

In the images of Dubois and Glinsky, Bestuzhev pits two true patriots of the homeland against each other, and between these patriots - enemies on the battlefield - there is more spiritual closeness than between each of them and the people of the “big society”, both in Russia and in France. So once again an anti-secular theme appears in Bestuzhev’s work.

Of course, Bestuzhev could not have known about Pushkin’s plan. The first excerpt from Pushkin’s story appeared only in No. 3 of the Sovremennik magazine for 1836, when work on “Russian in Paris” was basically completed, but the coincidence of the general trends of these stories is significant - it once again demonstrates how the same thoughts possessed the first poet of Russia and his “friends, brothers, comrades” in “convict holes”. It is also significant that both stories were written in 1831, when the Polish uprising had not yet subsided and when it seemed that Russia was facing the danger of a new military threat from the West.

“Russian in Paris 1814” is one of the last works of art by N. Bestuzhev that have reached us. In Siberia, he wrote a large local history article “Goose Lake” - the first natural science and ethnographic description of Buryatia, its economy and economy, fauna and flora, folk customs and rituals. This essay again reflected the multifaceted talent of Bestuzhev - a fiction writer, ethnographer and economist.

Bestuzhev could not and did not have time to implement many of his plans; some of his artistic works were lost forever during the searches to which the exiled Decembrists were periodically subjected. But even in his literary heritage that has come down to us, we see a talented writer who left in his essays, stories and short stories the image of a leading man of his time, revealed with psychological depth and accuracy. N. Bestuzhev can be ranked among the founders of the psychological method in Russian literature. An analysis of complex moral conflicts in their connection with a person’s duty to society reveals a genetic connection between his stories and novellas with the works of A. I. Herzen, N. G. Chernyshevsky, L. N. Tolstoy.

Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bestuzhev died in 1855 during the difficult days of the Sevastopol defense for Russia.

Mikhail Bestuzhev recalled: “The successes and failures of the Sevastopol siege interested him to the highest degree. During the seventeen long nights of his dying suffering, I myself, exhausted by fatigue, barely understanding what he was telling me almost in delirium, had to use all my strength to reassure him about poor dying Russia. During the intervals of the terrible struggle of his iron, strong nature with death, he asked me:

Tell me, is there anything comforting?”

Thus, until the end of his days, Nikolai Bestuzhev remained a citizen and patriot. The high moral structure of the personality of the Decembrist writer runs through all of his work.

Yanina LEVKOVIC

Bestuzhev Nikolay Alexandrovich, publicist, writer, artist, born 13(24).IV.1791 in St. Petersburg.

The eldest son of A. F. Bestuzhev (1761-1810) - a writer of a radical movement, one of the publishers of the literary "St. Petersburg Magazine" of the late 18th century.

Nikolai Alexandrovich graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps.

From 1813 he served in the navy, participating in three long-distance voyages; later served as director of the Maritime Museum.

In 1818 Bestuzhev N.A. for the first time began to be published in a magazine. "Well-intentioned." Fluent in English, he translated the works of Byron, Walter Scott, and Thomas Moore. Translations and works of Bestuzhev were published in the magazine of the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature “Competitor”. Nikolai Alexandrovich translated mainly those works in which revolutionary-romantic themes predominated.

In 1821, “The Competitor” published Bestuzhev’s first major literary work, “Notes on Holland in 1815” (at the same time it was published as a separate publication). The “Notes” (travel essays) are based on the impressions of the author who visited Rotterdam, Amsterdam, The Hague, Haarlem and Saardam. In his description of Dutch cities, Bestuzhev provided a wealth of material of a natural, historical, political, economic and ethnographic nature. The author expresses his keen sympathy with the struggle of the Netherlands for its independence against Spanish oppression in the 16th century. and speaks favorably of the Dutch Republic. The author reports with obvious dissatisfaction about the subsequent transformation of the Dutch stadtholders into autocrats and their destruction of the republican system. “Notes on Holland” is also accompanied by a historical essay “On the recent history and current state of South America” (“Son of the Fatherland”, part 100, 1825, No. VII, Modern History, 264-279). This article is dedicated to the Paraguayan revolutionary movement led by José Francia.

Great participation Bestuzhev N.A. accepted in the almanac “Polar Star” published by K. F. Ryleev and A. Bestuzhev, which reflected the literary views of the future Decembrists and united everything progressive in Russian literature of those years.

In the prison of the Petrovsky plant, Bestuzhev wrote a treatise, remarkable for that time, “On freedom of trade and industry in general,” which reflected his economic views. In his treatise, Nikolai Alexandrovich closely linked the future economic power of Russia with the destruction of serfdom and the existing system. The treatise gives an idea of ​​the significant evolution that took place in his economic views after December 14, 1825.

The story “Russian in Paris 1814” depicts the image of the Russian officer Glinsky, a participant in the Patriotic War of 1812 and foreign campaigns of 1813-14. An intelligent, noble, well-mannered and educated young man, Glinsky, with his entire behavior and attitude towards the defeated French, attracted attention and dissuaded “the prejudice that all French in general had against the Russians.” In the image of Glinsky, the author lovingly emphasized the features of the future Decembrist.

His “Memoirs of Ryleev” are known, in which Nikolai Alexandrovich created a bright, romantic character of an ardent patriot-revolutionary, preserving vitally authentic features and details in the image of Ryleev and in the surrounding environment.

In the story “Shlisselburg Station” Bestuzhev N.A. pursued the idea that in the name of duty, a revolutionary conspirator must completely renounce his personal life and not connect his fate with the fate of the woman he loves. The story is autobiographical. The author emphasized his main idea with an epigraph borrowed from a folk proverb: “One head is poor, and even poor, there is only one.” The story was first published in the collection “Stories and Tales of an Old Sailor” (M., 1860). For censorship reasons, it was renamed: instead of the title “Shlisselburg Station” they put “Why am I not married.”

At the settlement in Selenginsk Bestuzhev N.A. wrote an ethnographic essay “Goose Lake”.

Landscape and portrait painter, Nikolai Aleksandrovich Bestuzhev created an extensive iconography of the first noble Decembrist revolutionaries.

Bestuzhev Nikolai Aleksandrovich died on May 15 (27), 1855 in Selenginsk, Irkutsk province.

The Decembrists BESTUZHEVS ARE MARKED IN PEOPLE'S MEMORY.

In September 1839, the Decembrists, the Bestuzhev brothers Nikolai and Mikhail Alexandrovich, arrived to settle in Selenginsk.

Residents of Selenginsk, both Russians and Buryats, greeted the settlers with great cordiality, and when they got to know them and became closer, they began to come to them for advice and help, the Decembrists, if possible, shared with everything that they had and often protected them from the arbitrariness of local authorities . Mikhail Bestuzhev wrote: “Good Buryats live around us. The old people love and respect us.” And Nikolai Bestuzhev, whom the Selenginians called “the source of intelligence, knowledge and goodness,” wrote in his diary: “What kind people these Buryats are, I spend most of my time with them asking questions and talking.”

Upon arrival in Selenginsk, the brothers received their plots of arable and hay land and began farming, but the grain harvests only brought losses.

In the struggle for existence, the brothers opened a watchmaking, jewelry and optical workshop in Selenginsk. Local Buryats became their students and assistants. They taught them the craft not only in their workshop, but also traveled to the uluses. The Buryats came to the Bestuzhevs, took a course of training, and then, having stocked up with tools, returned home.

In 1847, sisters Elena, Maria and Olga came to the Bestuzhevs in Selenginsk “for a voluntary eternal... Conclusions with brothers." The brothers and sister had not seen each other for more than 20 years; during these years, brothers Alexander, Pavel and Peter passed away. On the way to Siberia, mother Praskovya Mikhailovna died in Moscow in 1846.

Nikolai and Mikhail did everything possible to make the life of the sisters in Selenginsk better and more comfortable. Management of the farm passed into the hands of Elena Alexandrovna.

But their lives were heading towards sunset, their youth was long gone. Elena was already 55 years old, a little younger than Maria and Olga, Nikolai was 56 years old, and Mikhail was 47 years old, he was married to the sister of Yesaul Selivanov, and had children. We lived together as a large and friendly family, worked, and shared memories of the past in our leisure time. Mikhail bought a piano for the occasion, sisters Maria and Olga played beautifully, and every evening the sounds of beautiful music came from the windows of the Bestuzhevsky house. For the residents of Selenginsk, all this was unusual.

Years passed. The Bestuzhevs worked, and warmth and comfort always reigned in their home. Many Decembrists who were in Siberia visited them. Surviving documents and letters from contemporaries indicate that it was a friendly family, but time took its toll: the brothers and sister grew old, and their strength left them.

Nikolai Bestuzhev caught a cold while traveling to Irkutsk via Baikal. After being ill for 17 days, he died on May 15, 1855 at the age of 64 years.

After the death of Nikolai Bestuzhev, the family began to experience financial difficulties. Elena Alexandrovna began to strive to travel to Moscow to publish the works of brother Alexander (Bestuzhev-Marlinsky) there and thereby financially help the family of brother Mikhail. However, permission to leave was not given, since they were allowed to travel to Selenginsk on the condition that they could leave Siberia when both Bestuzhev brothers died.

Only after the death of Tsar Nicholas 1, when an amnesty was declared for the Decembrists, permission to leave came. The sisters left for Moscow only in 1858, having lived in Selenginsk for 11 years. Attempts to publish the works of brother Bestuzhev-Marlinsky for Elena Alexandrovna ended in failure. Only a small collection of his stories saw the light of day.

After the sisters left, Mikhail Bestuzhev lived in Selenginsk for almost 10 more years. Failure and misfortune haunted him: his 8th son, Nikolai, died, and in Moscow, his daughter Elena, who lived with his sisters, died in 1867. Mikhail Bestuzhev remained in Selenginsk with small children: a daughter and a son. Finally he decided to go to Moscow. It was in 1867 that the government assigned a beggarly pension to an old and sick Decembrist (114 rubles 28 kopecks). It was impossible to live on this amount; only in 1869 Mikhail was awarded an annual pension from the Literary Fund (300 rubles), but he only used this benefit for a year and a half.

“We are five brothers,” wrote Mikhail Bestuzhev, “and all five died in the whirlpool on December 14.” Of the five brothers, Mikhail was the last to die. He died in Moscow on June 21, 1871 and was buried at the Vagantovskoye cemetery.

The noble names of Nikolai and Mikhail Bestuzhev will never be forgotten in the history of culture and education of our people.

April 13, 1791 – May 15, 1855

lieutenant captain of the 8th naval crew, Decembrist, naval historiographer, writer, critic, inventor, artist

Family

Father - Alexander Fedoseevich Bestuzhev (October 24, 1761 - March 20, 1810), artillery officer, since 1800 the ruler of the chancellery of the Academy of Arts, writer. Mother - Praskovya Mikhailovna (1775 - 10/27/1846).

On June 15, 1820 he was appointed assistant keeper of the Baltic lighthouses in Kronstadt.

In 1821 -1822 he organized lithography at the Admiralty Department. In the spring of 1822, at the Admiralty Department, he began writing the history of the Russian fleet. On February 7, 1823, he was awarded the Order of St. Vladimir, IV degree, for organizing lithography.

In 1824, on the frigate "Provorny" as a historiographer, he made voyages to France and Gibraltar. On December 12, 1824 he was promoted to lieutenant commander. From July 1825 he was director of the Admiralty Museum, for which he received the nickname “Mummy” from friends.

Writer

Since 1818, he was a member of the Free Society for the establishment of schools using the method of mutual education. Member-employee of the Free Society of Lovers of Russian Literature since March 28, 1821, and since May 31, full member. Since 1822, member of the Censorship Committee. Editor. Since 1818, he collaborated with the almanac "Polar Star", the magazines "Son of the Fatherland", "Blagomarnenny", "Competitor of Education and Charity" and others.

Since 1825, member of the Society for the Encouragement of Artists. As a volunteer he attended classes at the Academy of Arts. He studied with A. N. Voronikhin and N. N. Fonlev. Since September 12, 1825, member of the Free Economic Society.

Since 1818, a member of the Masonic lodge “Elect Michael”.

Decembrist

In 1824 he was accepted into the Northern Society by K. F. Ryleev. K.F. Ryleev invited him to become a member of the Supreme Duma of the Northern Society. Author of the project “Manifesto to the Russian People”. The Guards crew led to Senate Square.

Hard labor

On August 7, 1826, together with his brother Mikhail, he was taken to Shlisselburg. Sent to Siberia on September 28, 1827. Arrived at the Chita prison on December 13, 1827. Transferred to the Petrovsky plant in September 1830.

He worked in watercolors and later in oils on canvas. He painted portraits of the Decembrists, their wives and children, city residents (115 portraits), views of Chita and the Petrovsky Factory.

Link

On July 10, 1839, brothers Mikhail and Nikolai Bestuzhev were sent to settle in the city of Selenginsk, Irkutsk province. Arrived in Selenginsk on September 1, 1839.