Kondraty Fyodorovich Ryleyev
Encyclopedia
Kondraty Fyodorovich Ryleyev, also spelled Kondraty Feodorovich Ryleev ' onMouseout='HidePop("86477")' href="/topics/Julian_calendar">O.S.
), 1795 - July 25 (July 13 O.S.
), 1826) was a Russian
poet
, publisher, and a leader of the Decembrist Revolt
, that attempted to overthrow the Russian monarchy in 1825.
district of Leningrad Oblast
. His father, Fyodor Ryleyev, was an impoverished nobleman, a small landowner, who was later employed as the manager of one of Prince Golitsyn's estates.
In spite of his family's pecuniary difficulties, Ryleyev was able to study at the Corps des Pages
, an elite military academy attended only by members of the nobility, in Saint Petersburg
. After his graduation, Ryleyev was awarded a commission in the First Cavalry Company of the First Reserve Artillery Brigade. He participated in the foreign campaigns of 1814 and 1815, seeing action in Poland
, Germany
and France
, during the Napoleonic Wars
.
In 1818, Ryleyev resigned his commission, and for a time was employed tutoring the children of a wealthy landowner named Tevyashev. A year later he married the landowner's daughter, Natalya Tevyasheva, and went on to father two children.
To the Favorite, addressing an unpopular Tsarist official, Alexey Andreyevich Arakcheyev. That same year he joined a Masonic lodge in Saint Petersburg, where he became acquainted with several future members of the Decembrist uprising.
In need of a regular income, from 1821 to 1824, Ryleyev worked as an assessor of the Saint Petersburg criminal court. He frequently used his position to aide common men and women in distress. One of those he assisted was twenty-year-old Alexander Nikitenko, an educated Ukrainian serf, working in Saint Petersburg, whom Ryleyev met in a bookstore. Nikitenko had been struggling for some time to obtain emancipation. He explained his dilemma to Ryleyev, who immediately set about convincing several influential cavalry officers, old comrades of his, to campaign for Nikitenko's freedom. Nikitenko's case became something of a cause célèbre in Saint Petersburg, and the pressure ultimately proved to be too much for Nikitenko's owner, Count Sheremetev, to bear. He granted Nikitenko his freedom on October 11, 1824.
Ryleyev did not completely abandon his literary pursuits, however. In 1821, he joined the Free Society of Russian Literature Lovers (Вольное общество любителей российской словесности) — an influential association of Russian writers and intellectuals. Ryleyev also edited and co-published a popular annual literary almanac, The Polar Star (Полярная звезда), with Alexander Alexandrovich Bestuzhev
between 1823 and 1825. The three issues that Ryleyev published contained contributions from many of the foremost Russian authors and poets of the age, among them: Alexander Pushkin, Pyotr Vyazemsky
, Vasily Zhukovsky
, and Evgeny Baratynsky
. He also continued to write poetry during this period. His most well-known poems being Grazhdanskoe muzhestvo (Civic Courage), Grazhdanin (The Citizen), and Ispoved' Nalivaiki (Nalivaiko's Confession). Ryleyev's writing was influenced largely by his compatriots Pushkin, Derzhavin, Gnedich
, and the British poet Lord Byron
, whose verse and account of the Greek War of Independence
served to inspire many Russian intellectuals and artists of Ryleyev's generation. Ryleyev was a minor poet, but his poetry was passionate, and popular at the time it was published.
Ryleyev could not support his family with his literary work alone, and after leaving the criminal court, he found employment with the Russian-American Company
as a manager in the Saint Petersburg office.
, and replacing the Tsar's government with either a democratic republic
or a constitutional monarchy
.
Ryleyev believed that the revolt was likely to fail and the participants would be executed. Still, he argued that their sacrifice would not be in vain, as the uprising might "awaken Russia." As Ryleyev explained prior to the uprising:
Another Decembrist leader, Pavel Pestel
, further elaborated on the motivations of the Society's members:
In his poem, Nalevaiko's Confession, Ryleyev makes veiled allusions to his own willingness to die for the Decembrists' cause:
In 1824, Ryleyev was appointed to the directorate of the Northern Society, and was destined to play a key role in the ill-fated uprising. He proved to be an inspirational speaker and talented recruiter. Fellow conspirator, Nikolay Bestuzhev, would later write of Ryleyev:
During discussions among the Decembrists regarding what form of government should replace the monarchy, Ryleyev sided with Nikita Muravyev, favoring a government modeled after that of the United States. If the Imperial Family refused to go peacefully into exile, Ryleyev, like Pestel, was willing to support regicide
in order to attain the goal of self-governance
.
Ryleyev's friend, the Polish
poet Adam Mickiewicz
, later recounted one Decembrist meeting that he was invited to attend at Ryleyev's apartment in October 1824:
), 1825, a group of officers commanding some 3,000 men assembled in Saint Petersburg's Senate Square. They refused to swear allegiance to the new tsar, Nicholas I, instead proclaiming their loyalty to his brother, Grand Duke Constantine, and to the Decembrists' constitution
, crying "Constantine and Constituzia (Constitution)." They expected to be joined by the rest of the troops stationed in Saint Petersburg, but this did not occur. The revolt was further hampered when its nominal leader, Prince Sergey Trubetskoy, suffered a last minute change of heart. Instead of joining the revolt, Trubetskoy chose to hide in the Austria
n Embassy during the confrontation. His second in command, Colonel Bulatov, was also nowhere to be found. After a hurried consultation the rebels appointed Prince Evgeny Obolensky as their leader.
Ryleyev was heard to remark:
For several long hours there was a standoff between the 3,000 rebels and the 9,000 troops loyal to Nicholas I stationed outside the Senate building, with some desultory shooting from the rebel side. Nearby stood a vast crowd of civilian on-lookers, who began fraternizing with the rebels, but whom the leaders of the revolt did not call upon to participate in the action. Eventually, the new Tsar appeared in person, at the square. He sent Count Mikhail Miloradovich
, a hero of the Napoleonic Wars, who enjoyed great popularity with both officers and ordinary soldiers, to parley with the rebels. While delivering a speech encouraging the rebel's to surrender, Miloradovich was shot dead by one of the rebels, Peter Kakhovsky. At the same time, a rebelling grenadier squad led by Lieutenant Nikolay Panov, entered the Winter Palace, but failed to seize it and retreated.
After spending most of the day in fruitless attempts to parley with the rebel force, the Tsar ordered a cavalry charge. However, the horses slipped on the icy cobbles and the officer's retired in disorder. Eventually, as evening neared, the Tsar ordered three artillery regiments to open fire, with devastating effect. To avoid the slaughter the rebels broke and ran. Some attempted to regroup on the frozen surface of the Neva River, to the north of Senate Square. However, here, also, they were targeted by the artillery and suffered many casualties. The cannon fire broke the ice, sweeping away countless dead and dying soldiers into the Neva River
. By dusk, that same afternoon, the revolt had been crushed.
), 1825, Ryleyev was arrested for his role in the uprising, and charged with treason and attempted regicide. Along with four other Decembrists, judged to be the leaders of the rebellion, Ryleyev was sentenced to be drawn and quartered
. The method of execution was changed to hanging after the Tsar refused to confirm the verdict, returning it for further deliberation.
During the many interrogations that followed his arrest, Ryleyev, unlike most of his fellow conspirators, never implicated anyone else in the rebellion. Ryleyev then went one step further, pleading with the Investigation Committee in April 1826, to execute him alone for the revolt, stating:
If an execution is needed for the good of Russia, I am the only one who deserves it. I have long prayed that it will stop at me, and that the others will be returned by God's mercy to their families, their fatherland, and their noble Tsar.
The date of execution was set for July 25 (July 13 O.S.
), 1826. When the executioner attempted to hang the five men, three of them, Muravyov-Apostol
, Kakhovsky
, and Ryleyev, dropped through the trapdoor only to have the rope around their necks break. Ryleyev supposedly told the crowd watching the execution that Russia was an "unhappy country, where they don't even know how to hang you." Muravyov-Apostol is said to have made a similar exclamation. The Tsar simply ordered more rope, and the execution was carried out not long after the first attempt. Ryleyev died holding a book of Byron's poetry.
Julian calendar
The Julian calendar began in 45 BC as a reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar. It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year .The Julian calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months...
), 1795 - July 25 (July 13 O.S.
Julian calendar
The Julian calendar began in 45 BC as a reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar. It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year .The Julian calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months...
), 1826) was a Russian
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, publisher, and a leader of the Decembrist Revolt
Decembrist revolt
The Decembrist revolt or the Decembrist uprising took place in Imperial Russia on 14 December , 1825. Russian army officers led about 3,000 soldiers in a protest against Nicholas I's assumption of the throne after his elder brother Constantine removed himself from the line of succession...
, that attempted to overthrow the Russian monarchy in 1825.
Early life
Ryleyev was born in the village of Batovo, now part of the GatchinaGatchina
Gatchina is a town and the administrative center of Gatchinsky District of Leningrad Oblast, Russia, located south of St. Petersburg by the road leading to Pskov...
district of Leningrad Oblast
Leningrad Oblast
Leningrad Oblast is a federal subject of Russia . It was established on August 1, 1927, although it was not until 1946 that the oblast's borders had been mostly settled in their present position...
. His father, Fyodor Ryleyev, was an impoverished nobleman, a small landowner, who was later employed as the manager of one of Prince Golitsyn's estates.
In spite of his family's pecuniary difficulties, Ryleyev was able to study at the Corps des Pages
Page Corps
Page Corps was a military academy in Imperial Russia, which prepared sons of the nobility and of senior officers for military service....
, an elite military academy attended only by members of the nobility, in Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
. After his graduation, Ryleyev was awarded a commission in the First Cavalry Company of the First Reserve Artillery Brigade. He participated in the foreign campaigns of 1814 and 1815, seeing action in Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, during the Napoleonic Wars
Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionised European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to...
.
In 1818, Ryleyev resigned his commission, and for a time was employed tutoring the children of a wealthy landowner named Tevyashev. A year later he married the landowner's daughter, Natalya Tevyasheva, and went on to father two children.
Career
He gained recognition in literary circles in 1820, for penning a satirical odeOde
Ode is a type of lyrical verse. A classic ode is structured in three major parts: the strophe, the antistrophe, and the epode. Different forms such as the homostrophic ode and the irregular ode also exist...
To the Favorite, addressing an unpopular Tsarist official, Alexey Andreyevich Arakcheyev. That same year he joined a Masonic lodge in Saint Petersburg, where he became acquainted with several future members of the Decembrist uprising.
In need of a regular income, from 1821 to 1824, Ryleyev worked as an assessor of the Saint Petersburg criminal court. He frequently used his position to aide common men and women in distress. One of those he assisted was twenty-year-old Alexander Nikitenko, an educated Ukrainian serf, working in Saint Petersburg, whom Ryleyev met in a bookstore. Nikitenko had been struggling for some time to obtain emancipation. He explained his dilemma to Ryleyev, who immediately set about convincing several influential cavalry officers, old comrades of his, to campaign for Nikitenko's freedom. Nikitenko's case became something of a cause célèbre in Saint Petersburg, and the pressure ultimately proved to be too much for Nikitenko's owner, Count Sheremetev, to bear. He granted Nikitenko his freedom on October 11, 1824.
Ryleyev did not completely abandon his literary pursuits, however. In 1821, he joined the Free Society of Russian Literature Lovers (Вольное общество любителей российской словесности) — an influential association of Russian writers and intellectuals. Ryleyev also edited and co-published a popular annual literary almanac, The Polar Star (Полярная звезда), with Alexander Alexandrovich Bestuzhev
Aleksandr Bestuzhev
Alexander Alexandrovich Bestuzhev , , was a Russian writer and Decembrist. After the Decembrist revolt he was sent into exile to Caucasus where Russian Empire was waging the war against the Circassians. There writing under the pseudonym Marlinsky he became known as a romantic poet, short story...
between 1823 and 1825. The three issues that Ryleyev published contained contributions from many of the foremost Russian authors and poets of the age, among them: Alexander Pushkin, Pyotr Vyazemsky
Pyotr Vyazemsky
Prince Pyotr Andreyevich Vyazemsky or Petr Andreevich Viazemsky was a leading personality of the Golden Age of Russian poetry.- Biography :...
, Vasily Zhukovsky
Vasily Zhukovsky
Vasily Andreyevich Zhukovsky was the foremost Russian poet of the 1810s and a leading figure in Russian literature in the first half of the 19th century...
, and Evgeny Baratynsky
Evgeny Baratynsky
Yevgeny Abramovich Baratynsky was lauded by Alexander Pushkin as the finest Russian elegiac poet. After a long period when his reputation was on the wane, Baratynsky was rediscovered by Anna Akhmatova and Joseph Brodsky as a supreme poet of thought.- Life :Of noble ancestry, Baratynsky was...
. He also continued to write poetry during this period. His most well-known poems being Grazhdanskoe muzhestvo (Civic Courage), Grazhdanin (The Citizen), and Ispoved' Nalivaiki (Nalivaiko's Confession). Ryleyev's writing was influenced largely by his compatriots Pushkin, Derzhavin, Gnedich
Nikolay Gnedich
Nikolay Ivanovich Gnedich was a Russian poet and translator best known for his idyll The Fishers...
, and the British poet Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, later George Gordon Noel, 6th Baron Byron, FRS , commonly known simply as Lord Byron, was a British poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement...
, whose verse and account of the Greek War of Independence
Greek War of Independence
The Greek War of Independence, also known as the Greek Revolution was a successful war of independence waged by the Greek revolutionaries between...
served to inspire many Russian intellectuals and artists of Ryleyev's generation. Ryleyev was a minor poet, but his poetry was passionate, and popular at the time it was published.
Ryleyev could not support his family with his literary work alone, and after leaving the criminal court, he found employment with the Russian-American Company
Russian-American Company
The Russian-American Company was a state-sponsored chartered company formed largely on the basis of the so-called Shelekhov-Golikov Company of Grigory Shelekhov and Ivan Larionovich Golikov The Russian-American Company (officially: Under His Imperial Majesty's Highest Protection (patronage)...
as a manager in the Saint Petersburg office.
Ryleyev the revolutionary
In 1823, Ryleyev was recruited by Ivan Pushchin to the revolutionary Northern Society, an organization of reform-minded individuals, mainly veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, dedicated to abolishing serfdomSerfdom
Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...
, and replacing the Tsar's government with either a democratic republic
Republic
A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people. In modern times, a common simplified definition of a republic is a government where the head of...
or a constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...
.
Ryleyev believed that the revolt was likely to fail and the participants would be executed. Still, he argued that their sacrifice would not be in vain, as the uprising might "awaken Russia." As Ryleyev explained prior to the uprising:
- An upheaval is essential. The tactics of revolution may be summed up in two words--to dare. If we come to grief our failure will serve as a lesson to those who come after us.
Another Decembrist leader, Pavel Pestel
Pavel Pestel
Colonel Pavel Ivanovich Pestel was a Russian revolutionary and ideologue of the Decembrists.In 1805-1809, Pavel Pestel studied in Dresden. In 1810-1811, he was a student at the Page Corps, from which he would graduate in the rank of praporshchik. Pestel was then sent to the Lithuanian Regiment of...
, further elaborated on the motivations of the Society's members:
- The desirability of granting freedom to the serfSERFA spin exchange relaxation-free magnetometer is a type of magnetometer developed at Princeton University in the early 2000s. SERF magnetometers measure magnetic fields by using lasers to detect the interaction between alkali metal atoms in a vapor and the magnetic field.The name for the technique...
s was considered from the very beginning; for that purpose a majority of the nobility was to be invited in order to petition the Emperor about it. This was later thought of on many occasions, but we soon came to realize that the nobility could not be persuaded...we became even more convinced when the Ukrainian nobility absolutely rejected a similar project [proposed by] their military governor.
In his poem, Nalevaiko's Confession, Ryleyev makes veiled allusions to his own willingness to die for the Decembrists' cause:
- Say not, thou holy man, again
- That this is sin, thy words are vain,
- Be it fearful mortal sin
- Worse than all crimes that ever have been,
- I care not - for could I but see
- My native land at liberty,
- Could I but see my race restored
- To freedom from the foreign horde,
- All sins would I upon me take...
- Try not with threats my mind to shake,
- Persuasive words no change can make...
- I know full well the dire fate
- Which must upon the patriot wait
- Who first dare rise against the foe
- And at the tyrant aim the blow.
- This is my destined fate - but say
- When, when has freedom won her way
- Without the blood of martyrs shed,
- When none for liberty have bled?
- My coming doom I feel and know
- And bless the stroke which lays me low
- And, father, now with joy I meet
- My death, to me such end is sweet.
In 1824, Ryleyev was appointed to the directorate of the Northern Society, and was destined to play a key role in the ill-fated uprising. He proved to be an inspirational speaker and talented recruiter. Fellow conspirator, Nikolay Bestuzhev, would later write of Ryleyev:
- Physically his appearance was unattractive and he always spoke in a very simple way, but when he touched on his favourite theme--love of his country--his face lit up, his black glowing eyes shone with an unearthly light and his words flowed like a stream of lava.
During discussions among the Decembrists regarding what form of government should replace the monarchy, Ryleyev sided with Nikita Muravyev, favoring a government modeled after that of the United States. If the Imperial Family refused to go peacefully into exile, Ryleyev, like Pestel, was willing to support regicide
Regicide
The broad definition of regicide is the deliberate killing of a monarch, or the person responsible for the killing of a monarch. In a narrower sense, in the British tradition, it refers to the judicial execution of a king after a trial...
in order to attain the goal of self-governance
Self-governance
Self-governance is an abstract concept that refers to several scales of organization.It may refer to personal conduct or family units but more commonly refers to larger scale activities, i.e., professions, industry bodies, religions and political units , up to and including autonomous regions and...
.
Ryleyev's friend, the Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
poet Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Mickiewicz
Adam Bernard Mickiewicz ) was a Polish poet, publisher and political writer of the Romantic period. One of the primary representatives of the Polish Romanticism era, a national poet of Poland, he is seen as one of Poland's Three Bards and the greatest poet in all of Polish literature...
, later recounted one Decembrist meeting that he was invited to attend at Ryleyev's apartment in October 1824:
- There must have been more than a dozen people in the room, but at first I could not distinguish anything because of the dense blue haze of pipe and cigar smoke. They were sprawling on sofas and on the deep windowsills; young Alexander Odoevsky and (Alexander) Bestuzhev sat cross-legged, Turkish fashion on a Persian carpet...
- An intense youth, pale-complexioned, with a prominent forehead, a face like Shelley, lifts a glass - "Death to the Tsar." The toast is received with emotion. Ryleev's jet-black eyes light up with an inner flame...Everyone drink's except me, a Pole and a guest...They sing to the death of the Tsar...the rhythmic chant flows through the open windows for all to hear. A glow of a lantern out on the quay suddenly lights up the room. The chant stops abruptly, as fear sobers them up. The shadow of RadishchevAlexander RadishchevAlexander Nikolayevich Radishchev was a Russian author and social critic who was arrested and exiled under Catherine the Great. He brought the tradition of radicalism in Russian literature to prominence with the publication in 1790 of his Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow...
in the Fortress crosses my mind.
Decembrist revolt
On the morning of December 26 (December 14 O.S.Julian calendar
The Julian calendar began in 45 BC as a reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar. It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year .The Julian calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months...
), 1825, a group of officers commanding some 3,000 men assembled in Saint Petersburg's Senate Square. They refused to swear allegiance to the new tsar, Nicholas I, instead proclaiming their loyalty to his brother, Grand Duke Constantine, and to the Decembrists' constitution
Constitution
A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
, crying "Constantine and Constituzia (Constitution)." They expected to be joined by the rest of the troops stationed in Saint Petersburg, but this did not occur. The revolt was further hampered when its nominal leader, Prince Sergey Trubetskoy, suffered a last minute change of heart. Instead of joining the revolt, Trubetskoy chose to hide in the Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n Embassy during the confrontation. His second in command, Colonel Bulatov, was also nowhere to be found. After a hurried consultation the rebels appointed Prince Evgeny Obolensky as their leader.
Ryleyev was heard to remark:
- What we foresaw will happen. Our last moments are near, but they are the moments of our liberty. We have lived them and now I willingly forfeit my life.
For several long hours there was a standoff between the 3,000 rebels and the 9,000 troops loyal to Nicholas I stationed outside the Senate building, with some desultory shooting from the rebel side. Nearby stood a vast crowd of civilian on-lookers, who began fraternizing with the rebels, but whom the leaders of the revolt did not call upon to participate in the action. Eventually, the new Tsar appeared in person, at the square. He sent Count Mikhail Miloradovich
Mikhail Andreyevich Miloradovich
Mikhail Andreyevich Miloradovich , spelled Miloradovitch in contemporary English sources was a Russian general prominent during the Napoleonic Wars. He entered military service on the eve of the Russo-Swedish War of 1788–1790 and his career advanced rapidly during the reign of Paul I...
, a hero of the Napoleonic Wars, who enjoyed great popularity with both officers and ordinary soldiers, to parley with the rebels. While delivering a speech encouraging the rebel's to surrender, Miloradovich was shot dead by one of the rebels, Peter Kakhovsky. At the same time, a rebelling grenadier squad led by Lieutenant Nikolay Panov, entered the Winter Palace, but failed to seize it and retreated.
After spending most of the day in fruitless attempts to parley with the rebel force, the Tsar ordered a cavalry charge. However, the horses slipped on the icy cobbles and the officer's retired in disorder. Eventually, as evening neared, the Tsar ordered three artillery regiments to open fire, with devastating effect. To avoid the slaughter the rebels broke and ran. Some attempted to regroup on the frozen surface of the Neva River, to the north of Senate Square. However, here, also, they were targeted by the artillery and suffered many casualties. The cannon fire broke the ice, sweeping away countless dead and dying soldiers into the Neva River
Neva River
The Neva is a river in northwestern Russia flowing from Lake Ladoga through the western part of Leningrad Oblast to the Neva Bay of the Gulf of Finland. Despite its modest length , it is the third largest river in Europe in terms of average discharge .The Neva is the only river flowing from Lake...
. By dusk, that same afternoon, the revolt had been crushed.
Arrest and execution
On the night of December 27 (December 15 O.S.Julian calendar
The Julian calendar began in 45 BC as a reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar. It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year .The Julian calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months...
), 1825, Ryleyev was arrested for his role in the uprising, and charged with treason and attempted regicide. Along with four other Decembrists, judged to be the leaders of the rebellion, Ryleyev was sentenced to be drawn and quartered
Hanged, drawn and quartered
To be hanged, drawn and quartered was from 1351 a penalty in England for men convicted of high treason, although the ritual was first recorded during the reigns of King Henry III and his successor, Edward I...
. The method of execution was changed to hanging after the Tsar refused to confirm the verdict, returning it for further deliberation.
During the many interrogations that followed his arrest, Ryleyev, unlike most of his fellow conspirators, never implicated anyone else in the rebellion. Ryleyev then went one step further, pleading with the Investigation Committee in April 1826, to execute him alone for the revolt, stating:
If an execution is needed for the good of Russia, I am the only one who deserves it. I have long prayed that it will stop at me, and that the others will be returned by God's mercy to their families, their fatherland, and their noble Tsar.
The date of execution was set for July 25 (July 13 O.S.
Julian calendar
The Julian calendar began in 45 BC as a reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar. It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year .The Julian calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months...
), 1826. When the executioner attempted to hang the five men, three of them, Muravyov-Apostol
Sergey Muravyov-Apostol
Sergey Ivanovich Muravyov-Apostol was a Russian Lieutenant Colonel, one of the organizers of the Decembrist revolt. He was the brother of other Decembrists Ippolit Muravyov-Apostol and Matvey Muravyov-Apostol...
, Kakhovsky
Peter Kakhovsky
Pyotr Grigoryevich Kakhovsky was a Russian officer, active participant of Decembrist revolt, killer of Mikhail Andreyevich Miloradovich and colonel Sturler.-Biography:...
, and Ryleyev, dropped through the trapdoor only to have the rope around their necks break. Ryleyev supposedly told the crowd watching the execution that Russia was an "unhappy country, where they don't even know how to hang you." Muravyov-Apostol is said to have made a similar exclamation. The Tsar simply ordered more rope, and the execution was carried out not long after the first attempt. Ryleyev died holding a book of Byron's poetry.
Further reading
- O'Meara, Patrick. (1984) K.F.Ryleev: A Political Biography of the Decembrist Poet, Princeton University Press
- Hart-Davies, T. (1887) The poems of K.F. Relaieff, Remington & Co.
- De Grunwald, Constantin. (1955) Tsar Nicholas I, Macmillan
- Figes, OrlandoOrlando FigesOrlando Figes is a British historian of Russia, and Professor of History at Birkbeck, University of London.-Overview:Figes is the son of the feminist writer Eva Figes. His sister is the author and editor Kate Figes. He attended William Ellis School in north London from 1971-78...
(2002) Natasha's Dance: a Cultural History of Russia. London. ISBN 0-7139-9517-3 - Mazour, A.G. 1937. The First Russian Revolution, 1825: the Decembrist movement; its origins, development, and significance. Stanford University Press
- Crankshaw, Edward. (1978) The Shadow of the Winter Palace, Penguin Books
- Sutherland, Christine. (1983) The Princess of Siberia: The Story of Maria Volkonsky, Farrar, Straus & Giroux
- Cornwell, Neil. (1998) Reference Guide to Russian Literature,FitzRoy Dearborn Publishers
- Sherman, Russell & Pearce, Robert (2002) Russia 1815-81, Hodder & Stoughton