Mohammed Beck Hadjetlaché
Encyclopedia
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
- 4 November 1929, Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
) was a Circassian journalist, writer, SIS
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
and cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
agent. Hadjetlaché used many assumed identities, but his real name was probably Kasi Beck Akhmetukov.
Biography
Kasi Beck Akhmetukov was born in Istanbul in a Circassian family, which fled from CircassiaCircassia
Circassia was an independent mountainous country located in the Caucasus region of Eurasia and was the largest and most important country in the Caucasus. Circassia was located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea...
after the Russian-Circassian War. In 1878 his father, a Bashi-bazouk
Bashi-bazouk
A bashi-bazouk or bashibazouk was an irregular soldier of the Ottoman army...
leader was killed in the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878). In 1882 he returned to Russia, and was adopted by the childless Ettinger family and called Grigory. In 1890s he wrote and published several novels and short stories under the pen name
Pen name
A pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
Hadjetlaché.
In 1902 Hadjetlaché joined Socialist-Revolutionary Party
Socialist-Revolutionary Party
thumb|right|200px|Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" , short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries...
. In 1908 he started to publish the magazine "Moslem" in Paris and the newspaper "In the world of Islam" 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...
.
In 1916 Hadjetlaché offered to run a "anti-German and anti-Turkish propaganda campaign among the Moslems on a worldwide scale" for the Russian government and asked for money.
He left Soviet Russia and came to Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
in 1918, where under the cheka
Cheka
Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
and SIS
Secret Intelligence Service
The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...
direction he organized a fake White Terrorist cell planning to help in the counter revolutionary struggle against the Bolsheviks with Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
as his base. The goal of the operation was to portray all white émigré
White Emigre
A white émigré was a Russian who emigrated from Russia in the wake of the Russian Revolution and Russian Civil War, and who was in opposition to the contemporary Russian political climate....
s as bloodthirsty terrorists and provoke Swedish police actions against Russian emigrants. Hadjetlaché purchased a house in the woods outside of Stockholm. To that house he and his gang brought people that he accused of being Bolshevik agents who he killed and their bodies were then dropped in a nearby lake. When the police discovered the gang in 1919, three murdered bodies were found in the Norrviken lake.
The confirmed victims were engineer Karl Calvé (originally possibly Gleb Varfolomeyev), journalist and Soviet diplomatic courier Juri Levi (Paul) Levitsky and nobleman Nicolai Ardachev, a doctor in law.
According to Hadjetlaché’s own “death list” it is likely that more people had been killed.
The murders were used for propaganda purposes by the Soviet press. Soviet writer Alexei Tolstoi
Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy
Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy , nicknamed the Comrade Count, was a Russian and Soviet writer who wrote in many genres but specialized in science fiction and historical novels...
included it in his novel "Emigrants".
Hadjetlaché was sentenced to death, later converted to lifetime in jail by the Swedish court and he died in 1929 in Långholmen Prison
Långholmen prison
Långholmen Prison, officially Långholmen Central Prison , was historically one of the biggest prison facilities in Sweden with more than 500 cells, located on the island of Långholmen in Stockholm. It was built 1874-1880 as the central prison of Sweden, and was in use until 1975...
. Hadjetlaché was the last person to be sentenced to the death penalty in Sweden.
Carl Sandburg wrote a poem about Hadjetlaché under the title, "Mohammed Bek Hadjetlaché." It is written as if Sandburg had personally met Mohammed Beck Hadjetlaché.
Source
- Lundberg, Svante. Ryssligan (2004). ISBN 9189116534
- Fonds Mahomet-Beck Hadjetlache
- О кази-беке Ахметукове (Магомкд-Бек Хаджетлаше) и его потомках
- Nordisk Familjebok pages 191-192 (http://runeberg.org/nfcp/0114.html)