Sergei Petrovich Troubetzkoy
Encyclopedia
Prince
Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoy (29 August 1790 – 22 November 1860) was one of the organizers of the Decembrist movement
. Close to Nikita Mikhailovich Muravyov in his views, he was declared the group's leader
on the eve of the December 26 uprising in 1825 but failed to appear, and instead sought refuge in the Austrian embassy.
family. His father was Prince Pyotr Sergeyevich Troubetzkoy (1760–1817). His mother, Daria (d. 1796), was a daughter of the Georgian
prince Alexander Bakarovich Gruzinsky
.
Troubetzkoy received home education, since 1806 he was attending lectures in the Moscow University
. In 1808 he entered Leib Guards Semyonovsky regiment
. As a military, he participated in all significant battles of Sixth Coalition campaign in 1812-1814 including battle of Borodino
, battle of Maloyaroslavets
, Battle of Lützen
, battle of Bautzen
and battle of Kulm
and received many orders
. In the battle of Leipzig
he was badly wounded. After the war he continued military service and in 1821 he was promoted to Colonel
.
. However, it has not included yet future tenets of the Decembrists, namely complete abolishment of the serfdom
, introduction of constitution and constitutionally secured liberties, abolishment of privileges of upper estates of the realm. In 1819 Trubetskoy had to go abroad for treatment. When he returned in 1821 he found out that the Union had already ceased to exist. Trubetskoy was one of the founders and leaders of the Northern Society. Unlike some other Decembrists who adhered to revolution, execution of the tsar and establishment of republic
(e.g. Ryleev and Pestel
), Trubestkoy advocated Constitutional monarchy
. He was elected "dictator" but he did not come to the Senate Square
, most probably because he was sure that the revolt was bound to fail. He was arrested the next day at the apartments of envoy of Austria-Hungary
Lebzeltern who was his relative.
for life in Nerchinsk
coal mines. Trubetskoy's wife Ekaterina Laval went to exile with him. Her feat (she voluntarily renounced all wealth and privileges and subjected herself to hard life in katorga) was subject of famous poem by Nekrasov
. In 1839 he was allowed to live in exile in Irkutsk
guberniya
. In 1854 his wife died . In 1856 he along with other survived Decembrists was granted amnesty
, given back his title and was able to return to Moscow. He wrote memoir
es which were published for the first time in 1863 by Alexander Herzen
in London
.
Prince
Prince is a general term for a ruler, monarch or member of a monarch's or former monarch's family, and is a hereditary title in the nobility of some European states. The feminine equivalent is a princess...
Sergei Petrovich Trubetskoy (29 August 1790 – 22 November 1860) was one of the organizers of the Decembrist movement
Political movement
A political movement is a social movement in the area of politics. A political movement may be organized around a single issue or set of issues, or around a set of shared concerns of a social group...
. Close to Nikita Mikhailovich Muravyov in his views, he was declared the group's leader
Leadership
Leadership has been described as the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task". Other in-depth definitions of leadership have also emerged.-Theories:...
on the eve of the December 26 uprising in 1825 but failed to appear, and instead sought refuge in the Austrian embassy.
Early years
Trubetskoy was born in the noble TrubetskoyTrubetskoy
Trubetskoy , Трубецкой , Трубяцкі , Trubecki , Trubetsky , Трубецький , Troubetzkoy , Trubezkoi or Trubetzkoy , is a Ruthenian Gediminid gentry family of Black Ruthenian stock, like many other princely houses of Grand Duchy of Lithuania, later prominent in Russian...
family. His father was Prince Pyotr Sergeyevich Troubetzkoy (1760–1817). His mother, Daria (d. 1796), was a daughter of the Georgian
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
prince Alexander Bakarovich Gruzinsky
Alexander, son of Bakar of Georgia
Alexander, son of Bakar or Aleksandr Bakarovich Gruzinsky ) was a Russian-born Georgian prince of the Mukhrani branch of the Bagrationi royal dynasty. He was the last of the Mukhranians to have attempted, unsuccessfully, to reclaim the crown of Georgia which had been lost to the Kakheti branch of...
.
Troubetzkoy received home education, since 1806 he was attending lectures in the Moscow University
Moscow State University
Lomonosov Moscow State University , previously known as Lomonosov University or MSU , is the largest university in Russia. Founded in 1755, it also claims to be one of the oldest university in Russia and to have the tallest educational building in the world. Its current rector is Viktor Sadovnichiy...
. In 1808 he entered Leib Guards Semyonovsky regiment
Russian Imperial Guard
The Russian Imperial Guard, officially known as the Leib Guard were military units serving as personal guards of the Emperor of Russia. Peter the Great founded the first such units following the Prussian practice in the 1690s, to replace the politically-motivated Streltsy.- Organization :The final...
. As a military, he participated in all significant battles of Sixth Coalition campaign in 1812-1814 including battle of Borodino
Battle of Borodino
The Battle of Borodino , fought on September 7, 1812, was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the French invasion of Russia and all Napoleonic Wars, involving more than 250,000 troops and resulting in at least 70,000 casualties...
, battle of Maloyaroslavets
Battle of Maloyaroslavets
The Battle of Maloyaroslavets took place on 24 October 1812, between the Russians, under Marshal Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov, and part of the corps of Eugène de Beauharnais, Napoleon's stepson, under General Alexis Joseph Delzons which numbered about 20,000 strong.-Prelude:On 19 October, Napoleon...
, Battle of Lützen
Battle of Lützen (1813)
In the Battle of Lützen , Napoleon I of France lured a combined Prussian and Russian force into a trap, halting the advances of the Sixth Coalition after his devastating losses in Russia. The Russian commander, Prince Peter Wittgenstein, attempting to undo Napoleon's capture of Leipzig, attacked...
, battle of Bautzen
Battle of Bautzen
In the Battle of Bautzen a combined Russian/Prussian army was pushed back by Napoleon, but escaped destruction, some sources claim, because Michel Ney failed to block their retreat...
and battle of Kulm
Battle of Kulm
The Battle of Kulm was a battle near the town Kulm and the village Přestanov in northern Bohemia. It was fought on 29–30 August 1813, during the War of the Sixth Coalition...
and received many orders
Military order
A military order is a Christian society of knights that was founded for crusading, i.e. propagating or defending the faith , either in the Holy Land or against Islam or pagans in Europe...
. In the battle of Leipzig
Battle of Leipzig
The Battle of Leipzig or Battle of the Nations, on 16–19 October 1813, was fought by the coalition armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria and Sweden against the French army of Napoleon. Napoleon's army also contained Polish and Italian troops as well as Germans from the Confederation of the Rhine...
he was badly wounded. After the war he continued military service and in 1821 he was promoted to Colonel
Colonel
Colonel , abbreviated Col or COL, is a military rank of a senior commissioned officer. It or a corresponding rank exists in most armies and in many air forces; the naval equivalent rank is generally "Captain". It is also used in some police forces and other paramilitary rank structures...
.
Decembrists
After the war Trubetskoy became a Freemason, member of the Lodge of the Three Virtues. He was among the founders of the first proto-Decembrists societies - the Union of Salvation (1816) and later the Union of Prosperity (1819). The aim of the two unions which were largely based on masonry was gradual improvement of the Russian EmpireRussian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
. However, it has not included yet future tenets of the Decembrists, namely complete abolishment of the serfdom
Serfdom
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...
, introduction of constitution and constitutionally secured liberties, abolishment of privileges of upper estates of the realm. In 1819 Trubetskoy had to go abroad for treatment. When he returned in 1821 he found out that the Union had already ceased to exist. Trubetskoy was one of the founders and leaders of the Northern Society. Unlike some other Decembrists who adhered to revolution, execution of the tsar and establishment of 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...
(e.g. Ryleev and 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...
), Trubestkoy advocated 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...
. He was elected "dictator" but he did not come to the Senate Square
Senate Square
The Senate Square can refer to several squares depending on the city:* Helsinki Senate Square, a square in Helsinki, Finland* The Saint Petersburg Senate Square, a square in Saint Petersburg, Russia, formerly known as Decembrists Square...
, most probably because he was sure that the revolt was bound to fail. He was arrested the next day at the apartments of envoy of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
Lebzeltern who was his relative.
Katorga and exile
Trubetskoy was sentenced to death but the sentence was changed to katorgaKatorga
Katorga was a system of penal servitude of the prison farm type in Tsarist Russia...
for life in Nerchinsk
Nerchinsk
Nerchinsk is a town and the administrative center of Nerchinsky District of Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia, located east of Lake Baikal, east of Chita, and about west of the Chinese border on the left bank of the Nercha River, above its confluence with the Shilka River, which flows into the Amur...
coal mines. Trubetskoy's wife Ekaterina Laval went to exile with him. Her feat (she voluntarily renounced all wealth and privileges and subjected herself to hard life in katorga) was subject of famous poem by Nekrasov
Nikolai Alekseevich Nekrasov
Nikolay Alexeyevich Nekrasov was a Russian poet, writer, critic and publisher, whose deeply compassionate poems about peasant Russia won him Fyodor Dostoyevsky's admiration and made him the hero of liberal and radical circles of Russian intelligentsia, as represented by Vissarion Belinsky and...
. In 1839 he was allowed to live in exile in Irkutsk
Irkutsk
Irkutsk is a city and the administrative center of Irkutsk Oblast, Russia, one of the largest cities in Siberia. Population: .-History:In 1652, Ivan Pokhabov built a zimovye near the site of Irkutsk for gold trading and for the collection of fur taxes from the Buryats. In 1661, Yakov Pokhabov...
guberniya
Guberniya
A guberniya was a major administrative subdivision of the Russian Empire usually translated as government, governorate, or province. Such administrative division was preserved for sometime upon the collapse of the empire in 1917. A guberniya was ruled by a governor , a word borrowed from Latin ,...
. In 1854 his wife died . In 1856 he along with other survived Decembrists was granted amnesty
Amnesty
Amnesty is a legislative or executive act by which a state restores those who may have been guilty of an offense against it to the positions of innocent people, without changing the laws defining the offense. It includes more than pardon, in as much as it obliterates all legal remembrance of the...
, given back his title and was able to return to Moscow. He wrote memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
es which were published for the first time in 1863 by Alexander Herzen
Alexander Herzen
Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen was a Russian pro-Western writer and thinker known as the "father of Russian socialism", and one of the main fathers of agrarian populism...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.