Martin Antonenko
A Fixture
- Joined
- Jul 11, 2008
- Messages
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Dostojewskij's Mock Execution ...!
On December 22, 1849 (our calendar), the 28-year-old Russian writer Fjodor Mihailowitsch Dostojewskij ...
... stands at St. Petersburg on the parade ground in the courtyard of the barracks of the Semenovsky Guard Regiment ...
... which still exist as a building today ...
... tied to a stake in front of a firing squad behind his grave, which he had to dig himself beforehand ...:
Next to him are his friends and fellow death row inmates Alexei Nikolajewitsch Pleschtschejew...
and Sergej Fjodorowitsch Durow...
... all three of them already have a sack over their heads and are waiting for the order to fire.
Dostoyevsky - along with 14 other co-defendants - had been sentenced to death by a military court a few days earlier ...:
They got involved with a revolutionary underground association, named after its founder and leader Michail Wassiljewitsch Butaschewitsch-Petraschewskij ...
... which is called "Petraschewsken".
The tsarist secret police "Ochrana" knew exactly what was going on from the start; she had smuggled a spy (and agent provocateur) into the group, the guard officer Pjotr Antonelli ...:
The next picture shows the house search and arrest of the group - Petraschewski stands in front of the window ...:
Specifically, Dostoevsky is condemned for reading a letter from the writer Nikolaj Wassiljewitsch Gogol at a meeting of the group ...
in which autocracy, serfdom and religion were sharply attacked ...:
And something like that is enough for a death sentence in the empire of Tsar Nikolai I, who is also called the "gendarme of Europe" ...:
But the Tsar had already pardoned Dostoyevsky and his two friends on December 19 - immediately after the judgment of the military tribunal - albeit in a special way:
Nikolai I wrote in the conscious Prikas (order) that he recommended Dostoyevsky "... to deny all property rights and to send him to forced labor in prison for eight years."
When he signed the tsar must have had the idea that this might be too harsh, because at the bottom of the page he added:
“For four years. Then common soldier. "...
The commander of the firing squad is of course familiar with the Tsar's "recommendation", as is everyone else in charge.
But they decide to let Dostoyevsky, Durov and Pleschcheev suffer a little longer. So they don't tell them anything at first.
Only at the moment when the supposed death row inmates are awaiting the order to fire and the fatal bullets in the next second, an officer pulls the letter out of his pocket and reads it out loud.
The other 16 members of the group, including Petrashevsky, will of course be executed!
Two days later, on December 24th, 1849, Dostoyevsky set out on foot and under guard, together with other exiles, on the 3,000-kilometer journey to Omsk in Siberia ...:
He will afterwards have to do his military service until the last day! The other soldier (the photo was taken in 1859) is the Kazakh scholar Shoqan Uälichanuly, to whom the same thing happened and with whom Dostojewskij befriended ...:
Anyone who knows the history of this mock execution reads the work of this really great writer and also his biography, including his alcohol and massive gambling addiction (he had great debts all his life because he gambled away huge sums!) with different eyes ...
On December 22, 1849 (our calendar), the 28-year-old Russian writer Fjodor Mihailowitsch Dostojewskij ...
... stands at St. Petersburg on the parade ground in the courtyard of the barracks of the Semenovsky Guard Regiment ...
... which still exist as a building today ...
... tied to a stake in front of a firing squad behind his grave, which he had to dig himself beforehand ...:
Next to him are his friends and fellow death row inmates Alexei Nikolajewitsch Pleschtschejew...
and Sergej Fjodorowitsch Durow...
... all three of them already have a sack over their heads and are waiting for the order to fire.
Dostoyevsky - along with 14 other co-defendants - had been sentenced to death by a military court a few days earlier ...:
They got involved with a revolutionary underground association, named after its founder and leader Michail Wassiljewitsch Butaschewitsch-Petraschewskij ...
... which is called "Petraschewsken".
The tsarist secret police "Ochrana" knew exactly what was going on from the start; she had smuggled a spy (and agent provocateur) into the group, the guard officer Pjotr Antonelli ...:
The next picture shows the house search and arrest of the group - Petraschewski stands in front of the window ...:
Specifically, Dostoevsky is condemned for reading a letter from the writer Nikolaj Wassiljewitsch Gogol at a meeting of the group ...
in which autocracy, serfdom and religion were sharply attacked ...:
And something like that is enough for a death sentence in the empire of Tsar Nikolai I, who is also called the "gendarme of Europe" ...:
But the Tsar had already pardoned Dostoyevsky and his two friends on December 19 - immediately after the judgment of the military tribunal - albeit in a special way:
Nikolai I wrote in the conscious Prikas (order) that he recommended Dostoyevsky "... to deny all property rights and to send him to forced labor in prison for eight years."
When he signed the tsar must have had the idea that this might be too harsh, because at the bottom of the page he added:
“For four years. Then common soldier. "...
The commander of the firing squad is of course familiar with the Tsar's "recommendation", as is everyone else in charge.
But they decide to let Dostoyevsky, Durov and Pleschcheev suffer a little longer. So they don't tell them anything at first.
Only at the moment when the supposed death row inmates are awaiting the order to fire and the fatal bullets in the next second, an officer pulls the letter out of his pocket and reads it out loud.
The other 16 members of the group, including Petrashevsky, will of course be executed!
Two days later, on December 24th, 1849, Dostoyevsky set out on foot and under guard, together with other exiles, on the 3,000-kilometer journey to Omsk in Siberia ...:
He will afterwards have to do his military service until the last day! The other soldier (the photo was taken in 1859) is the Kazakh scholar Shoqan Uälichanuly, to whom the same thing happened and with whom Dostojewskij befriended ...:
Anyone who knows the history of this mock execution reads the work of this really great writer and also his biography, including his alcohol and massive gambling addiction (he had great debts all his life because he gambled away huge sums!) with different eyes ...
