Leader of the peasant partisan detachment Gerasim Kurin: biography, achievements and interesting facts. Heroes of the Russian land... Gerasim Matveevich Kurin Explanations and additions to the publication

Just like in the autumn season
A Frenchman was walking towards my yard,
Bonaparte general
Bogorodsk conquered
Gerasim Kurin shouted to us:
“Beat your enemies, then we’ll smoke!”

folk song

Ten horsemen appeared at a leisurely pace around the bend of a rural street. The cavalrymen looked surprisingly picturesque - in army coats, zipuns, bast shoes and all with pikes. Two people rode ahead - the tall black-bearded Kurin and the volost mayor Yegor Stulov. The head in a cloth overcoat, fastened with copper hooks at all the loops, in boots greased with tar, looked more like a man experienced in handling a horse and stayed in the saddle appropriately - easily and deftly.

Kurin sat on his dun, much-smelling filly like a peasant, in a squat position, like the others, but with confident dignity. A calm and good-natured look, in which intelligence and will were clearly discernible, and especially abundant weapons against the others - a French saber, two pistols tucked into a red sash and sparkling from the recent point of the peak, indisputably exposed him as a leader.

The men guarding the entrance to the village - some with a pike, and some with pitchforks habitually slung over their shoulders - lined up on both sides of the road, staring with curiosity at those approaching.

Are you far away, Gerasim Matveevich? - the eldest of the guards asked joyfully, rather from a desire to enter into a conversation, for the detachment’s route was not a secret to them.

“Yes, we’ll go to Pokrov with a report,” Kurin answered willingly, “and we’ll deliver a gift to Boris Andreevich, Prince Golitsyn,” Gerasim nodded towards the cart, where three French hussars lay, tightly tied with ropes.

But it’s true, it’s an important gift, the prince will be delighted, the tea... What do you think, Gerasim Matveyevich, will there be help from the prince?

“Yes, we know, don’t hesitate, we’ll keep our eyes open,” the guards became animated, and as soon as the detachment passed, they blocked the entrance to the village with logs.

...Directly at the theater of military operations, Napoleon’s invasion was opposed as combat-ready, organized forces by the army itself, the people’s militia, the formation of which Alexander I was forced to form under the pressure of an unfavorably developing campaign, as well as military and peasant partisan detachments.

The noble provincial assembly elected Prince B. A. Golitsyn as the head of the Vladimir militia, which was organizationally part of the first, or Moscow militia district. It was to him with the joyful news of the successfully won battle that the leaders of the partisan detachment headed.

After the surrender of Moscow without a fight, many experienced, in addition to the bitterness of defeat, a state of painful uncertainty, wondering how the course of the campaign would develop further, how the treacherous Bonaparte would behave. Where will his “great army”, bloodless in the Battle of Borodino, but still terrifying, rush? To St. Petersburg? Tulu? Kazan? The unpredictability of the French emperor's intentions suggested the most unexpected decisions. Much later, on the island of St. Helena, he would say: “I should have died immediately after entering Moscow...”

In the meantime, September 2 was the day of his celebration. Around the same hours, when Napoleon, in impatient bewilderment, was waiting on Poklonnaya Hill for the Moscow boyars with the keys to the city, but never did, Prince Golitsyn, taking a step towards the usurper, occupied the town of Pokrov on the far border with the Moscow province, which became his headquarters. The formation of the militia was delayed, there was an urgent need for weapons and equipment, and the prince, alarmedly reporting to the main headquarters about the lack of forces “to occupy all the roads leading to the Vladimir province,” persistently asked for help, especially with cavalry and cannons.

Golitsyn, not without reason, assumed the possibility that Napoleon would take and move towards the Vladimir province rich in grain reserves, really threatening the right flank of the Russian army camped in Tarutino. Taking into account the latter consideration, the commander-in-chief allocated the Ural Cossack regiment to reinforce the Vladimir militia. The opportunity to provide more significant assistance presented itself a little later, when the strength of the Russian army began to increase day by day, when the fire of the people's war flared up and gained incinerating force, the nature of which was so insightfully understood and uncompromisingly defended by Field Marshal Kutuzov.

The scorching wave of fire did not bypass the Vokhnenskaya volost of Bogorodsky district, the farthest in the east of the Moscow region. Here, under the leadership of Gerasim Kurin, the largest known partisan peasant formation was organized. Already contemporaries were perplexed how they, initially unarmed and militarily completely untrained, managed to inflict significant damage on the enemy with their extremely persistent resistance, and in some battles with quite tactically competent actions. In essence, the partisan detachments managed to block the strategically important Vladimir highway, which, by the way, helped to a large extent to successfully complete the formation of the militia. These places, according to the fair remark of the then historian, rightfully remained in the memory of the people as “the extreme line in the east, to which Napoleon’s invasion of Russia extended.”

Napoleon himself, confident of quick negotiations, was by no means idle. Without a clear plan for continuing the campaign in case the negotiations were delayed or did not take place at all, he first of all decided to create strongholds around Moscow to protect against a possible Russian attack, and mainly to collect food, the lack of which immediately began to have a noticeable effect.

It seemed that Prince Golitsyn’s worst fears were confirmed when, in accordance with this plan, selected troops from Marshal Ney’s corps moved onto the Vladimir road and occupied Bogorodsk on September 23.

The head of the Vladimir militia, Lieutenant General and Cavalier Prince Golitsyn, to Field Marshal Kutuzov: “... The enemy occupied this city... had a skirmish with our advanced pickets, and the superiority of his forces forced both pickets to retreat along the Moscow road to the village of Kuznetsam.”

The superiority was expressed in the following ratio: two divisions with 12 guns against the hussar picket stationed in Bogorodsk of four non-commissioned officers and seventy privates. A blade of grass against a hurricane. And yet the fellows did not just run, but retreated with a skirmish.

Immediately after occupying Bogorodsk, the French, in fulfillment of their main task, began to devastate the surrounding villages. And one of the small detachments confidently, as if along a familiar route, moved straight along the road to Vokhnya-Pavlovo. Judging by the small number of the detachment, it was clear that reconnaissance had been sent, and the steam-horse carts also testified to the persistent hope of getting hold of food along the way.

The soldiers behaved relaxed, joked, laughed, as if they were heading not on an expedition, but on a picnic. And indeed, before the performance, rumors spread that in the rich village of Pavlovo, not enemies, but friends were waiting for them and they could hope for a warm welcome. The news in this thoroughly hostile Russia is unusual, all the more so it was invigorating and pleasing. They are people too, tired and hungry. Already on the transition from Smolensk we had to eat mainly horse meat, roasted over coals. They were also oppressed by the general hostility and hatred with which they were greeted in every village.

“Everyone is against us,” one of the participants in the “great march” later wrote, “everyone is ready to either defend themselves or flee... The men are armed with pikes, many on horseback; the women were ready to run away and scolded us just as much as the men.”

Hoping for warm huts, food and rest, those going to Vokhna involuntarily quickened their pace. The first village on their way was Bolshoi Dvor. And as soon as the French reached the last hut, a crowd of people rushed towards them with terrible screams, shaking pikes, pitchforks, scythes, and most just sticks. The attack was so unexpected and loud that the foragers, frightened to death, were blown away by the wind and they disappeared into the pine forest, since the forest approached the road itself. Everything happened in a matter of moments, and the battle was over before it even began.

In the first skirmish, no blood was shed, they did not even try to pursue the fugitives, and in general, if you look closely, you could notice that many of the attackers were trembling nervously, they looked at each other in disbelief, clearly having difficulty understanding what had happened. Finally the tension subsided and they realized - victory! The first victory over a formidable enemy is incredibly easy, bloodless and lucky. Glancing at each other in disbelief to see if what had really happened had really happened, they crowded around two abandoned carts. Trophies, and what kind! Gunpowder, bullets and guns. The eyes refuse to believe - ten guns!

A unanimous cry of joy erupted from two hundred throats, giving, presumably, additional acceleration to the fleeing French. Kurin, also childishly rejoicing that everything had turned out so well, examined each gun with burning interest.

Well, with good intentions, brothers,” he said, smiling broadly and white-toothed from under his thick mustache. - And what an important booty and, you know, legal: what is taken in battle is sacred.

Look, Semyon, with such a gun, Bonaparte himself is not scary,” the young guy playfully took aim at his trustingly smiling neighbor. - How to shoot it, Uncle Gerasim?

It's no big deal, I'll show you. Just get closer to the villain, then you'll definitely get there.

Well, they, the enemy’s children, even without firing, they asked for tea, they’ll stop in Bogorodsk. Or maybe in Paris itself, huh?

Gerasim wanted to warn - they say, we will meet with these runners again, but he remained silent - let them rejoice, in joy the fighting spirit is strengthened - that’s what is most important today. And guns. Oh, truly glorious trophies...

The joy of the partisans is understandable. According to the report of the district leader of the nobility, on August 16, 1812, 2,113 warriors were enrolled in the militia of the Bogorodsky district, 7.5 pounds of flour, 111 quarters of cereals, 1,460 pikes and 8 guns were collected from the population of 10,554 pounds. Eight guns for the entire county militia! The ten carbines that had been received so miraculously inspired extraordinary inspiration, and a detachment with such weapons seemed to be a formidable force, which was confirmed by subsequent events.

And Gerasim looked into the water - the unexpected guests did not keep themselves waiting long. The next day, early in the morning, the enemy occupied Gribovo and, having found nothing and no one, intended to burn the village. But - here it is, the power of the guns captured the day before: after hot, albeit somewhat disorderly shooting on the part of the partisans (when was it possible to learn to shoot accurately?), the enemy was nevertheless driven away. However, the real war began on September 27, when three enemy squadrons were defeated in the village of Subbotino.

Observers sent towards Bogorodsk discovered them ahead of time, and it was an impressive sight. The cavalrymen, as a matter of fact, are well done, although they are shabby and worn out on a long march. And the horses, although obviously starved, had fallen off their bodies. Apparently on starvation rations, just like the soldiers. Behind the cavalrymen, carts rumbled on the clay road, and the black-headed, sharp-eyed Panka Kurin, Gerasim’s son, sitting at the top of a pine tree, counted a good dozen of them.

Panka, leaning face down, shouted something in a strangled voice, and immediately a boy of about ten years old, in patched and patched motley trousers and the same blue-dirty shirt, darted out of the birch tree like a startled hare, barefoot, despite the autumn, and instantly disappeared into forest - to tell Uncle Gerasim that his friend saw him from the top of a pine tree. Kurin already knew the news - the high guards had warned him an hour earlier.

The French settled in a cluster in the center of the village; several people, not without timidity, looked into the nearest huts and immediately returned. The usual picture - the village is empty. No people, no livestock, no birds. Only the dense forest, dark day and night, friend and protector of the partisans, hummed menacingly with the tops of the pine trees. A man clearly looked like a tutor separated from the French: in a filthy frock coat and with his starched chest proudly stuck out. A very similar teacher of lordly children lived before the war on a neighboring landowner’s estate, and with the arrival of the enemy he disappeared without a trace. There was even a rumor that the courtyard people drowned him in Klyazma, and look where he surfaced. The tutor, desperately cowardly and constantly looking back at his people, approached the edge of the forest and waved a white handkerchief, waited, listening. Not a soul was seen or heard in the forest.

Listen, dear peasants, gentlemen, I will speak! - he shouted, straining, into the darkness of the forest. - Come to us without any danger, we will make peace. Do not be afraid of us!.. The greatest and fairest of all monarchs, His Majesty the Emperor and King grants you patronage and protection! His Majesty the Emperor and King does not consider you to be his enemies...

The translator shouted phrases from Napoleon's address to Moscow residents, artisans, working people and especially peasants with calls to leave the forests, return to their homes, to work, bearing respect and trust at the feet of the conquerors. The appeal was posted all over Moscow, special messengers scattered with it to the districts of the Moscow region, where many died, beaten to death by bludgeoning or lifted by men on pitchforks and pikes. This was the response of ordinary people to the proposed “patronage and protection.”

The translator-tutor continued to strain for a long time, the futility of his efforts reminding him of a booth barker in an empty square, but Yamskoy Bor remained silent. With a stern look, restraining the impatience of the partisans who were eager to fight, Kurin waited, wondering in his mind when Yegor Stulov would have time to bypass the enemy through the forest with a detachment of his cavalry, so that with the first shots they would fly in from the direction of Bogorodsk - they were not expecting an attack from there - and strike together and at the same time. And most importantly, take the French by surprise: surprise and audacity of the attack are the faithful companions of their luck. Nobody taught Kurin battle tactics - his innate intuition, intelligence, and peasant savvy told him the right decision.

On the eve of the battle in Subbotin, a man from the village of Stepurino came to their hastily set up forest camp at night on a lathered horse.

“I barely found you,” he spoke, catching his breath. “We’re in trouble, they’re burning down a village, they burned a man alive... In the afternoon two marauders came in with guns. We didn’t plan anything like that, the kisser even brought wine to the villains. Well, men, women, children came up - they didn’t hide it, they looked. And one of them got drunk and suddenly the dude, the shameless one, grabbed the young woman by the hand - let’s go, they say... The young woman’s husband and push the sneer away, and he grabs the gun, well, and stakes him from behind. And they decided to shoot the second one. And by evening a whole pack of wolves swooped in. Well, the guards warned us, the whole village went into the forest, and decided to go to you, we heard about your heroism. Everyone left, but the peasant Lukyanov Leksei insisted: I won’t, he says, like a poisoned hare, run away from my home and, not listening to persuasion, locked myself in. The adversaries knocked and knocked and lit the hut on fire. But Lexei didn’t come out and perished in the fire.

The Stepurinsky man fell silent, sobbed, the Vokhnenskys made a threatening noise: “That’s right, give no mercy to their Herods’ stakes!..” “Rest assured, we will take revenge,” Kurin said restrainedly, and both anger and pain were heard in his voice: “And for Stepurino, and for other atrocities our tears will flow to them.”

One can ask the question today: didn’t they act too harshly, sometimes killing even lonely foragers who strayed from their troops? No, it was righteous revenge - for looted and burned homes, ruined lives, bullying, robbery and violence. The intoxication of victory, as history shows, turns a conqueror into a barbarian. Even Napoleonic General de Segur wrote with bitter frankness: “We were becoming an army of criminals, which heaven and the entire civilized world would condemn.” What is surprising here, since many conquerors went to heavenly judgment directly from cities and villages near Moscow, Kaluga, Smolensk.

When the former ambassador to Russia, General Lauriston, whom Napoleon authorized to persuade Kutuzov to negotiate peace, arrived at the Tarutino camp, he, by the way, spoke resentfully “about the image of the barbaric war” that the Russians were allegedly waging against them. The diplomat addressed his grievances not to the army, but to the residents who were mercilessly exterminating the French, and asked “to stop such unheard-of acts.” Berthier, the chief of staff of the French army, addressed similar claims to the commander-in-chief, proposing to eliminate the attacks of peasant partisans in order to “give the real war an ordinary appearance.”

Field Marshal Kutuzov to Marshal Berthier: “It is difficult to stop a people embittered by everything that they have seen, a people who have not seen war on their land for two hundred years, a people who are ready to sacrifice themselves for their Motherland and who do not distinguish between what is accepted and what is not accepted in ordinary wars.” In other words (according to the famous definition of L. Tolstoy), “the club of the people’s war rose with all its formidable and majestic strength and, without asking anyone’s tastes and rules... nailed the French until the entire invasion was destroyed.”

The night in the partisan forest shelter on the eve of the battle in Subbotin passed in anxiety. Only a few - some out of carelessness of serene daring, like Fedka Tolstosumov, and some out of weakness of physical strength, like grandfather Antip, took naps under the trees, leaning their backs against the rough trunk and not letting go of a pike or a well-planed spear from their hands. Finally, around eleven o’clock in the morning, exhausted from waiting, Kurin gave the command: “It’s time!” - and they, in desperate and fearless excitement, attacked the French, encouraging themselves with a thunderous “hurray!” From the rear of the alley, also with some unearthly cries (well, purely Tatars), the peasant cavalry flew out, to the complete surprise of the enemy, and everyone clashed and mixed up so that in the closeness of the battle, even the few guns in peasant hands, taken by the barrel, served as a club nailing The Stepurin men who arrived in time frantically rushed at the enemy with their bare hands.

Some of the cavalrymen nevertheless broke through, the rest were killed, and only three hussars, by some miracle, remained alive, and even those, seeing the rage of the people surrounding them, no longer considered themselves residents in this world.

Kurin arrived in time to stop the inevitable lynching, the trembling hussars were tied up and taken out of sight to the hut. The bosses also entered there - Kurin, Stulov, Sotsky Chushkin, some of the old men - and here you go, lop-eared, that is, frivolous, Fedka Tolstosumov, and, strangely, Gerasim Matveevich, hero and partisan ruler, with him treats you in a friendly and respectful manner. The people have a keen eye, they saw how he took Fedka by the arm and quietly, but someone heard, asked: “Are you the one the French were calling out for a conversation? Why didn’t you come out?” And Fedka seemed to answer: “If you fall into their claws, the hawk will kiss the hen to the last feather.”

Lost in conjecture, some unconditionally denied Fedka his opportunity to take life seriously. They say, the balabolka, he went to Moscow as a rogue, and now he has returned, apparently quite rich in his mind. And others shook their heads in disbelief: “Eh, don’t tell me, this is a secret matter... Gerasim wouldn’t treat tea for stupidity.”

They did not keep the council in the hut for long. They grieved for the dead blacksmith, and decided to transport several wounded partisans to a forest camp - under the supervision of women.

This time the trophies, both horses and weapons, are absolutely fabulous. We immediately agreed: one should have a gun, a pistol or a saber, and whoever grabbed the extra should be divided equitably. They did not argue - the reasonableness of the redistribution seemed obvious. Gerasim, as the leader, was nevertheless given two pistols and a saber - so they thought they would show special trust and respect for him. In this battle, Kurin himself pierced two enemies to death with a sharp pike, rushed to where he needed help, and was so absorbed in the battle that he found himself without prey. Fedka hesitated what to leave - a gun or a pistol, a beautiful toy pistol, you can’t say anything, but, sighing regretfully, he took the gun.

If the charge comes out, you still have a reliable club in your hands,” he explained his choice. - Handy. There Ivan Yakovlevich (Fedka turned to Sotsky Chushkin) famously considered the adversary’s heads as a gun, as he did now. It's quite enviable.

No one smiled at the joke - they were pondering the death of the blacksmith, the first fellow villager to die in the battle.

It was not by his own death, as God ordained, that a good man left the world, but by force, and the children remained, little by little.

“It’s also God’s death,” Kurin said thoughtfully, “in battle because, for the fatherland.”

Stulov, accustomed to maintaining order in everything, said that it would be necessary to quickly remove the enemy corpses out of sight.

Why clean them up? - the dry, short grandfather Antip suddenly fidgeted. - Into the swamp, sons of the enemy, into the swamp, let the quagmire clean them up.

Grandfather did not seem to be in the forefront of running to the battlefield, but came to the council with a long broadsword, which dragged along the ground behind him, rattling and clanking as he walked.

“What you’re saying is not the point, grandfather,” Gerasim objected, “even though they are enemies, they are still people.” Wherever a person is found, and everywhere she, the earthling, must accept him. Our land is foreign to them, and they set foot on it with bad intentions, so we will not be buried in the cemetery, but in the forest, in a distant clearing. And we’ll level the place - let the grass grow.

Soon after lunch, Kurin, Stulov and a dozen more horsemen surrounded the cart, where the hussars lay more dead than alive, and quickly, at a trot, and downhill and galloped along the dusty road.

We galloped to Pokrov before dark. In the spacious courtyard of the manor house, where Prince Golitsyn Boris Andreevich kept his headquarters, the appearance of Vokhny armed men with three captured Frenchmen caused extraordinary excitement and curiosity, people came running as if to a fire, most had never seen the Antichrists and villains.

Golitsyn came out, spoke to the prisoners in French, as if with affection in his voice, ordered to untie the ropes, and the hussars, rubbing their numb hands, left under escort. “To interrogate and clarify the position of the enemy,” the non-commissioned officer explained to the disgruntled crowd, who expected decisive behavior from the prince, maybe flogging the villains, or maybe right here, in front of everyone, and immediate execution.

The adjutant pointed to Kurin and Stulov, standing modestly to the side. The prince nodded graciously, thanked them for their service to the Tsar and the Fatherland, and told them to settle down at the inn - he would be free from business and would receive them. The general, alas, did not have time to meet with the partisan leaders, and yet, as an obliging person, he ordered Colonel Nefedyev through his adjutant: to give advice to the partisans on how to proceed and, if possible, find reinforcements.

The Vokhny people were returning from Pokrov, accompanied by twenty Cossacks. They were allocated rather for moral support - albeit a tiny one, but still a military unit. Kurin, gloomy and preoccupied, hastening the detachment, lashed with a whip his filly, who was by no means a cavalry officer, accustomed to pulling a difficult burden in a peasant farm. The Cossacks laughed until they cried, watching the men, waving their outstretched elbows as if they were clipped wings, jumping absurdly in time with the gallop of their horses.

According to historical chronicles, the center of the Vokhno volost is either Vokhnya or Pavlovo. In essence, they are the same thing. Vokhneya was the name given to Dmitrovsky Pogost, which grew up here at the time when Ivan the Terrible transferred the lands of the volost to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. Pogost - two churches, warm and cold, as stated in the scribe books of 1623–1624, the houses of the church clergy, several peasant households, “and with that graveyard the village of Pavlovo on the Vokhonka River, and with it there are 25 peasant households and peasants, and two households monastery and 3 forges, and in the village there is a market, and in that market there are 30 log shops, and in those shops the peasants of the Vokhno volost sell...”

The volost continued to be called Vokhnenskaya, and its center became the expanded and famous Pavlovo, now the regional center of Pavlovo-Posad. In this enterprising village, where peasants were engaged not only in arable farming, but also in trade, weaving and other crafts, Gerasim Kurin was born into a peasant family in 1777. The Chickens have little land, but a lot of work was required - from dawn to dusk, and with the scanty local sandy and clay soils, the harvests were not encouraging - in a bad year, you would bring in taxes, pay off past debts and even sweep out the bins with a broom, maybe there was grain lying around - other.

The Kurin family held tightly to their piece of land, they saw in it some kind of inviolability, reliability, like a penny set aside for a rainy day, and some fellow villagers tried their luck in trading, weaving, the more successful ones started manufactories at home, even with hired, mostly alien workers , there were also those who went to Moscow in search of a better fate, but not many found it.

Vokhnya-Pavlovo developed rapidly as a trade center, which was greatly facilitated by its proximity to the Great Vladimir Road - Napoleon’s headquarters would also pay attention to the important trade and strategic route. The Klyazma River, albeit with steep banks, reached a width of up to twenty-five fathoms, which allowed barges and small ships to bring goods from Vladimir and even from Nizhny Novgorod. The Vokhnets put up for auction bread and food supplies, woolen and paper fabrics, and partly silk, dyed, Pavlovsk scarves, which over time became so famous that the fashion for them has survived to this day.

Now it is difficult to establish when and why Matvey Kurin, Gerasim’s father, was taken into the soldiery. The mother worked hard from dawn to dusk in the field and with housework, and the boy had to take on a considerable share of the worries. As a teenager, his mustache was just beginning to emerge; he works on par with adult men, habitually harnessed to the exhausting peasant life and labor. And although they worked double-time, they barely survived until spring, until the first auxiliary greenery. My mother’s stew from young nettles or quinoa was not only edible, as they said, but even tasty. Moreover, work and fresh air in abundance also increased the desire for food. On difficult days, we consoled ourselves with the old peasant proverb: bread and water are good food.

And the village grew richer, the quality houses of local moneybags grew, which over time even formed an entire Kupecheskaya Street. Particularly successful was Nikita Urusov, a merchant, manufacturer and stingy man the likes of whom the world had never seen. When the old man died (and he also kept his household in a black body), his son, Grigory, either out of grief, or rather out of joy, arranged a funeral unprecedented in pomp, the drunken river flowed like Vokhnya was in flood, and some food and wine Even from the capital itself, messengers were delivered.

The young and tirelessly zealous heir, Grigory Urusov, constrained by the confines of the village and possessing power - solid capital, several years before Napoleon's invasion, opened a large manufactory in Moscow with more than a hundred hired workers. Of the Pavlovskys, only Fedka Tolstosumov was seduced by metropolitan life - a poor man, a wandering need, who suffered from ridicule of a surname incongruous with his position. But the peasants Labzins and Shchepetelnikovs did not disdain their surnames, on the contrary, they were proud - they became large manufacturers in Pavlov itself.

Bread trading was held weekly, and at the end of October an annual fair was held, noisy, like all fairs, loud, colorful, rich. There was a large trade in grain, and bakers, famous for their skill, offered a variety of baked goods. The ancient laws were strictly observed, requiring that sieve and lattice breads, grated rolls and gingerbread rolls be baked and that there should be no residue or mixture in them.

Rarely did anyone dare to break the custom: after all, bringing bad goods to auction is at a loss, his former confidant in children's games and pranks, Yegor Semenovich Stulov, who was firmly established in the position of volost head, explained to Gerasim during a tour of the fair. Egor inherited a stronger farm and better land from his parents, and with skillful arable farming he achieved a stable, average income. He was not proud of the trust and power given to him; he did not unnecessarily break his hat in front of Pavlovsk business people; he tried to be fair with the poor.

In childhood and adolescence, Gerasim undoubtedly excelled in street games and youthful pastimes; over the years, Egor became noticeably more prominent, especially in community affairs, which did not prevent them from maintaining an even and good relationship. Only once, during the days of the invasion, at a general gathering in a difficult moment for the village, an involuntary, undisclosed rivalry between two strong natures almost broke through, but their friendship, baptized in the war with Napoleon and by fire, stood the test of strength and was consolidated for many years. People say for life, until death.

Gerasim, or Geraska, as he was called in childhood according to the custom here, was a troubled boy - he led his peers in the village, led his army against the same bullies from the surrounding villages. Vokhnya-Pavlovo was almost surrounded by a dense pine forest with sparse copses. Bor is a wealth that the monks of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra could not boast of. In the old days, the forest was teeming with animals, among the local villagers there were even special princely beaver hunters, that is, hunters, but over the years the animals, and especially hunting, came to naught, and yet one could still come face to face with a clubfoot in a raspberry forest. Without special need, few people climbed into the depths of the forest.

Seemingly knowing the surroundings like the back of his hand, Gerasim nevertheless, when he was ten years old, got lost in broad daylight, went into the impassable wilderness and wandered for three days. The old people believe that evil spirits were driving the little boy. He fortified himself with bitter, unripe - his cheekbones cramped, rowan, grass-ant, looked greedily at the mushrooms that came in abundance - edible, satisfying, but only without fire - death, Geraska knew this. I tried the ancient method I heard from old people to make fire, I rubbed dry sticks against each other until exhaustion, I got them to darken and even seemed to smoke a little, but, damn it, they didn’t burn, no matter how much I cry. But he didn’t cry, he understood that salvation was to walk as long as his legs could hold him, and through the Wetlands, where even an adult would probably have disappeared, by some miracle he came out to Klyazma. He understood - he was saved, and as fast as he could he ran upstream, towards the house.

“Lucky,” the neighbors said respectfully, and the mother, who did not want to see her son alive, grabbed the first twig she came across and began to care for her beloved child, crying with joy and the grief that had subsided at once.

A quarter of a century later, Gerasim remembered his wanderings in the forest. When the argument arose about where it would be better to set up a camp for the residents of Pavlov and nearby villages, to better hide from the enemy, he, without hesitation, led the women, old people, and children into the depths of Yamsky Bor. Everyday experience is an invaluable wealth if it is used to benefit oneself and others, and therefore the childhood adventure, which almost ended in irreparable misfortune for Gerasim, resonated years later and played a good service.

From his father, Gerasim took sedate prudence, inconspicuous cunning, and quick wit; from his mother, he took gray eyes and an easy-going character, the ability to get along with people.

Matvey Kurin returned from far and wide as a soldier's wanderings soon after Russian troops under the command of Suvorov took Izmail by storm.

Old Kurin was walking in a column commanded by Kutuzov - Mikhail Larivonych, - Matvey respectfully clarified, remembering how the soldiers bravely rushed along the shaky assault ladders onto the steep walls of the fortress, that nothing seemed to be able to stop them and did not stop them - neither the cannonballs, nor bullets, nor Turkish sabers and scimitars. The puncture wounds in the battle were not counted, but already on the wall itself, Matvey’s legs were mutilated by buckshot.

The retired soldier with a heavy, gnarled stick moved around the hut with difficulty, but mostly lay on the stove, where rye was dried in the best harvest years, warming his crippled bones with the grain spirit. When Gerasim’s father returned, he turned fourteen, and he was a strong guy, tall beyond his years. Matvey took a closer look at his son - how he managed things, and approved: he was growing up as a good worker, skillful and almost did not interfere in economic affairs, only shouted for order, although there was no particular need for that.

On major holidays, and especially at the fair, men, artisans, and working people walked. They drank in moderation, for the sake of warmth and mood, and about the one who began to chatter, they said with condemnation: “Well, the guslik has gone wild in his head.” Here they brewed mash with special local hops - it grew in Bogorodsky district on the Guslitsa River. However, according to the strict moral code of the peasants, “getting drunk” to excess was considered a shameful and wasteful thing.

Young people have their own games - gatherings, songs and dances. Between Vokhnya and Pavlov, as already mentioned, there was neither a clear boundary nor enmity, so there was harmless mutual teasing, and in the winter, when the ice on the Vokhnya River became stronger, the Vokhnyanites often fought side by side against the Pavlovskys. They fought without malice, only with their fists - no one would have thought of taking a stick or a stone, the youth simply showed strength and dexterity, and besides, in the very center of the village there was fun, in full view of biased witnesses, so no one tried to deviate from the rules.

The Pavlovskys were usually led by Gerasim. By the age when matchmakers are already looking for brides, he grew into a handsome and strong guy - his army coat barely fit on his broad chest, in fun he was dexterous and dared to envy, but out of stupidity, like some other peers, he never showed his strength. Community opinion in the person of the all-seeing, all-knowing gossips, who can easily spot a flaw in an angel, was especially touched by his sober way of life (and he’s young and hot!) and the ability to do things as if easily, without strained and even more so ostentatious strain . The young man had skillful hands: he was a plowman, a carpenter, and a saddler, and when there was an urgent need, he could stand usefully as an assistant to the blacksmith Anton Neelov and work with a hammer at his leisure.

When the younger Urusov, a few years after that famous funeral, opened his trading and merchant business in the capital, he also invited Kurin, not as an employee, but as an assistant to the manager. It was not in vain that he invited Gerasim from the psalm-reader Ivan Otradinsky, with whom he was on good terms, learned to read and write a little, knew arithmetic, was distinguished by his prudence of mind and firmness in his words. The merchant promised good money - Gerasim was not tempted. In the village they talked about this for a long time and with approval.

Gerasim married a modest and hard-working girl from the nearby village of Gribovo, and they had a son - they named him Panka. The birth was difficult, the young woman barely came out - thank you, the same psalm-reader Ivan, a literate man and a great admirer of medicinal herbs, gave the woman in labor his decoctions to drink. She recovered, got better, and, to Gerasim’s chagrin, they were destined to remain with one son. As usual, in the family a boy, even the only one, was not pampered; in peasant families, they are generally stingy with tenderness - this is what common sense and the principles of folk pedagogy learned over centuries suggest. Here, the main moral measure of sustainability in life is the attitude to work, reverence and care for elders.

Panka loved to tinker with his father around the house - there was something to do both in winter and in summer. Sweep the hut, the yard - here the girl will manage. He learned to help his father fix a sleigh or a cart, repair clamps and other harnesses, hammer nails into a harrow, saw and chop wood, and if they were allowed to ride on a filly to the river for a watering hole, it would be a sin to wish for a greater reward.

It happened that he fell under the hot hand of his father if he smoked poorly. Can you show me at least one boy in the village who could avoid a slap on the head from his father or grandfather? There is a usual conversation between children about parental punishments:

Did you have enough yesterday?

Just think, I didn’t even blink.

Grandfather Matvey, however, made more and more incomprehensible threats: “Look,” he said, angry, to his grandson, “I’ll put you under the gun.” Panka would have been glad to stand under the gun and see with one eye what it was like, but for some reason the grandfather did not carry out the threat. There was no gun, as Panka understood. They said that the gentleman from Melenki had a real musket, a fireball that really crackled in his ears. So master.

The ingenuity and courage of Panka (the chicken breed) were fully manifested and with considerable benefit in the partisan detachment in the first days, as soon as they were organized. With Fedka Tolstosumov (a special story about him), they, fulfilling Kurin’s order, freely reached almost Moscow itself and a few days before the occupation of Bogorodsk they managed to find out that the troops heading to their district were personally commanded by one of the most important and famous Napoleonic marshals - Her.

On October 4, Prince Golitsyn, in a report to General P. Konovnitsyn on duty, reported this as an indisputable fact: “...according to information from prisoners, Marshal Ney himself was in Bogorodsk and commanded all the troops in the vicinity of Moscow that were for foraging, the number of which was more than 14 thousands of infantry and cavalry; in Bogorodsk itself there were 12 cannons.”

Needless to say, the peasant detachments and the Vladimir militia had to deal with a serious enemy, but even this vaunted infantry and cavalry with their guns were beaten, exterminated, driven away by the bast men, not giving the invaders a moment of rest. In the leaflets published by Kutuzov’s headquarters, the peasants who took up arms were referred to as “our respectable villagers,” and the main motive for their actions was declared to be love for the Fatherland.

However, the successes and scope of the “small war” greatly worried not only Napoleon; the flaring up resistance of the people also worried the tsar’s entourage, where envious people who intrigued against the commander-in-chief, serf-owners, predominated. It is known, for example, that at the initial stage of the war the commanders of military detachments were ordered not to supply the partisans with weapons, and the governors were even given instructions not only to disarm the peasants, but also to “shoot those who are caught indignant.”

An eloquent warning, or rather, a malicious slander from the Governor-General of Moscow and (what an irony of fate!) the commander-in-chief of the most important and largest - the Moscow militia district, F. V. Rostopchin: “Minds have become very impudent and without respect. The habit of beating enemies transformed most of the villagers into robbers.” And here is M.I. Kutuzov’s attitude towards the same villagers: “There are many famous exploits,” the field marshal wrote, “performed by our venerable villagers, but they cannot be made public in the first instance, because the names of the brave ones are still unknown; measures have been taken to learn about them and hand them over to the fatherland for due respect.”

In this war, according to Denis Davydov, “the moral strength of the slaves rose to the heroism of the free people,” and it was fear, panic fear of the slaves who were learning the taste of freedom that decisively determined the mindset of those in power. From the same class positions, the representative of England at Kutuzov’s headquarters, R. Wilson, assessed the danger of the awakening self-awareness of the Russian people: “It is not only the external enemy that must be feared; maybe now it is the safest for Russia. The enemy’s invasion produced a strong peasant class, which realized its strength and received such bitterness in character that it could become dangerous.”

Although Napoleon's promises and calls for loyal cooperation did not find any response among the people, the fire of resistance flared up slowly and unevenly in the first period of the war. General Alexei Petrovich Ermolov in his famous “Notes” testifies: “The villagers came to me to ask whether they were allowed to arm themselves against the enemy and whether they would not be held accountable for this...”

Be exposed to responsibility for the fact that, risking their lives, they are ready to rise up against the conqueror? Isn't it absurd? If we remember Rostopchin’s warnings, the peasants’ uncertainty and timidity are more than justified. “The people’s war is too new for us,” notes F. Glinka in “Letters of a Russian Officer,” “it seems they are still afraid to give a free hand. Until now, there is not a single proclamation allowing people to gather, arm themselves and act where, how and to whom they can...”

Kutuzov, thinking not so much about himself, about his personal destiny, but about the historical mission entrusted to him by the people, about the right and duty of all who can hold arms to stand up for the defense of the fatherland, in one of his reports to the tsar he wrote: “With martyrdom’s firmness They endured all the blows associated with the enemy invasion, hid their families and young children in the forests, and they themselves, armed, sought defeat in their peaceful homes against the emerging predators. Often the women themselves cunningly caught these villains and punished their attempts with death, and often armed villagers, joining our garrisons, greatly assisted them in exterminating the enemy, and it can be said without exaggeration that many thousands of the enemy were exterminated by the peasants.”

Soon after the sending of this convincing document, when for an unprejudiced observer the successes of the “small war” were already undeniable, moreover, the widespread participation of the people’s militia and partisan detachments during the preparation of the counter-offensive became an integral part of the strategy that determined the development of the campaign, the commander-in-chief, experiencing pressure from the court, again forced to explain himself, justify himself, proving the correctness of his concept of the liberation war with the most active and selfless participation of the peasantry in it:

Field Marshal Kutuzov to Alexander I: “During the enemy’s occupation of the Moscow, Kaluga and part of the Tula provinces, the residents of those places tried to get weapons for themselves, thereby wanting to protect themselves from enemy invasion. Respecting this just need and the spirit of their common zeal to harm the enemy everywhere, I not only did not try to restrain them from such an intention, but, on the contrary, through Lieutenant General Konovnitsyn, who was on duty with me, I strengthened these desires in them and supplied them with enemy guns. Thus, the residents of the designated places received guns from my main watch and from the partisans (military detachments. - Ed.), others from the French themselves, whom they killed with their own hands.”

“Not only did I not try to keep them from such an intention...” So, they persistently demanded from the commander-in-chief to restrain them? However, the river has already overflowed its banks. And Kutuzov, not without a bold challenge, answers: “On the contrary, he intensified these desires in them...” In order to write so directly and openly to the all-powerful autocrat, definitely knowing that it is not praise that awaits you, but anger, you need to have considerable civic courage.

Among those villagers of the Moscow province who received guns from the French themselves, killing them with their own hands, were the Vokhny peasants. I happened to read from our contemporary that Gerasim Kurin came to the Tarutino camp, was received and treated kindly by the commander-in-chief, expressed his thoughtful advice and considerations regarding the further conduct of the campaign, reveled on equal terms with the famous commanders of military detachments (parties) and returned to Vokhnya with a truck loaded with new guns. Which allegedly prompted the peasants to organize into a detachment.

Meanwhile, Kutuzov especially emphasizes in his report to the tsar that French guns were distributed, and it could not have been otherwise, because even for the militia regiments included in the regular army, there were not enough weapons. After the battle of Maloyaroslavets, which prompted the retreating Napoleon to turn onto the disastrous Smolensk road, Marshal J. Bessieres, who understood the impossibility of breaking through to Kaluga in the current situation, noted, in particular: “What kind of enemy do we have to fight? Didn’t we see the field of the last battle, didn’t we notice the fury with which the Russian militia, barely armed and uniformed, marched to certain death?

Kurin's detachment did not last long, and for seven days - from the first skirmish in the village of Bolshoi Dvor to the flight of the French from Bogorodsk - it was in daily battles. No respite. There is no doubt that the commander-in-chief, unlike the arrogant Prince Golitsyn, would have found the opportunity to accept and treat kindly the peasant leader (there are many such examples), but Kurin simply did not have the physical ability to make a long trip to the Russian army camp. And in general, before the fire of Moscow, it never occurred to them that the war would reach the very threshold, although Pavlovo, like all of vast Russia, lived in anxiety before the impending hard times.

Rumor, people say, can be heard across the river. A slanderous, evil-tongued rumor that is passed on in whispers. And in days of trials and grievous troubles, bitter news does not travel, but flies, spreading like a forest fire. Either alarming: Smolensk has fallen... Sometimes joyful: the adversary is defeated in the Battle of Borodino!..

“I told you, Mikhail Larivonych will stop the villain,” former Kutuzov grenadier Matvey Kurin inspired his fellow villagers. - What good is he against a Russian soldier who takes a fortress at the point of a bayonet? The Frenchman will run into a bear like a spear, and give up his filthy spirit.

And again the rumor that a cold snake crawled in and began to spread, confirmed day by day by alarming messages: the enemy was not defeated, on the contrary, he was moving towards Moscow, raging in the occupied territory. They say that no matter how much baked bread, flour or grain they find from the peasants, as well as horses, cows, sheep, they will take everything without a trace... some villages are completely burned out and the peasants are stabbed... they break and poke icons with pikes and make stables out of churches...

In the evening, a suspicious man stopped the cart at the inn. Judging by the dress and shiny cheeks, he looks like a merchant, and his appearance is wild, as if he saw the devil in broad daylight. Kupchina, desperately nervous, asked the horses for oats.

Hurry up, for Christ’s sake, my dear, I’ll pay you well.

Where in such a hurry, your lordship? - the men became interested.

To Vladimir, and there, God willing, wherever your eyes lead.

From afar, if it's not a secret?

What an Orthodox secret it is: from Mother Moscow. The golden-headed one disappeared, they gave it to the adversary for desecration...

The peasants were taken aback, excited: “What are you... What are you... Yes, a tip on your tongue, unscrupulous enemy, spy of the Bonapartes,” - and on the chest, and on the neck, and on the ear. When Stulov and Sotsky Chushkin hurriedly approached in response to the noise, the rumpled merchant held his torn collar with one hand, covered his scratched cheek with the other and swore so abusively that Yegor immediately understood: his man, a Russian, was just not a coward in the Russian way, and maybe he was mean in nature. , from the disclosers - it is necessary to establish. The district strictly ordered: to maintain peace and quiet so that empty, depraved rumors of idle people would not be spread, and to report those who spread rumors about the fall of Moscow as liars and cowards to the authorities.

The beaten visitor, turning to the volost with hope, was about to make excuses, when suddenly he did not announce the good news - he rang the alarm bell of the large bell of the Church of the Resurrection. The men were surprised - for some reason the bells rang at the wrong time, and the alarm grew louder, people were already running into the square from all sides, women howled, women began to wail, someone, shouting above the noise, shouted heart-rendingly: “Look, look, there’s a fire!” And everyone saw a growing ominous glow in the direction where Moscow stood. Forgotten by the peasants, the merchant began to fuss, whipped the horses, the cart rumbled, but no one even looked in that direction.

All night along the road to Vladimir the traffic did not stop; carts, trucks, and carriages creaked and rumbled. Many peasants were also awake, talking quietly, as if afraid of causing trouble, looking anxiously to the west, to where the glow was spreading across half the sky.

What are we going to do, Egor? - Gerasim asked when, in this night movement from group to group, they found themselves next to each other for a while.

What to do? - Stulov sighed. - Just to know... We'll wait, hope.

What to expect? Villain's visit?

Do you think it will be good for him to come here?

What's the move? Fifty miles is not a road for him, that’s where he came from.

I don’t know, Gerasim, our business is peasant, forced, as they order, obey.

No, Egor. If tomorrow, say, a Frenchman harnesses me instead of my little filly to a plow and starts driving me, should I submit to him?..

The men listened to their conversation in silence - they had nothing to say. What they could, it seemed, they had already done. When, even before the fall of Moscow, a decree was issued - to select men aged from eighteen to forty-five years old into the militia, to prepare supplies, people, exhausted in the unknown and not knowing where to put themselves, began to work with extraordinary zeal. Forges blazed in the forges, hammers began to knock - blacksmiths forged tips for pikes, tailors and shoemakers made clothes and shoes for the militias or altars, as they began to be called among the people, because they sacrificed themselves not according to a mandatory set, but at the behest of their souls stood up for defense Russian land.

Stulov received carts from the surrounding villages with bread and other supplies that the men brought, and was up to his neck, could not tear himself away from such an important matter for a minute, and had to run around the volost, hurrying and coercing. And somehow imperceptibly it turned out that Gerasim Kurin, who did not hold any position in Pavlov, became, as it were, the center of general enthusiasm and troubles; everyone needed him for advice and help and kept up with everything everywhere. He did not give orders, did not raise his voice, but quickly and fairly dealt with even such unusual matters as a dispute almost to the point of a fight between two young bourgeois brothers Syrtsov - which of them, according to their age, should join the militia.

On the road to Pokrov, under the command of Prince Golitsyn, militia detachments passed thickly. The boys looked with envy at the dashingly angled caps with a cross, the men noted with sympathy the thinness of the uniform. Very few were dressed in full peasant militia “uniform”: a shirt with a slanted collar, a gray caftan, trousers made of rough cloth, boots. The majority have habitual bast shoes, not adapted to long journeys. And not a single gun, not even a pike.

How will they fight, dear ones?

Just let him poke his head in, look how many of us we’ll notice with our hats,” Fedka Tolstosumov said boastfully and proudly looked left and right: what impression does he make?

Your Moscow cut cap is apparently a very formidable weapon that will intimidate anyone, even a grenadier,” Kurin smiled, “but it would be nice to have something more substantial under your cap, besides curls.”

Fedka Tolstosumov was twenty-five years old - only ten years younger than Kurin, and in appearance and especially in his habits he looked like a cocky, frivolous boy. His stature (Stulov once muttered: “And intelligence”) did not seem to add to his life in Moscow as an apprentice weaver, and in the last years before the war, as an independent worker at the manufactory of Grigory Urusov. He appeared in Pavlov three days after Moscow began to burn, and, as soon as he showed up at his mother’s (his father died early), he went straight to Gerasim Kurin - their families were close as neighbors and were even in some distant relationship. People saw how, soon after his arrival, Panka rushed like a bullet to the volost and immediately returned with Yegor Stulov, and the three of them talked about something all evening, and Panka stood at the gate - either he was guarding, or they simply ordered him to go to the hut .

There was something to be surprised and something to hide: Gerasim almost dropped a spoon into the bowl of stew when Fedka, right from the threshold, without even crossing himself at the icon in the red corner, blurted out:

So, Gerasim Matveyevich, I returned to my native land as a spy and agent of Bonaparte. Call the volost, call the sotsky, tie me up and take me straight to the district. I will repent in spirit.

Kurin got over his surprise, looked carefully at Fedka and said somewhat dully and leisurely, as if weighing every word:

You came through the district, through Bogorodsk, why take you back? Tell us, we’ll listen, and here in our native land, maybe we’ll bury it. Tea, its own soul, Christian, although sold out.

Yes, I didn’t sell out, Gerasim Matveevich, I deceived them, the villains, I drove around on a curve, that’s the cross, - and he finally crossed himself, while looking not at the icon, but at the owner.

It was then that Panka was sent for the volost.

In short, in those troubled hours, when the army left Moscow and the enemy hesitated somewhere (Napoleon was waiting for the boyars with the keys to the city on Poklonnaya Hill), Fedka and some reckless company ended up in an empty abandoned tavern, quickly and He recovered from a complete loss of consciousness and human appearance and woke up only when, with gun butts hitting him in the ribs, they brought him to a man of clearly high, commanding appearance. Fedka, to his horror, realized that he was standing in front of a French general - as it turned out later, in front of the commandant of Moscow Milho himself.

With the general there was a non-French translator, and this circumstance saved Fedka, because, having heard the Russian words (he, in the presence of the general, asked: “Who sent you, you mug, to set fire?”), Tolstosumov, without even delving into the essence of the question, but only catching the corner of his consciousness on the familiar word “muzzle”, he began to speak frequently, looking hauntedly at the man in the embroidered gold uniform. (“Isn’t it Napoleon himself?” - a stupid thought flashed.) Confusedly, quickly and quite clearly, he outlined the beginning of his adventures, and what happened next - he couldn’t remember, no matter how hard he strained, he became timid, feeling like he was somewhere on his heels a chill from the inevitability of death seeps through.

The man who knew how to say “muzzle” so soulfully began to ask questions: what is the name? Where are you from? What does he do? The general became extremely interested in the area near Bogorodsk and then asked the names of the villages several times, then - here Fedka stood up on his bench and, looking trustingly at Kurin and Stulov, realizing that he was communicating something important, said in a whisper:

Then I saw how the general drew a line on the map from Moscow to Bogorodsk, but from Bogorodsk to Vokhnya and further somewhere, I did not see.

The interrogation lasted quite a long time, and in the end the general, through an interpreter, said:

We should, by order of His Imperial Majesty and the King, shoot you as an arsonist and a bandit. But you seem to be a man with a head. - Fedka involuntarily became dignified, glared at Kurin and Stulov, they were silent, looking at the earthen floor, and Tolstosumov withered his face and wilted. - In a word, they said that they were letting me go so that I could get to my home and tell my village peasants not to be afraid of us, we don’t consider them enemies. And also, he says, tell those owners in the volost who have bread and food to go to Moscow without fear, here the auctions will be open, they won’t offend anyone, but on the contrary, they will reward them.

When they were released, Fedka said, a poster, supposedly from Bonaparte’s order, was handed over for reading in the volost, but the French poster (here Fedka looked down) he... that... the French poster was used for business, but ours, on the contrary, he picked up and delivered. Hid it and delivered it.

Tolstosumov rummaged in his bosom and proudly laid out a sheet of paper folded several times. It was one of Rostopchin's leaflets. The count, who had boasted that the adversary could never see Moscow, was now turning with emotion to those very “robber villagers” whom, by their nature, an ardent serf-owner, he did not consider as people and had recently rudely and unfairly slandered.

“Peasants! Residents of the Moscow province!

The enemy of the human race, God’s punishment for our sins, a devilish obsession, an evil Frenchman entered Moscow, betrayed it to sword and flame... - Stulov read, hesitatingly, the count’s message - verbose, confused, noisy, from which only one thing was clear: you can take up arms and not show pity for the conqueror: - Wherever they come, throw them alive and dead into a deep grave... Don’t be timid, brave brothers... wherever you can nearby, exterminate the vile, unclean reptile bastard, and then go to Moscow Appear to the king and boast of your deeds. “He will restore you again,” the high-ranking Pharisee assured without a twinge of conscience, “again, and you will live happily as before.”

“Oh, it’s important, let’s cripple the adversary’s neck and live happily ever after,” Fedka began to make a habit of making fun of him, but Gerasim interrupted him gloomily:

Wait, I need to think about how to deal with you.

They judged and debated this way and that, discussing everything they had heard from Tolstosumov, and came to the following: about the Fedkins’ antics with the French, which happened as a result of his irresponsibility and headlessness (“You have to go crazy like that,” perplexed Kurin, who even on major holidays managed without intoxication. “It’s so free…” Stulov chuckled condescendingly, with understanding), “don’t report it in the village, keep it secret, so as not to confuse people’s minds.”

They won’t let you pass, they’ll harass you, or they might even make a decision,” Yegor remarked reasonably.

Popular rumors reported about such cases, when excited people dealt with enemy spies on the spot or those who were mistaken for such - the example of the kupchina in this sense is very typical. The news spread from mouth to mouth about the courageous act of the peasant of the Bronnitsky district, Nikita Makarov, who came to the main headquarters of the Russian army, ensured that he was heard on an important matter and conclusively exposed his master, the landowner Andrei Klyucharov, as a traitor and accomplice of enemy troops. And in one village near Moscow, the peasants mercilessly exterminated the merchants as traitors, because they, bowing to the promises of Bonaparte, collected a grain train for trade with the enemy.

The main thing that the participants in the secret conversation took away from Fedka Tolstosumov’s story and what alarmed them most was that they should expect the enemy in Vokhnya. The map with the line from the capital to Bogorodsk and beyond left no doubt about this.

Several days passed in a state of uncertainty and anxiety, and since news of robberies and violence in the vicinity of Moscow became increasingly clear and terrifying, they decided to convene a village gathering. And again - it was September 23 - the big bell began to ring.

They came not only from their own people, but also from the nearest villages - Gribovo, Bolshiye Dvory, Nazarovo, Subbotino, Nasyrovo, and from distant settlements. The spacious market square did not accommodate everyone, and people crowded on the descent to the Vokhna River, not expecting that it was in this place, on the banks of a narrow river, that they would have to fight a bloody battle.

The volost mayor Yegor Semenovich Stulov stood on the cart in the center of the square, towering above everyone. He was nervous, and the speaker was so-so, he spoke about misfortunes and troubles and that the whole world must rise up and resist, relying on God and the Tsar-Father...

How to resist? - the neighbors shouted, those who stood by the cart and heard the volost. - Will you teach me what to do, how to do it?

Yegor became confused and fell silent, an incredible silence settled in the crowded square, only the distant ones, on the banks of the Vokhnya, hummed muffledly, like bees in a hive. And suddenly the crowd moved and came to life, seeing how Kurin easily and quickly climbed onto the cart. Taking off his hat, Gerasim bowed to the people on three sides and straightened up - tall (the squat Stulov was on his shoulder), confident, and immediately, if not realized, then somehow felt that behind his broad back was not only the burned-out Moscow - the whole of vast Russia.

Dear friends and brothers! Orthodox peasants of the Russian faith! The villain and adversary is burning and destroying Moscow, robbing and killing our brothers, and tomorrow he may even reach us. Shall we wait in obedience, like lambs before the slaughter? I don’t have my consent for this! We must fight the adversary or die!

It’s painful to fight with women and children! - a young ringing voice broke through.

“First of all, we will protect women, children and old people,” Kurin responded vividly to the voice. - As quickly as possible and as much as possible, we need to forge and heat pikes, knives, sharpen axes and scythes, so that everyone has some kind of protection. We will fortify the village, make ambushes, set up guards on the roads so that the enemy does not take us by surprise, like a cunning fox of sleepy chickens on a roost. Our brothers, both near Moscow and in the Smolensk and Kaluga provinces, boldly lay down their bellies and destroy the enemy a lot.

And where did it come from? There had never been a case before when Kurin spoke. He didn’t go into his pocket for a word, he loved to talk about everyday things, everyday things, but for words to come out of his chest in such a way, in front of people, as easily as breathing, was a wonder for Gerasim himself. Naturally, as if he had been thinking about everything that was to come for a long time and in detail, he spoke about specific matters that needed to be taken urgently.

When the approving noise died down, Stulov took half a step forward and confidently smoothed his red beard.

Dear friends! - involuntarily imitating Kurin, he shouted so that it came out louder. “We have a brave and difficult task ahead of us if we rise up against the villain.” And in order to organize ourselves correctly and act in the future in accordance with the common interests, we need to name a person responsible for this important matter, who will provide it with himself. Whatever you decide now, friends, so be it.

The head stepped back and lowered his head modestly. The reflection did not last long, the square shook, and as if at someone’s prompting, everyone shouted in one multi-voiced cry:

Chicken! Chicken! Chicken!

The decision of the gathering was unexpected not only for Stulov. Indeed, here he is, Yegor Semenovich, the volost mayor, about whom, despite his special position, no one will say a bad word. Why not a leader? Pavlovsk residents also took part in the gathering, to whose surnames the word “respected” is always added - the Urusovs, Labzins, Shchepetilnikovs and other strong and active owners, known not only in the volost and district, but even in Mother Moscow.

Of course, they direct their resourceful activities more towards personal interests, but they do not shy away from community needs and affairs. It is through their efforts that Pavlovo is growing, becoming richer, and there is hope that the village will receive the status of a posad. How close around you will you find such a richly decorated church, such noble icons, expensive frames - they all donate. And the respected owners themselves - sedate, pious, do not disdain the common people; during the prayer service, they sing passionately, until tears flow in streams down their thick beards, with the sextons in the church choir. And come on, a simple man was named leader, and with such overwhelming approval.

In a moment of danger, the subtle instinct of the people suggested who they could entrust their fate to, and the choice of the Pavlovians turned out to be correct and unmistakable. Gerasim’s excited speech at the gathering, addressed to the patriotic feelings of his fellow countrymen, certainly played the role of a kind of incendiary spark. The decisive circumstance was that, unlike others, Kurin somehow knew what needed to be done at the moment, and everyone felt it.

A hundred years later, in 1912, the historian noted, without hiding his surprise, that the peasant Kurin “ruled with a deep understanding of military affairs several thousand villagers, whom he skillfully led even (how eloquently is this ‘even’!) into offensive battles...”

In the summer of 1820, the military historian Major General A.I. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky passed through Pavlovo, preparing a voluminous chronicle of the Napoleonic invasion. He questioned the residents for a long time and in detail about the details of their courageous resistance to the conquerors and, presumably, interested and inspired by what he heard, he proposed (in the mouth of his Excellency the proposal was regarded as an order) to describe in writing and in detail the creation of a partisan detachment in the volost and the most striking episodes of its military activity.

No matter how naive the historian’s wish may seem to the illiterate peasants - to present everything as it was, the document entitled “Description of the military operations of the partisan detachment of peasants of the Vokhno vol. Bogorodsky district, Moscow province. under the leadership of Gerasim Kurin” was compiled and, no less surprisingly, has survived to this day. The even lines of the manuscript, the curly capital letters, and generally this kind of calligraphic dashing indicate an experienced clerk's hand, most likely setting out the text under dictation.

The accompanying letter, signed by Kurin, says: “And that you deigned to give me orders on your journey so that I could describe in detail the former battle in the village. Vokhne, then I have fulfilled it and leave it to your Excellency.”

With the care of a scientist, the historian made a note on the first page of the manuscript - diagonally, as resolutions are written on incoming documents: “I received these papers from the peasants of the Vokhno volost Kurin and Stulov, who armed themselves in 1812 against the enemies and received the Crosses of St. George.”

The notes of the former partisans received by the general can with good reason be attributed to the genre of peculiar peasant “memoirs”, the only document of this kind, as far as is known, preserved from the time of the Patriotic War - memoirs were written mainly by nobles, at least by educated people. And so the author or authors of the “memoirs” considered it necessary to specifically explain the glaring contradiction with the choice of the detachment leader.

“We decided to choose for ourselves (at the meeting - Ed.) chief and ruler. But as in this s. Pavlov and Vokhna, too, having noticed the peasant Gerasim Matveev Kurin, because in all matters between peasants he had particular agility, courage and courage, they hoped that in this case he would succeed. Gerasim Kurin, entering into this unexpected position for him, had the most cheerful spirit and courage, and the fire of love for the fatherland sparkled in his eyes.”

There were about two hundred volunteer warriors, those who were ready to fight the enemy or die, and Panka Kurinsky and his friend Mitya, a village orphan, categorically refused to be buried in the forest. Kurin did not insist, he understood that they would need boys - fleet-footed, brave and daring, like little devils. The first order of the “chief and overlord”: collect any weapons - pitchforks, scythes, tirelessly forge pikes. They set up pickets, appointed guards with instructions - to be on duty, taking turns, day and night, without closing their eyes. At the signal of the bell, all soldiers, except the sentinels, must gather at the fairground.

Unexpectedly, when they collected simple household belongings and settled the issue with Panka, to the delight of the latter, Matvey Kurin became stubborn, refusing to take refuge in a forest camp with women, old people and children.

The people gave you great power, but as far as I am concerned, you are not a pointer,” the old man was angry. - It’s destined - here, in my home, I will accept death.

Gerasim backed down and did not argue - you cannot over-obstinate your father, and it is not customary to go against your father’s will.

Stulov was inspired by the idea of ​​assembling a cavalry detachment, albeit a small one at first. Gerasim himself felt, although he did not show it, some awkwardness after going before the volost head and willingly supported him in such a necessary matter. Egor talked with wealthy owners to temporarily borrow some of the horses, and no one refused. Moreover, they gave the community extra carts for bread, which was transported to the forest for safekeeping. Stulov noticed, however, that the best horses remained in the owner’s stables - they came in handy when, with the outbreak of hostilities, many “respected” hastily rode away under the protection of Prince Golitsyn.

Another stubborn person emerged - grandfather Antip Zvonov. He was already well over sixty, and, like Matvey Kurin, he flatly refused to go into the forest. Both women, old people, and children were glad to help in any way in the common struggle against the conquerors, and such an unquenchable flame of hatred burned in their hearts that death on the threshold of a house or in battle was perceived by the same grandfather Antipus as a holy and natural thing. Because for our native land.

Stulov assigned his grandfather to the cavalry business - to look after the horses. Yegor selected about fifty boys and men who could ride decently on a horse's back without a saddle, and for the amusement of everyone who wanted to watch, he forced them to master the only available combat technique - piercing an imaginary enemy with a pike while galloping. As if the Pavlovians had the honor of fighting in one of the medieval knightly tournaments. What could be done: none of the cavalrymen had a real saber before the first battle.

The thought of the first battle worried Kurin; a doubt crept into his mind: would the peasants, who had never smelled gunpowder, run away at the first shot? How to fight, what line of battle to choose? And he, without getting tired, admonished: the main thing is not to hesitate after the command, in unison and boldly, without hiding behind your backs, to strike everyone at once suddenly and stand firm in the fight.

That ferocious cry with which they attacked the enemy in the first skirmish was probably still imagined for a long time by the scouts-foragers who barely escaped with their feet.

Rumors about the brave actions of the Vokhno partisans, not allowing the adversary to go down, excited the area. After the battle in Subbotin and especially the massacre carried out by punitive forces in the burned Stepurin, the detachment almost tripled in one day, Pavlovo and the surrounding area were buzzing with crowds, as on the days of a large annual fair.

New arrivals from distant villages asked with greedy interest about the battles, and Pavlovsky, not considering it shameful to add (in order to inspire the newcomers, they justified the involuntary boast), colorfully described the details of the battles, emphasizing the fact that the Frenchman, it turns out, if you really scare him, runs and runs some more; they boasted of trophies: some with a saber, some with a helmet, and some with luck - and a gun.

At the height of the general merriment, the bell rang. The Pavlovskys knew that the alarm bell was a signal of alarm and immediate gathering in the square. At the first strikes of the bell, the newcomers (fear, as we know, have big eyes) rushed, dragging the soldiers of the detachment along with them, in the opposite direction from the square, downhill to the Vokhna River, behind which the saving forest could be seen, but then a cavalcade of horses flew into the square. led by Kurin, who returned from Intercession from Prince Golitsyn.

The partisans, having recognized their leader, perked up and hurried to return to the gathering place, followed by the recruits, embarrassed and looking warily at the excited and, as it seemed to them, formidable and angry leader Vokhni.

At the entrance, the guards managed to inform Kurin on what occasion the alarm sounded - the village of Nazarovo was occupied by a relatively small detachment of foragers. Kurin respectfully addressed the Cossack constable - what would be his decision? He responded casually:

What's the solution? We will strike and sweep away.

Immediately, however, it became clear that the constable did not mean a rapid cavalry attack (there were not enough forces - twenty Pokrovsk Cossacks), but a general onslaught. So they set off in a crowd, on foot and on horseback, fortunately the forest road made it possible to approach secretly. The military commander’s self-confidence embarrassed Kurin, he did not give any additional orders, and as a result, the simple plan fell through for a simple reason. The newcomers, seeing the enemy from afar, raised a hubbub and ran towards the village, several rifle shots cracked from our side, obviously safe and useless at such a distance, the Cossacks hurried to turn into an attacking chain, and all this premature fuss was enough for the French to appreciate situation, turned their horses and galloped away.

The sergeant, realizing the pointlessness of the pursuit, stopped the Cossacks, but the newcomers, inspired by the sight of the fleeing enemy, rushed forward even more than before, flashing their bast shoes and shouting threats. The trophies included several abandoned carts with grain and ten horses.

The newly minted partisans returned in an unusually high and warlike mood. Kurin's soul warmed, because he understood that it was not military training, which does not exist and which is impossible to acquire in a few days, but dedication and reckless courage - their main advantage over the enemy.

That same evening at the French headquarters in Bogorodsk the conversation was about the unpleasant situation in the Vokhno volost. When they mentioned General Milhaud’s arrogant plan to subjugate the district, relying on local agents (this is Fedka Tolstosumov - agents!), Marshal Ney became gloomy, muttered something like “moron” or “bonvian” and changed the subject. Yes, Vokhnya or whatever her name is, is an unpleasant thorn, but the world did not converge like a wedge on one village. Their first priority is to collect as much food and fodder as possible, safely transporting the convoys to Moscow, which is blocked by militias, Cossacks and these frantic hordes of peasants. And the point is not in the order of the emperor, which the faithful Marshal Ney is ready to follow strictly. The experienced military leader understood that, in view of the approaching winter, what if it would be necessary to turn Moscow into winter quarters? - we are talking about the life and death of the “great army”.

A rumor spread among how the quartermaster Lesseps complained: “I have neither bread nor flour, and even less chickens and rams.” To which Napoleon seemed to answer: “The less bread, the more glory.” The aphorism is interesting, but Ney understood perfectly well that wit is a weak help to a hungry stomach. Even his battle-hardened warriors are noticeably losing their fighting spirit, as there is a lot of recent and sad evidence of this. The same Vokhnya or whatever her name is, damn it... They chopped up a combat foraging detachment like new recruits; as soon as we send a certain number of convoys, we will still have to teach this Russian-peasant gveril a lesson.

However, the partisans also understood well that food convoys were the same weapons. This was confirmed by the events that took place on September 29 in the village of Trubitsyno. Stulov's horsemen, who were on patrol in the vicinity of Pavlov, reported that a detachment of Frenchmen stopped for a short rest in Trubitsyno. The marauders captured rich booty: cattle and a flock of sheep, carts filled with food. There were about a hundred or a little more French, mounted and on foot.

By this time, something like an amateur headquarters had formed in the partisan detachment - Kurin, Stulov, Chushkin, Ivan Karpov from somewhere near Vladimir, who served with Shchepetilnikov for hire - Gerasim entrusted him with organizing guard duty - Fyodor Tolstosumov and some others who stood out for their organizational abilities and intelligence. It was they who discussed the information received from the patrolmen in the volost hut.

The foraging detachment, apparently, did not directly threaten the volost village today. Burdened with booty, they were in a hurry to get to Bogorodsk before dark without incident.

The fires are not lit, the horses have been given food and will probably be removed soon, the watchmen reported.

Kurin asked: what should I do? Skip? Don't get involved in a fight? The detachment is strong, the enemy is angry about the failures, they will fight hard - they cannot do without bloodshed. The “Military Council” was unanimous: to attack. Wherever the adversary appears, the land is ours, and he has no place on it - the consensus was reached.

There was no time to discuss the details of the upcoming matter; it was necessary to attack before the enemy lined up in a combat marching column, so Kurin set only one, but strict condition: to maintain secrecy and silence when approaching and to strike only when commanded.

It turned out as planned: the French, again taken by surprise by Kurin’s skillful actions, resisted desperately, and yet could not withstand the powerful onslaught and ran. The documentary report on the results of the battle in Trubitsyn says this: “The battle was strong, and the enemy, seeing the disproportion of their forces... retreated and the pursued were several miles away... The cattle were returned, we got 16 horses, 8 carts filled with grain as booty. 15 enemy people were killed, 4 people were wounded on our side, but there were no killed.”

Fedka Tolstosumov was among the wounded. The wound was light, a stray bullet made a hole in his protruding ear, and Fedka was furious and suffered not so much because of the pain, but because his appearance was spoiled. How now to appear in front of the girls, whom he almost convinced that he was fascinated by bullets?.. Grandfather Antip fussed over him, bandaging his head with a clean rag, and Fedka cursed godlessly and kept asking questions:

Grandfather Antip, do you think the ear will take root and not die?

God willing, it will take root,” Antip reassured him good-naturedly, “but what a beauty in your ear?”

It’s good for you to reason, grandfather, you’ve already shown off,” Fedka gritted his teeth and swore to take cruel revenge on the offenders.

“Well, we’ll take revenge,” the grandfather agreed. “All my life I’ve been showing off with my face to the ground, it drained all the strength of life from me, but I won’t allow strangers to trample it.” I’m ready to lay down the rest of my life for it right now. Wonderful, huh?

About the next victory, Kurin immediately sent a message to Pokrov with a horse-drawn “courier”, and Prince Golitsyn included in the report to Kutuzov information about the grain train captured in the Vokhno volost. In those days, at the main headquarters, and especially at court, every news of even modest success was received with increased attention, and the prince did not skimp on reports.

Kurin ordered that the grain be taken to the community cache - then, when the war subsides, we will deal with it fairly. Nobody objected, only one little man in a thin Armenian from a distant village complained:

What a wealth, huh? - he said, affectionately stroking the tight sacks of grain. - And we had bread that was handed over for taxes, that the Miroders robbed, well, they swept it clean... Now we are picking up the gathering, and what’s left of it - tops, some turnips, the women add to the stew. In winter, tea, we will disappear...

“The war will end, maybe life will go differently,” Kurin said without much confidence and hurried to the square - judging by the multi-voiced hubbub, new people had arrived. By evening, the Pavlovsk partisans, who already possessed some organizational skills, managed to unite those who had arrived into detachments and placed them in the village and its environs under the canopy of tented pine trees. Under Kurin's command there were now more than five thousand foot and five hundred Stulov's cavalry. Army!

It was the sixth day of the war against the invading troops of Ney. On October 30, they defeated, partly exterminating and putting the rest to flight, a detachment of foragers in the village of Nasyrovo. And this was the last straw that overflowed the patience of the command of the expeditionary force. Ney ordered to crush the nest of resistance, to shoot the captured leaders without exception, and to raze the village to the ground.

Scouts sent in the morning near Bogorodsk under the leadership of Fedka Tolstosumov, who, after an offensive wound, was burning with the desire to fight eye to eye with the enemy, returned with the news that Kurin was anxiously awaiting: troops were marching towards Vokhni. According to the intelligence officers, the enemy should have been expected tomorrow morning.

Until late at night, Kurin was in active troubles, which included, as the military would say, the most thorough reconnaissance of the area. It is clear that the partisan leader did not know and had never heard of such words, just as the patrolmen, climbing tall trees to observe, did not suspect that this was exactly what they did in Suvorov’s army. As a result, the “military council” was offered a plan for the upcoming battle, thought out in detail, and “everyone unanimously,” as emphasized in the “Memoirs,” “praised his good intention.”

Kurin's plan proceeded from the fact that the battle would have to be fought in Vokhne-Pavlov itself, having here good opportunities for both defensive and offensive actions. In the village itself and its environs it was planned to hide the main part of the detachment, which would be led by Kurin himself. Stulov's cavalrymen had to advance towards the enemy, giving way to him, and hide in the forest, waiting for a signal to attack. The last and fairly reliable line of defense, according to Kurin’s plan, was located in the center of the village along the Vokhna River. During the attack, the French would have to go downhill to this river, ford it, falling under partisan bullets - the partisan strategist saw this undertaking as difficult to implement.

And only beyond the river - at a sufficient distance from it, behind another natural obstacle - the Yudinsky ravine, Kurin planned to deploy a large detachment of a thousand people under the command of Chushkin, who had proven himself well in previous battles. This decision was purely intuitive, according to the principle “God protects the best,” and Fedka Tolstosumov, who got involved in everything, did not fail to express bewilderment:

Why should they be hiding in observers at such a distance? To no avail? Let's let the villain into the village, the whole world will attack him, and then he will die.

The decision really seemed to suggest itself - the whole world would be more convenient, but Fedka was quickly calmed down, approving Kurin’s plan. As noted in the “Memoirs,” “the warriors, knowing his actions, courage and bravery, who had previously fought successfully everywhere on his orders, and then they said that we agree to everything.” Ultimately, it was Ivan Yakovlevich Chushkin’s thousand that decided the outcome of the battle.

Early in the morning, having gathered a large assembly of his “neighboring and subordinate peasants,” Kurin made a short speech:

The enemy threatens to set our village on fire, and take us captive and skin us alive. Because we repeatedly resisted him in battle. So let us try, friends, for the fatherland and for the house of the Most Holy Theotokos.

On October 1, the feast of the Intercession of the Intercessor Mother of God, a divine liturgy was served in the church. The usually good-natured and peace-loving Father Seraphim, this time, while delivering a sermon, burned with anger and asked Almighty God to send punishment to the Antichrist. After a general prayer service, everyone said goodbye “to each other and prepared for battle and... had spirit... encouraged by their boss Kurin, and swore before the altar not to betray each other until the last drop of blood” (“Memoirs”).

Finally, at two o'clock in the afternoon, the enemy came out from behind the forest. It is extremely interesting that the French deployed their battle formations in approximately the same way as Kurin, with both sides being cunning, hoping to lure the enemy into a disastrous trap.

The main forces of the punitive forces were located secretly in a forest near the nearest village of Gribovo, and the partisans overlooked this concentration. Meanwhile, two squadrons moved towards Pavlov. A little short of reaching the village, one stopped in an area called a run, and the second cautiously entered the village and settled down in the square. Through an interpreter they began to loudly call the head or the headman.

It was necessary to give the command for battle. And then Kurin was pushed to an unexpected decision, either by reckless recklessness or by risky mischief. After hesitating for a moment, he called two peasants, and they, as if in a peaceful delegation, headed towards the squadron. At the last second, Panka willfully joined them and it turned out very well - the boy’s presence probably immediately calmed the enemy, who had also started a rather risky game.

There is no headman, no people, everyone ran into the forest. “We were scared,” Kurin said, approaching.

Why be afraid, we are not bandits,” the translator supported the diplomatic conversation. - In your village, we know that people are smart, commercial, we can offer profitable deals. Call your bosses.

“However, the brave scoundrels,” thought Kurin, “want to capture the leaders without any hassle... If only they knew that the main one is standing in front of them.”

Why do you need bosses?

We wanted to negotiate and trade. We need flour, oats, cereals and other things, and for it we will pay well, as much as you like, in Russian money.

Napoleon, by the way, also ordered the soldiers to be paid with fake Russian banknotes, printed in France on the eve of the campaign, so the foragers did not need money.

Gerasim, maintaining a friendly face, feigned extreme interest, bowed and said sedately, imitating a merchant asking the price at an auction:

There is bread, and oats, and so on. Wow, we keep community supplies in the peasant yard. That's where we'll go. What will the price be?

The translator perked up:

Let's look at the goods, your bosses will come out, we'll negotiate, and then... what do you say? - and we’ll shake hands.

Well, if that’s the case...” Kurin agreed and quietly looked around to see if anyone, God forbid, had gotten out into the enemy’s sight? - Well, if that’s the case, let’s go to the courtyard, maybe we’ll bargain, maybe we’ll hit.

The translator mumbled something with his hand, the tension visibly subsided, fifteen or twenty people dismounted, clanking their sabers. While negotiations were going on between the French, Kurin managed to whisper to Panka: “Run to Uncle Yegor, tell him to hit those on the run,” he turned and with an even, calm step led the French into the trap.

As soon as the cavalrymen turned into the nearest alley, they were immediately surrounded and crushed, those in the square were targeted with rifles and quickly rushed into hand-to-hand combat. The deserted square was filled with people in an instant.

Some of the cavalrymen nevertheless escaped from the jam and galloped to the run, where the second squadron was anxiously bustling around.

Chase the villain, don't let him come to his senses! - Kurin commanded and encouraged. He was already on his mare, a bloody saber in his hands. Without being late or hesitating, Stulov’s cavalry struck the second squadron, completing the rout.

Excited by the battle and luck, the partisans literally flew into Gribovo on the shoulders of those escaping and came face to face with the main and quite numerous forces of the French. This, apparently, was the tactical plan - to lure them into a trap, although it was hardly intended to sacrifice almost two squadrons.

The sight of the troops lined up in battle formations confused the peasants. Stulov’s detachment was the first to come under targeted fire, several people fell dead. The volley rang out again. The partisans backed away, turned around, and began to flee.

Now the French gave chase. Near the Vokhni River, at that pre-planned defensive line, Kurin and Stulov, rushing on horseback among the fleeing, managed to stop part of the detachment; the riflemen met their pursuers with rare but noticeable shots. However, in open battle the advantage of the regular units over the peasants crowding in disarray very soon became evident. Several clear and swift maneuvers on the flanks, and the French, not embarrassed by the narrow Vokhnya, which they easily crossed, almost closed the ring. An inevitable and imminent reprisal was brewing.

Stulov managed to gather at least two hundred horsemen around him, and Gerasim, realizing that delay was death! - ordered: “Egor, let’s break through to Yudinsky’s enemy. - And with all the power of his lungs, so that as many partisans as possible could hear him, he shouted. - For a breakthrough! To Yudinsky's enemy! To Chushkin!

A simple and life-saving command - where to run, immediately brought most of the people paralyzed by fear to their senses, the thin chains that closed the encirclement ring were instantly overturned in a narrow area, and the flight to the ravine began. Either the French did not want to come to terms with such an unexpectedly eluded victory, or they were enraged by the sight of the village square strewn with the corpses of their comrades, but they, breaking up their ranks, rushed in pursuit.

The partisans sitting in ambush under Chushkin’s command watched with obvious approval the rapid run of their comrades, since they took this maneuver not for forced flight, but for Kurin’s previously envisaged plan, and therefore at the right moment, with a light heart, without fear, the entire thousandth mass fell on the substituted the enemy flank, and the fate of the battle, as happens in such cases, was instantly and finally decided.

The “memoirist” summarizes: “The enemy was thrown into disarray by Chushkin’s unexpected invasion, took to flight and was driven 8 miles away by Kurin, Stulov and Chushkin and was saved by the darkness of the night from complete defeat, hiding in the forests... Our invincible hero Gerasim Kurin was successful in all these battles He commanded everywhere himself, and in the last battle of October 1st, he personally separated the head from the shoulders of one French army officer and pierced two privates in the chest with a lance. In all these seven days, eight people died from his timid hand, for he was armed on horseback with a saber, a pike and two pistols. On our side, 12 people were killed and 20 wounded.” Ney, having received Napoleon's order to withdraw his troops to Moscow, retreated so quickly that when, after the general battle of Vokhnensky, Kurin's detachment broke into Bogorodsk the next day, his dashing and tasteful partisans were quite surprised by the complete absence of the enemy. The incensed Fedka Tolstosumov rushed through the streets and alleys shouting: “Where is the adversary, where is the villain?”, and fervently encouraged Kurin to go straight to Moscow and strike at Bonaparte himself. In addition to the understandable hatred of the enemy, he was also burned with resentment for the awkward wound (his ear hung like a dried mushroom) and for the fear and humiliation suffered in captivity.

The events of those days are reflected in the song that circulated in the area after the war:

And Vokhny Sotsky Chushkin
He knocked out three guns at once,
And Mikhailov with Obraztsov
Didn't waste words
I called the alarm bell on everyone
And captured the uhlans
Like heroes, all peasants
Inflicted flaws on the enemy.
His Serene Highness gave them as a reward
Cross and a hundred rubles butt.

Little is known about the subsequent life of Gerasim Kurin and his military associates. In the official report about the “brave and commendable actions of the villagers of the Moscow province, who unanimously and courageously took up arms in entire villages against the parties sent from the enemy to rob and incite parties,” it was indicated that “the commanding people mentioned in it were most highly ordered to be distinguished with the Cross of St. George.”

Among those “mentioned therein” were Kurin and Stulov. They were presented with awards in May 1813 in Moscow. At the same time, apparently, a portrait of Kurin was painted by the battle painter A. Smirnov.

Kurin and Stulov were also given the title of “honorary citizen”, given to merchants of the first and second guilds, artists and employees - not from the nobility. It is unknown which of the listed classes they were assigned to; in any case, neither Kurin nor the unlucky and brave Fyodor Tolstosumov became moneybags.

The historian Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, who came to Pavlovo, was probably guided by the best intentions, collecting materials on the spot from eyewitnesses and participants in the events. However, we will search in vain in his extensive four-volume “Description of the Patriotic War of 1812” for details of the courageous battle of the Vokhno peasants with Ney’s cohorts, as well as the names of the peasants themselves. Of all the heroes who emerged from the people, only Vasilisa Kozhina, the famous elder from the farm of Gorshkov, Smolensk province, is named.

Realizing that he would cause a condescending smile from the chief censor and reader - the Tsar, the historian writes with obvious irony that among the rural “Amazons”, the elder Vasilisa, a stout woman with a long French saber hung over her shoulder, became more famous than others for her fierceness against the enemy. French overcoat." Indeed, a comical picture: a portly woman with a long saber over her shoulder. The “Description” speaks about the rest in general and impersonal terms: heroes, brave men, people.

Thousands fell nameless, but even they, according to the poet, dead and voiceless, had one consolation - that the Motherland was saved. “The earth has sucked all the forces of life out of me, but I won’t allow strangers to trample it,” said an old peasant from Gerasim Kurin’s detachment who had worked hard all his life. What led them to the mortal and just battle, even those oppressed and disadvantaged, was the holy feeling of love for the Motherland, for the land of their fathers and grandfathers.

Avdonina Maria, 6 "B" MBOU Secondary School No. 21

The War of 1812 caused the highest patriotic fervor. The War of 1812 caused the highest patriotic upsurge not only in the army, but throughout the entire people and became the Patriotic War.

Along with the detachments allocated from army units by Kutuzov to wage a partisan “small” war, many peasants took part in the actions against the French. The leader of one of the largest peasant detachments was a serf peasant from the village of Pavlovo, Bogorodsky district (now the Noginsk district of the Moscow region) Gerasim Kurin. At the head of five thousand foot and five hundred mounted partisans, he fought with the French, captured convoys with weapons and food. This was an upsurge not only in the army, but throughout the entire people and became the Patriotic War.

Along with the detachments allocated from army units by Kutuzov to wage a partisan “small” war, many peasants took part in the actions against the French. The leader of one of the largest peasant detachments was a serf peasant from the village of Pavlovo, Bogorodsky district (now the Noginsk district of the Moscow region) Gerasim Kurin. At the head of five thousand foot and five hundred mounted partisans, he fought with the French and captured convoys with weapons and food.

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Heroes of the Russian land... “It’s not for nothing that all Russia remembers...” Gerasim Matveevich Kurin (1777 - June 2, 1850) Completed by a 6th grade student. “B” MBOU Secondary School No. 21, Noginsk Avdonina Maria

The sound of a military trumpet rang out, The thunder of war thundered through the storms: The people, drunk with debauchery, Threaten us with slavery and the yoke! Should we now sleep in peace, loyal sons of Russia?! Let's go, let's close ranks in military formation, Let's go - and in the horrors of war, for Friends, for the Fatherland, for the people, We will find glory and freedom, Or we will all fall in our native fields! (F. Glinka. “War song written during the enemy’s approach to the Smolensk province”)

The War of 1812 caused the highest patriotic upsurge not only in the army, but also among the entire people and became the Patriotic War. Along with the detachments allocated from army units by Kutuzov to wage a partisan “small” war, many peasants took part in the actions against the French. The leader of one of the largest peasant detachments was a serf peasant from the village of Pavlovo, Bogorodsky district (now the Noginsk district of the Moscow region) Gerasim Kurin. At the head of five thousand foot and five hundred mounted partisans, he fought with the French and captured convoys with weapons and food. For his heroic deeds in the War of 1812, Gerasim Kurin was awarded the soldier's St. George's Cross and the medal "For Participation in the Patriotic War of 1812." He died in 1850 at the age of 73 in the village of Pavlovo.

14 thousand infantry and cavalry with artillery batteries were at the disposal of Marshal Ney. Foraging detachments covered the entire district with a center in Borovsk, where Ney made his residence. One of the detachments on September 25, 1812 headed to the village of Bolshoy Dvor. Let's look at the events of that time...

When the French, already anticipating a long rest and hot soup, approached the peasant huts, a crowd rushed towards them with shouts, armed with everything that could be found in a peasant yard. It was led by Kurin. His comrades, wanting to scare the enemy with noise and cheer themselves up, rushed loudly straight towards the foragers. Somehow, unexpectedly for themselves, and even more so for the commanders, they began to move back - back from the crowd rushing in with the unbearable brilliance of their scythes, and suddenly, in an instant, the road in front of the Kurites appeared clear - the French rushed into the pine forest adjacent to the road. In a hurry, they threw away the charges and guns. There were ten guns - the beginning of the detachment was made, the baptism of fire was completed.

And on September 27, a real battle between the partisan detachment and the enemy took place. Yegor Stulov, Kurin’s right hand, drove the enemy away from the village of Subbotino...

On September 30, the French were defeated near the village of Nasyrovo, and then the enraged Ney sent regular troops against Vokhni... In the very first alley, part of the squadron that followed the men was crushed in hand-to-hand combat and stabbed to pieces. They fired several aimed volleys at those remaining in the square, and only then they attacked from all sides, completing the rout...

The French were driven eight miles until nightfall. The partisans captured 20 carts, 40 horses, 85 rifles, 120 pistols, 400 bags of ammunition. Ney's troops lost several hundred people killed - Kurin himself personally killed an officer and two soldiers in this battle. The peasants lost 12 killed and 20 wounded.

The enemy was repulsed, and the peasants returned to peaceful life. Soon, in an official report about the “brave and commendable actions of the villagers of the Moscow province, who unanimously and courageously took up arms in entire villages against the parties sent from the enemy to rob and incite parties,” it was indicated that “the commanding people mentioned in it were ordered to be distinguished with the Cross of St. George.” Kurin and Stulov were also on this list. They were awarded the awards in May 1813 in Moscow.

Gerasim Kurin was a man of personal charm and quick intelligence, an outstanding commander of the peasant uprising.

Fellow countrymen respect the memory of the national hero: the names of streets in Pavlovsky Posad and Moscow are named after Gerasim Kurin...

On July 7, 1967, in a picturesque clearing of the Yamsky forest, not far from the village of Uspenskoye, on the section of the Vladimirsky tract from Bogorodsk to Pavlovsky Posad, an obelisk was erected in honor of Gerasim Kurin and the partisans of the Patriotic War of 1812...

In these places, the French troops of Marshal Ney, one of the famous commanders of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, suffered losses from the militia, which was led by the peasant of Bogorodsky district Gerasim Kurin.

The opening of the memorial obelisk to the 1812 partisans was attended by residents of Noginsk, Elektrostal, Pavlovsky Posad, and nearby villages. Kurin's pedigree descendants still live in the village of Uspenskoye.

Russia's victory over Napoleon, unconditional and brilliant, shocked the minds of the whole world and brought joy to the European peoples enslaved by Napoleon. The Russian people and army in 1812 inflicted a mortal defeat on the most powerful aggressive Napoleonic army at that time. The victory of Russia is not just a miracle, an expression of the unyielding will and boundless determination of all the peoples of Russia who rose up in the Patriotic War in 1812 in defense of the national independence of their homeland. Conclusion…

No, my Moscow did not go to him with a guilty head. Not a holiday, not a receiving gift, She was preparing a fire for the impatient hero... (Pushkin).

Gerasim Matveevich Kurin (1777 - June 2, 1850) - leader of a peasant partisan detachment that operated during the Patriotic War of 1812 in the Vokhonsky volost (the area of ​​​​the present city of Pavlovsky Posad, Moscow region).

Thanks to the historian Alexander Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, wide public attention was attracted to Kurin’s detachment. He was awarded the St. George Cross, first class.

A street in Moscow was named after Gerasim Kurin in 1962.

Monument to the famous partisan of 1812 Gerasim Kurin. It is located behind Vokhna, opposite the bell tower of the Resurrection Cathedral. Here, under his leadership, the largest partisan formation in Russia was created. Untrained, almost unarmed peasants were able not only to resist the selected dragoons of Marshal Ney, but also to become winners in this confrontation... Near the village of Bolshoy Dvor, one of the French detachments clashed with local residents. In a short skirmish that ended with the flight of the confused enemy, the peasants acquired not only captured weapons, but also confidence in their abilities. The peasant partisans fought continuously for seven days. But there were losses, there were victories. Kurin's detachment, which initially consisted of two hundred people, after 5-6 days numbered almost 5-6 thousand, of which almost 500 were mounted and all were local. The short guerrilla war, just a week, brought significant damage. The partisans managed to block the path to Vladimir, and it is still unknown where Marshal Ney’s military career would have ended if he had not missed the Kuro partisans, who entered Bogorodsk immediately after the French retreat, in just a few hours. This event took place on October 1 (14), on the Intercession of the Virgin Mary.

Gerasim Kurin was a man of personal charm and quick intelligence, an outstanding commander of the peasant uprising. And - most importantly - for some reason everyone obeyed him, although he was almost a serf. (Although this is strange, because in the village of Pavlovskoye, it seems, there were no serfs).

Nadezhda Durova

Biography

Nademzhda Andremevna Dumrova (also known as Aleksamndra Andremevich Aleksamndrov; September 17, 1783 - March 21 (April 2), 1866) was the first female officer in the Russian army (known as a cavalry maiden) and writer. Nadezhda Durova served as the prototype for Shurochka Azarova, the heroine of Alexander Gladkov’s play “A Long Time Ago” and Eldar Ryazanov’s film “The Hussar Ballad.”

Born on September 17, 1783 (and not in 1789 or 1790, which is usually indicated by her biographers, based on her “Notes”) from the marriage of the hussar captain Durov with the daughter of the Little Russian landowner Alexandrovich, who married him against the will of her parents. The Durovs from the first days had to lead a wandering regimental life. The mother, who passionately wanted to have a son, hated her daughter, and the latter’s upbringing was almost entirely entrusted to Hussar Astakhov. “The saddle,” says Durova, “was my first cradle; horse, weapons and regimental music are the first children's toys and amusements.” In such an environment, the child grew up to the age of 5 and acquired the habits and inclinations of a playful boy. In 1789, his father entered the city of Sarapul, Vyatka province, as a mayor. Her mother began to teach her to do needlework and housekeeping, but her daughter did not like either one or the other, and she secretly continued to do “military things.” When she grew up, her father gave her a Circassian horse, Alcis, riding which soon became her favorite pastime.

At the age of eighteen she was married off, and a year later her son was born (this is not mentioned in Durova’s “Notes”). Thus, by the time of her military service, she was not a “maid,” but a wife and mother. The silence about this is probably due to the desire to stylize oneself as a mythologized image of a warrior maiden (such as Pallas Athena or Joan of Arc).

She became close to the captain of the Cossack detachment stationed in Sarapul; Family troubles arose, and she decided to fulfill her long-standing dream - to enter military service.

Taking advantage of the departure of the detachment on a campaign in 1806, she changed into a Cossack dress and rode on her Alkida behind the detachment. Having caught up with him, she identified herself as Alexander Durov, the son of a landowner, received permission to follow the Cossacks and in Grodno entered the Horse-Polish Uhlan Regiment.

She took part in the battles of Gutshadt, Heilsberg, Friedland, and showed courage everywhere. For saving a wounded officer in the midst of a battle, she was awarded the soldier's St. George's Cross and promoted to officer with transfer to the Mariupol Hussar Regiment.

At the request of her father, to whom Durova wrote about her fate, an investigation was carried out, in connection with which Alexander I wished to see Sokolov. The Emperor, struck by the woman’s selfless desire to serve her homeland in the military field, allowed her to remain in the army with the rank of cornet of the hussar regiment under the name Alexandrov Alexander Andreevich derived from his own, and also contact him with requests.

Soon after this, Durova went to Sarapul to visit her father, lived there for more than two years, and at the beginning of 1811 she again reported to the regiment (Lithuanian Uhlans).

During the Patriotic War, she took part in the battles of Smolensk, the Kolotsky Monastery, and Borodino, where she was shell-shocked in the leg by a cannonball, and went to Sarapul for treatment. Later she was promoted to the rank of lieutenant and served as an orderly under Kutuzov.

In May 1813, she again appeared in the active army and took part in the war for the liberation of Germany, distinguishing herself during the blockade of the Modlin fortress and the cities of Hamburg and Harburg.

Only in 1816, yielding to her father’s requests, she retired with the rank of headquarters captain and a pension and lived either in Sarapul or in Yelabuga. She always wore a man's suit, got angry when people addressed her as a woman, and was generally distinguished by great oddities, among other things - an extraordinary love for animals.

Literary activity

Her memoirs were published in Sovremennik, 1836, No. 2 (later included in her Notes). Pushkin became deeply interested in Durova’s personality, wrote laudatory, enthusiastic reviews about her on the pages of his magazine and encouraged her to become a writer. In the same year (1836) they appeared in 2 parts of “Notes” under the title “Cavalryman-Maiden”. An addition to them (“Notes”) was published in 1839. They were a great success, prompting Durova to write stories and novels. Since 1840, she began to publish her works in Sovremennik, Library for Reading, Otechestvennye Zapiski and other magazines; then they appeared separately (“Gudishki”, “Tales and Stories”, “Angle”, “Treasure”). In 1840, a collection of works was published in four volumes.

One of the main themes of her works is the emancipation of women, overcoming the difference between the social status of women and men. All of them were read at one time, even aroused praise from critics, but they have no literary significance and attract attention only with their simple and expressive language.

Durova spent the rest of her life in a small house in the city of Elabuga, surrounded only by her numerous dogs and cats she had once picked up. Nadezhda Andreevna died on March 21 (April 2), 1866 in Yelabuga, Vyatka province, at the age of 83. At burial she was given military honors.

Victor Sitnov

About Gerasim Kurin, partisan of 1812

From the book: Victor Sitnov. Vokhon region. Local history kaleidoscope. Issue No. 1. Pavlovsky Posad, 2005. Published in the author's edition at the expense of the author. Circulation 300 copies.

Truth and fiction about Gerasim Kurin

Local history analysis of the stories "Gerasim Kurin" by S. Golubov (1942) and "Gerasim Matveevich Kurin" by B. Chubar(1987).

Sometimes it happens that the creators of artistic and journalistic works, especially when fulfilling urgent social orders, do not have enough time to collect and analyze specific historical facts on the chosen topic. In such cases, writers make up for the lack of documentary “texture” and compensate for it with the old tried and tested method - artistic fiction.

And, we must agree, talented authors often produce works that are quite successful and bright from an artistic point of view. But this is for uninitiated readers. Historians and, in particular, local historians cannot be satisfied with fiction, distortion and falsification of real facts and events. It is important for them to restore historical truth (and justice), for which it is necessary to accurately “reconstruct” specific events and real facts in a specific historical space.

In this regard, when reflected in Soviet fiction, the heroes of the people's Vokhon militia in the Patriotic War of 1812 were clearly unlucky, i.e. to our famous fellow countrymen Gerasim Kurin, Yegor Stulov, Ivan Pushkin, who showed valor and patriotism in defending their native land from the Napoleonic army.

We are talking about a description of local events (September - October 1812) in the stories of S.N. Golubov "Gerasim Kurin" (M. Detgiz, 1942) and B. Chubara "Gerasim Matveevich Kurin" (Ser. ZhZL, M., "Young Guard", 1987).

We see that in both cases the works were created for the next “round dates” of the Patriotic War of 1812: the 130th anniversary and the 175th anniversary. There is no doubt that the publication of 1942 had a specific goal: the rise and activation of the national patriotic self-awareness of the Soviet people, the mobilization of all forces to save the homeland from the fascist invasion. The mobilizing and inspiring example of the heroic past was supposed to play a role in organizing the people's guerrilla war against the occupiers.

Without detracting from the artistic merits of these works, today we, as local historians, cannot agree with the incompetence and obvious ignorance of the authors in local historical, geographical, biographical and other documentary material. It seems that the writer S.N. Golubov (1894-1962) had at his disposal only the most general historical information about the local events of 1812 and, perhaps, did not even visit the scene, not to mention archival research.

Boris Chubar already had at his disposal a story by Golubov, a historical essay about Pavlovsky Posad by local historian S.N. Grabilin, published in the collection “Cities of the Moscow Region” (Moscow Worker Publishing House, 1980), brief references in popular science publications. It is possible that he bothered to visit the local history museum, but a whole “kaleidoscope” of historical, geographical, biographical errors and absurdities, carefully compensated for by artistic fiction, clearly indicate a lack of work with archival materials and a critical analysis of the previous fictional writings on a chosen topic. To the mistakes of S. Golubov, 45 years later, B. Chubar inadvertently added his own...

Restoring the truth (in our case, historical truth), we will try to separate documentary and fictional facts in the above-mentioned stories, and work on the obvious numerous errors. This is necessary and has practical meaning also because these stories of an artistic and journalistic nature are often recommended as sources of local history material for our schoolchildren. (See Local History Curriculum for Grades 1-9, published by the local education department in 1996.) In addition, fictitious and distorted facts, accepted at face value by our journalists and local historians, have been published and quoted in the press more than once, misleading inexperienced readers.

The first and fundamental mistake made by both authors is already in the very name of the area about which they undertook to write. Golubov, for example, managed to call our ancient Vokhonskaya volost Vokhtinskaya, or even simply Vokhta. Chubar already has Vokhnenskaya or Vokhnya parish. What is this dismissive "-nya"? Strange associations... At the same time, trying to quote scribe books of the 17th century from T. Troitsky’s brochure, he still stubbornly transfers the original name of the volost to Vokhnenskaya. He would now try to adjust, for example, the names of Russian capitals to his taste...

Of the huge number of names of local villages in the “Vokhtinskaya” volost, Golubov for some reason only uses three. This is Pavlovo, Melenki and some unknown to us Novy Dvor. Why did the writer not like our Big Yard? Unknown. The resourceful author calls all other local villages “other villages and settlements.” The French route has also been simplified to the limit: Bogorodsk - Novy Dvor - Melenki - Pavlovo. And what? For “middle-aged and older” kids it will do! Who will recheck the hundred-year history in 1942?..

The village of Pavlovo Golubov is surrounded on three sides by an impenetrable pine forest, leaving the peasants an outskirts to watch the fire of Moscow. How does he know that from time immemorial the large village was almost closely surrounded by small settlements and villages, which have now turned into township streets. And the Vokhonka River was the natural border of the village on the northern side. And the Moscow fire could only be observed at night from a high bell tower. And where could this Pavlovsk outskirts be?..

By the way, S. Golubov habitually located a shopping area near the church fence, not realizing that it was on another hill - across the river. One way or another, both authors gather a “village gathering” in the market square. At the same time, Chubar even today names the nearby villages Subbotino, Gribovo, Bolshie Dvory and even Nosyrevo as the closest villages to Pavlov, apparently having no idea about the half-dozen truly neighboring villages. The author's orientation on the terrain is very poor. For example, from Stepurin to neighboring Subbotino (less than a mile, - B . C . ) "at night I got rid of a lathered horse." Such a message can only cause an ironic smile among local residents...

You can also react to the original author’s interpretation of the historical name of the village: “... the center of the Vokhno volost is either Vokhnya or Pavlovo. In essence, this is the same thing. Vokhnya was called the Dmitrovsky churchyard, which grew up here back in the time when Ivan Ivan the Terrible transferred the lands of Volos to the patrimony of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra... Between Vokhnya and Pavlov... there was neither a clear boundary nor enmity..." With his invention "Vohnya" B. Chubar is of course free under copyright law , manipulate as you please. We will only note that the first churchyard arose on our land under Dmitry Donskoy, and under John IV, the Vokhonsky volost came into the possession of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, and not the Lavra. He received this title only in 1744.

Due to historical ignorance, the writer S. Golubov “gives” the Pavlovsk peasants into serfdom to a certain mythical and, apparently, therefore nameless gentleman, whose typical (fat-swollen) appearance, as well as his house, estate and garden with regular alleys, are described in some detail. Also shown are episodes of the master's flight from the French and his return six months later, when in a fit of anger he intends to flog all his peasants who "see, they raised an army... trampled the winter crops...".

The author, with his rather textbook artistic fiction, simply does not realize that peasants could be not only serfs, but also state, state-owned - “economic”. Such was the population of Pavlov and most of the nearby villages. Free people had something to protect. Mentioning the national hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, Gerasim Kurin, as a serf in various publications is a common, typical mistake.

With a gentleman in conflict with the peasants, running away from the French to the Volga, it turns out, of course, more colorful and familiar, but in our case this is a distortion of historical truth, leveling and possible loss of original, characteristic (and sometimes key) signs and features of specific events .

The author's passion for artistic fiction at the expense of historical truth leads to a distortion of the picture of the real life of the same Pavlovian peasants and in particular Kurin, who was never poor. But Golubov, observing the textbook stencil, writes out: “The Chickens had the most unenviable hut - made of thin wood, with a roof under the roof (thatched without external wooden fortifications), without a ridge; it was heated in black, lit by a torch in an old tin light; the walls are bare, the ceilings are low, the windows are tiny, with dull greenish glass..."

The writer clearly drew everything he wanted. But in this wretched kennel of a slave, the real merchant Gerasim Kurin would never have lived, and in fact did not live. At the end of his life, Kurin had the best on the trading area - a two-story house.

But writer S.N. Golubov knew none of this. He, funny as it may seem, did not even know the middle name of his main character. But Boris Chubar already knew and even emphasized this in the title of his story: “Gerasim Matveevich Kurin.” But this did not save him from a mass of mistakes and absurdities, as we will see later.

To show Kurin as a worthy successor to the patriotic traditions of his ancestors, the writer Golubov came up with corresponding biographies for him and his father “Pakhom Akimych”. Write like that! It turned out that the former grenadier Corporal Pakhom Kurin became famous in Suvorov’s campaigns, personally knew the General Lissimo and even kissed him. In addition, he walked in the same line with Kutuzov to take Ishmael! Pakhom tells Gerasim about this: “... And Kutuzov, Mikhail Larivonych? You should have seen how in the year seven hundred and ninety he led Ishmael to take us... Then his eye was knocked out, he fell dead, and he brought us to the fortress !" Moreover, Pakhom turned out to be exactly the heroic corporal who at that time “dragged His Serene Highness Prince Kutuzov, wounded, out of the fire.” However, Pakhom himself lost his legs... Therefore, just like that, he easily sends his son for advice and help to Kutuzov. And this vividly written (but not real) meeting takes place! Kutuzov inspires and blesses the partisan chieftain of the peasant squad and lends him twenty soldiers' muskets.

The second meeting of the distinguished Gerasim Kurin with Kutuzov is no less vividly and colorfully shown, when the field marshal personally hangs the St. George Cross on his chest! Alas, this meeting did not take place in reality. Kutuzov and Kurin never saw each other. But for the writer Golubov, ideological and artistic design (or fiction) is more important than historical truth. Moreover, if there are no archival documents at hand, and there are no judges either. There is only a social order and a brief (apparently extremely meager) historical background. And there is also the talent of a fiction writer...

Apparently, succumbing to the charm of this talent, the writer Boris Chubar, doing similar work 45 years later, accepted some of Golubov’s versions that he liked. Chubar especially liked the version about the heroic ancestor Kurin. Only the invented name Pakhom was replaced by the real one - Matvey. He, too, during the assault on Izmail, walked “in a column commanded by Kutuzov, ... but already on the wall itself, Matvey’s legs were mutilated by grapeshot.” In both stories, Kurin's father is shown as a semi-immobilized invalid who does not lose his fighting spirit.

However, the truth is that neither the fictitious Suvorov grenadier Pakhom Akimych, nor the real Matvey Alekseevich Kurin (1757-1829) stormed Izmail and were not familiar with Kutuzov. Our archival research shows that there was not a single Pakhom in the Kurin family tree. And the peasant Matvey Alekseevich Kurin at the indicated time lived peacefully with his family in Pavlov and carefully attended the Church of the Resurrection, as indicated by the annual confessional statements of this temple. At the same time, we note that Gerasim’s father lived 16 years longer than his “death”, arranged for him according to the plot plan on a March Sunday in 1813 by the writer Golubov.

Believing in the fabrications of his eminent predecessor, B. Chubar fell for the bait not only with the heroic ancestor Gerasim Kurin, but also with his only ten-year-old son Panka, who is very active in both stories. In fact, Gerasim’s two sons were at that time: Terenty was 13, and Anton was 8 years old.

And G. Kurin’s wife’s name was not Fetinya, as Golubov came up with, but Anna Savelyevna (Savina). And she was not from the “nearest village of Gribovo,” as B. Chubar wanted, but a native resident of the village of Pavlova, a representative of one of the branches of the famous and ancient Shirokov family. The new author, apparently competing with his predecessor in artistic imagination, decided to take it out on Kurin’s wife, “arranging” for her a difficult birth (“the young woman barely came out”) and subsequently made her infertile. Quite cruel fantasies...

We must pay tribute to the literary courage (or adventurism) of S. Golubov, who took on the story without even knowing the names of its main characters. For example, G. Kurin’s closest associate, elder Yegor Semyonovich Stulov (1777-1823), appears in the story as “Uncle Demyan” and is referred to as Kurin’s brother-in-law.

In one episode, Stulov (at the writer’s behest) inadvertently remembers his wedding: “Yes, he’s already more than twenty years old.” According to Golubov, it turns out that he got married when he was thirteen... If he had known about this “blunder”, the author himself would have laughed. Perhaps suspecting that Kurin must have (besides Stulov) another combat assistant, the writer introduces him in the story as a certain brave “little man from the villages” with the fighting name Stratilat Mikitych Bizyukin. He proves himself to be a brave warrior, in the main battle he commands a thousand foot soldiers and dies. By the way, in the same battle, by the will and imagination of the author, “another dozen and a half Vokhta warriors paid with their faithful blood” for the victory.

In the real battle on October 1, 1812, not a single Vokhon resident was killed, and the commander of a thousand-strong detachment of foot warriors, Sotsky Ivan Yakovlevich Chushkin (1765-1832), remained unharmed. That was the name of Gerasim Kurin’s comrade in arms.

But since Golubov’s art “demanded sacrifices,” the author also wounded the ataman of the Vokhon vigilantes: “His left arm was nailed with lead above the elbow.” Although in N. Kuzmin’s illustration in the same book, Gerasim Kurin’s right hand is bandaged for some reason. It's obviously a contagious thing - a lie...

In almost every combat episode, Golubov killed several local peasants. And at B. Chubar in the battle of October 1, “on our side, 12 people were killed, 20 wounded.” Our authors’ “bloodthirstiness” would clearly have diminished if, to their surprise, they had learned that the phenomenon of the Vokhon partisans’ fighting was that not a single combatant was lost during the entire period. This is a considerable merit of both the leader of the militia, Gerasim Kurin, and the correct tactical actions of his assistants E.S. Stulova and I.Ya. Chushkina. For this, all three were awarded the St. George Cross and the medal "For Love of the Fatherland." This happened in the Moscow provincial government in May 1813. The awards were presented to the heroes by the Commander-in-Chief of the capital, Count V. Rostopchin, and not by the then deceased M.I. Kutuzov (as some writers think).

It would be possible to continue listing and correcting numerous errors and various kinds of absurdities in the stories of S. Golubov and B. Chubar. This requires time and desire. But even on the basis of our analysis, we can make an unambiguous conclusion that these works on a historical topic cannot be recommended to schoolchildren and anyone interested in the biography of their small homeland as a source of local history knowledge. Press publications that quote or refer to these works cannot be completely trusted.

The most reliable source of historical information on the topic of the Patriotic War of 1812 in our region for schoolchildren and local historians today can be a book by local author A.S. Markin "Vohna. 1812", published for the 150th anniversary of Pavlovsky Posad in 1994. Well, the archives are always open for independent serious historical research and research. There would be a desire...

(The material was published in Nos. 3-5 of the newspaper "Bell Tower" for 2002.)

Where is Gerasim Kurin buried?

I would like to advise those who embark on the path of local history to be more careful today in using past Soviet publications on political and historical topics, since our long-suffering history was corrected and reinterpreted in the press constantly, to please each successive regime, ruler, leader, general secretary. This has always been the case, so you should trust only publications (figures and facts) confirmed by documentary (archival) primary sources. And even in these cases, it is necessary to remember, take into account and admit that many of the old evidence and documents can be (and in fact are) subjective “self-reflections” of the era.

I would like to note that researching and “voicing” local history is always a noble endeavor, but not always rewarding. There are too many different visible and invisible obstacles, bumps, holes, traps, deceptions and many years of subjective slander and “gotchas”. Frankly, we ourselves have stepped on these “rake” more than once and ended up in these original Vokhon “sites”. So, in this particular case, for the umpteenth time we will talk about the most typical mistakes on the topic of the folk heroes of the Vokhon militia of 1812.

FIRST. But important and key. Approval of the Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary (as well as all subsequent ones, including the most modern ones) - edit .) that Kurin Gerasim Matveevich (1777-1850) - serf peasant - WRONG by definition! The compilers and numerous re-editors of this article (not only in the SES) “combed” Kurin under the general typical serf “comb,” apparently having no idea about the atypical circumstances of the specific historical space of our Bogorodsky district. Indeed, most of the district's volosts were located on landowners' lands, where, naturally, serfs (until 1861) lived in the "owner's" villages. How do the overloaded compilers of dictionaries and reference books know that our Vokhon volost (from among the sovereign's estates) back in 1571 by Ivan the Terrible was transferred into the possession of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. And in 1764, after the secularization (confiscation) of church and monastery lands by Catherine II, the Vokhon volost came under the jurisdiction of the College of Economy, and the peasants living in it became state-owned and were called state or economic.

Not far from Pavlov - already beyond Klyazma in Bunkovskaya volost or in Novinskaya (Zagarskaya), or in Tereninskaya, not to mention the Guslitsky volosts, there were quite often landowner villages with serfs. Even the founders of the most famous dynasty of industrialists in Russia, the Morozovs, who came from the Zuevskaya volost of the Bogorodsky district, had to buy out “from the fortress” from the landowner G.V. in 1821. Ryu-mina.

But in the “economic” village of Pavlovo, which is part of the Vokhonsky volost, and in more than two dozen nearby villages, there has never been a landowner or gentleman, which, apparently, not only the compilers of various reference books, but also some popular writers did not know. I couldn’t read paragraphs from S.N.’s book without smiling. Golubov “Gerasim Kurin” (1942) about the abject poverty in the hut of the serf Kurin (who in reality was a wealthy merchant), and also about how the master wanted to flog him for the fact that “you see, they raised an army. .. They trampled the winter." How can you not smile!

And here’s another, but from B. Chubar’s story “Gerasim Matveevich Kurin” (1987): “They said that the gentleman from Melenki (now Karpovskaya Street, - B . C . ) there is a real musket, a firing gun, it really crackles in your ears. So master."

As a journalist and local historian, I confirm that, indeed, “my ears have been ringing” for so many years!.. And then they published it again in the local newspaper... Finally, remember, gentlemen-comrades, and explain to others that neither Gerasim Kurin , nor his assistants and associates We were never serfs!

SECOND. The statement that “Kurin became the head of the volost, replacing the one liberated by the world old age E.S. Stulov" is in fact just the author’s assumption of local historian A.S. Markin, prudently qualified by the word “obviously”, since the exact age of Yegor Semyonovich was not known. Having studied the question, I can justify the caution of the assumption of A.S. Markin and I cannot justify the newspaper statement about Stulov's old age. The years of his life (1777-1823) indicate that the former volost mayor was the same age as Kurin, and he was then 43 years old. Not such old people. The point here, on the one hand , in the sharply increased authority of Kurin, and on the other hand, in Stulov’s belonging to the hereditary “recorded schismatics”, i.e. Old Believers, who were disliked by neither the secular nor the ecclesiastical authorities. Kurin served as the volost mayor since 1820. to 1826

THIRD. The monetary reward of five thousand rubles was not timed to coincide with the issuance of St. George's crosses and medals in May 1813, but came from Alexander I after the presentation of Kurin, Stulov and Pushkin to him in August 1816. And, in addition, which is quite important:

FOURTH. Not all three received five thousand (a huge amount!), but only the leader of the partisan squad, Gerasim Kurin, which is documented. The rest are sometimes awarded, perhaps only in some local newspapers...

FIFTH. The statement that our heroes received titles in addition to all awards Honorary citizens is perhaps the most common misconception (after serfs)! One of the good-natured amateurs, apparently in a patriotic frenzy, inflated this historical “duck” and launched it into print. And so she has been floating around in newspapers for decades and quacks from time to time. Today I flew into another one and grunted again. It's time to skewer this duck. I'll explain why. The fact is that honorary citizenship According to the law, the peasant class was not assigned at all. But the most important thing is that it was established in Russia only in 1832, when Stulov and Chushkin were no longer alive. However, this citizenship did not “shine” for them. And the rather vain (even more so in his old age) Kurin in official papers was content with the signature: “everyman of Pavlovsky Posad and Cavalier Gerasim Matveev Kurin.” I believe that we have finally plucked the said “duck”...

SIXTH. The assumption that Gerasim Kurin is buried in the Old Believer cemetery near the former village of Prokunino is erroneous. This is a long-forgotten version of an enthusiast of local history (now deceased) Anfisa Ivanovna Bender (ur. Shchennikova).

I explain the situation with this version. Anfisa Ivanovna, as a hereditary Old Believer and having a cousin Alexandra Ivanovna, who a hundred years ago married the clerk of the Morozov factory, Old Believer Ivan Fedorovich Kurin (grandson of Gerasim Kurin’s adopted son), apparently really wanted Gerasim Matveevich himself to turn out to be an Old Believer (formally - relative!). And if so, then he should be buried in the nearest Old Believer cemetery near Prokunin. Fortunately, no one knew the exact location of his burial. There was also a version that the grave of the national hero was near the walls of the Resurrection Cathedral. (Once again it was “voiced” in the form of an unsubstantiated statement in the newspaper “PPI” No. 39 for 2002).

A.I. Bender, with her characteristic activity, found among her friends and relatives in Prokunin (now, due to a misunderstanding, Gagarin Street) witnesses who seemed to “remember” about the old white stone tombstone with the name Kurin, which had once stood in their cemetery. Under the dictation of the respected Anfisa Ivanovna, this inscription, erased on stone and in the memory of old-timers, was collectively “restored.” Then, about ten years ago, reading these testimonies, we almost believed in A.I.’s version. Bender and I, a sinful deed, almost published this “discovery”.

In defense of the pro-Kuninites, I can give the following justification: they could actually see a half-erased inscription reminiscent of Kurin’s surname. After all, many local indigenous people from the ancient Kurdin family were once buried here. By erasing just one letter in this masculine surname, we get the word: “Kurin”. In addition, local resident and local historian S.G. Soldatenkov (1945-2000), after conducting a survey of old people and recalling his father’s stories, concluded that once upon a time a namesake of Gerasim Matveevich, nicknamed “Kurekha,” lived in the village. He could also have been buried in a local cemetery, although this is not a fact, but only an assumption.

And the facts are as follows. G.M. Kurin was not an Old Believer, he lived in the center of the settlement on Torgovaya Square, and there was no need to bury him at the Prokuninsky or at the then more popular Filimonovsky Old Believer cemetery. And most importantly:“restored” from memory the inscription on the disappeared Proku-Ninsky tombstone, stating that “under this stone the body of a servant of God, Hereditary Honorary Citizen, etc. is buried.” (testimony preserved) generally removes this issue and version from consideration for the reason stated above: see paragraph Five.

In our opinion, there cannot be Kurin’s grave near the walls of the Resurrection Cathedral (in the churchyard, which was once called Dmitrovsky), since here, according to tradition, only the ministers of this temple and members of their families, and even especially revered ktitors (philanthropists) found eternal rest. like the famous Pavlovsk merchant of the 1st guild D.I. Shirokov - one of the founders of the posad. And towards the end of his life, Kurin, due to his difficult character (and some actions that were not in accordance with the legal norms of that time), fell out of favor with the local authorities and the police. What honor is there...

And why did he need a church hill, if only a hundred or two fathoms from his house, on the right bank of the Vokhonsky bank, there was the original ancient Pavlovsk cemetery, where many generations of his ancestors rested in peace. Here he buried his father Matvey Alekseevich (1757-1829), his mother Matryona Nikiforovna, his young sons Terenty and Anton, brother Nikifor... Where else, if not here, is his rightful place, consecrated by the centuries-old memory of his ancestors ? And then there was no other Pavlovsk cemetery, which opened only in 1860, i.e. 10 years after Kurin's death.

So where is Gerasim Kurin buried? The answer to this question suggests itself. However, the author would be reproached for interestedly putting forward his own (next) version, based only on logical conclusions in the absence of evidentiary documents. And I do not hide my interest in resolving this important issue related to the biography of the famous national hero of 1812. But, according to my own methodology, people (and myself) need a documentary primary source confirming the version. There is one. It was found as a result of research in the Central Historical Archive of Moscow (CIAM). This is an entry in the “Metrical Book of the Resurrection Church of Pavlovsk Posad” for 1850. I consider it necessary (simply obliged) to provide this entry in full. Here she is:

"Partition book for 1850 Part three. Death count for June: No. 58; in the column "month and day" - 10/13 (dates of death and burial - B . C . ); "Title, first name, patronymic and last name of the deceased" - Pavlovsky Posad tradesman Gerasim Matveev Kurin; “years of the deceased” - 80 (characteristic inaccuracy from the words of relatives - B . C . ); "what did he die from" - from old age; "who confessed and communed" - Priest Anthony Lebedantsev; "who performed the burial and where are they buried" - Priest Anthony Lebedantsev with deacon Ivan Smirnov, sexton Yakov Kedrov and sexton Ivan Dmitrovsky - in the parish cemetery(emphasis mine - B . C . ); signature: Parish Priest Antonii Lebedantsev"(CIAM, F. 2127, op. 1, d. 145, l. 105 vol. - 106).

The parish cemetery was the ancient, original Pavlovsk cemetery, which we talked about above. It was located on the right (low) bank of the Vokhna opposite the church - slightly downstream (opposite the current central district hospital). Indisputable proof of the location of this cemetery is not only the testimony of local old-timers, but also the newspaper article “Lava”, published by “Bogorodskaya Rech” in 1912 with an appeal to the good memory “to the forefathers who once worked and created the settlement” (see. "Bell Tower" No. 11, 2002). And, finally, the site of this cemetery is precisely indicated by the plan of Pavlovsky Posad, compiled and replicated in 1914 by the remarkable teacher and local historian Dmitry Vasilyevich Rozanov.

Thus, in our opinion, there is good reason to consider an important issue that has worried our local historians for decades to be resolved. In this regard, I think sacred duty of descendants- with a special stone, sculpture or stele to perpetuate in the designated place the memory of not only Gerasim Kurin and his comrades, but also those dozens of generations of our ancestors who, with good deeds, initially raised, created and increased the strength and glory of the beautiful Vokhon Land, 665th anniversary which occurred in 2004 (first mentioned in writing in 1339). This is our duty to God and people.

(The material was published in the newspaper "Bell Tower" No. 27, 2002)

Towards the 200th anniversary of the Patriotic War of 1812

Pavlovo Sad local historians Alexander Markin and Viktor Sitnov published a collection of local history materials entitled “Vohna in 1812”. With the consent of V.F. Sitnov, we offer site visitors a selection of his author’s materials from the new book (in the online version).

Fiction and truth about Gerasim Kurin

Local history analysis of the stories by S. Golubov “Gerasim Kurin” (1942) and B. Chubar “Gerasim Matveevich Kurin” (1987)

Sitnov Viktor Feofilaktovich

Sometimes it happens that the creators of artistic and journalistic works, especially when fulfilling urgent social orders, do not have enough time to collect and analyze specific historical facts on the chosen topic. In such cases, writers make up for and compensate for the lack of documentary “texture” with an old, proven technique - artistic fiction.

And, we must agree, talented authors often produce works that are quite successful and bright from an artistic point of view. But this is for uninitiated readers. Historians and, in particular, local historians cannot be satisfied with fiction, distortion and falsification of real facts and events. It is important for them to restore historical truth (and justice), for which it is necessary to accurately “reconstruct” specific events and real facts in a specific historical space.

In this regard, when reflected in Soviet fiction, the heroes of the people's Vokhon militia were clearly unlucky in the Patriotic War of 1812, i.e. to our famous fellow countrymen Gerasim Kurin, Yegor Stulov, Ivan Chushkin, who showed valor and patriotism in defending their native land from the Napoleonic army.

We are talking about a description of local events (September - October 1812) in the stories of S.N. Golubov “Gerasim Kurin” (M. Detgiz, 1942) and B. Chubara “Gerasim Matveevich Kurin” (Ser. ZhZL, M., “Young Guard”, 1987).

We see that in both cases the works were created for the next “round dates” of the Patriotic War of 1812: the 130th anniversary and the 175th anniversary. There is no doubt that the publication of 1942 had a specific goal: the rise and activation of the national patriotic self-awareness of the Soviet people, the mobilization of all forces to save the homeland from the fascist invasion. The mobilizing and inspiring example of the heroic past was supposed to play a role in organizing the people's guerrilla war against the occupiers.

Without detracting from the artistic merits of these works, today we, as local historians, cannot agree with the incompetence and obvious ignorance of the authors in local historical, geographical, biographical and other documentary material. It seems that the writer S.N. Golubov (1894–1962) had at his disposal only the most general historical information about the local events of 1812 and, perhaps, did not even visit the scene, not to mention archival research.

Boris Chubar (a journalist from the Taimyr Autonomous Okrug) already had at his disposal a story by Golubov, a historical essay about Pavlovsky Posad by local historian S.N. Grabilin, published in the collection “Cities of the Moscow Region” (Moscow Worker Publishing House, 1980), brief references in popular science publications. It is possible that he bothered to visit the local history museum, but a whole “kaleidoscope” of historical, geographical, biographical errors and absurdities, carefully compensated for by artistic fiction, clearly indicate a lack of work with archival materials and critical analysis of previous fiction on the chosen topic. To the mistakes of S. Golubov, 45 years later, B. Chubar inadvertently added his own...

Restoring the truth (in our case, historical truth), we will try to separate documentary and fictional facts in the stories mentioned above, and work on the obvious numerous errors. This is necessary and has practical meaning also because these stories of an artistic and journalistic nature are often recommended as sources of local history material for our schoolchildren. (See Local History Curriculum for Grades 1-9, published by the local education department in 1996.) In addition, fictitious and distorted facts, taken at face value by our journalists and local historians, have been published and quoted in the press more than once, misleading inexperienced readers.

The first and fundamental mistake made by both authors is already in the very name of the area about which they undertook to write. Golubov, for example, managed to call our ancient Vokhonsky volost Vokhtinskaya, or even just Vokhta. Chubar already has Vokhnenskaya or Vokhnya parish. What is this dismissive “-nya”? Strange associations... At the same time, trying to quote 17th century scribal books from T. Troitsky’s brochure, he still stubbornly forwards the original name of the volost to Vokhnenskaya. Now he would try to adjust, for example, the names of Russian capitals to his taste...

Of the huge number of names of local villages in the Vokhtinskaya volost, Golubov for some reason uses only three. This is Pavlovo, Melenki and some unknown to us Novy Dvor. Why did the writer not like our Big Yard? Unknown. The resourceful author calls all other local settlements other villages and settlements. The French route was also simplified to the limit: Bogorodsk – Novy Dvor – Melenki – Pavlovo. And what? For “middle-aged and older” children it will do! Who will recheck the hundred-year history in 1942?..

The village of Pavlovo Golubov is surrounded on three sides by an impenetrable pine forest, leaving the peasants an outskirts to watch the fire of Moscow. How does he know that from time immemorial the large village was almost closely surrounded by small settlements and villages, which have now turned into township streets. And the Vokhonka River was the natural border of the village on the northern side. And the Moscow fire could only be observed at night from a high bell tower. And where could this Pavlovian “outskirts” be?..

By the way, S. Golubov habitually placed a shopping area near the church fence, not realizing that it was on another hill - across the river. One way or another, both authors gather a “village gathering” in the market square. At the same time, Chubar still calls the closest villages to Pavlov today the distant Subbotino, Gribovo, Bolshie Dvory and even Nosyryovo, apparently having no idea about the half-dozen truly neighboring villages. The author's orientation on the terrain is very poor. For example, from Stepurin to neighboring Subbotino (less than a mile - V.S.) “at night I got rid of a lathered horse.” Such a message can only cause an ironic smile among local residents...

One can also react to the original author’s interpretation of the historical name of the village: “...the center of the Vokhny volost is either Vokhnya or Pavlovo. In essence, they are the same thing. Vokhnya was called the Dmitrovsky churchyard, which grew up here back in the days when Ivan the Terrible transferred the lands of the volost to the Trinity-Sergius Lavra... Between Vokhnya and Pavlov... there was neither a clear boundary nor enmity...” With his invention “ Vokhnya”, Taimyr journalist B. Chubar, according to copyright, is free, of course, to manipulate as he pleases. We will only note that the first churchyard arose on our land under Dmitry Donskoy, and under John IV, the Vokhonsky volost came into the possession of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery, and not the Lavra. He received this title only in 1744.

Due to historical ignorance, the writer S. Golubov “gives” the Pavlovsk peasants into serfdom to a certain mythical and, apparently, therefore nameless gentleman, whose typical (fat-swollen) appearance, as well as his house, estate and garden with regular alleys, are described in some detail. Also shown are episodes of the master's flight from the French and his return six months later, when in a fit of anger he intends to flog all his peasants who, “see, they raised an army... trampled the winter crops...”. Frankly speaking, an interesting subjective projection of a writer of historical novels...

The author, with his rather textbook artistic fiction, simply does not realize that peasants could be not only serfs, but also state, state-owned - “economic”. This was the population of Pavlov and most of the surrounding villages. Free people had something to protect. Mentioning the national hero of the Patriotic War of 1812, Gerasim Kurin, as a serf in various publications is a common, typical mistake.

With the master in conflict with the peasants, escaping from the French to the Volga, the narrative is, of course, more colorful and familiar, but in our case this is a distortion of historical truth, leveling and the possible loss of original, characteristic (and sometimes key) signs and features of specific events.

The author's passion for artistic fiction at the expense of historical truth leads to a distortion of the picture of the real life of the same Pavlovsk peasants and, in particular, Kurin, who was never poor. But Golubov, following the textbook pattern, writes out: “The Chickens had the most unenviable hut - made of thin wood, with a roof like that (thatched without external wooden fortifications), without a ridge; it was heated in black, illuminated by a torch in an old tin light; the walls are bare, the floors are low, the windows are tiny, with dull greenish glass...".

The writer clearly drew everything he wanted. But in this wretched kennel of a slave, the real merchant Gerasim Kurin would never have lived, and in fact did not live. At the end of his life, Kurin had the best two-story house on Torgovaya Square (see photo).

Type of hut of a Vokhon peasant, drawn by the author's fiction of the writer S.N. Golubov, and the real house of Gerasim Matveevich Kurin (Vokhonsky head in 1820-1826) - by the beginning of the twentieth century, resold by his heirs and rebuilt by the new owners; was located on Torgovaya Square (now Revolution Square - on the site of the current five-story building No. 6 with the Yubileiny store - see modern photo). A snapshot from the beginning of the 20th century.

But writer S.N. Golubov knew none of this. He, funny as it may seem, did not even know the middle name of his main character. But Boris Chubar already knew and even emphasized this in the title of his story: “Gerasim Matveevich Kurin.” But this did not save him from a mass of mistakes and absurdities, as we will see later.

To show Kurin as a worthy successor to the patriotic traditions of his ancestors, the writer Golubov came up with corresponding biographies for him and his father “Pakhom Akimych”. Write like that! It turned out that the former grenadier Corporal Pakhom Kurin became famous in Suvorov’s campaigns, personally knew the Generalissimo and even kissed him. In addition, he walked in the same line with Kutuzov to take Ishmael! Pakhom tells Gerasim about this: “... And Kutuzov, Mikhail Larivonych? You should have seen how in seven hundred and ninety he led Ishmael to take us... Then his eye was knocked out, he fell dead, and he brought us to the fortress!” Moreover, Pakhom turned out to be exactly the heroic corporal who at that time “dragged His Serene Highness Prince Kutuzov, wounded, out of the fire.” However, Pakhom himself lost his legs... Therefore, just like that, he easily sends his son for advice and help to Kutuzov. And this vividly written (but not real) meeting takes place! Kutuzov inspires and blesses the partisan chieftain of the peasant squad and lends him twenty soldiers' muskets.

The second meeting of the distinguished Gerasim Kurin with Kutuzov is no less vividly and colorfully shown, when the field marshal personally hangs the St. George Cross on his chest! Alas, this meeting did not take place in reality. Kutuzov and Kurin never saw each other. But for the writer Golubov, ideological and artistic design (or fiction) is more important than historical truth. Moreover, if there are no archival documents at hand, and there are no judges either. There is only a social order and a brief (apparently extremely meager) historical background. And there is also the talent of a fiction writer...

Apparently, succumbing to the charm of this talent, the writer Boris Chubar, performing similar work 45 years later, accepted some of Golubov’s versions that he liked. Chubar especially liked the version about the heroic ancestor Kurin. Only the invented name Pakhom was replaced by the real one - Matvey. He, too, during the assault on Izmail, walked “in a column commanded by Kutuzov, ... but already on the wall itself, Matvey’s legs were mutilated by grapeshot.” In both stories, Kurin's father is shown as a semi-immobilized invalid who does not lose his fighting spirit.

However, the truth is that neither the fictitious Suvorov grenadier Pakhom Akimych, nor the real Matvey Alekseevich Kurin (1757-1829) stormed Izmail and were not familiar with Kutuzov. Our archival research shows that there was not a single Pakhom in the Kurin family tree. And the peasant Matvey Alekseevich Kurin at the indicated time lived peacefully with his family in Pavlov and carefully attended the Church of the Resurrection, as indicated by the annual confessional statements of this temple. At the same time, we note that Gerasim’s father lived 16 years longer than his “death”, arranged for him according to the plot plan on a March Sunday in 1813 by the writer Golubov.

Believing in the fabrications of his eminent predecessor, B. Chubar fell for the bait not only with the heroic ancestor of Gerasim Kurin, but also with his only ten-year-old son Panka, who acts very actively in both stories. In fact, Gerasim’s two sons were at that time: Terenty – 13, and Anton – 8 years old.

Egor Semyonovich Stulov, portrait
works by Ivan Terebenev, 1813

And G. Kurin’s wife’s name was not Fetinya, as Golubov came up with, but Anna Savelyevna (Savina). And she was not from the “nearest village of Gribovo,” as B. Chubar wanted, but a native resident of the village of Pavlova, a representative of one of the branches of the famous and ancient Shirokov family. The new author, apparently competing with his predecessor in artistic fiction, decided to take it out on Kurin’s wife, “arranging” for her a difficult birth (“the young woman barely survived”) and subsequently made her infertile. Quite cruel fantasies...

We must pay tribute to the literary courage (or adventurism) of S. Golubov, who took on the story without even knowing the names of its main characters. For example, G. Kurin’s closest associate, elder Yegor Semyonovich Stulov (1777–1823), appears in the story as “Uncle Demyan” and is referred to as Kurin’s brother-in-law.

In one episode, Stulov (at the writer’s behest) inadvertently recalls his wedding: “and he’s already more than twenty years old.” According to Golubov, it turns out that he got married when he was thirteen... If he had known about this “blunder”, the author himself would have laughed. Perhaps suspecting that Kurin must have (besides Stulov) another combat assistant, the writer introduces him in the story as a certain brave “little man from the villages” with the fighting name Stratilat Mikitych Bizyukin. He proves himself to be a brave warrior, in the main battle he commands a thousand foot soldiers and dies. By the way, in the same battle, by the will and imagination of the author, “another dozen and a half Vokhta warriors paid with their faithful blood” for the victory.

In the real battle on October 1, 1812, not a single Vokhon resident was killed, and the commander of a thousand-strong detachment of foot warriors, Sotsky Ivan Yakovlevich Chushkin (1765–1832), remained unharmed. That was the name of Gerasim Kurin’s comrade in arms.

But since Golubov’s art “demanded sacrifices,” the author also wounded the ataman of the Vokhon warriors: “His left arm was nailed with lead above the elbow.” Although in N. Kuzmin’s illustration in the same book, for some reason Gerasim Kurin’s right hand is bandaged (see picture). It's obviously a contagious thing - a lie...

In almost every combat episode, Golubov kills several local peasants. And at B. Chubar in the battle of October 1, “on our side, 12 people were killed, 20 wounded.” Our authors’ “bloodthirstiness” would clearly have diminished if, to their surprise, they had learned that the phenomenon of military operations by the Vokhon partisans was that during the entire time not a single combatant was lost. This is a considerable merit of both the leader of the militia, Gerasim Kurin, and the correct tactical actions of his assistants E.S. Stulova and I.Ya. Chushkina. For this, all three were awarded the St. George Cross and the medal "For Love of the Fatherland." This happened in the Moscow provincial government in May 1813. The awards were presented to the heroes by the Commander-in-Chief of the capital, Count V. Rostopchin, and not by the then deceased M.I. Kutuzov (as some writers think).

Regarding the existing doubts regarding the St. George Crosses of the 5th degree awarded to the Vokhonsky heroes (with four degrees of this award actually existing at that time), we offer a commentary from our famous local historian, specialist on the topic of the Patriotic War of 1812 - Alexander Markin, received at the request of the author of this publications:

“As for the crosses, it is described in detail in: Bartoshevich V.V. "From the history of rewarding peasant partisans in 1812" (“Historical Notes”, vol. 103, M., 1981).

The society was class-based, i.e., the peasant could not receive the reward due to the warrior. Moreover, it was not a system of state awards, as in the USSR or now in the Russian Federation, but of orders.

This is why, by the way, the unauthorized imposition of the colors of the Victoria Cross on oneself, for example, in the countries of the Commonwealth (Great Britain, Canada, Australia, etc.) is impossible due to cultural tradition, but in our country the colors of the Military Order of St. Vmch. and Victorious George to the last extreme.

In short, in 1813 they found a way out - the peasants were given crosses, officially called the Insignia of the Military Order. In fact, these were crosses of the Order for lower ranks (at that time only the officer's cross had degrees), specially made and unnumbered. Military crosses - officers' and soldiers' - have been numbered since 1809, and the chapter kept lists of names. Calling this award the Cross of St. George is historically incorrect; this name was established later by a new edition of the Charter of the Order. But these crosses were precisely re-coined from the crosses of dead or deceased cavaliers handed over to the chapter. It is precisely because they were given in a special order that the incorrect name “St. George Crosses of the fifth degree,” found in the literature, was attached to them.

The Emperor had a precedent, by the way, since at least one civilian received the Insignia of the Military Order even before the War of 1812 - the Pomor tradesman Matvey Andreevich Gerasimov, who with his comrades recaptured his ship from an enemy English crew led by an officer who had captured it in 1810.” .

It would be possible to continue listing and correcting numerous errors and various kinds of absurdities in the stories of S. Golubov and B. Chubar. This requires time and desire. But even on the basis of our analysis, we can make an unambiguous conclusion that these works on a historical topic cannot be recommended to schoolchildren and anyone interested in the biography of their small homeland as a source of local history knowledge. Press publications that quote or refer to these works cannot be completely trusted.

The most reliable source of historical information on the topic of the Patriotic War of 1812 in our region for schoolchildren and local historians today can be books by local author A.S. Markin: “Vohna. 1812”, published for the 150th anniversary of Pavlovsky Posad in 1994, “Towards the upcoming restoration of the chapel in Pavlovsky Posad in memory of the War of 1812” (1996) and “Essays on the history of Vokhna” (2008).

Well, the archives are always open for independent serious historical research and research. There would be a desire...

Where is Gerasim Kurin buried?

I would like to advise those who are embarking on the path of local history to be more careful in using past Soviet publications on political and historical topics today, since our long-suffering history was constantly corrected and altered in the press, to please each successive regime, ruler, leader, and general secretary. This has always been the case, so you should trust only publications (figures and facts) confirmed by documentary (archival) primary sources. And even in these cases, it is necessary to remember, take into account and admit that many of the old evidence and documents can be (and in fact are) subjective “self-reflections” of the era.

I would like to note that researching and “voicing” local history is always a noble endeavor, but not always rewarding. There are too many different visible and invisible obstacles, bumps, holes, traps, deceptions and many years of subjective slander and “bells and whistles”. Frankly, we ourselves have stepped on this “rake” more than once and ended up in these original Vokhon “sites”. So, in this particular case, for the umpteenth time we will talk about the most typical mistakes on the topic of the folk heroes of the Vokhon militia of 1812.

FIRST. But important and key. Statement of the Soviet Encyclopedic Dictionary that Kurin Gerasim Matveevich (1777-1850) - serf peasant - WRONG by definition! The compilers and numerous re-editors of this article (not only in SES) “combed” Kurin under the general typical serf “comb,” apparently having no idea about the atypical circumstances of the specific historical space of our Bogorodsky district. Indeed, most of the district's volosts were located on landowners' lands, where, naturally, serfs (until 1861) lived in "owner's" villages. How do the overloaded compilers of dictionaries and reference books know that our Vokhonskaya volost (from among the sovereign's estates) back in 1571 by Ivan the Terrible was transferred into the possession of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery. And in 1764, after the secularization (confiscation) of church and monastery lands by Catherine II, the Vokhonsky volost came under the jurisdiction of the College of Economy, and the peasants living in it became state-owned and were called state-owned or economic.

Not far from Pavlov - already beyond Klyazma in the Bunkovskaya volost or in Novinskaya (Zagarskaya), or in Tereninskaya, not to mention the Guslitsky volosts, there were quite a number of landowner villages with serfs. Even the founders of the most famous dynasty of industrialists in Russia, the Morozovs, who came from the Zuevskaya volost of the Bogorodsky district, had to be bought out of the fortress from the landowner G.V. in 1821. Ryumina.

But in the “economic” village of Pavlovo, which is part of the Vokhonsky volost, and in more than two dozen nearby villages, there has never been a landowner or gentleman, which, apparently, not only the compilers of various reference books, but also some popular writers did not know. I couldn’t read paragraphs from S.N.’s book without smiling. Golubov "Gerasim Kurin" (1942) about the abject poverty in the hut of the serf Kurin (who was in fact a wealthy merchant, and also about how the master wanted to flog him for the fact that "an army, you see, they brought in... They trampled winter." How can you not smile!

And here’s another, but from B. Chubar’s story “Gerasim Matveevich Kurin” (1987): “They said that the gentleman from Melenki (now Karpovskaya Street - B.C.) there is a real musket, the fire is so loud that it crackles in your ears. So master."

As a journalist and local historian, I confirm that, indeed, “my ears have been ringing” for so many years!.. And then they published it again in the local newspaper... Let us finally remember, gentlemen-comrades, and explain to others that neither Gerasim Kurin nor his assistants and associates were never serfs!

SECOND. The statement that “Kurin became the head of the volost, replacing the one liberated by the world old age E.S. Stulov" is in fact just the author’s assumption of local historian A.S. Markin, prudently qualified by the word “obviously”, since the exact age of Yegor Semenovich was not known. Having studied the question, I can justify the caution of A.S. Markin’s assumption and cannot justify the newspaper statement about Stulov's old age. The years of his life (1777-1823) indicate that the former volost mayor was the same age as Kurin, and he was then 43 years old. Not so old. The point here, on the one hand, is the sharply increased authority of Kurin , and, on the other hand, in Stulov’s belonging to the hereditary “recorded schismatics”, i.e. Old Believers, who were disliked by neither the secular nor the ecclesiastical authorities. Kurin served as volost mayor from 1820 to 1826.

THIRD. The monetary reward of five thousand rubles was not timed to coincide with the issuance of St. George's crosses and medals in May 1813, but came from Alexander I after the presentation of Kurin, Stulov and Chushkin to him in August 1816. And, in addition, which is quite important:

FOURTH. Not all three received five thousand (a huge amount!), but only the leader of the partisan squad, Gerasim Kurin, which is documented. The rest are sometimes “awarded”, perhaps only in some local newspapers and reprints...

FIFTH. The statement that our heroes also received titles in addition to all awards Honorary citizens, is perhaps the most common (after serfs) misconception! One of the good-natured amateurs, apparently in a patriotic frenzy, inflated this historical “canard” and launched it into print. And so she has been floating around in newspapers for decades and quacks from time to time. Today I flew into another one and grunted again. It's time to skewer this duck. I'll explain why. The fact is that honorary citizenship According to the law, the peasant class was not assigned at all. But the most important thing is that it was established in Russia only in 1832, when Stulov and Chushkin were no longer alive. However, this citizenship did not “shine” for them. And the rather vain (even more so in his old age) Kurin in official papers was content with the signature: “everyman of Pavlovsky Posad and Cavalier Gerasim Matveev Kurin.” I believe that we have finally plucked the said “duck”...

SIXTH. The assumption that Gerasim Kurin is buried in the Old Believer cemetery near the former village of Prokunino is erroneous. This is a long-forgotten version of local history enthusiast (now deceased) Anfisa Ivanovna Bender (ur. Shchennikova).

I explain the situation with this version. Anfisa Ivanovna, as a hereditary Old Believer and had a cousin Alexandra Ivanovna, who a hundred years ago married the clerk of the Morozov factory, Old Believer Ivan Fedorovich Kurin (grandson of the “adopted son” Gerasim Kurin), apparently very much wanted Gerasim Matveevich himself to turn out to be an Old Believer (formally a relative !). And if so, then he should be buried in the nearest Old Believer cemetery near Prokunin. Fortunately, no one knew the exact location of his burial. There was also a version that the grave of the national hero was near the walls of the Resurrection Cathedral. (Once again it was “voiced” in the form of an unsubstantiated statement in the newspaper “PPI” No. 39 for 2002).

A.I. Bender, with her characteristic activity, found among her friends and relatives in Prokunin (now, by misunderstanding, Gagarin Street) witnesses who seemed to “remember” about the old white stone tombstone with the name Kurin, which once stood in their cemetery. Under the dictation of the respected Anfisa Ivanovna, this inscription, erased on stone and in the memory of old-timers, was collectively “restored.” Then, about ten years ago, reading these testimonies, we almost believed in A.I.’s version. Bender and I, sinfully, almost published this “discovery.”

In defense of the pro-Kuninites, I can give the following justification: they could actually see a half-erased inscription reminiscent of Kurin’s surname. After all, many local indigenous people from the ancient Kurdin family were once buried here. By erasing just one letter in this masculine surname, we get the word: “Kurin.” In addition, local resident and local historian S.G. Soldatenkov (1945-2000), after conducting a survey of old people and recalling his father’s stories, concluded that once upon a time a namesake of Gerasim Matveevich, nicknamed “Kurekha,” lived in the village. He could also have been buried in a local cemetery, although this is not a fact, but only an assumption.

And the facts are as follows - G.M. Kurin was not an Old Believer (see explanation 1) *, he lived in the center of the settlement on Torgovaya Square, and there was no need to bury him in the remote Prokuninsky or other Old Believer cemetery. And most importantly: the inscription on the disappeared Prokunin tombstone, “restored” from memory, stating that “under this stone is buried the body of a servant of God, Hereditary Honorary Citizen, etc.” (testimony preserved) generally removes this issue and version from consideration for the reason stated above: see paragraph Five.

In our opinion, there cannot be Kurin’s grave near the walls of the Resurrection Cathedral (in the churchyard, which was once called Dmitrovsky), since here, according to tradition, only the ministers of this temple and members of their families, and even especially revered ktitors (philanthropists) found eternal rest. like the famous Pavlovsk merchant of the 1st guild D.I. Shirokov, one of the founders of the posad. And towards the end of his life, Kurin, due to his difficult character (and some actions that were not consistent with the legal norms of that time), fell out of favor with local authorities and the police. What kind of honor is there...** (see explanation 2 below).

And why did he need a church hill, if only a hundred or two fathoms from his house, on the right bank of the Vokhonsky bank, there was the original ancient Pavlovsk cemetery, where many generations of his ancestors rested in peace. Here he buried his father Matvey Alekseevich (1757– c. 1829), his mother Matryona Nikiforovna, his young sons Terenty and Anton, brother Nikifor... Where, if not here, is his rightful place, consecrated by the centuries-old memory of his ancestors? And then there was no other Pavlovsk cemetery, which opened only in 1860, i.e. 10 years after Kurin's death.

So where is Gerasim Kurin buried? The answer to this question suggests itself. However, the author would be reproached for interestedly putting forward his own (next) version, built only on logical conclusions in the absence of evidentiary documents. And I do not hide my interest in resolving this important issue related to the biography of the famous national hero of 1812. But, according to my own methodology, people (and myself) need a documentary primary source confirming the version. There is one. It was found as a result of research in the Central Historical Archive of Moscow (CIAM). This is an entry in the “Metrical Book of the Resurrection Pavlovsky Posad Church” for 1850. I consider it necessary (simply obliged) to provide this entry in full. Here she is:

"Parish register for 1850 Part three. Death count for June: No. 58; in the column “month and day” – 10/13 (dates of death and burial - V.S.); “Title, first name, patronymic and last name of the deceased” – Pavlovsky Posad tradesman Gerasim Matveev Kurin; "year of the deceased" - 80 (characteristic inaccuracy from the words of relatives - B.C.); "what did he die from" - from old age; "who confessed and communed" - Priest Anthony Lebedantsev; "who performed the burial and where are they buried" - Priest Anthony Lebedantsev with deacon Ivan Smirnov, sexton Yakov Kedrov and sexton Ivan Dmitrovsky - in the parish cemetery(emphasis added - V.S.); signature: Parish Priest Anthony Lebedantsev"(CIAM, F.2127, op.1, d. 145, l. 105 vol. – 106).

The parish cemetery was the ancient, original Pavlovsk cemetery, which we talked about above. It was located on the opposite right (low) bank of the Vokhna from the church - slightly downstream (opposite the current central district hospital). Indisputable proof of the location of this cemetery is not only the testimony of local old-timers, but also the newspaper article "Lava", published by the "Bogorodskaya Rech" in 1912 with an appeal to the good memory "to the forefathers who once worked and created the settlement" (see "Bell Tower" "No. 11 for 2002). And, finally, the site of this cemetery is precisely indicated by the plan of Pavlovsky Posad, compiled and replicated in 1914 by the remarkable teacher and local historian Dmitry Vasilyevich Rozanov.

Thus, in our opinion, there is good reason to consider an important issue that has worried our local historians for decades to be resolved. In this regard, I think sacred duty of descendants- with a special stone, sculpture or stele to perpetuate in the designated place the memory of not only Gerasim Kurin and his comrades, but also those dozens of generations of our ancestors who, with good deeds, initially raised, created and increased the strength and glory of the beautiful Vokhon Land, the 665th anniversary of which was in 2004 year (first mentioned in writing in 1339). This is our duty to God and people.

Explanations and additions to the publication

1*. On the question of Gerasim Kurin’s attitude to the old faith.

Unlike his military comrade-in-arms and predecessor in the post of volost mayor (“noted schismatic” E.S. Stulov), as well as then his daughters-in-law and, especially, grandchildren (who served with the Bogorodsk Old Believers factory owners Morozov), Gerasim Kurin was not officially listed as an Old Believer , although he seemed to sympathize with the followers of the Old Orthodox faith. Perhaps this explains the fact that when he was the head of the Vokhonsky volost, he at least three times (together with I.Ya. Chushkin and the future initiator of the founding of the settlement D.I. Shirokov) signed multiple petitions from the parishioners of the Resurrection Church to the Synod and to the Most High Name (1824-1827) about transferring the parish to “uniform faith” in order to perform services according to the old rite (while remaining under the “patronage” of the official Church).

Let us present fragments of this case (CIAM, f. 203, op. 209, d. 487), preserving the spelling of the original:

“The Most Holy Governing Synod to the member of the Most Reverend Philaret, Archbishop of Moscow and Kolomna, the Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius, the Holy Archimandrite and various orders to the Cavalier - from the Bogorodsk district of the economic Vokhona volost of peasants and Old Believers who are in the parish of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ, in the village of Pavlov, Vokhna also, Most humble request.

In the Church of the Resurrection of Christ shown, we have a heartfelt desire to listen to the Divine Service, so that it would be sent according to Old Printed Books on the same basis as it is sent in the Moscow Edinoverie Vvedensky Church organized by the Highest Permission.

We humbly ask you to bless the real priests in this parish Church of the Resurrection to correct the service and all Christian needs according to old printed books... (August, 1824)

From the next most humble petition of the Vokhonites to Filaret:

“Our ancestors, and according to them, we have been in the Old Believers for a long time; we and our families have long been accustomed to asking for the Doxology of God for the fulfillment of Christian needs from old printed books. Therefore, it is desirable for us that the priests of that village in the three-margin Church of the Resurrection correct for us the Divine services and requirements according to old printed books and similar rituals, since the parish priests and church ministers do not correct the services and requirements according to old printed books... according to our fulfillment desired, they declare that if Your Eminence has your Eminence’s permission, they cannot contradict us and they agree to correct divine services from old printed books for us.” (April, 1825)

On August 4, 1825, a similar petition was sent to Tsar Alexander Pavlovich. The Synod refuses the petitioners, considering “the conversion of the pan-Orthodox Church to Edinoverie is derogatory for the Orthodox Church.”

It is possible that it is precisely for such initiative and “unreliability” that is objectionable to the authorities (as well as for abuse of official position, manifested in the uncontrolled waste of government money), the holder of the Insignia of the Military Order of St. George the Victorious Gerasim Matveevich Kurin soon lost the prestigious position of Vokhonsky head (currently the head of the settlement).

It makes sense to add here a comment by local historian S.S. Mikhailov to the material on this topic published in the journal “Church Historical Bulletin” (No. 9, 2002):

“The Vokhna volost of the Bogorodsky district of the Moscow province, which directly bordered the famous Old Believer Guslitsy, was also largely inhabited by adherents of the old faith. There were many so-called “cunning schismatics” here, i.e. Old Believers who did not outwardly advertise their religion, being listed as Orthodox in official documents. These were the peasants who unsuccessfully tried through their attorneys to eight times submit a petition to establish a church of the same faith. It is clear that in confessional statements and other church documents they were listed as Orthodox. The local parish clergy could not have been unaware of the “secret schism” in their parish, but in such cases they did not fight it at all, since the spiritual authorities were confident that the schism in this parish was weak, and receiving regular reprimands for inactivity in the fight against it was not had to. One clear confirmation of this can be the fact that all the Old Believers peasants who signed the petitions are accurately listed as having attended confession and communion. Not a single one was due to negligence, etc. Usually, priests in “Old Believer” parishes had a significant source of income in the form of bribes from Old Believers for including them in the register as having attended the sacraments, thereby covering them from all sorts of proceedings and admonitions from other spiritual authorities.

The position of the parish clergy in the case of non-permission to establish a Edinoverie church in Pavlov is clear. They did not know how to serve in the old way and did not want to, so the first option of converting their church into a co-religion church did not suit any of them. And the second option (construction of a Edinoverie temple) would have led to the fact that the former “cunning schismatics” would have been legalized through the same faith, and an important source of income would have been lost. We would also have to answer why the actual “schismatics” are listed as Orthodox in parish registers and records. The appearance of a Edinoverie church in an area where a significant part of the population is Old Believers would lead to the fact that many actual Orthodox Christians would soon become parishioners of the new Edinoverie church. In such places, the influence of Old Belief on the spiritual life of the Orthodox population was very strong. Therefore, it was beneficial to declare all the petitioners Orthodox, as they were listed in the metrics and confessional statements, and to nullify the threat of unity of faith in one’s parish. The Old Believers continued to have a strong position in Pavlovsky Posad, as the former village of Pavlovo soon became known, and its environs. Nowadays, in the Pavlovo-Posad district of the Moscow region, many Old Believers of the Belokrinitsky consent also live; three temple..."

2**. On the question of the conflict nature of Gerasim Kurin.

From the archives of the Pavlovsky Posad Police Bailiff, April. 1850 (CIAM, f. 480, op. 1, d. 59)

Analysis by the Town Hall of Pavlovsky Posad of the case of non-payment of G.M. Kurin's monetary debt to the tradesman Filipchenkov (1849). The decision of the Town Hall provided for the confiscation of property from the debtor in an amount corresponding to the debt in order to sell it at auction. Upon the seizure of this property, the obstinate G. Kurin (who tried to illegally shift the debt to his janitor) wrote a complaint to “Mr. Moscow Civil Governor”, ​​which stated:

“... Maksimov... forcibly took his cow from the yard and took the wall clock, broke the crucian carp on which he, Kurin, and his family were processing silk, and at the same time pushed him in the chest and sent him out of the house, moreover, wound on crucian rams and spools of silk turned out to be torn, made silk up to 10 pounds, and also money 125 rubles. silver it didn’t turn out at all; he, Kurin, suspected the attesting townsfolk Stepan Filipchenkov, Alexander Nyrnov and Nikita Shilkin of stealing everything, and then Maksimov pushed his daughter-in-law Pelageya Kuzmina, who had a child in her arms, so hard in the chest that she screamed guard, and the attesting witnesses beat his other one, Kurin , daughter-in-law of Pelageya Tikhonov, who has blue spots from that. Kurin considers the action of Ratman Maksimov and the witnesses against him to be legal and offensive, and asked to be sent to investigate the circumstances of the official.”

“In explanation of this complaint, the acting bailiff, Ratman Maksimov, explained that, by decision of the Town Hall, it was awarded to recover 20 rubles from Kurin in satisfaction (of the claim) of the tradesman Filipchenkov. 85 kopecks silver and for stamp paper in that case 3 rubles. 60 kopecks silver Due to Kurin’s failure to pay money, the Bailiff described the estate for this amount, namely: a cow, a watch, a samovar and “crucian carp”; for the sale of it, the Town Hall, having appointed an auction, ordered, in the absence of the Bailiff, to deliver it to the auction; ...however, Kurin did not agree to give up the money or the estate and was rude to the Bailiff, and he invited witnesses, with whom the described estate was taken. Pelageya Tikhonova did not allow the cow to be taken out, but everything went off without any rudeness, and Kurin accuses them completely falsely. The same was confirmed by witnesses.

They reeled silk for the merchant Davyd Ivanovich Shirokov. Shirokov sent his worker, a peasant from the village. Ignatieva Andrey Stepanov and village. Stepurina Petra Fadeeva. Kurin told them that the silk was intact. They confirmed this under oath. And Kurin allegedly did not give Shirokov 10 pounds of silk (worth 30 rubles in silver) in order to use it.

Kurin's janitor Efrem Vasiliev does not owe him anything, because... paid in 1849, and in this year Vasiliev did not know whether he would live in his house, therefore, this is not security for the claim...

“The Town Hall, considering the circumstances of the case, concluded: ... it is obvious that Kurin’s statement was completely false, and how he was previously in various cases on trial nine times, and in 1833, by decision of the 2nd Moscow Criminal Chamber, he was kept in prison for ten days (for excessively collecting money from peasants when he was the head of the volost), then he, Kurin, should, by virtue of the 2017 article of the Code, be kept in prison for a year, but taking into account the fact that he is 74 years old and the insignia of the military order of St. Great Martyr George and during a general search of his behavior was approved, on the basis of the same 2017 Art. be imprisoned for 4 months and ask Ratman Maksimov for forgiveness...

Kurin’s daughter-in-law - to Pelageya Tikhonov (who, during the investigation, said that the beatings inflicted on her were not examined by anyone, because it was as if she did not want to show her body to anyone, and therefore her testimony about the beatings cannot be trusted) and Pelageya Kuzmin for lack of evidence of her report on based on Art. 2008 Code to maintain under arrest for seven days...

And the merchant Davyd Shirokov was granted the right to pay the tradesman Kurin the undelivered 10 pounds of silk, worth 30 rubles. silver, if he wishes, can be sought separately from this matter.

On February 24, Kurin expressed dissatisfaction with the decision of the Town Hall and undertook to submit a response within the prescribed period. (The deadline for submitting a review has expired.)

They ordered that the decision of the Town Hall over the tradesman Kurin and his daughters-in-law be carried out in strict execution to be attributed to the Bailiff of Posad, which is why you are instructed so that after sending Kurin to where you should report the subsequent Town Hall.

Signed: April 11, 1850 Burgomaster Mukhin, Ratman

Shchepetilnikov, secretary Polonsky».

Here's the note:

“To the petty bourgeois Pelageya Tikhonova and Pelageya Kuzmina (mother and wife of Ivan Antonovich Kurin - V.S.) the decision was announced with a subscription, which was presented to the Town Hall on April 12 for No. 316 with a notification that they were taken under arrest on the same date. And the tradesman Gerasim Kurin is in Moscow.

(The fact that Kurina’s bourgeois women were kept under police custody was reported to the Town Hall on April 19, No. 346).

Signed: Ratman Bylinkin, secretary Polonsky.

Due to the fact that on April 14 Kurin manages to submit a review to the Moscow Criminal Chamber, the Town Hall recommends to the Bailiff on April 21 (No. 389): “If you have not sent Kurin to the Bogorodsk prison for detention in accordance with the decision of the Town Hall, then stop.”

Signed: Ratman Shchepetilnikov, Secretary Polonsky».

(Forty days later Gerasim Kurin died “of old age” - V.S.)

(CIAM, f. 480, op.1, d.59, l.1-5)

A few words about the heirs of Gerasim Kurin
(facts and versions)

Identification of blood (genetic) ties and heirs is important not only in historical and local history terms, but also in social, applied, humanitarian, ethical and simply human terms. The feeling of being the blood heir of an outstanding personality or family imposes a special internal responsibility on a person, giving additional significance to his existence - as a continuer of traditions that are important and fateful for society and the family.

Despite the fact that we have studied the family tree of the Pavlovsk surname Kurins quite well, there are still some “blank spots” in the biography of Gerasim Matveyevich Kurin, which cause discrepancies and confusion in local history publications.

We are talking, first of all, about Kurin’s main heir, Ivan Antonovich, who appears in documents from different times in different capacities and degrees of his relationship to Gerasim Matveevich. Several years ago, while looking at the peasant files in the Vokhonsky volost of the Bogorodsky district (the archive of the provincial Treasury Chamber) at CIAM, I came across a document authorizing the peasant Gerasim Kurin to adopt the child of his deceased cousin. I regret that I did not copy this document, which dates back to the early 1830s. (However, this local history oversight can be corrected over time if desired).

Then the charitable fact of adoption did not surprise me (Gerasim’s own sons Terenty and Aton died before 1823 at the ages of 21 and 18). Knowing the pedigree of the Kurins, I was surprised by something else: on the male line, Gerasim’s two uncles (Ilya and Vasily) did not have sons with the name Anton, except perhaps through their aunts, but this has not yet been proven). It was also surprising that (in violation of the rules) neither the full name, nor age, nor class affiliation, nor place of residence, nor the cause of death of the “deceased” parent of Ivan “son of Antonov” were specifically indicated. Strange document. But it’s good that later the date of birth of the “adopted son” was found (January 23, 1827), which confirms the impossibility of his birth from the children of Gerasim and therefore clearly excludes the “status” of the legitimate grandson of Kurin.

However, in most publications (including those available on the Bogorodsk local history website, see:) Ivan Antonovich is presented as the grandson of Gerasim Kurin. It was his own grandson - without any reservations or explanations - for the simple and seemingly “obvious” reason that this “fact” was documented and officially recorded in the surviving spiritual will, drawn up and certified in G.M.’s own hand. Kurin. Here is a fragment of this document (CIAM, f.72, op.2, d.31, spelling preserved):

« Spiritual testament

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit

I, the undersigned, Moscow Gubernia, Bogorodsky Uyezd, Pavlovsk Posad, Tradesman Gerasim Matveev Kurin, am of firm mind and perfect memory, feeling at my advanced years the hour of death, and therefore wishing to establish my acquired estate during my lifetime as the undisputed... eternal and hereditary possession of my grandson Ivan Antonov Chicken... and the second half of the house and the outbuilding... be given into the possession of my wife Anna Savelyeva and none of my relatives and heirs should interfere with it under any circumstances, for each of them received a due reward from me, only with this so that he, my grandson Ivan Antonov Kurin, will live with me until my death and give me Kurin and my wife Anna Savelyeva food and drink, and how he should honor and obey in everything and not do any oppression to us, and especially he should his own mother Pelageya Tikhonov to honor and obey in everything, and if she sees displeasure from him, then he must build her a special hut in the same yard in the backyard of Sixty Rubles Silver and after her death give her water and food, and after death, as should be the Christian duty, bury her . After the death of me, Kurin and my wife, he, my grandson Ivan Antonov Kurin, will own all the registered house and estate (...) Only he must give Ivan Antonov to my second Grandson Ivan Terentyev with his mother Anna Ivanova and my grandson Elena Terentyeva from the future 1849 Genvar from the first day for ten years every year twice from the income of my house Thirty rubles in Silver (...) July 10th day of 1848... the Tradesman Testator Gerasim Matveev Kurin had a hand in this Spiritual Testament of Pavlovsk Posad.”

However, in addition to this document, there is sufficient other evidence of the “life” of the Kurin family. This revision tales peasants of the village of Vokhny and confession sheets Church of the Resurrection, in the parish of which (the priest “Archpriest Dimitry Ioannov” had Kurins as clerics). Let's take a look at two of these pieces of evidence:

1. Entry in the confessional sheet for 1831: “No. 8. Gerasim Matveev (Kurin) 55 years old, his wife Anna Savelyeva 54 years old, his daughter-in-law, widow Anna Ivanova 30 years old, her children: Joseph 11, John 4 – Terentyevs; widow Pelageya Tikhonov 25 years old, her son Ioann Antonov 4 years old" (CIAM, f. 203, op. 747, d. 1176)

2. Revision tale of April 26, 1834(8th revision, where in the lists of peasants (male) of the village of Vokhny their age is indicated for clarity and comparison, also according to the previous 7th revision ( 1816), and then, respectively, 8 ( 1834):

« No. 71. Gerasim Matveev(Kurin) 38/56 years old, his wife Anna 55, sons Terenty 17 / died in 1820, Anton 11 / died in 1822.» Below is a note in a different hand and handwriting:“Anton’s son Ivan is 6 years old, assigned by order to Okr. Council of August 11 for No. 4906 from the family of cousins.” But in the same revision tale, Ivan and his mother are listed as a separate incomplete family with an initially absent father: “ No. 160: Ivan Antonov – 6 years old, his mother Pelageya Tikhonova 30 years old». And a later note in pencil: « Listed at number 71». (CIAM, f. 51, op. 8, d. 936).

Please note: in 1831 (in confessional statements, household members were often written from the words of parishioners) Ivan Antonovich and his mother are shown not as Gerasim’s own grandson and second daughter-in-law, but rather as hangers-on (or servants). Later (see 1834 onwards), despite the “inconsistency in time,” they increasingly appear as a grandson and daughter-in-law, and in documents of recent years - only as a grandson and daughter-in-law without any reservations. It seems that Kurin’s authority and connections allowed him to consciously and without much hindrance “manipulate” audit and other documents until they finally acquired the desired form. It turned out that the late Anton Gerasimovich, with the necessary patronymic, “legalized” Ivan in the Kurin family as a legitimate grandson (although we have not established the fact of Anton’s possible marriage, and even if there was one, the son could not have been born five years after his father’s death).

Gerasim Matveevich’s desire to have a legal heir to his considerable property is quite understandable and natural. But the question may arise: why didn’t the children of his late son Terenty suit him in this capacity? Perhaps there was some unknown reason for their “unreliability” (by the way, according to documents from the second half of the 1840s, Gerasima’s daughter-in-law Anna Ivanovna with her sons Osip, Ivan and daughter Elena lived in Moscow “at the patchport” and was engaged in trade).

Of course, the vain Gerasim Kurin, as a businesslike, wise, prudent and powerful man, could not take into the house and raise as the main heir a random child (even from a hypothetical and, in documentary terms, very vague “ families of cousins", leaving the boy an unclear role). Then, as a version, a non-zero probability arises that Ivan could well have been the illegitimate son of Gerasim himself and, perhaps, that is why (a characteristic detail!) He was “accepted” into Kurin’s house together with his mother, which, we note, was so carefully mentioned by Kurin in his spiritual testament. This version could explain many of the initial and subsequent inconsistencies in the documents associated with this story.

(By the way, we can already correct one of the baseless assumptions that “ Gerasim Kurin's widowed daughter-in-law, Pelageya, had (possibly from her second husband) a son, Fyodor"(see Bogorodsky local history website:), since Fyodor Ivanovich Kurin (born 1853) among the other five children born to Ivan Antonovich and his wife Pelageya Kuzminichna).

I wonder if Ivan himself knew about the “secret” of his origin, introducing himself in documents as Gerasim’s own grandson when receiving an inheritance after Kurin’s death? Maybe he knew, but he took this secret with him to the grave at the age of 29. By the way, here is another pattern: all of Kurin’s children did not live to see 30. Whether it was a disease, heredity or an accident also remains a mystery. (Once I had to hear from one of the local historians even such an unexpected private opinion that the early death of Gerasim’s children could have been, as it were, indirectGod's punishment for the peasant chieftain for his cruelty is notthe extent of the angry men who, after the end of the battleof the actions of the surrendered and disarmed French soldiers“They burned them and buried them alive in the ground.” Who knows...)

Thus, the question of the origin of Ivan Antonovich and the degree of his relationship with G.M. Kurin (nephew or son) remains open until the clarification and clarification of Ivan’s family affiliation, the correspondence of the date and place of his birth, the date and place of baptism (with the corresponding indication of parents and adoptive parents), as well as a detailed study of documents about the reasons and circumstances of his adoption and initial “status” of Pelageya Tikhonovna in Gerasim’s house.

But in any case, he is the one Ivan Antonovich Kurin, is the founder of the numerous Bogorodsk (Noginsk) branch of the Kurin family, which is described in a note published on August 11, 1962 in the newspaper “Banner of Communism” (Noginsk) under the heading “To the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Borodino.” Here is this note.

Grandchildren of heroes

A century and a half has passed since the time when the route to the east was closed to Napoleon’s foragers in Bogorodsky district. In our region, Marshal Ney's cuirassiers came across a well-organized partisan army of peasants and got stuck here. But the partisans were led not by famous generals, but by simple peasants - Gerasim Kurin, Yegor Stulov, and centurion Ivan Chushkin.

The partisan war of 1812 has long died down, the graves of the heroes have been lost, but the memory of their glorious deeds has not faded.

In search of materials from the history of the people's struggle against Napoleon's troops, we visited Pavlovsky Posad. Here we talked a lot with people, heard a lot of tales about those ancient times. Old-timers proudly recall the events of 1812. They especially like to remember how the residents of the old village of Vokhny unanimously stood up to defend the Fatherland. They heard these stories from their relatives.

And from these stories emerged an idea of ​​ancient times, of the village of Vokhne, adjacent villages, roads, forests, rivers. We learned that the house of centurion Ivan Chushkin stood in a gypsy settlement and was sold by his great-grandson about 60 years ago. We found a place on Karpovskaya Street where Kurin’s house is believed to have stood.

We were interested in whether there are any living descendants of the glorious heroes? The search began. There were no chickens in Pavlovsky Posad. They have long since dispersed to different cities. One of the great-grandsons worked as a bank manager in Siberia and, shortly before his death at the age of eighty, came to Pavlovsky Posad.

We found the Kurin family in Noginsk. She lives on Panfilovka. Here are the children of the great-grandson-hero Konstantin, Pavel, Dmitry and Zoya. Konstantin Ivanovich is a doctor, works in Pavlovsky Posad, Zoya Ivanovna is a midwife at the Glukhovsky maternity hospital.

Valentin and Alexandra live in Moscow, and Evgenia lives in Elektrostal. The great-great-grandson of the hero Vasily Kurin died in the Great Patriotic War.

From the story of Konstantin Ivanovich it turned out that the medals awarded to the hero Gerasim Kurin were transferred to the monastery. Together with Konstantin Ivanovich, we tried to find the grave of a distant ancestor at the Prokuninsky Old Believer cemetery (Gerasim Kurin was an Old Believer). But this attempt ended unsuccessfully, since the gravestones were taken away from the cemetery.

We also found the descendants of Chushkin and Stulov. In Mira Lane, in houses No. 19, 33, 35 in Pavlovsky Posad, we found the Chushkin family - the hero’s relatives. An 85-year-old old woman, Lukerya Grigorievna Chushkina, remembered that her brother-in-law

Ivan Petrovich told his sons that he

grandfather fought with the French, and Maria Alekseevna Chushkina added that Ivan Petrovich said that his grandfather’s caftan was kept in the Kremlin.

According to family legends, all these families are descendants of the hero Ivan Chushkin. Houses Nos. 19, 33, 35 were built by the hero’s great-grandsons Andrey, Nikanor, Grigory with money raised from the sale of his great-grandfather’s house.

Nikolai, the youngest great-grandson, died in the civil war and was buried in Donetsk soil. He, along with the volunteers of the Pavlovo-Posad factory, took part in the battle with Wrangel. Andrei's sons died in the Great Patriotic War.

Yegor Stulov came from peasants in the village of Stremyannikovo.

There are grandchildren of heroes in our region. They work for the glory of the Fatherland. Many of them repeated the feat of their grandfathers, defending their native land from foreign invaders.

F. Sidorov

Our comment

Of course, it is worth thanking the author of the note (F. Sidorov) for searching and preserving for us valuable information about the descendants of the Vokhon heroes of 1812. However, we cannot help but note the inaccuracies in the material. The named Pavlovo Posad descendants of Ivan Yakovlevich Chushkin (Andrey, Nikanor, Grigory) are not great-grandchildren, but great-great-grandchildren of the hero. The family of the hereditary Old Believer Yegor Semenovich Stulov does not come from the village of Stremyannikovo, but is a native Vokhonian - we traced its roots back to the 1650s. And, unlike him, Gerasim Matveevich Kurin was not an Old Believer (*see above).

Recently, based on the archival pedigree, another direct blood descendant of the national hero of 1812, Ivan Yakovlevich Chushkin, was established.

This is the currently living director of the Pavlovo-Pokrovsky cultural center, deputy of the council of deputies of the urban settlement of Pavlovsky Posad - Vyacheslav Viktorovich Chushkin (born 1949) - Honored Worker of Culture of the Moscow Region.

Pavlovsky Posad 100 years ago (1912 – 2012)
About our great-grandmothers' excursions
(On the routes of pre-revolutionary campaigns of Pavlovsk schoolchildren)

2012 is the anniversary year for the Patriotic War of 1812. 200 years have passed since those significant events for the history of Russia. Someone, being or considering himself a citizen of a great country (not a state), remembers this, but someone (bogged down in the everyday bustle of our sick time) lives exclusively with the worries and problems of their family or close circle. Maybe someone is trying their best to survive...

However, in the historical memory of the Russian people, the year 1812 is forever inscribed and absorbed as a significant and glorious moment of unity of the nation in the fight against a foreign enemy invasion, which crashed against the power and stronghold of civil patriotic unity. The same historical phenomenon repeated itself 130 years later. “Get up, huge country!” And the country (despite its not always perfect state structure) stands up and, defending the sacred right to life and sovereignty, defeats any enemy. That is what Rus'-Russia stood and stands on.

It is difficult to dismiss the idea that today the patriotic sentiments of our people, tired (by the cataclysms of state reorganization) have lost their former intensity and “degree”. There is no doubt that society is sick. And, perhaps, for gradual recovery, especially spiritual and moral healing, right now we lack revival, “refreshing” of our dormant or clouded national (genetic) historical memory. Where are we from? What happened to us a hundred or more years ago? What did our ancestors live, what did they breathe, what did they believe in, what did they strive for, what did they bequeath?

Undoubtedly, issues related to the thousand-year-old spiritual foundation of the Russian nation - Orthodoxy - are key. But nearby, for example, there are also issues of patriotic education of the younger generation of citizens who are taking up the baton of creating life in their native land. It is precisely in this connection that, in my opinion, it is worthwhile, among other things, to more carefully study or remember, in particular, the best traditions of our old pre-revolutionary school. It was the time of our grandfathers, and for some, our great-great-great-great-grandfathers... And sometimes it seems that in spiritual terms that time was “more natural” and more harmonious than ours. At least, the current disrespect for elders and elders has never existed in Rus'.

But the topic of our publication today is quite modest and specific. These are school excursions in pre-revolutionary Pavlovsky Posad and, in particular, in the Women's Gymnasium (now school No. 2). The excursion routes of the high school students extended to the Vokhon region, to Moscow and the province, and even to... Crimea.

Today, in connection with the above-mentioned topic of 1812, we will talk about just one excursion made by schoolgirls in the spring of 1912 to the Borodino field on the eve of the 100th anniversary of the Patriotic War. Readers are invited to the preserved report on the excursion, presented on May 29 to the gymnasium pedagogical council by history teacher Alexander Alekseevich Zarudin, who was the main organizer of the trip to Borodino. In our opinion, this interesting report has both educational and educational value.

(The text of the main report is given in full, but partially adapted to modern spelling and punctuation):

Excursion project to Borodino,
compiled by teacher Al. Al.Zarudin

(abbreviated)

An excursion to Borodino should pursue, first of all, historical goals: 1. To acquaint students on the spot with the location of our and enemy troops both on the significant day of August 26, and on the previous days of August 24 and 25. 1812;

2. To acquaint students with historical monuments remaining from 1812 or built after on the Borodino field and, therefore, help students more clearly imagine the events that took place in August 1812.

In addition to historical interest, a trip to the Borodino field can also satisfy an aesthetic sense and pursue an aesthetic goal - to give students the opportunity to enjoy the beauty of spring nature, spend several hours in the open air and breathe fresh air, not saturated with the fumes of factories. (Environmental issues were relevant even then! –V.S.)

To achieve the two intended goals, it is advisable to arrange an excursion no earlier than the end of April, when nature takes on the beauty of spring: the trees bloom their leaves, the fields are covered with green grass and a variety of flowers. In addition, the Borodino field is cut up by many streams and rivers, which by the end of April will become so shallow that it will be easy to cross through them. (The following is about the theoretical training of the students, familiarity with maps and materials from historical and fiction literature. It is noteworthy that among other historical materials, for some reason, there is not a single mention of local events in 1812 (?) - V.S.)

...It is more convenient to leave Moscow at night with a goods and passenger train arriving in Borodino at six in the morning, and return back with a train from Vyazma arriving in Moscow at 8 and a half in the evening.

Each excursionist must have: a light coat, a blanket, a pillow, galoshes, preferably an umbrella, put on well-worn shoes (high boots are recommended) and take with her a small supply of provisions; all provisions can be left in the carriage, which will be uncoupled in Borodino.

Excursion cost per person:

Ticket to Moscow and back – 48 kopecks.

From Moscow to Borodino and back – 88 kopecks.

Tea and snacks in the teahouse - 25 kopecks. Lunch at the monastery – 30 kopecks. Tram in Moscow - 16 kopecks.

Total: 2 rub. 07 kop.

Teacher Al. Zarudin.

Excursion to the Borodino field

(brief report)

April 24-25, 1912 Students of the 4th and 5th grades of the Pavlovo Posad girls' gymnasium (30 people) went on an excursion to Borodino to inspect the location of our and enemy troops on the significant days of August 24, 25 and 26. 1812, as well as to get acquainted with the historical monuments located on the Borodino field.

The excursion was accompanied by: Chairman. Educator Council M.D. Papayanov, and G.G. teachers: V.V. Belousova, M.G. Sorokina, class matron E.G. Kamenskaya and history teacher Al.Al. Zarudin, who took over the leadership of the excursion and prepared students for it.

We prepared for the excursion for quite a long time and carefully. For this purpose, 15 copies of publications of the excursion commission at the Moscow Educational District were issued under the title: “The excursionist’s companion, part 1.” Borodino" and a number of other books that depict the war of 1812 and, in particular, the Battle of Borodino. Along the way, the students found out what a regiment, division, corps, flush, redoubt, etc. are. Attention was drawn to a more detailed acquaintance of the students with the map of the Borodino field and the location of our and enemy troops on August 24 and 26, 1812. Only after such fundamental preparation was it decided to go on the evening of April 24.

We got to Borodino safely, but there we suffered a number of misfortunes that had a bad effect on the mood of the students and devalued the excursion. Firstly, on the night of the 25th snow fell and covered the ground with a fluffy white veil, giving the entire Borodino field a monotonous appearance. A strong gusty wind was blowing. A slight frost only froze the damp spring soil on top. At the first touch of our feet, the thin ice broke and we fell into the water, which is why some of the students got their feet wet at first. This circumstance prompted us to quickly get to the Monastery, where we hoped to find warm shelter and dry ourselves.

In view of this, we stopped at the first hill we came across, which was the remnant of our ancient fortification, and, having briefly examined the location of our troops, especially the left, so-called Bagration wing, we quickly moved towards the Monastery, which was about half a mile away. We arrived at the monastery at about 10 o'clock. There we were greeted very cordially, they gave us 2 rooms where we warmed up, dried ourselves and had a snack. Here we outlined a further inspection plan. First of all, it was decided to inspect the famous Shevardinsky redoubt - our forward post on August 24th, which later passed to Napoleon after a bloody battle.

From the monastery to the Shevardinsky redoubt it is a little more than a mile. The still not tired students happily left the monastery and quickly moved towards the redoubt, but before we had time to go halfway, it began to snow so heavily that, as they say, the light of God was not visible. It was impossible to move further, and we turned back to the monastery.

In order not to waste time, we decided to explore the monastery. For this purpose, by order of the abbess, we were given a nun guide who showed us all the sights of the monastery and gave appropriate explanations.

In the courtyard of the monastery, we examined the house in which the founder of the monastery, the wife of one of the generals killed in the Borodino battle, Tuchkov, lived. The house contains all the furnishings that were there during Tuchkova’s life; There are several portraits hanging on the wall: Tuchkova herself, Metropolitan Philaret with his handwritten inscription, etc.

After examining the house, we went to the ancient temple built by Tuchkova on the spot where her husband was killed. Then we toured the new luxurious temple, built in the shape of a cross. From here we went to the handicraft room, where we examined the nuns' work. This ended the inspection of the monastery buildings, but since there was still about an hour left before lunch, we decided to examine the remains of the fortifications located in the courtyard of the monastery and near it.

The monastery was built on the site of the famous Semyonov flushes, which changed hands several times on August 28th. Our generals were wounded and killed here: Tuchkov 1st, Bagration and others. The famous French general Davout was also wounded here.

Semyonov's flushes formed the left wing, and Napoleon's first onslaught was directed at them. The flashes are well preserved. One flash is located, as I said above, in the courtyard of the monastery, and the other to the west of it. We stopped at this last one longer. From here the Shevardinsky redoubt was clearly visible, from which Napoleon watched the progress of the battle on August 26th. Between the Semenovsky flushes and the Shevardinsky redoubt there is a small stream and a forest - this stream and forest separated our and enemy troops on August 26th. They say that the soldiers, both ours and the enemy, ran into the stream for water and often quarreled among themselves.

Standing on the Semenovskaya flush, we recalled all the details of Napoleon’s attack on our left wing, all those battles that Lermontov speaks so eloquently about. We were struck by the smallness of the space separating our fortifications from the enemy’s. It is no wonder that in the Battle of Borodino, horses and people mixed together.

We stood at the Semenovskaya flush for about 20 minutes. At 2 o'clock we were invited to the refectory for lunch. After lunch, thanking the abbess for her hospitable shelter, we said goodbye to the monastery and headed beyond the village of Semenovskaya to the place where the center of our troops and fortifications, the so-called Raevsky battery, was located on August 26, and where currently stands a monument to the soldiers who fell in the battle .

It’s a mile and a half from the monastery to the monument, and we had to walk along a muddy, muddy road; the clayey mass stuck to our galoshes and made it difficult for us to move, but we continued to walk further and further; the desire to see the monument, the center of our positions, to examine the nearby surroundings from the central hill gave us strength and doubled our energy.

But here we are near the monument, on a high hill. Having examined the monument from all sides and read all the inscriptions on it, we looked around the area surrounding the monument, and a magnificent picture opened before us.

Not far from the monument, down in the southwest there is a village with a majestic white church, which was shot through in several places by grenades during the Battle of Borodino; Not far from the church, closer to the monument, the royal palace can be seen through the wavy trees. To the southeast of the village there are several villages, and between them is the village. Gorki, from where Kutuzov watched the progress of the battle, and to the north-west of the village the monastery rises beautifully. A little west of the monastery, in the distance is the Shevardinsky redoubt. In my opinion, this is the most beautiful place on the Borodino field, and it was not for nothing that it was the center of our positions. Our inspection ended with the fortification of Raevsky, and we headed back through the village. Semenovskaya to the station, which was about 2 miles away.

We didn’t even have time to walk halfway when very heavy wet snow began to fall again, literally covering our eyes. But there was nothing to do, we had to move on, since there was no building on the way, and since there was no more than an hour left before the train departed. With great difficulty we reached the station.

Dirty and wet, we hastily took our warm carriage. All precautions were taken here to protect the students from getting sick. Uch. They asked to take off their wet shoes and dry them on the warm pipes of the carriage, and those who got their feet very wet were to rub them with vodka. At the same time, hot tea was prepared. We soon warmed up and felt cheerful; we only felt a little tired. At 5:30 a train arrived and our carriage was attached to it. We hit the road and at 11:30 a.m. arrived safely in Pavlovo.

Teacher Al. Zarudin

Viewer's view of the reconstruction
Vokhonsky battle of 1812 (2003)
And the battle broke out
or little Borodino in Pavlovsky Posad

(Material from the almanac “Vokhon Region” No. 1, 2005)

It seems that Pavlovsky Posad does not remember such a mass cultural event held “in nature”. Hundreds of cars and thousands of people filled on Sunday, September 21, the picturesque landscape in the area of ​​the Karpyatnik quarry (behind the pine forest), or rather behind it - on the elevated sloping bank of the bayou, a hundred meters from Klyazma. From this natural amphitheater, densely but comfortably occupied by spectators, one could observe an interesting, vibrant spectacle taking place on a green stage - a meadow no smaller than a football field.

This was a historical reconstruction (or rather, an attempt at historical reconstruction) of the Vokhon battle of 1812, proposed and carried out on the initiative and with the direct participation of the deputy of the Moscow Regional Duma, the head of the Bereg PA, Vladimir Viktorovich Kovshutin, who was supported by the regional government, the district administration and private sponsors . The city committee for culture and sports, the education department, the youth department, the city history and art museum, the Exhibition Hall, the Department of Internal Affairs and other organizations took an active part in the preparation and holding of the military-patriotic festival dedicated to the Battle of Vokhon in the Patriotic War of 1812.

Numerous representatives of the military-historical clubs of the capital deserve special gratitude as the main participants in the final extraordinary theatrical performance similar to the famous reconstruction of the Battle of Borodino, but on a smaller scale. Dressed in military uniforms of 1812 and accordingly armed, mounted and on foot, they gave the necessary historical flavor to the entire performance, creating a special feeling of documentary authenticity of what was happening. Young ladies walking among the audience in ancient dresses also corresponded to the recreation of the historical setting.

The effect of the presence of spectators at the scene of events was achieved completely when the battle of the Vokhon militia with the French guards unfolded, accompanied by cannon and rifle fire with whistling and explosions of cannonballs, blowing peasant houses into dust and splinters. Vokhon residents have not seen anything like this since 1812. (By the way, they did not see this in 1812 either, see previous articles). At times, fire and smoke half obscured the panorama of the battle, which, with the sound of an appropriately selected musical background, evoked a sense of the drama of what was happening, emotional tension and the necessary intrigue for those present.

A very lively and impressive impression on the public was unexpectedly made by a real (real, unreconstructed) large wild mallard, startled by cannon fire and raised from a nearby swamp and flying unusually low over the battlefield. As experts (and the famous amateur hunter N.M. Krasnov) noted, it was a complete and natural (feather to feather) copy of a wild local duck from the time of 1812, and possibly its direct descendant. One way or another, more than a thousand cheerful and enthusiastically surprised spectators, distracted from the battle, greeted and escorted with applause an unplanned, but very expressive and convincing extra participant in the grandiose performance.

But, of course, the handsome French officer riding a thoroughbred black stallion “took” the most applause from the public. When he, at the head of the squadron, galloped dashingly across the field and then pranced in front of the audience in the final parade of participants, “the women shouted “Hurray!” and they threw caps into the air.” As you guessed, it was the organizer of this grandiose event himself - Vladimir Kovshutin. The holiday was definitely a success for him, for which we congratulate him. Following the beautiful festive fireworks (with multi-colored parachutes), a bright performance by the Russian song ensemble “Krutoyar” from the Potapov Palace of Culture (director Evelina Shilkova) suitably concluded the event.

A conversation about plot, script, director, production, organizational and other shortcomings (the main one of which, in our opinion, is the discrepancy between the action and the real picture of events) is hardly appropriate today, since it concerns only the author of the project, who has the right to different options for creative implementation .

Let us only note that correct announcer commentary can provide half the success of any cultural event.

Competent specialists in the field of military history, local history and stage directors will draw the audience's attention to the most important, important, key moments of the ongoing action. Of course, the announcer's explanations must be specific, concise, and most importantly dynamic - taking into account and in accordance with what is happening in the “theater of action.”

I would very much like the new Festival born here to continue to live, gaining creative potential and scope year after year.

V. Sitnov