Suppression of the Streltsy rebellion of 1698. "Morning of the Streltsy execution" by Surikov. Briefly about the Streltsy rebellion

Streltsy Executions The government of Peter I transferred the streltsy regiments to the border towns - to Azov and to the Lithuanian border. The archers were having a hard time. Previously, they lived quietly in the capital, engaged in crafts and were called royal guards. Now they are serving in

VI Surikov (1848-1916) made a great contribution to the development of historical painting in Russia. He unraveled the works of ancient Russian artists, admired the surprisingly colorful range, the depth of the created images. Our article will be devoted to the first work of the painter - the painting "Morning of the Streltsy Execution".

A few words about the biography of the artist

He was born in Krasnoyarsk, in a Cossack family. After graduating from the district school, the young man became a scribe in the administration of the province and constantly draws at the same time. For fun, he depicted a fly on paper in the office. Seeing her, the governor tried to brush off the insect. However, the fly continued to sit. Having figured out what was the matter, the head of the province wrote a letter to St. Petersburg and spoke about the abilities of the young scribe. The answer with an invitation to the capital came pretty soon. The philanthropist-gold miner P. Kuznetsov paid for the young man both the road and education.

Having finished his studies in St. Petersburg in 1875, V. Surikov moved to Moscow two years later, where he worked on the frescoes of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. By this time, he had already matured the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe painting “Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, as the artist would later call it.

The history of the creation of the canvas

While moving from Krasnoyarsk to the northern capital, V. Surikov stopped in Moscow for one day. For the first time he saw the Kremlin with its cathedrals and Red Square. In the imagination of the young man, the cruel public corporal punishment and executions that took place on it were vividly outlined. He saw with his inner eye powerful, strong-willed, inflexible people who were mercilessly dealt with here.

The second thought that prompted him to write the painting “Morning of the Streltsy Execution” was a candle. She burned during the day and showed the artist how her body dies, and the fire, having disappeared, joins Eternity. Two ideas, combined into one, haunted the artist's thoughts when he studied at the Academy and worked in Moscow. He was attracted by history, Surikov seriously began to study the topic of the archery uprisings of 1682 and 1698. The events of those years were so dramatic that the young artist had bloody dreams. In them, he physically smelled blood. Surikov in his painting "Morning of the Streltsy Execution" decided to depict the time that preceded it, the psychological mood of all the characters.

What was the real uprising

While young Peter, who had already imprisoned Sister Sophia in a monastery, but did not pacify her rebellious spirit, was with a great embassy in Europe, his troops, who participated in the Azov campaigns, were divided in two. "Funny" - have always been adherents of the king, and the archers considered themselves the troops of Sophia. They did not want to turn into soldiers and tried to keep the country in the old days: if necessary, fight, and in peacetime trade and garden in Moscow. From the monastery, Sofya Alekseevna managed to spread rumors that her brother had been replaced in Europe, that a completely different person would return to Russia, and that she was in danger. Streltsy, instead of going to Velikiye Luki, where they were sent from Azov, went to Moscow. In it, they fortified themselves in their settlements and established contact with Sophia, whom they were going to protect. Peter's soldiers drove them out of the capital. The rebels entrenched themselves near New Jerusalem. There, after peace negotiations, they were quickly dealt with by four regiments. The rebels were taken prisoner. Physical destruction began almost immediately. One hundred and thirty people were hanged, one hundred and forty were beaten with whips, and about two thousand were prepared for exile. By this time, by August 1698, Peter Alekseevich urgently returned to Russia.

New consequence

The tsar mentally prepared himself for a life-and-death struggle: the archers were the personification of everything that was outdated, which prevented the country from moving forward to the new transformations that he outlined for his state. When I read the search case about the archers, I found only malicious attacks against Lefort, and therefore against himself. Fury flared up in the king's soul. Executions began in Moscow. They did not pass on Red Square, as Surikov's painting "Morning of the Streltsy Execution" depicts. First, 1,700 people were gathered in the fourteen dungeons of Preobrazhensky - they were tortured for a long time and cruelly. This is described in detail by the historian S.M. Solovyov. They got a confession from them that they were going to put Sophia on the kingdom. In the meantime, they were preparing for executions, gallows were set up everywhere: in Zemlyanoy and Bely Gorod, at the gates and windows of Sophia near the Maiden Monastery.

executions

The first execution was carried out at the Pokrovsky Gate, when 200 archers were brought on a hundred carts at once. Each of them held a lit candle in his hand. After reading the decree, Peter personally cut off the heads of five instigators, but he did it in Preobrazhensky. Throughout October, executions continued, some were hanged, and the tsar forced some of the boyars close to him to chop off their heads. They had no experience, they only tormented their victims with more than one swing of the ax, but chopped several times. The artist of the painting "Morning of the Streltsy Execution" departed from historical facts, but conveyed the horror of death and the confrontation between the two worlds. Under the windows of Sophia's cell, 195 gallows were placed so that she and all Muscovites would remember well how the riots ended. The hanged were not filmed for five whole months.

IN AND. Surikov: description of the painting "Morning of the Streltsy Execution"

According to M. Voloshin, the composition was born when the artist looked at a burning candle, which cast golden reflections on the white wall. Illuminated by a burning candle during the day, a white shirt with reflections simply pursued and did not let go of the artist. In the end, she was embodied in the white shirts of archers doomed to death. In the 19th century, a candle that burns during the day caused everyone to think about the funeral, the dead and death. It has a different meaning for a modern person.

The composition is quite complex. She leans on burning candles.

With their lights they lead us from below from the old woman, then rise to the middle, make a semicircle, wrapping themselves around the red-haired archer, and, going to the left, cross the entire canvas to go out under the angry look of Peter on the right.

There is another compositional technique that was used by the author of the painting "Morning of the Streltsy Execution". He deliberately distorted the size of Red Square in the direction of reduction, bringing together the Execution Ground, the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin and the Kremlin wall. With this, Surikov achieved the impression of a huge crowd on her. In fact, the crowd of people is about 20 people, and not two hundred, as it seems when you glance at the canvas at first glance. In addition, he greatly cut off the dome of the Church of the Most Holy Theotokos.

The two main characters in the picture

Two people confront each other - a stern, focused Peter, who has hated this rabble since childhood, and a red-haired archer with a candle. The first sketches for the painting began with him. Repin sought out a nature for Surikov. It was a gravedigger. The artist barely persuaded him to pose. The result was the image of a man with an unbending will.

If you repeat everything again, then the archer, knowing in advance what threatens him, will go against the king, protecting the way of life that has developed over the centuries. They are connected by a conditional diagonal, symbolizing antagonism. The king is confident and calm. He will forever crush this mossy, stubborn Russia. Sagittarius, shackled in stocks, is ready at least this minute to cling to the throat of Peter and destroy him with all his transformations.

Other heroes

We continue the description of the painting "Morning of the Streltsy Execution". The area is still covered in semi-darkness. The second person, submissive and weak-willed, is led to the gallows standing in the depths, grabbing him by the arms.

His wife wails in desperation, and the baby buried his face in her brocade hem.

The next one will probably be the unfortunate man with wheaten hair sitting in the center, from whom the soldier has already taken the candle.

He had already renounced this world, automatically placing his overworked hand on the head of his daughter, who was buried in her father's knees, and trying to hug his crying son.

It can be black-haired and black-bearded with an aquiline nose, darkly moving his eyebrows, a recalcitrant archer. In the last moments, his wife embraces him by the shoulders in a thrown red caftan. On her face - horror and sorrow.

And, perhaps, it will be an archer who has risen to his full height, repentant before the people and God, into which the hand of a soldier has already grabbed.

It is impossible to let out of sight the gray-haired old man with an earring in one ear, who sits with his back to us. We do not see his gaze, but, probably, he is looking intently at the burning candle melting like his life.

The color of the canvas

The dark color of the early foggy morning after the night rain, when the execution is performed, emphasizes the tragedy of the events. It's just getting light. The fog hasn't cleared yet. Among the masses of the people, the white clean shirts of the archers stand out brightly, who face inevitable death without repentance. There is not a single priest among the crowd... So the almighty sovereign decided.

Story based on the painting "Morning of the Streltsy Execution"

On the canvas, the artist painted in dark colors a gray misty morning after a night rain. The entire Red Square is occupied by a crowd of mourning people. Archers in white shirts with burning candles in their hands were brought in stocks on carts from the dungeons, where they were interrogated and tortured. We see how Vasily Surikov painted six still living characters in the painting “Morning of the Streltsy Execution”. From the seventh, already hanged, only a candle remained in his mother's hands. Not all the first execution broke the rebellious spirit. The red-haired archer who did not give up the spirit of Tsar Peter will stand out especially. His face is full of impotent hatred for this offspring, who wants to change the quiet suburban life into a stormy one, full of struggle and transformation. Peter, in turn, surrounded by boyars and foreigners, is confident in his abilities. He, straightening his shoulders, sits on the right side of the horse and towers over everyone. His will will turn Russia onto a new path that will open wide horizons for her.

Exhibition of the Wanderers

The painting “Morning of the Streltsy Execution” was exhibited on the day of the attempt on the life of the Tsar-Liberator Alexander II and on the day of his death. The canvas did not go unnoticed by the public and immediately entered the collection of P.M. Tretyakov.

Streltsy rebellion of 1682 (Khovanshchina)- the uprising of the Moscow archers, as a result of which, in addition to Peter I, his brother Ivan V was crowned, most of the relatives of Peter I (Naryshkins) were killed or exiled, and the princess-regent Sophia became the de facto ruler - the Miloslavsky clan came to power.

Briefly about the essence of the Streltsy rebellion of 1682

Reasons and purposes

• After the creation of regiments of the new order under Fedor Alekseevich, the position of the archers worsened - from elite military units they began to turn into city police
• The salaries of the archers were paid irregularly, the commanders abused their power - they appropriated the salaries of privates, forced them to do household work
• The Miloslavsky clan, supporting Ivan V, decided to take advantage of the situation and, with the help of the archers, enthrone their candidates - rumors began to spread among the archers that the Naryshkins were going to further oppress the archers and reduce their importance in the Russian army.
• The immediate cause for the uprising on May 15 was the Miloslavsky slander that the Naryshkins had strangled Tsarevich John Alekseevich, as well as their calls for the archers to come to the Kremlin.

Results and results

• Despite the fact that Ivan was alive, the archers were too inflamed and rushed to kill both their own negligent commanders and representatives of the Naryshkin clan.
• For several months (May-September), the actual power in Moscow belonged to the archers under the leadership of I. A. Khovansky
• The Old Believers, who decided to take advantage of the weakness of the royal power and supported by Khovansky, tried to restore their own rights in a theological dispute with the officials of the New Rite Church - as a result, the head of the Old Believer delegation, Nikita Pustosvyat, was beheaded.
• As a result of the uprising to the throne, Ivan V was crowned together with Peter I, but due to their childhood, the regent Sophia became the de facto ruler - the Miloslavsky clan came to power, and Peter I and his Mother left Moscow.

The history of the Streltsy rebellion of 1682 and the chronology of events

After the death of the father of Peter I, Alexei Mikhailovich, the eldest of his sons, Fedor, took the throne for a short time. When he died, too, two clans began to fight for power, supporting children from two marriages of Alexei Mikhailovich: on the part of Peter I, these were the Naryshkins, on the part of Ivan V, the Miloslavskys.

The Boyar Duma, personally interested in the fact that the tsar chosen by it turned out to be loyal, tried for a long time to make a final decision about who would rule the state. Despite his seniority, Ivan was a very sickly child, which ultimately inclined the choice in favor of Peter, and April 27, 1682- when his brother Fyodor Alekseevich died - Peter was proclaimed king.

Naturally, the Miloslavskys were not ready to lose power, so Princess Sophia and her associates decided to take advantage of the discontent among the archers in order to swing the scales in the struggle for the throne in their favor. Princes Golitsyn and Khovansky, who did not want the rise of the Naryshkin clan, joined Sophia in her struggle.

The emissaries of the Miloslavskys began to increase the discontent of the archers, spreading rumors among them about future hardships and oppression in the event of the Naryshkins ascending to power. Seeds of doubt fell on fertile ground - among the archers who had not received normal salaries for a long time, cases of violation of discipline became more frequent, and several commanders trying to restore order were dragged to the high bell tower and thrown to the ground.

Tsaritsa Natalya Kirillovna shows Ivan V to the archers to prove that he is alive and well. Painting by N. D. Dmitriev-Orenburgsky

May 15 one of the closest boyars, Miloslavsky, with his nephew, galloped through the streltsy garrisons near Moscow and called the archers to come to the Kremlin as soon as the Naryshkins strangled Tsarevich John Alekseevich. To the sound of the alarm bell, many archers broke into the Kremlin with weapons and crushed the royal guards, filling the Cathedral Square in front of the palace.

Tsarina Natalya Kirillovna with princes Ivan and Peter went out to the Red Porch, accompanied by several boyars and the patriarch. The archers were confused - since Tsarevich Ivan himself answered their questions:

“No one harasses me, and I have no one to complain about”
Ivan V

The already tense crowd exploded - the archers rushed to the porch and threw Dolgoruky onto the spears placed below, and then a bloody drama broke out. Artamon Matveev, one of the leaders of the Naryshkins, the tsarina's brother Athanasius Naryshkin and several other boyars were slaughtered within a few minutes. Supporters of the Naryshkins and Streltsy commanders were killed all over the city, the archers placed their sentries all over the Kremlin - in fact, everyone who was at that time in the heart of the capital was taken hostage.

Streltsy rebellion in 1682. Streltsy dragging Ivan Naryshkin out of the palace. While Peter I comforts his mother, Princess Sophia watches with satisfaction. Painting by A. I. Korzukhin, 1882

The next day, threatening to exterminate all the boyars, the archers came to the Kremlin and demanded the extradition of Ivan Naryshkin, having received which (Sofya and the boyars forced Natalya Kirrilovna to extradite him), they first brutally tortured him, and then executed him. The tsarina's father, Kirill Poeluektovich Naryshkin, was tonsured a monk and exiled to the Kirillo-Belozersky Monastery.

Chaos, executions of boyars and archery chiefs continued until May 18. There was virtually no state power: the young Peter was nominally the tsar, his mother Natalya Kirillovna was the regent, but all their relatives and supporters were either expelled from Moscow or killed.

May 19 the archers sent elected officials to the tsar with a petition (in fact, an ultimatum demand, not a request) to pay all salary debts, totaling 240,000 rubles. The treasury was empty, but there was no way to refuse the archers, so Sophia ordered to collect money for payment throughout the country, as well as to melt silver and gold.

May, 23rd the archers again filed a petition in which they demanded that Tsarevich Ivan be also crowned, and, moreover, the elder tsar besides Peter.

May 29 another petition reported on the need to appoint regents for the underage tsars Sofya Alekseevna. Obviously, these demands were prompted by the Miloslavskys, and the archers themselves tried to protect themselves from the revenge of the Naryshkins. The Boyar Duma and the Patriarch complied with their demands, and on June 25 Ivan V, together with Peter I, were crowned kings.

Sophia under Tsars Peter I and Ivan V

Although the archers got the opportunity to dictate their will to the government, they were well aware of the precariousness of their own position - they should have left the Kremlin and it would end to their delight. Trying to protect themselves from future persecution, they put forward a new ultimatum - to recognize all their actions as meeting the interests of the tsars and the state and to dig a memorial pillar with the names of the murdered boyars carved on it, listing their atrocities (some of which were fictitious). Having no alternative, the rulers were forced to comply with these requirements.

Khovanshchina

Sophia appointed Prince I. A. Khovansky, who spoke for the Miloslavskys, as the head of the archers for the time of the rebellion. Sophia's calculation turned out to be wrong - instead of calming the archers, Khovansky indulged them and tried to put pressure on Sophia herself at their expense:

“When I am gone, then in Moscow they will walk knee-deep in blood
I. A. Khovansky

Under the pretext of protection, the archers did not leave the Kremlin, holding the initiative. By the name of their leader, the Streltsy revolt of 1682 and the subsequent period of Streltsy control in the Kremlin received the historical name "Khovanshchina".

Feeling the weakness of the current rulers, the persecuted Old Believers decided to try to regain their lost positions. From distant sketes, their preachers gathered in Moscow and began to call on the archers to return to the old church rites. Khovansky decided to take advantage of another lever of influence on the regent princess and enthusiastically supported the Old Believers. The church had to say the final word, but the Old Believers had already been recognized as heretics at the Ecumenical Council, and for Sophia herself to recognize the correctness of the supporters of the old rites was tantamount to questioning the political decision of her father Alexei Mikhailovich to support the new church rites.

The theological dispute proposed by the Old Believers to resolve the church ritual dispute was supported by Khovansky. Realizing that holding a dispute on Red Square would be dangerous due to the antipathy of the crowd to power, the patriarch, with the help of Sophia, moved the place of discussion to the Faceted Chamber of the Kremlin, capable of accommodating only the patriarchal retinue, boyars and guards.

The dispute about faith that took place on July 5 ended in mutual accusations of heresy, swearing, and miraculously did not reach a fight. Speaking from the side of the Old Believers, Nikita Pustosvyat was forced to leave the Kremlin, and Patriarch Joachim announced his complete victory. Sophia, meanwhile, told the archers in the Faceted Chamber:

“What are you watching?
Is it good for such ignorant peasants to come to us in revolt, to annoy us all and shout?
Are you, faithful servants of our grandfather, father and brother, in agreement with the schismatics?
You are also called our faithful servants: why do you allow such ignoramuses?
If we must be in such enslavement, then the kings and we can no longer live here:
let's go to other cities and tell all the people about such disobedience and ruin."
Sofia Alekseevna

For the archers, this was an unambiguous hint: having left Moscow, the government had the opportunity to gather the noble militia and destroy them. Frightened by such a prospect, the archers accused the Old Believers of estimating and trying to restore the people against the kings, and then beheaded Pustosvyat. Khovansky, who guaranteed the safety of the Old Believers, managed to save the rest. This case became a turning point in the relationship between Khovansky and Princess Sophia - now she considered him exclusively as an adversary.

Until mid-August, the government remained dependent on the streltsy regiments, and then Sophia came up with a way to get rid of the streltsy "guardianship".

August 19 a religious procession was planned in the Donskoy Monastery, the custom of which involved the participation of kings. Under this pretext, the entire royal family, under the escort of their own guards, left the capital, ostensibly headed for the monastery, but in fact - to detour Moscow through Kolomenskoye and country roads to the village of Vozdvizhenskoye. The nearby Trinity-Sergius Monastery was chosen as a stronghold during the confrontation with the archers. The remnants of the boyars, the royal court and all who remained loyal to the government soon gathered here.

Alarmed by such a maneuver, Prince Khovansky and his son Andrei decided to go to Vozdvizhenskoye for negotiations, but during an overnight stay in the village of Pushkino they were captured by the royal stolniks and September 17(Sophia's birthday) were brought to Vozdvizhenskoye. They were read accusations of treachery, an attempt to seize power and were sentenced to death, executing on the spot. Having finally moved to the monastery, Sophia began to gather the noble militia for further struggle with the archers.

End of the Streltsy rebellion of 1682

Left without a leader, the archers could not plan their actions. They tried to appease Sophia, sending assurances of their desire to “faithfully serve sparing the belly”, asked not to deprive her of mercy, and even extradited Khovansky’s youngest son, Ivan, who was later sent into exile.

In October the archers even sent a petition, recognizing their own actions during the riot on May 15-18 as illegal, and begging the kings to have mercy on them, agreeing to the demolition of the memorial pillar at Lobnoye Mesto. Sophia told the archers that she was ready to forgive them if Alexei Yudin, Khovansky's closest ally, was extradited. Appointed head of the Streltsy order, Duma clerk Fyodor Leontyevich Shaklovity quickly restored order and discipline. Repression, nevertheless, could not be avoided - when the archers again started a turmoil in the Bokhin regiment, four instigators were immediately executed.

In the beginning of November Tsar Ivan V, regent Sophia and the whole court returned to Moscow, but the mother of Peter I considered it unsafe for herself and her son to remain in the Kremlin, and decided to move to the country residence of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich - the village of Preobrazhenskoye. Peter I lived there with his mother, leaving for Moscow solely to participate in the obligatory ceremonies.

The power of Sofya Alekseevna as a regent under Peter I and Ivan V lasted 7 years, until September 1689 - the matured Peter I, with the help of his own mother and people loyal to them, was able to remove his sister from power and exile her to a monastery. Their further confrontation broke out briefly in 1698, during another streltsy revolt, after the suppression of which Peter I made the final decision to completely reform the army and disband the streltsy regiments, and Sophia herself was forcibly tonsured a nun.

SPECIAL PROJECTS

January 24 marks the 170th anniversary of the birth of the artist Vasily Surikov. "The Table" remembers the founder of Russian historical painting and a real time traveler, whose childhood and youth passed in the 17th century

Babi howling and crying stood over Red Square, when carts with prisoners appeared from the direction of the Preobrazhenskaya soldier's settlement.

Finally, the wagons with the convicts reached the Execution Hill, where wives and children rushed to the exhausted archers, chained and stocked, miraculously making their way through the cordon. Here a real dump began with lamentations excitedly, pulling out hair and wallowing on the ground.

- Stop immediately! - General Buturlin, who commanded the execution, grimaced in disgust.

And right there, hefty Transfiguration soldiers jumped up to the carts. Pushing away the sobbing women and children with their boots, they busily dragged the first archer in stocks from the cart: it's time, brother, your hour has come. Since the condemned man himself could not take a step in these stocks, the soldiers grabbed him by the arms and quickly dragged him to the gallows, built in a row near the Kremlin wall.

“Hug the kids for me,” Sagittarius Vasily Torgoshin quickly whispered in his wife’s ear. - Sons Stepushka and Kolenka, daughter Marfushka, but bow low to the father and mother. And especially bow to Father John. Tell him that the centurion Vasily son Ivanov asked for forgiveness, that he did not stop the Antichrist, did not protect the Orthodox faith from desecration ...

Vasily suddenly stopped short when he saw the one about whom so many terrible rumors were circulating in Moscow - the impostor Antichrist. The tsar, with a face shaved in the German manner and an absurd mustache, sat on a spotted mare literally ten paces from him and, in some strange daze, examined the centurion shackled in shackles.

“Oh, if there was a faithful squeaker and a lead bullet at hand,” the centurion suddenly thought, “otherwise the matter would have been decided ...”

But he only directed a return look at Sovereign Peter, full of rage and hatred: remember, tsar, this look. Remember until your very last breath: not we, so our descendants will take revenge on you! Not for you, but for your seed...

The painting by Vasily Surikov “Morning of the Streltsy Execution”, first presented to the public on March 1, 1881 at the opening of the IX exhibition of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions in St. Petersburg, produced the effect of an exploding bomb.

Alexandra Botkina, daughter of Pavel Tretyakov, recalled:

Nobody started like this. He did not sway, did not try on, and like thunder struck this work ...

Vasily Ivanovich Surikov. Morning of the archery execution. 1881

Like thunder struck - that's even putting it mildly

On the same day - March 1, 1881 - on the embankment of the Catherine Canal in St. Petersburg, Emperor Alexander II, who by that time had already survived several attempts on his life, was killed by a bomb explosion. The arrest of terrorists from the organization "Narodnaya Volya" was a real shock to society: the killers of the sovereign were not at all malicious Masons and not agents of foreign powers, not Jews of other faiths or sectarians - no, OWN children raised their hands on the life of the king - noble children, "golden youth ", who did not know the need for anything.

And every time after the next terrorist attack in high-society salons, disputes broke out: how is this possible ?!

The direct killer of the emperor, the student Ignatius Grinevitsky, was a family nobleman from the Minsk province, while another participant in the regicide, Nikolai Rysakov, who threw the first bomb on the royal carriage, was the offspring of the manager of the state sawmill in the Novgorod province. The rest of the terrorists were representatives of the nobility, and even Sofya Perovskaya was a countess, the daughter of the governor of St. Petersburg and a member of the council of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The only exception is the leader of Narodnaya Volya, Andrei Zhelyabov, who comes from a family of wealthy serfs who were engaged in trade.

And this was by no means an isolated case.

Before that, back in 1866, the case of the small-scale nobleman Dmitry Karakozov, who shot at the tsar at the Summer Garden, thundered (an interesting detail: the sovereign was saved by a poor peasant Osip Komissarov, who pushed the killer's hand away).

The case of the noblewoman and terrorist Vera Zasulich thundered throughout Russia, who in the spring of 1878 fired a revolver at the St. Petersburg mayor Fedor Fedorovich Trepov, for which she was acquitted by a jury.

Zasulich's shot was followed by a number of other public attempts - for example, the murder of the chief of gendarmes, Adjutant General Nikolai Mezentsov, which was committed by the nobleman Kravchinsky, or the murder of the Kharkov governor, Major General Prince Dmitry Kropotkin, by the way, the cousin of the revolutionary anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin, who approved the murder brother.

And every time after the next terrorist attack in high-society salons, disputes broke out: how is this possible ?!

Why did the enemies of the state order become those from whom it could least be expected - representatives of the privileged class?

What did they lack?

And suddenly, an unknown artist not only hit this painful nerve of Russian life, but with all ruthlessness showed what it was scary to talk about: that there is no and never was this ostentatious unity of the people around the monarchy. That the discord in the Russian state did not arise at all yesterday, that these are just episodes of a civil war between the government and the people that has been smoldering for centuries - the consequences of an unrelenting religious schism that have not been cured to this day.

It is not surprising that a few days later the whole capital was already whispering about the picture of the Siberian rebel and prophet Surikov, who allegedly called for the overthrow of all the Romanovs.

Repin enthusiastically wrote to Tretyakov: “Surikov’s painting makes an irresistible, deep impression on everyone. All with one voice expressed their readiness to give her the best place; everyone has written on their faces that she is our pride at this exhibition ... A powerful picture! Well, yes, they will write to you about her ... It was decided for Surikov to immediately offer a member of our partnership.

Soon the rumors reached the courtiers, and, they said, in early April, Alexander III himself, by the way, a passionate admirer of painting and chairman of the Society for Mutual Assistance and Charity of Russian Artists in Paris, incognito visited the mansion of Prince Yusupov on Nevsky Prospekt, where canvases of the Wanderers were exhibited .

144 people were hanged on Red Square

The sovereign stood for a long time at the picture of Surikov, thoughtfully biting his mustache.

- Would you like to take it off, Your Majesty? one of the dignitaries asked timidly.

– No, why… Is the painting for sale?

- Already sold, sir, Your Majesty, sir. Merchant Tretyakov for the needs of his own gallery in Moscow.

- All right, let it hang.

And the sovereign, slowly turning, went to the exit.

Of course, in reality everything happened differently than Surikov portrayed.

On that day, Tsar Peter the Great executed not at all seven archers, as it is written in the picture, but 230 convicts.

The next day, the executions continued. And 144 people were hanged on Red Square.

“And others were hanged throughout the Earthen City at all the gates on both sides,” wrote the Russian diplomat Ivan Zhelyabuzhsky. - It was the same at the White City outside the city at all the gates on both sides: logs were pierced through the battlements of the city walls and the ends of those logs ... were released outside the city and archers were hung at those ends. And others are hanged on the Maiden's field in front of the monastery and petitions are stuck in their hands.

The petitions, apparently, were addressed to Princess Sophia, imprisoned at that time in the Novodevichy Convent, Tsar Peter deliberately forced Sophia to look at the painful death of her supporters.

In total, according to the chroniclers, over 2 thousand people were executed in those days in Moscow.

But the centurion Vasily Torgoshin himself survived in that meat grinder. He, like many other archers, was simply beaten with a whip to a pulp and sent into exile - to distant Siberia.

Krasnoyarsk

Near Krasnoyarsk, on the banks of the Yenisei River, he founded the village of Torgoshino, and his sons and grandsons, who became Siberian Cossacks, took up the coachman trade, transporting tea from the Chinese border from Irkutsk to Tomsk.

Praskovya Fyodorovna Torgoshina was born in this village - the future mother of the artist, who loved to live in this bearish corner.

“The family was rich,” Surikov said many years later. I remember the old house. The yard was paved. Our yards are paved with hewn logs. There, the very air seemed ancient. And the icons are old, and the costumes. And my cousins ​​​​- girls are just like in epics they sing about twelve sisters. The girls had a special beauty: ancient, Russian ...

Krasnoyarsk

Interestingly, for the portrait of the centurion Vasily Torgoshin, Surikov was posed by his own uncle, Stepan Fedorovich Torgoshin.

The artist's father, Ivan Vasilyevich Surikov, was the son of the ataman of the Yenisei Cossack regiment.

Maximilian Voloshin, who was ordered a monograph about Surikov for the Knebel publishing house, wrote: “His ancestors came to Siberia with Yermak. His family obviously comes from the Don, where the Surikov Cossacks are still preserved in the Verkhne-Yagirskaya and Kundryuchinskaya villages. From there they went to conquer Siberia and are mentioned as the founders of Krasnoyarsk in 1622.

“After they sank Yermak in the Irtysh,” he said, “they went up the Yenisei, founded Yeniseisk, and then Krasnoyarsk Ostrogi—that’s what we called places fortified with a palisade.

“Our mountains are entirely made of precious stones - porphyry, jasper. The Yenisei is clean, cold, fast"

Unfolding documents and books, he proudly read aloud the history of the Krasnoyarsk rebellion, when the Cossacks lowered the unwanted tsar governor Durnovo down the Yenisei, and at the mention of each Cossack name he interrupted himself, exclaiming:

“It’s all my relatives… It’s us, the thieves’ people… And I studied with the Many-Sinful Ones—these are the descendants of the Hetman!”

And then he started talking:

- In Siberia, the people are different than in Russia: free, brave. And what kind of edge do we have. Western Siberia is flat, and beyond the Yenisei we already have mountains: taiga to the south, and clay hills to the north, pink-red. And Krasnoyarsk - hence the name; they say about us: "Krasnoyarians with Yara's heart." Our mountains are entirely made of precious stones - porphyry, jasper. The Yenisei is clean, cold, fast. You throw a log into the water, and God knows where it has already gone. When we were boys, we did everything when we were swimming. I dived under the rafts: you dive, and the water below carries you. I remember once I surfaced ahead of time: I was dragged under the beams. The beams were slippery, it carried quickly, only the sky flashed through the gap - blue. However, it took…

Krasnoyarsk

Vasily Surikov grew up in the village of Sukhoi Buzim, 60 versts from Krasnoyarsk, where his father, an average official from the provincial office, was transferred to serve in the excise department of the county. Vasily was the middle son. The family also had an older sister, Katya, and a younger brother, Sasha.

“I was free to live in Buzimov,” Surikov recalled. - The country was unknown. After all, in Krasnoyarsk, no one knew before the railway what was beyond the mountains. Torgoshino was under the mountain. And what was behind the mountain - no one knew. It was there for another twenty miles Svishchovo. I had relatives in Svishtov. And beyond Svishtov, five hundred versts of forest to the very Chinese border. And it's full of bears. Until the fifties of the nineteenth century, everything was full: rivers with fish, forests with game, land with gold. What fish were! Sturgeon and sterlet in a sazhen. I remember - they will be brought, so they stand right at the door, like soldiers. Or I was small, that they seemed so huge ... And Buzimovo was to the north. From Krasnoyarsk all day to ride horses. The windows there are still mica, songs that you won’t hear in the city. And Maslenitsa festivities, and Christoslavs. Since then, the cult of ancestors has remained with me. The brother still gives commemoration of all the dead. On Forgiveness Sunday, we came to our mother for forgiveness on our knees to ask. At Christmas, the Christians came. Icons were rubbed with linseed oil, and silver chasubles with chalk.

“I still remember, I was very small, I painted on morocco chairs - dirty”

Vasily Surikov spoke about the beginning of his passion for painting as follows:

“I started drawing from childhood. Still, I remember, I was very small, I painted on morocco chairs - I soiled them. Of my uncles, one painted - Khozyainov (Khozyainov Ivan Mikhailovich - a local icon painter). Most importantly, I loved beauty. Beauty in everything. Since childhood, I have peered into faces, how the eyes are set apart, how the features of the face are composed. I am six years old, I remember, it was - I drew Peter the Great from a black engraving. And the colors from myself: the uniform is blue, and the lapels are lingonberries ...

I. E. Repin. Portrait of the artist V. I. Surikov

In 1858, the parents sent their son to the first grade of the Krasnoyarsk district school, where the art teacher Nikolai Vasilievich Grebnev turned his attention to the young talent.

- Grebnev took me with him and made me draw a city on top of the hill with watercolors. He told me about Bryullov. About Aivazovsky, as he writes water, - that it is just like a living thing; How does he know the shapes of clouds...

After the district school, Surikov entered the fourth grade of the gymnasium, but due to the cramped position of the family - then his father died in Buzimov - he had to leave the gymnasium. Vasily entered the service of the provincial government as a scribe. The work was completely uninteresting - the whole day I had to rewrite some papers, reports, memos. On Easter he worked part-time - he painted Easter eggs for three rubles per hundred.

A few years later, he begged his mother to let him go to St. Petersburg to study at the Academy of Arts, about which he had heard so much from Grebnev. Governor Pavel Nikolaevich Zamyatnin also promised his patronage upon admission, and the mayor of Krasnoyarsk, Pyotr Ivanovich Kuznetsov, promised him help on the road.

However, Surikov failed the entrance exams - he did not pass the drawing "on plaster"

- Kuznetsov sent fish to St. Petersburg - as a gift to the ministers. I went with the convoy. Huge fish were being transported: I was sitting on top of a cart on a big sturgeon. I was cold in the sheepskin coat. All kochenel. In the evening, when you arrive, while you are still warm; They give me vodka. Then on the way I bought myself a dokha.

The road to St. Petersburg took almost two months - first on horseback with a wagon train to Nizhny Novgorod itself, then by rail to the capital itself.

However, Surikov failed the entrance exams - he did not pass the drawing "on plaster" - that is, when artists paint from life some part of a plaster figure. But in Krasnoyarsk there were no "plaster casts", and Surikov never painted them. As a result, the teachers only shrugged their shoulders:

- Yes, for such drawings, young man, you should even be forbidden to walk past the academy.

But Surikov did not even think of giving up. He went to study at the St. Petersburg Drawing School, which existed at the expense of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts. In a few months, he got his hand on the "gypsum" and successfully passed the entrance exam.

He graduated from the Surikov Academy in five years - moreover, as one of the most gifted students.

For the drawing "Merciful Samaritan" Surikov received a small gold medal - later he presented this picture to Kuznetsov. In the autumn of 1875, Surikov participated in the competition for the Big Gold Medal, which was associated with a two-year trip abroad at the expense of the Academy. For the competitive picture, a theme of four figures was proposed: "The Apostle Paul, explaining the tenets of Christianity before Herod-Agrippa, his sister Berenice and the Roman proconsul Festus."

Vasily Surikov. The Apostle Paul Explains the Articles of Faith

But in the end, the gold medal was not awarded to anyone for a reason very far from art: the cash desk of the academy was empty. Conference secretary Iseev, the right hand of the vice-president of the Academy of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich Romanov, committed a major embezzlement. However, there were rumors that the Grand Duke himself appropriated all the money, although, of course, only one Iseev was put on trial.

The injustice shown to Surikov was so obvious that the Council of the Academy sent a petition addressed to the tsar to provide Surikov with funds for a business trip. But here Surikov himself decided to show his character as a Siberian and proudly refused a handout. Instead of a trip, Surikov asked, it would be better if he was hired to do the murals of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.

Vasily Surikov. First Cathedral. Fresco

Surikov was entrusted with making frescoes for four Ecumenical Councils, and Surikov worked on this order for more than two years.

In Moscow, Vasily Surikov also met his love. One day, attracted by the sounds of an organ, the artist entered a Catholic church and met there a girl of rare beauty and with a rare name - Elizabeth Share.

Elizaveta Avgustovna was born into an international family. Her father, Auguste Charest, belonged to an old French family, known since the time of the Great French Revolution, and her mother, a small landed noblewoman, Maria Svistunova. To marry his beloved, Auguste Charest converted to Orthodoxy and moved to St. Petersburg, where he opened a stationery shop.

Vasily Surikov. portrait of wife

The business was not particularly profitable, but the dowry of Elizabeth Avgustovna was enough for the young Surikov family with two daughters to settle in a decent apartment on Zubovsky Boulevard, where Vasily Surikov could freely engage in creativity, without burdening himself with worries about earnings and commercial orders.

And the first thing Surikov decided to do was to paint The Morning of the Streltsy Execution, a historical canvas about the painful turnaround in Russia at the end of the 17th century, which was so reminiscent of the European reforms of the 19th century.

“I decided to write Streltsov when I was still traveling to St. Petersburg from Siberia,” Surikov told Maximilian Voloshin. – Then I saw the beauty of Moscow. Monuments, squares - they gave me the environment in which I could place my Siberian impressions. I looked at the monuments as I looked at living people, I asked them: “You saw, you heard, you are witnesses.”

That is why the painting "Morning of the Streltsy Execution" is so architectural. The canvas seems to be divided into two parts: on the left, a human mess of archers and ordinary people, above which rises a bush of turrets of an outlandish crystal of the Cathedral of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, which is on the Moat (better known as St. Basil's Cathedral) is the very embodiment of a chaotic and restless folk element.

To the right are the straight walls of the Kremlin, rows of battlements, below them are rows of gallows, and further on are rows of Transfiguration soldiers in European uniforms standing guard on guard, the very embodiment of a Europeanized state machine, replacing the old boyar orders and freemen.

V. I. Surikov. Morning of the archery execution. Fragment

Actually, the archers were a living symbol of the "rebellious" XVII century, which began with the Time of Troubles, passed through the Church Schism and ended with the appearance of the Russian Empire. And in all these events, a prominent role was played by the elite archery regiments - a kind of Praetorian guard of the Moscow tsars, who participated in all court intrigues. Peter himself was afraid of these "guardsmen" to the point of nervous trembling.

It all started in the spring of 1682, when the 21-year-old Tsar Fedor III, the eldest of the three sons of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, died unexpectedly. The day before, his official heir, his son Ilya, also died, who had not lived in this world for even two weeks.

archers

Immediately after the royal funeral, a fierce struggle for power broke out between the boyar parties. In fact, there were two parties: the Miloslavsky clan is the relatives of the first wife of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich Maria Miloslavskaya, the mother of Tsar Fedor, Princess Sophia and the young Tsarevich Ivan. The second party is the Naryshkins, relatives of the second royal wife Natalia Naryshkina, the mother of the young Tsarevich Peter. And at first, the supporters of the Naryshkins prevailed, which is understandable, because after the tragic death of Empress Maria in 1669, the influence of the Miloslavsky clan at court was reduced to zero. At the suggestion of the Naryshkins, the boyar duma proclaimed 10-year-old Peter the tsar, and his mother Natalya Kirillovna was appointed regent for the minor sovereign.

However, the accession of the Naryshkins did not suit Tsarina Sophia, who herself had views of the throne - even as a regent for the 16-year-old brother Ivan, who was considered mentally ill at court, since the prince was more interested in spiritual life than intrigues and struggle for power. As a result, Princess Sophia, having bribed the commanders of the Streltsy regiments, led them to the Kremlin, where the Streltsy perpetrated a real pogrom. Several boyars from the Naryshkin clan were chopped to pieces right in the church (among the dead were Dolgorukov, Matveev, Romodanovsky, Yazykov, that is, relatives and fathers of the future associates of Peter the Great). Peter's uncle, Ivan Kirillovich Naryshkin, Natalya's brother, was also put to a painful execution. He was killed in front of a frightened to death Peter, whom the boyars forced to watch the executions of relatives.

“The reign of Princess Sofya Alekseevna began with all diligence and justice to all and to the pleasure of the people”

After the rebellion, the Miloslavskys proclaimed both brothers Ivan and Peter to the kingdom, and Princess Sophia, who became the de facto sovereign ruler, as regent of the minor Peter. A double throne was even made for the half-brothers, which can still be seen in the Moscow Kremlin Museum. In its back there is a hole through which, it is believed, Sophia whispered to her younger brothers what they should have said to the boyars. Moreover, as Prince Kurakin wrote, these tips were very practical: “The reign of Tsarevna Sofya Alekseevna began with all diligence and justice for everyone and to the pleasure of the people, so there has never been such a wise government in the Russian state.”

True, the Miloslavskys could not retain power, because in 1689 - on the day of Peter's 17th birthday - Sophia's regency officially ended. The favorite of the princess - the head of the streltsy order Fyodor Shaklovity - even offered to kill Peter and all his relatives, but Peter was informed about the impending coup, and he managed to escape from Moscow in time under the protection of the walls of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. As a result, the Naryshkins, who stood behind the young tsar, were able to outbid the archery regiments. Boyar Shaklovity was killed, and Princess Sophia was imprisoned in the Novodevichy Convent. The brothers, Ivan and Peter, remained full co-rulers.

In 1696, Ivan V dies, and young Peter decides to leave for Europe as part of the Great Embassy, ​​and to leave incognito, under the name of Peter Mikhailov, officer of the Preobrazhensky Regiment. However, just before the departure, a streltsy riot almost broke out in Moscow again. During a ball at Lefort, the tsar became aware that a group of archers was preparing an assassination attempt on him. The conspiracy was led by Ivan Tsikler, a member of the Miloslavsky clan, and the boyar Alexei Sokovnin, brother of the famous schismatic Morozova. During the rebellion of 1689, they went over to the side of Peter, playing a prominent role in the capture of Princess Sophia, but then Cycler and Sokovnin decided that the size of royal gratitude did not correspond to their merits. And then they decided to “replay” everything, that is, to kill Tsar Peter, and return Sofya Alekseevna to the throne, who certainly would not spare money and bread positions for her faithful servants.

Of course, the princess herself only welcomed such a turn of events.

The conspirators were captured and executed. But the tsar sent the archery regiments away from Moscow - to protect the southern borders and to the Polish-Lithuanian outskirts, where, of course, the Praetorians, accustomed to a comfortable life in Moscow, had a rather difficult time.

Barracks and torture chambers were built for the arrested archers, in which braziers with coals for torture were smoked daily.

Already in Vienna, the sovereign learned that the archers rebelled again - they deserted from the border and returned to Moscow, where they began to spread rumors that the real tsar was killed abroad, and instead of the Russian tsar, the Germans slipped an impostor-antichrist so that the Gentiles from the German settlement could to seize power in Russia and sell it to heretics. And therefore, the archers decided to return Sophia to the kingdom.

The uprising continued for several days. Soon a detachment of tsarist troops under the command of General Patrick Gordon, which included the Preobrazhensky and Semyonovsky regiments, surrounded the rebellious archers under the walls of the New Jerusalem Resurrection Monastery on the Istra River, which is only forty miles from Moscow. The archers were surrounded and shot from cannons, while the survivors were taken prisoner and imprisoned in the monastery cellars. In the course of a short investigation, 56 "breeders" of the rebellion were hanged, another two hundred were beaten with a whip and exiled.

Banners of the archery regiments

But Tsar Peter, who hastily returned to Moscow, demanded that a new investigation be started. In the Streltsy rebellion, he saw a chance to put an end to the hated Miloslavskys, and the old boyar orders, and the old army, lazy and depraved, which was more dangerous to the rulers of Russia itself than to foreign invaders. He decided to break the old world, which interfered so much with Peter, with one powerful blow, and then build everything anew: a new state, a new nobility, a new European-style army.

And Peter energetically set to work. Barracks and torture chambers were built for the arrested archers in Preobrazhensky, in which braziers with coals were smoked daily to torture the archers. The unfortunates who were upturned on the rack were beaten with whips, burned with firebrands, burned their legs, and tortured with red-hot tongs. Ten investigative commissions were created, which were headed by people loyal to Peter - the boyars, who proved their loyalty to the sovereign by personally torturing and killing archery colonels.

Public executions also began in October. Moreover, they were executed not only on Red Square, but also in all districts of Moscow, where collective gallows, platforms and just decks for executions were also built.

Hundreds of heads impaled on iron stakes, embedded in the loopholes of the Kremlin walls, were put on display for many more years - as a warning to posterity

The Austrian diplomat Johann Korb, who witnessed these multi-day executions, wrote: “And the worst of them are thieves and breeders, they ... have broken arms and legs with wheels, and those wheels were stuck in Red Square on a necklace ... the living were put on those wheels, ... they moaned and groaned ... In front of the Kremlin, they dragged two brothers alive onto the wheels, having previously broken their arms and legs ... The criminals tied to the wheels saw their third brother in a pile of corpses. The pitiful cries and piercing cries of the unfortunate can only be imagined by those who are able to understand the full force of their torment and unbearable pain.

A special gallows in the shape of a cross was also built for regimental priests - they were executed by court jesters, dressed in cassocks for this occasion.

The corpses of the executed remained at the execution sites for five months. Hundreds of heads impaled on iron stakes embedded in the loopholes of the Kremlin walls were put on display for many more years - as a warning to posterity.

The wives and children of the executed streltsy were deprived of their property in the streltsy settlements and exiled to Siberia, to the most empty and barren places, from where they were forbidden to leave. The neighbors of these people, on pain of death, were forbidden not only to give shelter to fugitive archers and members of their families, but even to supply them with food or water.

The systematic extermination of the archery troops went on until the very beginning of the Northern War with Sweden. The defeat near Narva, the betrayal of foreign officers who easily went over to the side of the Swedes, the loss of many Russian and Ukrainian cities - all this made Peter change his mind. Streltsy regiments were restored, and the archers remained in the Russian army until the very end of the 18th century.

“We looked at the executioners as heroes. They knew them by their names: which Mishka, which Sasha. Their shirts are red, the ports are wide"

It is possible that Surikov saw precisely such a desire for “Europeanization” at any cost, breaking through the knee all the foundations and traditions of the patriarchal Russian society, in Tsar Alexander II.

And, of course, the childhood impressions of Surikov himself, who had repeatedly witnessed executions in Krasnoyarsk, also played an important role in the film.

“Executions and corporal punishment took place in public on the squares,” Surikov told Maximilian Voloshin. - The scaffold was not far from the school. There, the mare was punished with whips. The children loved the executioners. We looked at the executioners as heroes. They knew them by their names: which Mishka, which Sasha. Their shirts are red, the ports are wide. They walked up and down the scaffold in front of the crowd, straightening their shoulders. Heroism was on a grand scale ... Now they will say - education! But it strengthened. And the criminals treated like this: if you did it, then you have to pay. And what strength people used to have: they withstood a hundred lashes without shouting. And there was no fear. Rather delight. Nerves kept it up.

I remember one was fought; he stood like a martyr: he did not cry out even once. And we all - the boys - were sitting on the fence. At first the body became red, and then blue: only venous blood flowed. Give them alcohol to sniff. And one Tatar was brave, and after the second whip he began to scream. The people laughed a lot. One woman, I remember, was beaten - she killed her husband, a cabbie, killed. She thought that they would beat her in skirts. I put a lot on myself. So the executioners tore off her skirts - they flew through the air like doves. And she screamed like a cat - all the people laughed ...

“When I wrote Streltsov, I saw the most terrible dreams: every night I saw executions in a dream”

I saw the death penalty twice. Once three men were executed for arson. One tall guy was like Chaliapin, the other was an old man. They were brought in carts in white shirts. Women climb - cry - their relatives. I stood close. They gave a volley. Red spots appeared on the shirts. Two fell. The guy is standing. Then he fell too. And then, suddenly, I see it rising. They also fired a volley. And rises again. Such a horror, I tell you. Then one officer came up, put a revolver, killed him ... "

“When I wrote Streltsov, I saw the most terrible dreams: every night I saw executions in a dream. Smells like blood all around. I was afraid of the night. Wake up and rejoice. Look at the picture. Thank God, there is no such horror in it. All I thought was not to disturb the viewer. To have peace in everything. I was always afraid that I would awaken an unpleasant feeling in the viewer ... I don’t depict blood in my picture, and the execution has not yet begun. And I, after all, experienced all this - both blood and executions - in myself. “Morning of Streltsy executions”: someone called them well. I wanted to convey the solemnity of the last minutes, but not the execution at all ... "

Perhaps that is why Surikov broke all the canons of historical painting of that time, placing his creation outside the genre patterns.

Museum-estate of the Surikovs

The end of the 19th century was a real flowering of historical painting in Europe - all European peoples at that time enthusiastically comprehended and constructed their past. But the plot of each historical picture has always evolved around some historical hero - a commander, general, politician, who was a conductor and at the same time a creator of history.

But Surikov does not have such a hero: both archers and even the frozen Peter the Great himself are lost somewhere in the background of the picture, in the mess of carts and crowds of people.

Dirt - as a symbol of the dark and chaotic folk elements - became the main character of Surikov's painting

In the foreground of the picture is dirt.

Greasy and impassable Moscow dirt, in which the victims and their executioners, both the right and the guilty, were smeared.

– This is the most important thing in the whole picture! Surikov exclaimed. - Previously, Moscow was unpaved - the dirt was black. In some places it will stick, and next to it, pure iron glistens with silver ...

Dirt - as a symbol of the dark and chaotic folk elements - became the main character in Surikov's painting, the main engine of all historical events and processes. The elements dragged young Peter to the throne, the elements overturned all the eminent boyars on his feet, the elements will rule over all the next generations of Russian rulers ...

... Sovereign Alexander III thoughtfully sighed and turned to the exit.

It is useless to prohibit dirt, you just need to keep it clean and maintain order.

P.s. A year later, in 1882, Emperor Alexander III and Empress Maria Feodorovna now officially visited the 10th exhibition of the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions. “For the Wanderers, who ... had a hard time, it was a whole event,” wrote the famous art critic Prakhov. “Many members of the Association began to receive regular orders from the royal family, and their paintings also entered the collection of the Anichkov Palace, and later became the property of the Russian Museum.” At the same time, the Association of the Wanderers adopted an unspoken rule not to sell any paintings until the Sovereign Emperor had made his purchases.

Editor's Choice