Gogol and Bulgarin knew each other. N

The chief of gendarmes - the head of the gang that holds all of Russia under its heel - was killed. Few people did not guess by whose hands the blow was struck. But, in order to avoid any misunderstandings, we announce to everyone that the chief of the gendarmes, Adjutant General Mezentsev, was really killed by us, the socialist revolutionaries.

We also announce that murder was not the first fact this kind, this will not be the case if the government persists in maintaining the current system.

We are socialists. Our goal is the destruction of the existing economic system, the destruction of economic inequality, which, in our opinion, is the root of all suffering of mankind. Therefore, political forms in themselves are completely indifferent to us. We Russians, at first, were more inclined than any other nation to abstain from political struggle and even more from any bloody measures, to which neither our previous history nor our upbringing could accustom us. The government itself pushed us down the bloody path we took. The government itself has placed a dagger and a revolver in our hands.

Murder is a terrible thing. Only in a moment of intense emotion, reaching the point of loss of self-consciousness, can a person, without being a monster and degenerate of humanity, take the life of his own kind. The Russian government has brought us, socialists, us, who have devoted ourselves to the cause of liberation of the suffering, us, who have doomed ourselves to all kinds of suffering in order to save others from them, to the point that we are deciding to whole line murders, we build them into a system.

It brought us to this with its cynical game of dozens and hundreds human lives and that insolent contempt for any kind of right that it always showed in relation to us.

We will not list all the cruelties committed against us during last decade. We will mention only the latter. Everyone remembers the big trial, the so-called “trial of the 193s.” Zhelekhovsky himself, the unscrupulous Zhelekhovsky, publicly declared at it that of all the people he brought to trial, only nineteen people were truly guilty. All the rest (together, therefore, with the seven to eight hundred who were released before trial and served some years, some two, some three), all the rest were brought in only to highlight the guilt of the mentioned nineteen. Meanwhile, 80 of these “shaders” - almost all young, fresh boys and girls - died either in the prison itself during a four-year pre-trial detention, or immediately upon release from prison. And of the survivors, there is almost not a single one who would not have suffered from prison a very serious, often fatal illness!

Why were so many young forces destroyed, why were so many lives broken?

But this is not enough. The Senate found it impossible to convict the 19 people Zhelehovsky demanded of him. One Ippolit Nikitich Myshkin was sentenced to hard labor. All the others were either completely justified; or sentenced to the lightest - for us, accustomed to all sorts of ferocity - punishments.

To make such a decision, the Senate exercised its legal power, in the form of a petition for pardon, to commute the punishment following the letter of the law in cases where, in its opinion, legal justice required it. That a judicial petition for clemency has precisely this meaning, that it is not the same as a lawyer’s appeal to mercy and philanthropy - this is what all lawyers told us and will repeat to everyone. The extent to which the Senate itself, the chief prosecutor, and the chairman of the court were convinced that the court’s verdict was final is proven by the fact that they released, for example, Yves on bail. Iv. Dobrovolsky, who, regardless of the petition, was sentenced to 9 years in central prison!

How such a belief was deceived is known to everyone.

Through the efforts of the chief of gendarmes Mezentsev, together with his worthy accomplice Count Palen, the sentence was canceled and a new one was drawn up, outrageous in its cruelty and complete, absolute disregard for any sign of legality. Without any regard to the evidence, without any attention to any instructions from the preliminary or judicial investigation, 12 people were snatched from all the accused, who, instead of exile and settlement, were sent to hard labor - some to Siberia, others to central prisons. Then 28 people were handed over to the complete mercy of the administration, which imposed a punishment on two of them that exceeded even that to which the court had formally sentenced them, regardless of their petition.

This is how the gendarmes respect the laws and the court if they ever happen to be on our side!

But no matter how outrageous this brazen arbitrariness of the gendarmes and their minions is here, no matter how monstrous, no matter how unprecedented in history their unscrupulous mockery of the court and society, of all human rights, nevertheless we can point to facts of even greater, simply cynical contempt for them to every law. Not only do they seize us according to their complete arbitrariness, without any sanction of any kind, even the Russian, slavishly obedient legal authority; Not only do they arbitrarily override the sentences of even such courts as the Special Presence of the Senate, they simply spit on the very sentences dictated by them when it seems beneficial to them.

Here is a fact known to all of Russia, the first pioneers of the modern great movement, the long-suffering Dolgushites: Papin, Plotnikov, Dmokhovsky and comrades for distributing several books, by order of the third department, were sentenced to the most terrible, most inhumane punishments. But now the sentence for many of them (Plotnikov, Papin) has ended. And what? They continue to be kept in exactly the same way as before, in the same central prison, under conditions that make your hair stand on end. A N.G. Chernyshevsky? Who doesn’t know that it’s been many years since his sentence ended, and still they continue to keep him in the same tundra, surrounded by twelve gendarmes!

This is what our gendarmes do! Our freedom, life, the lives of all the people close to us are given to the complete arbitrariness of the first gendarmerie bloodhound!

Where, in what, in whom can we find protection of our most precious rights - freedom, life?

Appeal to society, to the press?

Wasn’t all our suffering, our trials, our condemnations one long, continuous cry addressed to everything in which the spark of humanity is alive?

What did our oppositional, confrontational society answer to us when we heard about hundreds of people who were tortured, about other hundreds condemned to slow torture, when we heard about the humiliations and tortures to which we are subjected?

Our pathetic liberals could only whine. At the first word about active, open protest, they turned pale, trembled and shamefully backed away.

And the seal!..

With her, before her eyes, all these atrocities were committed against us. She heard them, saw them, even described them. She understood all their vileness, because before her eyes was the whole of Europe, state structure whom she sympathized with.

And what? If only she could say a word, if only a single word, in our defense, in defense of the sacred human rights that were desecrated in our face! But she was silent.

What is justice, honor, human dignity to her! She only needs snouts with retail sales. Conviction, the right to think, personal integrity - everything pales for her before the shine of a spot. Because of him, she will lick the hand that hit her on the cheeks just yesterday, she will bow, humiliate herself! Slaves, slaves! Is there such a whip in the world that will finally make your slavishly arched back straighten? Is there such a slap in the face that will finally make you raise your head?

The seal is silent. Society is silent. We socialists are being devoured by the gendarmes. They do whatever they want with us.

Let everyone who is honest answer us, honest man, what can we do?

If a gang of robbers breaks into a person’s house, then, according to universally recognized natural law, he can defend himself with weapons in his hands. We ask, why are gendarmes breaking into someone's apartment at night better than robbers? Isn’t death from a knife or flail a hundred times better than slow, long-term marinating in a fortress or “preliminary”, amid all sorts of moral and physical torture, as 80 people of the “trial of 193” and hundreds of those involved in other trials were killed? Gendarmes are representatives of the law. A trial awaits us. But are there any guarantees for us against gendarmerie tyranny? Is there a trial for gendarmes? Let us recall again the few examples that we have indicated, and let there be such a scoundrel who dares to say that our statement is false!

What can we do but defend our life and freedom with arms in our hands against the gendarmes who come to search us, just as we defend it against the robbers who attack us on the highway?

This is what Kowalski and his comrades did and had every right to do so. The enraged guardsmen shot him secretly, on the sly, fearing the public.

The last words he said to his executioners were:

Know that I have friends on the loose who will avenge me!

And he was not mistaken.

The Avengers were found. There will be followers too. But the most that can be achieved in this way is occasional personal liberation. We strike the blind executors of the will of others, who almost always hate those whom they obey out of fear. The real culprits always remain unpunished and from their golden chambers they will again send their cannon fodder for unexpected night attacks on us.

It was necessary to get to the real culprits

Outlawed by the Russian government, deprived of all guarantees provided by public union, on the basis of the supreme right of every person to self-defense, we ourselves had to take upon ourselves the defense of our human rights, just as a person or group of people living in a wild primitive country does.

We have created our own court over the perpetrators and administrators of the ferocity that is committed against us, a fair court, like the ideas that we defend, and terrible, like the conditions in which the government itself has placed us.

By this court, Adjutant General Mezentsev was found deserving of death for all his atrocities against us, which sentence was carried out on him on Mikhailovskaya Square on the morning of August 4, 1878.

Allowing ourselves to set out all his crimes in the very first issue of our soon-to-appear organ “Earth and Freedom,” we consider it necessary to list them here briefly so that it becomes known to everyone who needs to know that Mezentsev was not killed by us as an incarnation well-known principle, not as a person holding the post of chief of gendarmes; We consider murder a measure too terrible to resort to for demonstration - Adjutant General Mezentsev was killed by us as a person who committed a number of crimes that he could and should not have committed.

Adjutant General Mezentsev -

1) The main culprit in the abolition of the Senate verdict in the “trial of 193” and the drafter of a new one, as we mentioned above.

Adjutant General Mezentsev -

2) The main culprit is that when 30 of our comrades imprisoned in Peter and Paul Fortress, stated their demands (at the end of June of this year): 1) the most modest - since they only wanted a little more air and movement, absolutely necessary for their health, upset by the 4-year preliminary conclusion; 2) the most convenient ones even under the Russian administration, since some of the prisoners were already using them while sitting in the house of preliminary detention - the serf authorities, on the direct orders of the chief of gendarmes, decisively told them that their demands would never be fulfilled. When the prisoners, numbering 30 people, announced that they intended to starve themselves in this case, the chief of gendarmes had the inhumanity to starve these sick, tortured people for six days, so as not to satisfy their most modest demands. When he saw that fasting could have fatal consequences (on the sixth day of fasting, Mozgovoy experienced severe vomiting, Nathanson fainted, and V. Kostyurin had a headache), he resorted to the most vile deception to stop it.

Adjutant General Mezentsev -

3) The main culprit in the fist reprisal that was carried out against the same prisoners when they, having learned about the deception, again resumed their protest.

4)Adjutant General Mezentsev is guilty, finally, as the instigator and instigator of those ferocities that were undertaken against the socialists in different cities Russia, mainly in the city of Odessa.

5) Mezentsev is responsible, moreover, for the introduction of the so-called administrative exile in Eastern Siberia, a measure, the lack of rights of which is unnecessary to talk about and to which he subjected people for one simple disobedience to his will, as was the case, for example, with Tabel and Fresser.

This is why Adjutant General Mezentsev was considered worthy of death.

Gentlemen, government gendarmes, administrators. An army of millions and a numerous police force obey you; all the cities are overrun with your spies and all the villages will soon be overrun; your prisons are terrible and your executions merciless. But know this: with all your armies, police forces, prisons and executions, you are powerless and helpless against us! You will not intimidate us with any executions! You cannot protect yourself from our hand by any means!

You were frightened by our first blows and decided to resort to a military court in order to frighten us with the prospect of bloody executions.

Woe, woe to you if you decide to follow this path to the end. You won't scare us - you know that yourself. You will only make us even more merciless towards you. And know that we have means even more terrible than those whose power you have already experienced; but we have not used them until now because they are too terrible. Beware of pushing us to extremes and remember that we never threaten in vain!

Gentlemen, government gendarmes, administrators, here is our last word to you:

You are representatives of power; We are opponents of any enslavement of man by man, therefore you are our enemies and there can be no reconciliation between us. You must be destroyed and will be destroyed! But we believe that it is not political slavery that gives rise to economic slavery, but vice versa. We are convinced that with the destruction of economic inequality, popular poverty will be destroyed, and with it ignorance, superstition and prejudice, which holds all power. That's why we couldn't be more inclined to leave you government officials alone. Our real enemies are the bourgeoisie, which is now hiding behind your back, although it hates you, because you tie their hands too.

So step aside! Don't stop us from fighting our real enemies, and we'll leave you alone. Until we overthrow the present economic system, you can rest peacefully under the shade of your abundant fig trees.

As long as you persist in maintaining the present wild lawlessness, our secret judgment, like the sword of Damocles, will forever hang over your heads, and death will serve as the answer to your every ferocity against us.

We are not yet strong enough to carry out this task in all its breadth. This is true. But don't be fooled.

Our great movement is growing by leaps and bounds.

Remember how long ago it took the path it is following. Only six months have passed since Vera Zasulich was shot. Look how big it has become now! But such movements grow with increasing force, just as an avalanche falls with increasing speed. Think: what will happen in the next six months, a year?

And how much does it take to keep people like you at bay, gentlemen of government?

How much was needed to fill cities like Kharkov and Kyiv with horror?

Think about this, gentlemen, and then listen to our demands:

1) We demand a complete cessation of all persecution for the expression of any beliefs, both verbally and in print.

2) We demand the complete abolition of all administrative arbitrariness and complete non-punishment for actions of any nature except by a free verdict of a people's jury.

3) We demand a complete amnesty for all political criminals without distinction of categories and nationalities - which logically follows from the first two demands.

This is what we demand from you, gentlemen of government. We do not demand more from you, because you cannot give more. This greater thing is in the hands of the bourgeoisie, from whom we will snatch it along with their lives. But that's our score. Don't interfere with them. In the same way, we will not interfere in your household affairs.

We have absolutely nothing to do with the question of the division of power between you and the bourgeoisie. Give or don’t give a constitution, call for elected officials or not, appoint them from among landowners, priests or gendarmes - it’s completely indifferent to us. Don't violate our human rights - that's all we want from you.

Now a few words to the mongrels in all kinds of collars.

We are not at all deluded about the meaning of this statement of ours. We do not at all hope that our government will be so smart, and our liberal press will be so honest, as to admit that immediate satisfaction of our demands is the only cure for the “disease” that various newspaper writers are now lamenting about. The purpose of our statement is to find out the living part of Russian society, our young friends in different parts of Russia and our foreign comrades in business and convictions, both the reasons and true meaning facts similar to what happened on August 4, since otherwise these facts could be misinterpreted in either direction.

As for the government, let it do as it pleases. We are ready for anything...

August 1878

Scanning and processing: Anna Gavrilova.

The pamphlet was published in the book: Thundercloud of Russia: Death for Death. Underground Russia. S.I. Bardina. Olga Lyubatovich. S. M. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky in the memoirs of his contemporaries. / Comp., preface and notes. B. Romanova. - M.: New Key. - 2001.

Read also on this topic:

During the said massacre, bayonets were used, so that two of the prisoners were almost pierced. Chudnovsky was wearing a crazy shirt, and in this form he was tied to the bed. Some of the prisoners were put in a punishment cell; the rest, namely those still awaiting trial, were deprived of tables, benches, and festivities for a whole week and, as they say, tied to their beds. ( Here the footnote belongs to S. M. Stepnyak-Kravchinsky).

Mezentsov Nikolay Vladimirovich Fomenko, Mezentsov Nikolay Vladimirovich Olyalin
Nikolay Vladimirovich Mezentsov(or Mezentsev, April 11, 1827 - August 4, 1878, St. Petersburg) - lieutenant general, adjutant general, chief of gendarmes and head of the Third Department (since 1876).

• 1 Biography
  • 1.1 Origin and military service
  • 1.2 Political investigation and the Separate Corps of Gendarmes
  • 1.3 Terrorist act and death
• 2 Notes
• 3 Literature

Biography

Origin and military service

Nikolay Mezentsov - younger son Major General Vladimir Petrovich Mezentsev (1779-1833), hero Patriotic War 1812, and Countess Vera Nikolaevna Zubova (1800-1863), daughter of the regicide Count N.A. Zubov and granddaughter of Generalissimo A.V. Suvorov. Nicholas's elder brother, Mikhail, later became chamberlain of the imperial court.

Military service began on October 3, 1845, with the rank of non-commissioned officer in the Preobrazhensky Life Guards Regiment. Two years later he received the officer rank of ensign. In 1849 he took part in a campaign to western border Russian Empire, the cause of which was the revolution in Hungary, suppressed by Russia together with the Austrian Empire. At the end of the same year he was promoted to second lieutenant.

Participant in the Crimean War of 1853-1856 and directly in the defense of Sevastopol. Participated in the crossing of the Danube at Brailov and the siege of Silistria during the Danube campaign of 1854; for these operations he was awarded, respectively, the orders of St. Anne, 3rd degree with swords, and St. Vladimir, 4th degree with swords. In October 1854 he was sent by Prince Gorchakov to the commander of the Southern Army A.S. Menshikov as a courier, and in January 1855 Gorchakov, who took command of the Southern Army, made Mezentsov his adjutant. In this capacity, Mezentsov distinguished himself in the spring during the defense of Sevastopol and in April was promoted to staff captain and awarded the golden half-saber “For Bravery.” After the battle on the Black River, he was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav, 2nd degree with swords. In 1856, when Gorchakov took command of the Western and Middle and then the First Army, the adjutant followed him.

In April 1860, Mezentsov was promoted to captain, subsequently renamed lieutenant colonel of the army and appointed as an officer for special assignments under the commander-in-chief of the First Army. The next year after Gorchakov's death, Mezentsov accompanied the coffin with his body from Warsaw to Sevastopol. Participated in the suppression Polish uprising. In November 1861, he was appointed aide-de-camp to Emperor Alexander II. In 1862, he inspected the troops of the Separate Internal Guard Corps in a number of provinces and in August was promoted to colonel. On next year was sent to monitor the correctness of recruitment to the Don Army Region, and in 1863 - to inspect the internal guard troops in the southwestern provinces.

Political investigation and the Separate Corps of Gendarmes

Already in August 1863, during a break between inspection trips, Mezentsov was seconded to study at the office of the chief of gendarmes. From November of the same year to May 1871, he was a member of the Investigative Commission in St. Petersburg, in this capacity, in particular, considering the case of Karakozov's assassination attempt on Alexander II in 1866. During his work in the Investigative Commission, Mezentsov repeatedly temporarily replaced senior managers A separate corps of gendarmes - at the beginning of 1874, chief of staff and manager of the Third Department (in July appointed to the position of chief of staff on a permanent basis), and later chief of gendarmes and chief commander of the Third Department. In 1865 he was promoted to major general, and from 1864 to 1870 he was also awarded a number of new awards:

• Order of St. Anne, 2nd class with swords and imperial crown (1864)
• Orders of St. Vladimir, 3rd class with swords and St. Stanislav, 1st class with swords (1866)
• Order of St. Anne 1st class with swords (1868)
• and the Order of St. Vladimir, 2nd degree with swords (1870)

In 1871, Mezentsov received the rank of adjutant general and was temporarily recalled from the gendarme corps, but continued to work in the police field, in 1872 heading the investigation of the riots in Kharkov. In August 1873, he was promoted to lieutenant general and a year later appointed comrade of the chief of gendarmes and chief commander of the Third Department, subsequently again repeatedly replacing his immediate superiors. January 1875 headed the Committee to determine the area of ​​operation of the gendarmerie police departments railways, in August became a Knight of the Order of the White Eagle.

After A. L. Potapov retired from the post of chief of gendarmes due to health reasons, Mezentsov officially headed this department on December 30, 1876, at the same time becoming a member of the State Council and the committees for the affairs of the Caucasus and the Kingdom of Poland. Reviews about his activities as chief of gendarmes differ: someone compared Mezentsov with a “sleepy tiger”, and the then Minister of War D. A. Milyutin, on the contrary, wrote that he “conducted business humanely” and did not enter into conflicts with those under investigation collisions. According to Milyutin, Mezentsov’s character, a “rake” and at the same time a devout person, was not suitable for the occupied post. Mezentsov's friend Crimean War, Moscow vice-governor Krasovsky, characterized him even more highly:

In the rank of chief of gendarmes, Mezentsov in January 1878 proposed to launch counter-revolutionary propaganda in Russia, through printed word among the common people, and in the more educated strata through “circles aimed at preventing further development revolutionary plans." This project was rejected as too bold, but Mezentsov’s proposed strengthening of the network of secret agents, introduced into revolutionary circles and accountable only to the Third Department, was supported and 400 thousand rubles were allocated for this purpose.

Terrorist attack and death

By the end of the 1870s, the landowners in Russia switched to the tactics of individual terror, of which the chief of gendarmes became a victim on August 4, 1878.

Description last day Mezentsov’s life “Nikolai Vladimirovich usually got up very early and took daily walks, during which he visited the chapel at Gostiny Dvor, on Nevsky. Having gone there on August 4, at nine o’clock in the morning, Nikolai Vladimirovich, at the end of the prayer, accompanied by his former comrade, retired Lieutenant Colonel Makarov, headed back home, through Mikhailovskaya Street, Mikhailovskaya Square and Bolshaya Italianskaya Street. As soon as he stepped onto the pavement of Italianskaya Street and reached Kochkurov’s house, two people walking towards him, very decently dressed, approached him right in front of the windows of the confectionery shop. One of them inflicted a wound on him with a dagger and, together with his companion, hurriedly got into the carriage that was waiting right there. G. Makarov made an attempt to detain them, but he was shot from a revolver, the bullet flew past, and the perpetrators of the disaster, not detained by anyone, since there was not a single police guard in this area, and there was also no public, managed to escape. They say that they quickly galloped along Italianskaya and turned onto Malaya Sadovaya; the coachman, in all likelihood, was one of the accomplices; they say that they allegedly appeared in the previous days at the same place where they were today. What is certain is that the criminals had their own carriage, drawn by a good horse in a silver harness. Some people conclude from these signs that these are people of means. One of them was wearing gray coat. Nikolai Vladimirovich himself did not lose his presence of mind at the time of the disaster, and when the clerks who were busy cleaning it ran out of the confectionery shop and asked in horror: “Who is wounded?” Nikolai Vladimirovich answered that he was wounded, and at the same time pointed to his bloody clothes. With the help of Colonel Makarov and Chamberlain Bodisko, who came out of the neighboring house, Nikolai Vladimirovich Mezentsov walked along Italianskaya to the corner of Malaya Sadovaya, where he was put on a cab. From there he drove to his apartment near the Chain Bridge, on the Fontanka. Significant bleeding soon weakened the wounded man. Doctor Mamonov, who was invited at 11 o’clock in the morning, examined the patient and found that his situation was serious. And indeed, despite the help provided to him by doctors led by the then famous surgeon Bogdanovsky, at 4 o’clock severe pain began in the area of ​​the wound and gastric cavity, and at 5 o’clock 15 minutes N.V. Mezentsov died in terrible suffering.”

Nikolai Mezentsov died unmarried and childless. The funeral service was attended by Emperor Alexander II and Tsarevich Alexander Alexandrovich, ministers and senior dignitaries, and members of the diplomatic corps. Metropolitan Isidore served the funeral service. The guard of honor was composed of squadrons of the cavalry regiment, horse artillery, mounted gendarmes, guards gendarmes, and Cossacks. N.I. Mezentsov was buried in the family crypt in the Sergius Primorsky Hermitage.

The killer of N. I. Mezentsov - future writer and publicist Sergei Kravchinsky - managed to flee abroad in the confusion, where he subsequently described his terrorist attack in the brochure “Death for Death” as revenge for the recent execution of the populist I. M. Kovalsky.

Notes

1. Mezentsov Nikolay Vladimirovich - M.: 1978. Retrieved September 28, 2015.
2. Mezentsov // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg, 1890-1907.
3. Kolpakidi, 2002, p. 210
4. 1 2 Kolpakidi, 2002, p. 211
5. Glinsky B.B. Revolutionary period of Russian history (1861-1881): Historical essays. Part II. - St. Petersburg, [Printing house of A. S. Suvorin, 1913. P. 249-250.
6. Glinsky, s. 251-252.
7. Kolpakidi, 2002, p. 213
8. Mezentsov, Nikolai Vladimirovich // St. Petersburg necropolis / Comp. V. I. Saitov. - St. Petersburg: Printing house of M. M. Stasyulevich, 1912. - T. 3 (M-R). - P. 80.
9. Kolpakidi, 2002, p. 212-213

Literature

• Mezentsov Nikolai Vladimirovich // List of generals by seniority. Corrected as of May 1st. - St. Petersburg: Military Printing House, 1873. - P. 610.
• Mezentsov Nikolai Vladimirovich // List of generals by seniority. Corrected as of July 1st. - St. Petersburg: Military Printing House, 1878. - P. 353.
• Editorial board of the magazine. Chief of gendarmes, adjutant general N.V. Mezentsov (obituary) // World illustration: magazine. - 1878. - T. 20, No. 503. - P. 167-170.
• Kolpakidi Alexander Ivanovich. Mezentsev Nikolay Vladimirovich // Shield and sword. Heads of state bodies. security: heads of state security agencies of Moscow Rus', the Russian Empire, Soviet Union And Russian Federation. - Neva / OLMA-PRESS Education, 2002. - P. 210-213. - ISBN 5-94849-024-6.

Mezentsov Nikolay Vladimirovich Bolshakov, Mezentsov Nikolay Vladimirovich Olyalin, Mezentsov Nikolay Vladimirovich Fomenko

Mezentsov, Nikolai Vladimirovich Information About

• Russian empire

• Sergiev Primorskaya Hermitage

Nikolay Vladimirovich Mezentsov(or Mezentsev, April 11 - August 4, St. Petersburg) - lieutenant general, adjutant general, chief of gendarmes and head of the Third Department (since 1876).

Biography

Origin and military service

He came from the noble family of Mezentsov - the youngest son of Vladimir Petrovich Mezentsov and Countess Vera Nikolaevna, née Zubova (1800-1863), daughter of the regicide Count N.A. Zubov and granddaughter of Generalissimo A.V. Suvorov. Nikolai's older brother, Mikhail, is a chamberlain.

He began his military service on October 3, 1845, with the rank of non-commissioned officer in the Preobrazhensky Life Guards Regiment. Two years later he received the officer rank of ensign. In 1849, he took part in a campaign to the western border of the Russian Empire, the cause of which was the revolution in Hungary, which was suppressed by Russia together with the Austrian Empire. At the end of the same year he was promoted to second lieutenant.

Nikolai Mezentsov died unmarried and childless. The funeral service was attended by Emperor Alexander II and Tsarevich Alexander Alexandrovich, ministers and senior dignitaries, and members of the diplomatic corps. Metropolitan Isidore served the requiem. The guard of honor included squadrons of the cavalry regiment, horse artillery, mounted gendarmes, guards gendarmes, and Cossacks. N.I. Mezentsov was buried in the family crypt in the Sergius Primorsky Hermitage.

The killer of N. I. Mezentsov - the future writer and publicist Sergei Kravchinsky - managed to flee abroad in the confusion, where he subsequently described his terrorist attack in the brochure “Death for Death” as revenge for the recent execution of the populist I. M. Kovalsky.

Personal life

Never married and had no children. His mistress was a famous courtesan

Nikolai Vladimirovich Mezentsov(April 23, 1827 - August 16, 1878, St. Petersburg) - Russian statesman, Adjutant General (May 17, 1871), member of the State Council (1877).

Great-grandson of Generalissimo A.V. Suvorov and grandson of the regicide Count N.A. Zubov.

Biography

The youngest son of Major General Vladimir Petrovich Mezentsev (1779-1833) and Countess Vera Nikolaevna Zubova (1800-1863). He began his military service in 1845, with the rank of non-commissioned officer in the Preobrazhensky Life Guards Regiment. Participant in the Crimean War of 1853-1856 and directly in the defense of Sevastopol (1854-1855). Participated in the suppression of the Polish uprising (1863). In 1864, he switched from the army to the gendarmerie service, receiving an appointment as chief of staff of the Separate Corps of Gendarmes, then comrade of the chief of gendarmes (1874), chief of gendarmes and head of the Third Department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery (1876).

Died as a result of a terrorist attack - on August 4, 1878, on Mikhailovskaya Square (now Arts Square) in St. Petersburg, S. M. Kravchinsky inflicted on him death blow with a stiletto dagger into the abdominal cavity.

This is how the last day of General Mezentsov’s life is described: “ Nikolai Vladimirovich usually got up very early and took daily walks, during which he visited the chapel near Gostiny Dvor, on Nevsky. Having gone there on August 4, at nine o’clock in the morning, Nikolai Vladimirovich, at the end of the prayer, accompanied by his former comrade, retired Lieutenant Colonel Makarov, headed back home, through Mikhailovskaya Street, Mikhailovskaya Square and Bolshaya Italianskaya Street. As soon as he stepped onto the pavement of Italianskaya Street and reached Kochkurov’s house, two people walking towards him, very decently dressed, approached him right in front of the windows of the confectionery shop. One of them inflicted a wound on him with a dagger and, together with his companion, hurriedly got into the carriage that was waiting right there. G. Makarov made an attempt to detain them, but he was shot from a revolver, the bullet flew past, and the perpetrators of the disaster, not detained by anyone, since there was not a single police guard in this area, and there was also no public, managed to escape. They say that they quickly galloped along Italianskaya and turned onto Malaya Sadovaya; the coachman, in all likelihood, was one of the accomplices; they say that they allegedly appeared in the previous days at the same place where they were today. What is certain is that the criminals had their own carriage, drawn by a good horse in a silver harness. Some people conclude from these signs that these are people of means. One of them was wearing a gray coat. Nikolai Vladimirovich himself did not lose his presence of mind at the time of the disaster, and when the clerks who were busy cleaning it ran out of the confectionery shop and asked in horror: “Who is wounded?” Nikolai Vladimirovich answered that he was wounded, and at the same time pointed to his bloody clothes. With the help of Colonel Makarov and Chamberlain Bodisko, who came out of the neighboring house, Nikolai Vladimirovich Mezentsov walked along Italianskaya to the corner of Malaya Sadovaya, where he was put on a cab. From there he drove to his apartment near the Chain Bridge, on the Fontanka. Significant bleeding soon weakened the wounded man. Doctor Mamonov, who was invited at 11 o’clock in the morning, examined the patient and found that his situation was serious. And indeed, despite the help provided to him by doctors led by the then famous surgeon Bogdanovsky, at 4 o’clock severe pain began in the area of ​​the wound and gastric cavity, and at 5 o’clock 15 minutes N.V. Mezentsov died in terrible suffering».

Nikolai Vladimirovich (I. IV.1827 - 4.VIII.1878) - Russian. state activist Great-grandson of A.V. Suvorov. He began his service in 1845 in the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment. Participated in the Crimean War 1853-56. From 1861 - adjutant wing of the imperial retinue, from 1871 - adjutant general, from 1877 - member. State advice. The head moved forward. arr. in the police field. From 1864 - beginning headquarters of the gendarme corps, since 1874 - comrade of the chief of gendarmes, December 30. 1876 ​​- Aug 4 1878 - chief of gendarmes and chief. beginning Third department. Killed by S. M. Kravchinsky in response to the execution of revolutionary I. M. Kovalsky.

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Mezentsov— Nikolai Vladimirovich (1827-78) - Russian statesman. From 1864 chief of staff of the gendarme corps, from 1876 chief of gendarmes. Killed by S. M. Kravchinsky.
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Mezentsov Nikolay Vladimirovich- (1827-78), statesman, one of the leaders of political investigation. Since 1864, chief of staff of the gendarme corps, since 1876 chief of gendarmes. Killed by S. M. Kravchinsky.
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Mezentsov, Al-dr. Nikol.- doctor, r.

Mezentsov, Boris Alexandrovich- (Mezentsev) (village Pesochnoye, Nizhny Novgorod province, now Gorky region) - art. opera (drama baritone), chamber singer, entrepreneur. Husband of 3. Mezentsova-Stetsenko. Genus. in the family of a landowner. Education........
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Mezentsov, Mikhail Grigorievich- governor of the Terek Lakes; 1682 captured
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Mezentsov, Nikolai Vladimirovich- 1876 chief of gendarmes, adjutant general; R. 1827, fell at the hands of an assassin on August 4. 1878
Addition: , chief of gendarmes; R. 11 Apr 1827
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Mezentsov, Nikolai Pavlovich- d.s. s., there was also a governor in Yaroslavl and Vitebsk; † 1874
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