100 years ago, in November 1918, the most controversial pioneer hero of the Land of the Soviets, Pavlik Morozov, was born. And he, according to some sources, was not a pioneer, and his heroism is highly doubtful. After his tragic death, Soviet propagandists tried to make him a symbol of the struggle of the pioneers with the fists.
After perestroika, on the contrary, they charged Pavlik with all the sins, declared him a traitor to his father, family and the whole old way of life. But both myths did not really take root. The story of this boy was too complex and personal.
Village Detective
On September 2, 1932, Pavel Morozov's mother went from Gerasimovka to Tavda to sell a calf. On the same day, Pavel took his younger brother Fedya and went with him into the forest to pick berries. The guys were going to spend the night in the forest and return the next day. However, when Tatyana Morozova arrived home on the 5th, they were not there yet. Frightened, Tatyana asked her countrymen to look for children in the forest. On the morning of September 6, their bloodied corpses were found in an aspen forest near Gerasimovka. The boys were slaughtered. Beside them were baskets of berries. Pavel Morozov was not even 14 years old at that time, Feda was only eight. Distraught with grief, Tatyana was met on the street by her mother-in-law and, grinning, said: “Tatyana, we made meat for you, and now you eat it!”In hot pursuit, the grandfather, grandmother and paternal cousin of the Morozov boys were arrested. In the house of the grandfather and grandmother, they found clothes all stained with blood. The killers almost did not unlock. Their show trial shocked not only Gerasimovka, but the entire Soviet Union.
The house in the village of Gerasimovka, where Pavlik Morozov was born and lived
background
The brutal murder of two children was the culmination of a difficult family drama and a continuation of the previous high-profile criminal case. A year before, Pavel's father, Trofim Morozov, was arrested and put on trial. A former red commander, after the Civil War he became chairman of the village council of Gerasimovka. In his new post, he began to take bribes, straighten certificates and other documents for money. In domestic terms, he also “decomposed” - he constantly beat his wife and four children, then left them and went to another woman, drank a lot and rowdy.Trofim's relatives stood behind him like a wall and unanimously hated his wife and children. Trofim's father beat his grandchildren and daughter-in-law in front of the whole village. When Trofim was arrested, his parents and brother decided that Pavel was to blame for everything, having slandered his own father.
However, despite all subsequent legends, Paul never wrote any statement about his father. Information about this appeared due to the inaccurate wording of the investigator Elizar Shepelev, who investigated the murder of Pavel and Fedya Morozov.
In fact, in 1931, the boy simply spoke at the trial of Trofim, confirming that he regularly beat his wife and children, and also took bribes from peasant kulaks. Then the judge did not even let him finish - the boy was considered a minor and could not testify. In the documents on the case of his father, no testimony of Pavel was recorded at all.
The court sentenced Trofim to ten years in prison. When the father was taken to the zone, hell began for Pavel. Grandfather, grandmother and godfather called him a "kumanist" and directly threatened to kill him. Tatyana, who stood up for him, was beaten by mortal combat. In August, just a week before his death, Pavel even filed a complaint with the police about threats from his grandfather. However, no one protected him. On September 3, his grandfather Sergei and cousin Danila finished the harrowing, took agricultural knives and went to the aspen forest, where Pavel and Fedya were picking berries.
Ideological battle
The case of Pavlik Morozov was replicated by Soviet propaganda. Journalists promoted the boy as a true pioneer who fought with his fists. We do not know for sure whether Pavlik was a pioneer, only one photograph of him has come down to us. On it he is without a pioneer tie. Although poverty in Gerasimovka reigned such that a tie could well be an unaffordable luxury.The revelations of the kulaks allegedly made by Pavel, his denunciations to the OGPU, his search for peasants who hid grain - all this is a later invention of journalists. The only thing we know for sure is that he confirmed in court that his father severely beat his mother and all the children. Yes, the trial of Morozov did not need his testimony: the people to whom Trofim issued fake certificates for bribes were arrested, interrogated, and the whole case was based on their testimony.
It turns out that Pavlik Morozov was neither a hero nor a traitor. He was a victim of family violence and hellish morals that reigned in impoverished Gerasimovka. There are, of course, questions to the local authorities. It is strange that it never occurred to anyone to somehow defend Morozov's wife and son, who testified against him in open court. They could well have been helped with the move, and then the tragedy could have been avoided. For example, Tatyana Morozova, after the death of her sons, simply moved to the Crimea and lived quietly in Alupka until 1983.
But the true story of the boy from Gerasimovka - a chain of mistakes, crimes and accidents - was of no interest to anyone. From Pavlik Morozov began to make a cult.
Monuments were erected to him, schools, streets, parks, houses of pioneers were named after him. Schoolchildren learned the biography of the "pioneer-hero", in which there was almost not a word of truth. Sergei Mikhalkov wrote poems about "Pasha the Communist", they were set to music, and the result was a song that was sung by the pioneers of the whole country.
Pavlik Morozov (in the center, in a cap) with classmates, on the left - his cousin Danila Morozov, 1930The most famous director of the USSR, Sergei Eisenstein, began to shoot the film "Bezhin Meadow" based on the story of Pavlik Morozov. However, there he so vividly portrayed the pogrom of the local church, organized by the peasants, that it shocked even Stalin. The unfinished film was ordered to be destroyed, and Eisenstein had to repent for a long time before he was allowed to atone for his guilt by filming Alexander Nevsky.
All this time, in parallel with the Soviet cult of Pavlik Morozov, there was an anti-Soviet myth about a boy who betrayed his own father. “Killing children is terrible,” argued dissident writer Viktor Nekrasov. - But informing on the father, knowing that this will also lead to death, is it not less terrible? .. [Pavlik Morozov] ... calls on his descendants-peers to follow his example. Watch the fathers, eavesdrop on what they are talking about, peep what they are doing, and immediately inform the authorities: the father is the enemy, grab him!”
In the era of perestroika, this myth triumphed. A 13-year-old boy was accused of having brought his relatives to a crime by his betrayal. He was blamed for the fact that after his death Gerasimovka became a collective farm, and strong peasant kulaks were ruined. Almost all the mistakes and crimes of the Soviet government were hanged on him. They tried not to remember about the eight-year-old Fedya, slaughtered along with Pavel - this death at the hands of “strong peasants” looked too scary.
Pavlik Morozov again became a victim of ideology - just before they made a hero out of him, and now a villain. As in Soviet times, no one was interested in his real life and terrible death. This is probably the saddest thing in his history.
Pavel Trofimovich Morozov, who in Soviet times was a role model for pioneers, according to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, was born on November 14, 1918 in the village of Gerasimovka in a peasant family. During the period of collectivization, the boy, according to the official version, became an active participant in the fight against the kulaks, organized and led the first pioneer detachment in his native village.
Official Soviet history says that at the end of 1931, Pavlik convicted his father Trofim Morozov, then the chairman of the village council, of selling blank forms with a seal to special settlers from among the dispossessed kulaks. Based on the testimony of a teenager, Morozov Sr. was sentenced to ten years. Following this, Pavlik reported about the bread hidden from a neighbor, accused the husband of his own aunt of stealing state grain and stated that part of the stolen grain was with his own grandfather, Sergei Morozov. He spoke about the property, hidden from confiscation by the same uncle, actively participated in the actions, looking for hidden property together with representatives of the village council.
According to the official version, Pavlik was killed in the forest on September 3, 1932, when his mother left the village for a short time. The murderers, as determined by the investigation, were Pavlik's cousin, 19-year-old Danila, and Pavlik's 81-year-old grandfather, Sergey Morozov. Pavlik's grandmother, 79-year-old Ksenia Morozova, was declared an accomplice in the crime, and Pavlik's uncle, 70-year-old Arseny Kulukanov, was recognized as its organizer. At a show trial in a district club, they were all sentenced to death. Pavlik's father, Trofim, was also shot, although at that time he was far in the North.
After the death of the boy, his mother, Tatyana Morozova, received an apartment in the Crimea as compensation for her son, part of which she rented to the guests. The woman traveled a lot around the country with stories about the exploits of Pavlik. She died in 1983 in her apartment, lined with bronze busts of Pavlik.
Morozov's name was given to the Gerasimov and other collective farms, schools, pioneer squads and was the first to be entered in the Book of Honor of the V.I. Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization. Monuments to Pavlik Morozov were erected in Moscow (1948), the village of Gerasimovka (1954) and in Sverdlovsk (1957). Poems and songs were composed about Pavlik, an opera of the same name was written, and the great Eisenstein tried to make a film about him. However, the director's idea was not implemented.
Created by Soviet propaganda, the myth of the "pioneer-hero" existed for more than a dozen years. However, in the late 1980s, publications appeared that not only debunked the myth of Pavlik Morozov, who was called a traitor and informer, but also cast doubt on the very existence of a person with that name. First of all, doubts about the existence of the "hero" arose due to discrepancies with the dates of birth and death. His speech at the trial, in which he exposed his father, exists in 12 versions. In fact, it is impossible even to restore the appearance of Pavlik Morozov, since there are many descriptions that differ from each other. A number of publications questioned the fact that the teenager was really a pioneer.
In 1997, the administration of the Tavdinsky district decided to insist on a review of the criminal case on the fact of the murder of Pavlik Morozov, and in the spring of 1999, members of the Kurgan society "Memorial" sent a petition to the Prosecutor General's Office to review the decision of the Ural Regional Court, which sentenced the teenager's relatives to death.
His teacher Lyudmila Isakova told her version of the story of Pavlik Morozov. Moreover, this version was confirmed by Pavel's younger brother Alexei. According to Isakova, Pavlik's father drank, abused his sons and, in the end, left the family for another woman. Perhaps it was precisely this purely domestic motive that explained the desire of the “pioneer-hero” to take revenge on his father.
The Prosecutor General's Office, which is engaged in the rehabilitation of victims of political repression, came to the conclusion that the murder of Pavlik Morozov is purely criminal in nature, and, therefore, the criminals are not subject to rehabilitation on political grounds. In April 1999, the Supreme Court agreed with the opinion of the Prosecutor General's Office.
In Chelyabinsk, the children's railway bears the name of Pavlik Morozov, his bas-relief adorns the alley of pioneer heroes on the Scarlet Field. In Moscow, the monument to the "pioneer-hero", which stood in the children's park of the same name on Druzhinnikovskaya Street, was demolished in 1991, and a wooden chapel was built in its place.
Facts from the life of Pavel Morozov
According to the latest conclusions of historians, Pavel Morozov was not a member of the pioneer organization. In the Book of Honor of the All-Union Pioneer Organization. V. I. Lenin, he was listed only in 1955, 23 years after his death.
At the trial, Pavel Morozov did not speak against his father and did not write denunciations against him. Witness testimony that the father beat the mother and brought into the house things received as payment for the issuance of false documents, he gave during the preliminary inquiry.
Trofim Morozov was subjected to criminal prosecution not for concealing grain, but for falsifying documents with which he supplied members of the counter-revolutionary group and persons hiding from Soviet power.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources
Pavel Trofimovich Morozov (Pavlik Morozov; November 14, 1918, Gerasimovka, Turinsky district, Tobolsk province, RSFSR - September 3, 1932, Gerasimovka, Tavdinsky district, Ural region, RSFSR, USSR) - a Soviet student, a student of the Gerasimov school of the Tavdinsky district of the Ural region, who in Soviet times gained fame as a pioneer a hero who opposed the kulaks in the person of his father and paid for it with his life.
Soon, Pavel's father left his family (wife with four children) and began to cohabit with a woman who lived next door - Antonina Amosova. According to the recollections of Pavel's teacher, his father regularly beat his wife and children both before and after leaving the family. Grandfather Pavlik also hated his daughter-in-law because she did not want to live with him on the same farm, but insisted on a division. According to Alexei (Paul's brother), father "I loved only myself and vodka", he did not spare his wife and sons, not like foreign migrants, from whom “Three skins were torn for forms with seals”. The parents of the father also treated the family abandoned by the father to the mercy of fate: “Grandfather and grandmother were also strangers to us for a long time. Never offered anything, never greeted. Grandfather did not let his grandson, Danilka, go to school, we only heard: “You can manage without a letter, you will be the owner, and Tatiana’s puppies are your laborers” ”.
In 1931, the father, who was no longer in office, was sentenced to 10 years for “As the chairman of the village council, he was friends with the kulaks, hid their farms from taxation, and upon leaving the village council, he contributed to the flight of special settlers by selling documents”. He was charged with issuing fake certificates to the dispossessed of their belonging to the Gerasimov village council, which gave them the opportunity to leave the place of exile. Trofim Morozov, being imprisoned, participated in the construction of the White Sea-Baltic Canal and, after working for three years, returned home with an order for hard work, and then settled in Tyumen.
According to the teacher Pavlik Morozov L.P. Isakova, cited by Veronika Kononenko, Pavlik's mother was "pretty face and very kind". After the murder of her sons, Tatyana Morozova left the village and, fearing a meeting with her ex-husband, for many years did not dare to visit her native places. Ultimately, after the Great Patriotic War, she settled in Alupka, where she died in 1983. Pavlik's younger brother Roman, according to one version, died at the front during the war, according to another, he survived, but became disabled and died shortly after it ended. Alexei became the only child of the Morozovs who married: from different marriages he had two sons - Denis and Pavel. Having divorced his first wife, he moved to his mother in Alupka, where he tried not to talk about his relationship with Pavlik, and spoke about him only in the late 1980s, when a campaign of persecution of Pavlik began at the height of Perestroika (see below his letter).
A life
Pavel's teacher recalled poverty in the village of Gerasimovka:
The school I was in charge of worked in two shifts. At that time we had no idea about the radio, electricity, we sat by the torch in the evenings, we took care of the kerosene. There was no ink either, they wrote with beetroot juice. Poverty in general was appalling. When we, teachers, began to go from house to house, enrolling children in school, it turned out that many of them did not have any clothes. The children sat naked on the beds, covered themselves with some rags. The kids climbed into the oven and warmed themselves in the ashes. We organized a reading room, but there were almost no books, and local newspapers came very rarely. To some, Pavlik now seems like a kind of boy stuffed with slogans in a clean pioneer form. And he, because of our poverty, this form and didn't see it with my eyes.
Forced to provide for his family under such difficult conditions, Paul nevertheless consistently showed a desire to learn. According to his teacher L.P. Isakova:
He was very eager to learn, took books from me, only he had no time to read, he often missed his lessons because of work in the field and housework. Then he tried to catch up, managed to do well, and even taught his mother to read and write ...
After his father left for another woman, all the worries about the peasant economy fell on Pavel - he became the eldest man in the Morozov family.
The murder of Pavlik and his younger brother Fyodor
Pavlik and his younger brother went to the forest for berries. They were found dead with stab wounds. From the indictment:
Morozov Pavel, being a pioneer throughout the current year, waged a devoted, active struggle against the class enemy, the kulaks and their sub-kulakists, spoke at public meetings, exposed the kulak tricks and repeatedly stated this ...
Pavel had a very difficult relationship with his father's relatives. M. E. Chulkova describes such an episode:
... Once Danila hit Pavel with a shaft on the arm so hard that it began to swell. Mother Tatyana Semyonovna stood between them, Danila and she was hit in the face so that blood came out of her mouth. The grandmother who came running screamed:
Slaughter this snotty communist!
Let's skin them! Danila yelled...
On September 2, Pavel and Fyodor went to the forest, intending to spend the night there (in the absence of their mother, who had gone to Tavda to sell the calf). On September 6, Dmitry Shatrakov found their corpses in an aspen forest.
The mother of the brothers describes the events of these days in a conversation with the investigator as follows:
On the second of September I left for Tavda, and on the 3rd Pavel and Fyodor went to the forest for berries. I returned on the 5th and found out that Pasha and Fedya had not returned from the forest. I began to worry and turned to the policeman, who gathered the people, and the people went into the forest to look for my children. Soon they were found stabbed to death.
My middle son Alexei, he is 11 years old, said that on September 3rd he saw Danila walking very quickly from the forest, and our dog was running after him. Alexei asked if he had seen Pavel and Fyodor, to which Danila did not answer and only laughed. He was dressed in self-woven trousers and a black shirt - Alexey remembered this well. It was these trousers and shirt that were found at Sergey Sergeevich Morozov's during the search.
I can’t help but note that on September 6, when my slaughtered children were brought from the forest, grandmother Aksinya met me on the street and said with a grin: “Tatiana, we made meat for you, and now you eat it!”.
The first act of examination of the bodies, drawn up by district police officer Yakov Titov, in the presence of the paramedic of the Gorodischevsk medical center P. Makarov, witnesses Pyotr Ermakov, Avraam Kniga and Ivan Barkin, reports that:
Morozov Pavel was lying from the road at a distance of 10 meters, with his head to the east. There is a red bag over his head. Paul was given a fatal blow to the stomach. The second blow was delivered to the chest near the heart, under which there were scattered cranberries. Near Pavel there was one basket, the other was thrown aside. His shirt was torn in two places, and there was a purple blood stain on his back. Hair color - light brown, white face, blue eyes, open, mouth closed. There are two birches at the feet (...) The corpse of Fyodor Morozov was fifteen meters from Pavel in a swamp and a small aspen forest. Fedor was stabbed in the left temple with a stick, his right cheek was stained with blood. A mortal blow was inflicted with a knife in the belly above the navel, where the intestines came out, and the arm was also cut with a knife to the bone.
The second act of inspection, made by the city paramedic Markov after washing the bodies, states that:
Pavel Morozov has one superficial wound measuring 4 centimeters on the chest from the right side in the region of 5-6 ribs, a second superficial wound in the epigastric region, a third wound from the left side to the stomach, hypochondrium measuring 3 centimeters, through which part of the intestines came out, and the fourth wound from the right side (from the pupart ligament) measuring 3 centimeters, through which part of the intestines came out, and death followed. In addition, a large wound 6 centimeters long was inflicted on the left hand, along the metacarpus of the thumb.
Pavel and Fyodor Morozov were buried at the Gerasimovka cemetery. An obelisk with a red star was placed on the grave hill, and a cross was dug next to it with the inscription: “On September 3, 1932, two Morozov brothers, Pavel Trofimovich, born in 1918, and Fyodor Trofimovich, died from the evil of a man from a sharp knife.”
Trial in the case of the murder of Pavlik Morozov
In the process of investigating the murder, his close connection with the previous case of Pavlik's father, Trofim Morozov, was revealed.
Early trial of Trofim Morozov
Pavel testified at the preliminary investigation, confirming his mother's words that his father beat his mother and brought into the house things received as payment for issuing false documents (one of the researchers, Yuri Druzhnikov, suggests that Pavel could not see this, because his father had not lived with family). According to Druzhnikov, in the murder case it is noted that “On November 25, 1931, Pavel Morozov filed a statement with the investigating authorities that his father Trofim Sergeevich Morozov, being the chairman of the village council and being connected with local kulaks, was engaged in forging documents and selling them to kulaks- special settlers". The application was related to the investigation into the case of a false certificate issued by the Gerasimovskiy village council to a special settler; he allowed Trofim to be involved in the case. Trofim Morozov was arrested and tried in February next year.
In the indictment in the case of the murder of the Morozovs, investigator Elizar Vasilyevich Shepelev recorded that "Pavel Morozov filed an application with the investigating authorities on November 25, 1931." In an interview with journalist Veronika Kononenko and Senior Counsel for Justice Igor Titov, Shepelev said:
| I can’t understand why on earth I wrote all this, there is no evidence in the case that the boy applied to the investigating authorities and that it was for this that he was killed. Probably, I meant that Pavel testified to the judge when Trofim was tried ... It turns out that because of my inaccurately written words, the boy is now accused of denunciation?! But is it a crime to help the investigation or to act as a witness in court? And is it possible to accuse a person of anything because of one phrase? |
Trofim Morozov and other village council chairmen were arrested on November 26 and 27, the day after the "denunciation". According to the results of a journalistic investigation by Evgenia Medyakova, published in the Ural magazine in 1982, it was found out that Pavel Morozov was not involved in the arrest of his father. On November 22, 1931, a certain Zworykin was detained at the Tavda station. Two blank forms with the stamps of the Gerasimov Village Council were found on him, for which, according to him, he gave 105 rubles. The certificate attached to the case states that before his arrest, Trofim was no longer the chairman of the village council, but "the clerk of the Gorodischensky general store." Medyakova also writes that, “Tavda and Gerasimovka have repeatedly received requests from the construction of Magnitogorsk, from many factories, plants and collective farms about whether citizens (a number of surnames) are really residents of Gerasimovka.” Consequently, the verification of the holders of false certificates began. “And most importantly, Medyakova did not find the boy’s testimony in the investigation file! Tatyana Semyonovna has testimonies, but Pavlik does not! For he did not make any “statements to the investigating authorities!”
Pavel, following his mother, spoke in court, but in the end was stopped by the judge due to his infancy. In the case of the murder of Morozov, it is said: “At the trial, son Pavel outlined all the details about his father, his tricks.” The speech delivered by Pavlik is known in 12 versions, mainly dating back to the book of the journalist Pyotr Solomein. In the record from the archive of Solomein himself, this accusatory speech is transmitted as follows:
| Uncles, my father created a clear counter-revolution, I, as a pioneer, am obliged to say this, my father is not a defender of the interests of October, but is trying in every possible way to help the kulak escape, he stood up for him with a mountain, and not as a son, but as a pioneer, I ask that my father be held accountable , because in the future I will not give the habit to others to hide the kulak and clearly violate the party line, and I will also add that my father will now appropriate the kulak property, took the bed of the kulak Arseny Kulukanov (the husband of T. Morozov’s sister and Pavel’s godfather) and wanted to take from him a haystack, but Kulukanov's fist did not give him hay, but said, let him take it better x ... |
Version of the prosecution
The version of the prosecution and the court was as follows. On September 3, fist Arseny Kulukanov, having learned about the boys leaving for berries, conspired with Danila Morozov, who came to his house, to kill Pavel, giving him 5 rubles and asking him to invite Sergey Morozov, "with whom Kulukanov had previously colluded," to kill him. Returning from Kulukanov and having finished the harrowing (that is, harrowing, loosening the soil), Danila went home and relayed the conversation to grandfather Sergei. The latter, seeing that Danila was taking a knife, left the house without a word and went with Danila, telling him: “Let's go kill, look, don't be afraid.” Finding the children, Danila, without saying a word, took out a knife and hit Pavel; Fedya rushed to run, but was detained by Sergei and also stabbed to death by Danila. " Convinced that Fedya was dead, Danila returned to Pavel and stabbed him several more times.».
The murder of Morozov was widely publicized as a manifestation of kulak terror (against a member of the Pioneer organization) and served as a pretext for widespread repressions on an all-Union scale; in Gerasimovka itself, it finally made it possible to organize a collective farm (before that, all attempts were frustrated by the peasants). In Tavda, in the club named after Stalin, a show trial of the alleged murderers took place. At the trial, Danila Morozov confirmed all the accusations, Sergei Morozov was contradictory, either confessing or denying his guilt. All other defendants pleaded not guilty. The main evidence was a household knife found at Sergey Morozov's, and Danila's bloodied clothes, soaked but not washed by Ksenia (allegedly Danila had slaughtered a calf for Tatyana Morozova before).
Verdict of the Ural Regional Court
By the decision of the Ural Regional Court, their own grandfather Sergey (Trofim Morozov's father) and 19-year-old cousin Danila, as well as grandmother Ksenia (as an accomplice) and Pavel's godfather - Arseny Kulukanov, who was his uncle, were found guilty in the murder of Pavel Morozov and his brother Fyodor (as a village fist - as the initiator and organizer of the murder). After the trial, Arseny Kulukanov and Danila Morozov were shot, octogenarian Sergei and Ksenia Morozov died in prison. Another uncle of Pavlik, Arseniy Silin, was also accused of complicity in the murder, but during the trial he was acquitted.
Yu. I. Druzhnikov's version and criticism of the version
Druzhnikov's version
According to the writer Yuri Druzhnikov, who published the book “Informer 001, or the Ascension of Pavlik Morozov” in 1987 in the UK, many circumstances related to the life of Pavel Morozov are distorted by propaganda and are controversial.
In particular, Druzhnikov questions that Pavlik Morozov was a pioneer. According to Druzhnikov, he was declared a pioneer almost immediately after his death (the latter, according to Druzhnikov, was important for the investigation, as it brought his murder under the article on political terror).
Druzhnikov claims that, having testified against his father, Pavlik deserved to "general hatred"; they began to call him "Pashka-kumanist" (communist). Druzhnikov considers official claims that Pavel actively helped to identify "Bread Clamps", those who hide weapons, plot crimes against the Soviet government, etc. According to the author, according to fellow villagers, Pavel was not "serious whistleblower", as “to inform is, you know, a serious job, but he was like that, a nit, a petty dirty trick”. According to Druzhnikov, only two such cases were documented in the murder case. "denunciation" .
He considers it illogical the behavior of the alleged killers who did not take any measures to hide the traces of the crime (they did not drown the corpses in the swamp, leaving them by the road; they did not wash the bloody clothes in time; they did not clean the knife from traces of blood, while putting it in the place in which the first thing they look at during a search). All this is especially strange, given that Morozov's grandfather was a gendarme in the past, and his grandmother was a professional horse thief.
According to Druzhnikov, the murder was the result of a provocation by the OGPU, organized with the participation of an assistant authorized by the OGPU, Spiridon Kartashov, and Pavel's cousin, Ivan Potupchik, an informer. In this regard, the author describes a document that he claims to have found in the case file no. 374 (about the murder of the Morozov brothers). This paper was compiled by Kartashov and is a record of the interrogation of Potupchik as a witness in the case of the murder of Pavel and Fyodor. The document is dated September 4, that is, according to the date, it was drawn up two days before the discovery of the corpses.
According to Yuri Druzhnikov, expressed in an interview with Rossiyskaya Gazeta:
| There was no consequence. The corpses were ordered to be buried before the arrival of the investigator without examination. Journalists also sat on the stage as accusers, speaking about the political importance of shooting kulaks. The lawyer accused the defendants of murder and left to applause. Different sources report different methods of murder, the prosecutor and the judge were confused about the facts. A knife with traces of blood found in the house was called the murder weapon, but Danila was slaughtering a calf that day - no one checked whose blood it was. The accused grandfather, grandmother, uncle and cousin of Pavlik Danila tried to say that they were beaten and tortured. The shooting of the innocent in November 1932 was the signal for a massacre of peasants throughout the country. |
Criticism and rebuttals of Druzhnikov's claims
Outrage of brother and teacher
| What kind of trial did they put on my brother? It's embarrassing and scary. My brother was called an informer in the magazine. Lie it! Pavel always fought openly. Why is he insulted? Has our family suffered a little grief? Who is being bullied? Two of my brothers were killed. The third, Roman, came from the front disabled, died young. I was slandered during the war as an enemy of the people. He spent ten years in the camp. And then they rehabilitated. And now slander on Pavlik. How to endure all this? They doomed me to torture worse than in the camps. It is good that my mother did not live to see these days ... I am writing, but tears are choking. So it seems that Pashka is again defenseless on the road. ... The editor of "Ogonyok" Korotich at the radio station "Freedom" said that my brother is a son of a bitch, which means my mother ... Yuri Izrailevich Alperovich-Druzhnikov worked his way into our family, drank tea with my mother, sympathized with us, and then published in London a vile book - a bunch of such disgusting lies and slander that, after reading it, I got a second heart attack. Z. A. Kabina also fell ill, she kept trying to sue the author in an international court, but where is she - Alperovich lives in Texas and laughs - try to get him, the teacher's pension is not enough. The chapters from the book “The Ascension of Pavlik Morozov” by this scribbler were circulated by many newspapers and magazines, no one takes my protests into account, no one needs the truth about my brother ... It seems that I have only one thing left - to douse myself with gasoline, and that's it! |
Criticism of the author and his book
Druzhnikov's words contradict the memoirs of Pavel's first teacher, Larisa Pavlovna Isakova: “I didn’t manage to organize the pioneer detachment in Gerasimovka then, it was created after me by Zoya Kabina<…>. Once I brought a red tie from Tavda, tied it to Pavel, and he joyfully ran home. At home, his father tore off his tie and beat him terribly. [..] The commune collapsed, and my husband was beaten half to death with fists. Ustinya Potupchik saved me, she warned me that Kulakanov and his company were going to be killed. [..] So, probably, since then Pavlik Kulakanov began to hate, he was the first to join the pioneers when the detachment was organized.. Journalist V.P. Kononenko, citing Pavel Morozov's teacher Zoya Kabina, confirms that “it was she who created the first pioneer detachment in the village, which was headed by Pavel Morozov” .
Yuri Druzhnikov stated that Kelly used his work not only in valid references, but also by repeating the book's composition, selection of details, descriptions. In addition, Dr. Kelly, according to Druzhnikov, came to the exact opposite conclusion about the role of the OGPU-NKVD in the murder of Pavlik.
According to Dr. Kelly, Mr. Druzhnikov considered the Soviet official materials unreliable, but used them when it was advantageous to support his account. According to Catriona Kelly, instead of a scientific presentation of criticism of her book, Druzhnikov published a "denunciation" with the assumption of Kelly's connection with the "organs". Dr. Kelly did not find much difference between the conclusions of the books and attributed some of Mr. Druzhnikov's criticisms to his lack of knowledge of the English language and English culture.
Investigation of the Main Military Prosecutor's Office, personal requests of Alexander Liskin
Alexander Alekseevich Liskin took part in an additional investigation of the case in 1967 and requested murder case No. H-7825-66 from the archives of the KGB of the USSR. In an article published between 1998 and 2001, Liskin pointed to the "scuffle" and "falsification" on the part of Inspector Titov, uncovered during the investigation. In 1995, Liskin requested official certificates of the alleged criminal record of Father Pavlik, but the internal affairs authorities of the Sverdlovsk and Tyumen regions did not find such information. Liskin suggested checking the "secret corners of the dusty archives" to find the real killers of the Morozov brothers.
Liskin agreed with the arguments of Veronika Kononenko, editor of the department of the magazine Man and Law, about the witness nature of Pavlik's speech at his father's trial and about the absence of secret denunciations.
The decision of the Supreme Court of Russia
In the spring of 1999, the co-chairman of the Kurgan Memorial Society, Innokenty Khlebnikov, on behalf of Arseny Kulukanov's daughter Matryona Shatrakova, sent a petition to the Prosecutor General's Office to review the decision of the Ural Regional Court, which sentenced the teenager's relatives to death. The General Prosecutor's Office of Russia came to the following conclusion:
The verdict of the Ural Regional Court dated November 28, 1932 and the ruling of the judicial-cassation board of the Supreme Court of the USSR dated February 28, 1933 in respect of Kulukanov Arseny Ignatievich and Morozova Xenia Ilyinichna should be changed: re-qualify their actions from Art. 58-8 of the Criminal Code of the USSR at Art. 17 and 58-8 of the Criminal Code of the USSR, leaving the previous measure of punishment.
To recognize Sergey Sergeevich Morozov and Daniil Ivanovich Morozov as reasonably convicted in the present case for committing a counter-revolutionary crime and not subject to rehabilitation.
The Prosecutor General's Office, which is engaged in the rehabilitation of victims of political repression, came to the conclusion that the murder of Pavlik Morozov is purely criminal in nature, and the killers are not subject to political rehabilitation. This conclusion, together with the materials of the additional verification of case No. 374, was sent to the Supreme Court of Russia, which decided to refuse rehabilitation of the alleged murderers of Pavlik Morozov and his brother Fyodor.
Opinions on the decision of the Supreme Court
According to Boris Sopelnyak, “in the midst of the perestroika hysteria [..] the so-called ideologists who were allowed to feed on the dollar trough tried the hardest [to knock out love for the motherland from the youth].” According to Sopelnyak, the General Prosecutor's Office carefully considered the case.
According to Maura Reynolds, Matryona Shatrakova died three months before the Supreme Court's decision arrived in 2001, and the postman refused to deliver the decision to her daughter.
Name immortalization
- On July 2, 1936, a resolution was adopted by the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the construction of a monument to Pavlik Morozov in Moscow at the entrance to Red Square.
- Monuments were erected to Pavlik Morozov: in Moscow (in 1948, in the children's park named after him on Krasnaya Presnya; demolished in 1991), the village of Gerasimovka (1954), in Sverdlovsk (1957), the city of Ostrov, in the city of Glazov, in the city of Ukhta (Komi Republic), in Kaliningrad.
- The name of Pavlik Morozov was given to Gerasimov and other collective farms, schools, and pioneer squads.
- Novovagankovsky pereulok in Moscow was renamed Pavlik Morozov Street in 1939, and a club named after him was organized in the Church of St. Nicholas on the Three Mountains.
- The Ivano-Frankivsk Regional Puppet Theater bore the name of Pavlik Morozov.
- In 1935, film director Sergei Eisenstein began working on Alexander Rzheshevsky's script for Bezhin Meadow about Pavlik Morozov. The work could not be completed, because on the basis of the draft version of the film, Eisenstein was accused of "deliberate understatement of the ideological content" and "exercises in formalism."
- Maxim Gorky called Pavlik "one of the little miracles of our era."
- In 1954, the composer Yuri Balkashin composed the musical poem Pavlik Morozov.
- In 1955, he was listed under No. 1 in the Book of Honor of the All-Union Pioneer Organization named after. V. I. Lenin. Under number 2, Kolya Myagotin was listed in the same book.
- In Yekaterinburg there is a park named after Pavlik Morozov. There was a monument depicting Pavlik in the park. In the 1990s, the monument was torn off its pedestal, lay in the bushes for some time and disappeared.
- In Turinsk, Sverdlovsk region, there was a Pavlik Morozov square, in the center of the square there was a monument depicting Pavlik in full growth and with a pioneer tie. In the 90s, the monument was stolen by unidentified persons. Now the square has been renamed the "Historical Square".
- There is a station named after Pavlik Morozov in Chelyabinsk on the Malaya South Ural Railway.
- In the Children's Park of Simferopol there is a bust of P. Morozov on the alley of pioneer heroes.
- In the Children's Park of the city of Ukhta (Komi Republic), a monument to P. Morozov was opened on June 20, 1968. According to other sources in 1972. The author is the sculptor A. K. Ambruliavius.
In honor of Pavlik Morozov, many streets in the cities and villages of the former Soviet Union are named, many streets bear this name even now: in Perm and Krasnokamsk (streets), in Ufa (street and alley), Tula (street and passage), Ashe - the regional center Chelyabinsk region,
Pavlik Morozov was a role model for the pioneers. He was born on November 14, 1918 in the village of Gerasimovka. His parents were peasants. Pavlik became an active participant in the process of dispossession and led the first pioneer detachment in his village.
Soviet history says that this boy, during the period of collectivization, exposed his father as a kulak. He testified against his dad, who was sentenced to 10 years. He also told about the hidden bread from a neighbor, about the theft of state grain, which was committed by his uncle. Pavlik Morozov took an active part in the actions and, together with the chairman, searched for the hidden property of fellow villagers.
In court, the boy did not speak out against his father and did not write a denunciation against him. The only thing he did was confirm the words of the mother, who made the main accusations. Trofim Morozov, Pavlik's father, beat his wife and often brought home things he received for issuing false documents, he also kept a large amount of grain.
According to the official version, the grandfather and cousin uncle killed the boy in 1932 in the forest. Mother at this time briefly left on business in the city. The murderers were sentenced to death, Pavlik's father was also shot, although he was far away at that time. His mother received an apartment in the Crimea as compensation for her son's death. Many collective farms, schools and pioneer squads received the name - "Pavlik Morozov".
The story of this boy's life was known throughout the Union. Songs and poems were composed about him, an opera of the same name was created, and Eisenstein even tried to make a film, but his idea could not be realized. Today, various sources provide such different information that the question arises as to whether Pavlik Morozov existed at all? In half the cases, his feat was attributed to denunciations and he himself was called a traitor. But we all still believe that he existed.
At first, Pavlik Morozov, who imprisoned his father, was considered a national hero. Pionerskaya Pravda wrote about him: “Pavlik spares no one. Father got caught - he betrayed him, uncle, grandfather - he betrayed them too, Shatrakov hid weapons, Silin speculated on vodka - Pavlik exposed them all. He was brought up in and therefore grew up a Bolshevik.
The story of the murder of Pavlik Morozov was immediately picked up by Soviet propaganda. He was represented by a bold peony
erom, who denounced his father-fist. Also, his name was entered in the Book of Honor of the Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization. But half a century later, the image began to change, since this story was already unattractive. Dissertations were written from which it was said that Pavlik was not a hero at all, but simply denounced absolutely everyone.
For the fact that he betrayed his own father, Stalin said about him: "Of course, the boy is a bastard, but the country needs heroes." At that time it was necessary to educate a generation of informers and informers, and this boy became an example.
Today, Pavlik Morozov is considered neither a hero nor a traitor. He is just a victim of a harsh and difficult time. This boy died for speaking the truth. If you understand this story, you can understand that it is very distorted and changed for the convenience of the authorities of that time.
Most of the people living in the countries of the former USSR will be able to answer the question of what Pavlik Morozov did. Indeed, its history is well known, and the name has long become a household name. True, unlike the communist version, history has now acquired a rather negative character. What did Pavlik Morozov do? A feat worthy of being known and remembered for many centuries to come? Or is it an ordinary denunciation that has nothing to do with heroism? In search of the truth, one will have to hear the supporters of both versions.
background
Pavlik Morozov was the oldest child in the family of Tatyana and Trofim Morozov. In addition to him, the parents grew up three more boys. As far as we know from the surviving memories, the family lived on the verge of poverty - the guys didn’t even really have clothes. A piece of bread was obtained with difficulty, but, despite this, the boys attended school and diligently learned to read and write.
Their father worked as the chairman of the Gerasimovsky village council and was far from the most popular person. As it became known later, the children "swelled from hunger" not because of the poor earnings of their father. It's just that the money did not reach the house, settling in the pockets of card cheats and vodka dealers.
And Trofim Morozov turned over considerable sums, and he had a completely thieves' biography. Pavlik Morozov knew what his father was doing: appropriation of confiscated things, various documentary speculations, as well as covering for those who had not yet been dispossessed. In a word, he actively interfered with the advancement of state policy. It can even be said that Pavlik's father himself became a full-fledged fist.
The starving children did not even know about it, because very soon daddy finally stopped appearing at home, moving to his mistress. From this point on, the continuation of the story diverges. For some, it acquires a connotation of heroism, while for others it is perceived as an ordinary judicial situation. But what did Pavlik Morozov do?
USSR version
Pioneer Pavlik Morozov was an ardent admirer of the teachings of Marx and Lenin and sought to ensure that his state and people came to a bright communist future. The very idea that his own father was doing everything to break the achievements of the October Revolution was disgusting to him. As a loving son and a person with high moral principles, the hero Pavlik Morozov hoped that his father would come to his senses and become right. But everything has a limit. And at some point the boy's cup of patience overflowed.
As the only man in the family, after the departure of his father, he had to carry the entire household. He renounced his parent, and when the family ties finally weakened, he acted like a true communist. Pavlik Morozov wrote a denunciation against his father, where he fully described all his crimes and connections with the kulaks, after which he took the paper to the appropriate authorities. Trofim was arrested and sentenced to 10 years.
Rebuild version
Like any Soviet idol, the young Pavlik Morozov also had to "fall". The truth about his life immediately began to be investigated by historians who turned over dozens of archives to find out what the essence of the pioneer's act was.
Based on these data, they concluded: Pavlik Morozov did not hand over his father into the hands of the Soviet law enforcement system. He only gave testimony, which helped to once again make sure that Trofim is an enemy of the people and a corrupt official who has committed many crimes. In fact, the father of the pioneer was caught, as they say, "hot" - they found fake documents with his signatures. In addition, it should be noted that many members of the village council were arrested and convicted along with him.
Why Pavlik Morozov betrayed his father, if you can call it testifying about the crimes of his relative, you can understand. Probably, the young pioneer did not even think much about kinship - from childhood, dad was a real "scourge" for the family, who did not let his wife or children pass. For example, he stubbornly did not let the boys go to school, believing that they did not need a letter. This despite the fact that Pavlik had an incredible craving for knowledge.
In addition, Trofim Morozov at that time was no longer even a family man, living with his new passion and drinking endlessly. He didn't just not care about the children - he didn't even think about them. Therefore, the son's act is understandable - for him it was already a stranger who managed to bring a lot of evil to the Morozovs' house.
But the story is not over
In fact, there would be no hero if it were not for the events that occurred further, which led to the fact that Pavlik Morozov became a real great martyr of the Soviet era. A close friend of the family (Paul's godfather) Arseny Kulukanov decided on revenge. Since he had previously actively dealt with Trofim, and was a "fist", the arrest of a close comrade hit the future killer's financial situation very badly.
When he learned that Pavel and Fyodor had gone into the forest for berries, he persuaded his middle brother Danila, as well as the grandfather of the Morozovs, Sergey, to go after them. What exactly happened then is unknown. We know only one thing - our hero (Pavlik Morozov) and his younger brother were brutally murdered, or, to be more precise, stabbed to death.
The evidence against the "gang" that had gathered for the murder was the found household knife and Danila's bloodied clothes. DNA examinations did not yet exist, therefore the investigation decided that the blood on the shirt belonged to the brothers of the arrested person. All participants in the crime were found guilty and shot. Danila Morozov immediately recognized all the accusations as true, grandfather Sergei either denied or confirmed his guilt, and only Kulukanov preferred to go into deep defense during the trial.
Propaganda
The Soviet nomenklatura simply could not miss such an opportunity. And the point is not even in the very fact of testifying against the father - this happened all the time at that time, but in disgusting and low revenge for this. Now Pavlik Morozov is a pioneer hero.
The crime, which received publicity in the press, produced a huge response. The authorities cited him as proof of the cruelty and greed of the "kulaks": they say, look what they are ready for because of the loss of material gain. Massive repressions began. Dispossession broke out with renewed vigor, and now any wealthy citizen was in danger.
The fact that Pavlik Morozov betrayed his father was lowered - after all, he did it for the sake of a just cause. The boy who put his life in the foundation of building communism has become a true legend. He was set as an example to follow.
Pavlik Morozov, the feat of the young communist and fighter for the ideas of October, became the subject of a huge number of books, productions, songs and poems. His personality occupied a truly enormous place in the culture of the USSR. In fact, it is very simple to assess the scale of propaganda - now everyone knows the general plot of what happened to this boy. He was supposed to show the children how much more important collective values are in comparison with personal and family interests.
Druzhnikov and his theory
In connection with such close attention of the authorities to the incident, the writer Yuri Druzhnikov put forward the idea of falsifying the crime and deliberately killing Pavlik by the authorities for his further "canonization". This version formed the basis of the study, which later resulted in the book "Informer 001".
It questioned the entire pioneer biography. Pavlik Morozov Druzhnikov was brutally murdered by the OGPU. This assertion is based on two facts. The first one is the record of interviewing a witness allegedly found by the writer in the case of the murder of the Morozov brothers. Everything would be fine, but the protocol was drawn up two days before the discovery of the corpses and the identification of the criminals.
The second position, which Druzhnikov cites, is the absolutely illogical behavior of the killer. According to all the "rules", such a cruel crime should have been tried as best as possible to hide, but the accused did everything literally the other way around. The killers did not bother to bury the corpses or at least somehow hide them, but left them in full view right next to the road. The crime weapon was carelessly thrown at home, and no one thought to get rid of the bloody clothes. Indeed, there are some contradictions in this, isn't it?
On the basis of these theses, the writer concludes that before us is an unreal story. Pavlik Morozov was killed by order, specifically in order to create a myth. Druzhnikov states that according to the materials of the case, which are available in the archives, it is clear that the judge and witnesses are confused and are talking incoherent nonsense. In addition, the accused repeatedly tried to say that they were tortured.
Soviet propaganda hushed up the attitude of fellow villagers to the denunciation of the boy. The writer claims that "Pashka the Communist" is the least offensive nickname of all that the guy received for his "feat".
Reply to Druzhnikov
Druzhnikov's version deeply offended Pavel's only surviving brother, who, after the publication of the book in the UK, declared that he could not tolerate such treatment of the memory of his relative.
He wrote an open letter to the newspapers, where he condemned the "trial" that was arranged for Pavlik. In it, he recalls that in addition to the legend, there is also a real person, a real family who suffered from these events. He cites the times of Stalin, also full of slander and hatred, as an example, and asks: "Are all these 'writers' different from the liars of that time in many ways?"
In addition, it is alleged that the arguments found by Druzhnikov do not coincide with the memories of the teacher. For example, she denies that Pavlik was not a pioneer. Indeed, in his book, the writer says that only after the tragic death of the boy was he assigned to a youth organization in order to create a cult. However, the teacher remembers exactly how a pioneer detachment was created in the village, and the joyful Pavlik received his red tie, which was then taken off and trampled by his father. She was even going to sue an international court to defend the already immortalized heroic story called Pavlik Morozov. History did not wait for this moment, as it turned out that, in fact, Druzhnikov and his theory were not taken seriously by anyone.
Among British historians, this book literally caused ridicule and criticism, as the writer contradicted himself. For example, he wrote clearly and clearly that there is no more unreliable source of information than Soviet documents, especially if they relate to the legal system. And the author himself used these records to his advantage.
Ultimately, no one argues - the facts of the crime in the USSR were clearly hushed up and hidden. The whole story was presented exclusively in tones favorable to the leadership. However, there is no evidence that everything that happened is a fiction and a deliberately planned operation. The case rather proves how cleverly any incident can be turned out by propaganda.
Supreme Court
and the related crime were not overlooked during the prosecution's investigation into the rehabilitation of victims of political cases. Attempts were made to find evidence of an ideological background in the murder of the boy. The commission conducted a deep and thorough investigation, after which it declared with responsibility: the murder of Pavel and Fedor is pure criminality. This meant, first of all, the recognition by the new government of a low and vile crime, and on the other hand, it overthrew Pavlik from his pedestal, declaring him dead not at all in the fight against the kulaks.
antihero
Now Pavlik Morozov acts more like an anti-hero. In the age of capitalism, when everyone should think about himself and his family, and not about the general team, the people, his "feat" can hardly be called such.
The betrayal of one's own father is viewed from a completely different position, as a low and vile act. Now in culture, the boy has become a symbol of an informer who was not worthy of being recorded as pioneer heroes. Pavlik Morozov has become a negative character for many. This is evidenced by the destroyed monuments to the hero.
Many see mercenary intent in his testimony - he sought to take revenge on his father for his childhood. Allegedly, Tatyana Morozova did the same, trying to intimidate her husband and force him to return home after the trial. Some writers and culturologists find the very meaning of Pavlik's feat terrible - an example for children that teaches them to inform and betray.
Conclusion
Probably, we will never fully find out who Pavlik Morozov really is. Its history is ambiguous and is still full of secrets and understatement. Of course, you can look at it from completely different angles, presenting information as you like.
But, as they say, there was a cult, but there was also a personality. It is worth trying to look at the whole tragedy from another angle, given the difficult time in which Pavlik Morozov and his family lived. It was an era of terrible change, a painful, cruel and destructive period. The USSR lost a lot of intelligent and smart people in connection with the purges. People lived in constant fear for their lives and the lives of their loved ones.
In fact, at the center of events lies the simple tragedy of another family that lived at that time. Pavlik is neither a hero nor a traitor. He is just a young man who has become a victim of cruelty and revenge. And we can talk about mystification and propaganda as much as we like, but we should never forget about the existence of a real person.
In every totalitarian power there was a similar story. Even in Nazi Germany there was a hero boy who fell at a young age for the sake of an idea. And so it always is, because this image is one of the most advantageous for the propaganda machine. Isn't it time to just forget the whole story? To pay tribute to an innocently fallen child and no longer use it as evidence of anything, no matter whether the greed of the kulaks or the horrors of the USSR.
