Brought up in the firm principles of service for the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland, the cadets and cadets, for whom this formula was the meaning and goal of their entire future life, accepted the revolution of 1917 as a huge misfortune and the death of everything they were preparing to serve and believed in. From the very first days of its appearance, they considered the red flag, which replaced the Russian national flag, to be what it really was, namely a dirty rag, symbolizing violence, rebellion and desecration of everything dear and sacred to them.
Knowing well about these sentiments, which the cadets and cadets did not consider necessary to hide from the new government, she hastened to radically change the life and order of military educational institutions. In the very first months of the revolution, the Soviets hastened to rename the cadet corps “gymnasiums of the military department”, and the companies in them to “ages”, abolish drills and shoulder straps, and put “pedagogical committees” at the head of the corps administration, where, along with officers, educators, directors and company commanders, soldiers-drummers, men and military paramedics entered and began to play a dominant role in them. In addition, the revolutionary government appointed a “commissar” to each corps, who was the “eye of the revolution.” The main duty of such “commissars” was to stop all “counter-revolutionary actions” in the bud. Officer-educators began to be replaced by civilian teachers under the name of “class teachers”, as in civilian educational institutions.
All these reforms were met with unanimous indignation among the cadets. At the very first news of the civil war breaking out in different places in Russia, cadets began to leave their corps en masse to join the ranks of the White armies fighting against the Bolsheviks. As young people brought up in the firm principles of military honor, the cadets, represented by their combat companies, before leaving their native corps forever, took all measures in their power in order to save their banners - a symbol of their military duty, and prevent them from falling into the hands of red. The cadet corps, which managed to evacuate to the areas of the White armies in the first months of the revolution, took the banners with them. The cadets of the corps that found themselves on the territory of Soviet power did everything in their power and possible to hide their banners in safe places.
The banner of the Oryol Bakhtin Corps was secretly taken from the temple by the officer-educator, Lieutenant Colonel V.D. Trofimov together with two cadets, and hidden in a safe place under very difficult circumstances. The cadets of the Polotsk Cadet Corps, at the risk of their own lives, saved the banner from the hands of the Reds and took it to Yugoslavia, where it was then transferred to the Russian Cadet Corps. In the Voronezh corps, the cadets of the combat company secretly took the banner out of the temple, and in its place they put a sheet in a cover. The Reds noticed the disappearance of the banner only when it was already in a safe place, from where it was taken to the Don.
Among the well-known cases of saving banners that belonged to the cadet corps, the most significant thing was accomplished by the Simbirsk cadets, who, together with the banner of their corps, saved the two banners of the Polotsk cadet corps that were kept with it.
This glorious deed stands out not only by the number of banners saved, but also by the number of people who took part in this or that.
By the beginning of March 1918, the Simbirsk Cadet Corps was already under the control of local Bolsheviks. There were sentries at the entrance to the main building. The main guard with machine guns was located in the lobby. The banners were in the corps church, the door of which was locked and guarded by a sentry. And nearby, in the dining room, there was a guard of five Red Guards.
The intention of the Bolsheviks to take away the banners was announced by Colonel Tsarkov, who came to the 2nd department of the 7th grade, one of the corps teachers, especially loved by the cadets. By kissing a nearby cadet, the colonel hinted to the cadets about their responsibilities in relation to the corps shrine.
The squad took the hint and, without initiating other cadets, drew up a plan to steal the banners, in the execution of which all the cadets of the glorious second squad, without exception, took part, performing jointly thought-out and distributed tasks.
Cadets A. Pirsky and N. Ipatov were lucky enough to quietly take a cast of the key to the church door. And in the evening, when cunning managed to divert the attention of the sentry and the guard, they opened the church with a key prepared from the cast, tore down the panels and, guarded by “mashals” placed everywhere, delivered the banners to their classroom.
The banners were taken down by: A. Pirsky, N. Ipatov, K. Rossin and Kachalov, a seconded cadet of the 2nd St. Petersburg Cadet Corps.
The Bolsheviks, who noticed the disappearance of the banners in the morning, searched all the premises of the building, but to no avail. The banners were very resourcefully hidden in the classroom at the bottom of barrels with palm trees. But a new task arose - to remove the banners from the building. Two days later, when, by agreement, the banners were to be handed over to Ensign Petrov, who was in the city, who only graduated from the Simbirsk Corps in 1917, they decided to act with a bang. The strongest cadets of the squad hid their banners in their bosoms, they were surrounded by a crowd and at once rushed through the Swiss, past the confused sentries, into the street.
Then, when the banners had already been handed over, they returned to the building and explained their antics by the desire to breathe fresh air and take a walk.
Subsequently, after the dissolution of the corps, the Bolsheviks arrested a number of corps officers, accusing them of hiding the banners. The cadets of the glorious second section, who were still in the city, gathered to discuss the issue - how to rescue officers from prison who did not even know where the banners were. Cadets A. Pirsky, K. Rossin and Kachalov suggested that they confess to the Bolsheviks in stealing the banners, and during interrogation they would declare that the banners were taken by N. Ipatov, who left for Manchuria more than a month ago.
That's what they did. The teachers left prison, and their places were taken by cadets. But God rewarded their spirit: it so happened that the court found them innocent... And they managed to escape from the revenge of the Bolsheviks.
The banners were transferred for safekeeping to sister of mercy Evgenia Viktorovna Ovtrakht. She hid them and handed them over to the general Baron Wrangel after the volunteers occupied Tsaritsyn. By order No. 66 of June 29, 1919, she was awarded the St. George Medal for this feat. In January 1955, the banner, saved by Ms. Ovtrakht, who became Abbess Emilia, arrived in the USA and is now in the Metropolitan Church of the Synod of the Russian Church Abroad.
The cadets of the Omsk Corps in 1918, having received an order from the Red Command to remove their shoulder straps, in the evening of the same day all the corps gathered in the assembly hall, put all the shoulder straps in a coffin, which was then buried in the ground by the senior cadets. The banner of the Sumy Cadet Corps, now also located in the USA, was saved at risk to its life by cadet Dimitry Potemkin.
In the White struggle for Russia, the first to act against the Reds in October 1917 were the Alexander Military School and the cadets of three Moscow corps. The cadets defended Moscow from being captured by the Bolsheviks for several days in a row, and the third company of the school, which even after the defeat did not want to surrender its weapons, was completely destroyed by the Reds. Having learned about the performance of the Alexander cadets against the Reds, the combat company of the 3rd Moscow Emperor Alexander II Corps joined the cadets and took a position along the Yauza River, while the combat company of the 1st Moscow Corps covered the cadet front from the rear. Under fire from the enemy, who outnumbered them, the cadets and cadets, shot from all sides, began to retreat to the Yauza River, where they lingered. At this time, the combat company of the 2nd Moscow Corps, having lined up in the assembly hall under the command of its vice-sergeant Slonimsky, asked the director of the corps to allow him to go to the aid of the cadets and cadets of the other two corps. This was met with a categorical refusal, after which Slonimsky ordered the rifles to be dismantled and, with the banner at the head, led the company to the exit, which was blocked by the director of the corps, who declared that “the company will only pass through his corpse.” The general was politely removed from the path by the right-flank cadets, and the company was at the disposal of the commander of the combined cadet cadet detachment on the Yauza River. The cadets of the three Moscow corps and the Alexandrovite cadets covered themselves with immortal glory in the fight against the Reds these days. They fought for two weeks, proving in practice what comradely chemistry and mutual assistance mean to a Russian cadet and cadet.
During the days of the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917, almost all military schools, headed by the Nikolaev Engineering School, which especially suffered in this fight, fought against the Bolsheviks in Petrograd with arms in hand.
In the first days of the revolution, the Naval Cadet Corps in Petrograd was attacked by the rebellious mob and soldiers, led by disobedient lower ranks of the Life Guards of the Finnish Regiment and spare parts. The director of the Naval Corps, Admiral Kartsev, ordered the distribution of weapons to midshipmen and senior cadets, and the corps offered armed resistance to the rebels.
Wanting to save the midshipmen and cadets, the director of the Naval Corps went out into the lobby and entered into negotiations with the attackers, telling them that he would not allow the crowd into the corps building, since he was responsible for state property, but was ready to issue a certain number of rifles and allow delegates to inspect all the premises , in order to make sure that there were no machine guns, which the agitators accused the Marine Corps of firing. While, on the orders of Admiral Kartsev, his assistant, class inspector, Lieutenant General Briger, went with delegates to inspect the hull, the admiral was attacked, he was hit on the head with a rifle butt and was taken to the State Duma building, where he seriously wounded himself, attempting suicide. Lieutenant General Briger, who replaced Admiral Kartsev as director of the corps, dismissed the cadets and midshipmen to their homes. On this day, in essence, the 216-year service of the Naval Corps of the Russian Empire ended.
In the Voronezh Cadet Corps, when the manifesto about the abdication of the Emperor arrived, which the director read in the church, the rector of the temple, the corps’ teacher of law, Fr. Archpriest Stefan (Zverev), and after him all the cadets burst into tears. That same day, the cadets of the drill company tore the red rag hung by the clerks from the flagpole, and with the windows open, they played the national anthem, echoed by the voices of the entire corps. This caused the arrival of the Red Guards at the corps building, which intended to kill the cadets. The latter was prevented with great difficulty by the director, Major General Belogorsky.
In the first days of Bolshevism, in the autumn and winter of 1917, all cadet corps on the Volga were destroyed, namely: Yaroslavl, Simbirsk and Nizhny Novgorod. The Red Guards caught cadets in cities and at railway stations, in carriages, on ships, beat them, mutilated them, threw them out of the windows of trains and threw them into the water. The surviving cadets of these corps arrived in single order in Orenburg and joined two local corps, subsequently sharing their fate.
The Pskov Cadet Corps, transferred in 1917 from Pskov to Kazan and located in the building of the Theological Seminary on the Arsk Field, during the October Bolshevik uprising in this city, like the Moscow cadets, joined the local cadets fighting the Reds. In 1918, the Pskov cadets set out on a march to Irkutsk, where again, already in 1920, they fought against the Red regime with arms in hand. Some of them died in battle, and the survivors, having moved to Orenburg, continued the fight against the Reds. One cadet even managed to organize his own partisan detachment in Siberia. The banner of the Pskov Corps was saved from the hands of the Reds by the corps priest, rector Fr. Vasily.
The commander of the second company of the Simbirsk Cadet Corps, Colonel Gorizontov, overcoming thousands of difficulties and dangers, led the remnants of the corps to Irkutsk, where in December 1917, the cadets of the local military school did not allow the local Bolsheviks to seize power in the city, fighting with the Red Guard for eight days. During these days, the cadets lost more than 50 people and several officers killed and wounded, but they themselves killed over 400 Reds.
On December 17, 1917, a combat company of the Orenburg Neplyuevsky Corps, under the command of its vice-sergeant Yuzbashev, left the corps and joined the detachment of the Orenburg Cossacks of Ataman Dutov. In their ranks, the cadets took part in the battles with the Reds near Karaganda and Kargada, suffering losses in the wounded and killed, and then the remnants of the company, together with the cadets of the Orenburg Cossack School, left Orenburg and moved south through the steppes. This campaign is described by the talented pen of cadet-writer Evgeniy Yakonovsky. The cadets of the Orenburg Neplyuevsky Corps (graduating class) subsequently almost entirely made up the team of the armored train “Vityaz”, just as other cadets made up the teams of the armored trains “Glory of the Officer” and “Russia”.
In January 1918, cadets of the Odessa Infantry School, together with their officers, were surrounded in the school building by Red Guard gangs. Having offered them vigorous resistance, the cadets only left the building on the third day of the battle, and then on the orders of the head of the school, Colonel Kislov, in single formations and groups in order to make their way to the Don and join the ranks of the Volunteer Army.
In October 1917, the Kiev Infantry School named after Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich entered into battle with the Reds on the streets of Kyiv and suffered its first losses in this battle. Having seized the train at the station by force of arms, it moved to Kuban, where, in the ranks of the Kuban units, it participated in the Ice Campaign and in the capture of Yekaterinodar.
From the autumn of 1917 until the winter of 1923, vast areas of Russia were engulfed in civil war. In this grandiose struggle, Russian cadets and cadets took the most honorable place, confirming the principle that “cadets have different shoulder straps, but one soul.” The cadets and their senior comrades and brothers - cadets - suffered terrible losses in killed, wounded and tortured, not to mention forever crippled physically and morally for the rest of their lives. These children and youth volunteers were the most beautiful and, at the same time, the most painful of all in the White movement. Entire books should subsequently be written about their participation in this most terrible of wars, about how these children and youths made their way into the white armies, how they abandoned their families, and how they found, after much work and searching, the promised army.
The first volunteer detachments that began to fight the Reds near Rostov and Taganrog were overwhelmingly made up of cadets and cadets, just like the detachments of Chernetsov, Semiletov and other founders of the fight against the Reds. The first coffins, invariably escorted to Novocherkassk by the sad Ataman Kaledin, contained the bodies of killed cadets and cadets. At their funeral, General Alekseev, standing at the open grave, said:
– I see a monument that Russia will erect for these children, and this monument should depict an eagle’s nest and the eaglets killed in it...
In November 1917, the Junker Battalion was formed in Novocherkassk, consisting of two companies: the first cadet under the command of Captain Skosyrsky, and the second cadet under the command of Staff Captain Mizernitsky. On November 27, he received an order to board a train and with fifty Don Cossack Military School was sent to Nakhichevan. Having unloaded under enemy fire, the battalion quickly formed up, as if in a training exercise, and, walking at full speed, rushed to attack the Reds. Having knocked them out of the Balabinskaya grove, he entrenched himself in it and continued the shooting battle with the support of two of our guns. In this battle, almost the entire platoon of Captain Donskov, consisting of cadets from the Oryol and Odessa corps, was killed. The corpses found after the battle were mutilated and stabbed with bayonets. Thus, the Russian soil was stained with the blood of Russian child cadets in the first battle, which laid the foundation for the Volunteer Army and the White struggle during the capture of Rostov-on-Don. In January 1918, a volunteer detachment “Salvation of the Kuban” was created in Yekaterinodar under the command of Colonel Lesevitsky, consisting of cadets from various corps and cadets of the Nikolaev Cavalry School. In its ranks, cadets heroically fell on the field of honor: Georgy Pereverzev - 3rd Moscow Corps, Sergei von Ozarovsky - Voronezh, Danilov - Vladikavkaz and many others, whose names are recorded by the Lord God...
After the capture of Voronezh by General Shkuro’s detachment, many cadets of the local corps, hiding from the Reds in the city, volunteered for the detachment. Of these, Voronezh cadets were killed in subsequent battles: Gusev, Glonti, Zolotrubov, Selivanov and Grotkevich.
The poetess Snasareva-Kazakova dedicated her soul-tearing poems to the volunteer cadets who died near Irkutsk:
The cadets of all Russian corps covered themselves with glory and honor, fighting alongside their older cadet brothers on the Orenburg Front, with General Miller in the North, with General Yudenich near Duga and Petrograd, with Admiral Kolchak in Siberia, with General Diederichs in the Far East, with Cossack atamans in the Urals, Don, Kuban, Orenburg, Transbaikalia, Mongolia, Crimea and the Caucasus. All these cadets and cadets had one impulse, one dream - to sacrifice themselves for their homeland. This high rise in spirit led to victory. Only they explained the entire success of the volunteers against a numerous enemy. This was also reflected in the songs of the volunteers, the most typical of which is their song about the Ice March in Kuban:
In the evening, closed in formation, We sing our quiet song About how they went to the distant steppes We, the children of a crazy, unhappy land, And in the feat we saw one goal - Save your native country from shame. The blizzards and the cold of the night scared us. It was not for nothing that we were given the Ice Campaign...
“The impulse in its sublimity, its selflessness, its self-sacrifice is so exceptional,” wrote one of our glorious cadet writers, “that it is difficult to find anything similar to it in history. This feat is all the more significant because it was completely disinterested, little appreciated by people and deprived of the laurel wreath of victory...”
One thoughtful Englishman, who was in the south of Russia during the civil war, said that “in the history of the world he knows nothing more remarkable than the child volunteers of the White movement. To all the fathers and mothers who gave their children for their homeland, he must say that their children brought a sacred spirit to the battlefield and, in the purity of their youth, lay down for Russia. And if people did not appreciate their sacrifices and did not yet erect a worthy monument to them, then God saw their sacrifice and accepted their souls into His heavenly abode...”
Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, anticipating the bright role that in the future would fall to the lot of his beloved cadets, long before the revolution, dedicated prophetic lines to them:
Even though you are a boy, you are aware in your heart Kinship with a great military family, Be proud to belong to her soul; You are not alone - you are a flock of eagles. The day will come and, spreading its wings, Happy to sacrifice themselves, You will rush bravely into mortal combat, Death for the honor of one’s native land is enviable!..
During the days of the White movement in Ukraine, under Hetman Skoropadsky, cadet corps were restored under the name of “military bursas” in Kyiv, Sumy, Poltava and Odessa. Likewise, the cadet corps opened again: Khabarovsk, Irkutsk, Novocherkassk and Vladikavkaz, since the revolution and Bolshevism led to the destruction of all military schools and 23 cadet corps out of 31 that existed before March 1917 in Russia during the period 1917-18. The death of most of them was terrible, and impartial history will ever note the bloody events that accompanied this death, such as the general beating of personnel and cadets of the Tashkent corps, which can only be equated to the beating of infants at the dawn of the New Testament... It was an unworthy Bolshevik revenge for the fact that a combat company of Tashkent cadets took part in the defense of the Tashkent fortress along with cadets and ensign schools.
After the defeat of the White movement, the fate of the cadet corps that were on the territory of the White armies was very difficult and sad. On the day of the evacuation of Odessa, January 25, 1920, only part of the Odessa and Kyiv corps managed to board ships under Red fire. The other part, unable to get into the port, was forced to turn back and join the white troops retreating from the city; Captain Remmert commanded this unit. On January 31, 1920, in the detachment of Colonel Stessel, during the retreat to the Romanian border, she heroically defended the left flank of the detachment in the battles of Kandel and Seltz, after which the cadets managed to cross to Romania. The terrible days they experienced were brilliantly described by cadet-writer Yevgeny Yakonovsky in his best work, “Kandel.”
After the death of the White Army in Siberia, the Khabarovsk Corps had to be evacuated to Vladivostok on the Russian Island, and then to Shanghai. The Siberian Emperor Alexander I Corps entered Yugoslavia through Vladivostok and China.
On December 19, 1919, the Red offensive on Novocherkassk forced the Don Corps, led by its director General Chebotarev, to move south in marching order. Through Novorossiysk the corps was evacuated to Egypt and then to Yugoslavia. After the evacuation of General Wrangel’s army, the cadet corps also ended up here, finding shelter in the Crimea and consolidated into the Crimean Cadet Corps. Thanks to this, in Yugoslavia, after the liquidation of the White movement in Russia, there were three cadet corps from the remnants of the previous corps of the tsarist era, namely:
1) Crimean - from the cadets of the Petrovsky Poltava and Vladikavkaz corps in the mountains. White church;
2) First Russian - from the remains of the Kyiv, Polotsk and Odessa corps in the mountains. Sarajevo;
3) Donskoy - from the cadets of the Novocherkassk, 1st Siberian and Khabarovsk corps in the mountains. Garazhde.
Subsequently, all these three corps were consolidated into one, called the First Russian Cadet Corps of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, whose cadets call themselves “Prince Konstantinovtsy”; patronage was given by order of King Alexander I of Yugoslavia. This corps existed in Yugoslavia until its occupation by the Red Army troops in the last world war.
As for military schools, during the White struggle the Kiev Infantry School was the first to arrive from Kyiv to the Kuban and Don. After the battles on the streets of its hometown, it went to Kuban and took part in its liberation, after which it resumed military training work in Yekaterinodar, and then in Feodosia. This work was interrupted by the school’s participation in battles, as, for example, in the Crimea near Perekop, when it left two officer and 36 cadet graves there, and then in August 1920 it took part in the landing on the Kuban of General Ulagai.
In the fall of 1920, the residents of Feodosia intended to erect a monument on the embankment, representing the snow-covered figure of a cadet defending the Crimea. This monument was supposed to perpetuate the feat of the school, which saved Crimea from the Reds in the January cold of 1920.
In addition to the Kyiv School, the Alexander Infantry School was revived in the Volunteer Army in the South of Russia under the command of General A.A. Kurbatova. It was awarded by General Wrangel with silver pipes with St. Nicholas ribbons for the landing operation on Taman under the command of General Khamin.
The Nikolaev Cavalry School was formed in Gallipoli, and then, after the army moved to Yugoslavia, it settled in Bila Tserkva, where it gave 3 graduations, namely: in November 1922, in July 1923 and in September 1923. In addition, before its Closing in 1923, it produced Estandard Junkers. A total of 352 people graduated from it and were promoted to cornets.
In Bulgaria for some time there existed the Sergievsky Artillery School, the Alekseevsky Infantry School, the Engineering School and the Nikolaevsky Artillery School, which arrived from Gallipoli.
After the evacuation of General Wrangel’s army from Crimea, the Naval Cadet Corps settled in Bizerte, where it continued to exist for several years in order to enable midshipmen and cadets to complete the course.
It is necessary to mention the Russian Military School in China, opened by the ruler of Manchuria, Marshal Zhang Zi Ling, to recruit officers for his army that fought the Reds in Manchuria. The school was formed according to the program of Russian peacetime military schools with a two-year course, and the teachers and officers in it were Russians. Its first release took place in 1927, the second in 1928. All the cadets promoted from him to officers, Russian by nationality, were recognized by order of the All-Military Union as second lieutenants of the Russian army.
Nowadays in France, in the vicinity of Paris, there is a Russian Lyceum Corps named after Emperor Nicholas II, thanks to the donation and annual financial assistance to this educational institution by Lady Lydia Pavlovna Deterling. Its first director was General Rimsky-Korsakov, according to whose plans the lyceum was founded. The patron of the corps until his death in 1955 was the august cadet and cadet Grand Duke Gabriel Konstantinovich. In 1936, the head of the House of Romanov granted Lady Deterling, in gratitude for the great Russian cause she supported, the title of Princess Donskoy.
To all of the above, it would not be superfluous to add that since the revolution, the view of the Russian educated society abroad on Russian military educational institutions, whose students showed so much heroism and selflessness in defending their homeland during Civil War in Russia. The best evidence of this is the recognition of one of the leaders of public opinion before the revolution, writer and publicist Alexander Amfitheatrov, who in one of his articles in the foreign press exclaimed, amazed at the self-sacrifice and heroism of the cadets: “I didn’t know you, gentlemen, cadets, I honestly admit, and only I have now realized the depth of your asceticism..."
Finishing this book, I must admit with great satisfaction that the cadets of the Russian foreign corps have completely absorbed the best traditions of the cadets of the tsarist era, in the person of the princes of Konstantinov, now being the core and main support of the General Cadet Association abroad. May the Lord God grant them happiness to live until that bright day when they can pass the torch of our continuity to the cadets of the future free national Russia.
San Francisco, 1961
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Changes in the life of the cadet corps began at the end of February 1917, when the Provisional Government came to power in Russia. The new leadership of the War Ministry declared the need for a radical transformation of the entire system of officer training in accordance with “new”, “democratic” principles. By order of the War Ministry of March 13, 1917, a commission was established under the Main Directorate of Military Educational Institutions, chaired by the head of the department, Z.A. Maksheev to develop regulations on military educational institutions. Representatives of the cadet corps and military schools of Petrograd were delegated to the commission. The Milyutin military gymnasiums were proposed as a model for the reformed cadet corps. At the same time, the return to cadet corps in 1882 was called a reactionary measure, “preferring limited German drilling and artificial militarization to the broad plans of great thinkers.” Former cadet corps became accessible to representatives of all classes. On July 7, 1917, the Minister of War approved the “Regulations on the educational part for gymnasiums of the military department.” According to this provision, all cadet corps were transformed into military gymnasiums with the elimination of the previous cadet paraphernalia. The military system and shoulder straps were abolished, ranks were eliminated, a five-point knowledge assessment system was introduced, and companies were converted into age groups. Civilian teachers were invited to fill the positions of educators. Pedagogical committees received the right to appoint educators and teachers and propose their candidates for the post of directors and class inspectors for consideration by the State University of Higher Education. Learning programs remained the same. |
A significant portion of the cadets greeted the innovations with extreme hostility. Brought up in the spirit of devotion to the monarchy and love of military affairs, they resolutely denied the changes that were taking place. The Cadets did not want to take the oath of allegiance to the Provisional Government. They continued to wear shoulder straps, with a white scarf under the shoulder strap, which was supposed to signify loyalty to the monarchy. It was a spontaneous boyish protest. Sometimes gymnasium students came into conflict with those teachers who demonstrated loyalty to the new government. The reform of the cadet corps begun by the Provisional Government was not completed.
The path of Russian cadet corps into emigration actually began on October 19, 1919, when the Petrovsky-Poltava cadet corps, due to the prevailing circumstances of the Civil War, left Poltava and moved to Vladikavkaz, where it was hospitably received by the Vladikavkaz cadet corps. In total, up to 900 cadets gathered in Vladikavkaz.
In the spring of 1920, a decision was made to evacuate the cadet corps from Vladikavkaz to Crimea. It was decided to carry out the evacuation through the ports of Georgia. The transition along the Georgian Military Road was mainly carried out on foot; there were very few carts, and they were mainly intended for provisions. The convoy covered 20-25 km a day. It should be taken into account that the cadets were 9-10 years old. The refugees covered themselves from bad weather with burkas, which were issued to all participants in the campaign. Burkas provided shelter from wind and rain.
Only on March 23, 1920, the corps arrived in Kutaisi. The Georgian authorities did not provide any assistance to the cadets. The corps were placed in some kind of camp, behind wire, and ate the food that they managed to take with them. On June 9, 1920, the cadet corps was transported to Crimea on the steamship Kizil Arvat. Upon arrival in Crimea, it was possible to quickly merge the corps and single cadets of other corps into one. The corps was located in Oreanda (Yalta). In early July, the corps, by order of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army in the South of Russia, Lieutenant General Baron P.N. Wrangel was headed by the former director of the 1st Moscow Empress Catherine II Cadet Corps, Lieutenant General Vladimir Valeryanovich Rimsky-Korsakov.
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| Evacuation |
General P.N. By this time, Wrangel had already issued an order to expel all cadets, minors and children who had not graduated from secondary schools from the ranks of the White Army, and to send them to the disposal of Lieutenant General V.V. Rimsky-Korsakov. Cadets from various corps and young people who had interrupted their studies and ended up in the ranks of the White Army began to arrive in the corps. In the newly created cadet corps, practically all cadet corps except Siberian, Irkutsk, Khabarovsk and Don were represented.
From October 22, 1920, in accordance with the order of P.N. Wrangel's corps became known as the "Crimean Cadet Corps". The corps was assigned a scarlet shoulder strap with white piping and two separate letters “KK” in yellow. By this time, the strength of the corps was approximately 500 people, and it was decided to place some of the students in premises adapted for barracks in Massandra.
On the night of November 1, 1920, the evacuation of the corps from Crimea began. The junior company was loaded onto the steamer "Konstantin", and the main part - onto the steam barge "Chrisi". They did not want to use this old flat-bottomed barge to transport evacuees at all. But when there were no ships left in the Yalta port to load the Crimean Cadet Corps, an order was given to evacuate the corps on this ship. The ship's mechanics, not wanting to work for whites, declared that the machine was faulty. When they were threatened with execution, the car was “quickly repaired” and the barge went out to sea. V.V. Rimsky-Korsakov, not trusting the ship's crew, ordered two cadets who had experience in the navy to keep an eye on the helmsman so that he did not change course.
It soon became clear that the ship was not going to Constantinople, but to Odessa. The captain and helmsman were immediately arrested, and cadet M. Karateev, who had sailed for eight months before entering the cadet corps as a signalman on a destroyer, took the helm. Together with another cadet, they steered the ship in the right direction, but discovered that the compass readings were incorrect. Next to the steering wheel were iron gymnastic apparatus. With great difficulty, the cadets managed to take the ship to Constantinople.
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On the fifth day, the barge and steamer arrived at the Constantinople roadstead. On the roadstead of Constantinople, the Crimean cadets managed to show themselves worthily in an environment that required from them not only endurance and patience, but also a certain courage. Russian ships were met in Constantinople by ships from many countries. On the ship “Chrisi”, where the Crimean Cadet Corps was located, on the initiative of Vice-Non-Commissioned Officer Mikhail Karateev, signals went up on the yards: “we suffer hunger” and “we suffer thirst.”
These signals had an effect. After some time, an English ship approached the barge “Chrisi”, where the cadets were located. A film camera was installed on its upper deck, and next to it stood a table on which stood a pile of white bread cut into slices. There were also smartly dressed women and men, including one Russian. When asked if the cadets were hungry, they answered in the affirmative.
The cadets expected to be photographed and then fed. It turned out that the British wanted to capture the moment when bread would be thrown to the cadets and the hungry cadets would rush to pick it up from the deck. When the women began to throw slices of bread into the crowd of cadets, some of them already rushed to pick it up. The authorities were confused, and at that moment the voice of the “general” of the release, L. Lazarevich, was heard, who, assessing the situation, shouted: “Don’t touch this bread. Don’t you see what this bastard wants to film to show “Russian savages” fighting over food.”
Chunks of bread fell on the cadets' heads, but they stood motionless, as if not noticing it. L. Lazarevich asked the British to leave them alone. Offended by this behavior of the Russian youth, the English ship soon departed from the Chrissi. The quarantine at the Constantinople roadstead dragged on, as it turned out that by that time no country had shown interest in Russian youths. Finally, news was received that the cadet was ready to accept the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. On December 8, 1920, the corps arrived at Baqar Bay in the Kingdom of S.H.S. and from there to railway transported to the city of Strnische. The Crimean Cadet Corps was located in barracks built by the Austrians for prisoners of war.
The 1921-1922 academic year began in barracks converted into classrooms. There were not enough teaching aids, textbooks and notebooks. The cadets simply had to memorize a lot of things during the lessons themselves. On December 2, 1921, the Supreme Council considered the issue of transferring the Crimean Cadet Corps from Strnishche to Bila Tserkva. By that time, the Nikolaev Cavalry School and the Donskoy Mariinsky Institute were already located in Bila Tserkva. The sovereign commission feared that the appearance of the Crimean Corps in Bila Tserkva could negatively affect the situation in the Russian colony and in the city as a whole. Colonel Bazarevich, who spoke at a meeting of the Sovereign Commission on behalf of the Russian military attache, Major General Pototsky, had to give guarantees “that in the event of the Crimean Cadet Corps transferring to Bila Tserkva, he vouches for complete order in this corps and guarantees that the corps will not interfere into the life of the local colony and the Nikolaev Cavalry School and the Don Mariinsky Institute located there.” In the second half of October 1922, the Crimean Corps was provided with two stone three-story barracks-type buildings on the outskirts of the city in Bila Tserkva for placement. The buildings were not suitable for accommodating children.
The Educational Council, at its meeting on August 17, 1929, in pursuance of the proposal of the State Commission on June 23, 1929, decided:
1. In view of the message from the War Ministry to the State Commission about the need for the Military Department of the building now occupied by the Russian Corps in Sarajevo, to recognize that there are currently three cadet corps, namely the Crimean - in Bila Tserkva, the Don Emperor Alexander III - in Goradzha and Russian - in Sarajevo, are subject to consolidation into two buildings with the location of the first in Bila Tserkva and the second - in Goradzha and with the assignment to the corps in Bila Tserkva of the name "First Russian Cadet Corps" and the corps in Goradzh of the name "Second Russian Emperor Alexander III Don Cadet Corps" .
The Kiev Cadet Corps, after great upheavals in Ukraine and regime changes of the Provisional Government, Petliurists, Hetman, and Bolsheviks, arrived in Odessa in an organized manner in December 1919 and was housed in the building of the Odessa Cadet Corps. By this time, the 2nd company of the Polotsk Cadet Corps, evacuated from Polotsk in 1915, was already in the Odessa Corps.
All three buildings lived their own lives in Odessa and with their directors. There were no special measures for the evacuation of cadet corps from Odessa. On the night of January 25, 1920, part of the cadets, under the command of officers, headed to the port, where they were taken on board by the English cruiser Ceres.
The hesitation and lack of management of the director of the Odessa corps, Colonel V.A. Bernatsky, according to eyewitnesses, led to the fact that time was lost. On the morning of January 25, two cadets of the 5th class of the Odessa corps, on their own initiative, gathered all 350 cadets who were in the corps building, lined them up, and under the command of senior cadets, the column headed to the port. The cruiser Ceres was still in the roadstead and took them on board. Later, the first group was transferred to the steamer "Rio Negro", which delivered the cadets to the Greek port of Thessaloniki, from where the cadets traveled by train to the Kingdom of S.H.S.
The second group of 350 cadets was transferred to the Bulgarian steamer Tsar Ferdinand, which delivered the cadets to the port of Varna. From Varna, the cadets were taken to the city of Sisak in the Kingdom of S.H.S. With this group, the treasury of the Volunteer Army was taken away, money in the amount of 2,711,588 rubles, and the treasury of the Odessa Corps - 30,445 rubles. In Belgrade, money was exchanged for Serbian currency.
By order of the authorized Russian military agent (military attache) General V.A. Artamonov On March 10, 1920, the cadets of the Kyiv, Odessa and Polotsk corps were consolidated into one, which received the name “Consolidated Cadet Corps”.
Lieutenant General Boris Viktorovich Adamovich, the former head of the Vilna Military School, was appointed director of the corps. B.V. Adamovich recalled: “I accepted 95 cadets and 18 personnel as part of the Kyiv corps, and 126 cadets and 20 personnel as part of the Odessa corps. On April 25, another 42 cadets arrived, making their way by land with battles and losses across the Dniester to Romania under the command of Colonel Gushchin and Captain Remmert. Thus, a total of 263 cadets and 40 personnel gathered in the first corps.”
The cadets who arrived in Yugoslavia were initially stationed in two places - in Pancevo near Belgrade and in Sisak near Zagreb; in June they united in Sarajevo and began to settle in the Kralja Petra provided to the corps. The complex of buildings was ideal for housing the cadet corps. On June 17, the first meeting of the Pedagogical Committee took place and the revival of the cadet corps began.
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| Russian Cadet Corps. 1929 academic year. In a workshop |
Within a short time, the corps changed its name several times according to the orders of the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Army, General P.N. Wrangel and his representative in Constantinople, General A.S. Lukomsky.
On September 1, 1929, the corps received the name “First Russian Cadet Corps,” and on December 6, on the day of the corps holiday in the same year, King Alexander I of Yugoslavia appointed Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich as chief of the corps. The corps became known as the “First Russian Cadet Corps of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich.”
The strength of the corps was set at 300 cadets, distributed among 3 companies. From the first days of its existence in the corps, by order of General B.V. Adamovich, pedagogical, educational and economic committees were created.
In material terms, the situation of the corps was difficult throughout the entire period of its existence. Initially, funds for maintaining the corps in Sarajevo were allocated by the Office of the Russian Military Agent (Attache) and the Representative of the Commander-in-Chief and by exchanging the brought Volunteer Army money for Serbian currency. Things, food, beds were given partly by the American Red Cross. In Sarajevo, furnishings, food, clothing, linen, and medicine were received from the Serbian commissariat and military warehouses. After the creation of the State Commission, financing of the corps was carried out by this commission.
Training sessions in the cadet corps began according to the 1915 program and were conducted mainly according to notes from teachers. Textbooks, geographical maps, and other teaching aids were very rare. There were no pens, pencils, or writing paper. At first, the main efforts of the teaching staff of the corps were aimed at ensuring that pupils of the 7th grade, if possible, mastered the program and graduated from the corps in the shortest possible time.
Class inspector Colonel V.A. Rozanov, speaking at the 300th meeting of the Pedagogical Committee, noted: “The first graduation was in August 1920. Let me remind you of the atmosphere at the beginning of classes: instead of desks there are tables and stools, familiar to you from exams, the absence of blackboards and textbooks. Classes are recorded by teachers, in their words. Picture of a foreign language class: a sheet of wrapping paper is pinned on the wall, the teacher writes with colored chalk, this is how the class learns to read. First book French: “Popovich’s” reading is the same for all classes.” Russian language: we were glad when we got from Prague the book “Native Speech” - as an anthology for the first grade, and for the senior classes, Mandelkern’s anthology with a German-Russian dictionary for Germans studying the Russian language. Geography lesson of grades VI-VII - on the wall is a map of Russia, torn from a randomly found textbook from one of the cadets. We were glad to see every teaching aid. In May 1928, Lieutenant General B.V. Adamovich visited the residence of King Alexander I on the occasion of a state holiday and presented him, on behalf of the cadet corps, with an album with photographs depicting the life of the corps. The king accepted the album presented to him with satisfaction and sent a check to the corps in the amount of 5,000 dinars for the needs of graduates of the cadet corps in 1928. In 1929, the issue of preserving the corps was decided. Thanks to the intervention of King Alexander I, the corps was preserved, transferred from Sarajevo to Bila Tserkva and united with the Crimean corps. Classes I, II, and III were reopened in the building. Summarizing the results of the work of the cadet corps in the 1932-1933 academic year, B.V. Adamovich noted at a meeting of the Pedagogical Committee: “My assessment of the entire cadet mass is that it is a blessing to have such a composition. “I, as a director, with such an exceptionally good condition of the building, find time for both personal work and personal relaxation.”
The next academic year 1933-1934 once again became a year of new great tests for the First Russian Cadet Corps. Already in March 1933, the decision of the Sovereign Commission to unite the First and Second Russian Don Emperor Alexander III cadet corps became known in the First Russian Cadet Corps. In this regard, at the end of the first half of the year B.V. Adamovich asked teachers to be more attentive to assessing the knowledge of students in the corps. The merger of the two cadet corps completely unexpectedly revealed a problem that had not yet existed in the First Russian Cadet Corps. It turned out that VI class cadets Maksimov, Chirko and some others who arrived with the Don Corps were “infected with Bolshevism.” For the cadet corps this was an unheard of, extraordinary incident. During the proceedings in Maksimov’s case, it was established that this case was isolated, and Maksimov’s views were not shared by the VI class cadets, the entire cadet mass was above suspicion, none of the old cadets.
On January 27, 1935, the 300th meeting of the Pedagogical Committee took place, which to a certain extent summed up the activities of the cadet corps over the 15 years of its existence. The report of the director of the corps on this occasion said: “Our Corps, formed by the combination of the preserved personnel of the Kiev and Odessa Corps, accepted the legal seniority of the Kiev Corps and united living people, memories and traditions of Polotsk, Petrovsky-Poltava, Vladikavkaz, Don, Siberian and Khabarovsk Cadet Corps, is now the first of the foreign and the last of the surviving Russian cadet corps, which continued their history and Russian cadetship for 15 years... Let us note that the cadetship itself turned out to be more resilient than all other corporations of former pupils of Russian educational institutions, more and more clearly expressed in the struggle for old Russia and life continues in the person of associations of all corps and societies - cadets, scattered throughout the world and not reconciled with the death of either their homeland or the nests that raised them, strong with two centuries of legends.” In March 1936, General Boris Viktorovich Adamovich died after a serious illness. Class inspector Colonel V.A. was appointed acting director of the corps. Rozanov.
V.V. Sobolevsky wrote the poem “On the grave of the director of the corps, Lieutenant General Adamovich”:
In exile for the Russian cause,
For the cause of our dear Fatherland
You fought steadfastly and bravely,
Walking along a straight road.
Your soul and body have merged,
In the fight, sparing no effort,
I stood for him and did not bow down
And he laid down his life for the cadet.
And your business will be preserved
It lives in our hearts,
Every cadet will be inspired by them,
He will die bravely for his homeland.
So sleep well, my love,
In the monastery of Russian people,
Protected by foreign land
Far from your native fields!
The Russian Cadet Corps owed many of its successes to exceptionally strict discipline, which was maintained in the corps by General B.V. Adamovich from the moment of evacuation until his death. And later - General A.G. Popov. Lieutenant General B.V. Adamovich, who had the experience of commanding a battalion of cadets at the Kiev Military School and the Vilna Military School, which were exemplary in the Russian army, treated the cadets more like cadets of military schools, and not like children sent to be raised in the cadet corps.
The very difficult academic year 1939-1940 was approaching. The Second World War, which began in September 1939, excited the cadets. At the beginning school year There has not yet been a deterioration in discipline or a drop in academic performance. However, the director of the corps and the officers-educators somehow sensed that some kind of change was taking place in the inner world of the students. Some of them became more thoughtful and focused, others became more irritated and had a desire to disrupt the internal order in the building.
Mikhail Aleksandrovich Lermontov, one of the descendants of the great Russian poet on his father’s side, was born on January 26, 1925 in Yugoslavia. My father served in the Russian army, took part in the civil war on the side of the whites, and was evacuated to Yugoslavia with the Volunteer Army. His mother died. In 1933, Mikhail entered the First Russian Cadet Corps. Often, for some offense, the senior cadets locked him alone in the class and gave him the task, as a “descendant of the great Russian poet,” to write poetry and did not let him out of the class until he was ready to present to them what he had written.
Mikhail Lermontov studied hard in the cadet corps and not because he was incapable of studying, but simply, as his officers-educators noted, he was lazy. And he himself admitted this in a conversation with the author. In the 3rd grade he was retained for the second year, and moved to the 4th grade with a re-examination. When World War II began, M. Lermontov, without graduating from the corps, left it with a group of cadets and entered service in the Russian Security Corps.
On April 6, 1941, troops of Germany and its allies attacked Yugoslavia. The conscription of Russian emigrants living in this country into the Yugoslav army began. Many joined the troops voluntarily, including graduates of Russian cadet corps. About 300 graduates of the cadet corps graduated from Yugoslav military schools and academies and entered service in the Yugoslav army. All of them took part in the first battles against the Wehrmacht - there were killed, wounded, and captured. Two weeks before the attack of Germany and its allies on Yugoslavia, the director of the corps sent almost all the cadets home. In May 1941, the occupation authorities allowed the 21st graduating class to take final exams. With great difficulty, the cadets gathered in the corps by May 25. Written exams began on June 20, and oral exams began on June 22. In the midst of state exams on June 22, the cadets learned the news that shocked them: Germany attacked Soviet Union. This was a big shock for the cadets. While preparing for the final exams, the cadet corps was visited by a group of German generals and officers. The Germans learned that the museum of the cadet corps contains German banners captured by the Russian army during the First World War. The Germans wanted to take these banners from the cadet corps. Corps Director General A.G. Popov was forced to give the corresponding order. The museum parted with trophies obtained in the battles of the First World War. In July 1942, the director of the cadet corps received instructions from the Bureau for the Protection of Russian Emigrants to requisition musical instruments cadet corps for the needs of the German army. General A.G. Popov, having received a message about the impending requisition, ordered to identify all the working instruments necessary for the corps orchestra to play and hide them. The German military musicians who came to inspect the instruments and requisition them were shown something that had no significance for the corps. 9 such instruments were taken, then 7 of them were returned. The Germans kept the trumpet and baritone. On March 31, 1942, the Don Mariinsky Institute was liquidated. On April 7, a representative of the German command arrived at the corps and demanded that the corps immediately move to the vacated building of the institute. The occupation forces needed the building of the cadet corps.
In mid-April, under pouring rain, the First Russian Cadet Corps left the barracks, which first housed the Crimean, and since 1929, the First Russian Cadet Corps. Several dozen carts sent by the local population were brought to the building, and the relocation to the new premises began.
The building of the Don Mariinsky Institute, 5 times smaller than the previous building, was not ready to receive new settlers. After the institute moved out of it, the building fell into complete disrepair in a short time: there was no water, the stoves in the kitchen were out of order, the toilets and washrooms were in disrepair.
The Cadet Corps was evacuated from Bila Tserkva in early September 1944 before the arrival of Red Army units. The corps was provided with three semi-open freight cars with low sides, into which the cadets and personnel with their families were loaded, headed by the corps director, General A.G. Popov.
On September 15, a corps of 140 people arrived in Vienna. The further route of the train ran through the territory of Hungary. The cadet was accompanied by a German non-commissioned officer, an Austrian by nationality, who had a document for travel to the “cadet school”. On the way, the train was bombed by Allied aircraft. It was difficult to organize everyday life while the train was traveling. They ate haphazardly and exchanged their clothes for food. The local population did not understand how the Russians fled from the Russians, whom the residents of the occupied cities were eagerly awaiting.
On September 17, 1944, the train arrived in the Austrian city of Eger, which was declared the final point of the journey. After leaving the train, the cadets moved in formation towards the camp where they were asked to stay. Of the personnel ranks, only General A.G. remained with the cadets. Popov. The clothes were sent for disinfection, from where they were not returned to the cadets. At the end of September 1944, the director of the corps, General A.G. Popov announced to the cadets that the corps was disbanding. However, the cadets continued to stick together and remained an organized team in the camp. In January 1945, a platoon of senior cadets joined the Russian Liberation Army of General A. Vlasov. There are 106 cadets left in the camp. In mid-February 1945, the remaining cadets moved to Gmünd. After the liberation of Vienna, the cadets remaining in the camp marched to Salzburg, which was located in the American zone of occupation. In Salzburg, the cadets were sent to a camp for Russian refugees from Yugoslavia. Thus ended the history of the cadet corps created in Yugoslavia in 1920.
The lyceum corps of Emperor Nicholas II was established on January 1, 1930 in Paris, existed until 1964 and became the last foreign Russian cadet corps.
In 1926, during the VII Congress of Foreign Cadets in Paris, a meeting took place between Lieutenant General V.V. Rimsky-Korsakov with a group of graduates of the 1st Moscow Empress Catherine II Cadet Corps. During this meeting, a desire was expressed to open a cadet corps in Paris. Among those who met with V.V. Rimsky-Korsakov, was a graduate of the Naval Corps Belousov, who studied for some time in the 1st Moscow Cadet Corps. Belousov not only showed interest in the idea expressed, but also decided to take an active part in finding funds to purchase a building for the building.
Soon, on official business, Belousov flew to the United States, where he really hoped to find support from one of his many acquaintances. He pinned special hopes on one of his friends in the Naval Corps, midshipman Anastas Vonsyatsky, who was married to a rich American woman.
To make the conversation substantive, Belousov brought with him two illustrated magazines from the history of the Crimean Cadet Corps. In one of the magazines, the photographs depicted small, ragged and dirty cadets who had just arrived from Russia to the Kingdom of S.H.S., and in the other - they were already in cadet uniform as students of the Crimean Corps under the leadership of V.V. Rimsky-Korsakov.
“Having shown these magazines to Vonsiatsky and singing our “Zveriad” with him,” Belousov wrote in a letter to one of his friends, “I said that I was sure that he would help the general in his good endeavor. Vonsiatsky asked: “How much do you need?” I said that I would answer in three days and sent a telegram to Rimsky-Korsakov. Two days later I received an answer: “Okay, if it’s 100 thousand francs.” I told Vonsiatsky - 200 thousand francs. Without saying a word, he signed a check for 200 thousand francs (then $20,000).
With the money received, a house was bought in the town of Villiers-les-Bel, 18 km north of Paris. The building provided to the corps was neglected, no one lived in it. The front of the building faced the street, and on the back side there was a large area overgrown with grass and bushes. The furnishings in the building were modest and sparse. Gradually the building was put in order and adapted for classes. A spacious area adjacent to the building was turned into a parade ground for drills, games and gymnastics classes. The lyceum building began to form from scratch. Everything had to be obtained: beds for bedrooms, desks for classes, textbooks and teaching aids, cadet uniforms. For this purpose, they organized charity balls and collected funds among Russian people who wanted to recreate the cadet corps.
Due to the fact that French law prohibited the existence of foreign military educational institutions on French territory, the educational institution was alternately called the Corps, the Corps Lyceum or the Lyceum of Emperor Nicholas II, or the Russian Lyceum, and before closing in 1964, simply the Russian School. The Russian Committee in charge of the affairs of the corps was headed by General E.K. Miller, and after his abduction by Soviet security officers, Major General E.Yu. Bem.
In accordance with the approved regulations, “The Corps-Lyceum of Emperor Nicholas II is a closed educational institution and aims to educate and educate Russian children and youth in the spirit of the motto of the Imperial Russian Cadet Corps - “Faith, Tsar and Fatherland.” The corps is not a charitable institution and its current needs are supported by receipts from fees for students. Children of refugees are accepted into the corps; during admission, preference is given to the sons of former cadets. The corps course is designed for 8 classes (if necessary, then a preparatory one) with a cadet corps program modified according to the conditions of time and place.
During all the years of its existence, the corps functioned through contributions from parents, private donations, profits from charity concerts and balls, and the annual assistance of Lydia Pavlovna Deterling.
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| Russian Cadet Corps. Concert by I.P. Komarevskaya. 1938 |
During its existence (1930-1964), the corps went through three periods in its development:
1930-1937 The corps was located in the town of Villiers-les-Bel, 18 km north of Paris. At this time, the formation of the corps took place. The 1st issue was produced.
1937-1959 The corps was located in Versailles. New house was rented and restored through the efforts of captain B.V. Sergeevsky. In the 40s There were over 100 cadets in the corps.
1959-1964 The corps moved to Dieppe, on the English Channel, where it was transported by L.S. Rakitin. In 1964, the building ceased to exist.
For Russian cadets, the new homeland is the USA, Canada, Australia, Venezuela, Chile, Peru, and Mexico. But being absent-minded around the world did not break the cadet bond. From now on, their main motto was: “Scattered, but not dissolved.”
The fates of graduates of the Crimean Cadet Corps developed differently. But only a few of them managed to re-enter the gates of those buildings in which they began their cadet life in Russia, and which they left as boys and young men during the tragic years of the Civil War, continuing their cadet destiny in a foreign land. One of them was Boris Mikhailovich Vyshinsky, V graduation of the Crimean Cadet Corps in Bila Tserkva (1925).
About ten minutes later he was invited into the entrance hall, where he saw an officer with the rank of captain with a red bandage on his sleeve. After saluting and quickly introducing himself, the officer asked to see documents. Having flipped through the passport handed to him and listened to the request, he, without hiding his amazement, was silent for some time, and then briefly said: “Wait,” and, continuing to leaf through the passport, hastily left. The visitor and the boy left the checkpoint and began to stroll leisurely, without moving away from the checkpoint. The father was telling his son something, and every now and then he pointed to the school building visible behind the wall.
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A year had already passed since he, Boris Vyshinsky, returned from abroad to his hometown, which was now called Ordzhonikidze. The return was long, lasting several decades. There was one more step left for it to be complete. This step for him was to be a visit to the building of the former Vladikavkaz Cadet Corps, of which he always considered himself a student, and whose memory he carried throughout his entire life. When he and other cadets left this building in the spring of 1920, he did not know, and could not know, that a new countdown was beginning in his life. Then he was separated not only from his family and friends who remained in Vladikavkaz, not only from the city in which he was born, but, as it soon became clear, also from his homeland, which generations of the Vyshinskys served faithfully. And now, decades later, he stands in front of his building again.
“The lush dough of the corps of officers of the Russian Imperial Army rose with cadet yeast. The cadet corps instilled love for the Motherland, the army and the navy, created a military caste, imbued through and through with the best historical traditions, and developed that layer of Russian officers, on whose blood Russian military glory was created.”
Cadet - writer Dvigubsky
To the question: “Who were the first to stand on the path of revolutionary bacchanalia?”, one can answer unequivocally - Russian military youth. Brought up on the firm principles and precepts of honest service to the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland, the cadets accepted the Bolshevik coup of October 1917. as a harbinger of the death of all of Russia. Indeed, among the cadets there could not be people who thought differently - there were no traitors there. Cadet corps were the best schools of state and national education in Russia, whose students one could always be proud of. But the fight against the red plague began for the cadets much earlier than 1917.
Even during the revolution of 1905, when pernicious unrest penetrated almost all civilian educational institutions, cadet corps remained calm islands of order, discipline and devotion amid the revolutionary storm. So, in one of the buildings there were two cadets who allowed themselves, in a conversation with their comrades, to express some sympathy for the events taking place. The director of the corps put them on trial for cadet honor, but even he, an officer who knew the cadet traditions and environment well, was struck by the court verdict, which read: death penalty! Of course, no one carried it out, but these two cadets were so amazed by the opinion of their comrades that they repented and made a solemn promise to forever renounce their errors, and became worthy officers. In the same year, cadets of one of the capital's corps, at their unanimous request, took part in the armed dispersal of revolutionary demonstrators.
The red flag, which had flown instead of the Russian national flag since October 1917, was taken by the cadets for what it really was - a dirty rag under which they robbed, killed and raped. The facts of the rescue of corps banners are touching and difficult. Those corps that, in the very first months of the revolution, were evacuated to the areas of the White armies, took their banners with them, and those remaining in the Red zone did everything in their power to prevent the shrines from falling into the hands of the Soviets. The banners were removed secretly and at great risk to life.
In all cities where there were military schools and cadet corps, literally from the first days of the Bolshevik revolution, an armed struggle for White Russia began. In Moscow, the cadets of the Alexander School were joined by cadets from three corps. Nothing could stop the hot hearts of these little patriots! Thus, the senior cadets of the 2nd Moscow Corps, having formed under the command of their comrade Vice-Sergeant Slonimsky, turned to the director of the corps with a request for permission to go to the aid of the cadets and cadets of the other two corps. This was met with a categorical refusal. Then Slonimsky orders the rifles to be dismantled and leads the company out with a banner. The director was politely moved out of the way...
In Petrograd, almost all military schools fought on these same days. The Naval Cadet Corps was one of the first to be attacked by the Bolsheviks, and put up worthy resistance. The Yaroslavl, Simbirsk and Nizhny Novgorod corps were defeated by the Red Guards. Cadet were killed, maimed, thrown out of trains and into the water. The surviving boys took an active part in further battles with the Red Army. The cadets of the Orenburg Corps subsequently almost entirely made up the team of the Vityaz armored train. The personnel and cadets of the Tashkent Corps were almost completely beaten for participating in armed resistance along with the cadets.
Books must be written and films made about the paths and thorns through which these children made their way into the White armies. The first volunteer detachments that began the fight on the Don were mostly made up of cadets and cadets. At a time when healthy and strong men turned into Red Guard animals or simply waited on the sidelines, Russian boys went into battle for the desecrated Fatherland. At one of the funerals, General Alekseev said: “I see a monument that Russia will erect for these children, and this monument should depict an eagle’s nest and the eaglets killed in it...”.
A large number of cadets took part and covered themselves in glory in the legendary Ice March. They were always talked about with fatherly love and sadness... With a rifle taller than themselves, going headlong into the water during any ford crossings, they meekly endured all the hardships of the campaign. On all fronts of the Civil War, cadets stood out for their daring and courage, looking up to their senior comrades and trying to be in no way inferior to them. The poet Snasareva-Kazakova dedicated beautiful lines to the cadets who died near Irkutsk:
Their eyes were like stars -
Ordinary Russian cadets;
Nobody described them here
And he didn’t sing it in the poet’s verses.
Those children were our stronghold,
And Rus' will bow to their grave;
They're all there
Died in snowdrifts...
In the famous Drozdovskaya division of the Volunteer Army, all cadets, high school students and realists were jokingly called “eggplants.” It was the children who responded to the call to defend their homeland from the Bolshevik plague. They always added years to themselves and tried to look older and more respectable - just to be enlisted in the army. General Turkul recalled how many times he had to interview these sweet, emaciated and ragged boys who made their way from all corners of Russia. Most were 14-15 years old. What called them to the hell of war? What made you run away from your parents and put yourself in mortal danger? But the Red Army was sometimes much closer to the White Army... Maybe a thirst for adventure and exploits? Dreams of fame and adventurism? Of course, all these assumptions are ridiculous and insulting to their memory. They were simply RUSSIAN CADETS who were not going to live in a communist garbage dump, who loved Russia and were ready to bear responsibility for everything that happened in it.
Nothing dried up the soul and tore the heart more than a dead child lying in a military uniform. Next to him is a rifle and a cap, on the chest, covered in blood, a small cross, and behind the belt is a favorite book or notebook with poems by Pushkin and Lermontov, rewritten according to the cadet tradition. How sometimes I didn’t want to put them in line, which always dictated its own harsh laws! It seemed that the entire future of Russia was here in the army, with a rifle, and not with a pen in hand and not at a school desk. And hundreds of thousands of healthy and adult people were engaged in preserving their human skin, which was still well-fed in those days. Never forget the battle of a white armored train, or rather an armored platform with several red armored trains. When the majority of the team and the commander himself were killed, the site began to retreat and among “... collapsed and burnt bags of earth, sharp holes, bodies in smoldering greatcoats, among blood and smoke, stood blackened from smoke machine gunner boys and madly shouted “Hurray.” " One thoughtful Englishman, who was in the south of Russia during the Civil War, wrote that “in the history of the world he knows nothing more remarkable than the child volunteers of the white movement. To all the fathers and mothers who gave their children for the Motherland, he must say that their children brought a sacred spirit to the battlefield and, in the purity of their youth, lay down for Russia. And if people did not appreciate their sacrifices and did not yet erect a worthy monument to them, then God saw their sacrifice and accepted their souls into his heavenly abode...” The southern Russian corps also made a significant contribution to the defense of the Fatherland. The first cadet blood was shed in battles with the Red Army near Rostov near Balabanova Grove in 1917. Here Odessa cadets Nadolsky and Usachev were killed, Polyakov, Shengelaya and Dumbadze were wounded. How can we forget one of the little cadets who, after the battle, was leading a captured Red Army soldier and hit his foot in the switch of the tram line, sprained his leg, but endured the pain with colossal courage, and after handing over the prisoner, he sat down on the rails and cried bitterly... But in the 1st Kuban campaign A seemingly incredible case of heroism occurred in the Volunteer Army, which hardly has analogues in military history. Odessa cadet Kikodze continued to go on the attack with...his legs torn off by an artillery shell, dragging across the arable field in his arms and shouting “Hurray!”
In 1920, during the evacuation of Odessa, part of the Volunteer Army troops, as well as a mass of refugees with children, retreated to the borders of Romania under the onslaught of the Reds. Among those retreating were several hundred cadets from the Odessa Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich's cadet corps, as well as a number of other corps. On January 31, a battle broke out between Colonel Stessel’s detachment and superior Red forces consisting of an infantry division and Kotovsky’s cavalry brigade near Kandel. The battle was necessary to save refugees, women and children. The detachment consisted of only 600 fighters. The left flank was entrusted to a combined composition of cadets under the command of Captain Remert. It was on the left flank that the main attack of the Reds was directed. But neither the brutal artillery and machine-gun fire, nor the frantic attacks of the red cavalry could break the cadets. Friendly volleys and solid bayonets constantly greeted the cavalry of the famous Bessarabian criminal. The success of the left flank allowed the entire detachment to launch a counteroffensive and push back the Reds. The battle lasted intermittently from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
The Kyiv Vladimir Cadet Corps managed to avoid defeat and disbandment. However, already in the first days of the revolution, the left-wing writer Amphiteatrov published an article in the newspaper “Kievskaya Mysl” entitled “Wolf Cubs”, in which he persecuted the Kiev cadets for not wearing red bows at the general parade in honor of the revolution, without disgracing their white shoulder straps with them . True, in emigration he saw the light after reading Zurov’s book “Cadets”, and publicly repented, admitting that “I didn’t know you, gentlemen, Cadets, I honestly admit, and only now I realized the depth of your asceticism.” With the liberation of Kyiv by General Denikin's Volunteer Army in 1919, most of the cadets immediately went to the front. One of the batteries was fully staffed by Kyiv cadets. Perhaps some Kiev residents will recognize names dear to them - Sergei Yakimovich, Polinovsky, Levitsky, Porai-Koshits, Berezhetsky, Zakharzhevsky. Also, the cadets of the Sumy and Poltava corps fearlessly fought the Bolsheviks. Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, who at one time was in charge of all military educational institutions in Russia, a famous poet under the pseudonym “K.R.” and a man who enjoyed great love from all cadets and cadets wrote beautiful lines:
"Cadet"
Even though you are a boy, you are aware in your heart
Kinship with a great military family,
Be proud to belong to her soul.
You are not alone: you are a flock of eagles.
The day will come, and, spreading its wings,
Happy to sacrifice themselves,
You will rush bravely into mortal combat,
Death for the honor of one's native land is enviable.
In the Parisian suburb of Sainte-Geneviève-des-Bois, at the famous cemetery of Russian emigrants, there is also a cadet site. White birch trees and white crosses, and on each white stone grave there is a colored shoulder strap of the cadet corps from which the deceased graduated. Don't forget to bow, passerby!
The country that can raise such sons as the Russian cadets were is happy and has the right to exist.
What do composer Sergei Rachmaninov, traveler Nikolai Przhevalsky, Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, designer Alexander Mozhaisky and Admiral Fyodor Ushakov have in common? All of them were graduates of cadet corps that existed in the Russian Empire.
Today we are witnessing a revival of the traditional military education of youth, and the word “cadet” is again becoming part of our vocabulary. In this regard, it is interesting to know what this term means and what is the history of Russian military corps for youth.
The meaning of the word "cadet"
In 1905, the Party of Constitutional Democrats was formed in the Russian Empire, whose members were called cadets. However, there is another interpretation of this word.
We are talking about students of military training corps that appeared in Russia during the reign of Anna Ioannovna. The term itself is borrowed from the French language and means “junior” in translation. To be more precise, according to the Gascon dialect, a cadet is a little captain.
In France, this was the name given to young nobles who were enrolled in military service, but had not yet been promoted to officer. Over time, this term passed into other European languages, including Russian.
Establishment of cadet corps in Russia
In the Moscow kingdom, the offspring of noble families received the rank of officer after serving as soldiers in the Semenovsky or Preobrazhensky regiments. Peter's reforms required a different approach to the training of army command personnel.
Therefore, in 1731, by decree of Empress Anna Ioannovna, the first Gentry Cadet Corps was founded, where noble children trained to read and write were enrolled. The students, in addition to military subjects and drill training, studied the humanities and exact sciences, foreign languages, studied dancing, fencing and horse riding.
The first charter of the new military educational institution was drawn up on the basis of the charters of the same corps in Denmark and Prussia. A cadet was not just a student. From the first day, he found himself in a special world, where everything was subordinated to the highest goal - serving the Fatherland.
All pupils lived together under the constant supervision of officers, who were charged with the duty of instilling in them the necessary for the future military service quality.
At the end of each year, public examinations were held in the presence of generals, government officials and ministers. Often the empress herself was present at them.
Graduates of the cadet corps were awarded the rank of non-commissioned officer or warrant officer, after which they were sent to serve in cavalry or infantry regiments.
Elitism without snobbery
Until the end of the 18th century, four cadet corps were founded in the Russian Empire, and in the next century - already twenty-two. Upon admission of their son, the parents gave a receipt stating that they were voluntarily sending him to study for fifteen years without the right to temporary leave. The cadet knew this, but was ready to make sacrifices.
On the one hand, the corps were elite military educational institutions, where the scions of noble families, grand dukes and even the heir to the throne, the future Alexander II, studied.
On the other hand, the sons of ordinary officers could also become students of the cadet corps. Moreover, boys from poor families and those whose fathers died or were wounded in the war had advantages in admission.
Regardless of origin, a student could be expelled for poor academic performance or laziness. At the same time, diligence was encouraged by invitations to “pies” in the families of mentor officers, trips to city fairs or theater performances.
Cadets in the White Army
By the beginning of the First World War, there were already thirty cadet corps in Russia. Their students would soon have to go through difficult trials, defending their beliefs in the face of death. It is important to note that none of these military educational institutions changed their oath.
Moreover, a huge amount young cadets joined the ranks of the White Army. For them, Baron Wrangel founded a new corps in Crimea, at whose desks more than forty young Knights of St. George sat.
A contemporary recalled that for revolutionaries the cadet was the most hated symbol. Together with the remnants of the White Army, these hero boys went into exile. Later, Russian military corps were opened in France and Serbia, so the cadet movement continued to exist.
Suvorov, Nakhimov, cadets
The military parades held in the Soviet Union were always attended by students of the Suvorov and Nakhimov schools - smart, serious teenagers beyond their years who had chosen a career as an officer.
These schools were formed in 1943 on the principle of pre-revolutionary cadet corps. They gave the opportunity to the children of those killed on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War soldiers and officers receive military training along with a certificate of secondary education, which would subsequently help them connect their lives with the army.
The Suvorov and Nakhimov schools exist in Russia today. Along with them in last years Many cadet corps have been founded in different regions of the country. The main feature of these military educational institutions is early professional orientation in the profile of a particular branch of the military.
Should I continue my studies after graduation in order to obtain officer rank or not, the cadets themselves decide. The importance of this form of education, its authority and prestige are growing every year. To a large extent, this is facilitated by the long traditions of the cadet movement in Russia.
2013 marks the 170th anniversary of the Orlov Bakhtin Cadet Corps, founded in 1843 by the highest order of the Sovereign Emperor Nicholas I.
In December 1841, the Tsar, having accepted a gift from retired Lieutenant Colonel Mikhail Pavlovich Bakhtin for the establishment of a corps in Oryol - 1 million 100 thousand rubles and a large estate, deigned to call the corps “Orlovsky Bakhtin”. Much has become known about the history and traditions of the corps in recent years thanks to the asceticism of the late Oleg Vladimirovich Levitsky and his daughter Natalya Olegovna Petrovanova-Levitskaya, whose father and grandfather Vladimir Vladimirovich Levitsky was a teacher at the OBKK. About some of his pets after October 1917. - graduates of the corps of different years - this article.
About the heroesGMost fellow citizens know the Civil War from the films “Red Little Devils”, “White Sun of the Desert”, shown periodically by electronic media on TV, or, at best, from the films “Quiet Don”, “White Guard” or “Days of the Turbins”, where cadets and cadets are depicted neurotic, hysterical or, conversely, infantile personalities. The indispensable attributes of officers are cards, roulette, drunken stupor. In addition to the state order issued by the ideologists, the film directors probably took images from the portraits of the political workers supervising them, who led the country and the army to disintegration, where the moral level of officers for the most part differs little from the level of soldiers, and “hazing” no longer occurs only in the troops, but also in some Suvorov and Nakhimov schools, where admission is guaranteed for $.e.
About real heroesBof the entire civil war movement - very little is known to the natives of the Oryol province who lived or were associated with it, one might say, nothing or almost nothing. Museum exhibitions still tell stories about the Red commanders - ascetic commissars and wise security officers who established Soviet power in the Oryol region. The heroes of the White Guard are given quite a bit of space in the exhibitions, and then only mostly to portraits of the generals: Denikin, Kornilov, Alekseev, Mai-Maevsky, Kolchak, Wrangel and Yudenich.
One of the pages in the history of the White movement is the participation in it of cadets of the Orlovsky Bakhtin cadet corps, mention of which can be found in the magazines “Cadet Roll Call”, “Sentry”, “Military Story” and other emigrant publications.
As Sergei Vladimirovich Volkov writes in the book “The Tragedy of the Russian Officers”:
“The best element were the officers from among the former students of the cadet corps, who served in the white armies almost without exception, which is fully confirmed by the available data.”
“Bolshevism and the revolution led to the destruction of all military schools and 23 cadet corps out of 31 existing before March 1917 in Russia in the period 1917-1918. The death of most of them was terrible, and impartial history will never record the bloody events that accompanied this death. Complete beating of personnel and cadets, which can be equated to the beating of infants at the dawn of the New Testament" (A. Markov. "Cadets and Junkers in the White Movement").
Let us give some names and surnames of Bakhtin's graduates of the cadet corps - officers, generals and cadets.
The banner of the Orlovsky Bakhtin cadet corps was secretly taken from the Church of the Archangel Michael by the officer-educator V.D. Trofimov together with two cadets and hidden in a safe place. The further fate of the banner is still unknown.
The banner of the Sumy Cadet Corps was saved and carried on his chest from Kyiv besieged by the Petliurites to Odessa by a native of the city of Orel, cadet Dmitry Potemkin, the son of a teacher of the Oryol and Sumy Cadet Corps A.D. Potemkin. As part of the Markov Regiment, 16-year-old Dmitry Potemkin took part in the battles near Orel in 1919. He graduated from the Crimean Corps in Yugoslavia, the University of Strasbourg. He worked as a worker and mining engineer in France, Germany, Brazil, and the USA, where he died in 1978.
Immediately after October 1917, many Oryol cadets rushed south and joined the detachments of the newly created Volunteer Army. 5th class cadet Prince Nakashidze, instead of going to his mother in Georgia, made his way to the Don. He fought in the cavalry reconnaissance detachment of Colonel Gershelman's division, who later sent him, in order to protect him from death, to General Alekseev's guard, consisting of cadets and cadets (the general called them his boys). For participation in the 1st Kuban Ice Campaign, Vasily Nakashidze, nicknamed Bicho by his friends, received the title of cornet. INRRussian army after the evacuation from Crimea on the ship "Lazarev" in 1920. - staff captain. Died March 9, 1965 in New York.
From A. Markov’s book “Cadets and Junkers in the White Movement”:
“The first volunteer detachments that began to fight the Reds near Rostov and Taganrog were overwhelmingly made up of cadets and cadets, just like the detachments of Chernetsov, Semiletov and other founders of the fight against the Reds. The first coffins, invariably escorted to Novocherkassk by the sad Ataman Kaledin, contained the bodies of killed cadets and cadets. At their funeral, General Alekseev, standing at the open grave, said:
- I see a monument that Russia will erect for these children, and this monument should depict an eagle’s nest and the eaglets killed in it...
In November 1917, in the city of Novocherkassk, a cadet battalion was formed, consisting of two companies: the first - cadet, under the command of Captain Skosyrsky, and the second - cadet, under the command of Staff Captain Mizernitsky. On November 27, he received an order to board a train and with fifty Don Cossack Military School was sent to Nakhichevan. Having unloaded under enemy fire, the battalion quickly formed up, as if in a training exercise, and, walking at full speed, rushed to attack the Reds. Having knocked them out of the Balabanovskaya grove, he entrenched himself in it and continued the shooting battle with the support of two of our guns. In this battle, almost the entire platoon of Captain Donskov, consisting of cadets from the Oryol and Odessa corps, was killed. The corpses found after the battle were mutilated and stabbed with bayonets. Thus, the Russian soil was stained with the blood of Russian child cadets in the first battle, which laid the foundation for the Volunteer Army and the White Struggle during the capture of Rostov-on-Don.”
OBKK cadet Alexey Ivanovich Komarevsky fought in the Volunteer Army and on the armored train “General Drozdovsky” in the Russian Army before being evacuated from Crimea. Gallipolitan. In 1926, as part of a guards detachment in Bulgaria, second lieutenant. In exile - in Belgium. He died in 1982 in Brussels.
Among the graduates of the OBKK there are many generals who played an important role in the White movement.
Major General Cherepov Alexander Nikolaevich (1877-1964). One of the founders of the Volunteer Army. Knight of St. George. Commander of the 1st volunteer detachment he formed in Rostov, which participated in the 1st Kuban Ice Campaign. In exile in Yugoslavia and France, he was the chairman of the Union of Pioneers and the Union of Disabled People. Died in France.
General of Infantry Shcherbachev Dmitry Grigorievich (1857-1932). Commander of the troops of the Romanian Front in the 1st World War. Knight of St. George. INGDuring the civil war, he was a representative of the white armies under the allied governments, head of the supply department for the white armies in Paris. He died in 1932 in Nice (France).
Major General Mikhail Fedorovich Danilov (1879-1943), commander of Her Majesty's Life Guards Cuirassier Regiment until 1917. In the Russian Army - commander of the 1st brigade of the cavalry division. In exile in France - chairman of the association of the Life Guards of Her Majesty's Cuirassier Regiment in Paris. He died in 1943 in Hungary.
Major General Subbotin Vladimir Fedorovich (1874 -?). During the First World War, he was the chief of engineers of the Romanian Front. Commandant and commander of the Sevastopol garrison in 1920.
Major General Baron von Nolken Alexander Ludwigovich (1879 –1957) in the First World War General Quartermaster. In the Volunteer Army since 1918. At the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR. In exile in Yugoslavia and France - chairman of the guards association.
Major General General Staff Vakhrushev Mikhail Nikolaevich (1865-1934) - participant in the Russo-Japanese and First World Wars. In the AFSR - Chief of Staff of the Kyiv Group of Forces. In exile - in the Kingdom of SHS (Yugoslavia) in Sarajevo. Served in the state commission. Honorary Chairman of the Sarajevo Society of Officers. He was buried in the New Cemetery in Belgrade.
Lieutenant General t Lekhovich Vladimir Andreevich (1860-1941). During the First World War, Head of the Main Artillery Directorate. In the AFSR - in the Army Artillery Supply Directorate. In exile in Belgrade. Chairman of the Artillery Society. Since 1924 in the USA. He was the head of the All-Guards Association and an Honorary member of the board of the Union of Russian Military Disabled Persons. Died in New York.
Lieutenant General of the General Staff Pokatov (Tseil) Sergei Vladimirovich (1868-1934). Participant in the Russian-Japanese and First World Wars. By 1917, commander of the XXXV Army Corps. In 1918 he took part in the uprising against the Bolsheviks in Ashgabat. Chairman of the Provisional Government of the Trans-Caspian Region. In exile he served in the Czechoslovak Army. Chairman of the Rescue Fund in Bratislava. He died there.
Lieutenant General Polzikov Mikhail Nikolaevich (1876-1938). Participant in the First World War. Knight of St. George. In the AFSR and the Russian Army, commander of the Drozdovskaya artillery brigade. In exile - in Bulgaria and Luxembourg. Died in Vasserbilig.
Major General of the General Staff Dmitry Ivanovich Andrievsky (1875-1951). In the First World War he fought on the Caucasian front. Commander of the 1st Kuban Plastun Brigade. Knight of St. George. Representative of the AFSR in Transcaucasia. In exile - in Persia and France. Died near Paris. He was buried in the Russian cemetery of Sainte-Genevieve des Bois.
Major General Alexey Pavlovich Budberg (1869-1945). Participant in the Russian-Japanese and First World Wars. Commander of the XIV Army Corps. Awarded the Arms of St. George. Minister of War in the government of A.IN. Kolchak. In exile - in Japan, China, USA. Chairman of the Society of Russian Veterans Great War. Died in San Francisco.
General of Infantry Palitsyn Fedor Fedorovich (1851-1923). In the First World War, Chief of Staff of the Guards Corps. Chief of the General Staff. Member of the State Council. In exile - in Germany. Died in Berlin.
Major General Skobeltsyn Vladimir Stepanovich (1872-1944). In the First World War, chief of staff of the XVII, then XI Army Corps. Participant of the Brusilov breakthrough. In the white troops of the Northern Front. Commander of the Murmansk region troops. In exile - in Finland and France. Died near the city of Pau (France).
Lieutenant General t Gavrilov Alexander (Alexey) Nilovich (1855 –1926). During the First World War, he was the head of the Minsk local brigade. In exile - in Poland. Died in Vilna.
Lieutenant General Teplov Alexander Nikolaevich (1877-1964). Participant in the First World War. Commander of the Life Guards Finnish Regiment, 2nd Guards Infantry Division. Commander of the Petrograd Military District. In the Russian Army he commanded the 34th Infantry Division. In exile - in France. Died in Paris.
Major General Grevs Alexander Petrovich (1876-1936). Participant in the Russian-Japanese and First World Wars. Commander of the Life Guards Horse Grenadier Regiment. In the AFSR he commanded the Svodno-Gorsk cavalry division. In exile - in Serbia, France, member of the board of the association of the Nikolaev Cavalry School. Died near Paris.
Cavalry General Vasily Ivanovich Pokotilo (1856 - after 1919). Military governor of Fergana, Semirechensk, Ural regions. Assistant to the Turkestan Governor General and commander of the Turkestan Military District. During the First World War, he led the formation of Cossack units on the Don for the active army. He was a marching ataman and ataman of the Don Army. Then he was appointed chief supply officer for the armies of the Northern Front. Member of the Military Council. In 1919, he was a member of the Cassation Presence at the headquarters of the Commander-in-Chief of the AFSR.
Their eyes were like stars -
Ordinary Russian cadets;
Nobody described them here
And he didn’t sing it in the poet’s verses.
Those children were our stronghold.
And Rus' will bow to their grave;
They're all there
Died in snowdrifts...
Together with his father, the nephew of the officer-educator, El V., went to the Volunteer Army.IN. Levitsky, graduate of OBKK Gogolev Boris Lvovich - cousin Levitsky Oleg Vladimirovich and uncle of Natalya Olegovna Petrovanova-Levitskaya, who continues the work of her father and grandfather in popularizing and studying the cadet movement. B.L. Gogolev fought in the Armed Forces of southern Russia in the Life Guards Jaeger Regiment. By 1925, he retired in Bulgaria with the rank of second lieutenant.
Many of the former cadets passed on the knowledge and warmth received within the walls of the OBKK from their teachers to the children of emigrants, instilling a love for the Motherland and the traditions of the Russian Army.
Artillery Colonel Vissarion Andreevich Boguslavsky led recruitment into the Volunteer Army in 1919 in Germany under the Inter-Union Company for Prisoners. In exile in France. In 1937, he became the head of the “Young Volunteer” organization (until 1932, “Young Scout”). Died in 1964 in Gagny (France).
Colonel Brendel Viktor Alexandrovich. In the 1st World Chief of Staff of the 2nd Guards Horse Grenadier Division. In 1918 in the Hetman's army. Military agent in Romania. In 1919, in the White troopsINeastern front. He taught in cadet corps abroad in Yugoslavia and Bulgaria. Died in 1969 in San Francisco.
Midshipman of individual midshipman classes Ivanov Emelyan Egorovich (1897R.), a native of the city of Bolkhov, Oryol province, was sailing on the cruiser "Eagle" in 1917-1918. Since 1919 - in the naval company of the Siberian Flotilla, second lieutenant. Since 1923, in exile in China, teacher at the Khabarovsk Cadet Corps in Shanghai. From 1927 he served in the French municipal police. Died during the arrest of criminals on June 30, 1940 in Shanghai.
In issue 95, January 1969, in the magazine “Military True”, published in Paris, there is an article by former cadet A. Levitsky, dedicated to the 125th anniversary of the Orlovsky Bakhtin cadet corps, telling about the history of the OBKK and about his years of study here. The article begins with the heartfelt lines of a poem by his OBKK classmate Mesnyaev:
Friends, tell me, was it
Or is this just a reflection of a dream?
Oryol cadet uniform
And Bakhtin's glorious corpus.
Let's answer: yes! Everything was, it was:
And the King and the banners of glory,
And our heart has not forgotten
Bakhtin's Oryol Corps.
The cadet family is united,
We are equal in soul and thought,
And the appearance of Prince Constantine
A star shines for us from the darkness.
These lines belong to Oryol cadet Grigory Valerianovich Myasnyaev (1892-196?), writer and public figure of the Russian emigration. After graduating from the corps, due to heart disease, he was unable to enter a military school and graduated from the Faculty of Law of Kyiv University. But he nevertheless became an officer during the Great War. For several years he participated in battles on the fronts of the First World War, and then the Civil War in the ranks of volunteers. Due to typhus and pneumonia, he remained in Rostov-on-Don after the retreat of the Whites. He described his fate before going abroad in the 1940s in the story “Old Time.”
“An officer who gave his youth, his health, his blood for the Russia of his fathers, will now have to grovel to save his life. The entire naked, cynical style of the Soviet system, its dullness and squalor, reflected in this ugly, non-Russian language of their newspapers, appeals, decrees, repulsive images of leaders, dirt, deliberate contempt for everything that had hitherto decorated life, - all this was organically alien to him, everything breathed with enmity and hatred towards everything that was dear and close to him.”
In emigration to Bavaria in Germany and later in America G.IN. Myasnyaev was able to realize his literary gift. He also wrote the stories “Fields of an Unknown Land”, “In the Footsteps of the Past”, essays about General M.D. Skobelev, poet N.WITH. Gumilyov and other works. Abroad, he became close to the famous public figure and historian S.P. Melgunov, in New York he was elected chairman of the society named after A.S. Pushkin. Died in the 1960s in the USA.
As we see, the fate of Oryol cadets from the lower ranks to generals is scattered all over the world. But, despite the distances and distance from each other, they retained their cadet brotherhood and love for the place from which they came into adulthood. Often the memories of former cadets were published decades later by colleagues, friends, and relatives.
An article by Lieutenant General E. was published on the pages of the magazine “Military True” for 1969.A. Milodanovich “Memories of the Oryol Bakhtin Cadet Corps”, telling about the years of study in the corps with detailed description the city of Orel at that time. The publication was carried out by his son, a former cadet, employee of the magazine "Military True", professor, leaderINhigher officer courses, Colonel Vsevolod Evgenievich Milodanovich, who, like his father, served as an artilleryman in the 1st World War. During the Civil War he fought in the Hetman Army in 1918, from 1919 in Armed Forces south of Russia. In exile he served in the Czechoslovak Army. After 1945 in Germany, Yugoslavia. Died in 1977 in Australia.
Another employee of the magazine “Military Story” was Oryol cadet Georgy Aleksandrovich Kutorga, a participant in the Civil War. In exile, he graduated from the Crimean Cadet Corps and the Nikolaev Cavalry School in the city of Belaya Tserkov in the Kingdom of SHS (Yugoslavia). He was released with the rank of cornet into the 17th Chernigov Hussar Regiment of His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, where for many years he was the secretary of the regimental association, kept the chronicle of the regiment in exile, and was also the secretary of the general cadet association. G. diedA. Kutorg on October 12, 1975 in San Francisco (USA). The funeral was attended by more than 100 veterans from the cadet society and graduates of the Nikolaev Cavalry School, led by Major General V.N. Won. The funeral service was served by a classmate in the Crimean Cadet Corps, Archbishop Anthony, and several other priests.
The permanent editor of the Sentinel magazine, in which many cadets were published, was a native of the village of Gostinoye, Mtsensk district, Oryol province, staff captain Vasily Vasilyevich Orekhov. Veteran of the First World War, the Civil War and the Spanish War on the side of General Franco. A prominent social and political figure of the Russian military emigration, who died in Brussels (Belgium) in 1990.
A special page in the history of the Civil War is associated with the cruise on the cruiser "Oryol", which bore the name of the city of Oryol, in 1917-1920. midshipman of the Vladivostok Naval School, among whom were graduates of the Oryol Bakhtin Cadet Corps Vyacheslav Uzunov, Boris Afrosimov, Ivan Malygin, Onisim Liming, Sergei Aksakov, Nikolai Nedbal and others, maintaining contact with their 1920 graduation through publications and bulletins of the Naval School in the 20-70s . XX century in Bizerte (Tunisia), Belgrade (Yugoslavia), Brno (Czechoslovakia), New York, Lakewood (USA). (Details about this in the collections “For Faith and Loyalty” Nos. 34 and 45 of the magazine “History of the Russian Province”).
This is what the writer in exile, a former cadet, a native of the Shchigrovsky district of the Kursk province, a regular contributor to the magazine “Cadet Roll Call”, who was engaged in literary activities in San Francisco in the last years of his life, Anatoly Lvovich Markov, will write in exile:
“The cadets of all Russian corps, who fought alongside their older cadet brothers on the Orenburg Front, with General Miller in the North, with General Yudenich near Luga and Petrograd, with Admiral Kolchak in Siberia, with General Dieterichs in the Far East, covered themselves with glory and honor. , among Cossack atamans in the Urals, Don, Kuban, Orenburg, Transbaikalia, Mongolia, Crimea and the Caucasus. All these cadets and cadets had one impulse, one dream - to sacrifice themselves for the Motherland. This high rise in spirit led to victory. Only they explained the entire success of the volunteers against a numerous enemy. This was also reflected in the songs of the volunteers, the most typical of which is their song during the Ice March in Kuban:
…In the evening, closed in formation,
We sing our quiet song
About how they went to the distant steppes
We, the children of a crazy, unhappy land,
And in the feat we saw one goal -
Save your native country from shame.
The blizzards and the cold of the night scared us.
It was not for nothing that we were given the Ice Campaign...
“The impulse in its sublimity, its selflessness, its self-sacrifice is so exceptional, - wrote one of our glorious cadet writers, - that it is difficult to find someone like him in history. This feat is all the more significant because it was completely disinterested, little appreciated by people and deprived of the laurel wreath of victory...”
One thoughtful Englishman, who was in the south of Russia duringGCivil War, said that “in the history of the world he does not know anything more remarkable than the child volunteers of the White movement. To all the fathers and mothers who gave their children for the Motherland, he must say that their children brought a sacred spirit to the battlefield and, in the purity of their youth, lay down for Russia. And if people did not appreciate their sacrifices and did not yet erect a worthy monument to them, then God saw their sacrifice and accepted their souls into His heavenly abode...”
Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich, anticipating the bright role that in the future would fall to the lot of his beloved cadets, long before the revolution, dedicated prophetic lines to them:
Even though you are a boy, you are aware in your heart
Kinship with a great military family,
He was proud to belong to her soul;
You are not alone - you are a flock of eagles.
The day will come, and, spreading its wings,
Happy to sacrifice themselves,
You will rush bravely into mortal combat, -
Death for the honor of one’s native land is enviable!..”
Konstantin Grammatchikov
“History of the Russian Province” No. 51