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A researcher's journey to Siberia

Tag: Kuimov

More on Ignatii

31 October 2019 / / 0 Comments

My current research assistant found a blog post from 2012 that is, essentially, a scan of a pre-revolutionary publication about the murder of Ignatii Dvernitskii. Unfortunately, the blogger (a priest named Andrei Spiridonov) did not post the publication information for the book, and I’ve asked my research assistant to look into this.

In any case, the publication includes several photographs, including one from Ignatii’s funeral procession (below). It is also a defence of Ignatii, and includes a lot more information about the murder than did the newspaper reporting at the time.

Funeral Procession of Ignatii Dvernitskii. Original source unknown.

For instance, this publication states that yes, Ignatii was found strangled, but also that his neck was broken, and that his hand was clutched around his cross. The publication also defends his role at the school: admitting that Ignatii was very strict, the (still unknown) author states that Ignatii improved the food at the school and was generally a positive influence in what had been a hotbed of revolutionary activity.

If we can believe the basic details in this publication (and yes, I need to find out more about it), the author provides a description of how the Kuimov and Iurinov were caught. The author writes (forgive the rough translation),

The police chief found a fragment of a mother-of-pearl button from a shirt on the floor. Since all the buttons on the shirt of the deceased were intact, the police gathered all of the pupils and examined them. Gerasim Iurinov’s shirt had a broken button. When placed with the broken button found in the monk Ignatii’s room, it turned out that they fit together. […] The criminal first obfuscated, but then in prison not only confessed, but named his accomplice, Grigorii Kuinov [sic.]

Anyway, there is a lot more information to unpack in this piece, that I won’t bore you with, now. I’m skeptical, considering that the church went to great lengths to depict Ignatii as a martyr, that everything in this piece is true. Still, so far, it is the most detailed available account of the murder and the arrest itself.

P. V. Vologodskii and the legal angle

12 September 2019 / / 0 Comments

One aspect of the Ignatii Dvernitskii murder that I haven’t really explored, yet, is the trial itself. This is partly because, as mentioned previously, the case was tried by military tribunal on Nov. 23, 1909, and the records have likely been lost. Because the authorities closed military tribunals to the public, moreover, there was only limited reporting on the trial itself. Sibirskaia pravda, the newspaper of the nationalist Soiuz russkogo naroda, reported on the trial in its December 5, 1909 issue (pictured).

Cover page of the December 5, 1909 issue of Sibirskaia Pravda

While there are quite a few points of interest in the Sibirskaia pravda article (including the republication of the photograph that supposedly shown Ignatii’s body refusing to decompose), I’m particularly interested in the note that one of the accused, Kuimov (misspelled as Kuinov in the article) was represented by an attorney with the last name Vologodskii.

While the Sibirskaia pravda reporting does not give the first name and patronymic of the attorney, it seems likely that he was P. V. Vologodskii, a very well-known Socialist Revolutionary (SR) lawyer in revolutionary-era Tomsk.

If it is indeed the same person (and hopefully it won’t take too much digging to confirm this information), that would help explain the accusations that Kuimov was involved with the SRs. Vologodskii also helps bring the the story of Ignatii’s death full circle, moreover, as Vologodskii was a key lawyer involved in the trails related to the 1905 pogrom, trials that also took place in 1909 Tomsk (August).

P.V. Vologodskii. Image via Wikimedia commons, public domain.

His biography is fascinating. From the Tomsk region, he trained as a lawyer in 1880s St. Petersburg, but was expelled for poor behaviour, and managed to finish his studies back in Tomsk. He was on the Tomsk city duma (city council, basically), from 1901-1917, and was a founding member of the Tomsk SRs in 1905. He would eventually go on to become editor of Sibirskaia zhizn’, just before the 1917 Revolution. In January 1918 he became part of the anti-Bolshevik, Provisional Siberian Government, and served as foreign minister. All of this to say, the threads of the Ignatii murder go in so many fascinating directions, and I need to pay more attention to the trial and those involved, even if I never find the trial records.

Katorga Questions

25 August 2017 / / 0 Comments

Of the questions related to the murder of Ignatii Dvernitskii, many remain unanswered. For example, what was the fate of the two perpetrators, Gerasim Iurinov and Georgii Kuimov? The temporary military tribunal sentenced them to death, commuted to katorga. Katorga was the harshest form of punishment in tsarist Russia, after the death penalty. It generally involved exile and hard labour. Eastern Siberia, particularly the areas in the relative vicinity of Irkutsk, was the main area for katorga punishment in the late-Imperial period. The picture, below, is of katorga prisoners who worked near the Amur River in the Far East, sometime between 1908-1913, and is in the public domain from wikimedia commons.
Russian prisoners of Amur Railway
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