Decembrists. History, Fate, Biography

December 14, 1825 — the mutiny on Senate Square — is one of the brightest pages in Russian history. However, even after 200 years, debates about the causes, plans, course, and outcomes of the uprising continue. Was it a large-scale uprising of like-minded nobles seeking to carry out a coup d'état, or merely an "incident," as the uprising was referred to in official sources? Approaching an understanding of the phenomenon of the Decembrist movement, without resorting to ready-made ideological interpretations, is facilitated by studying the biographies of its participants.

This book is dedicated to the fates of 120 Decembrists, sentenced by the Supreme Criminal Court. During the investigation, personally overseen by Emperor Nicholas I, 117 rebels confessed to the committed crime, most of them expecting imprisonment, hard labor, and exile, while five were sentenced to death. Who were these people, who among them was led by the rebellion to the heights of power, and who was accidentally caught in the whirlpool of political events? How did the lives of the Decembrists unfold before and after 1825, who managed to endure all the hardships of punishment, and who could not withstand the harsh trials and despaired? — This is discussed in the new book by the famous St. Petersburg historian Andzej Ikonnikov-Galitsky.