The amazing fate of Vasily Shulgin - a nobleman, a nationalist, a deputy of the State Duma of the Tsar - was full of historical paradoxes. Who was this man, a monarchist who accepted the resignation of Nicholas II, one of the founders of the White movement, who at the end of his life reconciled with the Soviet regime?
Most of Vasily Shulgin's life was connected with Ukraine. Here, in Kyiv, on January 1, 1878, he was born, here he studied at the gymnasium. His father, a famous historian and teacher, died when his son was not yet a year old. Soon, the mother married a well-known scientist and economist, editor of the Kievlyanin newspaper Dmitry Pikhno (Vasily's father, Vitaly Shulgin, was also the editor of this newspaper).
A nobleman with an impeccable past
The traditions of hereditary nobles, large landowners laid in Vasily, in addition to ardent love for Russia, a passion for free-thinking, independent behavior and a certain inconsistency dictated by excessive emotionality to the detriment of logic and sobriety of thinking. All this led to the fact that already at the university, Vasily, despite the craze for imaginary revolutionism, not only rejected these ideals, but also became an ardent monarchist, nationalist and even anti-Semite.
Shulgin studied law at Kiev University. His stepfather got him a job in his newspaper, where Vasily quickly declared himself as a talented publicist and writer. True, when the authorities "promoted" the Beilis case, giving it an anti-Semitic coloring, Shulgin criticized him, for which he had to serve a three-month prison sentence. So already in his youth, Vasily Vitalievich proved that the political coloring of what was happening was not so important to him as truth and family honor.
After graduating from the university, he served in the army for a short time, and in 1902, after being transferred to the reserve, he moved to the Volyn province, started a family and took up agriculture. In 1905, during the Russo-Japanese War, he served as a junior officer in a sapper battalion, then again engaged in agricultural activities, combining it with journalism.
But in 1907, his life changed dramatically - Vasily Shulgin was elected a member of the II State Duma from the Volyn province. The provincial landowner left for St. Petersburg, where the main events of his turbulent life took place.
My thought, my thought...
Already from his first speeches in the Duma, Shulgin showed himself to be a skilled politician and an excellent orator. He was elected to the II, III and IV State Dumas, where he was one of the leaders of the “right”. Shulgin always spoke quietly and politely, always remained calm, for which he was called the "spectacled snake." “I was in a fight once. Scary? he recalled. - No... It's scary to speak in the State Duma... Why?
I don’t know... maybe because all of Russia is listening.”
In the II and III Dumas, he actively supported the government of Pyotr Stolypin, both in reforms and in the course of suppressing uprisings and strikes. Several times he was received by Nicholas II, who at that time did not evoke anything but enthusiastic respect.
But everything changed with the outbreak of the First World War, when Vasily volunteered for the front. For the first time in his life, a Duma deputy and wealthy landowner saw the underside of reality: blood, chaos, the collapse of the army, its complete inability to fight.
Already on November 3, 1916, in his speech, he expressed doubts that the government was capable of bringing Russia to victory, and called for "fighting this power until it leaves." In his next speech, he went so far as to call the tsar an opponent of everything "that, like air, is necessary for the country."
The passionate and consistent rejection of the personality of Nicholas II was one of the reasons that on March 2, 1917, Shulgin, together with Alexander Guchkov, the leader of the Octobrists, was sent to Pskov to negotiate with Nicholas II on the abdication. With this historic mission, they coped admirably. An emergency train with 7 passengers - Shulgin, Guchkov and 5 guards - arrived at the Dno station, where Nicholas II signed a manifesto on abdication. Among the many details in Shulgin's memory, one seemed to be completely unimportant. When it was all over and Guchkov and Shulgin, tired, in rumpled jackets as they had arrived, got out of the carriage of the former tsar, someone from Nikolai's retinue approached Shulgin. Saying goodbye, he said quietly: “Here's the thing, Shulgin, what will happen there someday, who knows. But we will not forget this "jacket" ... "
And in fact, this episode became almost defining the whole long and, of course, the tragic fate of Shulgin.
After all
After the abdication of Nikolai, Shulgin did not enter the Provisional Government, although he actively supported it. In April, he delivered a prophetic speech in which there were the following words: “We cannot renounce this revolution, we have contacted it, soldered ourselves and bear moral responsibility for it.”
True, he came more and more to the conviction that the revolution was proceeding in the wrong direction. Seeing the inability of the Provisional Government to restore order in the country, in early July 1917 he moved to Kyiv, where he headed the "Russian National Union".
After the October Revolution, Vasily Shulgin was ready to fight the Bolsheviks, so in November 1917 he went to Novocherkassk. Together with Denikin and Wrangel, he created an army that was supposed to return what he had actively destroyed throughout his previous life. The former monarchist became one of the founders of the white Volunteer Army. But even here he was deeply disappointed: the idea of the White movement was gradually waning, the participants, mired in ideological disputes, lost to the Reds in all respects. Seeing the disintegration of the White movement, Vasily Vitalievich wrote: "The white cause began almost with the saints, and almost ended with the robbers."
During the collapse of the empire, Shulgin lost everything: savings, two children, his wife, and soon his homeland - in 1920, after the final defeat of Wrangel, he went into exile.
There he actively worked, wrote articles, memoirs, continuing to fight the Soviet regime with his pen. In 1925-1926, he was offered to secretly visit the USSR on a false passport to establish contacts with the underground anti-Soviet organization "Trust". Shulgin went, hoping to find his missing son, and at the same time to see with his own eyes what was happening in the former homeland. When he returned, he wrote a book in which he predicted the imminent revival of Russia. And then a scandal broke out: it turned out that the operation "Trust" was a provocation of the Soviet special services and took place under the control of the OGPU. Confidence in Shulgin among emigrants was undermined, he moved to Yugoslavia and finally stopped political activity.
But politics caught up with him here too: in December 1944, he was detained and taken through Hungary to Moscow. As it turned out, the "father of peoples" did not forget anything: on July 12, 1947, Shulgin was sentenced to 25 years in prison for "anti-Soviet activities."
He never left the USSR again, despite the fact that after Stalin's death he was released and even given an apartment in Vladimir. However, Vasily Vitalievich did not really want to go abroad. He was already too old, and with age his attitude towards socialism softened somewhat.
In socialism itself, he saw the further development of the features inherent in Russian society - communal organization, love for authoritarian power. A serious problem, in his opinion, was the very low standard of living in the USSR.
Shulgin was a guest at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU and heard how the Program for Building Communism was being adopted, when Khrushchev uttered the historic phrase: "The current generation of Soviet people will live under communism!"
Surprisingly, back in the 1960s, Shulgin wrote in one of his books: “The situation of Soviet power will be difficult if, at the moment of any weakening of the center, all the nationalities that entered the union of the Russian Empire, and then inherited by the USSR, will be picked up whirlwind of belated nationalism... Colonialists, get out! Get out of the Crimea! Get out! Get out of the Caucasus! Get out! ! Tatars! Siberia! Get out, colonialists, from all fourteen republics. We will leave you only the fifteenth republic, the Russian one, and that within the limits of Muscovy, from which you captured half the world with raids!
But then no one paid attention to these words - it seemed that this was nothing more than the delirium of an aged monarchist.
So Vasily Shulgin, who died on February 15, 1976, left without being heard by either Tsarist Russia or the Soviet Union ...
During the filming of the film "Before the Court of History" (1964). Monarchist V. V. Shulgin in the Kremlin Palace of Congresses
The second variety of monarchists who lived in the USSR are monarchists who acted within the framework of Soviet legality. The most striking example of such a figure is Vasily Vitalievich Shulgin (1878-1976). True, before becoming "the most important Soviet monarchist," he had to serve his term in the Vladimir prison. And even then he was lucky in the sense that in 1947, when he was tried, the death penalty in the USSR had already been abolished.
But in September 1956, Shulgin was released. He by no means renounced his monarchical views, and he himself later wrote: "Having been pardoned and brought repentance, Shulgin would not have been worth a penny and could only cause contemptuous regret." But he tried to adapt his old beliefs to the new reality and, moreover, to express them openly. And the most amazing thing is that he succeeded... With the skill and talent of an experienced parliamentary orator, Shulgin persistently pushed the ideas of monarchism and Stolypinism into legal Soviet politics and journalism. He skillfully clothed them in a very neat, censorship acceptable form. And he did it - both in his book "Letters to Russian Emigrants" published in the 60s, and in the documentary film "Before the Court of History", which was filmed about him at the same time. And in other works, including memoirs that went out of print after his death, in 1979, by the APN publishing house. Shulgin met with public figures related to him: for example, none other than Alexander Solzhenitsyn came to see him in Vladimir. Shulgin's articles appeared in Pravda, he spoke on the radio. And, finally, as the pinnacle of everything, the former ideologist of the White Guard and the author of the slogan "Fascists of all countries, unite!" In 1961 he was invited to the XXII Congress of the CPSU and participated in it as a guest.
During the filming of "Before the Court of History." Shulgin in the Tauride Palace (Leningrad), where the State Duma met until 1917. "Here it is, the Russian parliament!".
Shulgin in the film took the place that he occupied in the meeting room of the former State Duma
Shulgin in the railway trailer, where he received the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II
How did he do it? I once wrote that the prohibition of expressing any views only leads to the fact that they are carefully masked with a layer of cotton candy. A more strict prohibition leads to wrapping with two, three, ten layers of cotton candy ... But the inner grain does not disappear from this, it just becomes more difficult to recognize it under the honey shell and object to it. Shulgin mastered this art to the fullest.
The Soviet director and communist Friedrich Ermler recalled his meeting at Lenfilm with Shulgin: “If I had met him in 1924, I would have done everything so that my conclusion ended with the word“ shoot. And suddenly I saw the Apostle Peter, blind, with a cane. An old man appeared before me, who looked at me for a long time, and then said: “You are very pale. You, my dear, must be protected. I am a bison, I will stand…” In other words, instead of a fierce class enemy, which Shulgin undoubtedly was ("bison" before the revolution called ardent monarchists, Black Hundreds, this expression can be found in Lenin), his Soviet opponents were surprised to find almost a saint. He was reminded of his former, by no means holy words and feelings (published, by the way, in the USSR back in the 1920s along with Shulgin's book "Days"); for example, at the sight of a revolutionary street crowd in February 1917:
"Soldiers, workers, students, intellectuals, just people ... The endless, inexhaustible stream of human water supply threw more and more new faces into the Duma ... But no matter how many there were, they all had one face: vile-animal-stupid or vile "devilishly vicious... God, how disgusting it was! So disgusting that, gritting my teeth, I felt in myself one melancholy, powerless, and therefore even more vicious fury... Machine guns - that's what I wanted. For I felt, that only the language of machine guns is accessible to the street crowd, and that only lead, lead, can drive back into its lair a terrible beast that has escaped to freedom ... Alas, this beast was ... His Majesty the Russian people ... Ah, machine guns here, machine guns! .."
And one more thing: "Nicholas I hanged five Decembrists, but if Nicholas II shoots 50,000 "Febralists", then it will be for the cheaply bought salvation of Russia."
Books by V. V. Shulgin, published in the USSR in the 1920s
Vasily Vitalyevich answered evasively and eloquently to reminders: “I said, I don’t renounce ... But you seem to deny the passage of time in this case ... How can I now, having a white beard, speak like that Shulgin, with a mustache ?. ."
Shulgin was also caustically reminded of his praises of the 1920s against the fascists, when he called Stolypin, whom he revered, "Mussolini's forerunner" and "the founder of Russian fascism." Shulgin, in response, only asked "not to confuse Italian fascism and German Nazism" ...
The film Before the Judgment of History, which became Ermler's "swan song", was difficult to shoot, filming went from 1962 to 1965. The reason was that the obstinate monarchist "showed character" and did not agree to utter a single word in the frame with which he himself would not agree. According to KGB General Philip Bobkov, who oversaw the creation of the film from the department and closely communicated with the entire creative team, “Shulgin looked great on the screen and, importantly, remained himself all the time. He did not play along with his interlocutor. He was a man resigned to the circumstances, but not broken and not relinquishing his convictions. The venerable age of Shulgin did not affect either the work of thought or temperament, and did not diminish his sarcasm either. His young opponent, whom Shulgin caustically and maliciously ridiculed, looked very pale next to him. In Lenfilm's large-circulation newspaper "Kadr" an article "Meeting with the Enemy" was printed. In it, the director, People's Artist of the USSR and Ermler's friend Alexander Ivanov wrote: “The appearance on the screen of a seasoned enemy of Soviet power is impressive. The inner aristocracy of this monarchist is so convincing that you listen not only to what he says, but with tension you follow how he says ... Here he is now so decent, at times pitiful and even seemingly cute. But this man is terrible. They were followed by hundreds of thousands of people who laid down their lives for their ideas.”
As a result, the film was shown on the wide screens of Moscow and Leningrad cinemas for only three days: despite the great interest of the audience, it was removed from the rental ahead of schedule, and then it was rarely shown.
And with his book Letters to Russian Emigrants, Shulgin was also dissatisfied, for its lack of radicalism, and in 1970 he wrote about it like this: “I don’t like this book. There are no lies here, but there are mistakes on my part, an unsuccessful deception on the part of certain people. Therefore, the "Letters" did not reach the goal. The emigrants did not believe both what was wrong and what was stated exactly. It's a pity."
Shulgin's conversation with the old Bolshevik Petrov
The culmination of the film "Before the Judgment of History" was Shulgin's meeting with the legendary revolutionary, a member of the CPSU since 1896, Fyodor Nikolaevich Petrov (1876-1973). Meeting of an old Bolshevik and an old monarchist. On the screen, Vasily Vitalievich literally flooded his opponent with an oil of praise and compliments, thereby completely disarming him. At the end of the conversation, the softened Petrov agreed to shake hands with Shulgin on camera. And behind the scenes, Vasily Vitalievich spoke about his opponent, as befits a class enemy, maliciously and contemptuously: "In the film" Before the Court of History "I had to invent dialogues with my opponent, the Bolshevik Petrov, who turned out to be very stupid."
At the end of the conversation, Petrov agreed to shake hands with Shulgin
And Nikita Khrushchev in March 1963, in one of his speeches, spoke about Shulgin like this: “I saw people. Take, for example, Shulgin, comrades. Shulgin. Monarchist. Leader of the monarchists. And now, now he ... of course, not a communist, - and thank God that he is not a communist ... (Laughter in the audience) Because he cannot be a communist. But that he, so to speak, displays patriotism, this ... this is a fact. in America, and at that time his articles were printed there, - those who used to eat his juices spat on him. So, you know, these are such millstones that grind into flour, you know, granite. Either they wash it, or people polish it and grow stronger, and become in the ranks of good people."
By the way, the presence of Shulgin in the political life of the USSR was perceived rather disapprovingly by public opinion. This can be judged, in particular, by the well-known anecdote "What did Nikita Khrushchev do and what did not have time to do?". "I managed to invite the monarchist Shulgin as a guest at the XXII Party Congress. I did not have time to award Nicholas II and Grigory Rasputin posthumously with the Order of the October Revolution for creating a revolutionary situation in Russia." That is, the "political resurrection" of Shulgin in the 60s, and even more so the invitation of the monarchist to the congress of the Communist Party, was widely regarded by the people as a manifestation of Khrushchev's "voluntarism" (simply speaking, ridiculous tyranny). However, the film "Before the Judgment of History" was released when Khrushchev was no longer in the Kremlin, and Shulgin's memoirs "Years" appeared out of print in the late 70s.
Shulgin shows his "patriotism"
Books by V. V. Shulgin, published in the USSR in the 60s and 70s
Well, what relevant lessons can be learned from the above? First, one must know how not to be deceived by the appearance of a “saint”, which any experienced class enemy can take on. Secondly, one must be able, if necessary, to own and use this obligatory political device. And thirdly, one must understand that a legal, open, but still quite frank monarchist, like Shulgin, was still far from the most dangerous variety of monarchists in the USSR ...
The third variety of Soviet monarchists will be discussed later.
Memorial plaque erected on January 13, 2008, on the 130th anniversary of the birth of Shulgin at house number 1 on Feygin Street in Vladimir
Poster for the film "Before the Judgment of History": 
Film "Before the Judgment of History"
After the summer break, we continue under the heading "Historical calendar" . The project, which we have named "The Grave Diggers of the Russian Tsardom", is dedicated to the perpetrators of the collapse of the autocratic monarchy in Russia - professional revolutionaries, opposing aristocrats, liberal politicians; generals, officers and soldiers who have forgotten their duty, as well as other active figures of the so-called. "liberation movement", wittingly or unwittingly contributed to the triumph of the revolution - first the February, and then the October. The column continues with an essay dedicated to a prominent Russian politician, deputyII‒IV State Dumas, one of the leaders of Russian nationalism V.V. Shulgin, who had to accept the abdication of Emperor NicholasII.
Born on January 1, 1878 in the family of a hereditary nobleman, professor of world history at Kyiv University of St. Vladimir V.Ya. Shulgin (1822-1878), who published the patriotic newspaper Kievlyanin since 1864. However, in the year Vasily was born, his father died and the future politician was brought up by his stepfather, professor-economist D.I. Pikhno, who had a great influence on the formation of Shulgin's political views.
After graduating from the 2nd Kiev Gymnasium (1895) and the Faculty of Law of Kiev University (1900), Vasily Shulgin studied for a year at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, after which in 1902 he served military service in the 3rd sapper brigade, having retired with the rank of ensign of the field engineering troops. Returning after the end of his military service to the Volyn province, Shulgin took up agriculture, but the war with Japan that soon began caused him to rise in patriotic feelings, and the reserve officer volunteered to go to the theater of operations. However, this unsuccessful war for Russia ended before Shulgin managed to get to the front. The young officer was sent to Kyiv, where he had to take part in the restoration of order, broken by the revolution. Shulgin later expressed his attitude to the revolution of 1905, which he then referred to only as “Her Abomination”, in the following words: “We knew that a revolution was underway - a merciless, cruel one, which was already spewing blasphemy against everything sacred and dear, which would trample the Motherland into the mud, if now, without waiting a minute longer, you don’t give it ... "in the face" ". After retiring, V.V. Shulgin settled in his estate, where he continued to engage in agriculture and social work (he was a zemstvo vowel), and also became interested in journalism, quickly becoming the leading journalist for Kievlyanin.
Shulgin appeared on the political scene already at the rollback of the revolution - in 1907. The impetus for political activity for him was the desire of the Poles to push only their candidates from the Kyiv, Podolsk and Volyn provinces to the State Duma. Not wanting to allow such an outcome of the election campaign, Shulgin took an active part in the elections to the Second Duma, trying in every possible way to stir up local residents indifferent to politics. Agitation brought popularity to Vasily Vitalyevich, and he himself turned out to be one of the candidates for deputies, soon becoming a deputy. In the "Duma of People's Ignorance" Shulgin joined the few rightists:, P.A. Krushevan, Count V.A. Bobrinsky, Bishop Platon (Rozhdestvensky) and others, soon becoming one of the leaders of the conservative wing of the "Russian Parliament".
As is known, the activities of the Second Duma proceeded at a time when the revolutionary terror was still in full swing, and P.A. Stolypin courts-martial severely punished the revolutionaries. The Duma, made up predominantly of representatives of the radical left and liberal parties, seethed with anger at the government's brutal suppression of the revolution. Under these conditions, Shulgin demanded a public condemnation of the revolutionary terror by the liberal-left majority of the Duma, but it shied away from condemning the revolutionary terrorists. In the midst of attacks on the cruelty of the government, Shulgin asked the Duma majority a question: “I, gentlemen, ask you to answer: can you frankly and honestly say to me: “But, gentlemen, do any of you have a bomb in your pocket?”. And although there were representatives of the Socialist-Revolutionaries in the hall who openly approved the terror of their militants, as well as liberals who were in no hurry to condemn the revolutionary terror of the left, which was beneficial to them, Shulgin was “offended”. Under the cries of the left "vulgar!" he was removed from the boardroom and became "notorious" as a "reactionary".
Soon becoming famous as one of the best right-wing speakers, Shulgin always stood out for his emphatically correct manners, spoke slowly, restrainedly, sincerely, but almost always ironically and venomously, for which he even received a kind of panegyric from Purishkevich: “Your voice is quiet, and your look is timid, / But the devil is sitting in you, Shulgin, / You are the Bickford cord of those boxes, / Where the pyroxylin is placed!”. Soviet author and contemporary of Shulgin D.O. Zaslavsky left what appears to be very accurate evidence of how the right-wing politician was perceived by his political opponents: “So much subtle poison, so much evil irony was in his polite words, in his correct smile, that one immediately felt an implacable, mortal enemy of the revolution, democracy, even just liberalism ... He was hated more than Purishkevich, more than Krushevan, Zamyslovsky, Krupensky and other Duma Black Hundreds ... Shulgin was always impeccably polite. But his calm, well-calculated attacks brought the State Duma to a white heat..
Vasily Shulgin was a staunch supporter of Stolypin and his reforms, which he supported with all his strength from the Duma chair and from the pages of Kievan. In the Third Duma, he entered the Council of the most conservative parliamentary group, the right-wing faction. During this period, Shulgin was an associate of such prominent leaders of the Black Hundred movement as V.M. Purishkevich and N.E. Markov. He was the honorary chairman of one of the Volyn departments of the Union of the Russian People, he was a full member of the Russian Assembly, holding until the end of January 1911 even the post of Comrade Chairman of the Council of this oldest monarchical organization. Working closely with Purishkevich, Shulgin took part in meetings of the Main Chamber of the Russian People's Union. Michael the Archangel, was a member of the commission for compiling the Book of Russian Sorrow and the Chronicle of the Troubled Pogroms of 1905-1907. In 1909-1910. he repeatedly appeared with articles on the national question in the RNSMA journal "The Straight Path". However, after the unification of the moderate right with Russian nationalists, Shulgin ended up in the ranks of the Main Council of the conservative-liberal All-Russian National Union (VNS) and left all Black Hundred organizations, heading for rapprochement with the moderate opposition.
Despite the anti-Semitism, which, by his own admission, Shulgin, had been inherent in him since his student years, the politician had a special position on the Jewish question: he advocated giving Jews equal rights, and in 1913 went against the position of the leadership of the National Assembly, publicly condemning the initiators of the "Beilis case" , protesting from the pages of "Kievlyanin" against "the accusation of an entire religion in one of the most shameful superstitions." (Mendel Beilis was accused of the ritual murder of 12-year-old Andrei Yushchinsky). This speech almost cost Shulgin a 3-month prison sentence "for spreading false information about high officials in the press," but the Emperor interceded for him, deciding "to consider the case as not having happened." However, the rightists did not forgive this antics to their former colleague, accusing him of venality and betrayal of a just cause.
In 1914, when the First World War broke out, V.V. Shulgin changed his deputy frock coat to an officer's uniform, volunteering to go to the front. As an ensign of the 166th Rivne Infantry Regiment, he took part in the battles on the Southwestern Front and was wounded during one of the attacks. Having recovered from his wound, Shulgin served for some time as the head of the Zemstvo advanced dressing and feeding detachment, but in the second half of 1915 he returned to deputy duties again. With the formation of the liberal Progressive Bloc, which was opposed to the government, Shulgin was among his supporters and became one of the initiators of the split in the Duma faction of nationalists, becoming one of the leaders of the “progressive nationalists” who joined the bloc. Shulgin explained his act with a patriotic feeling, believing that "The interest of the present moment prevails over the precepts of the ancestors." Being in the leadership of the Progressive Bloc, Vasily Vitalievich became close to M.V. Rodzianko, and other liberal figures. The views of Shulgin of that time are perfectly characterized by the words from his letter to his wife: “How nice it would be if the stupid rightists were as smart as the Cadets and would try to restore their birthright by working for the war ... But they cannot understand this and spoil the common cause”.
But, despite the fact that de facto Shulgin ended up in the camp of enemies of the autocracy, he still quite sincerely continued to consider himself a monarchist, apparently forgetting his own conclusions about the revolution of 1905-1907, when, in his own words, "liberal reforms only incited the revolutionary elements, pushed them to active actions". In 1915, from the Duma rostrum, Shulgin protested against the arrest and conviction of Bolshevik deputies under a criminal article, considering this act illegal and "a major state error"; in October 1916 he called in the name of the "great goal of the war" “to achieve a complete renewal of power, without which victory is unthinkable, urgent reforms are impossible”, and on November 3, 1916, he delivered a speech in the Duma in which he criticized the government, practically agreeing with the thunder. In this regard, the leader of the Union of the Russian People N.E. Markov in exile, not without reason, noted: “The “Right” Shulgin and Purishkevich turned out to be much more harmful than Milyukov himself. After all, only they, but the "patriot" Guchkov, and not Kerensky and Co., were believed by all these generals who made the revolution a success..
Shulgin not only accepted the February Revolution, but also became an active participant in it. On February 27, he was elected by the Duma Council of Elders to the Provisional Committee of the State Duma (VKGD), and then for a day he became commissar over the Petrograd Telegraph Agency. Shulgin also took part in compiling the list of ministers of the Provisional Government, as well as the goals of its program. When the VKGD called for the immediate abdication of Emperor Nicholas II from the throne, this task, as you know, was assigned by the revolutionary authorities to Shulgin and the leader of the Octobrists, who completed it on March 2, 1917. Without ceasing to consider himself a monarchist and perceiving what had happened as a tragedy, Shulgin reassured himself that the abdication of the Emperor gave a chance to save the monarchy and the dynasty. “The culminating moment of revealing his personality was the participation of V.V. Shulgin in the tragic moment of the abdication of Emperor Nicholas II, - wrote cadet E.A. Efimovsky . ‒ I once asked V[asily] V[italievich] how this could have happened. He burst into tears and said: we never wanted this; but, if this was to happen, the monarchists should have been near the Sovereign, and not left him to explain with the enemies ". Later, Shulgin will explain his participation in the abdication with the following words: in the days of the revolution "everyone was convinced that the transfer of power would improve the situation". Emphasizing his respect for the personality of the Emperor, Shulgin criticized him for "lack of will", emphasizing that “No one listened to Nikolai Alexandrovich at all”. Justifying his act, Shulgin cited the following arguments in his defense: “The question of renunciation was a foregone conclusion. It would have happened regardless of whether Shulgin was present or not. He considered that at least one monarchist should be present ... Shulgin feared that the Sovereign might be killed. And he went to the Dno station in order to "create a shield" so that the murder would not happen.. Vasily Vitalievich also had a chance to become a participant in negotiations with Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, as a result of which he refused to accept the throne until the decision of the Constituent Assembly, in connection with which he later stated that he " a convinced monarchist ... had, by some evil twist of fate, to be present at the abdication of two Emperors ". Responding in exile to numerous reproaches from the monarchist camp and to accusations of "betrayal", Shulgin rather self-confidently declared that he had fulfilled the last duty of a loyal subject to Nicholas II: “by renunciation, accomplished almost like a sacrament, [it was possible] to erase in human memory everything that led to this act, leaving one greatness of the last minute”. Even almost half a century after the events described, Shulgin continued to assert that although he "accepted the renunciation from the hands of the Emperor, but did it in a form that I dare to call a gentleman".
But then, immediately after the coup, Shulgin excitedly informed the readers of his newspaper Kievlyanin: “An unheard-of revolution in the history of mankind has taken place - something fabulous, incredible, impossible. Within twenty-four hours, two Sovereigns renounced the throne. The Romanov dynasty, having stood for three hundred years at the head of the Russian State, resigned its power, and, by a fatal coincidence, the first and last Tsar of this kind bore the same name. There is something deeply mystical about this strange coincidence. Three hundred years ago, Michael, the first Russian Tsar from the House of Romanov, ascended the throne when, torn apart by terrible turmoil, all of Russia caught fire with one common desire: - "We need a Tsar!" Michael, the last Tsar, three hundred years later had to hear how the disturbed masses of the people raised a menacing cry to him: “We don’t want a Tsar!” The revolution, as Shulgin wrote in those days, led to the fact that people “who love her” were finally established in power in Russia.
Shulgin answered about his political views in the revolutionary days as follows: “People often ask me: “Are you a monarchist or a republican?” I answer: "I am for the winners". Developing this idea, he explained that victory over Germany would lead to the establishment of a republic in Russia, " and the monarchy can only be reborn after the horrors of defeat.”. "Under such circumstances, summarized V.V. Shulgin - it turns out a strange combination when the most sincere monarchists, according to all inclinations and sympathies, have to pray to God that we have a republic ". "If this Republican government saves Russia, I will become a Republican", he added.
However, despite the fact that Shulgin became one of the main characters of February, disappointment in the revolution came to him pretty soon. Already at the beginning of April 1917, he wrote bitterly: “ There is no need to create unnecessary illusions for yourself. There will be no freedom, real freedom. It will come only when human souls are saturated with respect for someone else's right and someone else's conviction. But it won't be so soon. It will be when the souls of the democrats, strange as it may sound, become aristocratic.” Speaking in August 1917 at the State Conference in Moscow, Shulgin demanded "unlimited power", the preservation of the death penalty, the prohibition of elected committees in the army, and the prevention of Ukraine's autonomy. And already on August 30, he was arrested during his next visit to Kyiv by the Committee for the Protection of the Revolution, as the editor of Kievlyanin, but was soon released. Later, Shulgin expressed his attitude to the February events in the following owls: “Machine guns - that's what I wanted. For I felt that only the language of machine guns was accessible to the street crowd, and that only lead, lead, could drive back into its lair a terrible beast that had escaped to freedom... Alas, this beast was... His Majesty the Russian people... That which we were so afraid of what we wanted to avoid at all costs, it was already a fact. The revolution has begun". But at the same time, the politician admitted his guilt in the catastrophe: “I will not say that the entire Duma desires revolution entirely; it would be untrue... But even without wanting it, we created a revolution... We cannot renounce this revolution, we got in touch with it, we soldered to it and bear moral responsibility for this..
After the Bolsheviks came to power, Shulgin moved to Kyiv, where he headed the Russian National Union. Not recognizing Soviet power, the politician began to fight against it, heading the illegal secret organization Azbuka, which was engaged in political intelligence and recruiting officers into the White Army. Considering Bolshevism a national catastrophe, Shulgin spoke of it as follows: “This is nothing more than a grandiose and extremely subtle German provocation carried out with the help of a Russian-Jewish gang that fooled several thousand Russian soldiers and workers”. About the outbreak of the Civil War, in one of his private letters, Vasily Vitalievich wrote as follows: “ Obviously we didn't like that we didn't have the Middle Ages. We have been making a revolution for a hundred years ... Now we have achieved: the Middle Ages reigns ... Now families are cut to the stump ... and brother is responsible for brother ".
On the pages of Kievlyanin, which continued to be published, Shulgin fought parliamentarism, Ukrainian nationalism and separatism. The politician took an active part in the formation of the Volunteer Army, categorically opposed any agreement with the Germans, was outraged by the Brest peace concluded by the Bolsheviks. In August 1918, Shulgin came to General A.I. Denikin, where he developed the “Regulations on the Special Conference under the Supreme Leader of the Volunteer Army” and compiled a list of the Conference. He published the newspaper "Russia" (then "Great Russia"), in which he sang of monarchist and nationalist principles, advocated the purity of the "White Idea", collaborated with Denikin's Information Agency (Osvag). At this time, Shulgin again revised his views. Shulgin's pamphlet The Monarchists (1918) is very revealing in this regard, in which he was forced to state that after what happened to the country in 1917‒1918, “No one will dare, except perhaps the most stupid, to talk about Stürmer, Rasputin, etc. Rasputin completely faded in front of Leiba Trotsky, and Stürmer was a patriot and statesman in comparison with Lenin, Grushevsky, Skoropadsky and other company.. And that "old regime", which seemed to Shulgin a year ago unbearable, now, after all the horrors of the revolution and civil war, “It seems almost heavenly bliss”. Defending the monarchical principle, Shulgin noted in one of his newspaper articles that “only monarchists in Russia know how to die for their homeland”. But, speaking for the restoration of the monarchy, Shulgin saw it no longer autocratic, but constitutional. However, even in the constitutional version, the white generals did not dare to accept the monarchical idea.
After the end of the Civil War, for Shulgin, the time of emigrant wanderings began - Turkey, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Poland, France. In the mid-1920s, he became the victim of a skillful provocation by Soviet intelligence, which went down in history under the name of Operation Trust. In the autumn of 1925, the emigrant politician illegally crossed the Soviet border, making a “secret”, as he thought, trip to the USSR, during which he visited Kiev, Moscow and Leningrad, accompanied by agents of the “Trust”, about which he later wrote the book “Three Capitals”. After the disclosure of this operation by the OGPU, which received wide publicity abroad, the confidence in Shulgin among the emigrants was undermined, and from the second half of the 1930s he withdrew from active political activity.
On the eve of World War II, Shulgin lived in Sremski Karlovtsy (Yugoslavia), devoting himself to literary activity. In Hitler's invasion of the USSR, he saw a threat to the security of historical Russia and decided not to support the Nazis, but not to fight them either. This decision saved his life. When, after being arrested by Smersh in 1945, Shulgin was tried for thirty years (1907-1937) of anti-communist activity, the USSR Ministry of State Security, taking into account the politician’s non-involvement in cooperation with the Germans, sentenced him to 25 years in prison. After being in prison from 1947 to 1956, Shulgin was released early and settled in Vladimir. He happened not only to become the protagonist of the Soviet documentary-publicist film Before the Judgment of History (1965), but also to participate as a guest at the XXII Congress of the CPSU. Standing, in fact, on the position of national Bolshevism (already in exile, the politician noted that processes “having nothing to do ... with Bolshevism” are taking place under the shell of Soviet power, that the Bolsheviks “restored the Russian army” and raised the “banner of United Russia” that soon the country will be headed by a “Bolshevik in energy and a nationalist by conviction”, and the “former decadent intelligentsia” will be replaced by a “healthy strong class of creators of material culture”, capable of fighting off the next “Drang nach Osten”), Shulgin described his attitude towards the Soviet government: “My opinion, formed over forty years of observation and reflection, boils down to the fact that for the fate of all mankind it is not only important, but simply necessary that the communist experience, which has gone so far, be brought to the end without hindrance... (...) The great sufferings of the Russian people oblige this. Survive everything that is experienced, and not reach the goal? All the victims, then down the drain? No! The experience has gone too far... I cannot be disingenuous and say that I welcome the "Experience of Lenin". If it depended on me, I would prefer that this experiment be carried out anywhere but not in my homeland. However, if it has been started and has gone so far, then it is absolutely necessary that this "Experience of Lenin" be completed. And it might not be finished if we're too proud."
The long 98-year life of Vasily Shulgin, covering the period from the reign of Emperor Alexander II to the reign of L.I. Brezhnev, broke off on February 15, 1976 in Vladimir, on the feast of the Presentation of the Lord. They buried him in the cemetery church next to the Vladimir prison, in which he spent 12 years.
At the end of his days, V.V. Shulgin increasingly painfully perceived his participation in the revolution and involvement in the tragic fate of the Royal Family. “My life will be connected with the King and the Queen until my last days, although they are somewhere in another world, and I continue to live in this one. And this relationship does not decrease over time. On the contrary, it grows every year. And now, in 1966, this connectedness seems to have reached its limit - noted Shulgin . - Every person in the former Russia, if he thinks about the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II, will certainly remember me, Shulgin. And back. If anyone gets to know me, then inevitably the shadow of the monarch who handed me the abdication of the throne 50 years ago will inevitably appear in his mind.. Considering that "both the Sovereign and the loyal subject, who dared to ask for renunciation, were victims of circumstances, inexorable and inevitable", Shulgin, at the same time, wrote: “Yes, I accepted the abdication so that the Tsar would not be killed, like Paul I, Peter III, Alexander II ... But Nicholas II was still killed! And therefore, and therefore I am condemned: I failed to save the King, the Queen, their children and relatives. Failed! It's as if I'm wrapped in a scroll of barbed wire that hurts me every time I touch it.". Therefore, Shulgin bequeathed, “We must also pray for us, purely sinful, powerless, weak-willed and hopeless confusions. Not an excuse, but only a mitigation of our guilt, can be the fact that we are entangled in a web woven from the tragic contradictions of our age....
Prepared Andrey Ivanov, Doctor of Historical Sciences
Vasily Vitalievich Shulgin was born on January 1, 1878 in Kyiv. He was the son of Vitaly Yakovlevich Shulgin, a professor at Kyiv University, the founder and publisher of the Kievlyanin newspaper. The mother was a student of the father.
Unfortunately, Shulgin's father died when he was only a year old. But Vasily Vitalievich was lucky with his stepfather. They became a university professor, economist, later a member of the State Council D. I. Pikhno.
After graduating from the Kyiv gymnasium, Vasily entered the Kiev University, where he studied law. Already at the university, he formed a negative attitude towards the revolution. This was served by the actions of revolutionary-minded students.
After graduating from the university in 1900, he served military service from 1901-1902. He retired as an ensign. After that, he lived in the village for some time, but by 1905 he became a leading contributor to the Kievlyanin newspaper, which at that time was led by his stepfather. And since 1911 he became the chief editor of the brainchild of his late father.
Since 1907, he devoted himself entirely to politics, was a deputy of the II-IV State Dumas from the Volyn province. He was a member of the faction of Russian nationalists and moderate right. In 1913, Shulgin appeared on the pages of his newspaper on the Beilis case, accusing the prosecutor's office of falsifying the case and bias. The newspaper issue was confiscated by the authorities, and the author himself was sentenced to three months in prison.
Then the First World War began and Vasily Vitalievich volunteered for the front, where he was wounded. Already in 1915, he left the nationalist faction and formed the Progressive Nationalist Group, and later became a member of the Bureau of the Progressive Bloc from the Progressive Nationalist faction, a member of the Special Conference on Defense.
February 27, 1917 Vasily Shulgin was elected to the Provisional Committee of the State Duma. He and A.I. Guchkov on March 2 of the same year went to Pskov to accept a document on the abdication of Nicholas II from the throne in favor of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, and already on March 3 he was present at the refusal of Mikhail Alexandrovich from the throne and participated in the drafting and editing of the act of abdication.
At state meetings, he spoke out against the abolition of the death penalty, against elective committees in the army, for strong power against the autonomy of Ukraine, supported the program of General L. G. Kornilov. He was a member of the "League of Russian Culture" founded by P. B. Struve. At the end of August, he was arrested as a Kornilovite and editor of the Kievlyanin newspaper by order of the Committee for the Protection of the Revolution. Soon he was released. Already in October, he headed the Russian National Union in Kyiv.
After the coup on October 25, he became the founder of a secret information organization called ABC. Subsequently, this organization will become an alternative intelligence service of the Volunteer Army. Already at the beginning of 1918 he went to Novocherkassk and became one of the founders of the Volunteer Army together with Denikin.
He developed the “Regulations on the “Special Meeting under the Supreme Leader of the Volunteer Army”, of which he became a member from November 1918. At the end of 1918 he published the newspaper “Russia”, in which he promoted monarchism and nationalism. From January 1919, Shulgin headed the commission on national affairs. And since August, the release of "Kievlyanin" has continued.
After the Crimean collapse of Wrangel, Vasily will have to go into exile, this will happen in November 1920. First, Constantinople will follow, where he will be included by Wrangel in the "Russian Council". From 1922-23 he will visit Bulgaria, Germany and France. And since 1924 it will be in Serbia. There he published a lot of emigrant periodicals and published memoirs.
At the end of 1925-beginning of 1926 he will visit Russia illegally. Shulgin will be invited by the underground anti-Soviet organization Trust. As it turns out later, this organization was under the control of the State Political Administration. In Russia, he managed to visit his native Kyiv, Moscow and St. Petersburg. Later, he would write the book Three Capitals: A Journey to Red Russia, about the changes in Russia after the revolution.
Vasily Shulgin was a member of the Russian All-Military Union (ROVS) from 1924, the National Labor Union of a new generation (from 1933); living in Yugoslavia, worked as an accountant. In December 1944, the Red Army entered Yugoslavia. On December 24, 1944, Shulgin was arrested and sent to the internal prison of the MGB in Moscow.
So at the age of 63, he was sentenced to 25 years for his previous counter-revolutionary activities. He served his term in Vladimir. In 1956 he was released and sent to the nursing home in Gorokhovets. Later in 1961 he was a guest of the XXII Congress of the CPSU. He starred in the documentary-feature film "Before the Court of History." Vasily Vitalievich died on February 15, 1976. He was in his 99th year. He almost lived to be a hundred years old.
Russian politician, publicist Vasily Vitalievich Shulgin was born on January 13 (January 1, old style) 1878 in Kyiv in the family of historian Vitaly Shulgin. His father died the year his son was born, the boy was raised by his stepfather, scientist-economist Dmitry Pikhno, editor of the monarchist newspaper Kievlyanin (replaced Vitaly Shulgin in this position), later a member of the State Council.
In 1900, Vasily Shulgin graduated from the law faculty of Kyiv University, and studied at the Kiev Polytechnic Institute for another year.
He was elected zemstvo vowel, an honorary justice of the peace, and became the leading journalist of Kievlyanin.
Member of the II, III and IV State Duma from the Volyn province. First elected in 1907. Initially, he was a member of the right-wing faction. He participated in the activities of monarchist organizations: he was a full member of the Russian Assembly (1911-1913) and was a member of its council; took part in the activities of the Main Chamber of the Russian People's Union. Michael the Archangel, was a member of the commission for compiling the Book of Russian Sorrow and the Chronicle of the Troubled Pogroms of 1905-1907.
After the outbreak of the First World War, Shulgin went to the front as a volunteer. In the rank of ensign of the 166th Rivne Infantry Regiment of the South-Western Front, he participated in the battles. He was wounded, after being wounded he led the zemstvo advanced dressing and feeding detachment.
In August 1915, Shulgin left the nationalist faction in the State Duma and formed the Progressive Group of Nationalists. At the same time, he joined the leadership of the Progressive Bloc, in which he saw an alliance between the "conservative and liberal parts of society", becoming close to former political opponents.
In March (February, Old Style) 1917, Shulgin was elected to the Provisional Committee of the State Duma. On March 15 (March 2, according to the old style), he, together with Alexander Guchkov, was sent to Pskov for negotiations with the emperor and was present at the signing of the abdication manifesto in favor of Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich, which he subsequently wrote in detail in his book Days. The next day - March 16 (March 3, old style), he was present at the refusal of Mikhail Alexandrovich from the throne and participated in the drafting and editing of the act of renunciation.
According to the conclusion of the General Prosecutor's Office of the Russian Federation dated November 12, 2001, he was rehabilitated.
In 2008, in Vladimir, at house No. 1 on Feygin Street, where Shulgin lived from 1960 to 1976, a memorial plaque was installed.
The material was prepared on the basis of information from open sources