Myths about this or that historical event, once rooted in the mass consciousness, sit there firmly. The February Revolution is by no means an exception. Millions of people still believe that February revolution was spontaneous, peaceful and almost bloodless.
One example of such a mindless "A" response:
- Why was the February Revolution bloodless?
- The February revolution, almost bloodless, was the most civilized of all the previous ones (almost velvet) - and the Russians were the pioneers here. If everything stopped there, they would live like Christ in the bosom. Similar revolutions in other countries led to remarkable results (Sweden for example). But then the Bolsheviks came to power in our country - and they spoiled everything with their totalitarian thinking and terror, which first split the country, and then drove it into a humanitarian hell ... http://znanija.com/task/3307691

About the victims of revolutionary violence in the February-March days of 1917 ...

Often, the murders of representatives of the "old regime" were accompanied by abuse of their bodies: mutilated, they lay around the city, and often their stomachs were cut open, burned at the stake, and thrown into the garbage heaps. .

On March 5/18, 1917, the newspapers published the words of A.F. Kerensky, which immediately became “historical” - the February Revolution that had taken place was solemnly declared “bloodless”. Thus, Kerensky, who did not want to be the “Marat of the Russian Revolution,” hammered a propaganda myth into the public consciousness: the “Russian revolutionary Easter,” unlike the Great French Revolution, passed peacefully and without violence. These words were immediately picked up by other creators of February and became almost an axiom.

However, in reality, everything was different. Like any other uprising, the February Revolution was not without violence, and therefore blood. And there was a lot of it spilled during the first week of revolutionary events ...

The workers' strikes that engulfed Petrograd led to clashes with the police, Cossacks and soldiers, which caused the appearance of the first victims of the revolution on both sides by February 26. And soon, through the efforts of the side that won the revolution, searches, robberies and murders began in Petrograd, which then spread to other cities. Russian Empire.

Let us recall only some of the most striking episodes of the “bloodless revolution”. On the night of February 27, non-commissioned officer T.I. . “It seems that already on the 27th, two artillery generals who worked at the Obukhov plant were killed,” Count E.P. Bennigsen noted. “Officers were killed, and members of the Duma continuously traveled around the barracks, trying in vain to calm the soldiers,” testifies State Duma deputy V.V. Shulgin.

After the infamous order of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies No. 1 ("On the Democratization of the Army"), which followed on March 1, 1917, the number of reprisals against officers only increased. Officers of the army and navy, accused of "adherence to the old order", were subjected to insults, beatings, and sometimes martyrdom. “... Unrest began in the military units, the cadets arrested the commander of the troops, the old man A.G. Sandetsky, who was insulted in every possible way, beaten on the cheeks, etc., in one of the units, the soldiers stripped the commander naked and put him in a snowdrift. ..,” recalled L.M. Savelov, who found himself in Kazan in early March 1917, in Kazan.

Events were even more tragic in the Baltic Fleet. Already on February 28, the commander of the Aurora cruiser, Captain 1st Rank M.I. Nikolsky, who was trying to call the sailors to order, was killed. On the same day, the commander of the 2nd Baltic naval crew, Major General A.K. Girs and his assistant, Colonel A.F. Pavlov, who were arrested the day before, were killed. Then the bloody wave reached the bases of the Baltic Fleet - Kronstadt and Helsingfors. In Kronstadt, a rebellious crowd killed the chief commander of the Kronstadt port, the hero of Port Arthur, Admiral R.N. Viren and the chief of staff of the Kronstadt port, Rear Admiral A.G. Butakov. On March 3, the commander of the 2nd brigade was killed battleships rear admiral A.K. Nebolsin, and the next day the same fate befell the commander Baltic Fleet Vice Admiral A.I. Nepenin. And it's far from full list: in the Navy, up to 100 people became victims of the events of March 1-4, 1917. And that's including only the dead! Over 600 naval officers was arrested. Many of them would later become victims of the "Red Terror".

As the captain of the 2nd rank G.K. Graf recalled, naval officers “they killed when they met on the street or burst into their apartments and places of service, inhumanly mocking them in the last minutes. But the crowd of killer animals was not content with this either: it mutilated their corpses and did not let their unfortunate relatives, witnesses of these horrors, approach them.. Captain 1st rank B.P. Dudorov, the organizer of aviation in the Baltic, in a letter to Admiral A.V. Kolchak dated March 10, 1917, wrote about the events in Kronstadt: “More than 100 officers were killed there... On the square in front of the cathedral, they say, there were boxes in which bodies were dumped, and they say that when one box was not full, someone shouted: “There is room for two more, catch someone.” anything." They caught a passing warrant officer and immediately killed him and threw him into a box. The officers have all been arrested."

But in its most acute form, the revolution took place in the capital of the Russian Empire - in Petrograd, where at least 1.5 thousand people were killed or injured in the February-March days. The first victims of the distraught crowd were law enforcement officers and members of their families, officers, and prominent monarchist officials. After a severe beating, with a broken leg, his head, 70-year-old General I.D. Volkov, was dragged out of the building of the Petrograd provincial gendarme department and later shot dead. On the night of February 28, after an order was received from the State Duma for the arrest of “the entire police”, policemen were beaten everywhere in Petrograd, of whom, according to some reports, almost half died.

Crazed citizens, including women and teenagers, succeeded in beating law enforcement officers. So, a 16-17-year-old young barber enthusiastically said: “I myself killed two (...) And I didn’t shoot at random, but darted!” The writer M.M. Prishvin wrote in those days in his diary: “Two women walk with pokers, lead balls on the pokers - to finish off the bailiffs”. And Baron N.E. Wrangel recalled: “In the courtyard of our house lived a police officer; the crowd did not find his house, only his wife; she was killed, and by the way, two of her guys. Smaller pectoral - with a blow of the heel to the crown ". Gendarmes and policemen were beaten to death with rifle butts, their eyes were gouged out, they were stabbed with bayonets, shot, tied with ropes to cars and torn to pieces, drowned in the Neva, thrown from the roofs of houses ... “Those atrocities,” wrote General K.I. Globachev, “that were committed by the rebellious mob in the February days in relation to the ranks of the police, the corps of gendarmes and even combat officers, defy description. They are in no way inferior to what the Bolsheviks did on their victims in their Chests..

Speaking about the behavior in the February-March days of police officers and police officers, the well-known monarchist Colonel F.V. Vinberg wrote that they constituted "flesh from flesh and blood from the blood of that people, on behalf of which they were declared enemies and adversaries". “Soldiers and workers scoured the whole city, looking for the ill-fated policemen and police officers, expressed stormy delight, having found a new victim to quench their thirst for innocent blood, and there was no bullying, mockery, insults and tortures that vile animals did not try on their defenseless victims, Winberg recalled. - The masses of the Petersburg population actively helped these beasts: boys, frenzied revolutionary shrews, various "bourgeois"-looking young people ran hopping around each hunting group of murderers and, to please the "gentlemen comrades", indicated to them where and in what direction to look last cops in hiding".

Intoxicated with “freedom”, the crowd committed terrible crimes these days. According to the writer V.B. Shklovsky, a participant in the February atrocities, people drugged by revolutionary "They arranged ritual burnings of the 'enemies of the people' who were identified together by the crowd - they were tied to iron beds, which were put on a fire!"

Officials also became victims of revolutionary violence. Already on February 28, in Petrograd, after checking documents by soldiers, collegiate adviser L.K. was wounded by a shot, and then finished off with bayonets. von Bock for being a "damned German". The life of the last Tver governor N. G. Byunting was tragically cut short on March 2 after the bullying of the man shot dead in front of the crowd, which rushed furiously to trample his body with their feet. In the same Tver, on March 16, General Chekhovsky was stoned to death by a crowd, whom the soldiers led to the guardhouse.

Often, the murders of representatives of the "old regime" were accompanied by abuse of their bodies: mutilated, they lay around the city, and often their stomachs were cut open, burned at the stake, and thrown into the garbage heaps. After Count G.E. Shtakelberg and Senator A.V. Czartorysky were killed in Petrograd, the revolutionaries cut off their heads in front of the public.

Extralegal arrests of prominent tsarist dignitaries, which began to be carried out even before the Emperor's abdication from the throne on February 27-28, became another component of revolutionary violence. First of all, monarchist dignitaries I.G. Shcheglovitov, N.A. Maklakov, N.A. Dobrovolsky, B.V. Shtyurmer, G.E. Goremykin, A.D. Protopopov, G.G. Chaplinsky and others, most of whom were later shot by the Bolsheviks. The Metropolitan of Petrograd Pitirim (Oknov), who was dragged out of the metropolitan chambers of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra by drunken soldiers, did not escape arrest either.

But, as a rule, no obituaries for the victims of the revolution were published in the press. IN mass consciousness the myth of the “great and bloodless” was hammered in, and the revolutionary newspapers, choking with delight, reported on the “humanity” of the revolution, carried out “surprisingly quickly and amazingly skillfully”, without “unnecessary sacrifices” and “unnecessary noise” ...

Prepared Andrey Ivanov, Doctor of Historical Sciences

Even during the reign of Peter I, on the left bank of the Neva near St. Petersburg, there was a vast wasteland, which was called the Amusing Field. It hosted military reviews and fun festivities with chic fireworks, which all of Europe envied.

After the death of the emperor in 1725, the field was named Tsaritsyn meadow, since the palace of the widowed ruler of the state of Russia Catherine I was built on its southern part.

With the coming to power of Alexander I, early XIX century, Tsaritsyn meadow has become a traditional place for parades and parades. At the same time, the name stuck to it - Field of Mars. By the 20th century, it was an abandoned wasteland, only occasionally put in order.

Meanwhile, events in Russia were developing with dizzying speed: the "small victorious" war with Japan, which ended in complete failure, the barely pacified First Russian Revolution, the bloody First World War- all this heavy burden of numerous problems fell on the shoulders of the people. People were in poverty and grumbled, a revolutionary situation was brewing.

And now the line separating law-abiding citizens from the rebels was crossed, and in February 1917 a revolution took place in Petrograd. Many people died in numerous street brawls. It was decided to bury the victims on Palace Square.

“It will be like a symbol of the collapse of the place where the Romanov hydra sat,” wrote Izvestiya of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies. However, such a burial was opposed famous writer Maxim Gorky and a group of cultural figures, suggesting the Field of Mars as an alternative. The offer was accepted.

On March 23, the victims were buried February Revolution. In total, 180 coffins were lowered into the graves on the Champ de Mars to the fiery speeches and sounds of the Marseillaise. According to the project of the architect Lev Rudnev, the construction of a grandiose granite tombstone in the form of a stepped quadrangle with four wide passages to the graves began. It took over three years to build.

The idea of ​​burying people who died for the cause of the revolution took root on the Champ de Mars. The Bolsheviks who came to power actively set about new burial places. So, in 1918, the graves of Moses Volodarsky, Moses Uritsky, Semyon Nakhimson, Rudolf Sievers and four Latvian riflemen from the Tukums socialist regiment, who were killed by counter-revolutionaries, appeared.

By a special decree in December 1918, a commission was created to select worthy candidates for burial in the famous cemetery. In 1919-1920, under the leadership of the commission, nineteen famous Bolsheviks who died on the fronts of the civil war were buried.

Burials on the Champ de Mars continued until 1933. The last "managed" was Ivan Gaza, secretary of the Leningrad City Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, who "burned out at work." After that, the cemetery was declared a historical monument. In 1957, on the eve of the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution, Eternal flame. Already in the 70s, there was a tradition to hold a solemn ceremony on the graves - the laying of flowers by the newlyweds.

However, not everything is so smooth in the history of the famous field. Even in the time of Catherine I, it was known that this place was not good. According to eyewitnesses, before going to bed, the empress liked to listen to the stories of old women about ancient times.

One day a chukhonka was brought to the palace, who knew many legends. The empress listened with interest to her stories, but then she began to talk about the horrors that, in her opinion, were associated with the Tsaritsyno Meadow, which stretched directly opposite Catherine's chambers.

“Here, mother, in this meadow, for a long time all the evil spirits of the water are found. As the full moon, so they climb ashore. The drowned are blue, the mermaids are slippery, and sometimes the merman himself will crawl out in the moonlight to warm himself, ”the old woman said.

“Here’s an old fool, she scared me to death,” the empress said irritably and immediately ordered the narrator to be expelled. That same evening, Catherine left the palace on the Tsaritsyn meadow and never returned to it.

180 years later, in the autumn of 1905, a mysterious incident happened in St. Petersburg, which confirmed the unkind fame of the Field of Mars. One night, a mounted gendarme outfit followed Millionnaya Street. Hooves pounded on the pavement and the low voice of law enforcement officers was heard.

“Anti leftists, well, there are Jews and all sorts of students, the most inveterate bastard. They set up against the tsar and throw bombs, ”a gendarme non-commissioned officer read a lecture to two recruits.

Slowly they drove up to the gloomy bulk of the Champ de Mars. Several lanterns shone dimly on its outskirts, beyond was impenetrable darkness.

“Hush,” the officer suddenly became alert. Do you hear? From the depths of the field came some strange sounds, as if something large and wet was being whipped on the ground.

The rustling wind brought from the darkness the grave cold, the smell of mud and insinuating girlish laughter. The horses of the gendarmes began to snore in fright. "But, spoil me!" the non-commissioned officer shouted and, ordering his subordinates to remain where they were, boldly directed the horse into the darkness. In less than a minute, a desperate cry was heard in the night and the receding stomp of horses.

The next morning, on Nevsky Prospekt, a horse with a lost saddle was caught, and a crumpled gendarme cap with traces of an incomprehensible substance resembling fish mucus was found on the Field of Mars. Its unfortunate owner disappeared without a trace. The search for the missing did not last long, as riots broke out in the city, and the incident was forgotten.

After the erection of a tombstone for the victims of the revolution, the already neglected and gloomy Field of Mars became even more sinister. The townspeople carefully avoided it and tried not to appear there at a late hour.

By the beginning of the 1930s, the city authorities brought the territory of the Field of Mars to a more or less proper form: they laid out lawns and flower beds, planted bushes and trees, installed lanterns and benches. But, despite such measures, the "strangeness" associated with this place did not stop. So, in May 1936, in the psychiatric department of the hospital. Trout was delivered to worker Patrushev. The ambulance took him away from the Champ de Mars, where he suddenly lost his mind.

After labor day Patrushev bought a quarter of vodka in the store and on the way home he decided to turn into a quiet place where no one would stop him from crediting the check. It was already getting dark when he settled down on a bench not far from the monument to the fallen fighters of the revolution. Around it was deserted, only on the far alley marched pre-conscripts.

The worker took a sip from the bottle, tasted a simple snack, grunted with pleasure and suddenly found a little boy standing next to him. When the man asked who he was and where he came from, the boy did not answer. Looking closer, Patrushev noticed with fear that the child had sunken and dull eyes, a swollen, blue face, and felt a nauseating smell emanating from him.

"Get down, you bastard!" - the proletarian shouted and tried to push the youth away, but he deftly grabbed him by the arm with rotten teeth and crumbled to the ground in a pile of fetid dust.

To the heartbreaking cries of the worker, pre-conscripts ran up, who called the doctors. The psychiatrist Andrievich frankly admitted that he had not yet encountered such a case of insanity in his practice in such a short period of time.

“A very interesting case. It looks like alcoholic psychosis, but why without a long drinking bout? And those weird bite marks. Well, we will observe, ”the doctor said in surprise. However, the psychiatrist's observations were not destined to last long, since just three days later Patrushev died from a general blood poisoning.

In the era of developed socialism, in the mid-1970s, the famous Leningrad sociologist S. I. Balmashev began to study the problems of modern marriage. In the course of his work, it turned out that the “yellow jersey of the leader” for divorce belonged to the Dzerzhinsky district of the city. Here, for a thousand registered marriages, there were up to six hundred broken families a year. Such an anomalous situation interested the researcher, and he dug so deeply and thoroughly that later he bitterly regretted it.

An analysis of the civil status records of the Dzerzhinsky district and numerous sociological surveys showed that most divorces occurred immediately after marriage. Moreover, the main reason was not the banal - the characters did not agree or treason, but drunkenness, drug addiction or the commission of a crime and the conviction of one of the spouses. In the course of the study, it turned out that the percentage of premature deaths among these unhappy families is incomparably higher than in the city as a whole.

Puzzling over this phenomenon, Balmashev found only one explanation for it. The fact is that in 1970, the employees of the Wedding Palace of the Dzerzhinsky district of Leningrad initiated an innovation - the laying of flowers by the newlyweds at the places of military and labor glory. The city authorities supported the useful undertaking and assigned each of the sixteen registry offices a place for the new Soviet rite.

For example, in the Moskovsky district, flowers should have been laid at the memorial of the defenders of Leningrad, in Narva - at the main entrance of the Kirov factory, and in Dzerzhinsky - at the monument to the fallen fighters of the revolution on the Field of Mars. According to the observations of the sociologist, the newlyweds from the Dzerzhinsky registry office, who laid flowers on the graves of the revolutionaries, soon got divorced. And vice versa, the newlyweds, who ignored this event, continued to live in love and harmony.

Balmashev even managed to find two women who witnessed how some shabby and unnaturally pale type was attached to the wedding processions on the Field of Mars. He appeared out of nowhere and just as suddenly disappeared, as if dissolving into thin air. Later, women saw him in their dreams, after which misfortunes happened in their families: someone close to him died, was crippled or fell ill ...

The sociologist perfectly understood the danger that emanated from the Champ de Mars, but failed to explain it correctly. At an expanded meeting of the city party and economic activists, he made a report in which he pointed to adverse effect a monument both to families being created and to Leningraders in general.

As a result, Balmashev was expelled from the party, expelled from the institute, where he worked for twenty years, and an article of a corresponding nature appeared in one newspaper.

And today the Field of Mars attracts the attention of researchers. Their comments on the events on it boil down mainly to the following. In the old days, among the primitive tribes that inhabited the Neva basin, there was a belief that on the treeless, swampy wastelands that occur along the banks of the rivers, covens of water evil spirits take place at night.

The Karelian-Finnish epic “Kalevala” describes one hero who, having got on “a flat coast, a terrible coast at night”, saved his life only by a wonderful playing on a stringed musical instrument, charming drowned people and mermaids with it.

If we use the data of the Holsmund cartographic atlas, then in pre-Petrine times, a wasteland stretched on the site of the present Field of Mars. Therefore, it is possible that it was here that the hero of the epic delighted the ears of evil spirits with his game.

In addition to the witches' covens, the researchers give another reason for the oddities on the Champ de Mars. The fact is that the burials of the Bolsheviks of 1917-1933 were made in a cemetery founded without church consecration and, figuratively speaking, on the blood of people who died during fratricidal clashes. Already only this initially did not allow turning the graves into a place of eternal rest for the dead.

In addition, the tombstone of the architect Rudnev itself contributes to the accumulation of harmful energy in the cemetery, which poses a certain danger to people. Plus, at the beginning of the century, the sculptor was one of the adherents of the Mictlantecutli Society (a sect of admirers of the witchcraft cults of the Indians of Central America).

His commitment to the secret teachings of the Aztecs and Maya was embodied in the project of the tombstone on the Campus Martius, a stylized copy of the funeral temples of Yucatan, which had the ability to concentrate the terrible energy of the dead within their walls.

Therefore, at present, the ill-fated Field of Mars in St. Petersburg is a danger to the townspeople who decide to visit it.

Champ de Mars: a communist churchyard

The latest plans for the reconstruction of the historical center have drawn the attention of the city public to the cemetery in the city center - the Field of Mars. Historian Lev Lurie thought about the saint.

The latest plans for the reconstruction of the historical center have drawn the attention of the city public to the cemetery in the city center - the Field of Mars. Historian Lev Lurie thought about the saint.

And although, of course, “let life play at the grave entrance, and indifferent nature shine with eternal beauty,” the proximity of the communist churchyard to the public amusement causes some discomfort. Moreover, there are few in St. Petersburg who know who, in fact, is buried there today. What does this monument mean in the general context of the history of Russian communism?

Every revolution is afraid of reaction. Because a revolution is a violation of the old, pre-revolutionary laws. For complacency, special rituals are important, testifying that everything was right, there will be no return to the past, no one will be punished: we are heroes, not criminals.

The same applies to February 1917. Contemporaries called this revolution "The Great and Bloodless." You can’t argue about greatness - the monarchy is gone. But bloodlessness did not work.

Quite often there are lynchings of defeated officers and policemen. Baron N.E. Wrangel recalled: “In the courtyard of our house there lived a police officer; the crowd did not find his house, only his wife; she was killed, and by the way, her two children. MM. Prishvin wrote in those days in his diary: "Two women go with pokers, lead balls on the pokers - to finish off the bailiffs." And the total number of victims in Petrograd was no less than 1315 people.

All the dead, not without grace, were called "victims of the revolution." 86 soldiers, 9 sailors, 2 officers, 32 workers, 6 women, 23 people without indicating their social status and 26 unknown bodies (how many of them were officers and policemen - it is not known, it must be quite a lot) were buried on March 23, 1917 on the Field of Mars ( originally wanted on Palace Square). It was planned to place the crypt under a huge column, next to erect “according to all the rules of science, technology and art” the parliament building. At least 800,000 Petrograders passed by the mass graves on the Field of Mars.

I. Bunin, “Cursed Days”: “I saw the Field of Mars, on which they had just performed, as a kind of traditional sacrifice of the revolution, the comedy of the funeral of the heroes who allegedly died for freedom. What a need, what it was, in fact, a mockery of the dead, that they were deprived of an honest Christian burial, boarded up in red coffins for some reason and unnaturally buried in the very center of the city of the living!

The Bolsheviks dispersed the Constituent Assembly, but the February Revolution was privatized. Therefore, they continued to bury their own here. Remaining "on the farm" in St. Petersburg, Grigory Zinoviev considered himself the second person in the party. The capital of the future Communist World Republic is, of course, the city proletarian revolution, socialist Soviet Russia. True, most of the prominent communists are now in the Kremlin

So there are only two general party sacrificial figures on the Field of Mars - the censor of the Petrograd press Volodarsky and the head of the Cheka Uritsky. Both of them, for obvious reasons, were killed by the "counter-revolutionaries". In addition, Volodarsky was named after Isaakievskaya and Liteiny Avenue, and Uritsky - Palace Square and Winter Palace. It was to their murder that the Bolsheviks responded with the "Red Terror".

In 1918, they were joined by Semyon Nakhimson, chairman of the city council, who suppressed the anti-Soviet Yaroslavl uprising (Vladimirsky Prospekt is named after him), and four Latvian riflemen.

10 people died in 1919 near Petrograd, repelling Yudenich's offensive.

In 1919, an excellent parterre square designed by Lev Rudnev was laid out on the field and an impressive monument of four granite blocks was erected. At the ends are the pretentious verses of Anatoly Lunacharsky: “The sons of St. Petersburg have now joined the host of the great heroes of uprisings of different times who have passed away in the name of the heyday of life, the crowds of Jacobin fighters 48, the crowds of Communards.”

The funeral continued - they buried two commissars who died near Taganrog.

The regular meeting Finnish workers' club, whose members were only communists. A group of hungry Finnish communists, dissatisfied with their infinitely greedy leadership (they lived in the Astoria, received unprecedented rations), staged a massacre. The victims are eight communists. On the tombstone of the Field of Mars they wrote: "Killed by the Finns-White Guards."

In 1922, D. N. Avrov, one of the main leaders in the suppression of the Kronstadt uprising, was buried on the Field of Mars. At the same time, nine-year-old actor's son Kostya (Vanya) Mgebrov, whom enterprising parents passed off as "Petrograd Gavrosh", rested here.

At the end of 1925, a colossal purge of the communist authorities took place in Leningrad. The team of Grigory Zinoviev was replaced by the people of Sergei Kirov. There was especially no one to bury on the Champ de Mars. Well-known communists were now buried exclusively at the Kremlin wall - Sverdlov, Frunze, Dzerzhinsky, Nogin, Inessa Armand, John Reed.

Ivan Kotlyakov, who was a member of the provincial committee and chairman of the Economic Council under the previous city leadership, was demoted to head of the financial department of the Leningrad City Executive Committee. But still, he was a member of the party since 1902, he refused the opposition, therefore, after his death in 1929, the plant, the tram park were named after him and buried on the Field of Mars.

In 1928, the "old Bolshevik", a peer of Lenin, L. Mikhailov-Poletikus, and the "disarmed" Trotskyite, a prominent red commander Mikhail Lashevich, rested here; in 1931, the essayist K. Eremeev was buried, in 1932 another peer of Lenin, the “red professor” G. Tsyperovich, was buried.

Meanwhile, a simpler place was found for the local nomenklatura. Since 1919, the "Communist site" of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra began to be used.
The last burial on the Field of Mars is the grave of Ivan Gaz, the only city communist who initially voted not for the “Leningrad opposition” of Grigory Zinoviev, but for the “general line” of Joseph Stalin. For this, he was made secretary of the party committee of the Krasny Putilovets plant. And then the secretary of the Moscow-Narva district party committee, and after his death he was buried next to Uritsky and Volodarsky.

Now the Field of Mars connects the only green space in the city free for all class groups and the strangest churchyard. So, on the outskirts of Rome, there are gigantic ruins of the baths of Caracalla, the emperor, parricide and fratricide, a sadist, the husband of his own mother. And nothing, they stand, they amaze with their monumentality. Our Field of Mars is a communist pantheon of provincial significance.

"Marsovo Pole", located in the center of St. Petersburg, has become a familiar place of rest for the townspeople. Few people think about the dark stories of this place.
In ancient times, according to the legends of the Karelian tribes, this place was considered cursed. According to ancient beliefs, all the forest evil spirits gathered here on full moon nights. Old-timers tried to bypass these neighborhoods.

On a sunny day, the townspeople rest on the grass of the Champ de Mars (my spring photo)
Centuries later, those who died in the days of February and October Revolution 1917. So the cursed place was turned into a cemetery, where people who died a violent death were buried, whose souls did not find peace.

Rumors that “this place is not good” appeared as early as the 18th century during the reign of Catherine I, whose palace was located on the “Tsaritsyn Meadow” (as the Field of Mars was called in the 18th century).
The Empress loved to hear horror stories. One day, an old Chukhonian peasant woman was brought to her, who knew many terrible stories.
Chukhonka told the queen a lot of interesting things about the place where the palace is located:
“Here, mother, in this meadow, for a long time all the evil spirits of the water are found. As the full moon, so they climb ashore. The drowned are blue, the mermaids are slippery, and sometimes the merman himself will crawl out in the moonlight to warm himself.
In public, the queen laughed at the superstitious old woman, but she decided to leave the palace near the “cursed place”.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Tsaritsyn Meadow was called the Field of Mars. Then there was a monument to the commander Alexander Suvorov in the image of Mars (sculptor M.I. Kozlovsky). The first monument in Russia to an uncrowned person. Then the monument was moved to Trinity Square

Parade of Alexander II on the Field of Mars. Rice. M.A. Zichy
In the 19th century, the Field of Mars was a place for folk festivals. However, remembering the old tales, the townspeople tried not to appear here after dark.

Folk festivities on Maslenitsa in the 19th century. Field of Mars

View of the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood opens from the Champ de Mars...

...and to the Mikhailovsky Castle

Parade on October 6, 1831 on the Tsaritsyn Meadow. Rice. G.G. Chernetsov

Parade on October 6, 1831 (detail).
Russian classics are easy to recognize - Pushkin, Krylov, Zhukovsky, Gnedich

Parade on October 6, 1831 (detail)

On the eve of the revolution (1916). Empress Alexandra Feodorovna and Tsarevich Alexei on the Field of Mars
In March 1917, the Field of Mars was chosen as the burial place for those killed in the February Revolution. Burial in a mass grave was carried out defiantly refusing religious rites, and without obtaining the consent of relatives. The cemetery, which appeared in the city center, immediately gained notoriety. The townspeople tried to avoid this place.
Despite the progressive revolutionary ideas, most of the townspeople reacted with superstition to such a mass burial - they said that the souls of the dead did not find peace and would take revenge on the living.
"Petropolis will turn into a necropolis"- whispered in the city.

It was said that people disappear without a trace at this place. In those days, passers-by told how at night from the side of the Field of Mars one could hear grave cold, a putrid smell and a strange inexplicable noise. There were stories that anyone who came to the Field of Mars at night would either disappear without a trace or go crazy.

The funeral of the victims of the revolution. Mass grave in the city center shocked many

The memorial complex "Fighters of the Revolution" was built in 1919. Architect L.V. Rudnev.
Esotericists note that the pyramid-shaped form of the memorial contributes to the accumulation of negative energy of the "cursed place"

Memorial to the "Victims of the Revolution" today

Field of Mars, 1920. Rice. Boris Kustodiev

Here is a panoramic view of the memorial

memorial pyramid

You can't scare kids with scary stories

The eternal flame on the Champ de Mars was lit in 1957

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1917. February revolution. Chronicle of events in six parts (Part IV) 23 March. National funeral for victims of freedom fighters

Continuation.

1917. Chronicle of the February Revolution. Part 1

1917. Chronicle of the February Revolution. Part 2

On March 5, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies decided to appoint a funeral for March 10. This day was declared "the day of remembrance of the victims of the Revolution and the national holiday of the Great Russian Revolution for all time." It was ordered to organize a funeral as "national and civil" without a church rite. A church memorial service could be performed by the relatives of the dead "according to their conviction."

Priests of military temples on this day were supposed to perform funeral services in temples.

Funeral service for those who died during the funeral of the victims of the February Revolution

The entire population of the capital, as well as the Petrograd garrison, was called upon to participate in the funeral of the victims of the revolution. in full force. However, on March 10, the funeral did not take place and the ceremony was postponed more than once, until, finally, the final date was set - March 23, 1917.

Discussions flared up over the choice of burial site. Initially, the majority of delegates spoke in favor of Palace Square, but objections arose. The organizers were worried about the soil waters under the Palace Square, they feared that the mass graves would violate the integrity of the famous architectural ensemble area. They were called Kazan Cathedral, Znamenskaya Square.

The Petrograd Soviet decided to bury the victims of the revolution on the Field of Mars. It was planned to place the crypt under a huge column, next to erect “according to all the rules of science, technology and art” a building for the Russian parliament, which was to become the center of government for all of Russia. The grandiose entrance to the parliament building, facing the Neva, was supposed to be decorated with statues of prominent figures of the revolution.

Funeral procession during the funeral of the victims of the February Revolution on one of the streets of the city.

A special commission created by the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies acted as the organizer of the funeral. Parts of the garrison were ordered to participate in the ceremony, the allocation of special units with orchestras. On the day of the funeral in the city, it was planned to stop the work of industrial and commercial enterprises, and tram traffic was stopped.

The path and time of the funeral processions from each district of Petrograd to the Field of Mars was determined. The column organization scheme is certified by the signature of the commander-in-chief of the troops, Lieutenant General L.G. Kornilov.

Funeral procession on Nevsky Prospekt during the funeral of the victims of the February Revolution.

The Petrogradsky Listok newspaper wrote about this event: “... processions with the coffins of the victims, with waving flags, with an innumerable crowd of people, are moving slowly from all parts of the city. Slowly, solemnly, the consonant singing of a thousand voices is heard in the air: “You fell a victim in the fatal struggle ...”.

The procession, which began at 9 a.m. 30 min. ended well after midnight. At least 800 thousand people passed by the mass graves on the Field of Mars. The presence of members of the Provisional Committee of the State Duma, the Provisional Government, and deputies of the Petrograd Soviet emphasized the special, national character of the event. Military and Naval Minister A.I. Guchkov, accompanied by the commander of the Petrograd Military District, General L.G. Kornilov, arrived at the Field of Mars at 10 o'clock. The minister knelt before the graves and crossed himself.

Reportage filming of the funeral of the victims of the revolution covers all stages of the mourning ceremony: the procession of columns from different districts of Petrograd with the coffins of the dead, the situation on the streets of the city, the rally on the Field of Mars, the burial of the victims, etc. Among them: 10 photographic documents taken by the famous photographer Petr Otsupa: procession on Nevsky Prospekt”, “Funeral procession in the Vyborg region”, “Lowering the coffin into the grave during the funeral of the victims of the February Revolution on March 23, 1917”, “Church memorial service on the Field of Mars”, “Police from student representatives”, “Funeral columns on Field of Mars.

Exploring the information of photographic documents, you can see a huge number of people of various social groups who took part in the funeral ceremony. These are soldiers and officers, workers, intellectuals, students.

The event was planned in advance and was well prepared. The photographs depict a large number of flags and banners with slogans that are written correctly without spelling and stylistic errors, in even letters. Columns of funeral processions with flags and banners are moving towards the Champ de Mars in perfect order.

Funeral of the victims of the February Revolution on the Field of Mars

In one of the pictures you can see: at the head of the columns there are standard-bearers or those who carry a banner with slogans. Next march the military units of the Petrograd garrison with an orchestra. Endless columns of demonstrators are moving along the streets of Petrograd, soldiers are carrying coffins with the bodies of dead heroes, as evidenced by reportage footage.

On the Field of Mars

Among the representatives of the mourning ceremony, photographic documents depicted delegations of students from the Academy of Arts, Shlisselburg residents, workers of the 1st Russian X-ray tube plant, soldiers of the auto division. Order on the streets of the city is monitored by the military on horseback. On both sides of the street civilian population, including women. Pushing back the crowd, holding hands, the soldiers stand in a cordon, ensuring the immediate advancement of the funeral procession. In one of the photographs - the police from the representatives of the students. Mourning columns accompany the coffins with the dead to the Field of Mars, where a large mass grave was dug. Photographers recorded how soldiers dig frozen ground on the eve of the mourning event - March 22.

Photo documents capture the picture of the events taking place directly on the Champ de Mars: a huge crowd of people during the rally, a general view of the Champ de Mars during the ceremony, a large number of flags and banners with slogans: "Immortal memory of the fallen freedom fighters", " Everlasting memory freedom fighters”, “The living - the fallen” and others. The photographs show that despite the mass gathering of people, there is no crowd on the Champ de Mars, nothing prevents the march of the mourning columns.

In written sources, it is recorded that, according to the decision of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, funerals should take place without religious rites. However, the photographs show the performance of a religious ceremony on the Field of Mars: three clergy perform a funeral service over the coffin of the deceased.

Next to the coffin is a large cross with a crucifix, banners. Soldiers, officers, men and women take part in this ceremony. Men without hats, with bowed heads. Perhaps this memorial service was held at the initiative of the relatives of the victims. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find out how many people were buried, only one coffin is visible on photographic documents. It is noteworthy that the majority of those participating in the memorial service - simple people, which we can judge by clothes. So, if we compare the clothes of women during a memorial service with the clothes of women participating in an official burial, we will see that the former are dressed in scarves and shapeless coats, the latter are more elegant, they wear hats and coats with fur collars.

On several photographic documents depicting the burial, there are voluminous wooden barrels in the frame in in large numbers. It was not possible to find out what they were for, what was in them. Perhaps they contained cement for pouring graves, or water for mortar. In some photographs, we see wooden flooring and special holes into which coffins are lowered. It can be assumed that the flooring was made for the convenience of lowering the coffin into the grave. Six people (three on each side) on ropes lower the coffin into the grave through a hole in the wooden flooring on ropes.

Below, several people receive the coffins and stack them in two rows. Some of the coffins are decorated with bouquets of flowers, each with a note with the name of the deceased. After the funeral, the mass grave was poured with cement, which is also reflected in the documents.

PHOTO prohibited from publishing by the copyright holder

Photo documents confirm the fact that members of the Provisional Government attended the funeral of the victims of the revolution. In the pictures: Minister of War and Marine A.I. Guchkov, Chairman State Duma M.V. Rodzianko, Minister of Foreign Affairs P.N. Milyukov, member of the Provisional Committee, Chief Procurator of the Holy Synod V.N. Lvov and others.

When studying film documents dedicated to the funeral of the victims of the February Revolution in Petrograd 1917, 12 items were identified. hr., containing filming of such operators as F.K. Verigo-Dorovsky, M.I. Bystritsky (March 22), Bulla, who was a photojournalist in his main specialty, as well as shootings made by employees of the Skobelev Committee and the Pate Brothers company.

Filming of preparations for the funeral ceremony has been preserved: “On the eve of the funeral. Preparation of graves on the Champ de Mars on March 22, 1917. M.I. Bystritsky Petrograd. Groups of people can be observed on the screen - soldiers, civilians belonging to different strata of society, which can be determined by clothing. They block the passage to the Champ de Mars, where the frozen earth is exploding and graves are being dug. In their hands they have a large poster with the inscription "The passage is closed, they are blowing up the earth for graves." It is captured how the soldiers dig graves, the walls are strengthened with boards. On top of the grave, a wooden flooring is made in the form of a bridge. Large barrels lie in a row, the purpose of which could not be clarified. An interesting plot: “The chapel of the Obukhov hospital. Sealing coffins”: there are two coffins, soldering devices for sealing coffins are heated. The quality of this scene is poor as it was shot in the dark.

The study made it possible to eliminate some disagreements between scientists regarding the construction of graves on the Field of Mars. B. Kolonitsky, for example, believed that four large graves had been dug. However, audiovisual documents confirm the opinion of those who believed that one large mass grave was dug in the form of the letter "L".

Members of the Provisional Government at the mass grave on the Field of Mars

In the film document of the Skobelev Committee "National Funeral of the Heroes and Victims of the Great Russian Revolution on the Field of Mars in Petrograd 1917" (director of filming G.M. Boltyansky, cameramen A. Dorn, I. Kobozev, P. Novitsky) the inscription at the beginning of the film says that "up to one and a half million people participated in the procession." In written sources there are different numbers Those who took part in the mourning ceremony, the most common figure is 800 thousand people, some sources say about a million participants in the demonstration.