Alexander Sotnikov - scientist, chieftain, rebel

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Alexander Sotnikov - scientist, chieftain, rebel

Soviet historians did not forgive Sotnikov for his armed uprising against the new government. For many years he was portrayed as a reactionary, an adventurer, and even a coward. For example, the commander of the Minusinsk Red Guard, the Bolshevik E. A. Glukhikh, made up a story about Sotnikov escaping from the Reds in a woman's dress. Only at the end of the 20th century did researchers such as A. P. Sheksheyev and M. G. Tarasov appear who tried to objectively study those events and take an unbiased look at the personality of the first ataman of the Yenisei Cossack army. We should also get to know this extraordinary man better.

Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Sotnikov was born in 1891 in the village of Potapovskoye in the Turukhansk region. Our hero's grandfather, Pyotr Mikhailovich, was a 2nd guild merchant and traded with the indigenous peoples of the north of the Yenisei province. He traded in bread, tobacco, salt and, of course, alcohol, which was very popular among the local population. His son Aleksandr continued the family business and earned great authority among the locals. The natives called him "landur" - a strong and evil bull-deer god.



But Pyotr Mikhailovich's grandson, Alexander Alexandrovich, did not want to continue the family business. The young man decided to study science. After graduating from the mining department of the Tomsk Secondary Polytechnic School in 1912, Alexander Alexandrovich continued his studies at the mining department of the Tomsk Technological Institute. He was eager to apply the knowledge he received at the university in practice. In 1915, Alexander Sotnikov, at his own expense, organized an expedition to the Norilsk Mountains to study deposits of coal, copper ore and graphite. The time for research was inopportune; World War I had been going on for a year. Upon returning from the expedition, Sotnikov was drafted into the army and sent to the Irkutsk Military School.

In the summer of 1916, Sotnikov, holding the rank of cornet (a Cossack rank, equivalent to a modern lieutenant), was transferred to the Krasnoyarsk Cossack division, which had been formed at the start of World War I and consisted of three companies. The division served in Krasnoyarsk and did not participate in combat, although some Cossacks volunteered for the front as part of the Transbaikal Cossack army.


Cossacks of the Krasnoyarsk hundred. 1890.

With the beginning of the revolutionary events of 1917, the Cossacks did not remain far from politics. Many of the division's employees supported the Socialist Revolutionary Party, or, as they were also called, the Socialist Revolutionaries. Some Cossacks, such as Sotnikov, even joined this party. Such popularity of the Socialist Revolutionaries is explained by their more moderate program compared to the Bolsheviks. Having large plots of land, the Cossacks often did not cultivate it themselves, but leased it. The peasants had long coveted these plots. The Cossacks in the Yenisei province were small in number (about 14 thousand people) and did not have their own military organization. Therefore, in order to protect their property, the Cossacks began to self-organize.

On May 25, 1917, at the First Congress of Yenisei Cossacks, a decision was made to create the Yenisei Cossack Host. The congress was chaired by Alexander Sotnikov. By that time, his career had taken off: he became a member of the Yenisei Provincial Executive Committee, was elected Chairman of the Krasnoyarsk Garrison Council, and by order of the commander of the Irkutsk Military District, was appointed commander of the Cossack division. In October 1917, Sotnikov was elected ataman of the Yenisei Cossack Host. In just six months, a simple ensign had become a significant political figure in the province.


Krasnoyarsk Cossack Hundred. 1916.

Sotnikov was given special weight by the Cossack division, the only unit of the Krasnoyarsk garrison that retained combat capability. Other military units, under the influence of revolutionary propaganda and the liberal policies of the Provisional Government, were more like gatherings of armed men, difficult for their commanders to control. An attempt to improve discipline in military units by transferring 15 front-line soldiers – Knights of St. George – to Krasnoyarsk was unsuccessful. The leader of the Krasnoyarsk Socialist Revolutionaries, E.E. Kolosov, described the situation in the city as follows:

“Throughout the entire expanse of Siberia, the city of Krasnoyarsk stood out like a painful growth on a healthy body… the Krasnoyarsk Bolsheviks led the unstable crowd onto the path of anarchy and collapse.”

Of course, Kolosov, being a political opponent of the Bolsheviks, exaggerated and blamed Lenin's supporters for everything. Nevertheless, the situation was indeed difficult. Therefore, it was the Cossacks who remained faithful to their oath who were responsible for maintaining order in the Yenisei province. As an example, we can cite the situation in Achinsk, where in September 1917, a Cossack hundred was called in to protect the Jewish population from the illegal actions of soldiers subordinate to the Soviet.

The October Revolution further aggravated the situation around the division. The Bolsheviks, having taken power in Krasnoyarsk, were unable to bring the division under their control. The Cossacks, for the most part, reacted negatively to the Bolsheviks' seizure of power, but they were not prepared for armed struggle. Therefore, in the resolution of their meeting, the Cossacks wrote the following:

“We do not recognize Soviet power... But we declare that we will not take any active actions, and we also ask our fellow soldiers not to oppose us.”

This appeal failed to defuse the situation. The Bolsheviks intended to disarm and disband the division, and in case of resistance, to use force. The chairman of the soldiers' section of the Krasnoyarsk Soviet, Sergei Lazo, proposed:

“…The Cossacks will need to be given an ultimatum and no more than four hours to think about it… But if this does not happen, military action must be carried out quickly and energetically, beginning with shelling the barracks first with shrapnel, and then with howitzers.”


Sergei Lazo (1894-1920)

Two young officers, Sotnikov and Lazo, who stood on opposite sides of the barricades, had much in common. Both received a "technical education," but the war forced them to don a uniform and become officers; both joined the Socialist Revolutionary Party and supported the February Revolution, after which they "rose to the top." Nevertheless, politics made them enemies: Lazo became disillusioned with the Socialist Revolutionary Party and joined the more radical Bolsheviks.

On December 18, the Yenisei Provincial Executive Committee decided to demobilize the Cossacks and disband the military organization. On December 29, Red Guard units were called from Tomsk to Krasnoyarsk, and from January 1, the payment of salaries to Cossack officers was stopped. Having received an ultimatum from the Bolsheviks on January 17 to recognize the power of the Soviets and agree to the liquidation of the Cossacks, the small military circle decided not to recognize the Soviet power as not expressing the will of the entire people. In order to avoid an armed conflict, the circle decided to withdraw the division from Krasnoyarsk and propose that the executive committee not interfere in the life of the Cossacks and disband the Red Guard units. In response, the provincial executive committee declared Krasnoyarsk under siege.

Having left the city and crossed to the right bank of the Yenisei, the division settled in the village of Torgashino. By that time, only a third of the personnel remained in the unit, and the rest, having abandoned service, went home. Sotnikov had 177 Cossacks, 67 officers and 44 high school and seminary students at his disposal. Soon, four hundred more young people arrived from Krasnoyarsk, ready to oppose the Soviet power. Most of them had to return home soon, since the division did not have enough weapons and ammunition.


Village of Bazaikha, Krasnoyarsk District. 1903.

Many servicemen, despite their dissatisfaction with the new government, did not dare to oppose it. In this situation, the ataman decided to retreat to the Minusinsk district, hoping to find support among the Cossacks living in the south of the province. It was mainly young Cossacks and officers who went on the campaign: 120 Cossacks and 25 officers.

Having received news of the Cossacks' uprising, the Minusinsk Soviet declared martial law in the city. At that time, there were only 80-100 Red Guards in the city. In order to gain time, the Bolsheviks entered into negotiations with the Cossacks. The negotiations, of course, were unsuccessful, but reinforcements arrived in Minusinsk. Now the city's garrison numbered 900-1000 Red Guards with guns and machine guns delivered from Krasnoyarsk.

On March 7, 1918, the VRK (military revolutionary committee) was created in Minusinsk, headed by Kuzma Yegorovich Tregubenkov. He was tasked with suppressing the rebellion. Red Guard detachments advanced to the Cossack villages and demanded that the servicemen surrender their weapons and arrest the officers. Otherwise, the Reds threatened to wipe off the face of the earth the villages "supporting the rebellion of the counter-revolutionary Sotnikov and his officers' gang." The Cossacks, previously unprepared for open armed struggle, now, in the face of a numerically superior enemy, backed down and turned away from their ataman. Aleksandr Sotnikov, betrayed by his comrades, was forced to flee Tashtyp into the taiga with two officers on March 18.

On March 22, 1918, at a meeting of the Provincial Council, G.S. Weinbaum reported on the liquidation of the mutiny. In total, the Soviet authorities arrested about 300 "mutineers", and several more officers shot themselves. Cossack villages were forced to pay a contribution.

Studying history "Sotnikovsky rebellion", we must give credit to the Bolsheviks. Although initially weak in military terms, they managed to quickly gather the necessary forces and show the enemy their firmness and determination. But still, the main reason for the defeat lies elsewhere - in the unpreparedness of the Cossacks for armed struggle. Historian Alexander Sheksheev wrote about this:

"The Cossacks themselves were not prepared for the Civil War. The so-called rebellion was not only a consequence of the struggle of political parties and an integral part of an attempt at a general anti-Soviet action, but also a response from people humiliated by the authorities."


Sheksheev Alexander Petrovich

How did the further fate of the first ataman of the Yenisei Cossack army develop? Making his way through the taiga, he reached Barnaul, and from there went to Tomsk. At that time, the rebellion of the Czechoslovak Corps began, and power in Siberia began to pass to the Whites. By order of the Tomsk garrison, Sotnikov was instructed to form a hussar division. Then he was sent to Krasnoyarsk to mobilize the Yenisei Cossacks.

Having completed the task, Alexander Alexandrovich asked the Cossacks to resign from their powers as the military ataman. Colonel Kargapolov headed the army instead. At the same time, Sotnikov remained popular among the Cossacks. This is evidenced by the fact that at the IV Congress of the Yenisei Cossacks, Alexander Sotnikov was elected as a field ataman and one of the candidates for membership in the Constituent Assembly. The Cossacks petitioned the command of the Siberian Army for Sotnikov's return, but despite this, he no longer performed the functions of ataman.

Alexander Sotnikov went to the front, where he commanded a cavalry division, and then the 1st Tomsk Hussar Regiment. However, he did not stay there for long. After Admiral Kolchak came to power, Sotnikov left military service. He also gave up politics, breaking with the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The young man returned to his calling – science.

In the summer of 1919, at the height of the civil war, Sotnikov went on an expedition to the Norilsk Mountains. Sotnikov's detachment included the young geologist Nikolai Nikolaevich Urvantsev and several "political" supporters of the Soviet government, whom the former ataman had taken on bail and rescued from the Krasnoyarsk prison, where they were held as hostages.


Urvantsev Nikolay Nikolaevich

Returning to Tomsk in the autumn of 1919, Sotnikov, together with another member of the expedition, Kotelnikov, was summoned to Irkutsk to report. While they were getting to the city, the Bolsheviks came to power in Irkutsk. The report on the results of the expedition was highly appreciated by the Council of the National Economy, and it was decided to send the scientists to Moscow. This story was close to a "happy ending", but at the last moment everything turned out differently. Sotnikov and Kotelnikov were arrested by the Irkutsk Cheka. Four months later, the arrested men were transferred to the Krasnoyarsk Provincial Cheka, where Sotnikov was charged with "counter-revolutionary activity", which he carried out while being an ataman.

The Red partisan N.A. Ivanov spoke in support of the arrested man, testifying that his brother, a Red Guardsman who was in prison, was saved by Sotnikov, who included him in the expedition. However, these efforts were in vain; on May 11, 1920, Sotnikov's case was transferred to the board of the Krasnoyarsk Provincial Cheka.

The indictment accused Alexander Sotnikov of not only disobeying the Soviet government's order to disarm the Cossack division, but also of being a member of a secret organization that fought the Tomsk Bolsheviks in 1919. The charge was simply delusional. After all, at that time, the Whites were in power in Tomsk, and it was the Reds, not the counterrevolutionaries, who were engaged in underground activity. On May 23, the board of the provincial Cheka decided to shoot Sotnikov and confiscate his property.

The date of the execution of the sentence is unknown. Apparently, on July 19, 1920, Alexander Sotnikov was still alive. On that day, K.A. Sotnikov, head of the judicial and investigative subdepartment of the justice department of the Yenisei provincial revolutionary committee, wrote a letter in which he drew the attention of the security officers to the possibility of involving his brother as a valuable specialist in the geological expedition being prepared. Unfortunately, neither his scientific merits nor the intercession of his brother, who occupied a leadership position, could stop the punitive machine.

As for another scientist, Kotelnikov, his case was transferred from the provincial Cheka to the special department of the 5th Army, where he not only avoided execution, but was also taken into service as a military hydrographer for the Red Army Navy.

Alexander Sotnikov could also have served his country in the scientific field, if his life had not been cut short at the age of 29. A member of Sotnikov's expedition, N. N. Urvantsev, continued his work and in 1921 found the richest deposit of copper-nickel ores, for the development of which the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Plant was built.


The first house of Norilsk

The glory of the discoverer of the deposit went to Urvantsev, and Sotnikov, who was the first to begin research in that area, was forgotten. This is quite natural, because it was not safe to write anything positive about the rebellious ataman. In his memoirs, Nikolai Nikolaevich Urvantsev, describing the first expedition, called Sotnikov not an organizer, but a simple topographer. Well, it is understandable, because Urvantsev himself was arrested in 1938 under the infamous Article 58 and served his sentence in Norillag at the deposit that he himself had once discovered.


Monument to N.N. Urvantsev in Norilsk

Historian Alexander Petrovich Sheksheev wrote in one of his works dedicated to A. A. Sotnikov:

"The rehabilitation that came to Sotnikov in the 1990s was a belated and modest act of the country's law enforcement system. Only a narrow circle of interested people knows about it. The silence has already been broken, but the name of the Cossack ataman and polar explorer Alexander Sotnikov should become widely known to the public..."

Novoselov, M.Yu. He was the first Yenisei ataman / M.Yu. Novoselov // Krasnoyarsk newspaper. - 2019. - No. 35-36 (2614). - P.4.
34 comments
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  1. +7
    28 January 2025 04: 32
    What a simple and tragic story.
    Thanks to the author.
  2. +8
    28 January 2025 06: 38
    Sotnikov and Kotelnikov were arrested by Irkutsk security officers.

    In 1920, while preparing for another expedition, Sotnikov was identified in Irkutsk by a former White officer, Colonel Sulakvinidze, and handed over to the Cheka.
    1. 0
      30 January 2025 06: 07
      Well, yes, they gave up their own ((((
  3. +1
    28 January 2025 07: 04
    While they were getting to the city, the Bolsheviks came to power in Irkutsk
    My great-grandmother told me that drunk miners from neighboring Cheremkhovo came to Irkutsk and seized power... wink
    1. PC
      +5
      28 January 2025 09: 34
      My great-grandmother said that the revolution was made by idlers and alcoholics, everyone who worked lived well. Of course, this was her subjective opinion.
      1. +2
        28 January 2025 10: 39
        p-k, my grandfathers said the same thing, that the revolution was made by lazy people. By the way, when they were exiled to Magnitka, they didn't disappear there either, because they were hardworking people and knew how to work.
        1. PC
          +2
          28 January 2025 14: 58
          Andrey, about handy and hardworking grandfathers. Even in my distant youth I heard this legend: so-called "kulaks" were exiled to an empty place in Krasnoyarsk Krai from somewhere beyond the Urals and happily forgotten about. In a very short time they built a village, plowed the fields, got some livestock somewhere. A few years later their flourishing village was discovered by the Poor Peasants' Committee members. Everything they had acquired was taken away from them, and they were exiled again, but not so far away. And forgotten again. Before the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, they found a flourishing village again. They spat, left everything as it was. The only thing was that they called this village a collective farm. Perhaps this is a tale about those times, but the hardworking and handy, as a rule, did not disappear.
  4. Fat
    +2
    28 January 2025 07: 24
    In the conditions of civil war, an authoritative organizer represented a potential threat.... IMHO, the provincial Cheka sentenced Sotnikov based on considerations of "revolutionary expediency", and not for an invented "crime".
    The rehabilitation of Alexander Sotnikov in the 90s does not look like a consequence of "liberalism on the rampage". A belated act of justice.
    1. +3
      28 January 2025 08: 48
      In the context of civil war, an authoritative organizer posed a potential threat....
      ..For example, in Vladivostok in 1920, former white officers organized the overthrow of Soviet power, organized a government headed by the industrialists Merkulovs.. And so what scientists, the bloody secret service of Kolchak and Sotnikov destroyed..
      1. +3
        28 January 2025 20: 39
        Quote: kor1vet1974
        And what scientists, the bloody secret service destroyed Kolchak and Sotnikov...

        Kolchak is elbow-deep in blood. The end is just.
    2. -1
      30 January 2025 06: 14
      By the summer of 1920, the White movement was losing the war, so the question of survival was not an issue. The execution of Sotnikov was most likely the revenge of the Krasnoyarsk Bolsheviks.
  5. 0
    28 January 2025 08: 43
    Having large plots of land, the Cossacks often did not cultivate it themselves, but leased it out. Peasants had long coveted these plots.
    What treacherous peasants and, mind you, greedy ones, they wanted to take the land from its owners who did not work it.
    1. +1
      28 January 2025 11: 48
      And how did things go for these peasants under Soviet rule? Did they manage to work a lot before dispossession?
      1. +2
        28 January 2025 11: 53
        And how did things go for these peasants under Soviet rule? Did they manage to work a lot before dispossession?
        Tell me, it would be interesting to know..
        1. -1
          29 January 2025 08: 41
          "The newspaper "Krasnoyarsk Worker" reported on March 30, 1922 that during the period of the revolution and the civil war in the Yenisei province, including the Kansk district, the sown area was reduced by almost half, livestock farming fell by more than a quarter, sheep farming by a third, and pig farming by two and a half times."
          On March 10, 1930, 62,7% of farms in Kansk district were collectivized. But soon collectivization petered out, 58,8% of farms left the collective farms again, and only 3% of farms remained in them.
          The newspaper "Krasnoyarsk Worker" reported in August 1930: "Already at the first stage of collectivization, in 1930, in the Yenisei province the number of horses decreased by 28%, cattle by 3%. The seed fund was prepared at only 26%"
          1. +3
            29 January 2025 11: 56
            The newspaper “Krasnoyarsk Worker” reported in August 1930: “Already at the first stage of collectivization, in 1930, in the Yenisei province the livestock...

            In 1930, the Yenisei province had not existed in nature for 5 years.
    2. +2
      28 January 2025 11: 49
      Quote: kor1vet1974
      What treacherous peasants and, mind you, greedy ones, they wanted to take the land away from its owners

      And who prevented them from working on THEIR land? Lands in ...Krasnoyarsk was the edge not enough? belay Did someone force them to work on Cossack lands? Everyone was happy with everything. But it's always easier to take away than to sweat and uproot and develop it yourself.
      1. -1
        28 January 2025 11: 52
        And who stopped them from working on THEIR land?
        If they had it, they probably wouldn't be tenants...
        1. +1
          28 January 2025 11: 53
          I repeat: Was there not enough land in ...Krasnoyarsk Krai? belay Someone forced them to work on Cossack lands? Everyone was happy with everything. But it's always easier to take away, than to sweat and uproot and master it yourself. .
          1. -3
            28 January 2025 11: 54
            I repeat, if there was land, we wouldn’t rent it.
            1. +1
              28 January 2025 14: 53
              I repeat - even today there is a sea of ​​land there, and more than a hundred years ago - even more so... Work as much as you want.

              And they rented it because it was beneficial to everyone.
              1. -2
                28 January 2025 14: 54
                And they rented it because it was beneficial to everyone.
                The tenants were probably swimming in gold if they set their sights on the owner's land.
                1. +3
                  28 January 2025 15: 01
                  Freebies are always more attractive than the work of clearing and developing the land
                  1. -1
                    28 January 2025 15: 08
                    Freebies are always more attractive than the work of clearing and developing the land
                    Wow, you've gone too far.
                    1. +2
                      28 January 2025 18: 27
                      Freebies are always more attractive than the work of clearing and developing the land

                      Freebies, in my opinion, mean that the tenants simply didn’t have a horse to clear a sufficient area.
                      1. -1
                        29 January 2025 12: 45
                        Quote: Quzmi4
                        there was no horse to clear a sufficient area.

                        And was it for plowing? By the way, stumps can also be burned, but whether such technology was practiced back then, I don’t know.
                    2. -1
                      30 January 2025 06: 26
                      Isn't it? It's always easier to "take and divide".
                  2. 0
                    29 January 2025 06: 03
                    So do you have any information that these hard-working Cossacks personally uprooted it?
      2. 0
        30 January 2025 06: 25
        In the 17th century, it was not safe to move here. Therefore, it is fair that the old-timers, which included the Cossacks, owned the best lands. Those who came earlier had a choice. Stolypin's settlers got worse lands. It was necessary to develop the plots: cut down the forest, uproot. Therefore, someone went to work as farm laborers or rented the land. Well, and then there was just envy and a desire to "take away and divide."
    3. -1
      30 January 2025 06: 18
      So you inherited an apartment from your grandmother and decided to rent it out. After some time, your tenants decided that since they were living in it, they should own the apartment....
  6. PC
    +1
    28 January 2025 09: 28
    Simply wonderful! Mikhail, please write more about the history of Krasnoyarsk and the region!
    1. 0
      30 January 2025 06: 27
      Thank you, nice )))))
  7. +1
    28 January 2025 11: 39
    Sotnikov charged with "counter-revolutionary activity"
    standard charge under Article 58 for millions of fellow citizens over the course of 40 years.
    So, alas, if he had survived in 1920, he would inevitably have ended up in 1928,35,37, XNUMX, XNUMX.

    Like the aforementioned scientist Urvantsev, he was arrested in 1938 and sentenced to 15 years in a correctional camp under Article 58, paragraphs 7 and 11 (sabotage and participation in a counter-revolutionary organization). In February 1940, the sentence was overturned due to the absence of corpus delicti, but in August N. N. Urvantsev was arrested again and sentenced to 8 years. Urvantsev had to serve his sentence in Karlag and Norillag.

    How many the country has lost...

    Thanks to the author again
    1. +3
      29 January 2025 12: 49
      Are you absolutely sure that he was innocent?