Moscow Chrysostom. Fedor Nikiforovich Plevako
Fedor Nikiforovich Plevako was born 25 on April 1842 in the city of Troitsk. His father, Vasily Ivanovich Plevak, was a member of the Trinity Customs, a court counselor from the Ukrainian nobility. He had four children, two of whom died as babies. Vasily Ivanovich was not in a church (that is, official) marriage with Fedor’s mother, Yekaterina Stepanova, a serf of the Kyrgyz, and therefore the future “genius of the word” and his elder brother Dormidont were illegitimate children. According to tradition, Fyodor took his first surname and patronymic name according to the godfather's name, Nikifor.
From 1848 to 1851, Fyodor studied at the Trinity parish and then the county school, and in the summer of 1851, due to his father’s retirement, their family moved to Moscow. In the autumn of the same year, a nine-year-old boy was identified at a commercial school located on Ostozhenka, which was considered exemplary at the time. The school often honored with its visit even those of the royal family who loved to test students' knowledge. Fedor and his brother Dormidont practiced diligently and were round honors pupils, and by the end of their first year of study they were brought to the “golden board”. When at the beginning of the second year of training for boys, the school was visited by the nephew of Emperor Nicholas, Prince Peter of Oldenburg, he was told about the unique abilities of Fyodor to perform different arithmetic operations in his four-digit mind. The prince himself tested the boy and, convinced of his skills, presented a box of chocolates. And at the very end of 1852, Vasily Ivanovich was announced that his sons were expelled from the school as illegitimate. Fedor Nikiforovich well remembered humiliation for life, and many years later wrote in his autobiography: “We were called unworthy of the school that praised us for success and paraded our exceptional abilities in mathematics. God, forgive them! These narrow-minded people really didn’t know what they were doing when performing human sacrifice. ”
Only in the autumn of 1853, thanks to the long hassle of his father, his sons were accepted into the third class of the First Moscow Gymnasium, located on Prechistenka. He graduated from the gymnasium Fedor in the spring of 1859 and, as a volunteer, entered the law school of the Moscow University, replacing his last name Nikiforov with the last name of his father Plevak. During the years spent at the university, Fyodor buried his father and elder brother, while his sick sister and mother remained dependent on him. Fortunately, the study was given to a talented young man easily, as a student, he worked as a tutor and translator, visited Germany, having attended a course of lectures at the famous University of Heidelberg, and also translated the works of the famous lawyer George Puchta into Russian. Fyodor Nikiforovich University graduated from 1864, having a diploma of a candidate of rights in his hands, and again changed his last name, adding the letter “o” to it at the end, and with an accent on it.
With the calling of a lawyer, the young man decided not immediately - for several years, Fyodor Nikiforovich, waiting for a suitable job, worked as an intern at the Moscow District Court. And after the spring of 1866 in connection with the beginning of the judicial reform of Alexander II in Russia began to create a jury bar, Plevako signed up as an assistant to a sworn attorney, one of the first Moscow lawyers Mikhail Dobrokhotov. It is precisely in the rank of assistant Fedor Nikiforovich who first proved himself to be a skillful lawyer, and in September 1870 was accepted as a member of the district attorney. One of the first criminal proceedings with his participation was the protection of a certain Alexei Maruev, accused of two frauds. Despite the fact that Plevako lost the case, and his client was sent to Siberia, the young man’s speech was well demonstrated by his remarkable talents. About the witnesses in the case, Plevako said: “The first ascribes to the second what the second ascribes, in turn, to the first ... So they destroy themselves mutually in the most important matters! And what faith to them can be? ” The second case brought Fyodor Nikiforovich the first fee of two hundred rubles, and he woke up to the famous after the seemingly losing case of Kostrubo-Karitsky, who was accused of trying to poison his mistress. The lady was defended by the two best Russian lawyers of the time, Spasovich and Urusov, but the jury acquitted Plevaco's client.
From that moment began the brilliant ascent of Fyodor Nikiforovich to the top of advocate fame. He contrasted sharply with his opponents in court proceedings with a calm tone, reasonable objections and a detailed analysis of the evidence. All those present at his speeches unanimously noted that Plevaco was an orator from God. People came from other cities to hear his speech in court. The newspapers wrote that when Fyodor Nikiforovich finished his speech, the audience wept, and the judges no longer understood who they were to judge. Fyodor Nikiforovich’s many speeches became anecdotes and parables, went into quotations (for example, Plevaco’s favorite phrase, which he usually began his speech: “Gentlemen, but it could have been worse”) were included in textbooks for law students and, of course, are the heritage of the literary heritage of the country. It is curious that, in contrast to other luminaries of the sworn advocate of that time - Urusov, Andreyevsky, Karabchevsky - Fyodor Nikiforovich was poor in external data. Anatoly Koni described it as follows: “Angular, high-cheeked Kalmyk face. Widely spaced eyes, disobedient strands of long dark hair. His appearance could have been called ugly, if it had not been for inner beauty, shining through in a kind smile, now in animated expression, then in the brilliance and fire of the speaking eye. His movements were uneven and sometimes awkward, the lawyer dress coat sat awkwardly on him, and the whispering voice came, it seemed, in defiance of his vocation of the speaker. However, in the voice of this, notes of such passion and power sounded that he captured the audience and conquered them to himself. ” Writer Vincent Veresaev recalled: “His main strength was in intonation, in the irrepressible, directly magical infectiousness of the feelings with which he could ignite listeners. Therefore, his speeches on paper and not closely convey their amazing power. " According to the authoritative opinion of Koni Fedor Nikiforovich, he flawlessly mastered the threefold vocation of the defense: "to appease, convince, and move." It is also interesting that Plevaco never wrote the texts of his speeches, but at the request of his close friends or newspaper reporters, after the trial, if he was not lazy, he recorded his spoken speech. By the way, Plevako was the first in Moscow to start using a typewriter from the Remington Company.
The power of Plevako as an orator was not only emotional, resourcefulness, and psychologism, but also the colorful words. Fyodor Nikiforovich was a master of antitheses (for example, his phrase about Jewish and Russian: “Our dream is to eat five times a day and not to overburden, and his - once every five days and not lean”, for picture comparisons (censorship, by according to Plevako: “These are forceps, removing carbon from a candle, not quenching its light and fire”), to effective appeals (to the jury: “Open your arms - I give him (the client) to you!”, to the murdered: “Comrade, sleeping peacefully in the coffin! ”). In addition, Fyodor Nikiforovich was an unsurpassed specialist in cascades of loud phrases, beautiful images and witty antics that came to him unexpectedly and saved his clients. About how unpredictable were the findings of Plevako can be clearly seen from a couple of his speeches, which became legends - in the course of protecting the bewitched priest, detached for it from the dignity, and the old woman who stole the tin kettle. In the first case, the fault of the priest in the theft of church money was firmly proven. The defendant himself admitted to her. All the witnesses were against him, and the prosecutor gave a murderous speech. Plevako, having kept silent all the judicial investigation and without asking a single question to the witnesses, concluded with his friend a bet that his defensive speech would last exactly one minute, after which the priest would be acquitted. When his time came, Fyodor Nikiforovich, standing up and turning to the jury, said in a characteristic intimate voice: “Gentlemen of the jury, my defendant has forgiven you your sins for more than twenty years. Release them and you will give him one time, people are Russian. ” The priest was acquitted. In the case of the old woman and the teapot, the prosecutor, wishing in advance to reduce the effect of the defense attorney’s speech, himself uttered everything possible in favor of the old woman (poor, sorry grandmother, theft is trivial), but in the end he emphasized that property is sacred and inviolable, because Russia's accomplishment is being kept. ” Fedor Nikiforovich, who spoke after him, remarked: “Our country had to endure many trials and troubles during its thousand-year existence. And the Tatars tormented her, and the Polovtsy, and the Poles, and the Pechenegs. Two-tongues collapsed on it and captured Moscow. Overcame everything, Russia endured everything, only grew and strengthened from tests. But now ..., now an old woman has stolen a tin kettle at the price of thirty kopecks. This country, of course, will not be able to endure and will perish from this. ” It makes no sense to say that the old woman was also acquitted.
For each of Plevako's victories in court, there was not only natural giftedness, but also thorough preparation, a comprehensive analysis of the evidence of the prosecution, a thorough investigation of the circumstances of the case, as well as the testimony of witnesses and defendants. Often, criminal trials involving Fyodor Nikiforovich acquired a nationwide resonance. One of them was the “Mitrofan process” - the trial of the hegumen of the Serpukhov Monastery, which aroused interest even abroad. Mitrofania - she is in the world of Baroness Praskovya Rosen - was the daughter of the hero of the Patriotic War, Adjutant General Grigory Rosen. Being the maid of honor of the royal court in 1854, she took the veil and ruled in Serpukhov Monastery from 1861. Over the next ten years, the abbess, relying on the proximity to the court and her connections, stole by means of forgery and fraud over seven hundred thousand rubles. Anatoly Koni, who was at that time a prosecutor of the Petersburg district court, began the investigation of this case in St. Petersburg, and the Moscow district court tried it in October 1874. Plevako flashed in the unfamiliar role of the attorney of the victims, becoming the chief prosecutor of the trial, both the abbess and her henchmen. Having refuted the defense arguments, confirming the conclusions of the investigation, he said: “The traveler walking past the high walls of the monastery of the monastery baptizes and believes that he is walking past God's house, but in the house this morning bells raised the prioress not for prayers, but for dark things! Instead of praying people, swindlers are there, instead of deeds of goodness - preparation for false testimony, instead of a temple - an exchange, instead of a prayer - an exercise on drawing up bills, that's what lurked behind the walls ... Above, above, build a fence to the community entrusted to you, so that the world would not see things under the cover of a cloister and a cassock! ”Abbess Mitrofaniya was found guilty of fraud and went into exile in Siberia.
Perhaps the biggest public outcry of all the processes involving Fyodor Nikiforovich was caused by the case of Savva Mamontov in July 1900. Savva Ivanovich was an industrial magnate, the main shareholder of the railway companies, one of the most famous in stories Russian patrons of art. His estate "Abramtsevo" in 1870-1890's was an important center of artistic life. Ilya Repin, Vasily Polenov, Vasily Surikov, Valentin Serov, Victor Vasnetsov, Konstantin Stanislavsky worked and met here. In 1885, Mammoths founded their own Russian opera in Moscow, where Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel, Vladimir Lossky, Fyodor Shalyapin shone. In the fall of 1899, the Russian public was shocked news about the arrest of Mamontov, his brother and two sons on charges of embezzling and embezzling six million rubles from funds allocated for the construction of the Moscow-Yaroslavl-Arkhangelsk railway.
The trial was conducted by the chairman of the Moscow District Court, a respected lawyer Davydov. The prosecutor was a well-known statesman Pavel Kurlov, the future head of the Separate corps of gendarmes. Plevaco was invited to defend Savva Mamontov, and his relatives were defended by three other leading figures of the Russian legal profession: Karabchevsky, Shubinsky and Maklakov. The central event of the process was Fedor Nikiforovich’s defensive speech. With a quick look, he quickly established the weaknesses of the prosecution and told the jury how patriotic and grandiose was his client’s plan to build a railway to Vyatka with the aim of “reviving the North”, and how, due to the unsuccessful choice of executors, the generously financed operation turned into losses . Plevako said: “Judge what was there? Crime or calculation error? Intention to harm the Yaroslavl road or a desire to save its interests? Woe to the vanquished! However, let this nasty phrase repeat the heathen. And we say: "Mercy unhappy!". The court acknowledged the embezzlement, but all the defendants were acquitted.
Fedor Nikiforovich himself explained the secrets of his success as an advocate quite simply. The first of these, he called a sense of responsibility to his client. Plevako said: “There is a huge difference between the position of the defense counsel and the prosecutor. Behind the prosecutor stands a cold, silent and unshakable law, and real people are behind the defender. Relying on us, they will climb on the shoulders and it is terrible to stumble with such a burden! ” The second secret of Fyodor Nikiforovich was a tremendous ability to influence jurors. He explained this to Surikov: “Vasily Ivanovich, because when you write portraits, you try to look into the soul of the person posing for you. So I try to penetrate into the soul of every juror and utter my speech so that it reaches their consciousness. ”
Was the lawyer always sure of the innocence of the defendants? Of course no. In the 1890 year, delivering a defensive speech in the case of Alexandra Maksimenko, who was accused of poisoning her husband, Plevaco said bluntly: “If you ask me if I am convinced of her innocence, I will not say yes.” I do not want to cheat. But I am not convinced of her guilt. And when it is necessary to choose between death and life, then all doubts should be resolved in favor of life. ” However, Fedor Nikiforovich tried to avoid the cases of obviously wrong. For example, he refused to defend in court the famous con artist Sofia Bluestein, better known as “Sonya - the golden pen”.
Plevako became the only leading figure of the national legal profession, who had never acted as a defender at the strictly political processes, where the Social Democrats, the People's Volunteers, the Narodniks, the Cadets, the Social Revolutionaries were tried. This was largely due to the fact that even in 1872, his career and, perhaps, the life of a lawyer almost ended because of his alleged political unreliability. The case began with the fact that in December 1872, Lieutenant-General Slezkin - the head of the Moscow provincial gendarme department - reported to the head of the third division that a certain “secret law society” had been discovered in the city, which was formed to “acquaint students with revolutionary ideas”, as well as “ have regular contacts with foreign leaders and find ways to distribute prohibited books. ” According to the information obtained by the agents, law students, candidates of rights, and in addition, attorneys with their assistants entered the society. The chief of the Moscow gendarmerie reported: "The designated company currently has full members before 150 ... Among the first are the sworn attorney Fedor Plevako, replacing Prince Urusov (expelled from Moscow to the Latvian town of Venden and kept there under police supervision)." Seven months later, in July, 1873, the same Slezkin, wrote to the authorities that "all persons are subject to the strictest observation, and all possible measures are taken to find data that serves as a guarantee about the actions of this law firm." In the end, the data, "able to serve as a guarantee," did not find, and the case of "secret society" was closed. However, from this very time, and up to the year 1905, Plevaco stubbornly avoided politics.
Only a few times Fyodor Nikiforovich agreed to speak at the trials of "unrest", having a political connotation. One of the first such trials was the Luthorichskoye affair, which made a lot of noise, in which Plevaco stood up for peasant rebels. In the spring of 1879, the peasants of the village of Lutorichi, located in the Tula province, revolted against their landlord. The troops suppressed the insurgency, and its “instigators” of thirty-four people were brought to trial with the charge of “resistance to the authorities”. The Moscow Court of Justice considered the case at the end of 1880, and Plevako took over not only the defense of the accused, but also all the costs of maintaining them during the process, which lasted, by the way, for three weeks. His defensive speech was in fact an accusation of the regime that dominated the country. Calling the position of the peasants after the reforms of 1861 of the year "half-starved freedom", Fyodor Nikiforovich proved with facts and figures that it became several times harder to live in pre-reform slavery in the Lutorichi. The enormous extortions from the peasants so outraged him that he told the landowner and his manager: "I am ashamed of the time in which such people live and act!" Regarding the charges against his clients, Plevako said: “Indeed, they are the instigators, they are the instigators, they are the cause of all causes. Lawlessness, hopeless poverty, shameless exploitation, which brought to the ruin of all and everything - here they are the instigators. " After the speech of the lawyer, according to eyewitness accounts, “applause of shocked and agitated listeners was heard in the courtroom.” Thirty of the thirty-four defendants were forced to acquit the court, while Anatoly Kony said that Plevaco’s speech was “in the mood and conditions of those years a civil feat”.
Fedor Nikiforovich equally loudly and boldly spoke at the trial of the participants in the strike of the workers of the Nikolskaya manufactory owned by the manufacturers Morozov and located near the village of Orekhovo (now the city of Orekhovo-Zuevo). This strike, which took place in January 1885, became the largest and most organized in Russia by that time - more than eight thousand people took part in it. The strike was only partly political in nature — it was headed by the workers-revolutionaries Moiseenko and Volkov, and among other demands the strikers presented to the governor were “a complete change of employment contracts in accordance with the published state law”. The defense of the main defendants - Volkov and Moiseenko - was taken over by Plevako. As in the Luthorich case, Fedor Nikiforovich justified the defendants, considering their actions as a forced protest against the arbitrariness of the owners of the manufactory. He stressed: “Contrary to the terms of the contract and the general law, the factory administration does not heat the establishment, and the workers are at their machines at ten to fifteen degrees of cold. Are they entitled to refuse to work and quit if there are unlawful acts of the owner, or are they forced to freeze with a heroic death? Their owner also calculates according to arbitrariness, and not according to the condition established by the agreement. Should workers tolerate and remain silent or may refuse to work in this case? I believe that the law should protect the interests of the owners against the lawlessness of the workers, and not take the masters under their protection in all their arbitrariness. ” Outlining the position of the workers of the Nikolskaya manufactory, Plevako, according to eyewitness recollections, said the following words: “If, reading a book about black slaves, we are outraged, but now we have white slaves”. The court was convinced by the arguments of the defense. The recognized leaders of the strike, Volkov and Moiseenko, received only three months of arrest.
Often in court speeches Plevako addressed pressing social issues. At the end of 1897, when the Metropolitan Court of Justice dealt with the case of Konshin factory workers in the city of Serpukhov, rebelled against the ruthless working conditions and smashed the apartments of the factory bosses, Plevako raised and clarified the legal and personal responsibility for any offense. He said: “A lawless and intolerable act was committed, and the mover was the culprit. But it is not the crowd that is judged, but several dozens of people seen in it: the crowd has left ... The crowd is a building in which people are bricks. Of the bricks alone, the prison is built - the home of the outcast, and the temple to God. Being in a crowd does not mean wearing her instincts. In the crowd of pilgrims hiding and pickpockets. The crowd infects. Persons included in it are infected. To beat them is the same as destroying an epidemic by castigating the sick. ”
It is curious that, unlike his colleagues, who tried to turn the trial into a lesson in political literacy or a school of political education, Fyodor Nikiforovich always tried to sidestep the political aspects, and in his defense, as a rule, there were common human notes. Turning to the privileged classes, Plevako appealed to their feelings of philanthropy, urging them to extend a helping hand to the poor. The worldview of Fyodor Nikiforovich could be described as humanistic, he repeatedly stressed that "the life of a single person is more precious than any reforms." And he added: “Everyone is equal before the court, even if you are Generalissimo!”. It is curious that at the same time, Plevako found a sense of mercy natural and necessary for justice: “The word of the law is like a mother’s threat to its children. As long as there is no guilt, she promises a cruel punishment to the recalcitrant son, but as soon as the need for punishment comes, motherly love seeks a reason to soften the penalty.
Almost forty years Fedor Nikiforovich gave human rights activities. Both the legal elite, specialists, and ordinary people valued Plevako above all other lawyers, calling them “a great orator,” “genius of the word,” “the metropolitan of the legal profession.” The very name of his turned into a nominal, meaning a top-class lawyer. Without any irony in those years, they wrote and said: “Find yourself another Plevak.” In recognition of the merits of Fyodor Nikiforovich, he was awarded the hereditary nobility, the title of state councilor (fourth class, according to the rank table corresponding to the rank of major general) and an audience with the emperor. Fedor Nikiforovich lived in a two-storey mansion on Novinsky Boulevard, and the whole country knew this address. His personality miraculously combined sweepingness and integrity, riotous nobility (for example, when Plevako organized homeic parties on the ships he chartered) and everyday simplicity. Despite the fact that fees and fame strengthened his financial situation, the money never had authority over a lawyer. A contemporary wrote: “Fyodor Nikiforovich did not hide his solvency and was not ashamed of wealth. He believed that the main thing is to act in a godly way and not refuse to help those who really need it. ” Plevako conducted many cases not only for free, but also helping financially to his poor defendants. In addition, Plevako from his youth and until his death was an indispensable member of various charitable institutions, for example, the Society for the Care, Education and Upbringing of Blind Children or the Committee for the organization of student dormitories. Nevertheless, kind to the poor, he literally beat out huge fees from merchants, while demanding advances. When asked what it was “an advance”, Plevaco replied: “You know the deposit? So the advance is the same deposit, but more than three times. ”
An interesting feature of the character of Plevako was his condescension towards his spiteful critics and envious persons. At the feast on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his lawyer’s career, Fyodor Nikiforovich kindly squeezed both with friends and invited famous enemies. To the surprise of his wife, Fyodor Nikiforovich, with his usual kindness, remarked: “Why should I judge them, perhaps?”. The cultural inquiries of a lawyer cause respect - he had a huge library for that time. Scorning fiction, Fedor Nikiforovich was fond of literature on the law, history and philosophy. Among his favorite authors were Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kuno Fischer and Georg Jellinek. A contemporary wrote: “Plevako had some kind of caring and tender attitude to books - both his and others'. He compared them with children. He was outraged by the look of a torn, polluted or disheveled book. He said that along with the existing “Society for the Protection of Children from Abuse”, it is necessary to organize the “Society for Protection of Books from Abuse”. Despite the fact that Plevako highly valued his folios, he freely gave them to his friends and acquaintances to read. In this way, he was strikingly different from the “book miser” of the philosopher Rozanov, who said: “The book is not a girl, she doesn’t need to walk hands”.
The famous speaker was not just well-read, from a young age he was distinguished by an extraordinary memory, watchfulness and sense of humor, which found expression in the cascades of puns, jokes, parodies and epigrams composed by him both in prose and in verse. For a long time Feuilleton Fyodor Nikiforovich was published in the newspaper “Moskovsky leaf” by the writer Nikolai Pastukhov, and in 1885 Plevaco organized an edition of his own newspaper in Moscow called “Life”, however this enterprise “had no success and stopped at the tenth month”. Wide was the circle of personal communications lawyer. He was well acquainted with Turgenev and Shchedrin, Vrubel, and Stanislavsky, Yermolova and Chaliapin, as well as many other recognized artists, writers and artists. According to the memoirs of Pavel Rossiev, often Leo Tolstoy sent the men to Plevako with the words: “Fedor, beat the poor”. The lawyer adored all sorts of spectacles from elite performances to folk festivals, but he was most pleased to visit two metropolitan “churches of art” - the Russian opera Mamontov and the Art Theater Nemirovich-Danchenko and Stanislavsky. Plevako also loved to travel and traveled all over Russia from the Urals to Warsaw, speaking at lawsuits in small and large cities of the country.
The first wife Plevako worked as a national teacher, and marriage with her was very unsuccessful. Soon after the birth of their son in 1877, they broke up. And in 1879, a certain Maria Demidova, the spouse of a well-known brute industrialist, turned to Plevako for legal assistance. A few months after meeting with a lawyer, she took five children and moved to Fyodor Nikiforovich on Novinsky Boulevard. All her children became relatives for Plevako, later they had three more born - a daughter, Barbara, and two sons. The divorce case of Maria Demidova against Vasily Demidov stretched out for a full twenty years, as the manufacturer flatly refused to let go of her ex-husband. With Maria Andreevna, Fedor Nikiforovich lived in harmony and harmony for the rest of his life. It is noteworthy that the son of Plevako from his first marriage and one of the sons from the second later became well-known lawyers and worked in Moscow. Even more noteworthy is that they were both called Sergey.
It is necessary to note one more feature of Fyodor Nikiforovich - his whole life the lawyer was a deeply religious person and even brought a scientific justification for his faith. Plevako regularly attended church, observed religious ceremonies, loved to baptize children of all ranks and classes, served as church leader in the Assumption Cathedral, and also tried to reconcile the "blasphemous" position of Leo Tolstoy with the provisions of the official church. In 1904, Fyodor Nikiforovich even met with the Pope and had a long conversation with him about the unity of God and the fact that Orthodox and Catholics are obliged to live in good agreement.
At the end of his life, namely in 1905, Fedor Nikiforovich addressed the topic of politics. The royal manifesto of October 17 inspired him with the illusion of the approach of civil liberties in Russia, and he rushed into power with youthful enthusiasm. First of all, Plevako asked a well-known political figure and lawyer Vasily Maklakov to include him in the lists of members of the Constitutional Democratic Party. However, he refused, reasonably noting that "party discipline and Plevako are incompatible concepts." Then Fedor Nikiforovich joined the ranks of the Octobrists. Subsequently, he was elected to the Third State Duma, in which, with the naivety of an amateur politician, he called on his colleagues to replace “the words about freedom with the words of free workers” (this speech in the Duma, held in 1907 in November, was his first and last). It is also known that Plevako thought through the project of transforming the royal title in order to emphasize that Nikolai is no longer an absolute Russian tsar, but a limited monarch. However, he did not dare to declare this from the Duma tribune.
Plevako died in Moscow on January 5 1909 from a heart attack in the sixty-seventh year of life. All of Russia responded to the death of the outstanding speaker, but Muscovites particularly grieved, many of whom believed that the capital of Russia had five main attractions: the Tretyakov Gallery, St. Basil’s Cathedral, Tsar Cannon, Tsar Bell and Fyodor Plevaco. The newspaper "Early Morning" put it very briefly and precisely: "Russia lost its Cicero." Fyodor Nikiforovich was buried at a colossal gathering of people of all fortunes and layers in the cemetery of the Sorrow Priory Monastery. However, in the thirties of the last century, the remains of Plevako were reburied at the Vagankovo cemetery.
According to the book N.A. Troitsky "Korifei Russian Advocacy" and the site pravo.ru.
From 1848 to 1851, Fyodor studied at the Trinity parish and then the county school, and in the summer of 1851, due to his father’s retirement, their family moved to Moscow. In the autumn of the same year, a nine-year-old boy was identified at a commercial school located on Ostozhenka, which was considered exemplary at the time. The school often honored with its visit even those of the royal family who loved to test students' knowledge. Fedor and his brother Dormidont practiced diligently and were round honors pupils, and by the end of their first year of study they were brought to the “golden board”. When at the beginning of the second year of training for boys, the school was visited by the nephew of Emperor Nicholas, Prince Peter of Oldenburg, he was told about the unique abilities of Fyodor to perform different arithmetic operations in his four-digit mind. The prince himself tested the boy and, convinced of his skills, presented a box of chocolates. And at the very end of 1852, Vasily Ivanovich was announced that his sons were expelled from the school as illegitimate. Fedor Nikiforovich well remembered humiliation for life, and many years later wrote in his autobiography: “We were called unworthy of the school that praised us for success and paraded our exceptional abilities in mathematics. God, forgive them! These narrow-minded people really didn’t know what they were doing when performing human sacrifice. ”
Only in the autumn of 1853, thanks to the long hassle of his father, his sons were accepted into the third class of the First Moscow Gymnasium, located on Prechistenka. He graduated from the gymnasium Fedor in the spring of 1859 and, as a volunteer, entered the law school of the Moscow University, replacing his last name Nikiforov with the last name of his father Plevak. During the years spent at the university, Fyodor buried his father and elder brother, while his sick sister and mother remained dependent on him. Fortunately, the study was given to a talented young man easily, as a student, he worked as a tutor and translator, visited Germany, having attended a course of lectures at the famous University of Heidelberg, and also translated the works of the famous lawyer George Puchta into Russian. Fyodor Nikiforovich University graduated from 1864, having a diploma of a candidate of rights in his hands, and again changed his last name, adding the letter “o” to it at the end, and with an accent on it.
With the calling of a lawyer, the young man decided not immediately - for several years, Fyodor Nikiforovich, waiting for a suitable job, worked as an intern at the Moscow District Court. And after the spring of 1866 in connection with the beginning of the judicial reform of Alexander II in Russia began to create a jury bar, Plevako signed up as an assistant to a sworn attorney, one of the first Moscow lawyers Mikhail Dobrokhotov. It is precisely in the rank of assistant Fedor Nikiforovich who first proved himself to be a skillful lawyer, and in September 1870 was accepted as a member of the district attorney. One of the first criminal proceedings with his participation was the protection of a certain Alexei Maruev, accused of two frauds. Despite the fact that Plevako lost the case, and his client was sent to Siberia, the young man’s speech was well demonstrated by his remarkable talents. About the witnesses in the case, Plevako said: “The first ascribes to the second what the second ascribes, in turn, to the first ... So they destroy themselves mutually in the most important matters! And what faith to them can be? ” The second case brought Fyodor Nikiforovich the first fee of two hundred rubles, and he woke up to the famous after the seemingly losing case of Kostrubo-Karitsky, who was accused of trying to poison his mistress. The lady was defended by the two best Russian lawyers of the time, Spasovich and Urusov, but the jury acquitted Plevaco's client.
From that moment began the brilliant ascent of Fyodor Nikiforovich to the top of advocate fame. He contrasted sharply with his opponents in court proceedings with a calm tone, reasonable objections and a detailed analysis of the evidence. All those present at his speeches unanimously noted that Plevaco was an orator from God. People came from other cities to hear his speech in court. The newspapers wrote that when Fyodor Nikiforovich finished his speech, the audience wept, and the judges no longer understood who they were to judge. Fyodor Nikiforovich’s many speeches became anecdotes and parables, went into quotations (for example, Plevaco’s favorite phrase, which he usually began his speech: “Gentlemen, but it could have been worse”) were included in textbooks for law students and, of course, are the heritage of the literary heritage of the country. It is curious that, in contrast to other luminaries of the sworn advocate of that time - Urusov, Andreyevsky, Karabchevsky - Fyodor Nikiforovich was poor in external data. Anatoly Koni described it as follows: “Angular, high-cheeked Kalmyk face. Widely spaced eyes, disobedient strands of long dark hair. His appearance could have been called ugly, if it had not been for inner beauty, shining through in a kind smile, now in animated expression, then in the brilliance and fire of the speaking eye. His movements were uneven and sometimes awkward, the lawyer dress coat sat awkwardly on him, and the whispering voice came, it seemed, in defiance of his vocation of the speaker. However, in the voice of this, notes of such passion and power sounded that he captured the audience and conquered them to himself. ” Writer Vincent Veresaev recalled: “His main strength was in intonation, in the irrepressible, directly magical infectiousness of the feelings with which he could ignite listeners. Therefore, his speeches on paper and not closely convey their amazing power. " According to the authoritative opinion of Koni Fedor Nikiforovich, he flawlessly mastered the threefold vocation of the defense: "to appease, convince, and move." It is also interesting that Plevaco never wrote the texts of his speeches, but at the request of his close friends or newspaper reporters, after the trial, if he was not lazy, he recorded his spoken speech. By the way, Plevako was the first in Moscow to start using a typewriter from the Remington Company.
The power of Plevako as an orator was not only emotional, resourcefulness, and psychologism, but also the colorful words. Fyodor Nikiforovich was a master of antitheses (for example, his phrase about Jewish and Russian: “Our dream is to eat five times a day and not to overburden, and his - once every five days and not lean”, for picture comparisons (censorship, by according to Plevako: “These are forceps, removing carbon from a candle, not quenching its light and fire”), to effective appeals (to the jury: “Open your arms - I give him (the client) to you!”, to the murdered: “Comrade, sleeping peacefully in the coffin! ”). In addition, Fyodor Nikiforovich was an unsurpassed specialist in cascades of loud phrases, beautiful images and witty antics that came to him unexpectedly and saved his clients. About how unpredictable were the findings of Plevako can be clearly seen from a couple of his speeches, which became legends - in the course of protecting the bewitched priest, detached for it from the dignity, and the old woman who stole the tin kettle. In the first case, the fault of the priest in the theft of church money was firmly proven. The defendant himself admitted to her. All the witnesses were against him, and the prosecutor gave a murderous speech. Plevako, having kept silent all the judicial investigation and without asking a single question to the witnesses, concluded with his friend a bet that his defensive speech would last exactly one minute, after which the priest would be acquitted. When his time came, Fyodor Nikiforovich, standing up and turning to the jury, said in a characteristic intimate voice: “Gentlemen of the jury, my defendant has forgiven you your sins for more than twenty years. Release them and you will give him one time, people are Russian. ” The priest was acquitted. In the case of the old woman and the teapot, the prosecutor, wishing in advance to reduce the effect of the defense attorney’s speech, himself uttered everything possible in favor of the old woman (poor, sorry grandmother, theft is trivial), but in the end he emphasized that property is sacred and inviolable, because Russia's accomplishment is being kept. ” Fedor Nikiforovich, who spoke after him, remarked: “Our country had to endure many trials and troubles during its thousand-year existence. And the Tatars tormented her, and the Polovtsy, and the Poles, and the Pechenegs. Two-tongues collapsed on it and captured Moscow. Overcame everything, Russia endured everything, only grew and strengthened from tests. But now ..., now an old woman has stolen a tin kettle at the price of thirty kopecks. This country, of course, will not be able to endure and will perish from this. ” It makes no sense to say that the old woman was also acquitted.
For each of Plevako's victories in court, there was not only natural giftedness, but also thorough preparation, a comprehensive analysis of the evidence of the prosecution, a thorough investigation of the circumstances of the case, as well as the testimony of witnesses and defendants. Often, criminal trials involving Fyodor Nikiforovich acquired a nationwide resonance. One of them was the “Mitrofan process” - the trial of the hegumen of the Serpukhov Monastery, which aroused interest even abroad. Mitrofania - she is in the world of Baroness Praskovya Rosen - was the daughter of the hero of the Patriotic War, Adjutant General Grigory Rosen. Being the maid of honor of the royal court in 1854, she took the veil and ruled in Serpukhov Monastery from 1861. Over the next ten years, the abbess, relying on the proximity to the court and her connections, stole by means of forgery and fraud over seven hundred thousand rubles. Anatoly Koni, who was at that time a prosecutor of the Petersburg district court, began the investigation of this case in St. Petersburg, and the Moscow district court tried it in October 1874. Plevako flashed in the unfamiliar role of the attorney of the victims, becoming the chief prosecutor of the trial, both the abbess and her henchmen. Having refuted the defense arguments, confirming the conclusions of the investigation, he said: “The traveler walking past the high walls of the monastery of the monastery baptizes and believes that he is walking past God's house, but in the house this morning bells raised the prioress not for prayers, but for dark things! Instead of praying people, swindlers are there, instead of deeds of goodness - preparation for false testimony, instead of a temple - an exchange, instead of a prayer - an exercise on drawing up bills, that's what lurked behind the walls ... Above, above, build a fence to the community entrusted to you, so that the world would not see things under the cover of a cloister and a cassock! ”Abbess Mitrofaniya was found guilty of fraud and went into exile in Siberia.
Perhaps the biggest public outcry of all the processes involving Fyodor Nikiforovich was caused by the case of Savva Mamontov in July 1900. Savva Ivanovich was an industrial magnate, the main shareholder of the railway companies, one of the most famous in stories Russian patrons of art. His estate "Abramtsevo" in 1870-1890's was an important center of artistic life. Ilya Repin, Vasily Polenov, Vasily Surikov, Valentin Serov, Victor Vasnetsov, Konstantin Stanislavsky worked and met here. In 1885, Mammoths founded their own Russian opera in Moscow, where Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel, Vladimir Lossky, Fyodor Shalyapin shone. In the fall of 1899, the Russian public was shocked news about the arrest of Mamontov, his brother and two sons on charges of embezzling and embezzling six million rubles from funds allocated for the construction of the Moscow-Yaroslavl-Arkhangelsk railway.
The trial was conducted by the chairman of the Moscow District Court, a respected lawyer Davydov. The prosecutor was a well-known statesman Pavel Kurlov, the future head of the Separate corps of gendarmes. Plevaco was invited to defend Savva Mamontov, and his relatives were defended by three other leading figures of the Russian legal profession: Karabchevsky, Shubinsky and Maklakov. The central event of the process was Fedor Nikiforovich’s defensive speech. With a quick look, he quickly established the weaknesses of the prosecution and told the jury how patriotic and grandiose was his client’s plan to build a railway to Vyatka with the aim of “reviving the North”, and how, due to the unsuccessful choice of executors, the generously financed operation turned into losses . Plevako said: “Judge what was there? Crime or calculation error? Intention to harm the Yaroslavl road or a desire to save its interests? Woe to the vanquished! However, let this nasty phrase repeat the heathen. And we say: "Mercy unhappy!". The court acknowledged the embezzlement, but all the defendants were acquitted.
Fedor Nikiforovich himself explained the secrets of his success as an advocate quite simply. The first of these, he called a sense of responsibility to his client. Plevako said: “There is a huge difference between the position of the defense counsel and the prosecutor. Behind the prosecutor stands a cold, silent and unshakable law, and real people are behind the defender. Relying on us, they will climb on the shoulders and it is terrible to stumble with such a burden! ” The second secret of Fyodor Nikiforovich was a tremendous ability to influence jurors. He explained this to Surikov: “Vasily Ivanovich, because when you write portraits, you try to look into the soul of the person posing for you. So I try to penetrate into the soul of every juror and utter my speech so that it reaches their consciousness. ”
Was the lawyer always sure of the innocence of the defendants? Of course no. In the 1890 year, delivering a defensive speech in the case of Alexandra Maksimenko, who was accused of poisoning her husband, Plevaco said bluntly: “If you ask me if I am convinced of her innocence, I will not say yes.” I do not want to cheat. But I am not convinced of her guilt. And when it is necessary to choose between death and life, then all doubts should be resolved in favor of life. ” However, Fedor Nikiforovich tried to avoid the cases of obviously wrong. For example, he refused to defend in court the famous con artist Sofia Bluestein, better known as “Sonya - the golden pen”.
Plevako became the only leading figure of the national legal profession, who had never acted as a defender at the strictly political processes, where the Social Democrats, the People's Volunteers, the Narodniks, the Cadets, the Social Revolutionaries were tried. This was largely due to the fact that even in 1872, his career and, perhaps, the life of a lawyer almost ended because of his alleged political unreliability. The case began with the fact that in December 1872, Lieutenant-General Slezkin - the head of the Moscow provincial gendarme department - reported to the head of the third division that a certain “secret law society” had been discovered in the city, which was formed to “acquaint students with revolutionary ideas”, as well as “ have regular contacts with foreign leaders and find ways to distribute prohibited books. ” According to the information obtained by the agents, law students, candidates of rights, and in addition, attorneys with their assistants entered the society. The chief of the Moscow gendarmerie reported: "The designated company currently has full members before 150 ... Among the first are the sworn attorney Fedor Plevako, replacing Prince Urusov (expelled from Moscow to the Latvian town of Venden and kept there under police supervision)." Seven months later, in July, 1873, the same Slezkin, wrote to the authorities that "all persons are subject to the strictest observation, and all possible measures are taken to find data that serves as a guarantee about the actions of this law firm." In the end, the data, "able to serve as a guarantee," did not find, and the case of "secret society" was closed. However, from this very time, and up to the year 1905, Plevaco stubbornly avoided politics.
Only a few times Fyodor Nikiforovich agreed to speak at the trials of "unrest", having a political connotation. One of the first such trials was the Luthorichskoye affair, which made a lot of noise, in which Plevaco stood up for peasant rebels. In the spring of 1879, the peasants of the village of Lutorichi, located in the Tula province, revolted against their landlord. The troops suppressed the insurgency, and its “instigators” of thirty-four people were brought to trial with the charge of “resistance to the authorities”. The Moscow Court of Justice considered the case at the end of 1880, and Plevako took over not only the defense of the accused, but also all the costs of maintaining them during the process, which lasted, by the way, for three weeks. His defensive speech was in fact an accusation of the regime that dominated the country. Calling the position of the peasants after the reforms of 1861 of the year "half-starved freedom", Fyodor Nikiforovich proved with facts and figures that it became several times harder to live in pre-reform slavery in the Lutorichi. The enormous extortions from the peasants so outraged him that he told the landowner and his manager: "I am ashamed of the time in which such people live and act!" Regarding the charges against his clients, Plevako said: “Indeed, they are the instigators, they are the instigators, they are the cause of all causes. Lawlessness, hopeless poverty, shameless exploitation, which brought to the ruin of all and everything - here they are the instigators. " After the speech of the lawyer, according to eyewitness accounts, “applause of shocked and agitated listeners was heard in the courtroom.” Thirty of the thirty-four defendants were forced to acquit the court, while Anatoly Kony said that Plevaco’s speech was “in the mood and conditions of those years a civil feat”.
Fedor Nikiforovich equally loudly and boldly spoke at the trial of the participants in the strike of the workers of the Nikolskaya manufactory owned by the manufacturers Morozov and located near the village of Orekhovo (now the city of Orekhovo-Zuevo). This strike, which took place in January 1885, became the largest and most organized in Russia by that time - more than eight thousand people took part in it. The strike was only partly political in nature — it was headed by the workers-revolutionaries Moiseenko and Volkov, and among other demands the strikers presented to the governor were “a complete change of employment contracts in accordance with the published state law”. The defense of the main defendants - Volkov and Moiseenko - was taken over by Plevako. As in the Luthorich case, Fedor Nikiforovich justified the defendants, considering their actions as a forced protest against the arbitrariness of the owners of the manufactory. He stressed: “Contrary to the terms of the contract and the general law, the factory administration does not heat the establishment, and the workers are at their machines at ten to fifteen degrees of cold. Are they entitled to refuse to work and quit if there are unlawful acts of the owner, or are they forced to freeze with a heroic death? Their owner also calculates according to arbitrariness, and not according to the condition established by the agreement. Should workers tolerate and remain silent or may refuse to work in this case? I believe that the law should protect the interests of the owners against the lawlessness of the workers, and not take the masters under their protection in all their arbitrariness. ” Outlining the position of the workers of the Nikolskaya manufactory, Plevako, according to eyewitness recollections, said the following words: “If, reading a book about black slaves, we are outraged, but now we have white slaves”. The court was convinced by the arguments of the defense. The recognized leaders of the strike, Volkov and Moiseenko, received only three months of arrest.
Often in court speeches Plevako addressed pressing social issues. At the end of 1897, when the Metropolitan Court of Justice dealt with the case of Konshin factory workers in the city of Serpukhov, rebelled against the ruthless working conditions and smashed the apartments of the factory bosses, Plevako raised and clarified the legal and personal responsibility for any offense. He said: “A lawless and intolerable act was committed, and the mover was the culprit. But it is not the crowd that is judged, but several dozens of people seen in it: the crowd has left ... The crowd is a building in which people are bricks. Of the bricks alone, the prison is built - the home of the outcast, and the temple to God. Being in a crowd does not mean wearing her instincts. In the crowd of pilgrims hiding and pickpockets. The crowd infects. Persons included in it are infected. To beat them is the same as destroying an epidemic by castigating the sick. ”
It is curious that, unlike his colleagues, who tried to turn the trial into a lesson in political literacy or a school of political education, Fyodor Nikiforovich always tried to sidestep the political aspects, and in his defense, as a rule, there were common human notes. Turning to the privileged classes, Plevako appealed to their feelings of philanthropy, urging them to extend a helping hand to the poor. The worldview of Fyodor Nikiforovich could be described as humanistic, he repeatedly stressed that "the life of a single person is more precious than any reforms." And he added: “Everyone is equal before the court, even if you are Generalissimo!”. It is curious that at the same time, Plevako found a sense of mercy natural and necessary for justice: “The word of the law is like a mother’s threat to its children. As long as there is no guilt, she promises a cruel punishment to the recalcitrant son, but as soon as the need for punishment comes, motherly love seeks a reason to soften the penalty.
Almost forty years Fedor Nikiforovich gave human rights activities. Both the legal elite, specialists, and ordinary people valued Plevako above all other lawyers, calling them “a great orator,” “genius of the word,” “the metropolitan of the legal profession.” The very name of his turned into a nominal, meaning a top-class lawyer. Without any irony in those years, they wrote and said: “Find yourself another Plevak.” In recognition of the merits of Fyodor Nikiforovich, he was awarded the hereditary nobility, the title of state councilor (fourth class, according to the rank table corresponding to the rank of major general) and an audience with the emperor. Fedor Nikiforovich lived in a two-storey mansion on Novinsky Boulevard, and the whole country knew this address. His personality miraculously combined sweepingness and integrity, riotous nobility (for example, when Plevako organized homeic parties on the ships he chartered) and everyday simplicity. Despite the fact that fees and fame strengthened his financial situation, the money never had authority over a lawyer. A contemporary wrote: “Fyodor Nikiforovich did not hide his solvency and was not ashamed of wealth. He believed that the main thing is to act in a godly way and not refuse to help those who really need it. ” Plevako conducted many cases not only for free, but also helping financially to his poor defendants. In addition, Plevako from his youth and until his death was an indispensable member of various charitable institutions, for example, the Society for the Care, Education and Upbringing of Blind Children or the Committee for the organization of student dormitories. Nevertheless, kind to the poor, he literally beat out huge fees from merchants, while demanding advances. When asked what it was “an advance”, Plevaco replied: “You know the deposit? So the advance is the same deposit, but more than three times. ”
An interesting feature of the character of Plevako was his condescension towards his spiteful critics and envious persons. At the feast on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of his lawyer’s career, Fyodor Nikiforovich kindly squeezed both with friends and invited famous enemies. To the surprise of his wife, Fyodor Nikiforovich, with his usual kindness, remarked: “Why should I judge them, perhaps?”. The cultural inquiries of a lawyer cause respect - he had a huge library for that time. Scorning fiction, Fedor Nikiforovich was fond of literature on the law, history and philosophy. Among his favorite authors were Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kuno Fischer and Georg Jellinek. A contemporary wrote: “Plevako had some kind of caring and tender attitude to books - both his and others'. He compared them with children. He was outraged by the look of a torn, polluted or disheveled book. He said that along with the existing “Society for the Protection of Children from Abuse”, it is necessary to organize the “Society for Protection of Books from Abuse”. Despite the fact that Plevako highly valued his folios, he freely gave them to his friends and acquaintances to read. In this way, he was strikingly different from the “book miser” of the philosopher Rozanov, who said: “The book is not a girl, she doesn’t need to walk hands”.
The famous speaker was not just well-read, from a young age he was distinguished by an extraordinary memory, watchfulness and sense of humor, which found expression in the cascades of puns, jokes, parodies and epigrams composed by him both in prose and in verse. For a long time Feuilleton Fyodor Nikiforovich was published in the newspaper “Moskovsky leaf” by the writer Nikolai Pastukhov, and in 1885 Plevaco organized an edition of his own newspaper in Moscow called “Life”, however this enterprise “had no success and stopped at the tenth month”. Wide was the circle of personal communications lawyer. He was well acquainted with Turgenev and Shchedrin, Vrubel, and Stanislavsky, Yermolova and Chaliapin, as well as many other recognized artists, writers and artists. According to the memoirs of Pavel Rossiev, often Leo Tolstoy sent the men to Plevako with the words: “Fedor, beat the poor”. The lawyer adored all sorts of spectacles from elite performances to folk festivals, but he was most pleased to visit two metropolitan “churches of art” - the Russian opera Mamontov and the Art Theater Nemirovich-Danchenko and Stanislavsky. Plevako also loved to travel and traveled all over Russia from the Urals to Warsaw, speaking at lawsuits in small and large cities of the country.
The first wife Plevako worked as a national teacher, and marriage with her was very unsuccessful. Soon after the birth of their son in 1877, they broke up. And in 1879, a certain Maria Demidova, the spouse of a well-known brute industrialist, turned to Plevako for legal assistance. A few months after meeting with a lawyer, she took five children and moved to Fyodor Nikiforovich on Novinsky Boulevard. All her children became relatives for Plevako, later they had three more born - a daughter, Barbara, and two sons. The divorce case of Maria Demidova against Vasily Demidov stretched out for a full twenty years, as the manufacturer flatly refused to let go of her ex-husband. With Maria Andreevna, Fedor Nikiforovich lived in harmony and harmony for the rest of his life. It is noteworthy that the son of Plevako from his first marriage and one of the sons from the second later became well-known lawyers and worked in Moscow. Even more noteworthy is that they were both called Sergey.
It is necessary to note one more feature of Fyodor Nikiforovich - his whole life the lawyer was a deeply religious person and even brought a scientific justification for his faith. Plevako regularly attended church, observed religious ceremonies, loved to baptize children of all ranks and classes, served as church leader in the Assumption Cathedral, and also tried to reconcile the "blasphemous" position of Leo Tolstoy with the provisions of the official church. In 1904, Fyodor Nikiforovich even met with the Pope and had a long conversation with him about the unity of God and the fact that Orthodox and Catholics are obliged to live in good agreement.
At the end of his life, namely in 1905, Fedor Nikiforovich addressed the topic of politics. The royal manifesto of October 17 inspired him with the illusion of the approach of civil liberties in Russia, and he rushed into power with youthful enthusiasm. First of all, Plevako asked a well-known political figure and lawyer Vasily Maklakov to include him in the lists of members of the Constitutional Democratic Party. However, he refused, reasonably noting that "party discipline and Plevako are incompatible concepts." Then Fedor Nikiforovich joined the ranks of the Octobrists. Subsequently, he was elected to the Third State Duma, in which, with the naivety of an amateur politician, he called on his colleagues to replace “the words about freedom with the words of free workers” (this speech in the Duma, held in 1907 in November, was his first and last). It is also known that Plevako thought through the project of transforming the royal title in order to emphasize that Nikolai is no longer an absolute Russian tsar, but a limited monarch. However, he did not dare to declare this from the Duma tribune.
Plevako died in Moscow on January 5 1909 from a heart attack in the sixty-seventh year of life. All of Russia responded to the death of the outstanding speaker, but Muscovites particularly grieved, many of whom believed that the capital of Russia had five main attractions: the Tretyakov Gallery, St. Basil’s Cathedral, Tsar Cannon, Tsar Bell and Fyodor Plevaco. The newspaper "Early Morning" put it very briefly and precisely: "Russia lost its Cicero." Fyodor Nikiforovich was buried at a colossal gathering of people of all fortunes and layers in the cemetery of the Sorrow Priory Monastery. However, in the thirties of the last century, the remains of Plevako were reburied at the Vagankovo cemetery.
According to the book N.A. Troitsky "Korifei Russian Advocacy" and the site pravo.ru.
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