May 24 was the day of the first graduation of the Khabarovsk Count Muravyov-Amur Cadet Corps. On this day, a solemn ball was held for students and their relatives and friends. There were a lot of people, and the evening was lively. At first there was foil fencing, and then several cadets came out to fight. The fighters for their agility and strength were awarded with applause from the audience, who followed the course of the competition, and prizes received from the hands of E. I. Unterberger. “ Then the corps inspector said a heartfelt word to the graduates, gave good advice and wishes, after which certificates were handed out. In conclusion, cadet Vladimir Petrushevsky read his own poem:
Goodbye forever, my dear corps!
I have been in you for many years.
And I will remember to the grave
That I am a Khabarovsk cadet.
You have all the joys, hardships
The flourishing of a young life …
(newspaper “Priamurye”, 1908)
Although the poems are imitative, artistically imperfect, they contain the story of human life against the background of steep and tragic breaks in Russian history. I decided that I would write the history of the Khabarovsk cadet corps, but not abstractly, through dates and events, but through the biography of V.A.Petrushevsky (February 17, 1891 Moscow — August 30, 1961 Sydney), his not simple, dramatic fate. And what could be more interesting than a human person? Besides, recognizing another, you know yourself better.
Actually, this story began in the reign of Anna Ioannovna. One of the conditions for her confirmation on the throne was the creation of a military educational institution, from which young gentry, that is, nobles, could leave immediately as officers. At that time, all gentry children, especially cadets, the younger sons, were taken into land and sea service only in the lower ranks, soldiers and sailors. The cadet corps was organized in St. Petersburg, at the Academy of Sciences, under the supervision of Field Marshal Minich, who reported to the empress: “237 Russians, 71 Baltic Germans have signed up in the corps, therefore three companies are created, 120 cadets in each.” Under Nicholas I, cadet corps received the status of preparatory gymnasiums for the admission of their graduates to military schools and the formation of the army elite.
The first St. Petersburg cadet corps was graduated in due time by the grandfather and father of Vladimir Petrushevsky. And his cadet life began in August 1901 in Khabarovsk. A year later, in the corps, vacancies were opened for the state-owned training of the sons of officers of the Ussuriysk Cossack army, where the father of V. Petrushevsky served as a driver. And Volodya became a pupil of the corps.
In the photo: the building of the Khabarovsk Cadet Corps
In the photo: the building of the Khabarovsk Cadet Corps
Many Khabarovsk residents know a beautiful building on Serysheva Street, which stretches for several blocks. Its old part, starting from Zaparina Street, is a former cadet corps. At that time, it was the only building in Khabarovsk equipped with everything that technology was able to give for convenience and hygiene: a mechanical laundry, central steam heating, its own water supply, since 1907 — electricity. But not only the building was new. The head of military educational institutions in Russia, Grand Duke K. K. Romanov, also known as the poet “K. R.” Taking this position, he reformed education and, mainly, upbringing in cadet corps.
Since the Khabarovsk corps was “young”, humanistic pedagogy took root in it relatively quickly. From the memoirs of V. Petrushevsky “My cadet years”: “The first impression of the corps I have left very good. I was “puny” and was very afraid of bullies. Comparing my memories with similar cadets in other corps, I must admit that “offending the weak” was not a part of our everyday life. But the spirit of “Pomyalovsky’s bursa” was also not alien, especially to the younger ones. “To crush butter”, “a pile of small” — all this was known to the cadets, and sometimes they did not miss a chance for someone to make “universal grease”. Of course, this was not done in high school. They loved to flaunt in front of the kids on the gymnastic ladder, slowly rising and slowly falling down on one hand, or tricks on rings and parallel bars. What made a particularly good impression on me was the fatherly attitude of the superiors. Parting with the body, it was difficult to hold back the tears. It felt like we were leaving our home forever. “
The spiritual core of Petrushevsky’s personal life has always been the Khabarovsk Cadet Corps. “I would, like many of those still alive, give half my life, and maybe more, to return that time.”
There are tender shoots of our love,
There was a cradle of bright dreams -
How can you forget these years
If they have a nightingale trill.
That spring our scent of lilac
A diary is spilled on the pages,
Where shadows of the past flicker
Like a firefly in the night.
But in that, the Cadet “past” — not only spring and the happiness of first love. It contains corpus covenants that have become absolute maxims of the moral consciousness and service of Vladimir Petrushevsky for life. “Christian, loyal subject, ru a good son, a reliable comrade, an executive, patient and efficient officer — these are the qualities with which a graduate of military educational institutions should move from school to the ranks of the imperial army, with pure desires to pay the Tsar for his good deeds by honest service, honest life and honest death. “ Petrushevsky was such an “ideal” cadet.
In the corps, he began to write poetry, and in March 1908 his poems “Summer rain in Khabarovsk in 1906” were published. These poems are remarkable in that they contain an amazingly accurate picture of old Khabarovsk. Of course, there is a colorful “portrait of the city in stone and wood”, there is Khabarovsk in photographs, silent witnesses of the past, but a poetic portrait, lively, speaking, conveys the very atmosphere of city life, its measured, unhurried rhythm, its style and character.
If we follow the young poet and walk with him along the Khabarovsk streets of 1906, then in the morning we will certainly meet an important general on a trotter, officers rushing to shoot, civilians with official badges. And in the afternoon we will see schoolgirls, cadets, realists and a lot of all sorts of Chinese: merchants, street peddlers, construction workers and handymen. And here is the famous bazaar at the mouth of the Plyusninka. It is crowded here from early morning until late evening. The market square is surrounded by a semicircle of dairy and bread shops. On the banks of the Amur, Russian merchants trade: live sturgeons, kaluzhatina sliced into circles, chum salmon, silver herring, chickens in large baskets. They trade from boats and carts. And in winter, kaluga are piled up and sold not for pounds, but for arshins, sawing with transverse saws. On the edge of the market square there are Chinese shops. Merchants — in long black robes, in small round black caps; at the top — a red button, from under the cap — a black braid, ending at the very heels with a black tassel. Evening Khabarovsk is, of course, a city garden on a cliff, with a rotunda, a brass band, a meeting at the monument to Muravyov-Amursky. And lovers of nightlife come to the restaurant “Vladyka’s”, where the ladies’ string orchestra is playing …
Vladimir Petrushevsky graduated from the cadet corps in May 1908. His fourth release was special.
“The end of our corps coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of our region, and the corps began to be called the Khabarovsk Count Muravyov-Amur Cadet Corps. On May 15, there was a big parade of the garrison, and our company took part in it. My father was at the parade, having arrived from Vladivostok as a deputy from the Board of the Ussuriysk Cossack army. I graduated third in points. And when he announced his intention to go to the Nikolaev Cavalry School, the corps director, Major General Belikov said: “Don’t break the tradition, all our first students go to the artillery, to the Mikhailovskoye School. Your grandfather is an artilleryman, you are a smart boy, and fools serve in the cavalry. “ I gave up, entered the Mikhailovskoye, but in 1909 I still transferred to the “fools” (“My cadet years”).
His famous grandfather, V.F. Petrushevsky, was a lieutenant general of the Russian army, a renowned chemical scientist and inventor. He developed the original designs of underwater mines and the first rangefinders. On his initiative, the use of electrical engineering in military and naval affairs began. D.I. Mendeleev considered him one of the founders of “Russian dynamite”: “Nitroglycerin for explosives was first used by the famous chemist N.N. the use of Nobel dynamite. But the interests of the state demanded that this discovery be kept secret. “
In the Nikolaev Cavalry School, which Vladimir Petrushevsky graduated in 1911, he was transferred not by accident. It had a “tsarist” hundred for one hundred and twenty cadets for training Cossack officers, and cadets were promoted to combat units of the Cossack troops. Therefore, Vladimir had the opportunity to get an appointment to the Far East, to Khabarovsk, where he has a bride, Olga Sterligova. But when a young cornet of the Ussuri Cossack division, happy, in anticipation of an imminent marriage, meets lovely Lelya, she breaks off the engagement: “Forgive me and goodbye. It’s not meant to be”. He is saved by poetry. Only in them is confusion, frustration of hopes, suffering and melancholy.
Life, like everyone else, is sad
Like a dying day
Heavy crushes on the soul
And an incomprehensible shadow
The shadow of doubt is thickening
It grows like a black cloud
It pierces the heart with a dagger,
It crushes my soul, oppresses me.
Perhaps Vladimir Petrushevsky knew about the tragic event in the life of Olga Sterligova. During the Civil War, a string orchestra consisting of prisoners of war, Austro-Hungarian musicians, graduates of the Vienna Conservatory played in the Khabarovsk cafe “A Cup of Tea”. They were shot by Kalmykites. Olga, then a widow (her husband, an officer, was gassed at the front), was familiar with some of the musicians from the orchestra. They didn’t shoot her, but they slashed her face with whips.
In the parental home in Vladivostok, where Petrushevsky ended up in the spring of 1920, it was anxious and unfortunate. His father, a military foreman of the Ussuriysk Cossack army, back in March 1917, a decree He was dismissed from the post of an advisor to the Board, which was dismissed in full and replaced by a new, elected one. Brother George, also a graduate of the KCC, a white officer, was killed. My parents were with my younger sisters and brother. The city is in incredible chaos: “operetta” governments changed almost every week; on the streets — white, red units, Japanese, Czechs, allies (Italians, British, French, Americans) — whoever was not here. In August 1920, Petrushevsky emigrated and after two years of wandering ended up on the island of Java, which was then under Dutch rule.
Ships, ships, ships.
How many of you are there in endless space?
These are the refugees of the Russian land
They are taking their grief to a foreign land.
A professional soldier in Dutch India (as he called Indonesia) became a famous volcanologist — such is an unexpected twist of fate. A Russian volcanologist — until the end of his life he did not accept citizenship of any of the states.
Petrushevsky proceeded, traveled and flew around Java, Sumatra, Celebes, Borneo, Bali, observing and studying volcanoes (there were 150 of them!). More than once he was considered dead during numerous expeditions (there were 280 of them!) Through the tropical jungle, while descending to the bottom of craters (68!) Or in boat trips in areas of underground eruptions. One of the volcanoes is named after him Petrush. And also — scientific conferences and geological congresses, five books on volcano science, for which he received a doctorate in geology! Fantastic career for a Russian emigrant. Indeed, many former cadets and hussars in exile became chauffeurs, painters, accountants.
Petrushevsky took part in 280 expeditions; explored the islands of Java, Sumatra, Celebes, Borneo, Bali and a number of small islands in Oceania. In 1950 he moved to Australia. Died Vladimir Alexandrovich in Sydney, August 30, 1961; buried in the Russian cemetery in Rookwood. Petrushevsky’s poems were published in the 1930s in China. In the 50s, some of them were published as a separate collection.
Based on materials from Nelly Zhabina (magazine “Far East”).
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