Thirteen Years Later

THE DECEMBRISTS

On 14 December 1825 (26 December) a crowd of three thousand men – overwhelmingly members of the military – assembled in Saint Petersburg’s Senate Square to oppose the succession of Tsar Nicholas I. The origins of the revolt lay in 1814, when victorious Russian troops, led by Nicholas’ predecessor Alexander, occupied Paris, having pursued the French all the way from Moscow. The nation that they found, even in defeat, seemed to many a utopia of liberty and enlightenment – at least in comparison with their own country. At the same time Alexander, who had once been hailed as a modernizer, began to turn towards more conservative policies. For a decade resentment festered. Revolutionary societies formed and re-formed, but took no action. The death of Alexander, a thousand miles away in Taganrog, was the flashpoint. With confusion as to which of Alexander’s brothers – Constantine or Nicholas – was to succeed, the revolutionaries seized their one, slim chance.

The uprising was quickly suppressed. Loyal troops, at the tsar’s direct orders, opened fire on the rebels, scattering them into flight across the capital. Many were killed and more arrested. Five of the leaders were hanged and a further 284 were exiled to Siberia. Ever after, Nicholas referred to them as ‘mes amis du quatorze’. It was only after Nicholas’ death in 1855 that the exiles – those who were still alive – were allowed to return to the west.

In 1925, one hundred years after the uprising, Senate Square was renamed Decembrists’ Square, in memory of that first Russian revolution. In July 2008, the name was changed back to Senate Square.