Alexander Mikhailovich Opekushin was a recognized sculptor who was entrusted or entrusted with monuments to the emperors. Sculptures of Alexander II, Alexander III, Peter I from his workshop adorned the squares of many cities, the halls of many public places. Almost all of them were destroyed by decree on April 12, 1918.

"In commemoration of the great upheaval that transformed Russia, the Council of People's Commissars decides:
1) Monuments erected in honor of the kings and their servants and not of interest either from the historical or artistic side, are subject to removal from the squares and streets ... "

But that’s later. And now it's 1895. In September 1894 Opekushin became a full member of the Academy of Arts.

He receives an order for a statue of Catherine II for the recently built Moscow City Duma.

As is known, the Duma owes its appearance to this empress.

In April 1785, Catherine bestows the "Certificate of Rights and Benefits to the Cities of the Russian Empire" (Certificate of Merit to the Cities or City Statute of 1785).

The city status of 1785 defined "the city as a legal entity, as a special local community with its own, special interests and needs" and introduced a certain system of city government bodies: the General City Duma; The Six-Headed Duma and the Gradskoe Society.

Under Catherine, all these institutions were located in the Public places, which occupied the territory near the walls of Kitaygorod. Now it is the place where the Historical Museum, the Mint, the lobby of the Teatralnaya and Ploshchad Revolyutsii metro stations are located.

After 1855, the Duma moved to Vozdvizhenka, building 6. And in 1890, N.A. Alekseev determined a plot for the Moscow City Duma, again on the site of public places. According to the historian Kondratyev, in the place of the Duma "there were candle shops, a wine cellar," and there were podyachie.

The hall of Catherine II was present in the plan of the Duma, and in November 1896, on the 100th anniversary of the death of the Empress, it was decorated with a sculpture of the Empress herself.

The statue was made of the most valuable Carrara marble, was two and a half meters high and weighed three tons. She stood in the hall until 1917 and was known no less than other creations of the sculptor Opekushin.

The young country needed other idols. The list signed by V. I. Lenin, published on August 2, 1918 in Izvestia, included revolutionaries and public figures, writers and poets, philosophers and scientists, artists, composers, and actors. All of them needed not only space, but materials as well. It was planned to make 40 busts of Karl Marx from the statue of Catherine II (why not Engels again ...). For these purposes, it was transferred to the sculptor S.D. Merkurov. In November 1918, a granite figure of Dostoevsky by Merkurov was unveiled on Tsvetnoy Boulevard. As an educated person, he understood how valuable the statue of Catherine was. The sculptor hides it in the storerooms of the Museum of Fine Arts, which is no longer named after Alexander III. When the struggle against formalism began in the 1930s, which also affected the Museum, Merkurov sent Catherine to Yerevan to his workshop, and in 1952 donated her to the Yerevan National Gallery of Armenia. Ekaterina stood in the courtyard of this gallery until 2006.

In 2003, by a decree of the Government of the Republic of Armenia, it was decided to return the monument to Moscow. And in January 2006, the Year of Armenia in Russia, she was solemnly delivered to the Tretyakov Gallery. The magazine "Art of Armenia, XX century" wrote: "The sculpture of Catherine II by Opekushin is not just a historical monument, a political sign - it is one of the wonderful female images in Russian sculpture" (N. Tregub).

The sculpture needed restoration. The workers of the Tretyakov Gallery did their best, and now the monument to Catherine II adorns the Catherine Hall of the Tsaritsyn Palace.

Sometimes Peter took part in the very process of the investigation. The documents of the Preobrazhensky order did not leave evidence of his own torture; but it is known that he personally interrogated princesses Sophia, Martha and Catherine, for whom it was not appropriate for them to appear as accused before their subjects.

The tsar did not differ in sentimentality, but he also tried in vain not to punish. In 1700, the unwise serf women Nenila and Anna Polosukhin complained about the men who had gone to the army. "Mouzhe de moevo," Nenila yelled, "the devil took it, but he left me with the robata, who should feed them." To the remark of one of the neighbors that her husband was serving the sovereign, Anna blurted out: “Let's go to hell, and not to the sovereign. We have our own sovereign who feeds and drinks us. " Then the case of insulting the sovereign began; the boyars sentenced the careless woman to death, but the tsar did not approve the sentence. He wondered why Anna had opposed her "sovereign" - the lord-landowner - to the real sovereign; but as soon as he was convinced - after the torture - that the woman was chattering without intent, he ordered Anna to replace death with exile without punishment with a whip, and to let Nenila go to the landowner. At that time, this decision can be considered soft. But in other cases, Peter could have toughened the punishment - he ordered not just to chop off the head of the former fiscal Yefim Sanin, but certainly to wheel him.

On September 30, 1698, on Red Square in Moscow, Peter took part in the first mass execution of participants in the Streletsky riot. The Emperor, with a huge crowd of people, undertook to personally chop off the heads of the condemned; moreover, his retinue was obliged to take part in this - only foreigners, dissuaded by fear of gaining the hatred of the crowd, could refuse. Perhaps the tsar was flushed by the spectacle of the execution - or doubted the professionalism of the kats. After all, it is known that he valued professionalism above all in people and, having mastered twelve specialties himself, once reprimanded the executioner that the convict had “the nostrils pulled out in a small way” - not to the bone.

The successors of Peter I also showed a special interest in political investigation, often personally participated in the investigation, interfered in its course, got acquainted with the testimony of the accused, and passed sentences.

Peter's niece Anna Ioannovna usually affirmed the definitions of the Secret Chancellery unchanged: for example, according to the sentence of the Chancellery about the execution of a certain rasp of Savva, “Her Imperial Majesty deigned to point out this rash to be inflicted by the marching Secret Chancellery”. But there were cases - for example, the case of the accusation of the soldier Sedov of uttering "obscene words" - when the Empress changed the sentence: "Her Imperial Majesty deigned to listen to this extract, and after the hearing deigned to point out that Sedov should be sent to Okhotsk instead of death."

The head of the Chancellery Ushakov, who reported to the empress the investigative cases and carefully recorded her instructions, sometimes wrote down the conversations that Anna had with him. One of these records states that Anna ordered an officer with soldiers to be sent to the Kirillov and Iversky monasteries to conduct a search of some of the convicts, and upon their return to report to her about the results of the search. The empress ordered not to investigate the case of the Pskov voivode Pleshcheev, who “befriended” in obscene statements - “only her Majesty deigned to indicate that Pleshcheev from Pskov was to be changed from the voivodeship, and to inform the Senate about the change”.

Sometimes, after hearing the extract, Anna commanded that the accused personally write down his testimonies and they were presented to her in the original. In especially important cases, the Empress participated in the process and herself conducted interrogations. In a decree of March 14, 1732, Ushakov recorded that, upon the denunciation of a certain kissing man Sukhanov against the famous PI Yaguzhinsky, she interrogated the witness Afanasy Tatishchev “in front of her”, who showed that he had not heard any obscene words from Count Yaguzhinsky; then Anna ordered that he no longer be interrogated. The interest shown by the empress in this matter is understandable: Yaguzhinsky held a high position, being the most prominent diplomat (later he even became a cabinet minister), Anna did not like him and was even afraid; as soon as the opportunity presented itself, she removed him into honorary exile - as an envoy to Berlin.

The authorities kept in sight the fate of not only those under investigation, but also the employees of the Secret Chancellery: the rotation of its officials was carried out by special nominal decrees - for example, by decree of February 20, 1741, Nikolai Khrushchev was transferred to the Moscow office and instead of him Tikhon Gulyaev was appointed secretary. In 1743, Elizaveta Petrovna, after listening to Ushakov's message about the death of Gulyaev's secretary, "deigned to command by word of mouth" to appoint Ivan Nabokov in his place.

Elizaveta Petrovna, getting acquainted with the affairs of the Secret Chancellery through the extracts brought to her by Ushakov, often influenced the course of the investigation, giving its head instructions on the direction of the search - for example, to interrogate the convict again: passion, and, that will show, to report to her imperial majesty. " The emotional empress left her remarks on the papers submitted to her; so, she was outraged to discover that her physician-in-law Armand Lestok, contrary to the ban, had met with a foreign "minister", and in the margin, against his testimony, she wrote: "Should you, as a slave, report to the sovereign that you did not know, that he was a cheat, then it would be forgiven from me. " The Empress was all the more unpleasant to learn that the sneaky Lestok not only ignored her decree, but also took gifts from the "godless man".

Many reports of important matters fell directly into the hands of the Empress, who then sent them to the Secret Chancellery. For example, on November 13, 1744, she handed over to Ushakov a schismatic, having previously interrogated him what he “had to declare royal things to her imperial majesty” (it turned out that he considered them faith, hope and love), and having held a theological dispute with him about the need to be baptized three-fingered addition, for this is the symbol of the Trinity.

In 1745, the Secret Chancellery received a denunciation that several nobles in the Russian wilderness spoke badly about Elizabeth in conversation, praised the deposed ruler Anna Leopoldovna and dreamed of dividing Russia ... into "reigns". The investigation did not find a real conspiracy; but Elizabeth, having read the extract given to her, considered the matter important: “On June 1, the lieutenant Evstafy Zimninsky and the nobleman Andrian Beklemishev were separately presented to her imperial majesty; and this Zimninsky said before her imperial majesty - the same as in the Secret Chancellery by his distribution he showed; and the aforementioned Beklemishev said what was named before her imperial majesty, about that to them (who carried out the investigation to A.I.Ushakov and A.I. Shuvalov. - I.K., E.N.) it is unknown, before her imperial majesty deigned onago Beklemishev to ask in solitude. " A week later, the highest investigator sent her own handwritten record of Beklemishev's testimony made in private to the office: that once, when he, Tatishchev and Zykov were "three," one of them began to regret Princess Anna, saying that it was better with her, that Elizabeth He is not afraid of God - they are not allowed abroad; that it would have been easier if John had reigned; that in the past years there was a certain congress of a large number of people, where it was decided to divide Russia into separate principalities, "and each of them took for himself as reign."

Finally, sometimes the empress herself handled the affairs and transferred the criminal to the office only for the execution of the sentence. So, in 1748, Count Shuvalov received a decree from her: "to the court of Her Imperial Majesty the lackey Ivan Shchukin, for the obscene words he uttered, about which Her Imperial Majesty herself knows, to send <...> to Orenburg for service"; Chancellery only had to carry out the sentence, remaining in the dark about Shchukin's crime. Once Elizabeth became interested in her own double - she ordered on February 18, 1742 to deliver from Shlisselburg "for her curiosity" the wife of the Ladoga Chancellery Chancellery Cyprian Markov's wife Fedora, allegedly similar "word for word like our empress." Two days later, the Semyonovsky soldier brought the stunned "little wife" to the palace, but everything ended well for her: Elizabeth looked at her, was satisfied - and let Fyodora go home with a gift of a hundred rubles.

According to sources, Catherine II also personally delved into all the subtleties of "what concerns the Secret", despite the public distance from "whip-fighting" methods. At the beginning of her reign, she felt insecure on the usurped throne; later, being the real ruling empress, Catherine could not leave such an important institution without personal control. However, concerns of this kind also fell to the lot of her de facto co-ruler G.A. Potemkin - starting in 1775, reports of the civil and military authorities of southern Russia subordinate to him were sent to the prince with notifications of impostors, "publicity" and denunciations on political matters. Nevertheless, the empress had the decisive word, and the crimes recognized as the most dangerous were "followed" in St. Petersburg.

The papers of the Secret Expedition contain many questions and notes-instructions of Catherine II to investigators and Prosecutor General Vyazemsky. In 1771, when appointing a new commandant of the Revel Fortress, the Empress reminded: “As Lieutenant General von Benckendorff has now been appointed Chief Commandant in Revel, wouldn’t you please write to him so that he is after Vrali (Andrei Vral was named after the dismantling of the Rostov Metropolitan Arseny Matseevich. - I.K., E.N.) had the same look as Tiesenhausen had; otherwise I'm afraid that, not having been entrusted to him, Vral would not start any of his own things in the interregnum, and so that they would not become weaker to look at this beast, and this would not result in new troubles for us. " She personally questioned the officer who arrested Vladyka and accompanied him to Moscow: "When he took the bishop from Rostov in 1763, was there a cross with relics on him, and could he not have taken him with him?" The Empress was tormented by suspicions: if during the stay of Metropolitan Arseny in the Korelsky monastery someone sent him holy relics, does it mean that he is in contact with his supporters? The Empress reminded the guards not to take their eyes off the prisoner for a minute. She wrote to the prison commandant: “You have an important bird in your strong cage, take care not to fly away. Hope you don’t let yourself down with a big answer. ‹…› The people venerate him very much from time immemorial and are accustomed to regard him as a saint, but he is nothing more than a great rogue and a hypocrite. "

After the capture of Pugachev and his associates in 1774, Catherine sent a letter to Simbirsk to Major General P.S. Potemkin, indicating that she was well aware of the investigation carried out by the Secret Expedition and its personnel: “I command you, upon receiving this, to transfer your stay to Moscow and tamo, under the direction of Prince Mikhail Nikitich Volkonsky, to continue the investigation of the case of this important convict. For a better understanding of the beginning and all the ends of this villainous deed, I advise you to transfer Chika from Kazan to Moscow, also Pochitalin and his comrades from Orenburg, if they are still alive, as I think they are. You can entrust the other convicts who have matters of less importance to themselves, and you can entrust two guards officers to a secret expedition and give them secretary Zryakhov, who is in Orenburg, who is very accustomed to these matters, and that is under my eyes for many years; and now I am sending Sheshkovsky to Moscow on the Secret Expedition, who has a special gift with ordinary people. "

The empress constantly kept under her control the case of the enlightener N.I. Novikov, considering it extremely dangerous. By her order, he was imprisoned in a Moscow prison, and soon the commander-in-chief of Moscow Prozorovsky and the chief of the Secret Expedition Sheshkovsky transported him in deep secrecy - in a closed carriage and under a false name - to one of the most terrible Russian torture chambers - the Shlisselburg Fortress. The Empress herself worked out the route: “In order to hide it from his companions, order him to be led to Vladimir, and from there to Yaroslavl, and from Yaroslavl to Tikhvin, and from Tikhvin to Shlyushin and give it to the local commandant. Carry him so that no one can see him. " Ekaterina composed questions for Novikov, which were then asked by Sheshkovsky; wrote her comments on Novikov's explanations; indicated whom to involve as witnesses.

As we have seen, there were no objective norms according to which the Secret Chancellery should have referred cases to the supreme power. Consequently, in many respects their outcome could depend both on the will of the monarch and on the employees of the chancellery - generals and ordinary political investigators.

The unique position of “acting tsar”, which at the beginning of the 18th century was occupied by Prince Fyodor Yuryevich Romodanovsky, could not be inherited by any of his successors, especially since the emergence of a new system of central government required a clearer delineation of their competence. The cumbersome Preobrazhensky order already at the end of Peter's reign looked archaic.

The creation of the Secret Chancellery and the gradual elimination of the "non-core" functions of the Preobrazhensky Prikaz were a step towards the creation of a specialized system of political investigation. A new "prince-Caesar" Ivan Romodanovsky remained in Moscow; The tsar treated him with respect, but nevertheless, it is impossible to include him among the most active and influential persons at the Peter's court, as already mentioned. But the case of Tsarevich Alexei promoted Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy (1645-1729) to the first row of "ministers".

The head of the Secret Chancellery came from an old service family. “My dear great-grandfather Ivan Ivanovich Tolstoy during the time of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich was a regimental commander on Krapivna, and his brother was his own, and my great-grandfather was a cousin, Seliverst Ivanovich, under Tsar Vasily Ivanovich, in the Moscow siege seat, he was a regimental commander in Moscow, in the tract on the Truba, where he was killed by enemies, - wrote Tolstoy himself about the merits of his ancestors. - And my dear grandfather Vasily Ivanovich during the time of Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich in 7141 (1633 - I.K., E.N.), he was a regimental voivode near Moscow, across the Yauza River, during the war with the Poles and under Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich he was formerly a steward and was sent as a voivode to Chernigov, and during the treason of the Cossack hetman Bryukhovetsky he sat in that city for a long time under siege, where and I was with my father and sat under siege with him. And my father saved this city from the traitors, for which he was then granted to the Duma noblemen. And my brothers, Mikhailo Andreevich, was a voivode in Astrakhan, Ivan Andreevich was a governor in Azov, and so did my other relatives in noble ranks and showed services to the Russian state. "

Tolstoy was related by kinship with the boyars Miloslavsky and Princess Sophia, but he saw young Peter in time - and at 52, in the company of young nobles, he went to Venice to study naval affairs. "Pensioner" learned Italian, kept a diary, in which he recorded his impressions of the "extremely wonderful" Gothic cathedrals and pictures of "wonderful letters of saints of Italian pictorial skill." He did not waste time - he mastered the naval science, but he was not to serve in the navy, but to master the diplomatic field. Peter appreciated the talents of the elderly steward and appointed him the first permanent Russian ambassador to Istanbul (before that, employees of the Ambassadorial Prikaz went to foreign lands on one-time missions), where Tolstoy spent more than ten years. Here he showed himself to be a skillful diplomat: he established contacts with the Turkish nobles and their servants, at the same time suppressing their attempts to obtain information - he even poisoned the ambassadorial clerk, inclined to treason and intending to convert to Islam. Twice he was arrested and kept in the Seven Towers Castle when Turkey declared war on Russia; but he managed to settle relations between the two powers, made a serious and interesting political and geographical description of the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of the 18th century and, separately, of the Turkish fleet.

Upon his return from Turkey, 70-year-old Tolstoy became one of the Tsar's closest diplomatic advisers. In 1716-1717, he accompanied Peter on a Western European trip, took part in diplomatic negotiations in Amsterdam, Paris, Copenhagen. He managed, without inciting a diplomatic conflict, to return the fugitive Alexei Petrovich from the Austrian possessions, promising him his father's forgiveness, and then interrogating him, was a participant in his trial and was present at the last torture, which may have been the cause of the Tsarevich's death.

Tolstoy's merits were rewarded at their true worth: he received generous land grants and became a real secret adviser “for such a great service shown not only to me,” said the tsar's decree, “but even more to the whole fatherland in bringing my son by birth, but in the case the villain and the destroyer of the father and the fatherland. " Pyotr Andreevich became in 1722 a knight of the first Russian order of St. Andrew the First-Called, and at the coronation of the wife of Tsar Catherine in 1724 he was granted the title of count from her.

Count and gentleman Tolstoy was at the head of the Secret Chancellery for eight years. In 1719, it was captured by the court painter J.G. Tannauer. The portrait depicts an elderly, but cheerful man in a smart caftan and a fashionable wig with an intelligent, strong-willed face and a slightly ironic gaze of narrowed eyes. A heavy chin, thin compressed lips, thick eyebrows spread apart - maybe the artist flattered the model a little (Tolstoy was 74 at the time), but still he portrayed not a tired old man, but a well-knocked nobleman in his mind. “A person is very capable, but when you are dealing with him, you need to keep a stone in your pocket to knock out his teeth if he wants to bite,” - it seems that eyewitnesses did not distort too much the characterization given to Tolstoy by Tsar Peter, who was well versed in people.

Judging by the abundance of posts and works of Pyotr Andreevich, in these years he was just that - talented, business-like, crafty, and in his old age retained some freethinking in the spirit of his age. “He has no wife, but there is a mistress, whose content, they say, costs him very dearly,” the young Holstein chamber-cadet Friedrich Berchholz described the Count’s lifestyle, citing a funny story about his duke’s visit to Tolstoy: the guest “immediately drew attention into two completely different paintings, hung in opposite corners of his room: one depicted one of the Russian saints, and the other a naked woman. The Privy Counselor, noticing that the Duke was looking at them, laughed and said that he was surprised how His Highness noticed everything so quickly, while hundreds of people visiting him did not at all see this naked figure, which was deliberately placed in a dark corner.

Tolstoy not only headed the Secret Chancellery, but also led the Commerce Collegium in 1718-1721, while not leaving the diplomatic service: in 1719 he negotiated in Berlin; in 1721 - traveled with the tsar to Riga; in 1722–1723 he accompanied Peter to the Persian campaign as the head of the field office — at an advanced age and with very relative comfort at that time.

He did not manage the secret office alone, but stood at the head of a kind of collegium, whose members together signed sentences: “By the decree of His Imperial Majesty, the Privy Councilor and from the Life Guards Captain Pyotr Andreevich Tolstoy, Lieutenant General Ivan Ivanovich Buturlin, from the Life Guards Preobrazhensky regiment maeor Andrei Ivanovich Ushakov, from the guards from the bombing officer, captain-lieutenant Grigory Grigorievich Skornyakov-Pisarev, listening to the above, sent to the Office of Secret Investigation Affairs from the Local Order of Reporting, and petition Stepan Lopukhin was sentenced <...>. The documents show that they worked smoothly; everyone could receive a specific tsarist order for a particular case and proceeded to execution with the explanation: "I, Ivan Buturlin, announced this decree of his tsarist majesty in the Secret Chancellery." But Tolstoy in this team was the first among equals: he was less often than others in the dungeon, but it was his signature in the documents of the Secret Chancellery that was the first of four; and most importantly, only Tolstoy in those years was a permanent adviser to the sovereign and reported to him on the affairs of his department. Colleagues recognized his superiority (sometimes in the documents they called him “preeminent”) and, sending extracts of cases to him, asked “what should be reported, according to their prudent reasoning, even to His Imperial Majesty”. Tolstoy demanded that his subordinates notify him "only about the most necessary matters" and reported to the tsar "according to his prudent reasoning" what he considered necessary, knowing well what might be of interest to him in the first place. He wrote to the other “ministers”: “It seems to me that there is nothing for me to work with the tsar's majesty's report” - or, on the contrary, explained that the case of Fiscal Sanin, “... for tea, I must report to the imperial majesty, before his majesty deigned me to order Sanin to execute to delay in order that His Majesty deigned to have then the intention to see him, Sanin. "

Since 1722, Buturlin no longer participated in the affairs of the Secret Chancellery, and the next year Skornyakov-Pisarev dropped out of its “ministers”. In the last years of the existence of the Petrine Secret Chancellery, it was headed by Tolstoy and Ushakov. By a decree of January 13, 1724, Peter commanded, “that at the Senate he institute investigative cases for the cantor, also a special case for emergency cases that occur; and, first, when there is a search in the Senate, the cases will be there, and another place for such cases as Shafirovo happened. But this place should be without servants, but when the occasion calls; then take it for a while. " Peter was worried about the red tape and carelessness of the work of the Senate Chancellery, loaded with affairs, where "secret affairs were taken out from the clerks to the Cherkasy, and it is very surprising that both ordinary and secret affairs in the Senate are on the rise." “For the sake of receiving this, do it following the example of the Foreign Collegium, so that such stinginess does not happen in the future,” he demanded of the senators in a decree dated January 16 of the same year.

Thus, the Senate Chancellery had to be divided into two parts - general and for secret affairs. This secret part included the office of investigative affairs, as well as a special chamber for emergency cases - investigations of the activities of high-ranking officials like the vice-president of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs P.P. Shafirov (in 1723 he was stripped of his ranks and titles for embezzlement and sentenced to death penalty with confiscation of property replaced by exile). Presumably, the competence of the office would include similar searches for less eminent persons under investigation.

In the same January, according to another decree, the Secret Chancellery was supposed to transfer the bulk of the cases and convicts to the Preobrazhensky Prikaz. Perhaps this decree was initiated by her first present, tired of the current and uninteresting work, because most of the crimes were various "obscene words" addressed to the authorities.

In the new scenario, the Preobrazhensky order would begin to interrogate and flog unwary townsfolk, and Senator Tolstoy - really important cases, investigating the abuse of persons of the highest rank. We must pay tribute to the count's instinct: it was these cases that were most relevant in the last years of the reign and most of all occupied the tsar; Of the 31 dignitaries who were prosecuted under Peter I, 21 people were put on trial - 26 percent of all high-ranking civil servants of that time.

However, the Secret Chancellery was never transferred to the subordination of the Senate - either Tolstoy found no less influential opponents, or the tsar himself decided not to multiply the investigative bodies and concentrate cases of this kind in the Supreme Court. The decree of April 21, 1724 was of a compromise nature - it demanded to send "criminals in insult to the majesty or in deeds, to the indignation of those leaning, from the Senate and from the Secret Chancellery to the Preobrazhensky order", but was silent about the powers of the Secret Chancellery or the projected new secret department of the Senate according parts of the investigation of cases under the "third point".

The Office of Investigation Affairs under the Senate was nevertheless created, but conducted only one investigation - on charges of the king of arms S. A. Kolychev of embezzlement of state money and other abuses; then it was liquidated in connection with the establishment in 1726 of the Supreme Privy Council and the reorganization of the Senate. The fight against corruption in the state apparatus, begun by the emperor, came to naught under his successors.

Count Tolstoy himself still had to go through the last short-term rise of his career. Closeness to the royal family forced him to make a choice in the dispute over the succession to the throne during the last illness of Peter I. Then, on the night of January 27-28, 1725, prominent senators and presidents of the collegia (P.M. Apraksin, D.M. Golitsyn, N. I. Repnin, V.L.Dolgorukov, G.I.Golovkin, I.A. Tolstoy and Menshikov were against. Representatives of both "parties" had previously put their signatures under the death sentence for Alexei. The opponents were divided by something else - the Peter's businessmen basically did not accept the new structure of power. “In the situation in which the Russian Empire is, it needs a courageous ruler, experienced in business, capable of supporting the honor and glory surrounding the empire with the strength of his power. ‹…› All the required qualities are united in the empress: she acquired the art of reign from her husband, who confided in her the most important secrets; she undeniably proved her heroic courage, her generosity and her love for the people, to whom she brought endless benefits in general and in particular, never doing anyone any harm, "Tolstoy persuaded the assembled" persons "of the first ranks. These speeches (even if they were presented by the French ambassador Campredon not with protocol accuracy) give an idea of ​​Tolstoy's approach to power: for him, the personality of the autocrat was clearly above any law; while his and Menshikov's opponents defended the superiority of legal institutions over "the power of persons."

While the nobles were arguing, A. D. Menshikov and I. I. Buturlin brought the guards officers to the palace chambers, who decided the outcome of the debate in favor of Catherine. After the death of Peter I and the accession of his widow, P.A.Tolstoy became one of the members of the Supreme Privy Council and, judging by the reports of diplomats, the most influential adviser to the queen. But soon the count flared up with his former associate Menshikov: His Serene Highness decided to marry the son of Tsarevich Alexei (future Peter II) proclaimed heir to his daughter Mary, as a result of which he himself could become regent under the minor sovereign.

Apparently, Menshikov did not allow the Secret Chancellery to be turned into a special investigative body for corruption cases. It was abolished by a personal decree dated May 28, 1726; all her property "with deeds and with clerks" had to be given to the Preobrazhensky order under the jurisdiction of IF Romodanovsky, which deprived Tolstoy of an important means of influencing the empress and the right to report personally. By that time, he had already lost his former influence and complained that the queen did not listen to his advice.

Pyotr Andreevich did not reconcile himself - he spoke in support of the rights to the throne of Peter's daughters, discussed the situation with Police Chief General Anton Devier. But it never came to a real conspiracy. Neither Tolstoy, nor Devier had "power" capabilities - and such actions were not in the character of a brilliant diplomat. Menshikov also did not let the conspiracy "mature": while his opponents were exchanging "evil intentions and conversations", and Tolstoy was waiting for an opportunity for the highest audience, on April 24, 1727, the prince obtained a decree from the terminally ill Empress to arrest Devier. "On the temple" (rack) after 25 blows with a whip, Devier named his interlocutors. Investigators went to question Buturlin and Tolstoy. The old count was lucky - he did not personally get acquainted with the practice of his torture chamber (he was interrogated under house arrest), but nevertheless admitted his intention to crown Catherine's daughters.

The investigation into the charge of incitement to the "great indignation" was carried out in record time. Menshikov did not leave the dying Catherine and still got her verdict in the case. The manifesto on the disclosure of the alleged conspiracy was published only on May 27: already on behalf of Peter II, the criminals were accused of intent against his accession and "our matchmaking on Princess Menshikova."

Tolstoy was sent to prison in Solovki with deprivation of ranks and confiscation of property. In the summer of 1728, his son Ivan, who had been exiled with him, died; Peter Andreevich himself briefly survived it - he died on January 30, 1729, at the age of 84 and was buried at the walls of the monastery's Transfiguration Cathedral. Only 13 years later, in 1742, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna returned part of the confiscated estates to Tolstoy's descendants, and in 1760 - the count's title. Devier and Skornyakov-Pisarev were exiled to Siberia; old man Buturlin was removed from the command of the guards regiment back in 1726; now he was deprived of ranks, awards and sent to live out the century in his Vladimir estate - the village of Kruttsy. Ushakov was transferred from the capital to a field regiment; however, Andrei Ivanovich soon returned to revive the Secret Chancellery.

Andrei Ivanovich Ushakov (1670-1747) came from a different environment than his predecessor and boss. An orphan from the poor Novgorod nobility (for four brothers - one serf) had nothing to do with the court and began his career, like many of his contemporaries, as a private in the Petrine guard - in 1704 he became a volunteer soldier of the Preobrazhensky regiment.

For such guardsmen, service was the only opportunity to obtain the rank of chief officer and, in rare cases, a "village" (under Peter I, land was allotted with discrimination), and salary was the main source of subsistence. Often they died like that “at the regiment”, being “in battles and in other military necessities forever”; others retired as 60-year-old soldiers, sometimes without a single serf soul. Courage, diligence and diligence made it possible to speed up the receipt of ranks; but to make a real career, special abilities were needed. After all, the Peter's Guard was not only an elite military unit, but also a school of personnel for the military and civil administration: 40 percent of senators and 20 percent of presidents and vice-presidents of colleges graduated from its ranks in the first half of the 18th century. Under Peter the Great, the guards formed new regiments, carried out important assignments abroad, collected taxes, and were appointed auditors and investigators; sometimes a sergeant or a lieutenant was vested with more significant powers than a governor or field marshal.

Ushakov, as it turned out, possessed all the necessary qualities. What he didn’t have to do: participate in suppressing the uprising of the ataman Kondraty Bulavin on the Don, fight against the Swedes and their Polish allies, fight the plague and harvest timber in the Baltic States, settle border conflicts in Lithuania, inspect the Ukrainian troops of Hetman Skoropadsky, recruit guard among the "courtiers", to export provisions and army property from Poland. But he went public: in 1709 he became a lieutenant captain and aide-de-camp of the tsar; and in 1714 - a major of the guard and the head of the investigative office. This "Office of the Recruitment Account", formed to check the supply of recruits from different provinces, to identify abuses that occurred during this, also investigated financial violations of other institutions, "hiding souls" during the census and considered cases of embezzlement of officials under the "third point". In 1717-1718, Ushakov supervised the construction of ships in St. Petersburg, recruited sailors for them and artisans for the new capital, reporting everything to the tsar himself.

Andrei Ivanovich came to the Secret Chancellery, already having considerable experience behind him in conducting all kinds of "searches". Therefore, he took the place of the de facto boss in it: he spent more time in the presence of his colleagues and regularly informed Tolstoy about his actions and the results obtained. “My dear Pyotr Andreevich,” Ushakov wrote to Tolstoy in November 1722, “I am reporting the state of affairs here: for the help of Vyshny, everything is all right. From Moscow I sent two couriers to your Excellency with extracts on Levin's case, and those arrived before your Excellency, I am not known about that and I seriously doubt whether they are alive; ‹…› In the chancellery here again there are no important matters, but there are mediocre ‹…›. Only the Novgorod case is extremely tricky for me, for Akulina is very ill for many times <...>, but it came to pass that it was necessary to look for her, and for use she often had a doctor, and a doctor incessantly. Kolodnikov currently has 22 people on business ”. To this letter Tolstoy replied: “My sovereign Andrei Ivanovich! Yesterday I received your letter, my sovereign, of this January 20 in one piece, for which I thank you for the notification and answer with mine. With your doubts, my sir, on the Novgorod case, I very much agree: and what Ignatius says at death, you can assert yourself on that, and according to that last interrogation and the women a decree, you can inflict what they deserve; and thus finish this business. "

The next year Ushakov also sent extracts to Tolstoy, for example, with the following cover letter: “My dear Peter Andreevich! Before your Excellency, I propose an extract for the Secret Chancellery on unsolvable matters. And what and about what, that means at this the register, according to which I demand resolutions, what to repair; and so I remain your Excellency, servant Andrey Ushakov. " In response, Tolstoy sent "my sovereign Andrei Ivanovich" the necessary instructions.

If Ushakov himself left Petersburg, he maintained regular correspondence with his subordinates. In 1722 he wrote from Moscow to his secretary Ivan Topilskiy: “Mr. Secretary Topilskaya. Sent from the secret affairs office to the house of Vasily Archakovsky’s wife Irina Afanasyeva’s daughter, from her widespread speeches and her face-to-face bets with Baba Akulina, copies of copies, listening, we determined from the secret affairs office to release her, Irina, until the decree on the painting was issued, for this she asked, Irina, against Akulinin's questioning only in one testimony, but this is the testimony that Irina did not show and therefore remained in the words shown with Akulina and Archakovskaya, and in the list write how her Irina will be asked from now on, and they will paint her immediately. Your servant Andrey Ushakov. " The secretary, for his part, just as regularly informed his superiors: “Excellent Mr. General-Maeor and Life-Guards Maeor, my dear sir Andrei Ivanovich! Your Excellency I humbly inform you: according to the order sent to me this May, the 22nd day, according to the report of the chamber collegium of the sergeant Maksim Perov about the words of Prince Dmitry Mikhailovich Golitsin, the butler Mikhail Podamukov, I follow in what 5 people have appeared now, whom I questioned, and according to those inquiries it is necessary, having found, to ask different ranks of people 9 more people, and these, sir, I will ask, and asking, giving them confrontations, what will seem, from all this making an extract, I will inform your Excellency in the future. " (The point here is not about simple "obscene words", but about some suspicious documents allegedly in the possession of Senator Prince D. M. Golitsyn.)

Ushakov served regularly - he conducted the investigation of Alexei's case and sat in court over him; became a major general in 1721 and received a decent salary - 1,755 rubles a year. In January 1725, together with Tolstoy and Buturlin, he supported the right to the throne of Catherine. According to the Austrian and Danish diplomats, it was Ushakov who said: "The Guard wants to see Catherine on the throne and <...> she is ready to kill anyone who does not approve of this decision." It was not difficult for him to make a choice, like many other guards "promoted"; rather, even such a problem did not exist for him.

Following Leo Tolstoy (in the sketches for an unwritten novel about the post-Petrine era), we can attribute Andrei Ivanovich to a certain type of personality and behavior: “Devotion is blind. Sanguine. Far from intrigue. He finished happily. Scout out the master. Rough appearance, dexterity. " Coming from a poor noble family, he could not imagine any other world order besides the autocratic one, and was ready to carry out any order of his emperor with complete peace of mind and even a kind of humor - in a letter to his chief in the Secret Chancellery, Tolstoy, he joked: ".

In those days he was one of the closest guards to Catherine. On January 27, on the basis of a decree from the Cabinet of Catherine on the immediate allocation of the guard 20 thousand rubles, they were issued from the "Commissioner of the Salt Board" in the hands of Major Ushakov. From there, other payments followed "for some necessary and secret dachas": Major of the Guards and manager of the Secret Chancellery Ushakov received the most - 3 thousand rubles; General Buturlin - 1,500 rubles; according to another decree, majors SA Saltykov and II Dmitriev-Mamonov were given a thousand rubles each.

Andrei Ivanovich, who distinguished himself in the "election" of the empress, became a senator, holder of the newly established Order of Alexander Nevsky, and in February 1727 - a lieutenant general. But his career was almost cut short by the same Menshikov: first, Ushakov lost his place in the abolished Secret Chancellery, then he was expelled from the Senate, and in April 1727 came under investigation in the Tolstoy-Devier case. The rank was not taken away from him, but he lost the 200 households he deserved in 1718 and was sent, as already mentioned, from the capital to the field regiments - first to Revel, and then to Yaroslavl.

The disgrace of Menshikov himself did not change anything. The supreme rulers exactly repeated his tactics with respect to possible competitors, and none of those exiled by Menshikov was returned, including the participants in the "conspiracy" of Tolstoy-Devier Buturlin, Ushakov and others. Ushakov from the provinces followed the events in the capital, where he had loyal friends -informants. “In the house of your Excellency here, by the grace of Christ, everything is safe,” Ivan Topilsky, a former clerk of the Secret Chancellery, told him the news on February 27, 1728. - 33 fathoms of firewood were transported here from the Primorsky yard <…>. From the local side I report: by the grace of the Lord it is composed in every possible way, and all kinds of supplies are cheap. Gentlemen generals here have assemblies, and when they visit foreigners, it’s a real assembly, and if the Russians, then pretend a ball. On the 23rd of this month there was an assembly or a ball at Mr Korchmin's with rich illumination and considerable interpretation; that Hungarian, they say, was available with that. And the last ones, who were dancing, left at 5 o'clock in the afternoon. " And yet I would have served Andrei Ivanovich to death in the outskirts of the empire, if not for the sudden death of young Peter II and the "trick" of the Supreme Privy Council to limit the power of Anna Ioannovna, who was invited to the throne.

On January 19, 1730, the Supreme Privy Council drew up a list of "conditions", which included, among other things, "not to take away property and honor from the gentry without a trial," which gave at least some guarantee against sudden arrests, secret investigations and exile with confiscation of property. Having announced the "conditions", the "leaders" invited the Russian gentry to present projects of the future state structure. During that short period (six weeks) of the Annin "thaw", several similar projects emerged; one of them, directed against the monopoly on power of the Supreme Privy Council (the so-called "draft 364", according to the number of those who put their name under it), was signed by Lieutenant General Ushakov.

However, Andrei Ivanovich was hardly interested in the procedures for the formation of elected bodies of power defined in him. The daughter of General GD Yusupov, Praskovya, who was sent "under the beginning" to the Vvedensky Tikhvin Monastery, considered the very events of the winter of 1730, in which her father had participated, to be the source of her troubles. “Father de mine with others, and with whom she didn’t speak,” her maid told Praskovya Yusupova's speeches, “I didn’t want to see the empress on the throne be autocratic. And General de Ushakov is a remanufacturer, a pimp; he and others wanted her, the empress, to be autocratic to the throne. But my dear father, as he heard about this, then he fell ill and descended into the ground from that. "

On February 25, 1730, Ushakov, together with other representatives of the generals and the gentry, submitted a petition to Anna with a request to "most graciously accept autocracy such as your glorious and praiseworthy ancestors had", after which the Empress "most mercifully deigned to tear up" inappropriate "conditions of reign" and took up autocracy.

Andrei Ivanovich was right - when distributing awards, he, as one of the main participants in those events, received 500 households from the confiscated possessions of the Dolgorukov princes; became general-in-chief, adjutant general, senator and lieutenant colonel of the guard. His talent was in demand: in 1731 the Secret Chancellery was revived and yesterday's disgraced guardsman headed it. By order of the Empress, the senators on March 31, 1731 notified Ushakov that they ordered “the important cases in the Senate and on those cases of convicts to send to you, Mr. , which should, according to the above-mentioned decree, held on April 10th, be sent to you, Mr. General and Knight, <…> and to call this Office of Secret Investigation Affairs ".

Life briefly returned to Preobrazhenskoe. However, already at the beginning of 1732 the empress and the court moved to Petersburg; Ushakov's service also moved there - first as a "marching Secret Chancellery of Secret Affairs", and then, in August of the same year, already on a permanent basis, leaving in Moscow its branch office under the "directorate" of the Moscow Commander-in-Chief Adjutant General Count Semyon Andreevich Saltykov. Andrei Ivanovich with his employees and papers settled down in the "chambers" of the St. Petersburg Peter and Paul Fortress, "where there was a Secret Chancellery in advance," and the usual work began. At the same time, Ushakov remained a general for the states of the Military Collegium and a senator, and in the reports of the Senate to the Empress, his signature was the first.

Ushakov's unpublished correspondence with the famous Ober-Chamberlain, Duke of Courland Ernst Johann Biron, testifies to the fact that they communicated almost on an equal footing. Unlike other correspondents of Annin's favorite, Ushakov himself had access to the empress and did not ask Biron for anything; their letters are short and businesslike, without compliments and assurances of mutual loyalty.

Remaining "on the farm" in the capital during the departure of the court, Andrei Ivanovich first of all reported to Biron for transmission to the empress in Peterhof about the affairs of his department - for example, about the denunciation received on the tax farmers or the exact time of the execution of Artemy Volynsky: in the afternoon at eight o'clock. " Unable to go to the royal residence in person, he sent Khrushchov's secretary for a personal report to Anna Ioannovna on the case of the court "Madama" Yaganna Petrova that was of interest to her. In addition, Ushakov reported on other news: the choice of cloth for the Guards regiments, the burial of the capital commandant Efimov in the Peter and Paul Fortress, or the death of his beloved dog Anna "Tsytrinushki", which followed at 10 am on June 18, 1740.

Biron conveyed the empress's answers: denunciation is "the ravings of the townspeople" and has "no importance", and the question with the cloth is better to postpone - the empress is not in the spirit: "It is not a great need to bother me in the village with this." At the same time, through Biron, other high orders came to Ushakov for transmission to the princesses Anna and Elizabeth or to others. In some cases, Andrei Ivanovich showed perseverance - he suggested, for example, that the issue of purchasing cloth should be resolved in favor of English rather than Prussian goods, which he managed to convince his correspondent of.

The executive "general and cavalier" had to carry out other assignments that had no direct relation to the investigation. One day in the summer of 1735, Anna demanded from Ushakov to find out “where and why the smoke is coming,” she had noticed from the palace window. He found out that on the Vyborg side, 12 versts from the capital, "mosses are burning" because irresponsible mushroom pickers "lay out fires for boiling these mushrooms in the night", and sent a soldier there to extinguish the fire. Then the empress ordered to deliver her a statement, which took into account the number of ships that have passed the Ladoga Canal since the beginning of navigation; then - to urgently send to military service those who were already dismissed with the "abshids" of the palace servants - lackeys, mouthpieces, hayduks ...

Andrei Ivanovich survived the notorious "Bironovschina" without loss and took part in all the high-profile processes of the Anninsky reign: the Dolgorukov princes, the former leader of the "supreme leaders" Prince Dmitry Golitsyn, Artemy Volynsky. However, immediately after the death of Anna Ioannovna, Biron - at that time the official and sovereign regent of the Russian Empire under the juvenile emperor John Antonovich - doubted his loyalty, since among those dissatisfied with the rise of the favorite of the officers was Ushakov's adjutant Ivan Vlasyev. But even the order of the Duke to establish control over the actions of the Secret Chancellery - the participation of the Prosecutor General Prince Trubetskoy in the consideration of cases "on obscene and villainous reasoning and interpretation of the current government" - did not help the Duke. Three weeks later, Biron's reign ended with his arrest, which, at the head of a detachment of guards, was carried out by an even more decisive German - Field Marshal Burkhard Christopher Minich. He, in turn, "resigned" in March 1741, the new ruler - the mother of the emperor, the niece of Anna Ioannovna Princess Anna Leopoldovna. She also made Ushakov a knight of the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called. But already on November 25, 1741, the regent Anna was overthrown with her son by the Transfiguration soldiers, who brought the daughter of Peter I Elizabeth to the palace (in the literal sense of the word) to the kingdom. A few days later, Ushakov received from her a diamond chain for the St.Andrew's Order. True, during the next (which took place at every palace coup) redistribution of property, Ushakov lost the village of Shcherbeeva near Moscow, but he immediately looked after himself compensation and persistently asked to make him happy with either the synodal fiefdom - the village of Ozeretskovsky, or the former possession of the Dolgorukov princes - Lykov-Golenishchev. Elizaveta Petrovna ordered him to be with her "forever": the need for his services was so obvious to her that on December 2, 1741, she canceled the appointment of the chief investigator to the army that had already taken place and put him at the head of the commission of inquiry on the case of arrested "partisans" the ruler, his bosses - Minich and Osterman.

All these large and small palace coups did not affect the department of Andrei Ivanovich in any way - his staff and the nature of work did not undergo changes. All the same, “obscene words” and thoughts were “followed” and punished against each of the ruling person and her entourage.

Andrei Ivanovich, according to the established order, continued to give reports to the sixth imperial majesty in his lifetime. Now he had to consider the cases of those inspired by the ease of overthrowing the legitimate monarch of hot heads, who sincerely believed that "the empress herself is the same person as I am, only that she has the advantage that she reigns." From the empress, he obtained a special decree that made his service beyond the control of anyone except the empress herself: “November 1743, on the 29th day in the Office of Secret Investigative Affairs, General and Knight '... The Secret Chancellery, in which they are of importance, by her highest Imperial Majesty, by an oral decree all-mercifully deigned to indicate: henceforth, from now on, no news and inquiries available in the Secret Chancellery and that office in the office, both in the Cabinet of Her Imperial Majesty and in the Holy Synod , and in the Governing Senate, and in any place without her own Imperial Majesty's signature, not to give a decree to the signature of Her Imperial Majesty's own. "

From now on, neither the Senate, influential during the reign of Elizabeth, nor the Synod had the right to demand information or reports from the Secret Chancellery. The Synod persons, however, tried to fight - to force the chancellery to recognize the subordination of religious affairs to the church department, to which Ushakov firmly replied: he will “follow” all the cases - not only “concerning the first two points”, but also those entrusted to him “as if in a special and to that which took place by her Imperial Majesty's personal decree ”. The Secret Chancellery did not stand on ceremony with other institutions. Ushakov allowed himself, without even entering into relations with the Military Collegium, to demand from the Senate to reprimand the generals for "willfulness" (they dared to start a case of some "anonymous libelous letters") and to indicate that "this collegium henceforth in such she did not enter important matters not belonging to her. " Thus, the Secret Chancellery and its head occupied a special and very influential position in the system of Russian state institutions of the 18th century.

The attempts of other researchers to connect the name of Ushakov with specific court groupings, as the opponent of Chancellor A. P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin and the “loyal companion” of the Prosecutor General N. Yu. Trubetskoy, are hardly legitimate. In those years, the court "conjuncture" became the main political science; the "parties" vying at the throne, which included both Russians and Germans, fought by appointing their clients and exposing the actions of their opponents, not for one course or another, but for favors. Attempts at meaningful political actions, such as the drafting of not revolutionary, but bureaucratic reforms to improve the government system by Artemy Volynsky and his friends, appeared as a dangerous conspiracy to seize the throne and ended with the public execution of the nobleman and his "confidants."

In the new atmosphere, the very intellectual level of the discussions changed. The enlightened Prosecutor General Trubetskoy testified that his political conversations with Volynsky revolved around one topic: “who can be canceled and who is in favor” with the empress, about Volynsky's quarrels with other dignitaries, about appointments at court and in the army. Trubetskoy indignantly rejected even the possibility of reading books by himself; here in his youth, under Peter, "I saw a lot and read, only about what matters, there is no possibility to say that now, beyond the past many times."

Ushakov entered this court world. It is difficult to imagine him translating Ovid's Metamorphoses or admiring an impious picture, which his predecessor Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy sinned. We believe that his political views and spiritual needs did not rise too much above the ideas of the brave guards of that era, whose main "universities" were campaigns and business trips to suppress rioters and "coerce" the local authorities. But in comparison with the immoderate father and son Romodanovskys, this was progress: Ushakov did not rage at the table, but on the contrary, "in societies he was distinguished by his charming mannerisms and had a special gift to ferret out the way of thinking of his interlocutors."

Ushakov's "unsinkability" is explained by professional suitability in the absence of any political ambitions; the ability to preserve "access to the body", while remaining outside of all "parties" and not ruining relations with anyone. For this he was once again treated kindly - in 1744 he received the title of Count of the Russian Empire and Adjutant General. Ushakov remained in mercy until his death. In honor and rank, the aged head of the Secret Chancellery, General-in-Chief, Senator, of both Russian orders (Alexander Nevsky and Andrew the First-Called), Chevalier, Lieutenant Colonel of the Semenovsky Guards Regiment, Adjutant General Count Andrei Ivanovich Ushakov died on March 26, 1747. According to legend, before his death, he turned to the portrait of Peter I with the words "gratitude and awe." He set off on his last journey "with considerable contentment" at the expense of the state; the funeral procession was attended by many clergy: Archbishop Feodosy of St. Petersburg, Archbishop Mitrofan of Tver, Bishop of Vyatka, three archimandrites and clergy of the capital's churches; the soul of the deceased was followed by a contribution to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery.

The post of chief investigator of the empire passed to a no less dignified successor - Count Alexander Ivanovich Shuvalov (1710-1771).

The mainstay of Elizabeth at the beginning of her reign were the old servants of her father. However, this generation had already left the scene: in 1742-1749 A. M. Cherkassky, S. A. Saltykov, G. A. Urusov, V. Ya. Novosiltsev, G. P. Chernyshev, N. F. Golovin died, V. V. Dolgorukov, A. I. Ushakov, A. B. Kurakin, I. Yu. Trubetskoy, A. I. Rumyantsev. They were replaced by new nobles from among the royal princes - Chancellor Alexei Bestuzhev-Ryumin, her favorites Alexei Razumovsky and Ivan Shuvalov, Mikhail Vorontsov, brothers Peter and Alexander Shuvalov. The eldest of them was distinguished not only by ambition, but also by undoubted leadership abilities; his ideas and projects (the destruction of internal customs, a protectionist foreign trade course, the creation of merchant and noble banks, general surveying, and the reform of monetary circulation) determined the internal policy of Russia in the middle of the 18th century.

His younger brother Alexander remained in the shadow of his elder all the time, but he also made a career. After the coup, Elizaveta Petrovna rewarded him, making him a real chamberlain and second lieutenant of her personal guard - the Life-Companion company of the Preobrazhensky regiment, which put her on the throne. In 1744, Alexander Ivanovich, not possessing military talents and not participating in any wars, became a lieutenant of the life company and a lieutenant general, in 1746, together with his brother Peter, he was elevated to the count's dignity. Then Alexander Shuvalov became adjutant general and general-in-chief (in 1751) and received the Order of St. Andrew the First-Called (in 1753).

At this time, the elderly A.I. Ushakov began to attend the service less often. Only in especially important cases did he personally conduct interrogations, usually he "listened" to the reports of the secretaries of the chancellery, and a worthy successor was sought for him. By decree of the Empress in February 1745, Shuvalov was for the first time entrusted with “together with him, General (Ushakov. - I.K., E.N.) <…> In the presence of being "in the case of one of the main participants in the coup of November 25, 1741, ensign of the life company Yuri Grunstein, who was too presumptuous to the point of indecency; then several more similar instructions followed. On November 20, 1745, Ushakov received the highest order: “We have indicated, together with you in the Secret Chancellery, that our real chamberlain and cavalier, Alexander Shuvalov, must be present in all matters; Why do you have to declare this decree of ours to Shuvalov, and inform him about where it should be; and to our general and cavalier, Count Ushakov, to inflict this according to our decree. Elisabeth ". Andrei Ivanovich in his home church took Shuvalov to the oath and ordered the Senate, Cabinet and other offices to be notified of this. So Shuvalov, together with the chief, began to sign the sentences and protocols of the Secret Chancellery.

After the death of the "general and gentleman" Shuvalov took his post, which he retained until the very end of the reign of his patroness; he also took under his command the Semyonovsky regiment of Ushakov. The mechanism of the detective case had already been worked out by his predecessors, and Shuvalov did not introduce any innovations into it. Just like his former boss, he submitted reports and personally participated in investigations that were of particular interest to the empress: he was in charge of the protection of the deposed ruler Anna Leopoldovna, her "Brunschweig family" and the imprisoned emperor John Antonovich; he personally interrogated in 1758 the arrested Field Marshal Apraksin, then Chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin himself, accused of treason, and suspected of espionage in the Russian army that fought on the fields of the Seven Years War.

Alexander Ivanovich turned out to be a diligent investigator, but no more. There was no zeal and corrosiveness in him, and there was no readiness to take on any business, which distinguished Ushakov, who had gone through the harsh Peter's school. Shuvalov did not need to curry favor - he took over the Secret Chancellery, already being showered with favors by the courtier and general. He attended the investigations less often than his predecessor - he spent more time in the palace "on duty", especially after he was appointed to serve with the heir to the throne, Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich and his wife, the future Catherine II.

However, at the same time, he did not shine with secular charm, and the wards were afraid of him. “Alexander Shuvalov, not by himself, but by the position he held, was a threat to the entire court, city and the entire empire: he was the head of the State Inquisitional Court, which was then called the Secret Chancellery. His activities were said to have triggered a kind of convulsive movement in him, which was done on the entire right side of his face, from the eye to the chin, every time he was agitated by joy, anger, fear or dread. It is amazing how they chose this man with such a disgusting grimace to keep him constantly face to face with a young pregnant woman; if I had a child with such a miserable tick, I think that the Empress (Elizabeth. - I.K., E.N.) would be very angry about this; meanwhile, this could have happened, since I saw him constantly, always reluctantly and mostly with a feeling of involuntary disgust caused by his personal qualities, his family and his position, which, of course, could not increase the pleasure of his company, "she recalled later Empress Catherine II was impressed by Shuvalov.

But the Count performed his duties diligently. “Their Imperial Highnesses have deigned to wake up. By the grace of God, everything is safe, and after lunch, the dispatcher will be deigned to the solar station. Your Imperial Majesty's most loyal slave, Count Alexander Shuvalov, "- he sent similar news about the life of the" young court "to the empress every day. At the same time, he did not forget to remind her about the postponement of the payment of his 70-thousandth debt to the treasury or to ask for a postscript of the palace volost in Medynsky district to his own metallurgical plants. In addition, he had to sit in the Conference at the highest court (from 1756), the Military Collegium and the Senate (from 1760). Therefore, there was less and less time left for other official duties. Reports, extracts, extracts, interrogation speeches - all these documents of the Secret Chancellery are made less extensive and more meager in content.

Moreover, Alexander Ivanovich took part in the struggle of the court "parties", which Ushakov did not allow himself. In the last year of Elizabeth's reign, there were rumors about the possible removal of her nephew Pyotr Fedorovich from the inheritance and the transfer of the crown to his little son Pavel Petrovich, of which the Shuvalov clan was suspected. Later, Catherine herself reported that "a few time" before the death of the empress, Ivan Shuvalov suggested that the tutor of the heir N. I. Panin "change the inheritance" and "make the reign in the name of the crown prince", to which Panin refused.

However, Catherine herself several years earlier discussed with Bestuzhev-Ryumin his plan, according to which, after the death of the empress, she became the “co-ruler” of her husband, and the chancellor - the president of the three “first” colleges and the commander of the guards regiments. At the same time, she arranged a secret meeting with Alexander Shuvalov. His influential brother Peter in August 1756 informed Catherine about his readiness to serve her, and she herself wrote to him about Bestuzhev's "betrayal" and her desire to "throw herself into your arms."

At that time - in 1756-1757 - these negotiations led nowhere; and a few years later, the Elizabethan favorite Ivan Shuvalov, with all his merits, was no longer suitable for an open struggle for power, while his eldest relative, capable of everything, Peter Ivanovich Shuvalov, was already mortally ill. But, according to Catherine, in the last months or even weeks of the empress's life, the Shuvalovs still managed to gain confidence in the heir with the help of the director of the gentry corps A.P. Melgunov. The support from the Shuvalovs - together with the loyalty of Grand Duchess Catherine and the efforts of Pyotr Fedorovich himself to attract the guards officers to his side - provided a way out of the next "coup" situation.

However, with the death of P.I.Shuvalov in January 1762, the influence of his clan began to wane. Emperor Peter III, who took the throne, on December 28, 1761, promoted Alexander Ivanovich to the rank of general-field marshal, granted him two thousand serfs and appointed him colonel of the Semyonovsky regiment - but at the same time abolished the Secret Chancellery, which he had been in charge of for many years. The submissive count, on February 17, 1762, before the appearance of the tsarist manifesto, announced to his subordinates that their institution had been ordered “not to be” anymore, and on February 19 the last protocol of interrogation was drawn up in the office.

The last time Shuvalov demonstrated court talent was on the day of the coup on June 28, 1762, when, together with MI Vorontsov and N. Yu. sit in the Senate. After the accession of Catherine II, he was present at her coronation in Moscow, but his career was already over. In January 1763, Count Shuvalov retired and was awarded two thousand more peasant souls.

After the manifesto on the destruction of the Secret Chancellery was adopted on February 23, 1762, a lesser-known decree of the Senate was issued, so that all clerks and officials of the Secret Chancellery "be on the same salary as they now receive," as long as "the cases were given over and the cash convicts were examined. will"; henceforth, all these officials were to be "at the Senate", and in Moscow - "at the Senate office." In the same decree, a special reservation was made: "However, from them the assessor Sheshkovsky, having renamed the same rank senate secretary, is now really and to appoint an expedition for that in the Senate." This was the name of the new de facto head of this institution under Catherine II.

The coup that brought Catherine to the throne showed that the “mercy for all good and faithful subjects” declared by the late Peter III in the manifesto on February 21 was somewhat premature, since “intentions against our imperial health, person and honor” were by no means “in vain and always for our own destruction. converting villains. "

The soldiers and officers of the Guards, whose hands were used to carry out the coup, in those days sincerely saw themselves as "kingmakers" and looked forward to rewards. As usual, there weren't enough gingerbreads for everyone. And then the gallant guardsman, who had skipped the received handful of rubles, could look at the lucky few with understandable disapproval. Envy and discontent, together with the apparent ease of making a "revolution" gave rise to the desire to "correct" the situation. This tendency was expressed by one of the people closest to Ekaterina, Nikita Ivanovich Panin: "We have been turning in revolutions on the throne for more than thirty years, and the more their power spreads among vile people, the bolder, safer and more possible they have become." In practice, this meant that in the 1760s, Catherine constantly had to deal with attempts - albeit not very dangerous - of a new conspiracy. In addition, at this time, the struggle of the court "parties" for control over the foreign policy of the empire and for influence over the empress intensified.

At first, Catherine entrusted the supreme supervision of the political investigation to the Prosecutor General A.I. The Empress himself first put Glebov under the control of N.I. Panin, and then dismissed him. Prince Alexander Alekseevich Vyazemsky, appointed in his place, was ordered by a secret decree in February 1764, together with Panin, to manage secret affairs. He remained in this post until his death in 1792; after which these affairs were in charge of the new Prosecutor General and a relative of Potemkin A. N. Samoilov and the State Secretary of the Empress V. S. Popov, who for many years headed Potemkin's Chancellery, and then the Imperial Cabinet.

In two years, the staff of the Secret Expedition was finally formed. On December 10, 1763, by a personal decree, the Senate secretary Sheshkovsky was appointed to be "on some of the affairs entrusted from us under our secret real adviser Panin, Prosecutor General Glebov," with an annual salary of 800 rubles.

From that time on, Stepan Ivanovich Sheshkovsky (1727–1794) became for 30 years the actual head of the Secret Expedition, with several aristocratic chiefs succeeding each other. Now the leadership of the political investigation of imperial Russia has in a certain sense "doubled", since the "spirit of the times" itself has changed.

In the Petrine and post-Petrine epochs, not only a general or a senator, but also an aristocrat-Rurikovich considered it not only possible, but also worthy to perform the functions of an investigator in a dungeon; only torturing or executing oneself was not accepted - but, perhaps, not for moral reasons, but was simply considered "irrelevant": there were slaves for dirty work. Although Peter's associates, led by the tsar, personally chopped off the riflemen's heads ...

After one or two generations, Peter's enlightenment bore fruit: such behavior was already unacceptable for a noble nobleman. The disappearance of "slave fear" noted by contemporaries indicates that during the calm 1740-1750s, representatives of the noble society grew up, more enlightened and independent than their fathers during the "Bironovism" were: research even allows us to speak of a special "cultural and psychological type »The Elizabethan era. They were replaced by the peers and younger contemporaries of Catherine II: generals, administrators, diplomats and a whole layer of nobles who knew how to express their patriotic feelings without getting drunk to unconsciousness in the palace and not assuring them of their inability to read books. The estate of honor and their own dignity no longer allowed their personal participation in interrogations with partiality and torture procedures.

From now on, the head of the secret police was still a "noble person" who enjoyed the personal confidence of the sovereign - for example, A. Kh. Benkendorf under Nicholas I or P. A. Shuvalov under Alexander II. But she did not stoop to routine interrogations and police tricks - except in special cases and with her peers. The "black" work was performed not by aristocrats, but by the plebeians of the investigation - experts in their field, not included in the secular and court circle.

The department itself at this time not only changes its name. The secret expedition is "removed" from the person of the sovereign, ceases to be a continuation of his personal office; it becomes part of the state apparatus - an institution that protects the "honor and health" of any Russian monarch.

In this sense, Panin and Vyazemsky played the role of chiefs - as they said in the 18th century, they took the Secret Expedition under their "direction". Sheshkovsky, on the other hand, was very suitable for the role of a trusted and responsible executor, although the attitude towards him was different. The names of the later political investigators are known, at best, to specialists, while Stepan Sheshkovsky became a legendary and sinister figure during his lifetime; "jokes" were made about him, the authenticity of which is now difficult to verify.

His father, a descendant of some of the Polish-Lithuanian prisoners during the wars of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Ivan Sheshkovsky, was a petty court servant, and then, with the beginning of the Peter's reforms, he was "found by doing things in different places" as a clerk. In this capacity, he changed about a dozen chanceries and offices, but for 40 years of blameless service he received only the lowest, 14th rank of the collegiate registrar and ended his life as a police master in Kolomna. His eldest son Timofey also served there: “he was in different parcels from the office to fix the roads on the big pillar roads and on them bridges and gates and milestones, and to search for and eradicate thieves and robbers and unspecified wine kurens and inn in the Kolomna district”.

The younger offspring continued the family tradition, but he was more fortunate: the eleven-year-old "clerk's son" Stepan Sheshkovsky began serving in the Siberian order in 1738, and two years later, for some reason, was temporarily seconded "on business" to the Secret Chancellery. The young copyist liked the new job so much that in 1743 he voluntarily left for St. Petersburg, and the commanding authorities demanded that the fugitive clerk be returned. Sheshkovsky returned to Moscow - but already as an official, who "by decree of the Senate was taken to the office of secret search cases." In the department of secret investigation, he remained until the end of his life. Perhaps, here the acquaintance with the head of the institution played a role - in St. Petersburg the Sheshkovsky family lived "in the house of his Count's Excellency Alexander Ivanovich Shuvalov, near the Blue Bridge."

In 1748 he still served as a sub-chancellor in Moscow, but soon the capable official was transferred to St. Petersburg. His Moscow boss, an old businessman in Peter's training, Vasily Kazarinov, assessed his subordinate flatteringly: "he is capable of writing, and does not drink, and he is good at business." In February 1754, Shuvalov reported to the Senate that "in the Office of Secret Investigation Affairs there is an archivist Stepan Sheshkovsky, who is in good condition and in the correction of important matters acts honestly and zealously, which is why he, Sheshkovsky, deserves to be a recorder." Three years later, Shuvalov reported to the Empress herself about Sheshkovsky's diligent service, and she "most graciously deigned to the Secret Chancellery of the Recorder Stepan Sheshkovsky for his respectable actions in important matters and exemplary work in the Secret Chancellery as a secretary."

In 1761 he became a collegiate assessor, that is, he got out of the commoners into hereditary nobles. Secretary Sheshkovsky safely survived both the temporary liquidation of the political investigation under Peter III, and the next palace coup that brought Catherine II to the throne. In the 1760s, her position was fragile, and Sheshkovsky's service was more in demand than ever. He, one way or another, participated in the investigation of the most important cases: the Rostov Archbishop Arseny Matseevich (1763) who protested against the secularization of church lands; Lieutenant Vasily Mirovich, who planned to elevate the imprisoned emperor John Antonovich (1764) to the throne, and disgruntled guardsmen. His abilities did not go unnoticed: in 1767 Sheshkovsky became a collegiate adviser and chief secretary - in fact, he led the daily activities of the Secret Expedition.

By that time, he was already well known to Catherine, and in 1774 she found it possible to involve him in the interrogation of the main political criminals - Yemelyan Pugachev and his associates, who were transported to Moscow, since she was sure that he had a special gift - he knew how to talk with ordinary people. people "and always very successfully disassembled and brought to the accuracy of the most difficult proceedings." Sheshkovsky immediately left Petersburg for Moscow. On November 5, 1774, he already interrogated Pugachev at the Mint "from the beginning of his disgusting birth with all the circumstances until the hour he was bound." The interrogations lasted 10 days, and the Moscow commander-in-chief, Prince MN Volkonsky, in his report to the empress paid tribute to the investigator's efforts: "Sheshkovsky, the most merciful Empress, writes the history of villains day and night, but he could not finish yet." Catherine expressed concern - she wished "that this matter would soon be brought to an end"; but researchers should be grateful to Sheshkovsky - thanks to his efforts (he personally kept the protocol, carefully recording the testimony), we can now familiarize ourselves with the detailed account of the leader of the uprising about his life and adventures.

After the end of the investigation, the court sentenced Pugachev to a painful execution; Sheshkovsky, Vyazemsky and Volkonsky announced the verdict to him on January 9, 1775. The next day, the leader of the rebels was executed, but the chief investigator continued interrogating other Pugachevites for several more months. At the end of the year, a well-deserved reward awaited him - the rank of state councilor.

Subsequently, he just as zealously fulfilled his duties and enjoyed the confidence of the empress - in 1781 he received the "general" rank of the actual state councilor; Prosecutor General AA Vyazemsky himself, by a special letter, allowed him in 1783 to get acquainted with all the papers received “in my name” and to make personal reports to the empress about “necessary and depending on the highest consideration” cases. Sheshkovsky in 1790 interrogated Radishchev, in 1791 - the spy and official of the College of Foreign Affairs I. Waltz, in 1792 - the famous publisher and freemason N.I. Novikov. Stepan Ivanovich finished his career as a privy councilor, owner of estates and holder of the Order of St. Vladimir, 2nd degree. In 1794 he retired with a pension of 2 thousand rubles.

Already during his lifetime he became an ominous sight of St. Petersburg, about which numerous tales were made: as if Sheshkovsky had a special room in the Winter Palace for "work" on the instructions of the empress herself. It seems that he personally cut off those under investigation, and the interrogation of the stubborn prisoner began with a blow to his very chin with such force that he knocked out his teeth. It was said that the room where his massacre was carried out was completely filled with icons, and Sheshkovsky himself, during the execution, with affection read the akathist to Jesus or the Mother of God; upon entering the room, attention was drawn to a large portrait of Empress Catherine in a gilded frame with the inscription: "This portrait of the Majesty is the contribution of her faithful dog Stepan Sheshkovsky."

Many believed that the chief secretary was an omniscient man; that his spies were everywhere, listening to popular rumors, recording careless speeches. There were rumors that in Sheshkovsky's office there was a chair with a mechanism that closed the seat so that he could not free himself. At a sign from Sheshkovsky, the hatch with an armchair lowered under the floor, and only the head and shoulders of the visitor remained at the top. The perpetrators in the basement removed the chair, bared the body and flogged, and could not see exactly who they were punishing. During the execution, Sheshkovsky instilled in the visitor the rules of behavior in society. Then he was put in order and lifted with a chair. Everything ended without noise and publicity.

In the same way, several overly talkative ladies from the upper circle allegedly visited Sheshkovsky, including the wife of Major General Kozhina, Marya Dmitrievna. As one of the collectors of "jokes" about the time of Catherine reports, having envied the "case" of one of the favorites of the Empress A. D. Lanskoy, with whose family she was familiar, the general's wife strength. Guards of the Preobrazhensky regiment, Major Fyodor Matveyevich Tolstoy (Catherine's favorite reader during her vacation, and whom his wife received rich diamond earrings as a gift) out of envy of Prince Potemkin, who recommended Lansky, who paid him with ingratitude, really sought, with the help of others, to nominate Mordvinov. Lansky is handed over to his brother, and he is handed over to the empress. They teach the guard officers Alexander Alexandrovich Arsenyev and Alexander Petrovich Ermolov to complain about Tolstoy in his bad behavior; although Catherine knew this, she always favored him, and then she changed from favor to Lansky. Tolstoy falls out of favor. Mordvinov resigns from the guard, and Kozhina is subject to anger. " Catherine ordered Sheshkovsky to punish Kozhin for intemperance: "Every Sunday she is in a public masquerade, go yourself, taking her from there on the Secret Expedition, punish slightly physically and bring her back there with all decency." A more optimistic version of this story said that a young man who once experienced the procedure of sitting in a chair at Sheshkovsky's, being invited again, not only did not want to sit in the chair, but took advantage of the fact that the meeting with the hospitable host took place face to face, I put him in the unit and made him go underground, but he himself hastily disappeared.

In official documents, such stories, even if they were true, of course, were not reflected. Perhaps a lot of these stories are exaggerated, something is based on hearsay and fear; but it is characteristic that such stories were never written about any of the chiefs of the secret police. All of them paint the appearance of a real professional detective and investigation, who served not for fear, but for conscience, which, most likely, was Stepan Ivanovich Sheshkovsky, who became a legendary person during his lifetime.

The real Sheshkovsky, of course, was a trusted person, but directly removed from the figure of the enlightened monarch-legislator. On matters of particular interest to the empress (for example, during the investigation of N. I. Novikov and the Moscow "Martinists"), he was sometimes invited to the palace for a personal report, like his predecessors. But usually the reports of the Secret Expedition came through the Prosecutor General or State Secretaries, who transmitted Catherine's instructions and resolutions to Sheshkovsky. Catherine never appointed him a senator. And even more so, he did not appear either at court receptions and festivities, much less at the empress's "Hermitage" parties. But, apparently, he did not strive for this, well aware of his place in the system of the "lawful monarchy" of Catherine. The mocking Potemkin, as they said at court, asked the chief secretary at the meeting: "What is it like doing whipping, Stepan Ivanovich?" “Little by little, Your Grace,” answered Sheshkovsky, bowing.

The legendary leader of the Secret Expedition died in 1794 and was buried in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra; the inscription on the grave monument read: “Beneath this stone is buried the Privy Councilor and St. Vladimir Equal to the Apostles, 2nd degree, Knight Stepan Ivanovich Sheshkovsky. His life was 74 years, 4 months and 22 days. Served the fatherland for 56 years. " Two months after the death of Sheshkovsky, Prosecutor General Samoilov informed his widow that "Her Imperial Majesty, remembering the zealous service of her late husband, deigned to extend her highest mercy and with all-mercy ordered her and her children to be given ten thousand rubles for the rest of his family."

With the death of Empress Catherine, great changes took place. The retired Samoilov was replaced at the post of Prosecutor General by Prince Alexei Borisovich Kurakin. After the departure of the Sheshkovo case of the Secret Expedition, those who found themselves in "disorder" were put in order by his successor, the collegiate councilor Alexei Semenovich Makarov (1750–1810). He entered the service in 1759, was a secretary under the governor-general of Riga, Yu. Yu. Brown, and then served in St. Petersburg under the prosecutor-general Samoilov. Under Paul I, he remained the manager of the Secret Expedition, and in 1800 he became a senator; the established procedures for the conduct of the investigation and punishments did not change under him. Makarov, like his predecessor, rose to the rank of Privy Councilor, but he was not a fanatic of the investigation and did not leave a terrible memory even in the harsh times of Pavlov's reign.

The future governor of the Caucasus, and in those years a young artillery officer Alexei Ermolov, who was arrested in the case of several officers of the Smolensk garrison accused of conspiracy, was mercifully forgiven, and then demanded from the courier to the capital: “In St. Petersburg they brought me straight to the house of Governor-General Peter Vasilievich Lopukhin. Long questioned in his office, the courier received the order to take me to the head of the Secret Expedition. From there they escorted me to the St. Petersburg fortress and in the Alekseevsky ravelin they put me in a casemate. During my two-month stay there, I was once demanded by the Prosecutor General: explanations were taken from me by the head of the Secret Expedition, in which I unexpectedly met Mr. Makarov, a noble and magnanimous man who, serving under Count Samoilov, knew me in my youth and finally his adjutant. He knew about the forgiveness granted to me, about the capture of me another time he only found out that on the order of the sovereign a courier on duty in the palace was sent, and the reason for his absence was shrouded in secrecy. I presented my explanations on paper; they were corrected by Makarov, of course not seduced by my style, which was not softened by the feeling of righteousness, unjust persecution. " Ermolov, many years later, remembered about the "unjust persecution", but still considered the investigator a noble and generous person. It fell to Makarov to deal with the elimination of the Secret Expedition. In April 1801, he prepared for depositing the archive of his department "in perfect order" - with cases, sorted out in bundles by year with inventories and "alphabet about people who were in touch." He took care not only of the papers, but also of his subordinates: he noted their "zeal for the service," which they carried "in uninterrupted serenity at all times," and asked to be awarded with ranks and assigned to the new place of work desired by each of the officials.

Now, perhaps, is the time to get acquainted with the personnel of the detective department, whose modest efforts ensured its continuous work, and for historians they left thousands of cases with the fates of those "connected" to this institution, captured in them.

As already mentioned, initially the Secret Chancellery was created as another temporary "search" commission and was formed in the same way: having received the tsarist decree, the Guards Major appointed several officers as assistants, recruited clerks in various orders, received money, paper, ink, and proceeded to work. So, by decree of Peter I, in the spring of 1718, “Tolstoy was ordered to investigate (Tsarevich Alexei. - I.K., E.N.) to investigate immediately and convey to His Majesty, for whom the research was ordered to be clerk Ivan Sibilev, and the clerk of the old 2, young 6 people ", which were taken for a while from different institutions. For such an important mission, they chose experienced people - clerks T. Palekhin and K. Klishin, renamed on the occasion of moving to St. Petersburg as clerks. Palekhin-Tolstoy and Ushakov turned to him “Mr. Clerk - after the end of the investigation he returned to Moscow, where he worked for a long time. According to the staff of 1723, the Secret Chancellery consisted - already permanently - of the secretary Ivan Topilskiy; clerks Tikhon Gulyaev, Yegor Rusinov, Ivan Kirilov, Semyon Shurlov; sub-chancellors Viteliev and Basov - only seven people, and even the doctor Daniel Volners. In 1719, their salaries were supposed to be issued from the institutions from which they were seconded, "so that these clerks were taken to the aforementioned office for a while." But, as you know, there is nothing more permanent than temporary. So this commission soon turned into one of the most important institutions of the empire with a permanent staff and even its own bureaucratic dynasties. In addition to officials, it included a military command "for guarding the money treasury and convicts", which in 1720 consisted of 88 chief and non-commissioned officers and soldiers, and three years later increased by another 50 people.

The main figure in the “presence” after the chiefs was the secretary - the ruler of the affairs of the entire chancellery, under whose leadership all the current work and office work went. He received and placed the convicts, interrogated them, but did not torture them on his own - he sent a memorandum about the first interrogation and asked, "from now on what to fix." He constantly reported to the "ministers" on the state of affairs, supervised the preparation of extracts and extracts, and then dealt with those under investigation in accordance with the instructions received from the authorities.

The secretary was a non-public figure, but all the work of the institution rested on him. It is no coincidence that these officials were appointed and moved by personal decrees and their salaries were high: in 1761 the secretary Sheshkovsky received 500 rubles a year, and the chief secretary Mikhail Khrushchov - 800. As a rule, people with extensive experience in the relevant work were appointed to this position. Sometimes they made good careers. For example, Ivan Ivanovich Topil'skiy (1691-1761), having started his service as clerk of the Discharge Order, ended up in the Senate's Recruiting Chancellery, and from there - possibly under the patronage of its chief Ushakov - he followed him into the Secret Chancellery, where he worked as a secretary. When the institution was temporarily abolished in 1726, the experienced official did not stay idle and was promoted - he became the secretary of the Chancellery of the Supreme Privy Council. From there, the president of the Revision Board, I.I.Bibikov, begged him to come to him. Then Topilskiy was secretary of the Senate, served in the Collegium of Economy and served the nobility, becoming an assessor of the Justice Office. He finished his career as a venerable state councilor and head of the Moscow office of the Collegium of Foreign Affairs, working to put in order its rich archive until the last days of his life.

Subsequent secretaries of the Secret Chancellery did not have such "walks" around the offices. Under Anna Ioannovna, Nikolai Mikhailovich Khrushchov was appointed to this position in 1732. Coming from an old but seedy noble family, he began his career as a Petrine clerk; served in the Preobrazhensky Prikaz from 1719 and "for many of his labors" rose in 1741 to a collegiate councilor with an unusually large salary of one thousand rubles, after which he was transferred to a more relaxed job in Moscow at the College of Economics. According to the genealogical research, the venerable official retired with the rank of state councilor and died at a ripe old age in 1776.

After Khrushchov was transferred from the Secret Chancellery, his place was taken by another old colleague of Ushakov, Tikhon Gulyaev. He began as a clerk in the Secret Chancellery in 1720, and after its closure he ended up in the provincial Yaroslavl. There Andrei Ivanovich found him and achieved a transfer to the Moscow branch of the Secret Chancellery under the supervision of an equally reliable manager - adviser Vasily Grigorievich Kazarinov. Dyak Kazarinov worked with Ushakov since 1715 as the secretary of the Recruiting Chancellery, then moved with the head to the Secret Chancellery, and from May 1723 headed the Moscow office of secret investigation for more than a quarter of a century. In his letters to the "ministers" of the Secret Chancellery in St. Petersburg, Kazarinov reported in detail about the progress of the search, attaching notes and questioning speeches, and asked for further instructions; the leadership instructed him how to conduct the investigation, what questions to ask which of the convicts. The authorities trusted Kazarinov and even demanded that most of the cases be resolved on the spot; Once Ushakov and Tolstoy reprimanded the old clerk for sending all the cases and convicts to Petersburg, which caused "a loss of money and turbation for people."

After Gulyaev's death, Ushakov submitted to Empress Elizabeth a "report" on the appointment of Ivan Nabokov as secretary, who had served in this department for more than ten years and had gone from a sub-clerk to a registrar. After the highest permission, the new secretary took the vacant position, but then was transferred to Moscow. In 1757, this post was received by the protocol officer S. I. Sheshkovsky "for his kind and decent deeds and diligent labors in important matters"; at the same time his secretary was Vasily Prokofiev, who had served as a sub-clerk. In the Secret Expedition at Sheshkovsky, the secretary position was occupied by Ilya Zryakhov, Andrey Eremeev, court councilor Sergei Fedorov (who died right at the workplace in 1780), and after him, until the liquidation of the Secret Expedition, by the collegiate councilor Pyotr Molchanov.

In the Moscow branch of the Secret Chancellery, since 1732, Stepan Patokin served as secretary. Since 1738, the secretary was increasingly ill, but his superiors appreciated him and in 1741 he was appointed chief secretary with a salary of 600 rubles, giving two assistants - T. Gulyaev and I. Nabokov.

Then the secretary was Alexei Vasiliev - also a native of the former clerks of the same chancellery; in 1749, after his "removal" from office, Mikhail Nikitich Khrushchov was appointed to his place - most likely, the cousin of the above-named Nikolai Khrushchov. He began his career as a copyist for the Moscow office; in 1732 he was transferred to St. Petersburg, where he first became a sub-clerk, then a clerk, by 1743 he became a protocol clerk, and then a secretary of the Secret Chancellery. Following Nabokov, M. Khrushchov ended up in Moscow - such a rotation of personnel between the capitals was common.

During the census of officials in 1754, the chief secretary and collegiate adviser Mikhail Khrushchov, who was at that time head of the Moscow office of the Secret Chancellery, spoke about his career. “In the service of a finder, and named since 727 in the Serpukhov provincial chancellery at court and search cases as a copyist, and since the last 732 in the Secret Chancellery under secret affairs. And besides the Secret Chancellery, there were especially other self-needed and important commissions. And according to the definitions of the Secret Chancellery, he was made in the last 739th year as a sub-clerk, in 741 - as a clerk, in 743 on September on the 6th day - as a protocol clerk. Yes, according to the highest nominal names of Her Imperial Majesty, by decree, he was granted in 749 August 29 secretary, and this year 754 February 13 numbers - Chief Secretary. And he, Khrushchov, is four-tenth year old. He, Khrushchov, does not have a man for the sex of his children. He is a landowner in the Tarusky district. And the man, half of the souls of people and peasants, has thirty-three souls behind him, not in the section with his brother Evo, the Chief Police Secretary Fyodor Khrushchov, ”the census official wrote down from his words.

Mikhail Nikitich, obviously, was a God-fearing man - either by nature, or his work suggested the appropriate thoughts. When, at the end of 1758, the chief secretary fell seriously ill, he "made an indispensable intention to go to Rostov to the relics of St. Demetrius of the Rostov pomolitec", for which he asked Shuvalov to leave "with a trip for ten days." However, he was able to go on a pilgrimage only "in the spring air" in May 1759 - again with the special permission of the authorities and on the condition that service is service - that the protocol officer Poplavsky would replace him in all matters.

Prayers and doctors helped: Khrushchov recovered, "blamelessly" performed his duties until the end of the Elizabethan reign, and then, together with his colleagues, went on the Secret Expedition. As evidenced by her documents, he died while on duty in her Moscow office on May 30, 1771 after forty years of service, which was reported to Prosecutor General A.A. Vyazemsky with regret by the Moscow commander-in-chief, Count P.S.

Under Catherine II, the Moscow branch was headed by one of its oldest employees, Aleksey Mikhailovich Cheredin. He was brought to the office by his father, clerk Mikhail Cheredin. In November 1757, Cheredin-son submitted an application for admission to the service, in which he said that "he was trained in Russian literacy and writing, but had not yet been assigned to business and wanted to be in business in the Secret Office." The young man was accepted as a copyist with an annual salary of 25 rubles, and the authorities noted by their resolution that he was “capable of doing things,” and he was not mistaken - a promising official was already in 1759 presented for promotion. After the abolition of the Secret Chancellery in 1762, the younger Cheredin was transferred to the Secret Expedition. Here he also served successfully and again attracted the attention of his superiors: in 1774 he was sent to Kazan to work on the commission conducting the investigation of the Pugachev case, where he served the rank of collegiate secretary. In 1781, "on the excellent recommendation" of the Moscow commander-in-chief, Prince V. M. Dolgorukov, A. Cheredin was appointed to the secretarial position with the rank of collegiate assessor, in 1793 he was granted a collegiate adviser, and in 1799 by a personal decree he was promoted to state adviser with with a salary of 1,200 rubles. In the eyes of young noblemen of the end of the 18th century, this "great fasting man, who always read the apostle in church, and at home the Lenten and Menaion triode", seemed to be some kind of fossil from another, ancient era - but at the same time an inexorable guardian of the "rite" of his sinister department, the prospect of getting into which - not even as an accused - frightened far from timid people.

“For half an hour or more we knocked on the iron gates; finally, inside the gate, the voice of the guard asked: “Who is knocking?” - recalled his visit to the Moscow office of the Secret Expedition, a young officer Alexander Turgenev. - I answered the guard: "Report to his excellency: the adjutant of Field Marshal Turgenev was sent by his imperial majesty's personal command." Alexei Cheredin, who appeared at the knock with the guards, “importantly commanded:“ Guards, get down to business! ”The guards moved to the wagons, in a moment untied the matting and pulled out one person from each. He asked the couriers in an undertone: “Who are they?” The couriers answered: “We don't know, yours.” "I understand, sir, I understand," said Cheredin and, turning to me: "The matter is presented with the deepest secret and search!"

I was silent; he ordered the guards to lead the prisoners in front of him to the waiting room, he said to me and the couriers: "I ask you up with me," that is, to the same waiting room. The prisoners ascended the steep staircase under the canopy of arches, followed by Cheredin, myself and the couriers into the reception hall. He examined the prisoners, counted them and asked the couriers: "Are all the prisoners present?" The couriers replied: “There must be everything, they handed us the tied wagons, they told us to take the prisoners to Moscow as soon as possible, without telling how many of them or who they were; Your Excellency, if you please know, we are forbidden to speak with the prisoners, it is strictly forbidden to question them about anything, not to allow anyone to approach them! Now we ourselves, just as you deigned to order to get them out of the wagons, saw the prisoners! "

After a pause for three minutes, Cheredin uttered the words with a sigh: “Gross negligence! How not to attach a memorial about the number of prisoners! I don’t need to get their title, but the account, how much has been sent, is necessary. ”

Turning to me, he said: "In the presence of you, Mr. Adjutant, and those who brought the prisoners about the tit accident, a report should be drawn up," and ordered the guard: "Secretary here!"

The couriers and I, entering the wide courtyard of the Trinity courtyard, were like siskins in a trap; the iron gates behind us started neighing again, the bolts were locked and locked with large padlocks. We, that is, I, couriers, coachmen, could disappear, disappear without a trace in this crater of hell! Cheredin was not subordinate to anyone, was not obliged to anybody, except for the higher authorities of the Secret Chancellery, and where and in whom this leadership was concentrated, no one except Cheredin knew about this. His Excellency submitted a weekly report to the Field Marshal on the number of prisoners, not indicating either their rank or which class they belonged to; about many he himself did not know who was being held under constipation in a gloomy, cramped prison! A dog in a canur lived incomparably happier: the light of God was not taken away from it.

After examining and searching the naked “guests”, pedantic Cheredin demanded that the couriers sign a “list” for accepting the prisoners; having dismissed the servicemen, he categorically refused to release the author of the notes. Seeing the surprise and fright of the gallant officer, he said with an important air that he should be an eyewitness: “Yes, it is said: punish mercilessly, who will be the witness that they were really mercilessly punished?

- What do I care about punishment?

Cheredin objected to me: “Young man, don’t be stubborn, in our monastery even the field marshal general will not dare to change our charter, and we will not listen to his orders; do not be stubborn, do as you are told; I will file a report, then it will be too late, but if you like it or not, you will be during the execution, you will not get out of here! "

The Moscow military governor, Field Marshal I. P. Saltykov, recommended the honored official to Prosecutor General A. A. Bekleshov in a letter on April 22, 1801: services, success in business and his excellent behavior absolutely deserves respect, and therefore I entrust him to the special mercy of your Excellency. " Saltykov informed the Prosecutor General of the request of the old secretary: "because of his perceived weakness in health" to dismiss him from service and apply for a "high-minded favor" - to keep until death a pension in the amount of the salary he received on the Secret Expedition. Emperor Alexander I granted the petition and appointed a pension.

The chief secretary of the Secret Office in Moscow was remembered for a long time. In the 80s of the XIX century, the reporter V. A. Gilyarovsky recorded the story of an old-timer official: “I have been living here for forty years and I also found people who remembered Sheshkovsky and his assistants - Cheredin, Agapych and others who knew even Vanka Kain himself ... He remembered better than others and told me the horrors of the son of the senior watchman of that time who lived here in those days as a teenager, then our official. Under him, torture was less common. And as soon as Paul I reigned, he ordered to release from these prisons of the Secret Expedition everyone who had been imprisoned by Catherine II and her predecessors. When they were taken out into the yard, they did not look like people either; who screams, who rage, who falls dead. ‹…› In the courtyard, the chains were removed from them and whoever was transported to a lunatic asylum. ‹…› Then, already under Alexander I, they broke the rack, torture machines, cleaned the prisons. Cheredin was still in charge of everything. He lived here, with me still. He told me how Pugachev was tortured in front of him - this is still my father remembered. "

It was not in vain that Cheredin was awarded: for 44 years of service in a responsible post, he never was on vacation. However, until the end of the century, there was no vacation in the modern sense - this was the name of a temporary absence for personal need without preserving content. For example, in 1720, P. A. Tolstoy personally allowed the sub-chancellor Tikhon Gulyaev to take a vacation only at his "annoying request" so that he could bring his wife from Kazan. Secretary Nikolai Khrushchov in 1740 after ten years of service for the first time received leave to settle the matter with the inheritance after the death of his uncle. But the other secretary, Alexei Vasiliev, had to wait a whole year until the authorities deigned to let him go to investigate the fugitive peasants. And the executioner Fyodor Pushnikov in 1743 was released to Moscow to receive medical treatment only after another "shoulder master", Matvey Krylov, arrived to replace him.

After secretaries, clerks were in second place in the service hierarchy. Since this position was outside the Table of Ranks, by the Senate decree of 1737 it was equated to the military rank of sergeant. Each of the clerks was in charge of his own "development", that is, a separate office work. Usually one of them was appointed "to be at the parish and at the expense" - to manage the money affairs of the office.

Below were the sub-clerks (by the same decree they were equated to corporals), who made up all business papers, and copyists. According to the General Regulations of 1720, “copyists should write everything that is sent to the chancellery; For this reason, good and serviceable scribes have been chosen to be, ”that is, it was desirable for them to have a good handwriting. However, according to the existing documents, it is difficult to single out the specific scope of duties of a particular clerk or the principle of division of duties between them.

Usually the clerks for the "secret" service were not taken from the street. The census of officials carried out in 1737 showed that the employees of the Secret Chancellery were recruited from the old clerks of the Preobrazhensky Prikaz: not only secretaries N. Khrushchev and T. Gulyaev began their service there under Peter I, but also clerks Mikhail Kononov and Fedor Mitrofanov, sub-chancellors Ivan Strelnikov, Vasily Prokofiev, Ivan Nabokov, Mikhail Poplavsky. In the future, personnel, if necessary, were looked out for in other institutions - the Chief Police Chief Chancellery, colleges, customs; Ushakov, using his official position, sought the transfer of intelligent officials to his department. However, it happened that other nimble clerks themselves applied for admission to the service in the Secret Chancellery. This was done in 1739 by Aleksey Yemelyanov, a sub-clerk of the Kashirsky provincial chancellery, and was accepted, was in good standing, and even released for 10 days to look for his fugitive peasants from the Novgorod village.

At the time of Anna Ioannovna, each of the employees, upon enrollment, signed a statement not to disclose state secrets: “Under pain of death, that, being in the Secret Chancellery, he kept himself in all firmness and order and about the affairs in the Secret Chancellery, and named, what kind of matter they are, and nothing decent to that one with whom he had conversations, but he never mentioned it under any pretense, and would have kept everything in the highest secret, "and the promise to serve unselfishly:" He didn’t touch any bribes under any guise ”. Under Catherine II, these obligations were also supplemented by the requirement that the candidate for the position "also gave no extracts or mines of cases, from the definitions and with one word from anything for nothing to anyone, not even verbally retell about anything" ...

Not everyone could handle the service. Some young officials, like the above-named Mikhail Khrushchev and Ivan Nabokov, relatively quickly "for a lot of orderly work" were promoted in position and rank. From simple copyists, they became the clerical "white bone". So, in ten years Khrushchev went through all the steps of the ordering ladder and was appointed a protocol clerk in the chancellery with a salary "against collegiate protocolmen, and named for 250 rubles a year." The next was the secretary position, and the successful official worked out a dandy, with curlicues, painting "Secretary (then" chief secretary ") Mikhail Khrushchev".

Nabokov, too, served successfully, but he got sick. Count A. I. Shuvalov himself from St. Petersburg consoled his subordinate with a personal letter dated November 8, 1753: “I know that you are in a disease, because of which you cannot secure sentences or vacations for the secret office”. Shuvalov graciously allowed the secretary to get sick and transfer his functions to the protocol officer Poplavsky, but ordered: "As soon as you are able to strengthen, then you have a job." True, permission was belated - the secretary died. The father's business was successfully continued by the son, but after 15 years of "blameless" service, the same opportunity happened to him. Sub-chancellor Andrei Nabokov in 1757 asked "for the headaches and other illnesses in me, from which I am in my health very weak, and due to the severity of that chancellery of affairs, I can no longer be able to" Yamskaya office, less "strict" and unhealthy.

Not without pride, the veteran clerk Nikita Nikonovich Yarov (Yaroi) described his detective work in the track record compiled during the census of officials in 1754. He began to serve in 1716 as a 15-year-old clerk of the Preobrazhensky Prikaz, survived its abolition in 1729 and was again received by Ushakov, at his general's "recommendation", as a sub-clerk of the Moscow office of the Secret Chancellery. He turned out to be an intelligent worker and often traveled "on secret affairs of the guard with chief officers" - he visited both Ukraine and Siberian Berezovo (the disgraced Dolgorukov family was in exile there); "And he corrected those matters with zeal and zeal in good faith, as is known in the Secret Chancellery." Upon his return from Siberia “for the considerable work he had to do in distant parcels and secret affairs,” he was promoted to a clerk, and in 1744, for his “immaculate” service, to a record clerk. In subsequent years, Yarov worked just as zealously: he went on secret assignments to the provinces, in 1749 he was sent “on some secret business” to Voronezh at the head of his own “team”. However, he never rose to the rank of secretary in the office, although in 1745-1746 he "ruled the secretary position." In his declining years, having 37 years of experience, Yarov received the rank of collegiate secretary and a place in the Siberian order; but he sent his son Ivan to serve in his own Secret Office and was pleased to learn that the son had already gone to the office of clerk.

Other rank-and-file political detectives, who did not show any talent or acumen, carried out their duties for years without a raise or increase in salary - and in the end they asked for dismissal or transfer to other institutions, as did Stepan, who was “stuck in sub-clerks” and lost hope of further advancement. Ivanov in 1743. Such people were released on the basis of an agreement not to disclose "under any guise" information about their previous work.

It happened that officials turned out to be unsuitable for a specific service. Sub-Chancellor Andrei Khodov was transferred to another job "for weakness" - perhaps, he turned out to be overly sensitive; his colleague Fyodor Mitrofanov was dismissed "for illness", and the copyist Vasily Turitsyn was seen "in a frenzy and neglect." However, I must say that there are few such cases - apparently, the selection to the Secret Chancellery was thorough.

In the census of 1737 one often encounters the characteristics of officials of other institutions: “he writes very quietly and badly”; “He is very incapable of business, for which he was punished”; "Old, weak and drunkard"; “He has knowledge and art in clerical affairs, he only gets drunk”; “He always absent himself from the affairs entrusted to him and drank, from which he did not abstain, although he had enough time for that,” etc. The last “illness” was something like a professional illness of clerks with the usual “medicine” in the form of batogs. The clerks of the St. Petersburg Voivodship Chancellery were especially distinguished by their excessive drunkenness, where in 1737 17 officials went on trial for bribes and embezzlements. It follows from these service characteristics that two out of five clerks, both sub-clerks and 13 out of 17 copyists, "practiced" excessive drinking. Therefore, the chief of the entire police force of the empire was forced to ask the Cabinet of Ministers to send at least 15 sober clerks to him in the Chief Police Chief Chancellery, since those available "are very faulty due to drunkenness and negligence."

They did not take such bums to the Secret Chancellery. It seems that the copyist Fyodor Tumanov, who distinguished himself in 1757 not only by “not joining” the service, but by the fact that the soldiers sent for him “in the quarters to take him to the office, beat the soldiers”; brought by force "into office" and put in chains - "breaking those glands, I ran repeatedly". Traditional admonition with batogs did not help: it turned out that the violent copyist "Nikakova has no fear in himself" ... "and does not feel the punishment imposed on him for his impudence"; for such immunity, he landed in the soldiers.

The rest understood in what place they served, and did not show such "fearlessness". In 1735 the copyist Ivan Andreev happened to be guilty because of his youth: he met an acquaintance from his previous service, bought wine ... After two days of drinking, he came to his senses, but out of fear of returning, he was “afraid” and under a false name he was hired for hard work “at breaking stones” in Kronstadt - only not to catch the eye of the kindest Andrei Ivanovich Ushakov. But it was all in vain - colleagues three months later "figured out" the unlucky copyist, who immediately confessed everything. However, clerical bosses were not scattered with cadres, even if they had certain defects. The same Ivan Andreev was admonished with whips, fined a third of his salary, but recognized as "capable of doing business"; he, like the reveler Turitsyn, was left in the service, since there was no one to replace them - no suitable employees had yet been "found." But when Andreev went on a spree again - now for a week - in August 1737, he was ruthlessly expelled from the Secret Chancellery "for other business." The sub-chancellor Pyotr Serebryakov was also dismissed - although he was a teetotaler, he "went about business very lazily."

High demands were made by the detective department to the executioners who were in its state. As can be judged from the internal documents of the office, the most experienced professionals from other institutions were usually transferred here, in contrast to the provinces, where real labor dynasties sometimes took shape. For example, in the provincial town of Alatyr, for a century, representatives of several generations of the same family served as shoulder masters, which was reflected in the documents of the first census - "revision" in 1724.

The executioner's craft was not easy. Vasily Nekrasov, who worked in the Secret Office, during a business trip to Kiev on the way back "chilled his left leg from extreme frosts, and the toes of that leg fell away", besides, "he was blind with his eyes and sees little." For health reasons, he was forced to ask for dismissal "for his food." Mikhailo Mikhailov, who came to replace him, fell ill with consumption after several years of service, as stated by the physician Kondraty Julius. New personnel had to be looked for in the then criminal investigation department - the Investigative Order. From there, the Secret Chancellery demanded another "shoulder master"; they took him into the service with a written commitment, "so that he would live constantly, and not get drunk, and do not get to know thieves, and do not wander in anything, and without the cantor’s permission to go to Moscow and not leave the distance."

In the Secret Chancellery, they controlled not only discipline, but also "cleanliness of hands" more strictly than in other institutions. The secretary of the Moscow office, Alexei Vasiliev, for example, was even arrested "on some suspicion" - in 1746, the captenarmus of the Ryazan infantry regiment Nikolai Sokolnikov accused him, the clerk Fyodor Afanasyev and the clerk Mikhail Cheredin of bribery. Sokolnikov, having been arrested (as he believed, unreasonably) in the criminal case of the murder of a courtier captain of the fleet Gavrila Lopukhin, toiled along with other convicts of the Justitz Collegium until, "unable to endure" the conclusion, he declared "word and deed" only then, to be able to explain the fallacy of his arrest. But instead of the expected freedom, he ended up in an even stricter confinement in another department. Here the commander-in-chief realized the mistake and through friends and relatives began to look for ways to alleviate his fate. The inmate's mother, Elena Sokolnikova, and his friend, reiter of the Horse Guards, Avram Klementyev, intervened in the matter. The latter informed the prisoner in a letter (it is attached to the case) that "I was with the secretary of Alexei Fedorovich Vasiliev and asked about you, so that where you should be sent, and he told me to give him something."

As a result, the matter was harmonized; but the offended Sokolnikov submitted a petition to the Senate, in which he spoke with accounting accuracy about the "price" of the release: according to him, Vasiliev received 20 rubles from him, from Klementyev - a bucket of wine, a "post" (roll) of kamka and three rubles, and from his mother - one more "post" kamka, fox fur and "quarter pewter". According to him, considerable donations were also made to the clerk Fedor Afanasyev (45 rubles, two buckets of wine, eight yards to an atlas) and the sub-clerk Mikhail Cheredin (25 rubles). It is clear from the case that Muscovites - both inmates and investigators - were united by a network of family and friend ties, and it was not so difficult to achieve relief for a moderate bribe - but only on matters "unimportant" and not related to ominous "points."

In this case, however, all that was agreed upon were “removed from the case” and taken under investigation. But it didn’t lead to any revelations - Afanasyev and Cheredin “locked themselves in”: they didn’t break anything from anyone. Sokolnikov accused them exclusively "for malice", since they did not allow the prisoner to go home and did not allow him to "leak out." But the final extract said that the complainant had already declared a false "word and deed", and besides, he lied in the petition that he had been in custody for a year and eight months, although in reality he had spent only six months in the Secret Office, and therefore he "cannot be trusted ". For some reason, there is no evidence in the case. In the end, the clerks were found to be honest; only the secretary Vasiliev suffered - in 1749 he was finally "removed" from the service, albeit with a "rise in rank."

Ushakov not only controlled, but also protected his subordinates. In 1744, in a personal letter, he harassed the secretary of the Moscow office, Ivan Nabokov, for daring to send the sub-clerk Alexei Yemelyanov to Novgorod on the lawsuit of some provincial clerk. According to Andrei Ivanovich, Yemelyanov is "not guilty" - do not count as such a "fight" and other insults that the provincial clerk complained about.

The stationery at our disposal "for personnel" testifies that in the first half of the 18th century, political investigators, with rare exceptions, not only did not seek to change jobs, despite the severity of their "secret" service, but also brought themselves to old age. change of children and younger relatives. It can be assumed that the decisive role in this was played not so much by money (not that very large), but by the prestige and status of the guardians of the sovereign's life and honor. In the documents of the office, we did not come across information about the revealed cases of corruption of its personnel; cases on accusations of bribes on the part of convicts by officials were sometimes started, but internal investigations did not confirm such facts, although they were punished for other offenses (truancy, "non-compliance").

The staff of the clerks of the Secret Chancellery has changed little over the course of the century. According to the data of 1737, in addition to Ushakov himself, the St. Petersburg chancellery included secretary Nikolai Khrushchov, two clerks (Mikhail Kononov and Fyodor Mitrofanov), five clerks (Vasily Prokofiev, Ivan Nabokov, Mikhail Poplavsky, Stepan Ivanov and Ivan Strelnikov) and six copyists (Mikhail Khrushchov, Yakov Yeltsin, Grigory Eliseev, Andrei Khodov, Vasily Turitsyn and Ivan Andreev) - only 14 people "clerks", ten of whom have worked since its reconstruction in 1731, and seven, as already mentioned, began service in Preobrazhensky order.

In addition to them, the staff included the executioner Fyodor Pushnikov - he was demanded to St. Petersburg from Moscow in 1734 after the "regular" executioner Maxim Okunev broke his leg when he fought with the profos of the St. Petersburg garrison regiment Naum Lepestov - one can imagine how exciting it was a competition between two athletes-whip-fighters! After an unsuccessful duel, Okunev was treated for a long time and upon recovery was not fired, but "for a lot of being in the Secret Chancellery" was sent to the Moscow office. The staff should also include an indispensable doctor - this humane duty was performed in 1734 by Martin Lindwurm, and then by Prokofy Serebryakov, until his death in 1747.

In 1741, secretary - assessor Nikolai Khrushchov served in the Secret Chancellery; four clerks - Ivan Nabokov, Yakov Yeltsin, Semyon Gostev and Mikhail Poplavsky; five sub-chancellors - Mikhail Khrushchov, Ivan Strelnikov, Vasily Prokofiev, Stepan Ivanov, Alexey Emelyanov; three copyists and one “back master” - 14 people in total.

More than 20 years later, in 1761, the staff was reduced to 11 people; In the list of positions appeared a record clerk (Matvey Zotov, who came to the service in 1738 as a copyist), a recorder (Ilya Emelyanov) and a physician Christopher Genner. In 20 years Vasily Prokofiev rose to the rank of assessor and retired, while his colleague Mikhail Poplavsky only grew up to become a protocol officer - and then not in St. Petersburg, but in the Moscow office. The executioner Pushnikov was replaced by another master of the whip - Vasily the Mighty; he served until the liquidation of the Secret Chancellery in 1762 and was transferred with a commendable certification to work in the St. Petersburg Provincial Chancellery.

The Moscow office of the Secret Chancellery, and then the Secret Expedition, had approximately the same structure: in 1732 secretary Stepan Patokin, clerks Semyon Gostev, Andrey Telyatev and Fyodor Efremov worked in it; sub-chancellors Andrei Lukin, Nikita Yaroi and Ivan Anfimov; copyists Semyon Chicherin, Fyodor Afanasyev, Ivan Nemtsov, Peter Shurlov, Alexey Vasiliev, Osip Tatarinov and Samson Dmitriev. There were also three watchmen and a "shoulder foreman" on the staff - only 18 people. In 1756, it had a little more employees - 16 "clerks", and new positions appeared: two actuaries (in the rank of collegiate registrar - 14th class according to the Table of Ranks) and a protocol clerk (usually in the rank of 13th class - provincial secretary). The first, according to the General Regulations, were engaged in the registration of incoming and outgoing documents and provided employees with paper, pens, ink, candles and similar items necessary for clerical work. The second position provided - apart from, of course, keeping minutes of meetings - drawing up a list of outstanding and resolved cases.

Formally, the local commander-in-chief supervised the work of the Moscow branch; directly at its head was the secretary (in the second half of the 18th century - the chief secretary), in whose hands all office work was concentrated.

The fate of not all officials of the detective department can be traced back to the documents that have survived. But, for example, in 1750, Ilya Zinovievich Zryakhov, a young commoner "of the officers' children" began his service as a copyist (either his father was a personal nobleman - without the right to inherit the nobility, or he was born even before his parent received hereditary nobility). By 1761, Zryakhov was listed as a sub-clerk, and ten years later he went public - he became a secretary, and was personally known to Empress Catherine II. It was him that she recommended in 1774 to General PS Potemkin, who was conducting an investigation of the participants in the Pugachev uprising, "as he was very accustomed to these matters and then under my eyes for many years." Zryakhov served for a long time and in 1794, on the recommendation of the same Potemkin (the general appreciated an intelligent official), he received the "colonel" rank of collegiate councilor and was appointed chairman of the chamber of the civil court of the Caucasian governorship. In his service record it is noted: "Although he was not in campaigns and in business against the enemy, however, according to her highest imperial majesty's will, he was in many commissions and parcels known to her imperial majesty, which make up travels up to 30,000 versts."

So, we see that after a short break in 1726-1731, the activities of the bodies of political investigation have been successfully restored. The personnel structure has gained stability and continuity. The old Peter's campaigners became the main support and bearers of the traditions of this institution and passed on experience to their students, which became the younger relatives - the Khrushchovs, Cheredins, Nabokovs, Shurlovs, Kononovs, Yarovs. The officials of the new generation were just as well trained, distinguished themselves "in hard work and accurate execution of the affairs entrusted to them" and stayed in the service "in continuous absence at all times." A rare black sheep for "drunkenness and lack of position" was immediately expelled, like the clerk Dmitry Voylokov in 1768.

The staff of the Secret Expedition did not fundamentally change at the beginning of the 19th century. Under A.S. Makarov, it consisted of nine class officials: Collegiate Counselor Pyotr Molchanov, Court Counselor Anton Shchekotikhin, Collegiate Assessor Alexander Papin, Collegiate Assessor Pavel Iglin, 8th grade secretary Fedor Lvov, Collegiate secretary Pavel Bogolepov, 9th secretary class Ivan Alexandrov, titular counselor Mikhail Fedorov and head physician court counselor Gass. The documents on the liquidation of the Secret Expedition are not called other "clerks" - but they indicate that it was in charge of the guard in the Alekseevsky ravelin of the Peter and Paul Fortress (non-commissioned officer I. Stepanov and 26 privates-veterans of the Lithuanian regiment) and in Shlisselburg (two non-commissioned officers and 69 privates). At the same time, in the official directory-index of all officials of the Russian Empire ("Address-calendar") only the head of the Secret Expedition and sometimes the secretary were mentioned, the names of other officials appeared there only in case of their transfer to another institution. However, at this time there were no longer any detective "dynasties" in the service.

The well-known German writer August Kotzebue (1761-1819), a graduate of the University of Jena, in his youth worked in Russia as a secretary for the Prussian envoy, then an assessor of the court of appeal in Reval, where he rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel, and in 1795 he served for border. Unfortunately, he decided to visit the children who remained in Russia. But during the stormy reign of Paul I, he was considered a dangerous political agitator, as a result of which, on the border of the Russian Empire, the unsuspecting writer was greeted by an official in April 1800 with an imperial order to send him to Tobolsk. Kotzebue captured on the pages of his memoirs the appearance of one of the members of the Secret Expedition: “Court Councilor Shchekotikhin was about forty years old, had dark brown, almost black hair and his face resembled a satyr; when he wanted to give his physiognomy a friendly expression, two oblong wrinkles crossed his face to the very corner of his eyes and gave him an expression of contempt; the coolness of his manners meant that he was previously in military service, and some deviations from the rules of decency showed that he never attended good society and did not receive proper education - for example, he very rarely used a scarf, drank straight from a bottle, although there was a glass in front of him, etc .; with the grossest ignorance, he combined in himself all the outward signs of great piety; he was so ignorant of literature that the names of Homer, Cicero, Voltaire, Shakespeare, Kant were completely alien to him; he did not show the slightest desire to learn anything, but he knew how to cross his forehead and chest with extraordinary dexterity whenever he woke up, whenever he noticed a church, a bell tower or any image from afar. "

As for Kant and Homer, the German writer sent for nothing to Siberia, perhaps, sneered in vain - such knowledge was not required for the staff of the Secret Expedition. But they knew their business very well. For example, the same Shchekotikhin (he began his service in the search as a warrant officer of the guard, but moved forward in several years) could stay awake for days, with delays at postal stations, spewed a “stream of indecent words” and famously beat insufficiently nimble drivers. On the way, he showed "dexterity and sharpness": he quickly organized the search for Kotzebue, who was trying to escape, stopped all his attempts to keep records or send a letter from the road, at the same time not hesitating to eat the supervised food, wear his boots and use other things. However, he also stopped the frightened horses carrying the carriage, and when driving through a burning forest or crossing a flooded river on a flimsy raft, with his "fearlessness in danger", he evoked involuntary respect from the prisoner.

On the whole, in Catherine's times, the staff of the Secret Expedition grew up in ranks, became more "noble", and their careers were more varied and were not connected with political investigation for life from their youth. And they were rewarded better - the same Shchekotikhin became not only a court adviser, but also the owner of 500 souls, which he proudly informed the supervised about.

In the political investigation, cadres of a different kind also appeared, who no longer went to the dungeon and did not engage in interrogations and drawing up papers, they were entrusted with special missions that required appropriate training, education and secular upbringing. In 1795, the court councilor Yegor Borisovich Fuks (1762–1829) entered the service in the Secret Expedition. He began his career in the diplomatic office of Count A. A. Bezborodko, and then became an agent of the political investigation and at the same time aide-de-camp and secretary of A. V. Suvorov. Going with the commander and his army to Italy, Fuchs performed a special task: “to make accurate and strict observation in an inconspicuous way about the officers, <…> in what kind of connections, opinions and relations they truly are, and whether foreign nasty suggestions have any action and seductive books. "

The command knew that there were freethinking officers in the Russian corps, which fought against Napoleon's troops in Italy, and was afraid that the French would distribute revolutionary brochures in the regiments. Fuchs (by that time already a state councilor), upon arrival in the foreign army, took up his duties and informed the expedition that "according to the content of the instructions given to me, he immediately used all possible methods for reconnaissance about the way of thinking of the Italic corps and about the behavior of officers." Having met the official, Suvorov took him to his place, entrusting the conduct of "foreign correspondence, military and diplomatic affairs, as well as a journal of military actions." The zealous adjutant regularly informed Petersburg about all Suvorov's meetings with generals and officers and copied the correspondence of his boss. "Now I have the honor," he wrote in his secret report, "to attach with this copies of three letters of His Imperial Majesty and of two replies to the Field Marshal."

All the same, Fuchs "had the honor" - he did not abuse his trust and did not inform the Prosecutor General of any information that exposed the commander in an unfavorable light and could cause the emperor's displeasure. He wrote that everything was going well in the army and there were no signs of revolutionary propaganda; on the contrary, soldiers and officers are fighting successfully - "thanks to the reforms of the sovereign, who has brought the art of war to the highest degree of perfection." But he sharply criticized the allied Austrian command for "the great negligence of the Austrians about our food" and their unwillingness to provide true data on the number of their troops and losses. Fuchs reported that he could not properly keep a log of military operations, because "there is an obstacle to the compilation of the log on the part of the Austrians, for they do not provide any information."

Then Fuchs showed his abilities as the director of the military office of another famous commander - Field Marshal M.I.Kutuzov during the Patriotic War of 1812. In peacetime, he became the author of the popular works "The History of the Russian-Austrian Campaign of 1799" (St. Petersburg, 1825-1830); “The Story of the Generalissimo Count Suvorov-Rymniksky” (St. Petersburg, 1811) and “Anecdotes of Count Suvorov” (St. Petersburg, 1827), in which he told about the strangeness of the famous commander: bath, throwing himself into the river or into the snow, who never wore a fur coat, except for a uniform, jacket and a tattered parent's greatcoat, could endure terrible warmth in the upper room. In this, Prince Alexander Vasilyevich resembled our peasants in the huts. Like them, he loved to be in complete negligee. I, and many with me, suffered in his greenhouse. Often the sweat from me and rolled onto the paper during the reports. Once I dripped in a report, although its content was not very pleasant to him. “Here, Your Excellency, I’m not to blame,” I said to him, “but your Etna,” pointing to the stove. “Nothing, nothing,” he replied. - In Petersburg they will say either that you are working to the sweat of your brow, or that I have sprinkled this paper with a tear. You are sweating and I am watery. " Likewise, the Austrian Quartermaster General Zach was inflamed to the point that, while working with him in his office, he took off his tie and uniform. The field marshal rushed to kiss him with these words: "I love whoever does with me without styles." “Have mercy,” he cried out, “here you can burn out.” Answer: “What to do? Our craft is to be always near the fire; and therefore I do not wean him from him here either. "

In the Moscow office of the Secret Expedition, the staff was not at all large: the court councilor Aleksey Porokhovshchikov, the titular councilor Pavel Gorlov, the clerk Pavel Lvov worked here. For special assignments, the office consisted of State Councilor Yuri Aleksandrovich (or Alekseevich) Nikolev. By the will of fate and his superiors, his name also turned out to be associated with the biography of Suvorov: it was Nikolev who brought him in April 1797 the order to remove him from the army and exile to Konchanskoye; he was in charge of monitoring the disgraced field marshal and reported to the attorney general about all his "visits and exercises." Later he complained that for five months he had been living on his own account in a simple hut and eating whatever he could; “I am heartily satisfied with my current position of zeal for the service of His Imperial Majesty, but is without a salary,” and asked for a cash allowance. For his diligence, he was awarded 5 thousand rubles and a career was opened - in a short time he became a real state councilor. As you know, the field marshal's disgrace was short-lived. Suvorov went with Fuchs on the Italian campaign, and Nikolev was enrolled in the staff of the Secret Expedition as an investigator for especially important cases. In this capacity, he was sent to the Yaroslavl province to check rumors about the preparation of "indignation" of the peasants during the passage of the emperor. Then he investigated the abuses of the Kaluga governor and officials, traveled to the Don to check an anonymous complaint against two generals Ilovaisk, to the Ukrainian Baturin in the case of the former hetman Kirill Razumovsky and his entourage, to the Belarusian Shklov in the case of counterfeiters acting under the auspices of General Zorich. He carried out all these orders without abusing his powers and not trying at any cost to discover a conspiracy and "indignation". However, in one of his reports from Moscow, he stated: "Everyone is afraid of me and runs away from me." Nikolev retired in 1801 after the liquidation of the Secret Expedition.

Aleksandr Porokhovshchikov, “of the officer’s children,” began his career as a copyist in the Senate, where he rose to the rank of registrar. After his dismissal from the Senate, on the recommendation of General-in-Chief M.N. Krechetnikov, he was assigned to the Tula upper massacre (judging state peasants) as a secretary, but in reality he worked in the general's field office. There he became a lieutenant of the Izyum Light-Horse Regiment; then he served in the cuirassier regiment of Prince Potemkin and took part in campaigns in Poland. But nevertheless, Porokhovshchikov did not take root in the army, and in 1794 "due to illnesses that happened, at the request of Evo, he was dismissed with the rank of captain", after which he got a job in the Moscow police. In this service, he did not suffer at all during the stormy Pavlovian reign and even received the next two ranks, but ended his career in the Secret Expedition, where he was transferred by the highest order in 1799.

At the beginning of his bureaucratic career, the titular adviser Pavel Gorlov, “of the Russian nobility,” also served as a copyist - in the Office of Foreign Guardianship; then he became a clerk in the St. Petersburg provincial government, got into the Counting Expedition of the Military Collegium, and from there he transferred to the office of the Moscow commander-in-chief A.A.Prozorovsky and, finally, in 1793 he was assigned to the Moscow office of the Secret Expedition. Prozorovsky, "famous" for the arrest of the famous publisher and educator NI Novikov, assigned the clerk Pavel Lvov to the detective service "from the order children"; the young man served diligently and was “capable and worthy” of promotion, as recorded on his form list.

In addition to officials in the staff of the Moscow office, there were two watchmen from retired soldiers for a meager salary of 20 rubles a year and "in two years a uniform against the Senate watchmen." There was also a guard at the office, which consisted of a non-commissioned officer and twenty soldiers of the Senate company - formerly veteran soldiers of the Moscow Preobrazhensky battalion under Catherine were replaced by soldiers of “different field regiments”.

The staff of the Secret Expedition still had a doctor, but neither in St. Petersburg, nor in Moscow there was already a "shoulder foreman" - after the official liquidation of the Secret Chancellery, the executioner Vasily the Mighty was "released" into the jurisdiction of the St. Petersburg Provincial Chancellery. Perhaps now the executioner was sent to carry out the necessary "executions" from another "team" or these duties were taken on by volunteers from among the NCOs and soldiers of the guard.

Another innovation at the very end of the 18th century was the use - so far very insignificant - of secret agents-informants. They were not on the staff; but their work was paid - either on a permanent basis (Cornet Semigilevich and Major Chernov received 400 rubles in 1800), or on the completion of a specific task (so, not named "people" - most likely servants - were paid 10 rubles for delivered information). The documents also contain other mentions of expenses "on secret affairs specially entrusted from His Imperial Majesty, concerning some people in different provinces."

After the abolition of the Secret Expedition, its employees were assigned to new places, taking into account their wishes and without losing their salaries.

For fifteen years the head of the Secret Chancellery was Count Alexander Ivanovich Shuvalov, a cousin of Ivan Ivanovich Shuvalov, a favorite of the Empress. Alexander Shuvalov - one of the closest friends of Tsarevna Elizabeth's youth - has enjoyed her special trust for a long time. When Elizaveta Petrovna ascended the throne, they began to entrust Shuvalov with detective affairs. At first he worked under the leadership of Ushakov, and in 1746 he replaced the sick chief at his post.

In the detective department under Shuvalov, everything remained the same: the machine adjusted by Ushakov continued to work properly. True, the new head of the Secret Chancellery did not have the gallantry inherent in Ushakov, and even instilled fear in those around him with a strange twitching of the muscles of his face. As Catherine II wrote in her notes, “Alexander Shuvalov, not by himself, but by the position he held, was a threat to the entire court, city and the entire empire, he was the head of the Inquisition Court, which was then called the Secret Chancellery. His occupation, it was said, caused him a kind of convulsive movement, which was done on the entire right side of his face from the eye to the chin whenever he was excited by joy, anger, fear or dread. "

Shuvalov was not such a detective fanatic as Ushakov, did not spend the night at the service, but became interested in commerce and entrepreneurship. Court affairs also took a lot of time from him - from 1754 he became the chamberlain of the court of the Grand Duke Peter Fedorovich. And although Shuvalov behaved cautiously and cautiously with the heir to the throne, the very fact that the chief of the secret police became his chief of staff made Peter and his wife nervous. Catherine wrote in her notes that she met Shuvalov every time "with a feeling of involuntary disgust." This feeling, which Pyotr Fedorovich shared, could not but be reflected in Shuvalov's career after the death of Elizaveta Petrovna: after becoming emperor, Peter III immediately dismissed Shuvalov from his post.

The reign of Peter III (December 1761 - June 1762) was an important stage in the history of political investigation. It was then that "Word and Deed!" - the expression with which they declared a state crime, and the Secret Chancellery, which had been operating since 1731, was liquidated.

The decisions of Emperor Peter III, who came to power on December 25, 1761, were prepared by the entire previous history of Russia. By this time, changes were noticeable in the psychology of people, their worldview. Many ideas of the Enlightenment became generally accepted norms of behavior and politics, they were reflected in ethics and law. They began to look at torture, painful executions, inhuman treatment of prisoners as a manifestation of the "ignorance" of the previous era, the "rudeness of manners" of the fathers. The twenty-year reign of Elizabeth Petrovna, which actually abolished the death penalty, also contributed.

The famous manifesto published on February 22, 1762 on the prohibition of "Word and Deed" and the closure of the Secret Chancellery was, undoubtedly, a step by the authorities towards public opinion. The decree openly admitted that the formula "Word and deed" does not serve the good of people, but their harm. This very formulation of the question was already new, although no one was going to abolish the institution of denunciations and persecution for "obscene words".

Much of the manifesto is devoted to explaining how the intent in a state crime should now be reported and how the authorities should act in the new environment. This suggests that we are not talking about radical transformations, but only about modernization, improving political investigation. It follows from the manifesto that all previous cases of investigation are sealed with state seals, consigned to oblivion and handed over to the archives of the Senate. Only from the last section of the manifesto can one guess that the Senate is becoming not only a place for keeping old detective papers, but an institution where new political affairs will be conducted. However, the manifesto nevertheless speaks very incomprehensibly about how the political investigation will now be organized.

Everything becomes clear if we turn to the decree of Peter III of February 16, 1762, which instead of the Secret Chancellery established a special expedition under the Senate, where all the employees of the Secret Chancellery, headed by S. I. Sheshkovsky, were transferred. And six days later, a manifesto appeared on the destruction of the Secret Chancellery.

A secret expedition to the reign of Catherine II (1762–1796) immediately took an important place in the system of power. It was headed by S. I. Sheshkovsky, who became one of the chief secretaries of the Senate. Catherine II perfectly understood the importance of political investigation and secret police. The empress was told about this by the entire preceding history of Russia, as well as her own history of accession to the throne. In the spring and summer of 1762, when the department was being reorganized, the investigation was weakened. Supporters of Catherine almost openly prepared a putsch in her favor, and Peter III did not have accurate information about the impending danger and therefore only brushed off rumors and warnings on this score. If the Secret Chancellery had worked, then one of the conspirators, Peter Passek, arrested on June 26, 1762 on a denunciation and put into custody in the guardhouse, would have been taken to the Peter and Paul Fortress. Since Passek was an insignificant person, prone to drunkenness and binge, questioning with predilection would quickly unleash his tongue and the Orlovs' conspiracy would be revealed. In a word, Catherine II did not want to repeat the mistakes of her husband.

The political investigation under Catherine II inherited a lot from the old system, but at the same time there were some differences. All the attributes of the investigation were preserved, but in relation to the nobles, their effect was softened. A nobleman could henceforth be punished only if he was "exposed before the court." He was also freed from "any bodily torture", and the estate of a criminal nobleman was not taken away to the treasury, but transferred to his relatives. However, the law always allowed the suspect to be deprived of his nobility, title and rank, and then tortured and executed.

In general, the concept of state security during the time of Catherine II was based on maintaining "peace and quiet" - the basis of the well-being of the state and its subjects. The secret expedition had the same tasks as the investigative bodies that preceded it: to collect information about state crimes, to take criminals into custody and to conduct an investigation. However, Catherine's investigation not only suppressed the enemies of the regime, "roughly" punishing them, but also sought to "study" public opinion with the help of secret agents.

Special attention was paid to the observation of public sentiments. This was caused not only by the personal interest of Catherine II, who wanted to know what people think about her and her reign, but also by new ideas that the opinion of society should be taken into account in politics and, moreover, it is necessary to control, process and direct it to the right power bed. In those days, as well as later, the political investigation collected rumors, and then summarized them in their reports. However, even then a characteristic feature of secret services was manifested: under a certain pretense of objectivity, a reassuring lie was delivered “upstairs”. The higher the information that “one woman said at the bazaar,” the more the officials corrected it.

At the end of 1773, when the Pugachev uprising stirred up Russian society and caused a wave of rumors, "reliable people" were sent to eavesdrop on conversations "in public gatherings, such as in the ranks, baths and taverns." The commander-in-chief of Moscow, Prince Volkonsky, like every chief, strove to make the picture of public opinion in the city entrusted to his care look as attractive to the supreme power as possible, and sent the empress quite reassuring reports on the state of mind in the old capital, emphasizing the patriotic, loyal moods of Muscovites. The tradition of such processing of intelligence information was, as is known, continued in the 19th century. I think that the empress did not particularly trust Volkonsky's cheerful reports. In the depths of her soul, the empress clearly had no illusions about the love of the people for her, which she called "ungrateful."

The influence of the authorities on public opinion consisted in hiding from it (albeit in vain) facts and events and in "spreading favorable rumors." It was also necessary to catch and roughly punish the talkers. Catherine did not miss the opportunity to find out and punish those who spread rumors and libels about her. “Try through the Chief of Police,” she writes on November 1, 1777 about some libel, “to find out the factory and the manufacturers of such insolence, so that retribution can be inflicted as the crime progresses.” Sheshkovsky was in charge of the Petersburg "liars", and in Moscow the empress entrusted Volkonsky with this matter.

Catherine read reports and other documents of the political investigation among the most important government papers. In one of her letters in 1774, she wrote: "Twelve years of the Secret Expedition under my eyes." And then for more than two decades the investigation remained “under the eyes” of the empress.

Catherine II considered the political investigation to be her first state "job", while displaying a passion and passion that harmed the objectivity she declared herself. In comparison with her, Empress Elizabeth seems like a pathetic dilettante, who listened to short reports from General Ushakov during the toilet between the ball and the walk. Catherine, on the other hand, knew a lot about detecting, delved into all the subtleties of "what concerns the Secret." She herself initiated detective cases, was in charge of the entire course of the investigation of the most important of them, personally interrogated suspects and witnesses, approved sentences or passed them herself. The empress also received some intelligence information, for which she regularly paid.

Under the constant supervision of Catherine II, the investigation of the case of Vasily Mirovich (1764), the impostor "Princess Tarakanova" (1775), was under way. The empress played a huge role in the investigation of the Pugachev case in 1774-1775, and she strenuously imposed her version of the rebellion on the investigation and demanded proof of it. The most famous political case, which was started at the initiative of Catherine II, was the case of the book by A. N. Radishchev "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" (1790). The Empress ordered the search and arrest of the author, having read only thirty pages of the essay. She was still working on her comments on the text of the book, which became the basis for the interrogation, and the author himself was already "entrusted to Sheshkovsky." The empress also directed the entire course of the investigation and trial. Two years later, Catherine was in charge of organizing the business of the publisher N. I. Novikov. She gave instructions on arrests, searches, she herself composed a lengthy "Note" about what to ask the criminal. Finally, she herself sentenced Novikov to 15 years of imprisonment in the fortress.

Catherine, an educated woman, intelligent and kind, usually followed the motto "Let's live and let others live" and was very tolerant of the tricks of her subjects. But sometimes she suddenly exploded and behaved like the goddess Hera - a stern guardian of morality. This was the manifestation of the tradition, according to which the autocrat acted in the role of the Father (or Mother) of the Fatherland, a caring but strict educator of unreasonable children-subjects, and simply hypocrisy, whim, and a bad mood of the empress. The empress's letters to various people have survived, to whom she, in her own words, “washed their heads” and whom she warned with serious anger that for such deeds or conversations she might send a disobedient and “liar" where Makar did not drive the calves.

For all her dislike of violence, Catherine sometimes crossed the line of those moral norms that she considered exemplary for herself. And with her, many cruel and "unenlightened" methods of search and repression turned out to be possible and permissible, which the authorities always resorted to, starting with shameless reading of other people's letters and ending with immuring a criminal alive in a serf casemate by order of the empress-philosopher (more on that below). This is natural - the nature of autocracy, in essence, has not changed. When Catherine II died and her son Paul I ascended the throne, autocracy lost its fine-looking features of a “mother empress,” and everyone saw that no privileges and the principles of the Enlightenment rooted in consciousness could save one from autocracy and even tyranny of the autocrat.

In the 18th century, political crimes included "uprisings and conspiracies against the government, treason and espionage, imposture, criticizing government policies and actions of the tsar, members of the tsar's family or representatives of tsarist administration, as well as acts damaging the prestige of tsarist power."
In previous years, this work was alternately occupied by the Order of Secret Affairs, the Preobrazhensky Order and the infamous Secret Chancellery, closed by Peter III in February 1762. However, this step by no means put an end to the development of the domestic political police, since on the site of the previous institution a new one was formed - a Special Expedition under the ruling Senate. It should be noted that the idea of ​​including political investigation in the structure of the Senate belonged to Peter I, but by coincidence it was implemented only 37 years after his death. However, this step did not save Peter III - in June 1762 he was dethroned by his wife. So Catherine II ascended the throne.
The Empress had no particular love for either the political police or her husband's reforms in this area, but after coming to power, she quickly realized the benefits and necessity of the Special Expedition. This body was not only not liquidated, but also became the main center of the political investigation of the Russian Empire for many years to come. The expedition staff (forwarders) were investigating the high-profile cases of E. Pugachev, A. N. Radishchev, N. I. Novikov and Princess E. Tarakanova. They also investigated the attempt of the second lieutenant V. Ya. Mirovich to release the deposed Peter III from custody, the conspiracy of the chamber-cadet F. Khitrovo to murder Count G. Orlov, the espionage activities of the court councilor Valva, etc.
There were plenty of political crimes during the 34 years of the reign of Catherine II. Most of them were successfully found by the forwarders. According to the testimony of contemporaries, they knew "everything that happens in the capital: not only criminal designs or actions, but even free and careless conversations."
Only 2,000 rubles a year were officially allocated for the maintenance of this department, but this money was spent only on paying salaries to a few employees. The real amounts of the expedition were kept in the strictest confidence, like everything connected with it. Catherine did her best to take the political investigation service out of the public eye, so the main residence of the expedition even became the Peter and Paul Fortress. In addition, the Empress decided to make several changes to the organization of the detective department.
The first step on this path was the name change - from October 1762, the Special Expedition was renamed Secret. The objectives of the updated body were to collect information "about all crimes against the government", arrest the perpetrators and conduct investigations. The official head of the Secret Expedition was at first the Prosecutor General of the Senate A. I. Glebov, and then Prince A. A. Vyazemsky, who replaced him. However, the actual head of the political police was Stepan Ivanovich Sheshkovsky, who acted under the direct control of Catherine II.
According to the historian A. Korsakov, when these names were juxtaposed, one could hear "a sharp, striking dissonance." If the Empress was considered an ardent supporter of the Enlightenment and humanism, then Sheshkovsky was called the "executioner" and "the great inquisitor of Russia", and his name instilled panic in his contemporaries. For example, when A. N. Radishchev was informed that Stepan Ivanovich was entrusted with his case, the author of "Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow" fainted.
Why did the head of the Secret Expedition cause such fear? In appearance, Sheshkovsky seemed like a good-natured and modest man of short stature, and few could find something frightening in his appearance. Despite a rather mediocre education, Stepan Ivanovich was distinguished by incredible hard work and efficiency. He did not stay long in the capital, often leaving to investigate crimes in other regions. He was distinguished by his honesty, and in his resume it was said: "He is able to write and does not drink - he will be good at business." However, contrary to this characteristic, it was Sheshkovsky that most residents of St. Petersburg and Moscow called the most dangerous person from Catherine's entourage.
The main reason for this attitude was the methods of inquest he allegedly used. The capital was full of rumors about the facts of systematic beating of suspects: “Sheshkovsky did not stand on ceremony with anyone. For him, what is a peasant, what is a nobleman - everything is one. The interrogation began by hitting the accused in the teeth with a stick. In fairness, it should be said that these rumors had almost no real basis.
Freight forwarders, of course, had the right to torture state criminals, but their boss considered such measures unnecessary. In the words of Catherine II, "for twelve years the Secret Expedition under my eyes did not whip a single person during interrogations." Despite the fact that, according to rumors, during his time at the head of the political investigation, Sheshkovsky personally whipped more than 2,000 people, reliable information about this has not yet been found. Neither the writer Radishchev, nor the journalist Novikov, nor even the rebel Pugachev were subjected to any torture in the Peter and Paul Fortress. Moreover, the Empress's secret instructions explicitly prohibited physical abuse of many of the defendants.
As for gossip and gossip, they appeared for several reasons.
First, the Secret Chancellery was still fresh in the people's memory, where torture was the main means of obtaining information - the townsfolk simply did not understand or refused to understand the difference between the two political police bodies.
Secondly, for many, the figure of Sheshkovsky in such a responsible post was unacceptable, which was explained by his ignoble origin. As a descendant of the Polish bourgeoisie, he reached unprecedented heights even for the Russian aristocracy - over the long years of leading the expedition, Stepan Ivanovich rose to the rank of Privy Councilor and became a Knight of the Order of St. Vladimir, 2nd degree. In the circles of the Russian nobility, such "upstarts" were not very respected (suffice it to recall the sad fate of A. D. Menshikov), and the need to obey Sheshkovsky's orders and his closeness to the Empress were perceived as an insult to representatives of more ancient families.
Thirdly, the secrecy and secrecy of the expedition played a role. No one fully knew what was going on in the dungeons of the Peter and Paul Fortress, so people's imaginations drew monstrous scenes of torture of suspects. In addition, world practice shows that it is natural for people to ascribe various atrocities towards prisoners to intelligence officers in general, and political investigations in particular. At the same time, the spread of such gossip was encouraged in every possible way by Sheshkovsky's subordinates and himself. The reason for this is easily explained if we take into account the true principles of the Secret Expedition, which consisted, first of all, in the psychological pressure on the suspects. Stepan Ivanovich was one of the few interrogators in the Russian Empire who did not need to resort to "whip and rack" during interrogations. He achieved the desired result by intimidating the arrested and only threatening them with cruel torture. This was facilitated by the gloomy atmosphere of the Peter and Paul Fortress, and the rude manner of Sheshkovsky's communication with criminals, and, of course, the bad reputation of political investigation.
Another characteristic feature of the work of the forwarders was the involvement of clergymen in the investigation. Before interrogation, the accused was offered to confess to the priest of the Peter and Paul Fortress, giving him a chance to repent of his deed. The prisoners by this moment were intimidated to such an extent that they agreed to sign any confession, just not to meet with the "Grand Inquisitor of Russia." This method of inquiry was especially popular on the Secret Expedition, as its leader was a deeply religious person and believed in the power of persuasion more than in torture.
To the surprise of many modern researchers, the methods described were very effective. Few of the Russian nobles, let alone representatives of other estates, could withstand such psychological pressure. Nevertheless, there were incidents in the work of the Secret Expedition.
For example, the case of student Nevzorov is very indicative. Here's how it is described in a memo addressed to Catherine II: “Student Nevzorov did not want to answer privy councilor Sheshkovsky about anything, saying that, according to the rules of the university, without the presence of a university member or commander Ivan Ivanovich Shuvalov, he should not be held accountable to any court , and although he, Nevzorov, was repeatedly told that he was asked by the highest permission of her imperial majesty, he said to this: I do not believe this. Finally, it was told to him, Nevzorov, that if he didn’t answer, then he, as a disobedient to the authorities, at the behest of her Imperial Majesty, would be whipped, to which he spoke with passion: I’m in your hands, do what you want, take out me on the scaffold and chop off my head. " In such cases, even Sheshkovsky was powerless.
The famous journalist and writer N.I. Novikov, accused of forbidden relations with the Duke of Braunschweig and the Prussian minister Welner, found himself in a similar situation. The leader of the Martinists so skillfully reflected all the accusations against him that the investigators were unable to prove his treason. So Novikov was imprisoned in the Shlisselburg Fortress only on the personal order of Catherine II.
As you can see from the above facts, the Secret Expedition under the ruling Senate did not correspond much to everyday ideas about it. In the same way, Stepan Sheshkovsky was not “the domestic executioner of the meek Catherine,” about whom there were so many rumors, gossip and anecdotes.
At the same time, it is absurd to say that the head of the expedition was absolutely sinless - he took huge bribes. True, it should be borne in mind that in Catherine's time, almost all members of the state apparatus suffered from bribery, and there was nothing unusual in such actions. The benefits brought by Sheshkovsky covered any sins. As a result, by the end of his life he owned estates in 4 provinces, hundreds of serfs and received an annual pension of 2,000 rubles.
As a seventy-year old man, Stepan Ivanovich began to retire, entrusting the leadership of the political investigation to his closest assistants: A. M. Cheredin and A. S. Makarov. Nevertheless, none of them possessed either Sheshkovsky's talents in the field of interrogation, or his capacity for work. The affairs of the Secret Expedition began to decline gradually. The death of Sheshkovsky in May 1794 further weakened the detective department. Freight forwarders, accustomed to trust in everything and rely on their boss, were somewhat confused after his death. And two years later, the founder of the secret service, Catherine the Great, also died. Nevertheless, the decline of one era in the history of the Russian political police was the beginning of another - the accession to the throne of Emperor Paul I breathed new life into the Secret Expedition.

Literature.

1. Anisimov E. V. Russian torture. Political investigation in Russia in the 18th century. - S-Pb., 2004.
2. Gernet MN History of the imperial prison. T. 1. - M., 1960.
3. The life and suffering of the father and monk Abel. // Russian Antiquity. 1875. No. 2.
4. History of the Russian special services. - M., 2004.
5. Koshel PA History of punishments in Russia. - M., 1995.
6. Novikov NI Selected Works. - M .; L., 1951.
7. Radishchev A. N. Complete Works. T. 3. - M .; L., 1954.
8. Samoilov V. The emergence of the Secret Expedition at the Senate // Questions of history. 1946. No. 1.
9. Sizikov MI Formation of the central and capital apparatus of the regular police of Russia in the first quarter of the 18th century. - M., 2000.

In addition to the formation of the police department, the XVIII century. It was also marked by the flourishing of secret investigations, associated primarily with state or "political" crimes. Peter I in 1713. declares: "To say throughout the state (so that ignorance of nihto does not excuse himself) that all criminals and damage to the interests of the state ... such without mercy to execute death ..."

Bust of Peter I. B.K. They shot him. 1724 State Hermitage, State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

Protection of state interests since 1718. the Secret Chancellery is engaged, for some time operating simultaneously with the Preobrazhensky Order, formed at the end of the 17th century. In 1726. the baton of secret investigation was taken over by the Supreme Privy Council, and in 1731. The Office of Secret Investigation Affairs, subordinate to the Senate. Catherine II by decree of 1762. returns the Office of Secret Investigation Affairs to its former powers that were lost in the short period of the reign of Peter III. Catherine II also reorganizes the detective department, obliging him to obey only the Prosecutor General, which contributed to the formation of the secret investigation even more secret.

In the photo: Moscow, Myasnitskaya street, 3. At the end of the XVIII century. this building housed the Secret Office of Investigative Secret Affairs

First of all, the jurisdiction of the investigators of the Secret Chancellery included cases related to official crimes, high treason, attempted murder of the sovereign. In the conditions of Russia, just awakening from the medieval mystical dream, there was still punishment for concluding a deal with the devil and through this causing harm, and even more so for causing harm to the sovereign in this way.

Illustration from the book by I. Kurukin, E. Nikulina "Everyday life of the Secret Chancellery"

However, ordinary mortals, who did not make deals with the devil and did not even think about high treason, had to keep their ears open. The use of "obscene" words, especially as a wish for the death of the sovereign, was equated with a state crime. The mention of the words "sovereign", "tsar", "emperor" together with other names threatened to be accused of imposture. Mentioning the sovereign as the hero of a fairy tale or anecdote was also severely punished. They refused to retell even real testimonies connected with the autocrat.
Considering that most of the information came to the Secret Chancellery through denunciations, and investigative measures were carried out with the help of torture, falling into the clutches of a secret investigation was an unenviable fate for the layman.

"Peter I interrogates Tsarevich Alexei in Peterhof" Ge N. 1872. State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg

"If I were a queen ..."

The peasant Boris Petrov in 1705. for the words "Whoever started to shave his beards, that would cut off his head" was pulled up on a rack.

Anton Lyubuchennikov was tortured and beaten with a whip in 1728. for the words "Foolish our sovereign, if I were sovereign, then I would have outweighed all the temporary workers." By order of the Preobrazhensky order, he was exiled to Siberia.

Master Semyon Sorokin in 1731. in the official document he made a mistake "Perth the First", for which he was whipped "for his guilt, for fear of others."

The carpenter Nikifor Muravyov in 1732, being in the Commerce Collegium and dissatisfied with the fact that his case was being considered for a very long time, declared, using the name of the empress without a title, that he would go “to Anna Ivanovna with a petition, she would judge,” for which he was beaten with whips.

Court jester of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna in 1744. was arrested by the Secret Office for a bad joke. He brought her a hedgehog wearing a “laughing” hat, thereby frightening her. The prank was seen as an attempt on the empress's health.

"Interrogation in the Secret Chancellery" Illustration from the book by I. Kurukin, E. Nikulina "Everyday Life of the Secret Chancellery"

They also tried for “unworthy words such that the sovereign lives in places, and if he dies, then be different ...”: “But the sovereign will not live long!”, “God knows how long he will live, now times are shaky”, etc.

Refusal to drink to the health of the sovereign or loyal monarch's subjects was considered not just a crime, but an insult to honor. Chancellor Alexei Petrovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin reported on the nobleman Grigory Nikolaevich Teplov. He accused Teplov of showing disrespect to the Empress Elizabeth Ioanovna, “only poured about a spoon and a half” pouring, instead of “it is full to drink to the health of such a person who is faithful to Her Imperial Majesty and is in Her highest mercy”.

"Portrait of Count A.P. Bestuzhev-Ryumin" Louis Tokke 1757, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Catherine II, who was trying to reform Russia no less than the glorified Peter, softened considerably towards her people, who practically did not mention the name of their empress in vain. Gavrila Derzhavin dedicated this significant change to the line:
“There you can whisper in conversations
And, without fear of execution, at dinners
Do not drink for the health of kings.
There, with the name of Felitsa, you can
Scrape the slip of the line
Or a portrait inadvertently
Drop it on the ground ... "

"Portrait of the poet Gavriil Romanovich Derzhavin" V. Borovikovsky, 1795, State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Three pillars of an undercover search

The first head of the Secret Chancellery was Prince Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy, who, being a good administrator, was not a fan of operational work. The "gray cardinal" of the Secret Chancellery and a real master of detective work was his deputy, Andrei Ivanovich Ushakov, a native of the village, who was recorded in the Preobrazhensky regiment for his heroic appearance at the inspection of the ignoramus, in which he won the favor of Peter I.

"Portrait of Count Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy", I. G. Tannauer 1710s, State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

After the period of opals from 1727-1731. Ushakov was returned to the court of Anna Ioanovna, who had gained power and was appointed head of the Secret Chancellery. In his practice, it was common practice to torture the person under investigation, and then the informer on the person under investigation. Ushakov wrote about his work: "Here again there are no important matters, but there are mediocre ones, for which, as before, I reported that we were whipping the rogues and letting them free." However, princes Dolgoruky, Artemy Volynsky, Biron, Minikh passed through the hands of Ushakov, and Ushakov himself, who embodies the power of the Russian political investigation system, successfully remained at court and at work. Russian monarchs had a weakness for investigating "state" crimes, often judged themselves, and the monarch's every morning ritual, in addition to breakfast and toilets, was listening to the report of the Secret Chancellery.

"Empress Anna Ioannovna" L. Karavak, 1730 State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Ushakov in such an honorary position was replaced in 1746. Alexander Ivanovich Shuvalov. Catherine II in the Notes mentions: “Alexander Shuvalov, not by himself, but by the position he held, was a threat to the entire court, city and the entire empire, he was the head of the Inquisitional Court, which was then called the Secret Chancellery. His occupation, it was said, caused him a kind of convulsive movement, which was done on the entire right side of his face from the eye to the chin whenever he was excited by joy, anger, fear or dread. " His authority as the head of the Secret Chancellery was more deserved by his repulsive and intimidating appearance. With the ascension to the throne of Peter III, Shuvalov was dismissed from this position.

Shuvalov Alexander Ivanovich. Portrait by P. Rotary. 1761

The third pillar of political investigation in Russia in the XVIII century. Stepan Ivanovich Sheshkovsky became. He led the Secret Expedition from 1762-1794. Over the 32 years of Sheshkovsky's work, his personality has acquired a huge number of legends. Sheshkovsky, in the minds of the people, was known as a sophisticated executioner, guarding the law and moral values. In noble circles, he had the nickname "confessor", because Catherine II herself, jealously watching the moral character of her subjects, asked Sheshkovsky to "talk" with the guilty persons for edifying purposes. “Talking” often meant “light corporal punishment,” such as flogging or whipping.

Sheshkovsky Stepan Ivanovich. Illustration from the book “Russian Antiquity. A guide to the 18th century. "

It was very popular at the end of the 18th century. a story about a mechanical chair that stood in the office at Sheshkovsky's house. Allegedly, when the invitee sat down in it, the armrests of the chair clicked, and the chair itself dropped into a hatch in the floor, so that one head remained sticking out. Further, invisible assistants removed the chair, freed the guest from clothes and flogged, not knowing who. In the description of the son of Alexander Nikolaevich Radishchev, Afanasy Sheshkovsky appears as a maniac sadist: “He acted with disgusting autocracy and severity, without the slightest indulgence and compassion. Sheshkovsky himself boasted that he knew the means to compel confessions, namely, he began by saying that the person being interrogated would have enough stick under the very chin, so that his teeth would crackle and sometimes jump out. Not a single accused, during such an interrogation, dared to defend himself under fear of the death penalty. The most remarkable thing is that Sheshkovsky treated in this way only with noble persons, for the commoners were handed over to his subordinates for reprisal. Thus, Sheshkovsky forced recognition. He carried out the punishments of noble persons in his own hand. He often flogged and whipped. He whipped with an extraordinary dexterity acquired by frequent exercise. "

Punishment with a whip. From a drawing by H. G. Geisler. 1805

However, it is known that Catherine II stated that torture was not used during interrogations, and Sheshkovsky himself, most likely, was an excellent psychologist, which allowed him to achieve what he wanted from the interrogated by just whipping up the atmosphere and light cuffs. Be that as it may, Sheshkovsky elevated political investigation to the rank of art, complementing Ushakov's methodology and Shuvalov's expressiveness with a creative and non-standard approach to business.