A and Dutov short biography. Died in

Defeated by the Red Army and found themselves outside of Russia, the leaders of the White movement did not at all consider their struggle to be over and did not get tired of making loud statements about the imminent new liberation campaign.

The Bolsheviks decided not to wait until life itself answered how real these dreams were and began to cross out their enemies from political life one by one. They were tricked into the territory of Soviet Russia, where they were arrested and tried, persuaded to return to the USSR, and abducted. But more often than not, they were eliminated right on the spot. The first such operation of the Cheka, which ended in success, was the assassination of Ataman Dutov.

Irreconcilable fighter against the Bolsheviks

Ataman of the Orenburg Cossacks Alexander Ilyich Dutov was not an ordinary Cossack. Born in 1879 in the family of a Cossack general, graduated from the Orenburg cadet corps, then the Nikolaev Cavalry School, and in 1908 - the Academy of the General Staff.

By November 1917, Colonel Dutov had two wars behind him (Russian-Japanese and German), orders, wounds, shell shock. He was very popular among the Cossacks, who elected him a delegate to the II General Cossack Congress in Petrograd, and then chairman of the Council of the Union of Cossack Troops.

The Orenburg Cossack ataman Dutov began to fight the Bolsheviks from the very first day. On November 8, 1917, he signed an order on non-recognition in the Orenburg province of the coup committed by the Bolsheviks in Petrograd and assumed full executive power.

The vast territory of the Orenburg province was cleared of the Bolsheviks, and the Cossack ataman Dutov and his Orenburg army were the masters here. In November 1918, he unconditionally recognized the power of Kolchak, believing that in the name of a common victory he should sacrifice personal ambitions.

In September 1919, Kolchak's army finally ran out of steam. One military defeat followed another. The Orenburg army was also defeated. On April 2, 1920, Dutov and the remnants of his troops (about 500 people) crossed the Russian-Chinese border. The ataman himself settled in the border fortress of Suidun, most of the Cossacks settled in the nearby city of Ghulja.

Not resigned to defeat

Dutov immediately declared that he was not going to add up: "The struggle is not over. Defeat is not yet a rout" and issued an order to unite all anti-Bolshevik forces into the Orenburg Separate Army. His words "I will go out to die on Russian soil and will not return to China" became the banner under which the soldiers and officers who ended up in China gathered.

For the Turkestan Chekists, Dutov became problem No. 1. Cells of the white underground were discovered in the Semirechensk region, in the cities of Omsk, Semipalatinsk, Orenburg, and Tyumen. Dutov's appeals were found in the cities: "What is Ataman Dutov striving for?", "Appeal to the Bolshevik", "Ataman Dutov's word to the Red Army", "Appeal to the population of Semirechie", "Peoples of Turkestan", etc.

In June 1920, the garrison of the city of Verny (Alma-Ata) rebelled against Soviet power. In November, the 1st battalion of the 5th border regiment mutinied, and the city of Naryn was captured. And the strings from all these defeated underground organizations and suppressed rebellions led to the Suidun border fortress to Ataman Dutov.

In autumn, the KGB intercepted the emissary Dutov in Ferghana. It turned out that the ataman was conducting very successful negotiations with the Basmachi about a simultaneous attack on Soviet Russia. In the event of the first successes of the joint offensive of the Orenburg Separate Army and the "warriors of Allah", Afghanistan could join the game. And in the center of all this stood Ataman Dutov.

In the bowels of the Cheka, a bold idea arose to steal the formidable ataman and try him in an open proletarian court. But who will undertake and, most importantly, will be able to get close to the ataman and complete the task? They began to look for such a person. And they found him.

"Prince" Chanyshev

Kasimkhan Chanyshev was born in the border town of Dzharkent (29 km from the border) into a wealthy Tatar family. He was considered a descendant of a prince or even a khan. For decades, the Chanyshev merchants had been smuggling opium and antler antlers with China, knew secret paths across the border, and had a network of suppliers and informers. Kasymkhan was desperately brave and he himself repeatedly walked across the border with a group of jigits personally devoted to him.

In addition to his native Tatar, he knew Russian and Chinese. He was a devout Muslim, respected Sharia law, and even before the revolution he made a hajj to Mecca. No one would be surprised if Kasymkhan became one of the leaders of the Basmachi movement during the revolution. But life sometimes throws out just amazing knees.

In 1917, Kasymkhan joined the Bolsheviks, and in 1918 he formed a Red Guard detachment from his horsemen, captured Jankert, established Soviet power in it, and took on the troublesome position of the head of the district police.

At the same time, Chanyshev's uncle (a highly respected wealthy merchant) lived in China in the city of Ghulja, Kasymkhan's father's gardens were confiscated, and numerous relatives suffered from dispossession. According to the Chekists, Chanyshev could well play the role of someone offended by the Soviet Power, and his position as chief of police was supposed to be the bait that Ataman Dutov would fall for.

Operation started

In September 1920, Chanyshev, with several horsemen, made his first trip to Ghulja. It was assumed that in the city Chanyshev would meet with Milovsky, who lived there - the former mayor of Dzhankert (once he and Chanyshev were connected by "trade matters"), and then - "act according to the circumstances," as the representative of the Cheka told Chanyshev. Chanyshev returned a few days later.

His report immensely delighted the Chekists. Kasymkhan managed not only to meet with Milovsky, but also got in touch with Colonel Ablaykhanov, who served as an interpreter under Dutov, and he promised Chanyshev to organize a meeting with the ataman.

Chanyshev went across the border five more times, met Dutov twice, managed to convince him of his dislike for the Soviet Power, of the existence of an underground organization in Dzhankert, handed over a certain amount of weapons and "got" a man of ataman - a certain Bad.

One of Chanyshev's horsemen, Makhmud Khodzhamiarov, regularly delivered messages from Nekhoroshko to Suidun: a spy reported that everything was ready in Dzhankert and they were just waiting for the ataman to start an uprising. As soon as the Dutovites crossed the border, Chanyshev's militiamen would seize the city, surrender it, and join Dutov themselves.

In turn, the Chekists received information about the forces that Dutov had. And the information was disturbing.

Things get tougher, plans change

According to Chanyshev, the ataman had at his disposal 5-6 thousand bayonets, two guns, four machine guns. In Ghulja, Dutov organized a factory for the manufacture of rifle cartridges. The Orenburg Separate Army was not at all a myth, as some had hoped. In addition, Dutov had connections with underground organizations in Przhevalsk, Talgar, Verny, Bishkek, Omsk, Semipalatinsk, who were ready to revolt at his signal.

In early January 1921, several clashes between peasants and food detachment fighters took place in the Peganovskaya volost of the Ishim district. In a few days, unrest swept the entire county and spread to the neighboring Yalutorovsky. This was the beginning of the West Siberian uprising, which will soon cover the Tyumen, Omsk, Chelyabinsk and Yekaterinburg provinces and in which about 100,000 people will take part.

The Cheka decided that it was impossible to delay further. On the plan to lure Dutov for reconnaissance and negotiations with the "leaders of the underground movement" on the territory of Soviet Russia, to capture and judge by a "merciless proletarian court", they put an end to it, they decided to limit themselves to liquidation.

On January 31, a group of six people crossed the Soviet-Chinese border. The senior in the group was Chanyshev, who had the order to eliminate Dutov and as soon as possible. So that Kasymkhan would not be tempted to stay in China without completing the task, 9 of his relatives were arrested in Dzhankert.

For several days, Chaneshev and his horsemen circled around Suidun, hoping to watch for Dutov outside the fortress, until a messenger from Dzhunkert arrived and said that if Chanyshev did not liquidate before February 10, the hostages would be shot. For Chanyshev, there was no other choice but to hold an action in the fortress itself.

Death of chieftain

On the evening of February 6, a group of riders rode through the open gates into Suidun. Here they split up. One remained at the gate. His task was to prevent the guards from closing the gate so that the liquidators could leave without hindrance. Two dismounted and took up positions not far from Dutov's house - they will come to the aid of the main group if something goes wrong or a chase begins. Three drove up to the chieftain's house. The sentry asked: "Who?" - "Letter to Ataman Dutov from the Prince."

Makhmukh Khadzhamiarov and Kudduk Baismakov more than once delivered reports to Dutov from Dzhunkert, they were known by sight. The guard unlocked the gate. The trio dismounted. One remained with the horses in front of the gate, two went into the yard. Baismakov started a conversation with the sentry, and Khadzhamiarov, accompanied by an orderly, entered the house. "From the Prince!" - he handed Dutov a letter.

The chieftain sat down at the table, unfolded the note and began to read: "Mr. chieftain, stop waiting for us, it's time to start, everything is done. We're ready. We're just waiting for the first shot, then we won't sleep either." Dutov finished reading and raised his eyes: "But why didn't the Prince himself come?"

Instead of answering, Khadzhamiarov pulled out a revolver from his bosom and fired point-blank at the ataman. Dutov fell. The second bullet - in the forehead of the orderly. The third - in the ataman lying on the floor. The sentry standing at the gate turned to the shots and at that moment Baismakov stabbed him in the back with a knife. The liquidators ran out into the street, mounted their horses and galloped through the streets of Suidun.

Last point in operation

The Cossacks, who rushed to look for the killers of their ataman, did not find anyone. And it is not surprising, since the Dutovites rushed towards the Soviet-Chinese border, and Chanyshev and horsemen rode in the opposite direction - to Gulja, where Kasymkhan's uncle lived and where they intended to sit out for several days. They believed that it was still too early for them to return to Soviet Russia, because they did not even know whether Dutov had been killed by them, or only wounded?

Ataman Dutov died on the morning of February 7 at 7 am from an internal hemorrhage as a result of a liver injury. He and two Cossacks who died with him - sentry Maslov and orderly Lopatin were buried on the outskirts of Suidun in a Catholic cemetery. An orchestra was playing, the Cossacks who were seeing off their ataman on their last journey were crying and swearing revenge.

A few days after the funeral, the ataman's grave was desecrated: unknown dug up the coffin, the corpse was beheaded. On February 11, Chanyshev returned to Dzhunkert with 100% proof of the completion of the assignment - Dutov's head. The hostages were released, a telegram was sent to Moscow about the liquidation of one of the most dangerous enemies of the Soviet Power.

Reward

Khodzhamiarov received from the hands of Dzerzhinsky a gold watch and a Mauser with an engraving "For personally carried out a terrorist act on ataman Dutov to comrade Khodzhamiarov." Chanyshev as the direct leader of the operation - a gold watch, a personalized carbine and a "protection certificate" signed by the security officer of the country No. 2 Peters: "The bearer of this comrade Chanyshev Kasymkhan on February 6, 1921 committed an act of republican significance, which saved several thousand lives of the working masses from an attack by a gang, and therefore the named comrade is required to be treated attentively by the Soviet authorities and the said comrade is not subject to arrest without the knowledge of the Plenipotentiary Representation.

However, so high awards did not save them from purges during the era of the Great Terror. Khojdamiarov was shot in 1938, a few years earlier he fell under the deadly roller of repression Chanyshev. The "protection letter" did not help him either - Peters, who signed it, himself turned out to be an "enemy of the people" and was shot.

An exemplary operation to eliminate Dutov cannot be considered in any way. Its successful completion was the result of a fortunate combination of circumstances and desperate improvisation on the spot. But the Chekists learned quickly. This was followed by actions against Kutepov and Miller, Savinkov and Konovalets, Bandera and many others, which can no longer be called amateurish.
But more on that next time.

The ancestors of Alexander Ilyich in the male line came from the Samara Cossack army, which was subsequently abolished. The father of the future Cossack leader, Ilya Petrovich, a military officer of the era of the Turkestan campaigns, in September, upon dismissal from service, was promoted to the rank of major general. Mother - Elizaveta Nikolaevna Uskova - the daughter of a constable, a native of the Orenburg province. Alexander Ilyich himself was born during one of the campaigns in the city of Kazalinsk, Syrdarya region. His childhood years were spent in Fergana, Orenburg, St. Petersburg and again in Orenburg ...

World War I

On October 26 (November 8), Dutov returned to Orenburg and began to work in his posts. On the same day, he signed an order for army No. 816 on the non-recognition of the power of the Bolsheviks on the territory of the Orenburg Cossack army, who carried out a coup in Petrograd, thus becoming the first military chieftain to declare war on Bolshevism.

Ataman Dutov took control strategically important region, blocking the communication of the center of the country with Turkestan and Siberia. The ataman was faced with the task of holding elections to the Constituent Assembly and maintaining stability in the province and the army until its convocation. On the whole, Dutov coped with this task. The Bolsheviks who arrived from the center were seized and put behind bars, and the decomposed and pro-Bolshevik garrison (due to the anti-war position of the Bolsheviks) of Orenburg was disarmed and sent home.

In November, Dutov was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly (from the Orenburg Cossack army).

- these words opened the lengthy demagogic appeal of the Bolshevik Council of People's Commissars of November 25, 1917. And the chief commissar Black Sea Fleet and to the “red commandant of Sevastopol” V.V. Romenets, the SNK sent the following “setup” telegram: - an eloquent monument to “revolutionary legal consciousness” ... Opening on December 7 the 2nd Regular Military Circle of the Orenburg Cossack Host, Dutov said:

“Today we are living through the Bolshevik days. We see in the dusk the outlines of tsarism, Wilhelm and his supporters, and the provocative figure of Vladimir Lenin and his supporters clearly and definitely stands before us: Trotsky-Bronstein, Ryazanov-Goldenbach, Kamenev-Rosenfeld, Sukhanov-Gimmer and Zinoviev-Apfelbaum. Russia is dying. We are present at her last breath. Was Great Russia from the Baltic Sea to the ocean, from the White Sea to Persia, there was a whole, great, formidable, powerful, agricultural, labor Russia- there is none"

On December 16, the ataman sent out an appeal to the commanders of the Cossack units to send Cossacks with weapons to the army. People and weapons were needed to fight the Bolsheviks; he could still count on weapons, but the bulk of the Cossacks returning from the front did not want to fight, only in some places stanitsa squads were formed. In connection with the failure of the Cossack mobilization, Dutov could only count on volunteers from officers and student youth, in total no more than 2 thousand people, including old people and unshooted youth. Therefore, at the first stage of the struggle, the Orenburg ataman, like other leaders of the anti-Bolshevik resistance, was unable to rouse and lead any significant number of supporters to the fight.

Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks launched an offensive against Orenburg. After heavy fighting, the detachments of the Red Army, many times superior to the Dutovites, under the command of V.K. Blucher, approached Orenburg and on January 31, 1918, as a result of joint actions with the Bolsheviks who settled in the city, captured it. Dutov decided not to leave the territory of the Orenburg army and went alone on the messenger to the center of the 2nd military district - Verkhneuralsk, located away from major roads, hoping to continue the fight there and form new forces against the Bolsheviks.

But in the meantime, the Bolsheviks, by their policy, embittered the previously neutral new government the main part of the Orenburg Cossacks and in the spring of 1918, out of touch with Dutov, a powerful insurgency, led by a congress of delegates from 25 villages and a staff headed by the military foreman D. M. Krasnoyartsev. On March 28, in the village of Vetlyanskaya, the Cossacks destroyed a detachment of the chairman of the council of the Iletsk Protection P. A. Persiyanov, on April 2 in the village of Izobilnaya, the punitive detachment of the chairman of the Orenburg Military Revolutionary Committee, S. M. Zwilling, and on the night of April 4, a detachment of Cossacks of the military foreman N. V. Lukin and a detachment of S.V. Bartenev made a daring raid on Orenburg, occupying the city for some time and inflicting significant losses on the Reds. The Reds responded with cruel measures: they shot, burned the resisting villages (in the spring of 1918, 11 villages were burned), and they imposed indemnities.

Supreme Commander of the Russian Army: A. V. Kolchak † Don Army: P. N. Krasnov A. P. Bogaevsky K. K. Mamantov † P. Kh. Popov I. D. Popov † E. F. Semiletov † G. D. Kargalskov A. N. Moller · M. V. Bazavov · M. G. Khripunov · I. F. Bykadorov · V. I. Sidorin · S. V. Denisov · A. P. Fitskhelaurov Army of the Caucasus: V. L. Pokrovsky Ya. D. Yuzefovich P. N. Shatilov Kuban Army: A. G. Shkuro S. G. Ulagai Crimean-Azov Army: A. A. Borovsky Volunteer army: I. P. Romanovsky † A. S. Lukomsky P. S. Makhrov I. M. Vasilchenko † I. G. Barbovich A. M. Kaledin † M. V. Alekseev † L G. Kornilov † A. I. Denikin V. Z. Mai-Maevsky † P. N. Wrangel Turkestan Army (VSYuR): I. V. Savitsky A. A. Borovsky B. I. Kazanovich Troops of the Kiev region: N. E. Bredov A. M. Dragomirov V. E. Flug Troops of the Novorossiysk region: M. N. Promtov N. N. Schilling 1 AC : B. I. Kazanovich A. P. Kutepov V. K. Vitkovsky 2 AC : A. A. Borovsky V. Z. Mai-Maevsky † M. N. Promtov Ya. A. Slashchev 3 AC : V. P. Lyakhov Ya. A. Slashchev Drozdovtsy: M. G. Drozdovsky † V. K. Vitkovsky A. V. Turkul Kornilovites: A. P. Kutepov N. V. Skoblin Markovites: S. L. Markov N. S. Timanovsky Alekseevtsy: A. P. Bogaevsky · B. I. Kazanovich Eastern Front: A. V. Kolchak † V. O. Kappel † M. K. Diterikhs A. F. Matkovsky † A. N. Grishin "Almazov" † V. P. Gulidov † A. I. Dutov† G. M. Semyonov K. V. Sakharov S. N. Voitsekhovsky K. I. Sychev V. S. Tolstov B. V. Annenkov A. N. Pepelyaev A. S. Bakich † · R. F. Ungern von Sternberg † · B. P. Rezukhin † · P. P. Ivanov-Rinov · V. K. Molchanov · G. K. Stark ·

An excerpt characterizing Dutov, Alexander Ilyich

On the same evening, as the prince gave orders to Alpatych, Dessal, having demanded a meeting with Princess Mary, told her that since the prince was not completely healthy and was not taking any measures for his safety, and according to the letter of Prince Andrei, it was clear that his stay in the Bald Mountains unsafe, he respectfully advises her to write with Alpatych a letter to the head of the province in Smolensk with a request to notify her of the state of affairs and the degree of danger to which the Bald Mountains are exposed. Desalles wrote a letter for Princess Marya to the governor, which she signed, and this letter was given to Alpatych with an order to submit it to the governor and, in case of danger, to return as soon as possible.
Having received all the orders, Alpatych, escorted by his family, in a white downy hat (a princely gift), with a stick, just like the prince, went out to sit in a leather wagon laid by a trio of well-fed savras.
The bell was tied up, and the bells were stuffed with pieces of paper. The prince did not allow anyone to ride in the Bald Mountains with a bell. But Alpatych loved bells and bells on a long journey. The courtiers of Alpatych, the zemstvo, the clerk, the cook - black, white, two old women, a Cossack boy, coachmen and various courtyards saw him off.
The daughter laid chintz down pillows behind her back and under it. The old woman's sister-in-law slipped the bundle secretly. One of the coachmen put him under the arm.
- Well, well, women's fees! Grandmas, women! - puffing, Alpatych spoke in a patter exactly as the prince said, and sat down in the kibitochka. Having given the last orders on the work of the zemstvo, and in this no longer imitating the prince, Alpatych took off his hat from his bald head and crossed himself three times.
- You, if anything ... you will return, Yakov Alpatych; for the sake of Christ, have pity on us, ”his wife shouted to him, hinting at rumors of war and the enemy.
“Women, women, women’s fees,” Alpatych said to himself and drove off, looking around the fields, where with yellowed rye, where with thick, still green oats, where there are still black ones that were just starting to double. Alpatych rode, admiring the rare harvest of spring crops this year, looking at the strips of rye peli, on which in some places they began to sting, and made his economic considerations about sowing and harvesting and whether some princely order had not been forgotten.
Having fed twice on the road, by the evening of August 4, Alpatych arrived in the city.
On the way, Alpatych met and overtook the carts and troops. Approaching Smolensk, he heard distant shots, but these sounds did not strike him. He was most struck by the fact that, approaching Smolensk, he saw a beautiful field of oats, which some soldiers were obviously mowing for food and along which they camped; this circumstance struck Alpatych, but he soon forgot it, thinking about his own business.
All the interests of Alpatych's life for more than thirty years were limited by one will of the prince, and he never left this circle. Everything that did not concern the execution of the orders of the prince, not only did not interest him, but did not exist for Alpatych.
Alpatych, having arrived in Smolensk on the evening of August 4, stopped beyond the Dnieper, in the Gachen suburb, at the inn, at the janitor Ferapontov, with whom he had been in the habit of stopping for thirty years. Ferapontov twelve years ago, with the light hand of Alpatych, having bought a grove from the prince, began to trade and now had a house, an inn and a flour shop in the province. Ferapontov was a fat, black, red man of forty, with thick lips, a thick bump on his nose, the same bumps above his black, frowning eyebrows, and a thick belly.
Ferapontov, in a waistcoat and a cotton shirt, was standing by a shop overlooking the street. Seeing Alpatych, he approached him.
- Welcome, Yakov Alpatych. The people are out of the city, and you are in the city, - said the owner.
- What is it, from the city? Alpatych said.
- And I say - the people are stupid. Everyone is afraid of the French.
- Woman's talk, woman's talk! Alpatych said.
- So I judge, Yakov Alpatych. I say there is an order that they won't let him in, which means it's true. Yes, and the peasants ask for three rubles from the cart - there is no cross on them!
Yakov Alpatych listened inattentively. He demanded a samovar and hay for the horses, and after drinking tea he went to bed.
All night long the troops moved in the street past the inn. The next day, Alpatych put on a camisole, which he wore only in the city, and went on business. The morning was sunny, and from eight o'clock it was already hot. Expensive day for harvesting bread, as Alpatych thought. Shots were heard outside the city from early morning.
From eight o'clock cannon fire joined the rifle shots. There were a lot of people on the streets, hurrying somewhere, a lot of soldiers, but just as always, cabs drove, merchants stood at the shops and there was a service in the churches. Alpatych went to the shops, to government offices, to the post office and to the governor. In government offices, in shops, at the post office, everyone was talking about the army, about the enemy, who had already attacked the city; everyone asked each other what to do, and everyone tried to calm each other down.
At the governor's house Alpatych found a large number of people, Cossacks and a road carriage that belonged to the governor. On the porch, Yakov Alpatych met two gentlemen of the nobility, of whom he knew one. A nobleman he knew, a former police officer, spoke with ardor.
“This is no joke,” he said. - Well, who is one. One head and poor - so one, otherwise there are thirteen people in the family, and all the property ... They brought everyone to disappear, what kind of bosses are they after that? .. Eh, I would hang the robbers ...
“Yes, it will,” said another.
“What do I care, let him hear!” Well, we are not dogs, - said the former police officer and, looking around, he saw Alpatych.
- Ah, Yakov Alpatych, why are you?
“By order of his excellency, to the governor,” Alpatych answered, proudly raising his head and putting his hand in his bosom, which he always did when he mentioned the prince ... “They were pleased to order to inquire about the state of affairs,” he said.
- Yes, and find out, - the landowner shouted, - they brought that no cart, nothing! .. Here she is, do you hear? he said, pointing to the direction from which the shots were heard.
- They brought that everyone to die ... robbers! he said again, and stepped off the porch.
Alpatych shook his head and went up the stairs. In the waiting room were merchants, women, officials, silently exchanging glances among themselves. The door to the office opened, everyone got up and moved forward. An official ran out of the door, talked something to the merchant, called behind him a fat official with a cross around his neck, and disappeared again through the door, apparently avoiding all the looks and questions addressed to him. Alpatych moved forward and at the next exit of the official, laying his hand on his buttoned frock coat, turned to the official, giving him two letters.
“To Mr. Baron Ash from the general chief prince Bolkonsky,” he announced so solemnly and significantly that the official turned to him and took his letter. A few minutes later the governor received Alpatych and hurriedly said to him:
- Report to the prince and princess that I didn’t know anything: I acted according to higher orders - that’s ...
He gave the paper to Alpatych.
“And yet, since the prince is unwell, my advice is for them to go to Moscow. I'm on my own now. Report ... - But the governor did not finish: a dusty and sweaty officer ran in the door and began to say something in French. Horror appeared on the Governor's face.
“Go,” he said, nodding his head to Alpatych, and began to ask the officer something. Greedy, frightened, helpless looks turned to Alpatych when he left the governor's office. Involuntarily listening now to the close and ever-increasing shots, Alpatych hurried to the inn. The paper given by Governor Alpatych was as follows:
“I assure you that the city of Smolensk does not yet face the slightest danger, and it is unbelievable that it would be threatened by it. I am on one side, and Prince Bagration on the other side, we are going to unite in front of Smolensk, which will take place on the 22nd, and both armies with combined forces will defend their compatriots in the province entrusted to you, until their efforts remove the enemies of the fatherland from them or until they are exterminated in their brave ranks to the last warrior. You see from this that you have the perfect right to reassure the inhabitants of Smolensk, for whoever defends with two such brave troops can be sure of their victory. (Order of Barclay de Tolly to the civil governor of Smolensk, Baron Ash, 1812.)
People moved restlessly through the streets.
Carts loaded on horseback with household utensils, chairs, cabinets kept leaving the gates of the houses and driving through the streets. In the neighboring house of Ferapontov, wagons stood and, saying goodbye, the women howled and sentenced. The mongrel dog, barking, twirled in front of the pawned horses.
Alpatych, with a more hasty step than he usually walked, entered the yard and went straight under the shed to his horses and wagon. The coachman was asleep; he woke him up, ordered him to lay the bed, and went into the passage. In the master's room one could hear a child's cry, the woman's shattering sobs, and Ferapontov's angry, hoarse cry. The cook, like a frightened chicken, fluttered in the passage as soon as Alpatych entered.
- Killed him to death - he beat the mistress! .. So he beat, so dragged! ..
- For what? Alpatych asked.
- I asked to go. It's a woman's business! Take me away, he says, do not destroy me with small children; the people, they say, all left, what, they say, are we? How to start beating. So beat, so dragged!
Alpatych, as it were, nodded approvingly at these words and, not wanting to know anything else, went to the opposite door - the master's room, in which his purchases remained.
“You are a villain, a destroyer,” a thin, pale woman with a child in her arms and a handkerchief torn from her head shouted at that moment, bursting out of the door and running down the stairs to the courtyard. Ferapontov went out after her and, seeing Alpatych, straightened his waistcoat and hair, yawned and went into the room after Alpatych.
- Do you want to go? - he asked.
Without answering the question and not looking back at the owner, sorting through his purchases, Alpatych asked how long the owner followed the wait.
- Let's count! Well, did the governor have one? Ferapontov asked. - What was the decision?
Alpatych replied that the governor did not say anything decisively to him.
- Shall we go away on our business? Ferapontov said. - Give me seven rubles for a cart to Dorogobuzh. And I say: there is no cross on them! - he said.
- Selivanov, he pleased on Thursday, sold flour to the army at nine rubles per bag. So, are you going to drink tea? he added. While the horses were being laid, Alpatych and Ferapontov drank tea and talked about the price of bread, about the harvest and the favorable weather for harvesting.
“However, it began to calm down,” Ferapontov said, having drunk three cups of tea and getting up, “ours must have taken it.” They said they won't let me. So, strength ... And a mixture, they said, Matvey Ivanovich Platov drove them into the Marina River, drowned eighteen thousand, or something, in one day.
Alpatych collected his purchases, handed them over to the coachman who entered, and paid off with the owner. At the gate sounded the sound of wheels, hooves and bells of a wagon leaving.
It was already well past noon; half of the street was in shade, the other was brightly lit by the sun. Alpatych looked out the window and went to the door. Suddenly I heard strange sound distant whistle and blow, and after that there was a merging rumble of cannon fire, from which the windows trembled.
Alpatych went out into the street; two people ran down the street to the bridge. Whistles, cannonballs and the bursting of grenades falling in the city were heard from different directions. But these sounds were almost inaudible and did not pay the attention of the inhabitants in comparison with the sounds of firing heard outside the city. It was a bombardment, which at the fifth hour Napoleon ordered to open the city, from one hundred and thirty guns. At first, the people did not understand the significance of this bombardment.
The sounds of falling grenades and cannonballs aroused at first only curiosity. Ferapontov's wife, who had not stopped howling under the barn before, fell silent and, with the child in her arms, went out to the gate, silently looking at the people and listening to the sounds.
The cook and the shopkeeper came out to the gate. All with cheerful curiosity tried to see the shells flying over their heads. Several people came out from around the corner, talking animatedly.
- That's power! one said. - And the roof and ceiling were so smashed to pieces.
“It blew up the earth like a pig,” said another. - That's so important, that's so cheered up! he said laughing. - Thank you, jumped back, otherwise she would have smeared you.
The people turned to these people. They paused and told how, near by, their cores had got into the house. Meanwhile, other shells, sometimes with a quick, gloomy whistle - cannonballs, then with a pleasant whistle - grenades, did not stop flying over the heads of the people; but not a single shell fell close, everything endured. Alpatych got into the wagon. The owner was at the gate.
- What did not see! he shouted at the cook, who, with her sleeves rolled up, in a red skirt, swaying with her bare elbows, went to the corner to listen to what was being said.
“What a miracle,” she said, but, hearing the voice of the owner, she returned, tugging at her tucked-up skirt.
Again, but very close this time, something whistled like a bird flying from top to bottom, a fire flashed in the middle of the street, something shot and covered the street with smoke.
"Villain, why are you doing this?" shouted the host, running up to the cook.
At the same instant, women wailed plaintively from different directions, a child began to cry in fright, and people silently crowded around the cook with pale faces. From this crowd, the groans and sentences of the cook were heard most audibly:
- Oh, oh, my darlings! My doves are white! Don't let die! My doves are white! ..
Five minutes later there was no one left on the street. The cook, with her thigh shattered by a grenade fragment, was carried into the kitchen. Alpatych, his coachman, Ferapontov's wife with children, the janitor were sitting in the basement, listening. The rumble of guns, the whistle of shells, and the pitiful groan of the cook, which prevailed over all sounds, did not stop for a moment. The hostess now rocked and persuaded the child, then in a pitiful whisper asked everyone who entered the basement where her master was, who remained on the street. The shopkeeper, who entered the basement, told her that the owner had gone with the people to the cathedral, where they were raising the miraculous Smolensk icon.
By dusk, the cannonade began to subside. Alpatych came out of the basement and stopped at the door. Before clear evening her sky was all covered with smoke. And through this smoke a young, high-standing sickle of the moon shone strangely. After the former terrible rumble of guns had fallen silent over the city, silence seemed to be interrupted only by the rustle of steps, groans, distant screams and the crackling of fires, as it were spread throughout the city. The groans of the cook are now quiet. From both sides, black clouds of smoke from fires rose and dispersed. On the street, not in rows, but like ants from a ruined tussock, in different uniforms and in different directions, soldiers passed and ran through. In the eyes of Alpatych, several of them ran into Ferapontov's yard. Alpatych went to the gate. Some regiment, crowding and hurrying, blocked the street, going back.
“The city is being surrendered, leave, leave,” the officer who noticed his figure said to him and immediately turned to the soldiers with a cry:
- I'll let you run around the yards! he shouted.
Alpatych returned to the hut and, calling the coachman, ordered him to leave. Following Alpatych and the coachman, all Ferapontov's household went out. Seeing the smoke and even the lights of the fires, which were now visible in the beginning twilight, the women, who had been silent until then, suddenly began to wail, looking at the fires. As if echoing them, similar cries were heard at the other ends of the street. Alpatych with a coachman, with trembling hands, straightened the tangled reins and horses' lines under a canopy.
When Alpatych was leaving the gate, he saw ten soldiers in the open shop of Ferapontov pouring sacks and knapsacks with wheat flour and sunflowers with a loud voice. At the same time, returning from the street to the shop, Ferapontov entered. Seeing the soldiers, he wanted to shout something, but suddenly stopped and, clutching his hair, burst out laughing with sobbing laughter.
- Get it all, guys! Don't get the devils! he shouted, grabbing the sacks himself and throwing them out into the street. Some soldiers, frightened, ran out, some continued to pour. Seeing Alpatych, Ferapontov turned to him.
- Decided! Russia! he shouted. - Alpatych! decided! I'll burn it myself. I made up my mind ... - Ferapontov ran into the yard.
Soldiers were constantly walking along the street, filling it all up, so that Alpatych could not pass and had to wait. The hostess Ferapontova was also sitting on the cart with the children, waiting to be able to leave.
It was already quite night. There were stars in the sky and a young moon shone from time to time, shrouded in smoke. On the descent to the Dnieper, the carts of Alpatych and the hostess, slowly moving in the ranks of soldiers and other crews, had to stop. Not far from the crossroads where the carts stopped, in an alley, a house and shops were on fire. The fire has already burned out. The flame either died away and was lost in black smoke, then it suddenly flashed brightly, strangely clearly illuminating the faces of the crowded people standing at the crossroads. In front of the fire, black figures of people flashed by, and from behind the incessant crackle of the fire, voices and screams were heard. Alpatych, who got down from the wagon, seeing that they would not let his wagon through soon, turned to the alley to look at the fire. The soldiers darted incessantly back and forth past the fire, and Alpatych saw how two soldiers and with them a man in a frieze overcoat dragged burning logs from the fire across the street to the neighboring yard; others carried armfuls of hay.
Alpatych approached a large crowd of people standing in front of a high barn burning with full fire. The walls were all on fire, the back collapsed, the boarded roof collapsed, the beams were on fire. Obviously, the crowd was waiting for the moment when the roof would collapse. Alpatych expected the same.
- Alpatych! Suddenly a familiar voice called out to the old man.
“Father, your excellency,” answered Alpatych, instantly recognizing the voice of his young prince.
Prince Andrei, in a raincoat, riding a black horse, stood behind the crowd and looked at Alpatych.
– How are you here? - he asked.
- Your ... your Excellency, - Alpatych said and sobbed ... - Yours, yours ... or have we already disappeared? Father…
– How are you here? repeated Prince Andrew.
The flame flared brightly at that moment and illuminated Alpatych's pale and exhausted face of his young master. Alpatych told how he was sent and how he could have left by force.
“Well, Your Excellency, or are we lost?” he asked again.
Prince Andrei, without answering, took out a notebook and, raising his knee, began to write with a pencil on a torn sheet. He wrote to his sister:
“Smolensk is being surrendered,” he wrote, “the Bald Mountains will be occupied by the enemy in a week. Leave now for Moscow. Answer me as soon as you leave, sending a courier to Usvyazh.
Having written and handed over the sheet to Alpatych, he verbally told him how to arrange the departure of the prince, princess and son with the teacher and how and where to answer him immediately. He had not yet had time to complete these orders, when the chief of staff on horseback, accompanied by his retinue, galloped up to him.
- Are you a colonel? shouted the chief of staff, with a German accent, in a voice familiar to Prince Andrei. - Houses are lit in your presence, and you are standing? What does this mean? You will answer, - shouted Berg, who was now assistant chief of staff of the left flank of the infantry troops of the first army, - the place is very pleasant and in sight, as Berg said.
Prince Andrei looked at him and, without answering, continued, turning to Alpatych:
“So tell me that I’m waiting for an answer by the tenth, and if I don’t get the news on the tenth that everyone has left, I myself will have to drop everything and go to the Bald Mountains.
“I, prince, only say so,” said Berg, recognizing Prince Andrei, “that I must obey orders, because I always fulfill them exactly ... Please excuse me,” Berg justified himself in some way.
Something crackled in the fire. The fire subsided for a moment; black puffs of smoke poured from under the roof. Something else crackled terribly in the fire, and something huge collapsed.
– Urruru! - Echoing the collapsed ceiling of the barn, from which there was a smell of cakes from burnt bread, the crowd roared. The flame flared up and illuminated the animatedly joyful and exhausted faces of the people standing around the fire.

Ataman Dutov, who liked to repeat: “With my views and opinions, like gloves, I do not play”

The father of the future Cossack leader, Ilya Petrovich, a military officer of the era of the Turkestan campaigns, in September 1907, upon dismissal from service, was promoted to the rank of major general. Mother - Elizaveta Nikolaevna Uskova - the daughter of a constable, a native of the Orenburg province. Alexander Ilyich himself was born during one of the campaigns in the city of Kazalinsk, Syrdarya region.

Alexander Ilyich Dutov graduated from the Orenburg Neplyuevsky Cadet Corps in 1897, and then the Nikolaev Cavalry School in 1899, was promoted to the rank of cornet and sent to the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment, stationed in Kharkov.

Then, in St. Petersburg, he completed courses at the Nikolaev engineering school On October 1, 1903, now the Military Engineering and Technical University, he entered the Academy of the General Staff, but in 1905 Dutov volunteered for the Russo-Japanese War, fought in the 2nd Munchzhur Army, where for "excellent, diligent service and special works "during the hostilities was awarded the Order of St. Stanislav 3rd degree. Upon returning from the front, AI Dutov continued his studies at the Academy of the General Staff, which he graduated in 1908 (without being promoted to the next rank and being assigned to the General Staff). After graduating from the Academy, Staff Captain Dutov was sent to the Kiev Military District to the headquarters of the 10th Army Corps to get acquainted with the service of the General Staff. From 1909 to 1912 he taught at the Orenburg Cossack cadet school. Through his activities at the school, Dutov earned the love and respect of the cadets, for whom he did a lot. In addition to exemplary performance of his official duties, he organized performances, concerts and evenings at the school. In December 1910, Dutov was awarded the Order of St. Anna, 3rd degree, and on December 6, 1912, at the age of 33, he was promoted to the rank of military foreman (the corresponding army rank was lieutenant colonel).

In October 1912, Dutov was sent to Kharkov for a year of qualified command of the 5th hundred of the 1st Orenburg Cossack regiment. After the expiration of his command term, Dutov passed a hundred in October 1913 and returned to the school, where he served until 1916.

On March 20, 1916, Dutov volunteered for the active army, in the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment, which was part of the 10th Cavalry Division of the III Cavalry Corps of the 9 Army of the Southwestern Front. He took part in the offensive of the Southwestern Front under the command of Brusilov, during which the 9th Russian Army, where Dutov served, defeated the 7th Austro-Hungarian Army in the interfluve of the Dniester and Prut. During this offensive, Dutov was wounded twice, the second time seriously. However, after two months of treatment in Orenburg, he returned to the regiment. On October 16, Dutov was appointed commander of the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment, together with Prince Spiridon Vasilyevich Bartenev.

Dutov's attestation, given to him by Count F. A. Keller, says: « Recent fights in Romania, in which the regiment took part under the command of the military foreman Dutov, give the right to see him as a commander who is well versed in the situation and makes appropriate decisions energetically, which is why I consider him an outstanding and excellent combat commander of the regiment ". By February 1917, for military distinctions, Dutov was awarded swords and a bow to the Order of St. Anna, 3rd class. and the Order of St. Anne 2nd class.

Dutov became known throughout Russia in August 1917, during the Kornilov rebellion. Kerensky then demanded that Dutov sign a government decree in which Lavr Georgievich was accused of treason. The ataman of the Orenburg Cossack army left the office, contemptuously throwing: “You can send me to the gallows, but I won’t sign such a paper. If need be, I'm ready to die for them.". Dutov immediately went from words to deeds. It was his regiment that defended the headquarters of General Denikin, pacified the Bolshevik agitators in Smolensk and guarded the last commander-in-chief of the Russian army, Dukhonin. A graduate of the Academy of the General Staff, Chairman of the Council of the Union of Cossack Troops of Russia Alexander Ilyich Dutov openly called the Bolsheviks German spies and demanded that they be judged according to the laws of war.

On October 26 (November 8), Dutov returned to Orenburg and began to work in his posts. On the same day, he signed an order for army No. 816 on non-recognition on the territory of the Orenburg Cossack army, the power of the Bolsheviks, who carried out a coup in Petrograd.

“Until the restoration of the powers of the Provisional Government and telegraph communications, I take upon myself the fullness of the executive state power”. The city and province were declared under martial law. The created committee for the salvation of the motherland, which included representatives of all parties except for the Bolsheviks and the Cadets, appointed Dutov as the head of the armed forces of the region. Fulfilling his powers, he initiated the arrest of some members of the Orenburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies who were preparing an uprising. To accusations of striving to usurp power, Dutov answered with sorrow: “All the time you have to be under the threat of the Bolsheviks, receive death sentences from them, live in headquarters, not seeing your family for weeks. Good power!

Dutov took control of a strategically important region that blocked communication with Turkestan and Siberia. The ataman was faced with the task of holding elections to the Constituent Assembly and maintaining stability in the province and the army until its convocation. On the whole, Dutov coped with this task. The Bolsheviks who arrived from the center were seized and put behind bars, and the decomposed and pro-Bolshevik garrison (due to the anti-war position of the Bolsheviks) of Orenburg was disarmed and sent home.

In November, Dutov was elected a member of the Constituent Assembly (from the Orenburg Cossack army). Opening on December 7 the 2nd regular Troop Circle Orenburg Cossack army, said:

“Today we are living through the Bolshevik days. We see in the twilight the outlines of tsarism, Wilhelm and his supporters, and the provocative figure of Vladimir Lenin and his supporters clearly and definitely stands before us: Trotsky-Bronstein, Ryazanov-Goldenbach, Kamenev-Rosenfeld, Sukhanov-Gimmer and Zinoviev-Apfelbaum. Russia is dying. We are present at her last breath. There was Great Russia from the Baltic Sea to the ocean, from the White Sea to Persia, there was a whole, great, formidable, powerful, agricultural, laboring Russia - it does not exist.

Among the world fire, among the flames of native cities,

Among the whistle of bullets and shrapnel,

So willingly released by soldiers inside the country on unarmed inhabitants,

In the midst of complete calm at the front, where there is fraternization,

Among the horrific executions of women, the rape of schoolgirls,

Among the mass, brutal murder of junkers and officers,

Among drunkenness, robbery and pogroms,

Our great Mother Russia,

In your red dress

Laid down on her deathbed

Dirty hands are pulled off

With you the last values

German marks are ringing at your bedside,

You, beloved, giving your last breath,

Open your heavy eyelids for a second,

Proud of my soul and my freedom,

Army of Orenburg ...

Orenburg army, be strong,

Not far away is the hour of the great holiday of All Russia,

All the Kremlin bells will give a free chime,

And they will proclaim to the world about the integrity of Orthodox Russia!

The leaders of the Bolsheviks quickly realized what a danger the Orenburg Cossacks posed to them. On November 25, an appeal of the Council of People's Commissars to the population about the fight against Ataman Dutov appeared. The Southern Urals found itself in a state of siege. Alexander Ilyich was outlawed.

On December 16, the ataman sent out an appeal to the commanders of the Cossack units to send Cossacks with weapons to the army. People and weapons were needed to fight the Bolsheviks; he could still count on weapons, but the bulk of the Cossacks returning from the front did not want to fight, only in some places stanitsa squads were formed. Due to the failure of the Cossack mobilization, Dutov could only count on volunteers from officers and student youth, no more than 2 thousand people in total, including old people and youth. Therefore, at the first stage of the struggle, the Orenburg ataman, like other leaders of the anti-Bolshevik resistance, was unable to rouse and lead any significant number of supporters to the fight.

Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks launched an offensive against Orenburg. After heavy fighting, the detachments of the Red Army under the command of Blucher, many times superior to the Dutovites, approached Orenburg and on January 31, 1918, as a result of joint actions with the Bolsheviks who settled in the city, captured it. Dutov decided not to leave the territory of the Orenburg army and went to the center of the 2nd military district - Verkhneuralsk, which was far from major roads, hoping to continue the fight there and form new forces against the Bolsheviks.

An emergency Cossack circle was convened in Verkhneuralsk. Speaking at it, Alexander Ilyich refused his post three times, referring to the fact that his re-election would anger the Bolsheviks. The previous wounds also made themselves known. “My neck is broken, my skull is cracked, and my shoulder and arm are useless,” Dutov said. But the circle did not accept the resignation and instructed the ataman to form partisan detachments to continue the armed struggle. In his address to the Cossacks, Alexander Ilyich wrote:

“Great Russia, do you hear the alarm? Wake up dear, and strike in your old Creme-le-Moscow, all the bells, and your alarm will be heard everywhere. Throw off the great people the foreign, German yoke. And the sounds of Veche Cossack bells will merge with your Kremlin chimes, and Orthodox Russia will be whole and indivisible.

But in March, the Cossacks also surrendered Verkhneuralsk. After that, the Dutov government settled in the village of Krasninskaya, where by mid-April it was surrounded. On April 17, having broken through the encirclement with the forces of four partisan detachments and an officer platoon, Dutov escaped from Krasninskaya and went to the Turgai steppes.

But in the meantime, the Bolsheviks, with their policy, embittered the main part of the Orenburg Cossacks, which had been neutral to the new government, and in the spring of 1918, out of touch with Dutov, a powerful insurrectionary movement began on the territory of the 1st military district, led by a congress of delegates of 25 villages and a headquarters headed by military foreman D. M. Krasnoyartsev. On March 28, in the village of Vetlyanskaya, the Cossacks destroyed a detachment of the chairman of the council of the Iletsk Defense P. A. Persiyanov, on April 2 in the village of Izobilnaya, the punitive detachment of the chairman of the Orenburg Military Revolutionary Committee, S. M. Tsviling, and on the night of April 4, a detachment of Cossacks of the military foreman N. V. Lukin and a detachment of S. V. Bartenev made a daring raid on Orenburg, occupying the city for a while and inflicting significant losses on the Reds. The Reds responded with cruel measures: they shot, burned the resisting villages (in the spring of 1918, 11 villages were burned), and they imposed indemnities.

As a result, by June, more than 6,000 Cossacks took part in the insurrectionary struggle on the territory of the 1st military district alone. At the end of May, the Cossacks of the 3rd military district, supported by the rebel Czechoslovaks, joined the movement. The Red Guard detachments on the territory of the Orenburg army were defeated everywhere, and on July 3 Orenburg was taken by the Cossacks. A delegation was sent from the Cossacks to Dutov, as the legally elected military chieftain. On July 7, Dutov arrived in Orenburg and headed the Orenburg Cossack army, declaring the territory of the army a special region of Russia.

Analyzing the internal political situation, Dutov wrote and spoke more than once about the need for a firm government that would lead the country out of the crisis. He called for rallying around the party that would save the motherland, and which all other political forces would follow.

“I don’t know who we are: revolutionaries or counter-revolutionaries, where we are going - to the left or to the right. One thing I know is that we are following an honest path to the salvation of the Motherland. Life is not dear to me, and I will not spare it as long as there are Bolsheviks in Russia. All the evil lay in the fact that we did not have a nationwide firm power, and this led us to ruin.

On September 28, Dutov's Cossacks took Orsk, the last of the cities on the territory of the army occupied by the Bolsheviks. Thus, the territory of the army was completely cleared of the Reds for some time.
On November 18, 1918, as a result of a coup in Omsk, Kolchak came to power, becoming the Supreme Ruler and Commander-in-Chief of all the armed forces of Russia. One of the first to enter his subordination was Ataman Dutov. He wanted to show by example what every honest officer should do. Parts of Dutov in November became part of the Russian army of Admiral Kolchak. Dutov played a positive role in resolving the conflict between Ataman Semyonov and Kolchak, urging the former to submit to the latter, since the candidates for the post Supreme Ruler obeyed Kolchak, called on the "Cossack brother" Semenov to let military supplies pass for the Orenburg Cossack army.

• Ataman A.I. Dutov, A.V. Kolchak,General I.G. Akulingin and Archbishop Methodius (Gerasimov). The photo was taken in the city of Troitsk in February 1919.

On May 20, 1919, Lieutenant General Dutov (promoted to this rank at the end of September 1918) was appointed to the post of Camp Ataman of all Cossack troops. D For many, it was General Dutov who was the symbol of all anti-Bolshevik resistance. It is no coincidence that the Cossacks of the Orenburg army wrote to their ataman: "You are needed, your name is on everyone's lips, you will inspire us to fight even more with your presence."
Ataman was available for ordinary people- anyone could come to him with their questions or problems. Independence, directness, a sober lifestyle, constant concern for the rank and file, the suppression of rough treatment of the lower ranks - all this ensured Dutov's strong authority among the Cossacks.
The fall of 1919 is considered the most terrible period in history. civil war in Russia. Bitterness swept the whole country and could not but affect the actions of the ataman. According to a contemporary, Dutov explained his own cruelty in this way: “When the existence of an entire huge state is at stake, I will not stop before executions. This is not revenge, but only an extreme means of influence, and here for me everyone is equal.

• Kolchak and Dutov bypass the line of volunteers

The Orenburg Cossacks with varying success fought against the Bolsheviks, but in September 1919 Dutov's Orenburg army was defeated by the Red Army near Aktobe. The chieftain with the remnants of the army retreated to Semirechye, where he joined the Semirechye army of ataman Annenkov. Due to the lack of food, the crossing of the steppes became known as the "Hunger March".

Typhus was rampant in the army, which by mid-October had wiped out almost half of the personnel. According to the most rough estimates, over 10 thousand people died during the “hunger campaign”. In his last order in the army, Dutov wrote:

“All those difficulties, hardships and various hardships that the troops endured are beyond description. Only an impartial history and grateful posterity will truly appreciate the military service, work and hardships of truly Russian people, devoted sons of their Motherland, who selflessly meet all kinds of torment and torment for the sake of saving their Fatherland.

Upon arrival in Semirechie, Dutov was appointed by Ataman Annenkov as the Governor-General of the Semirechensk Region. In March 1920, units of Dutov had to leave their homeland and retreat to China through a glacial pass located at an altitude of 5800 meters. Exhausted people and horses walked without a supply of food and fodder, following the mountain ledges, it happened that they fell into the abyss. The ataman himself was lowered on a rope from a steep cliff in front of the border, almost unconscious. The detachment was interned in Suydin, and settled in the barracks of the Russian consulate. Dutov did not lose hope of resuming the fight against the Bolsheviks and tried to unite under his command all the former white soldiers. The activities of the general were followed with alarm in Moscow. The leaders of the Third International were frightened by the presence of significant anti-Bolshevik forces, organized and hardened by years of struggle, near the borders of Soviet Russia. It was decided to liquidate Dutov. This delicate mission was entrusted to the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkestan Front.

On February 7, 1921, Ataman Dutov was killed in Suidun by agents of the Cheka under the leadership of Kasymkhan Chanyshev. The Chekist group consisted of 9 people. Dutov was shot at point-blank range in his office by a member of the group, Makhmud Khadzhamirov (Khodzhamyarov), along with 2 sentries and a centurion. Dutov and the guards killed with him during the battle were buried with military honors in Ghulja. Chekists returned back to Dzharkent. On February 11, a telegram was sent from Tashkent on the fulfillment of the assignment to the chairman of the Turkestan Commission of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars, a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Turkestan Front, G. Ya. Sokolnikov, and a copy of the telegram was sent to the Central Committee of the RCP (b).

“If you are destined to be killed, then no guards will help”, - the ataman liked to repeat. And so it happened ... The former white warrior Andrey Pridannikov, a few days later, published in one of the emigrant newspapers the poem "In a foreign land", dedicated to the deceased ataman of the Orenburg Cossack army:

Days passed, weeks crept, as if reluctantly.

No, no, yes, a blizzard swooped in and raged.

Suddenly the news in the detachment flew like thunder, -

Killed in Suydin Dutov - ataman.

Using trust, under the guise of instructions

Villains came to Dutov. And smitten

Another leader of the White movement,

He died in a foreign country, no one avenged ...

Ataman Dutov was buried in a small cemetery. But a few days later, shocking news spread around the emigration: at night the general's grave was dug up, and the body was beheaded. As the newspapers wrote, the killers had to provide evidence of the execution of the order.

Genus and family Dutov

The Dutov family goes back to the Volga Cossacks. Since ancient times, the Volga has been the most important water artery of Eastern Europe and was of great importance in the trade of Russia with the East. It was this factor that attracted here lovers of easy money at someone else's expense. Already from the XIV century. Ushkuyniki operating here are known. In addition, fugitive peasants from North-Eastern Russia found refuge in the Volga region bordering on the Golden Horde. Thus, in this region since the Middle Ages, there were conditions for the formation of the Cossacks. In the XVI century. on the Volga, both urban Cossacks, who were in the service of the Russian government, and free "thieves'" Cossacks, who were also gradually lured into the service of state power, coexisted at the same time. The famous conqueror of Siberia Ermak Timofeevich111 belonged to the second category.

The surname Dutov is associated with the word "puffy" - full, fat or puffed up, angry 112 . Its connection with the word “pout” is also undoubted, the corresponding nickname (Dutik, Dutka, Puffy, etc.) “could be given either to someone who pouts, pouts his lips, or to a proud, arrogant person. However, it is possible that a fat, full person could be called that way - for example, in dialects pout, dutik(hereinafter highlighted in the text. – A. G.) - “a bloated thing, a bubble”, as well as “a person full in the face or generally a dense shorty, fat man” (cf. the words of the same root puffy, bloated)" 113 . And if you look at the photographs of Alexander Ilyich, he really seems so full and inflated. According to one of the legends, the ataman did not allow the use of his surname in genitive case, he heard that they were talking not about the ataman Dutov, but about the ataman exaggerated. However, this is only a legend. In the XVI-XVII centuries. the nickname Dutoy (Puffy) and similar ones were common. Documents of that time preserved references to the Vinnitsa tradesman Ivan Dut (1552), the Moscow merchant Petr Dut (1566), the Lithuanian peasant Ivashko, nicknamed Dutka (1648), in addition, according to the documents of 1614, the Volga Cossack is known Maxim Dutaya Leg 114 . And although the Dutovs also descended from the Volga Cossacks, evidence of their relationship with this person has not yet been found.

Until now, very little was known about the origin of Dutov. The main and most reliable data contained his official biography, published in 1919. It noted that “Alexander Ilyich Dutov came from an old Cossack family. The Dutov family lived in Samara until the beginning of the 19th century, so the ancestors were Volga Cossacks, in particular, belonging to the Samara Cossack army. With the destruction of this army and the deprivation of its lands, the Samara Cossacks moved to the Orenburg army, and Dutov's great-grandfather Cossack Stepan was among the settlers who did not want to leave the Cossacks. The grandfather of Alexander Ilyich had already served in the Orenburg army and ended his earthly existence with the rank of Army Sergeant. Ataman's father, Ilya Petrovich, a retired major general, is still in good health and has spent his entire service in the ranks of the Orenburg Army, mainly in Turkestan, taking part in the conquest of Central Asia and in the war with the Turks in the Caucasus. The life of father A.I. (Hereinafter, the initials of Dutov are indicated as follows. - A. G.) was full of campaigns, wanderings and crossings, and on a campaign from Orenburg to Fergana, in the city of Kazalinsk, on August 6, 1879, his son Alexander, now the Army Ataman, was born ”115. This information, presented for the official biography, apparently by Dutov himself, is very fragmentary.

In the collection of the RGIA, it was possible to find documents about the nobility of the Dutov family, which significantly expand the information available so far. According to the data I found, the Samara Cossack Yakov Dutov, who lived in the second half of the 18th century, should be considered the first known ancestor of the ataman. 116 About 1787-1788. his son Stepan was born, who entered military service in March 1807 and subsequently rose to the rank of sergeant (1809) and ordinary cornet (1811) of the Orenburg Cossack army. In his office documents especially it was noted that “in different years he was in the line service ... he knows Russian letters ...” 117 . In June 1811, in Samara, Stepan married the eighteen-year-old daughter of a retired Cossack 118 (according to other sources, the daughter of a corporal 119) Anisya Yakovlevna.

The Dutovs had three daughters: Maria (1814), Agrafena (1817) and Alexandra (1819), and on December 27, 1817, the son Peter, the grandfather of Ataman Dutov, was born. Pyotr Stepanovich was already listed as a Cossack of the village of Orenburg, the very one to which his numerous descendants would later be assigned, including A.I. Dutov. The grandfather of the Orenburg ataman went through all the steps of the Cossack hierarchy, having entered the service of a Cossack from volunteers in June 1834. The very next year he received the position of clerk of the Military Chancellery of the Orenburg Cossack army, and in March 1836 he was promoted to constable. In 1841 P.S. Dutov was promoted to senior clerk of the Military Administration, in 1847 he was already in the position of recorder. Finally, in 1851, Dutov was promoted to cornet for long service and as having served a four-year term earlier than the Highest Manifesto of June 11, 1845 (which increased the requirements for obtaining hereditary nobility from XIV to Class VIII Table of Ranks) received the rights of hereditary nobility, significantly increasing both his social status and the status of all his descendants 120, who, however, later still had to confirm their rights to belong to the nobility. In 1854 he was already in the rank of centurion. As an official who was with the troops, P.S. Dutov was awarded a bronze medal in memory of Crimean War 1853–1856 on the Vladimir tape 121. For the next ten years (1855–1865), he served as an executor of the Military Administration of the Orenburg Cossack Host. The result of his many years of service was the rank of military foreman, and the last known position of the grandfather of Ataman Dutov was the archivist of the Military Administration (1879) 122 . Hereditary Cossack woman Tatyana Alekseevna Sitnikova gave her husband four sons: Alexei (1843), Pavel (1848), Ilya (1851) and Nikolai (1854) and four daughters: Ekaterina (1852), Anna ( 1857), Tatiana (1859) and Alexander (1861). The Dutovs owned a house in the village of Orenburgskaya, a Cossack suburb of the city of Orenburg.

The eldest son Alexei, apparently, died in his youth. Two others, Pavel and Ilya, followed in the footsteps of their father and devoted all their strength to serving the motherland and native army. Pavel Petrovich received general education at home, and the military "acquired in the service practically" 123 . The uncle of the future Orenburg ataman took part in the campaigns of 1875 and 1879, but did not participate in the battles and was not wounded. He subsequently served the rank of colonel. He was awarded the orders of St. Stanislav 3rd degree (1875) and St. Anna 3rd degree. He died in Orenburg in 1916 from paralysis 124 .

The father of the future Cossack leader, Ilya Petrovich, received a more solid education compared to his older brother: he graduated from the Orenburg Cossack cadet school in the 1st category and the Cavalry Officer School “successfully”. He was a real combat officer of the era of the Turkestan campaigns. From 1874 to 1876 and in 1879 he was in the troops of the Amu Darya department, where service was considered a military campaign. In the State Archive of the Orenburg Region, his notes on the route of the detachment from the city of Kazaly to the Petro-Alexandrovsky fortification in the summer of 1874 have been preserved. 125 The notes are a very detailed description of the route traveled, 595 miles long.

He also took part in the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. on the territory of Asian Turkey, and directly participated in the assault on Kars. In 1880 he was part of the troops of the Sarakamysh active detachment, and in 1892 - as part of the Pamir detachment (the Cossacks of the hundreds of Dutov took part in the battle with the Afghans at the Yashil-Kul 126 post). In May 1904, Dutov Sr. received command of the 5th Orenburg Cossack Regiment stationed in Tashkent. In 1906 he accepted the 4th regiment, stationed in the city of Kerki Khanate of Bukhara, and in September 1907 he was promoted to major general with dismissal from service with a uniform and a pension. During the years of service, Ilya Petrovich was awarded the orders of St. Stanislav 3rd degree, St. Anna 3rd degree with swords and a bow, St. Stanislav 2nd degree, St. Anna 2nd degree, St. Vladimir 3rd and 4th degrees, the Order of the Bukhara gold star of the 2nd degree; silver medals for the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 and in memory of the emperor's reign Alexander III on Alexander tape 127. In addition, Ilya Petrovich had a land allotment in the Troitsky district of the Orenburg province 128 . Behind his wife was a wooden house in Orenburg and an acquired land plot of 400 acres 129 .

Ilya Petrovich lived to see the rapid career rise of his eldest son, who became the Army Ataman. The wife of Ilya Petrovich and the mother of the future ataman was Elizaveta Nikolaevna Uskova, the daughter of a constable, a native of the Orenburg province. According to some reports, among her ancestors was the commandant of the Novopetrovsky fortification, Lieutenant Colonel I.A. Uskov, who helped T.G. Shevchenko during the latter's stay under arrest in the fortification. This relationship subsequently predetermined Dutov's interest in the Orenburg period of Shevchenko's life.

Dutov himself was ranked among the hereditary nobility at the end of April 1917 130 - during the Petrograd period of his activity (apparently, the post-February realities and democratic rhetoric did not prevent him from taking care of the approval of the family in the nobility). I will add that, starting from the father and uncle of the Orenburg ataman, the Dutovs became the elite of the Orenburg Cossacks, and it is not surprising that Alexander Ilyich was subsequently able to claim the post of Army ataman.

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from the nobles of the village of Orenburg of the 1st military department of the Orenburg Cossack army, was born in the family of a Cossack officer in the city of Kazalinsk, Syrdarya region. He graduated from the Orenburg Neplyuevsky Cadet Corps (1889-1897), the Nikolaev Cavalry School in the 1st category (1897-1899), the course of science in the 3rd sapper brigade in the category "outstanding" (1901), passed the exam at the Nikolaev Engineering School (1902 ), graduated from the Nikolaev Academy of the General Staff in the 1st category, but without the right to be assigned to the General Staff (1904-1908). In service since 08/31/1897. Cornet (from 08/09/1899 from the article from 08/08/1898). Second lieutenant (since 02/12/1903). Lieutenant (since 01.10.1903 from 08.08.1902). Staff captain (since 01.10.1906 from 10.08.1906). Esaul (since 12/06/1909 from the same date). Military foreman (from 12/06/1912). Colonel (Order of the army and navy 10/16/1917 from the article from 09/25/1917). Major General (from 07/25/1918). Lieutenant General (from 10/04/1918). Service: in the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment (from 08/15/1899-1902), junior officer of the 6th hundred. Attached to the engineering troops (1902). In the 5th engineer battalion (1902-1909). Member of the Russo-Japanese War (03/11/10/01/1905). On a temporary assignment at the Orenburg Cossack cadet school (since 01/13/1909). Transferred to the school (09/24/1909). In the service at the school (1909-1916), assistant class inspector, class inspector. Annual qualification command of the 5th hundred of the 1st Orenburg Cossack regiment (10/16/1912-10/16/1913). Active member of the Orenburg Scientific Archival Commission (1914-1915). Went to the front (03/20/1916). The commander of the rifle division of the 10th cavalry division (from 04/03/1916), participated in battles in the Carpathians and in Romania. He was wounded and shell-shocked near the village of Panichi in Romania, temporarily lost his sight and hearing, received a crack in the skull (10/01/1916). Appointed commander of the 1st Orenburg Cossack Regiment (10/16/1916, took command 11/18/1916). He arrived in Petrograd as a delegate of the regiment to the general Cossack congress (03/16/1917). He took part in the 1st General Cossack Congress (23-29.03.1917). Member of the Provisional Council of the Union of Cossack Troops (from 04/05/1917). In the reserve of ranks at the headquarters of the Petrograd Military District (1917). He took part in the 2nd General Cossack Congress (06/01-13/1917), unanimously elected chairman of the congress. He was elected a member (then chairman) of the Council of the Union of Cossack troops (06/13/1917). Trip to Orenburg (07.1917). He took part in the Moscow State Conference (12-15.08.1917). The Extraordinary Military Circle of the Orenburg Cossack Army was elected as the Military Ataman (01. 10.1917). Appointed chief representative of the Provisional Government for food for the Orenburg Cossack army, Orenburg province and Turgai region (10/15/1917). Issued an order on the non-recognition of the Bolshevik coup (10/26/1917). Member of the Orenburg Committee for the Salvation of the Motherland and the Revolution (from 11/08/1917). Elected deputy of the Constituent Assembly from the army (11.1917). Commander of the Orenburg Military District (since 12.1917). Member of the Turgai campaign (04/17-07/07/1918). Commissioner-in-Chief of the Committee of Members of the All-Russian Constituent Assembly on the territory of the Orenburg Cossack Army, the Orenburg province and the Turgai region (10.07-05.08.1918). Head of defense of the Orenburg Cossack army (1918). Trip to Samara (13-19.07.1918). A trip to Omsk (22.07-03.08.1918). Deprived of all the powers of Komuch (08/13/1918). Member of the Ufa State Conference, member of the Council of Elders of the meeting and chairman of the Cossack faction (09.1918). White troops under the leadership of Dutov captured the city of Orsk (09/28/1918). Commander of the Southwestern Army (17.10-28.12.1918). Commander of the Separate Orenburg Army (12/28/1918-05/23/1919). Chief Head of the Orenburg Territory (since February 13, 1919). Trip to Omsk (07-18.04.1919). Assigned to the General Staff (04/11/1919). Marching ataman of all Cossack troops and inspector general of the cavalry of the Russian army (from 05/23/1919). Trip to Perm (29.05-04.06.1919). Ride on Far East(08.06-12.08.1919). Commander of all Russian troops located in the cities of Khabarovsk, Nikolsk-Ussuriysky, Grodekovo and in the strip railway between them (since 07/07/1919). Commander of the Orenburg Army with the dismissal of the Inspector General of the Cavalry (09/18/1919). Commander of the Separate Orenburg Army (since 11.1919). Member of the Hunger March (22.11-31.12.1919). Chief Commander of the Semirechensk Territory (since 01/06/1920). Crossed the Chinese border (04/02/1920). He prepared a campaign against Soviet Russia (1920-1921). Mortally wounded by Soviet agent M. Khodzhamiarov during an assassination attempt (02/06/1921 at about 18:00) and died the next morning (at about 07:00). He was buried in Suiding (Western China). By order of the Naval Department of the Amur Provisional Government (12/10/1921), the school of under-horungers of a separate Orenburg Cossack brigade was named after Ataman Dutov. Awards: St. Stanislaus 3rd class (01/23/1906, approved by the Highest Order on 01/17/1907), St. Anna 3rd Art. (12/06/1910), St. Anne 2nd class. (1915), swords and a bow for the Order of St. Anne, 3rd class. (1916-1917), dark bronze medal in memory of the Russo-Japanese War, "Ribbon of Distinction" of the Orenburg Cossack Army (1918). Honorary old man of the village of Grodekovskaya of the Ussuri Cossack army (from 06/24/1919), the village of Travnikovskaya of the Orenburg Cossack army. Assigned to the villages of Krasnogorsk (since 07.1918) and Berdskaya. Wife Olga Viktorovna Petrovskaya, from the hereditary nobles of the St. Petersburg province. Children: Olga (05/31/1907), Nadezhda (09/12/1909), Maria (05/22/1912), Elizabeth (08/31/1914), Oleg (c. 1917-1918?). Civil wife of Alexandra Afanasyevna Vasilyeva, village of Ostrolenskaya, 2nd military department of the Orenburg Cossack army. Daughter Vera.

Cit.: About the lecture by T.I. Sedelnikov // Orenburg Cossack Bulletin (Orenburg). 1917. No. 8. 16.07. S. 4; All-Russian Cossack Circle // Orenburg Cossack Bulletin. 1917. No. 10. 21.07. S. 1-2; German espionage // Orenburg Cossack Bulletin. 1917. No. 67. 01.11. S. 1-2; Nabat // People's business. 1918. No. 116. 30.11. S. 1; Essays on the history of the Cossacks // Orenburg Cossack Bulletin. 1919. No. 62. 09.04; My observations about the Japanese // News of Vladivostok. 1919. 26.07; My observations about a Russian woman // News of Vladivostok (Vladivostok). 1919. No. 23. 28.07; "The people themselves are obscure and easily amenable to agitation." A note from Ataman A.I. Dutov about the internal political situation in Bashkiria and in the north-west of Kazakhstan. Pub. YES. Amanzholova // Source. 2001. No. 3. S. 46-51.