The Wives
“It should be remembered that outer Eastern Siberia had, scattered over thousands of kilometers, almost no academic institutions other than Irkutsk High School. Every time there was a thirst for enlightenment the youth remained without education, contented with only the current literature, constricted by the censorship...” “The Decembrists responded to this demand and were even [in a small way/a little/for the small ones] charitable with education and teachers who, it goes without saying, were not teachers in a school sense.” (?)
“The Decembrist’s stay in Siberia had an extensive educational impact,” writes another Siberian, remembering the wives of the Decembrists: “Over half a century we remember them as living examples of everything kind, pure and beautiful and maintain a profoundly thankful memory for these voluntary exiles.” Siberia’s most prominent social figure, N. M. Yadrintsev, testifies to the importance of the Decembrists in the cultural development of Siberian society: “Needless to say, in Siberian cities they were enlightened people and left a trail far and wide. Through them and into the surrounding society European knowledge and news was penetrated, they introduced enlightenment to many native people and not infrequently they exerted influence in the different spheres they came in contact with.”
A similar testimony is found in N. N. Kozemina, one of the younger contemporaries of Yadrintsev and Potanin, professor of Irkutsk University. Speaking about the cultural role of the political exiles in Siberia, he remarks: “Who among us, Siberians, in his family or family of acquaintances does not know the advantageous cultural influence of the Decembrists, Poles, Russian liberals and revolutionaries. Our grandmothers, mothers studied their music, pointing, learned to be interested in a book, gained the skill to read. Our grandfathers and fathers had in these people the first mentors, and if the “spark of God” was saved in the following life, then it was often attributed to the [lasting benefit/remaining good] from the influence of their teachers.” Similar evidence of this statement is met by a number of other Siberian figures and writers: Golodnikov, Frantseva, Popov, and so on.
The Decembrists themselves were aware of their significance. Zavalishin, with the usual inflated expressions, writes: “The era of our stay in Chita has survived in the memories of the inhabitants as the essence of the blessing of God.” Basargin, humble and restrained as always, testifies to the same. “We can positively say that our long-term stay in various places of Siberia provided, in the moral education of Siberian inhabitants, certain benefits and introduced into the common considerations several new and useful ideas.” Rozen expresses this thought even more distinctly: “Providence,” he writes: “perhaps, destined many of my fellow exiles and many of the Polish exiles to be the founders and organizers of the better future of Siberia, which, aside from the gold and the cold metal and the stone, aside from the wealth of material, with time will present precious treasure for a comfortable civic consciousness.”
Concluding this series of recognitions and testimonies with a declaration of one of the Decembrist’s disciples, a popular Siberian figure, a friend of Gertsen (Hertsen?) and Saltykov-Schedrin—Dr. N. A. Belogolovy: “The Decembrists made me a man,” he writes: “Their influence awakened in me a soul that is alive and familiarized it with those blessings of civilization, which has settled the remainder of my life.”
