Corps he began his service. From the history of the Corps of Pages. The private lives of pages

, French and German languages, as well as dancing and fencing:

<…>so that through this, those pages may prosper most naively to constant and decent reason and noble deeds, and from this they can show themselves to be courteous, pleasant and perfect in everything, as the Christian law and their honest nature commands<…>

Establishment of the corps

In 1759, Empress Elizabeth Petrovna ordered the Page School to be transformed into a court boarding school, which received official name"Pagesky Eya Imperial Majesty Frame". The chamberlains and pages, in order to improve supervision over them, were settled in the house of Admiral Bruce. The instructions determined the time for duty in the palace and for training sessions. At the same time, pages began to be taught foreign languages, geometry, geography, fortification, history, drawing, fencing with rapiers and espadrons, dancing, Russian grammar and literature, and “other things that are necessary for an honest nobleman”.

Corps under Catherine II

The Corps of Pages is a school for the education of morals and character, and in which the knowledge necessary for an officer can be taught; ...This corps is collectively such a military institution, where noble youth, through education, are prepared for military service by strict obedience, complete subordination and the unconstrained but voluntary performance of their duties. The future happiness and glory of these young nobles depends on the circumstances mentioned.

According to Klinger's plan, the education of pages - future guard officers - should be entrusted to persons who combined teaching abilities with combat experience. However, neither the director of the corps, Major General Andrei Grigoryevich Gogel, nor the chamberlain, Colonel P. P. Svinin, had any ideas about pedagogy, although they were honored officers. At the same time, Major Karl Osipovich Ode-de-Sion, who had previously served under Klinger as a teacher in the First Cadet Corps, enjoyed, thanks to a unique combination of experience in combat service and participation in hostilities, a doctorate in theology, and many years of experience as a practical teacher, full trust of his former boss both as an officer and as a teacher.

On October 28, 1802, Audet-de-Sion was appointed inspector of classes of the corps. His responsibilities included managing educational part and building library, teaching staff management, curriculum development, monitoring student progress. The teaching staff of the corps under his leadership was formed very diverse, although most of the teachers were, by the standards of their time, well-educated people. However, among them there were also rather ignorant individuals, such as, for example, a teacher of history, geography and statistics, a certain eighth-grade official Strukovsky. Once asked jokingly by the pages whether the legendary Prince Rurik depicted on the snuffbox looked like the original, he sincerely exclaimed: “I see it now!”- He was “famous” for other similar absurdities. On the other hand, until 1812, the course of “political sciences” was taught to pages and chamber-pages by the outstanding scientist, academician of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences Karl Fedorovich German - his brilliant lectures were gratefully remembered by many graduates of the corps of that period.

The range of subjects and the volume of teaching hours in the building were very impressive. The educational program included humanitarian disciplines: geography (physical, statistical and political), history (Russian and world), history of diplomacy and trade, jurisprudence. Knowledge was required for pages three languages: Russian, French and German. From the exact sciences they taught arithmetic, algebra, geometry (in high school - "higher geometry"), trigonometry, statics and mechanics, physics. Every graduate of the corps was required to be able to draw. Since the pages were looked upon as future officers of the Life Guards, they also studied special military disciplines: fortification (field, long-term, irregular), attack and defense of fortresses, artillery, “drawing plans”, tactics, and from 1811 an exam became mandatory "according to the front service". Moreover, that year he was personally received by Alexander I for the first time. Some chamber-pages did not pass this exam, since they devoted only one month to drill in the summer, and their promotion to officers was postponed.

In 1811, by the highest order, officers of the Corps of Pages up to and including lieutenant colonel were granted seniority “against army officers of one rank higher.”

Around 1814, a secret society was formed among the pages, whose members held secret meetings, had free-thinking conversations, and also engaged in various childish pranks. For example, they once secretly poured crushed Spanish flies into the snuffbox of the class inspector Aude de Sion, causing his nose to become very swollen. In addition, the pages composed an epigram for him: “They placed candlelight on Zion’s shoulders!” .

In 1819, the corps was subordinate to the chief director of cadet corps.

In 1820, members of a secret society of pages, who by that time had been nicknamed “quicks” in the corps for some reason, acted as the main characters in a serious act of disobedience to the corps authorities - the so-called “Arsenyev revolt”. The class inspector, Colonel Aude-de-Sion, also played a significant role in this event. One of the pages, Pavel Arsenyev, was greatly loved by his comrades, although he had a very independent character. He was not a member of the Quilk society and was passionate about reading, mainly French authors. One day the teacher caught him doing this in class, and when the student did not respond to the comments, he tried to take away the unrelated book. Arsenyev hid it and entered into a daring argument with the teacher. Karl Osipovich looked into the classroom at the noise and, having learned what was the matter, tried to put the offender in a corner, and when he disobeyed, he ordered him to kneel down. Arsenyev continued to be stubborn and insolent, then the class inspector ordered him to be arrested and put “in the dark.” The corps leadership decided to punish the troublemaker with rods in front of a line of all officers and pages. However, corporal punishment in the corps was so rare that there was a belief among the students that they could be flogged only with the permission of the emperor. Therefore, when the soldiers took the offending page to execution in front of the line and tried to put him on the bench, Arsenyev, outraged by the injustice of the punishment, vigorously resisted them. Seeing this, the Quilks, led by their leader, the freethinking page Alexander Krenitsyn, rushed to his aid with shouts. The rest of the pages followed them, breaking formation. As a result of the brawl, several officers and teachers were injured - “Old man Zion fell heavily on the drum”, left by the drummer on the floor. Although the execution failed, corps officers reported to the leadership that Arsenyev still received several blows. Having learned about what happened in the Corps of Pages, the sovereign ordered: Arsenyev, as already punished, to be released from flogging, and Krenitsyn to be given 30 blows with rods in front of the formation, to which he resignedly submitted. After this, both were demoted to privates and sent to the 18th Jaeger Regiment, and Arsenyev, unable to bear the shame, later shot himself.

Since 1827, the number of students in the corps has been increased to 150. In 1829, rules were issued on the procedure for enrollment as pages and assignments to the Corps of Pages, and the right to request the enrollment of young sons as pages was granted first to persons of the first four classes, and then to the first three or representatives of surnames listed in the fifth and sixth parts of genealogical books (titled and ancient nobility). In 1863, the Corps of Pages came under the jurisdiction of the main administration of military educational institutions.

Corps after the reform of 1865 (1865-1917)

In 1865, the Corps of Pages was completely transformed. The two senior classes (special) are equal, both in terms of teaching and organization, with infantry cadet schools, and the four junior (general) classes are equal to the four senior classes of military gymnasiums. Within the corps, special classes formed a combat company, and general classes formed two ages. The complement was kept at 150 people.

In 1870 a second class was formed. In 1873, simultaneously with the renaming of the preparatory class in military gymnasiums to the first, the first to the second, etc., the general classes in the Corps of Pages were renamed accordingly - the second to the third, etc.

In 1878, two junior general classes of the corps - 3rd and 4th - were separated and, together with the newly established ones - 1st and 2nd - formed a special educational institution for 150 self-employed external students. Preparatory classes of the Corps of Pages, from where pages were transferred to the lower class of the corps only by competitive examination. In 1885, the preparatory classes were annexed to the building.

According to the regulations of 1889, the Corps of Pages consists of 7 general classes, with training course cadet corps, and two special ones, with a training course for military schools; but, on the basis of the temporary rules of 1891, admission to the two junior classes is not allowed at all.

All pupils of the corps bear the title of pages, and when moving to the senior special class, those best of them who meet certain requirements (for success in science and behavior) are promoted to chamber pages.

The Corps of Pages is part of the Department of the War Ministry and is subordinate to the chief commander of military educational institutions; direct management is entrusted to the director, and immediate management of the educational unit is entrusted to the class inspector. The companies are headed by company commanders, and the classroom departments are headed by educational officers. The corps has committees: pedagogical, disciplinary and economic.

The total number of students: 170 interns, brought up on full government support, and 160 external students, for whom 200 rubles are paid. in year.

In the 3rd (lowest) grade, only external examinations are required. In addition to the total number of interns, there are 6 full-time vacancies for natives of Finland. Only those who have been previously enrolled, by the Highest Command, as pages to the Highest Court are allowed to be admitted to the corps; Application for such enrollment is allowed only for the sons and grandsons of persons who are or were in the service in the ranks of the first three classes or for the offspring of families listed in the fifth and sixth parts of the genealogical books (titled and ancient nobility).

Admission is based on a competitive examination; in the 7th general and in both special classes, neither admission nor transfer of page candidates from other buildings is allowed (temporary rules, 1891).

Pupils are divided into three companies. During the camp time, the 1st company is withdrawn to the camp, to Krasnoye Selo, where it is assigned to the Officer Rifle School; The 2nd Company spends 5 to 6 weeks in the summer at the cadet camp in Peterhof. Pages of the 1st Company are considered to be on active military service. Based on the results of the final exam, all students in the senior special class are divided into four categories:

those assigned to the 1st category are released as second lieutenants or cornets into the guard, or with the same ranks into the army or special troops, with one year of seniority, and receive 500 rubles for uniforms, the three most excellent of them can be seconded to the guards artillery;
those assigned to the 2nd category - second lieutenants and cornets in the army or special troops, with one year of seniority, and receive 225 rubles for uniforms;
those assigned to the 3rd category - by the same ranks in the army, without seniority; they get the same amount for uniforms;
those assigned to the 4th category are transferred to army infantry or cavalry units as non-commissioned officers for 6 months, after which they can be promoted to officers, but only for vacancies.

All those assigned to the first three categories are released into military units of their own choice, even if there are no vacancies in them, but into guards units only into those where the excess number of officers does not exceed 10%.

Those incapable of military service are awarded civilian ranks: the first 2 ranks - Class X, the 3rd rank - Class XII and the 4th rank - Class XIV.

For the education received, those who complete the corps course are required to serve in active service for 1.5 years per year of stay in special classes.

The corps has established funds for issuing benefits to those completing the course: named after the former director, Adjutant General, Gr. Ignatiev, the name of “page Nikolai Weimarn” (donated by his father) and the name of the former director of the infantry general Dietrichs.

Directors

Court service

During the training period, students of the Corps of Pages were considered included in the imperial court and systematically carried out guard duties. It was considered a great honor and privilege to raise a page to the rank of chamber-page. However, only the best of the best, who distinguished themselves in their studies, behavior and upbringing, and who were fluent in foreign languages, could count on this.

Chamber-pages were attached and served under the Empress and Grand Duchesses during balls, gala dinners, official ceremonies and other events where their presence was required by protocol. The number of chamber-pages varied depending on the number of august persons and members of the imperial family.

The general order was as follows: under the emperor - one chamber-page appointed sergeant-major, under each empress (dowager and acting) - two chamber-pages, and under each of the grand duchesses - one chamber-page. Another page was appointed as a reserve cell page in case of illness of one of the cell pages. Thus, in 1896, when there were nine grand duchesses and two empresses, 14 pages served as chamber-pages and one was a reserve. Until 1802, in addition to pages and chamber-pages, in the corps and, accordingly, in the court service, there was the rank of life-page, which in 1907 was restored to the rank of senior chamber-page.

Pages in legal status were equal to non-commissioned officers of the guard, chamber pages - to sergeants of the guard, senior chamber pages - to ensigns of the guard. Release of the first category from the corps “into the army with the same rank” was not actually practiced. According to the fourth category, pages were graduated from the corps - non-commissioned officers into the guard or ensigns into the army, chamber-pages (which happened extremely rarely) - ensigns into the guard or warrant officers into the army.

The private lives of pages

Like many boarding schools for boys, same-sex relationships were common in the Corps of Pages. In addition to memoir evidence, this is indicated by the obscene poem “The Adventures of a Page,” published abroad in 1879, but written several decades earlier. Its author is considered to be officer Chenin, who graduated from the corps in 1822:

Some subsequently famous persons were expelled from the Corps of Pages for unworthy behavior: E. A. Baratynsky, P. V. Dolgorukov. P. A. Kropotkin painted a vivid picture of moral decay and hazing in the corps in his memoirs [ ] :

The page-chambers did whatever they wanted. Just a year before I entered the corps, their favorite game was to gather newcomers into one room at night and race them in their nightgowns in a circle, like horses in a circus. The “circus” usually ended in a disgusting orgy in the Eastern style. The moral concepts that prevailed at that time, and the conversations that were held in the corps about the “circus”, are such that the less said about them, the better.

Freemasonry in the Corps of Pages

The inspector of classes in the era of Alexander I, Karl Osipovich Ode-de-Sion, like some other teachers of the Corps of Pages, were Freemasons. This fact did not remain a secret for their students. At the end of 1811, the government established rules that determined the minimum age for initiation into Freemasons at 25 years. Nevertheless, the best student of the graduating chamber-page class, Pavel Pestel, turned to Karl Osipovich with a request to help him join the lodge; A confidential conversation took place between them:

Are you familiar with our teaching? - asked Ode de Sion.
- I heard about the goal pursued by the Masons, and I consider it noble.
- Okay, I will be your guarantor. I hope that in two weeks you will join the lodge.

Contrary to the government ban, Karl Osipovich fulfilled his promise - Pestel became a Mason of the first, student degree within the walls of the Corps of Pages, and on March 1, 1812, already an ensign of the Lithuanian Life Guards Regiment, received a diploma masters Lodge "United Friends", giving him the right to work in three symbolic degrees. Karl Osipovich signed him, among other officers of the lodge, as a donor (French: hospitalier). Having mastered from a young age the forms and methods of organizing free masons, Pestel subsequently introduced them (with more or less success) into the activities of secret political unions.

Notes

Otochkin V.V. Corps of Pages and its students the Shuvalovs // Cadets of Russia.
, With. 165.
, With. 76.
, With. 52-53.
, With. 52.
, With. 84.
, With. 465.
, With. 258-260.
, With. 218, 219.
, With. 261.
, With. XXXIX-XL.
, With. 48-49.
Ill. 139. Chamber Page and Page of the Page of His Imperial Majesty Corps. April 13, 1855. (In court uniform).// Balashov Petr Ivanovich and Pirate Karl Karlovich
Ill. 282. Chamber-Page of His Imperial Majesty's Corps of Pages. (In full dress uniform.) April 7, 1857.// Changes in uniforms and armament of the troops of the Russian Imperial Army since the accession to the throne of the Sovereign Emperor Alexander Nikolaevich (with additions): Compiled by the Highest Command / Comp. Alexander II (Russian Emperor), illus. Balashov Pyotr Ivanovich and Piratsky Karl Karlovich. - St. Petersburg. : Military printing house, 1857-1881. - Up to 500 copies.- Notebooks 1-111: (With drawings No. 1-661). - 47×35 cm.
L. S. Klein. Another love: human nature and homosexuality. Folio Press, 2000, pp. 547-549.
FEB: Bryusov. Baratynsky E. A. - B. g.
, With. 251.
, With. 211-215.
, With. 10.
, With. 51.
, Note No. 3, p. 288.

Literature

// Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - St. Petersburg. , 1890-1907.

Pagesky, His Imperial Majesty, building - the most elite educational institution Imperial Russia, as a military educational institution existed since 1802, although it was created during the reign of Elizabeth Petrovna in 1750 with the purpose, according to a personal decree, “ So that those pages through this to a constant and decent mind and noble deeds may naively prosper and from this be able to show themselves courteous, pleasant and perfect in everything, as the Christian law and their honest nature commands».

General view of the building of the Page Corps (26 Sadovaya Street - former palace of Count M.I. Vorontsov, St. Petersburg)

The immediate predecessor of the corps was the Page Court School, created by decree of April 5, 1742. Catherine II, by decree of 1762, prohibited the admission into the corps of youths of non-noble origin.

At the beginning of the 19th century, the corps consisted of three page classes (for 50 pages) and one page chamber (for 16 page chambers) and was not united with other military educational institutions in terms of management.

A group of pages - students of the corps - with weapons in formation before the start of classes.

Since 1810, the Corps of Pages was located in St. Petersburg in a complex of buildings at 26 Sadovaya Street - this is the former palace of Count M.I. Vorontsov (architect Rastrelli, rebuilt by Quarenghi), which was previously occupied by the chapter of the Order of Malta (see Maltese Chapel). Until this time, the Corps of Pages was located first in the palace of Admiral Bruce, and then in its own building at the confluence of the Winter Canal and the Moika.

A group of company commanders and officers - educators of the corps.

In 1819, the corps was subordinate to the chief director of cadet corps. Since 1827, the number of students has been increased to 150.

In 1829, rules were issued on the procedure for enrollment as pages and assignments to the Corps of Pages, and the right to request enrollment of young sons as pages was granted first to persons of the first four classes, and then to the first three or to representatives of surnames listed in the fifth and sixth parts genealogical books (titled and ancient nobility). In 1863, the Corps of Pages came under the jurisdiction of the main administration of military educational institutions.

A group of pages - students of the corps - with an officer-educator on the porch of the house.

According to the regulations of 1889, the Corps of Pages consists of 7 general classes, with a training course for cadet corps, and two special classes, with a training course for military schools; but, on the basis of the temporary rules of 1891, admission to the two junior classes is not allowed at all.

A group of pages - students of the corps - during horse riding lessons.

All students of the corps bear the title of pages, and upon moving to the senior special class, those best of them who meet certain requirements (for success in science and behavior) are promoted to chamber pages.

The total number of students: 170 interns, brought up on full government support, and 160 external students, for whom 200 rubles are paid. in year.

A group of pages - students of the corps - during horse riding lessons.

Admission is based on a competitive examination; In the 7th general and in both special classes, neither admission nor transfer of page candidates from other buildings is allowed.

A group of pages during horseback riding - performing various tricks on a horse.

Those incapable of military service are awarded civilian ranks: the first 2 ranks - X class, 3 ranks - XII class and 4 ranks - XIV class.

For the education received, those who complete the corps course are required to serve in active service for 1.5 years per year of stay in special classes.

Pages - students of the corps - on horses before the start of horse riding lessons.

Chamber-pages - pupils of a special senior class of the corps - are in the crew.

A group of pages - students of the corps - at an artillery piece.

A group of infantry pages - students of the corps - in the ranks.

A group of pages—pupils of the corps—at the corps building.

A group of students of the Corps of Pages with an officer and servants at the main entrance.

View of part of the building's dining room before lunch.

View of the bedroom (dormitory) of the pages - students of the corps.

View of the classroom of pages - students of the corps.

View of part of the museum exhibition located in one of the corridors of the building.

View of part of the St. George's Hall of the building.

View of part of the White Assembly Hall.

Interior view of the building's home Orthodox church, consecrated in the name of John the Baptist.

Interior view of the Maltese Catholic Church.

General view of the chair of Emperor Paul I, who assumed the title of Grand Master of the Order of Malta.

A group of students from the Corps of Pages near the building.

A group of pages - students of the corps - in the garden.

P The Age Corps was founded in St. Petersburg in 1759.
This institution was intended for the education of pages and chamberlains, and was one of the most privileged educational institutions in Russia at that time. Pupils were taught military affairs and raised cultured, educated people. For some reason it worked at that time.

Remember Mitrich from The Golden Calf, pretending to be a proletarian who doubted the existence of parallels on the globe? “What kind of parallel is this,” Mitrich responded vaguely. “Maybe there is no such parallel at all. We don’t know that. We didn’t study in gymnasiums.”

Mitrich spoke the absolute truth. He did not study at the gymnasium. He graduated from the Corps of Pages."))) and was clearly disingenuous about his incompetence in parallels and meridians. But then it was fashionable to be from the plow...

Now this is a cadet (in common parlance). Or if officially - “Suvorov Military School”. I graduated from Suvorov back in 1983. True, it was far from Leningrad - he studied at the Ussuri Suvorov Military School.

This is me in 1982))) They called us Tiger cubs. But I digress.

The Corps of Pages is located in the palace on Sadovaya Street. It was once owned by Count Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov (1714-1767).

The palace was built on a grand scale, in exquisite baroque forms. Vorontsov was an active participant in the palace coup of 1741, winning over the Life Guards to the side of Elizabeth Petrovna Preobrazhensky Regiment. From 1758 he became state chancellor. He was a friend and patron of M.V. Lomonosov.

The Vorontsov Palace (26 Sadovaya Street) was created in 1749-1757 according to the design of the largest Russian Baroque architect F. B. Rastrelli.

Although the site chosen for development overlooked the banks of the Fontanka, the composition of the estate was significantly different from previous similar buildings: land traffic in St. Petersburg became predominant by the middle of the 18th century, and Rastrelli oriented the main façade of the palace not towards the river, but towards the recently laid Sadovaya Street. By that time, this highway had already become one of the busiest, as it connected new areas of the city with shopping center on Nevsky prospect.

Under Catherine II, Mikhail Illarionovich found himself out of work, and in 1763 the palace was bought back to the treasury. At the end of the 1790s. The building was granted by Emperor Paul I to the Order of Malta; the Chapter of Russian Orders was also located here.

In 1798-1800, the Church of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist (architect G. Quarenghi) was built in the palace, and on the side of the garden (according to his own design) the Maltese Chapel was added to the main building.
Below is the interior of the Church of the Nativity of John the Baptist, 1858.

Graduates of the Corps of Pages began to be called the Knights of Malta. Pavel was the Grand Master of the Order of Malta...

Getting into the Corps of Pages was not an easy task even for the scions of noble families, since the admission took place under the control of the imperial family. Education here was on a grand scale. The young men received not only solid military training, but also left the corps as highly educated and well-mannered people.

Scions of royal blood from other countries also studied here. For example, the Siamese Prince Chakrabon (now this is Thailand)...)))

By the way, he accidentally met a girl, Ekaterina Desnitskaya, in St. Petersburg. Married her. And she became the Thai princess of Siam. So Russian blood flows in the veins of the monarchs of distant Thailand, and it is its descendants that Thailand loves and worships so much today. Why not a fairy tale about a Russian Cinderella? And you can’t call her an obvious beauty. Fate, however...

They say that one day Nicholas I received a request from a certain retired major general to enroll his son in the Corps of Pages. It was in September, and the petition began like this: “September Sovereign...”

The August One got angry, but then he thought about it and put the following resolution on the letter: “Accept so that he does not grow up to be the same fool as his father”...

At the end of 1917 - the first half of 1918, the palace housed the party club and other bodies of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary Party, then courses for the command staff of the Red Army, and in the 1920-1930s - the Leningrad Infantry School named after. S. M. Kirov.

From the magazine "Cadet Roll Call" No. 16 1976

The title of “pages” was established in Russia by Peter the 1st, who in 1711, upon the proclamation of Catherine the 1st as his wife, formed court ranks based on the model of the German courts.

Under Catherine the 1st and Peter the 2nd, pages were only occasionally involved in court service. At that time, they lived in the houses of their parents, often without any supervision, spending time outside of service, and sometimes in service, far from being in accordance with their rank and position close to the Court.
There is information that they often rioted and it happened, as it appears in the records, that: “For dishonorable actions and repeated insolence, they were arrested and, having taken off their chamberlain livery, inflicted punishment with rods, then keeping them away.”

Some streamlining in the organization of pages was carried out during the reign of Elioaveta Petrovna, namely, by decree of April 5, 1742, a set of 8 chamber pages and 24 pages was approved. Considering the closeness of the pages to the Highest Persons, as well as their hitherto significant ignorance and bad manners, the Empress establishes for them something like a court school, where the pages are taught history, geography, arithmetic, French and German, as well as dancing and fencing.
But, unfortunately, court service, which absorbed a lot of time, interfered with proper training, and little external polish was instilled, since the pages had to live outside the palace, in a society that was far from distinguished by its gentle morals.
The mess remained in this position until 1759, when, by order of the Empress, chamber-pages and pages, for the purpose of greater convenience and supervision over them, were gathered to live in the house of Admiral Bruce.
The instructions determined the time for duty in the palace and for studying scientific subjects.
At the same time, it was ordered to teach pages foreign languages, geometry, geography, fortification, history, drawing, fighting with rapiers and espadrons, dancing, Russian grammar and literature, and other things that are necessary for an honest nobleman.
The chamberlain was entrusted at the same time with supervising the teachers, and he himself had to show and teach what he knew: “So that those pages through this to a constant and decent mind and noble deeds would naively prosper and from this be able to show themselves to be courteous, pleasant and perfect in howling, as Christian law and their honest nature commands.”
This was the first attempt to form a court boarding house, which since 1759 received the official name “Pages of Her Imperial Majesty Corps.”
Soon, however, Empress Elisaveta Petrovna died, and after the short reign of Peter the 3rd, during which no special attention was paid to the Corps, Catherine the 2nd ascended the throne.

Catherine the Great, wanting to raise the level of upbringing and education of pages, by decree of 1762 ordered that only the children of nobles known for their services to the Motherland be included in the Corps of Pages, and the staff of pages be determined to include 6 chamber-pages and 40 pages.

In development of the above, the Tsarina instructs Academician Miller to draw up a plan for training pages, and since 1766 the Page Corps is located in a house specially purchased for it on the corner of the Moika and Winter Kanavka.
In the same 1766, 6 pages were sent abroad for training and improvement, among whom were A. Radishchev (author of “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow”), P. M. Kutuzov and P. I. Epischev.
In 1795, it was decided to revise the method of teaching in the Corps of Pages and introduce in it a common order for all Russian schools. From then on, the Corps, while remaining under the jurisdiction of the Imperial Court, was recognized as equal, educationally, with all educational institutions of the Empire.
In this form, the Corps of Pages existed for 12 years.

Upon accession to the throne. Emperor Paul 1st instructs gr. I. I. Shuvalov to supervise the Corps of Pages, simultaneously appointing to the Corps the life pages who were attached to His Court.

In 1800, pages assigned to duty at the Court were called life pages and were released to serve in the Guard as lieutenants, and sometimes with their appointment as adjutants. In this way, the reform of the Corps of Pages was prepared, which was transformed into a Military Educational Institution in the next reign.
The new regulations on the Corps, drawn up according to the plan of Major General Klinger, were approved by the Highest on October 10, 1802.
On this day it was read in the presence of all ranks of the Corps. The first director of the reformed Page was His Imi. Vel. Major General A.G. Gogel was appointed to the corps. His closest assistant was the Staff Officer as a company commander or chamberlain, whose duties were to monitor the morals and behavior of the pages. He also led pages to the Highest Court, was present at single exercises and monthly presented gr. Shuvalov reports on each of the pages raised. The pages were divided into 4 sections. The first was in charge of the chamberlain, the rest were officers.
The educational unit was to be in charge of the class inspector, who was then appointed Colonel Odet de Sion, a Swiss by birth, taken to Russia by Generalissimo A.V. Suvorov to raise his son.
After the death of Andrei Grigorievich Gogel, his brother Ivan Grigorievich, known for his works in artillery, was appointed director of the corps.
Under him, in 1810, the Corps of Pages was given the premises in which it was located until the revolution of 1917, namely, the former palace of gr. M.I. Vorontsova on Sadovaya Street, opposite Gostinny Dvor.
In the old days, a shady garden stretched along the Fontanka in this place, in the depths of which a gr. Rastrelli's palace, facing Sadovaya.
In 1768, it was purchased by Catherine II for the treasury and served as premises for high-ranking officials.

When Paul the 1st assumed the title of Grand Master of the Order of Malta, he granted this palace, with all its outbuildings adjacent to it, to the Chapter of the Order of Malta and ordered the architect Guarenghi to build a Maltese Catholic church, which was consecrated in 1800. In it, to the right of altar, under the canopy stood the chair of His Majesty the Grandmaster.
Walked under the church underground passage, which directly connected the church with the bedroom of Emperor Paul 1st in the Mikhailovsky Palace.

Among the figures of the Patriotic War, who died with glory on the battlefields or distinguished themselves by their outstanding bravery, there were many pupils of the Corps of Pages, as evidenced by the black marble plaques in the Church of the Corps, dotted with the names of those killed during the wars, as well as a number of portraits of St. George's Knights in the St. George's Hall Cases.

The remodeling of the Corps building, with adaptations convenient for the educational institution, was carried out during the reign of the Emperor. Nicholas 1st, under the supervision of engineer Lieutenant General Opperman.
During this alteration, the pages and their employees were transferred to Peterhof, where they were housed in the building of the English Palace.
In the same year, the new regulations, staff and report cards of the Corps were approved, according to which there were 16 chamber-pages, 134 pages-ingerns and 15 externals.
In 1830, Major General A. A. Kavelin (1830-1834), who graduated from the Corps when he was II, was appointed director of the Corps. G. Gogel as its director. After 4 years he was replaced by P. N. Ignatiev. At that time, the head of the administration of Military Educational Institutions was Vel. Book Mikhail Pavlovich, having as his closest assistant, as Chief of Staff, Ya. I. Rostovtsev, a former student of the Corps.

For 10 years, the education and upbringing of lazhs was placed so high that the director of the Corps, P.N. Ignatiev, had the right to admonish the pages promoted to officers in 1846 with the words: “Do not forget that your names belong to the Corps of Pages and that each page will blush for you and be proud of you. Let the students of the Corps, to whom you owe your education, after many years, with a feeling of grateful pride, be able to repeat, remembering you - and he was a Page.” As before, during this period the Corps educated quite a number of outstanding individuals.

When Emperor Alexander II ascended the throne, when he was Minister of War D. A. Milyutin, and the chief head of Military Educational Institutions N. V. Isakov, transformations began in the cadet corps, which also affected the Corps of Pages.

In 1865, general classes were separated from special ones, which formed a combat company for a military school course. Major General D. H. Bushey, one of the most educated teachers of his time, was appointed in 1867 director of the Corps of Pages, remaining in this position until his death in 1871. His memory was lovingly preserved among his colleagues and pages, t during his directorship, each of his subordinates knew that he could safely turn to him with confidence to find greetings and good advice.
When Fyodor Karlovich Dietrichs, who replaced P.I. Mezentsev (1871-1878) in 1878, was the director, “preparatory classes” were opened as an independent educational institution to prepare for entry into the Corps of Pages, consisting of 3 classes. They were given premises in a wooden house on the corner of Liteinaya and Kirpichnaya (where the Guards Economic Society was later located). Arakcheev once lived in this house.

In 1884, this institution was subordinated to the director of the Pazhesky [Corps, but already in 1885 the preparatory classes "were closed. In 1885, an extension to the main building of the Corps was completed, intended for special classes, and already from September 2, 1885 Pazhesky The Corps began the course with a full complement of 7 classes, general 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7, in the main building and two special ones in the new wing, which communicated directly with the apartment of the Director of the Corps, which had been, until that time, on departure in the same 1885. g., according to the company commander of the 2nd company, Colonel N.N. Skalon, his “Historical Museum” was founded at the Corps for the purpose of collecting and storing everything related to the past of the Corps and its charges.
Unfortunately, the death of the regiment. Skalona in 1895, temporarily interrupted his useful activities in this field and only thanks to the energy of the director of the Corps, gr. Fyodor Eduardovich Keller (page, graduated in 1870) muey received a strong organization in 1898. Five rooms were allocated for the museum in the ground floor. In them, thanks to the sacrificial work of Captain Alexander Fedorovich Shidlovsky, who was at that time a course officer of the 3rd company, not only what related to the history of the Corps during the entire period of its existence was collected and put into exemplary order, but also enormous material for evaluation was concentrated the life and activities of his pet pages upon their release from the Corps.
A.F. Szydloteky wrote, based on the material he collected, a very interesting and valuable in its content brochure dedicated to the Corps on the day of its 100th anniversary in 1902 as a Military Educational Institution.

December 12, 1902. The Corps of Pages, consisting of three of its companies and a historical platoon, lined up in a deployed front against the royal box in the Mikhailovsky Manege. To the left of the pages were the officers and civilian ranks of the Corps, generals, staff and chief officers who wore uniforms and were on the lists of the Corps, and behind them were former pages according to seniority of graduation from 1837 to 1902 inclusive.
Exactly at 12 o'clock, the Sovereign Emperor with both Queens and the Heir Vel arrived at the arena. Book Mikhail Alexandrovich. Entering the Manege, the Emperor accepted the report of the Director of the Corps and, accompanied by a brilliant retinue, walked in front of the group of pages, greeting and congratulating them on the Holiday and the Anniversary.
Then the director of the Corps read the letter of award to the Corps of the banner, after which the command followed “to pray helmets, hats, caps down,” and the banner bearer, senior chamber-page Petrovsky, with 2 assistant officers, brought the banner to the lectern.
After the service, the banner was carried along the front and stood in front of His Majesty's 1st company.
The ceremonial march began, and then the historical platoon, in uniforms and with weapons corresponding to the years of the reigns, demonstrated marching and techniques in accordance with their time, that is, the times of the reigns from Elizabeth Petrovna to our time. After the parade, the Emperor, approaching the front of the former pages, said:
“Thank you, gentlemen, for your service to Me and My Predecessors, for your selfless devotion, which many of you sealed with their blood, for your honest service to the Throne and Motherland! I firmly believe that these covenants, passed down from generation to generation, will always live among the pages! I wish you health for many years to come!”
Then he turned to the pages with the words: “Today I proved to the Page Name of My Corps how great My favor is in him by bestowing upon him a banner, rewarding the combatant company and all the pages currently on the lists of the Corps with my monogram image on the shoulder straps and enrolling Brother and My Uncles on the lists of the Corps. I am sure that, following the example of previous generations of pages, many of whose representatives are present here, you will all serve your Sovereign and our dear Motherland - Russia, with the same valor, just as honestly and faithfully! Goodbye, gentlemen!
“Happy stay Your Imperial Majesty” and thunderous cheers were the response to the words of the Monarch.
Probably no one thought then that in 15 years the Corps of Pages, as such, would cease to exist.

And yet, despite this, the internal cohesion and traditions of the Corps dear to us, connecting everyone, almost without exception, pages, that true love to the native Corps and the covenants of the Maltese cross that adorns our chest, they did so that, being scattered throughout the world, the pages stand firmly for each other, both individually and in countries where they are grouped in one of the departments of the Page Union!

I would also like to add how erroneously and often unfoundedly it was believed that the Corps of Pages was a narrowly privileged institution where “Mama’s boys” were brought up, fatish girls who boasted of their aristocratic origins, connections, etc. and graduated from the Corps with more than light baggage. This can still be assumed if we consider the first years of its existence. The gradual improvement in the organization of training and the demands placed on students of the Corps of Pages radically changed this.

Over the last decades of its existence, the level of the teaching staff and the resulting corresponding requirements from the students of the Corps stood at first-class heights.
As for the privileged status of the Corps, it should be noted that, according to the Highest Regulations on the Corps of Pages, enrollment in it was not made by origin. Only the sons and grandsons of generals who had demonstrated their devotion to the Motherland through their service could be pages.
It should also be noted that over the last decades of its existence. The Corps of Pages gave in various fields, not only military ones, a significant number of people who stood out for their zeal, conscientiousness and scientific usefulness in serving Russia.
And how many pages gave their lives for the Faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland, not only on the battlefields of the Japanese-Russian War, the First Great War and in the ranks of the White Volunteer Armies, but also those who fell and were tortured in the struggle for the freedom and greatness of Russia, against the Bolsheviks...

TO THE CELEBRATION OF THE 190TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE CORPS OF PAGES

1802 - 1952
From the magazine "Cadet Roll Call" No. 53, 1993.

The Nakhichevan Khan, who knew well the ardent character of his subordinate, a young graduate of the Corps of Pages, cornet of the Life Guards Horse Grenadier Regiment, Mikhail Chavchavadee, in the days of the terrible upheavals of 17, sent him to Tiflis to buy horses. Only thanks to this, cornet Chavchavadze, a scion of a glorious family, was able to survive then.
The revolutionary Moloch overtook him in peaceful days, leading him through all the hellish circles of the Gulag... Years later, exhausted by the camps, the elderly man came with his son Zurab to the building of the Corps of Pages, where the Suvorov Military School was already located, and, begging the duty officer to let him through, with tears before my eyes he hugged the walls of his alma mater.

Chamber-Page issued in 1907. B.M. Jordan

Of course, no one explained to the Suvorovites who this crying old man was, who by age could certainly not be a graduate Suvorov School.
They were not told at all about the Corps of Pages, which was here until 1918... Meanwhile, there were fewer and fewer living pages. On December 25, 1992, mainly their descendants came to celebrate the 190th anniversary of the corps...

After the revolution, corps holidays were celebrated abroad - at traditional dinners of “dispersed, but not dissolved” pages in the white emigration. The current anniversary, first celebrated within the walls of the building on Sadovaya, 26, was also marked by the opening of the exposition of the recreated Corps of Pages.
The museum is now located in the library of the St. Petersburg SVU (former Orthodox Church of the Corps of Pages). The page's uniform is displayed in a stained glass window, next to it there are stained glass windows with unique photographs, engravings and family heirlooms, which were handed down by the descendants of pages Sabanin, Verkhovsky, Annenkov, Mandryka, Shepelev, Bezkorovayny, the granddaughter of a corps officer Natalya Leonidovna Yanush and others. All this was collected bit by bit by the head of the library, a charming young woman, Olga Vladimirovna Popova, who, with the support of the head of the SVU, Major General V. Skoblov, organized this wonderful holiday.

In addition to those mentioned above, the anniversary was attended by the descendants of pages Lermontov, Semchevsky, Zherbina, Sivers, descendants of pages Chavchavadze and Baumgarten came from Moscow, page Stenbock-Fermor came from France, page Vannovsky came from Sweden. The last page living in Russia, Mikhail Ivanovich Valberg, also came.

At noon, a prayer service took place in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra with the participation of all guests, Suvorov soldiers and IAS officers. Then, after the ceremonial construction of the school, at which Mikhail Valberg spoke to the Suvorov students, the guests moved under the vaults of the former Orthodox Church of the building. At the opening of the museum, congratulations from various organizations and institutions were read out (including from the Public Library, museums of the St. Petersburg Noble Union, Congress of Compatriots, St. Petersburg Suvorov Union), a telegram from Baron von Falz-Fein (one of his ancestors, General Epanchin, was the director of the Corps of Pages).

In the stories of descendants, the fates of the children of these walls came to life before us: K. Semchevsky, the beloved chamber-page of Nicholas II, who, together with Admiral A. Kolchak, tried to save the last Russian Tsar before his death in Yekaterinburg, V. Semchevsky, sunk along with other officers on to a barge in the White Sea by order of the revolutionary authorities; cornet M. Chavchavadze, a prisoner of Stalin's camps.

And one more thing. At one time, a significant part of the rich library of the Corps of Pages was, by order of the party authorities, taken to the Tauride Palace, where it remains to this day without any use. All efforts of Olga Vladimirovna Popova to return the books to the walls of the building have not yet been crowned with success. Taking this opportunity, I add my journalistic voice in support of her fair demands.

Journal “Midshipman” January 13, 1993, St. Petersburg
To the anniversary of the Corps of Pages
15.01.93

Dear Nikolai Alexandrovich!*

Thank you for your warm congratulations and for sending materials to the museum. All this is very interesting and, of course, necessary for further work. I also received a newsletter. I read with great attention the cadet’s reviews about the trip to Russia. I really liked the photo - the descendants of the pages against the background of the Corps of Pages.
It's a pity that you were unable to attend the anniversary. It was a real holiday. At 12.00 a prayer service was served at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. There were descendants of pages (about 40), page M.I. Vamberg (he studied for 2 years in the Corps of Pages before its closure), Suvorov students, officers, and many guests.

The prayer service was great. Then everyone arrived at the building, where a ceremonial march took place in honor of the 190th anniversary. And finally, the opening of the museum. Congratulations were read out to the Corps of Pages Museum. But it was a shame that the cadets did not congratulate us.
Nikolai Alexandrovich, if you knew how glad I was to see the happy faces of the descendants of the pages. After all, for the first time in many years they were able to get to know each other and, of course, see the walls of the Corps of Pages, closely associated with their names. In addition, thanks to the help of the Congress of Compatriots, an avenue was published for the anniversary.
Sacred music sounded from the choirs (former Orthodox Church). And God grant that it be heard within these walls as often as possible. The holiday ended with a small feast.

I hope to give you a prospectus when we meet (or maybe there will be an opportunity?). If possible, please say hello to A. Jordan.
I wish you all the best.

Sincerely yours O. Popova**
191011 St. Petersburg. Sadovaya, 26, SVU, Library
* N.A. Khitrovo is the son of a page.
** O. Popova - head of the library.

Y. MEYER
FATAL MISTAKES

As an eyewitness to the tragic events in February and October 1917 in Petrograd, I am often asked the question: how royal power was unable to cope with the first rebellion, and it turned into a hurricane, which forced all the forces of order to capitulate?
Being very young then, I did not understand the political situation, and only now can I quite plausibly explain the mood of the masses that led to the revolution.

The history of the Russian state, especially the 18th century, is rich in conspiracies and coups. All these coups had one thing in common: the people did not participate in them. There were no political parties. The instigators and perpetrators were representatives of the aristocracy and the military.

This is how the fateful December 1916 approached. In the highest circles of society and especially among the young guards, there was persistent and indignant talk about the need to imprison the Empress in a monastery. They accused her of being German and of being for a separate peace. All this was slander. She was especially blamed for the fact that she obediently followed the advice of a man - the Siberian peasant Rasputin. These people had no human pity for the deeply unhappy woman who saved the life of her beloved son, who suffered from hemophilia.

The conspirators, as before, were members of the dynasty and aristocracy: Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich, the nephew of the sovereign and Prince Felix Yusupov, married to the niece of the sovereign, the daughter of his sister - led. book Ksenia Alexandrovna. There was, however, a significant change in the composition of the conspirators. Among them was the leader of a major right-wing political party in the State Duma Purishkevich, as well as private doctor Sukhotin.

The next day the whole city knew about Rasputin's murder. Instead of severely punishing the guilty, the sovereign showed weakness. Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich was exiled to Persia to the Russian division operating there under the command of General Baratov. This saved the prince’s life, since if he had remained in Petrograd, he would have been killed, like many other members of the dynasty.
Prince Felix Yusupov was exiled to his estate in Kursk province. The murder of Rasputin and the sovereign's reaction to it opened the gates of the coming revolution wide open.

Meanwhile, the Russian state valiantly withstood the crisis of shell and cartridge famine in 1915, although it had to cede vast territories to the enemy. Thanks to public organizations - Zemstvo and city administrations - literally every sharpening machine in any outback began to turn projectile glasses. State-owned factories managed to produce warheads, the shell famine was eliminated, and already in the summer of 1916, General Brusilov defeated the Austrians, developing a wide offensive. General Yudenich did the same when chasing the Turks in Asia Minor.

The main command and headquarters hoped to launch a decisive offensive along the entire front in the spring of 1917 and defeat the Germans. However, already in the fall of 1916, a new crisis emerged - an acute shortage of people at all levels of the command ladder. In combat units at the front there were serious losses among junior officers. It is enough to cite as an example the famous battle near Causeni, where squadrons of a cavalry regiment and cavalry guards attacked a German Landwehr brigade; They took, under the command of captain Baron P. N. Wrangel, a battery, but lost 16 officers from two regiments.

In the autumn of 1916, there was a great shortage of junior officers in the infantry units, and Headquarters gave the order to all cavalry regiments that were not stationed in the trenches to send junior officers there to infantry units.
In the early spring of 1916, millions of middle-aged privates were drafted. Petrograd was a military city. In peacetime, there were three infantry guards divisions, three cavalry divisions and many other units stationed in it and in the surrounding area. The barracks for the infantry regiment were designed for 4,200 soldiers.
Now all these barracks were filled with recruits, 6000-7000 people each. Living conditions became terrible. But the worst thing was the lack of non-commissioned officers.

Those who arrived were not taught anything. For example, junior non-commissioned officer Levkovich, whose training was given to three volunteer lyceum students - Gilscher, me and the lawyer Nikolsky, devoted 2 hours to us once a week. And so about 300,000 conscripts did nothing and went into the city without permission and hung on trams. Most of them were peasants who were worried - who will work in the village when plowing and sowing begin? After all, only women and old men remained at home.

The revolutionary elements understood perfectly well that if Russia won a decisive victory in the spring and summer, the revolution would have to be forgotten for many years. The Russian victory could not be allowed.

And so they threw their propagandists and agitators into the barracks. Entrance there was free. The commanders of the reserve battalions watched helplessly as the rallies thundered there. One could pay with one’s life for the slogan “War to a victorious end.”

The commander of the troops of the Petrograd district was General Khabalov, a valiant Caucasian, a hero on the battlefields, but completely unfamiliar with the conditions of garrison life in the capital, moreover, in the presence of 300,000 dissatisfied men and workers. Kerensky was the Chairman of the Council of Ministers -
frantic idle talk. When Kornilov offered him military assistance, Kerensky declared that “the danger is on the right.”
The mayor, Prince Obolensky, his assistant for civil affairs, Lysogorsky, and the director of the secret police department, Beletsky, were all ordinary bureaucrats, incapable of taking decisive steps. And in the Tauride Palace - in the State Duma, the left wing of the Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, left and right social revolutionaries was raging, under the intimidated constitutional democrats, Octobrists and nationalists and the cowardly chairman Mikhail Rodzianko.

As for the youth, they simply did not understand what was threatening Russia. The fact is that in the spring of 1916, all students, except those graduating from higher educational institutions that year, were called up for military service. They were given 4 months to enter a military school or voluntarily join the active army. Not a trace remained of the military impulse of 1914. Here's an illustrative example:
the next course in the Corps of Pages began on June 1, 1916, all vacancies were filled, and the next accelerated course in the same Corps of Pages began on February 1, 1917, so we, lyceum students, lawyers and others who had the right to enter this institution, caught different ways and the preferential four months were extended into eight.
But the worst thing was the following: junior officers were trained at ensign schools in four-month courses. Even renowned military schools have significantly shortened their courses, mostly from two years to 9 months. This kind of ensign was no good. It should be borne in mind that the mass of university students and higher institutions, thus cut off from their studies and also revolutionary-minded, hated the war and the government and agitated the soldiers accordingly.

Kornilov’s attempt to come to the aid of Kerensky in Petrograd completely failed, and General Krymov shot himself, making sure that there were no loyal units at all.

I illustrate the complete passivity and confusion of those people in the capital who should have defended the monarchy by all means. The vice-director of the Corps of Pages, Lieutenant General Rittich, who replaced the director Lieutenant General Usov, who had left for the front, tried not to show himself in any way. Colonels Karpinsky, Fenu and Chernoyarov and detached officers brothers Limont Ivanov, Pozdeev, Shcherbatskaya, tried to completely hide the existence of the corps. It was renamed the Petrograd Military School.
On the day of the general funeral of the victims of the revolution on the Champ de Mars, not only were we not sent to disperse the revolutionary crowd, but they protected us by procuring an unexpected function for us. The French ambassador Maurice Paleologue and the English George Buchanan agreed to accept us, pages, to guard the embassies. So I stood on guard at the gates of the red house of the English embassy, which overlooked the Champs de Mars, and watched as workers, men and women, holding hands, 8 people in a row, walked languidly, mournfully shouting: “You fell victim in the fatal struggle...”

Everything then looked chaotic and absurd: the Corps of Pages, like other institutions, received the right to send permanent delegates to the Council of Workers', Soldiers' and Peasants' Deputies. This “honor” was awarded to the page Zheltukhin, a noble Muscovite, who later joined the cavalry guards, paired with another delegate - a groom.

At the end of March, all military units of the city were gathered at the Tauride Palace to take the oath of office to the Provisional Government. This is where he distinguished himself with his red bow. book Kirill Vladimirovich, commander of the Guards crew.
But an incident also occurred with our column, indicating how vile and humiliating everything was. We were met by a respectable, large man in a civilian coat and loudly introduced himself: “Your senior sergeant major greets you!”
This was the Chairman of the State Duma, Mikhail Rodzianko, the Emperor's page-chamber, who earned the most honorable title for His Majesty's pages.

Our camp near Krasnoe Selo was captured by a gang of mutinous soldiers, and we did not receive the main summer drill training. For several days we were sent to Sestroretsk, then to Aleksandrovskaya Sloboda, then to Pavlovsk. Thus we were not taught anything. In the intervals, the management gave us vacations and were happy when the building was empty. This summer I went to our estate in the Oryol province four times, where it was calm.

With such a general collapse, the idea of going to a certain part has become absurd. Therefore, in our release there were several dozen people who went out in the general cavalry, without naming the units in order to preserve freedom of choice. The cadets of the Nikolaev Cavalry School continued to play in the old traditions, introduced themselves into regiments, almost sewed peacetime uniforms for themselves and dragged especially curved sabers.

Here, in a few examples, is a picture of complete collapse and confusion.
There was, however, an opportune moment after the failed Bolshevik coup attempt in July. They got scared, and even Lenin found it necessary to hide. He went to Finland and settled in a private house there. This moment was missed by the officers and cadets in Petrograd.
A few determined people could have arrested Lenin in his hideout. In this regard, we shamefully gave in to the Jews. Among them were ideological people - members of the Combat Organization of Social Revolutionaries.
Kannegiesser killed the chief security officer of Petrograd Uritsky, and the Jewish woman Dora Kaplan attempted to assassinate Lenin, another Jew killed the important Bolshevik Volodarsky. Here is a sad account of how our high command and the youth of the ruling stratum turned out to be helpless and incapable of resistance.

ALEXANDER GERSHELMAN,

Chamberlain, class of 1913

HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S PAGE CORPS

KP No. 64-66, 1998

My service as a chamber page at the court of Emperor Nicholas II

I was born on November 12, 1893 in the city of Revel on Narvskaya Street, house number 21 (I think), later there was a post office there. I don’t know the hour of my birth, but it doesn’t matter; I don’t intend to draw up a horoscope at the end of my life.
My father, Sergei Konstantinovich, graduated from the Corps of Pages as a sergeant major in 1872, and was recorded on the Marble Board as the first to graduate. On Easter, Tsar Alexander II gave him an egg from the Imperial Porcelain Factory, on which was painted the icon of St. Great Martyr George the Victorious, wishing his father to earn this order by valiant service to the Russian Tsar. My father received the Order of George IV degree for the battles near Mukden on February 22-27, 1905.

My grandfather, Konstantin Ivanovich, was an adjutant general, which gave my brothers and me the right to be included in the lists of pages Imperial court. According to custom, entry into the list of page candidates was made in the first year of the boy's birth.
The order to include me in the list of pages was signed by Emperor Alexander III shortly before His death. That is why in the edition of “Pages”, published before the centenary of the corps, I am listed among the sons of my father with the note: “The last page of the Reign in Bose of the late Sovereign Emperor Alexander III.”

The most a vivid memory About my six-year stay within the walls of the H.I.V. Corps of Pages, there was undoubtedly court service. My class of 1913 completed my education in the corps during the anniversary years, in which Russia celebrated the centenary of the Patriotic War and the three-hundredth anniversary of the reign of the House of Romanov.
A small number of pages from among those who spent their summer holidays near the capitals - St. Petersburg and Moscow - took part in the celebrations on Borodino Field and in Moscow. The nature of the celebrations did not require the participation of the entire graduating class.
During the Borodino festivities, the Sovereign Emperor deigned to promote all the pages who fulfilled the conditions for production (promoted to the senior special class with 9 points in the “average in learning and 1st category in behavior) to chamber-pages. Thus, having arrived at the corps on September 1, we immediately put two transverse stripes on our shoulder straps, and on September 15, when we changed from the camp uniform to the city uniform, we decorated our uniforms with additional braid on the back pockets, screwed on spurs and received the right to wear a sword instead of a cleaver. At the same time, the descendants of the participants in the Patriotic War put on commemorative Borodino medals.

I served as a chamber page for the first time under Grand Duchess Viktoria Fedorovna during the charity bazaar organized annually around Christmas in the halls of the Assembly of the Nobility by Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna the Elder. It was not so much a court celebration as an event that gathered Assembly of the Nobility the entire St. Petersburg society.
In the hall, occupying its entire middle, there was a table in the shape of the letter “O”, at which the Grand Duchess sat facing the entrance. Further on it there were separate “trays” with “goods” offered to the attention of visitors. There were also tables along the walls of the hall. The table of Grand Duchess Victoria Fedorovna was installed to the left of the main entrance to the hall. The “saleswomen” at the stalls were ladies and young ladies of St. Petersburg society. The market lasted a week.

Prince Barclay de Tolly of Weimarn was the page-chamber under Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna. We were dressed in our city uniforms, and only we were allowed to wear sultans on our helmets, in order to at least thereby indicate the courtly nature of our service. Our service was simple, but quite tiring. We arrived at the meeting at about one o'clock in the afternoon and remained, without ever sitting down, until 7 o'clock in the evening. By one o'clock, the head of the palace of Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, Etter, also arrived at the side entrance of the meeting.
"Let's sit down,- he told me, sitting me down on the steps of the stairs. - The Grand Duchess will be here at a quarter to two while we wait, because half of the court service is spent waiting. You have to get used to it."
“Their Highness deigns to drive up,”- the doorman informed us, and we went out to meet him.
Taking off my fur coat. The Grand Duchess entered the hall and took a place at her table. Then Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna arrived, walked around the hall, greeting the ladies sitting at the tables.
Music played in the choirs and Leonardi sang Italian songs. The hall quickly filled with guests. The Grand Dukes, ladies, officers of the Guard and St. Petersburg society in general gathered. There was excitement in the hall; those entering approached the table. Grand Duchess, then they dispersed to tables of familiar “saleswomen,” and since most knew each other, they walked from table to table, from “tray” to “tray,” cheerfully talking with the saleswomen and buying all sorts of trinkets.

As I already said, the duties of the chamber-pages were simple. We stood near the tables of our Grand Duchesses, carrying out their instructions and accompanying them around the hall. Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna walked around all the tables several times during the week, stopping and talking with familiar ladies and young ladies, buying things on trays. Following her with the tray, I accepted these things and carried them behind Her Highness.
These walks around the hall were entertainment, because while the Grand Duchess stopped and shopped, I could also talk with friends. So, during one of these rounds, when my tray was almost full, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich arrived, and Their Highnesses went into the next room, where they stopped to smoke. I modestly lingered near the door, not wanting to disturb their conversation with my presence.

With the closing of the bazaar, my stay as a chamber-page to Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna ended, since she left and was not present at subsequent celebrations.
As the first in seniority after the senior chamber-pages during the festivities of the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov, I was appointed to serve under the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, daughter of the Tsar Liberator Emperor Alexander II. She was about 60 years old at that time, short, plump. The Grand Duchess, despite the amazing simplicity of her manner and the kindness shining in her eyes, still retained something inexplicably regal in her movements and conversation. She treated me, then a 19-year-old boy, with an attentiveness that always surprised me, giving me kind words and giving me all sorts of little things as souvenirs at balls and dinners. I am infinitely grateful to fate that at the end of the Russian Empire I was destined to be with a representative of our Royal House and with exactly the kind of Russian Supreme Person I imagined.

I served at the court all the time together and next to Prince Nikolai Longinovich Barclay de Tolly Weymarn, the senior chamber page and bannerman of our graduation (I was an assistant at the banner). He was under Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna the Elder, and I was first under Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna, wife of Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, and then under Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, sister of the late husband of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna. Both Grand Duchesses lived together, and during celebrations they stayed together all the time, being the same age and standing next to each other in seniority of the Royal House.

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, as they said about her, loved court etiquette, as well as surrounding herself with a “small court.” That is why, on Easter, Barclay and I were sent to the palace of the Grand Duchess to congratulate Their Highnesses and to participate in a small gathering on the occasion of the Holy Day.
At about 11 o'clock in the morning we were led into a small living room, upholstered in light silk, next to the hall in which those who had come to congratulate the Grand Duchess had gathered. Along the walls of the hall stood officers of the Life Guards Dragoon Regiment, whose chief was the Grand Duchess, members of the Academy of Sciences, the chairmanship of which she assumed after the death of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich, and many official and unofficial persons who, for one reason or another, came to congratulate her. While waiting for the August hostess, Barclay and I quietly exchanged our impressions. Soon the head of the Court of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna and a German who apparently performed the same duties under Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna entered. The latter gave me an award for service under the Grand Duchess - Ferdinstkreutz of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, IV degree, saying that the diploma mm would be sent from the chancellery of the duchy additionally. Immediately, with a pin he had saved, he attached to my uniform a silver cross on a purple ribbon with two narrow yellow stripes on the sides. That's how I received my first award.

The Grand Duchesses came out. Barclay and I respectfully brought them our congratulations on the Holy Day, and I also thanked the Grand Duchess for awarding her with the cross. With characteristic friendliness, she told me that she thanked me for my service and wanted me to have a good memory of her, "and for this- she smiled, - here's a red egg for you" Covered in fine red leather, the egg contained sapphire cufflinks by Faberge.

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna lingered for several minutes at the desk in the middle of the room, sorting through the letters and telegrams lying on it. After that, looking around at those gathered, she said that it was time to start leaving, adding, addressing us in French: “I’m quite nervous before going out.”
Remembering these words later, Barclay and I did not believe this excitement - the Grand Duchess, it seemed to us, spoke confidently at all such events in court life. I think we were wrong. Of course, she was not as worried as we were, who were participating for the first time at court celebrations, in an environment unfamiliar to us, in which we often had to decide independently and quickly what she had known to the smallest detail for years and had already known in advance. This was different.

As A. A. Mosolov told me many years later, the Grand Duchess took her, as she said, mrtier du Grand Duchesse seriously and with a full sense of responsibility - the role of the Russian Grand Duchess. She was apparently preparing for the exit in her palace: For the group of people waiting for her to enter the hall, she, I think, prepared in advance the words that she said to each of them and, in general, her entire behavior on the way out. Her metier consisted in doing and saying, in a timely manner, what was required by etiquette and what needed to be said in order to preserve and raise the prestige of the Royal House to which she belonged.
Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna was, as it seemed to me, completely different in this regard. She didn't do it. With some innate sense of tact, some kind of royalty inherent in her generation of the Royal Family, associated with simplicity and sincerity, she sought from the Emperor’s subjects the same sincere devotion to the dynasty, which completely captured me in those short months that I was with this person .

I already realized then that belonging to the Royal Family entails a lot and that this tenier is one of the most shy and difficult. You need to know, and most importantly, understand with all your heart, how to do it and why, what I saw in the examples of the Grand Duchesses Maria Alexandrovna and Maria Pavlovna sank deep into my heart, and I am deeply grateful to God that He lent me through my Great the princess to look into the world of the older generation of the Royal House, still completely imbued with the spirit of Emperor Nicholas I.

At a sign from the Grand Duchess, the doors of the living room opened and our entire small group walked out into the instantly silent hall. The Grand Duchess slowly began to walk around those gathered, greeting them, accepting congratulations and lavishing smiles and gracious words.
After leaving, we entered the living room again. The Grand Duchesses said goodbye to us and sent us home.

When I was in the junior special class, I had to serve during a gala dinner given to King Nicholas of Montenegro in the Winter Palace. The very one about whom Tsar Alexander III said that this was his only devoted ally.
The class of 1912 (sergeant major Vladimir Bezobrazov) was small, and therefore there were not enough people to fill the number of pages required by etiquette. On this day, in addition to the page-chambers behind the Grand Duchesses, pages stood behind the chairs of all the Grand Dukes, holding their hats during lunch. We, the pages, were placed at the table in advance; the chamber-pages, as always, accompanying their Grand Duchesses, arrived in the hall along with the exit. The table was arranged in the shape of the letter "P".

I stood behind the chair of Prince Sergei Georgievich Leuchtenberg-Romanovsky and held his naval cocked hat. The Tsar sat with his back to the entrance doors, but my place was diagonally to his right. I had only seen him briefly before: at the funeral of Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich and during his visit to the building. Of course, while standing at dinner, I took the opportunity to stare at him, studying his face, movements, smile.

I don’t know why the Tsar turned his attention to me. Did he read in my eyes the feelings that worried me, or what else attracted his attention to me? At first he looked at me casually, then fixed his bright, radiant eyes on me, took the pie served with the soup in his hand (if I’m not mistaken, it was cheese loaves), showed it to me and took a bite with a Smile. Apparently, with this joke he wanted to say: “Here you are, poor thing, standing there hungry, and I’m having a snack.”. For a second, some kind of intimate thread stretched between the Tsar and me...
I blushed deeply from embarrassment. The Emperor smiled again and spoke to King Nicholas. 43 years have passed since that time, but the eyes and smile of Tsar Nikolai Alexandrovich will never be erased from my memory.

My first responsible service at the Court was going through the halls of the Eimny Palace to the palace church. This exit opened the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov in February 1913.
On this day we were woken up early, and the attendants brought court uniforms, leggings, boots and plumes to the helmets into the company. The day before, we rehearsed the wearing of the trains and listened to the final instructions on how and when to wear them (the trains were supposed to be picked up at the turns of the procession, when it moved through the rooms, the floor of which was covered with carpet. When the procession stretched in a straight line, the train was spread out on the floor.

Every year, the corps sewed, updating the workshop, several new court uniforms. I was lucky to get a tailored uniform for me, so it fit me perfectly and, despite the braids (14 in the front, 4 in the back on the pockets), leggings and over the knee boots, I didn’t feel constrained in my movements in it. Having wet our partings, we did not put on helmets so as not to become disheveled, and in the court carriages given to us we held them on our knees. During court service, we hung our helmets by the scales, the plume down, on the sword.
Arriving at the palace, we lined up in two lines at the entrance to the Malachite Living Room, where the Royal Family gathered. Having put on a court uniform, the page, for the duration of his service in the palace, was transformed from a combat rank in the Tsar's army into a rank of courtier, subordinate to the marshal's unit. To everyone who was supposed to, that is, the Grand Dukes, the Minister of the Court, Count Fredericks, Chief Marshal Mr. Benckendorff, etc., during the service in the Palace, we made only court bows and only to the Sovereign Emperor in response to his greetings “Hello, pages! » - they answered: “We wish health to Your Imperial Majesty!”

The waiting time passed quickly, it was filled with observations of preparations for the exit. Our court authorities arrived, whom Captain Malashenko, who accompanied us, called us and whom we should have known by sight. Members of the Royal House began to arrive, to whom we bowed. Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich made a rather sharp remark to the commander of our company, Karpinsk, who was dissatisfied with the fact that the page-chamber of his wife Anastasia Nikolaevna did not meet her when leaving the carriage. This demand was unfounded, but there was no need to object.

Finally we were allowed into the Malachite drawing room, where the Royal Family was gathered in anticipation of the Tsar and Empress. With our hearts skipping a beat, we entered there. At that time I did not know the face of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, and I did not have time to look out for members of the Imperial House in the group. Barclay directly approached Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, with whom he was already a member during the bazaar. I followed him and in the elderly lady standing next to me, I guessed my Grand Duchess. She asked my last name and handed me her mantilla.
In the Malachite Living Room we faced another test: the appearance of the Emperor and the answer to him. We did not stand in formation, but were scattered in the living room; the answer still had to be friendly, without shouting, but not timid. On this day we passed this test brilliantly. The Tsars entered, greeted the Royal Family, looked around us and said quietly:
“Great, pages!”
A second pause - and our friendly answer filled the living room.
The newly irritated Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich conveyed to us through Colonel Karpinsky his gratitude for our clarity.
The Empress stood next to the Emperor. The heir Tsarevich was in the arms of a tall, bearded escort.
If I’m not mistaken, on the same day the Mongol delegation was presented to the Tsar, and the Tsar received it in the Malachite Drawing Room before leaving. The Mongols arrived to ask for the protection of the White Tsar for their country. The deputation was dressed in robes and had low, fur-trimmed hats on their heads, with fox tails attached to the top. With small steps they approached the Emperor and, kneeling down, fell prostrate before Him. This movement caused the foxes' tails to hit the floor at the Emperor's feet. The sight of these people, their unusual attire, the bright colors of their robes, and most importantly, the fox tails that hit the floor at the very feet of the Tsar, frightened the Heir, and he, turning away from these terrible people, pressed himself against the Cossack’s shoulder. The Mongols expressed their devotion to the Russian Tsar, and the Sovereign answered them. So for the first time, as a 19-year-old boy, I became involved in the great-power politics of our Motherland. These days, Russia, carrying out its mission in the East, was pacifying and drawing new regions and peoples into the circle of its culture.

The highest exit took place over the years in an established order. The Royal Family left the Malachite Living Room in pairs. The Emperor and the Empress were in front, the Tsarevich was carried behind them, the Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses walked according to their seniority in the ranks of the August House. In front, the masters of ceremonies, with canes decorated with blue St. Andrew's ribbons, knocked on the floor to let people know that the Tsar was entering the halls and preceded the procession, as if paving the way for him.
Next came the ranks of the Court, chamberlains, chamberlains, ladies of state, ladies-in-waiting, ladies-in-waiting of Their Majesties. The page-chambers walked in the procession slightly behind and to the right of the Empresses and Grand Duchesses, raising their trains at turns and carpets and spreading them again as soon as the exit stretched out in the halls in a straight direction.
Along the trellis route stood the highest government officials, deputations, groups of officers of guard and army regiments, and invited ladies in white dresses. Passing through the ceremonial, luxurious halls of the palace, the gold of the uniforms, the light outfits of the ladies and the colorful dresses of the ladies-in-waiting produced an indelible impression of splendor and formed a majestic picture, involuntarily associated with the idea of the power of the RUSSIAN Empire.
In the antechamber in front of the church, the page-chambers left the procession and, lining up in rows, let the column of exit participants pass by.
After leaving, we went to the upper chambers of the palace, to the ladies-in-waiting half, where we were served lunch from the royal table. Half-bottles of red and white specific wine stood at the devices. Receiving a tip from us, the servants also offered us white head vodka. This ended our service, and in carriages (landaulets for four people) with a livery coachman on the box, we were taken to the building.

The second time we had to participate in the celebrations was during a prayer service in the Kazan Cathedral. We met the Royal Family on the porch and, having escorted them to the middle of the cathedral, stood in a semicircle, separating this place from the crowd of those present. The Patriarch of Syria served in concelebration with Metropolitan Anthony (Vadkovsky) of St. Petersburg and Ladoga and a host of Russian clergy. The Gospel was read in Arabic by the Patriarch. As they said, he came to Russia for another fundraiser for the needs of his church. At that time, Russia, as the support of Orthodoxy, collected countless amounts of money not only for the maintenance of the Holy Places of Palestine and for Russian monasteries on Mount Athos, which had their own metochions and their representatives in all major cities of Russia, but also for the maintenance of Orthodox churches in the Middle East. The Patriarch, of course, not without calculation, timed his arrival to coincide with the celebrations of the accession to the throne of the Royal House of Romanov. The service lasted about an hour, but the wonderful choir and variety of impressions entertained us so much that time passed unnoticed for us.
Behind me and behind Barclay, always standing next to me, pressing the gold-embroidered front of his court uniform towards us, stood the Chairman of the Duma, Rodzianko. Barclay and I were then struck by the swaggering manners of this man, who played such a sad role in the history of the Russian Revolution. Despite the close proximity of the Royal Family, separated from the crowd only by a chain of chamber-pages, he allowed himself to talk with his neighbor and sing along with the wonderful metropolitan choir in a thick bass voice.

Perhaps the most tiresome of the celebrations in St. Petersburg was the reception of congratulations by the Tsar and Queen on the occasion of the 300th anniversary, the so-called baise-maine.”

The exit this time stopped in the hall called Nikolaevsky. The Royal Family occupied an entire corner of the hall. In front is the Imperial Couple, behind them on a soft chair are the Tsarevich and the senior grand duchesses and princes. The younger members of the Family preferred to retreat deeper to avoid etiquette. Everyone who congratulated him approached the Emperor, bowed, and the ladies made a court curtsey. The Tsar gave his hand to everyone, the Empress gave her hand to kiss. I’m afraid to say how many of these congratulators there were: all the court officials, ladies-in-waiting and ladies-in-waiting. Senate, State Council, ministers and ranks of ministries, generals, State Duma, ranks of the first classes of the Empire, etc. A long snake of suitable people stretched across the entire huge hall, lining up in the next hall. The solemnity of the court atmosphere excluded any haste. The masters of ceremonies kept order. They signaled the next congratulator to approach the Emperor. The maids of honor, approaching, lowered their train, picked up on their hand, to the floor, the masters of ceremonies straightened it with canes on the parquet floor, followed by a court curtsey, congratulations, and the maid of honor sailed away.

All these hours of congratulations to us: the sergeant-major, the senior chamber-pages and the chamber-pages of the senior grand duchesses had to stand at attention directly behind the Sovereign and in full view of the younger part of the Royal Family, who had moved deeper into the hall, where there was more freedom. Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich especially suffered from this ceremony. His lively disposition could not bear to sit on a chair and watch how some strangers in a long and boring line approached Father and Mother, often with a complete lack of grace, made all the same movements and walked away, and so on for long hours. I sincerely sympathized with Him, this beautiful living boy. At first He sat quietly, looking at the beautiful uniforms and dresses of the ladies-in-waiting. When the State Duma went, there was nothing even to look at. He turned several times to the sisters Olga Nikolaevna and Tatyana, who stood behind, next to the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna. The Tsarevich was in the uniform of the 4th Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Family, in a crimson shirt and a dark green caftan, and on the shoulder belt hung a saber commensurate with his height. And suddenly I see that He begins to play with his mother’s train with a sword, looking back at the sisters. The Empress signaled to him not to play. But after a few minutes He started again. Finally, the Emperor noticed His maneuvers and, turning his head to him, sternly ordered: “Alexey, stop it!” The heir became even sadder.

That year, for the first time, Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna and Tatyana Nikolaevna, as well as Princess Irina Alexandrovna, began to participate in palace celebrations. Chamber-pages were also included among them. The Empress was accused of excessive coldness in her manner, but those who knew Her better explained her lack of friendliness as shyness. It seems that Her daughters inherited this character trait from the Queen. In any case, their chamber-pages said that the Grand Duchesses did not dare to ask them for their surname and did so through the Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, under whose obvious tutelage they were during appearances and celebrations.

The ceremonial dinner in the palace was nothing special. He belonged to the category of those when, according to etiquette, behind the chair of each Grand Duchess, in addition to the page-chamber, there was another chamber-junker and a chamberlain. It was said that during the Holy Coronation the order of dinner was even more complex: plates of food were transferred to the table through all three ranks of the court. Fortunately, we did not have to go through such an incredibly responsible procedure. After all, God forbid, you spill the soup or dump the roast before it reaches the table!
I don't remember anything that was worthy of being noted during this dinner. Except that while walking to the table after turning from one hall to another, I, lost in thought, held Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna’s tren in my hands for too long. This, of course, did not escape the all-seeing eye of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna the Elder, who was following us. She, through Grand Duke Dimitri Pavlovich, with whom she walked arm in arm, pointed out to me my mistake. Another important rule court service (except for what was already taught to me at the bazaar by Etter), I was instructed: in the Palace, be on the alert all the time and do not think.

The ball of the St. Petersburg nobility had a completely different character, different from the palace routine, at which the nobles received the Tsar and His Family on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov, in which we had to take part, serving as chamber-pages. The reception of the nobility did not have the solemn splendor that distinguished appearances, dinners and receptions in the Winter Palace. The whole atmosphere of the ball in the Assembly of the Nobility was of a more private nature. The Royal Family was a guest among its nobility, and this position, with all the solemnity of the reception, inevitably destroyed many of the barriers required when observing court etiquette. The entire reception of the Royal Family, order in the halls was maintained not by court officials, but by the nobles themselves; the hall was filled not with representatives of the serving nobility, but with persons for the most part not participating in court receptions. And the purpose of the meeting was different. If the exits served to confirm and externally demonstrate the power and greatness of Tsarist Russia, then the ball of the nobles was a manifestation of the feelings of affection of this class for the Crown and readiness to serve until the grave of the Russian Empire.

During such balls, the Royal Family behaved with great tact, participating in general dances and mingling with the crowd of nobles. The chamber-pages, of course, did not participate in the dancing and fun of the hall. Having escorted our Grand Duchesses into the halls, we lined up under the colonnade of the Great Hall (where the bazaar I have already described took place) on the dais intended for the Highest Persons. Prince Bagration-Mukhransky, who had recently been married to Princess Tatyana Konstantinovna (daughter of Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich), stood right there.
Sergeant Major of the Corps in 1909, thoroughbred and handsome in his cavalry guard uniform, he enjoyed common love in our page family. In our first battle on July 30, 1914 near Gutkov, lying with him in a platoon chain on the Russian-German border, I received my baptism of fire as a forward observer of the battery. During the first months of the war, he proved himself to be an outstanding officer. Dissatisfied with his service in the cavalry, he transferred to the Erivan regiment, in whose ranks he was soon killed. Together with him, the cavalry guards Gerngros and Orzhevsky were then transferred to the infantry - both were killed.

I remember Bagration not only in order to leave in my memories the memory of this brave officer and good comrade, in order to indicate how much tact was required from a guard officer in his life and service in St. Petersburg. Received into the house of the Grand Duke, the husband of the latter’s daughter, Bagration, it would seem, had to break away from our environment. But customs demanded something else: as the husband of Princess Tatyana Konstantinovna in private life, Bagration was a member of the Grand Duke’s family, outside of this he remained a lieutenant, adjutant of the cavalry regiment, our senior comrade. And Bagration behaved well in this regard.

Already as chamber-pages we entered into the environment of St. Petersburg society and into the family of the guard, whose officers a few months later most of us became. And this position obliged us to a lot, and we were all well aware of the cases when youthful mistakes or non-compliance with the customs of this environment, committed while still chamber-pages, were reflected in the entry into the regiments and thus left a mark on a person’s entire life. Fortunately, the traditions instilled in us from childhood, education in the corps, service at the Court and, perhaps most importantly, constant close connection with the pages, who had already become gentlemen officers, provided those of us who wanted it with a comprehensive school.

The highest Persons wore “city” dresses, and therefore we did not have to carry trains. Most of the Grand Duchesses and, of course, the Grand Duchesses were dancing, and therefore were in the hall, and only the Empress and the elderly Grand Duchesses took their places on the dais under the columns. The chamber-pages were taken to the depths of the dais, and only the sergeant-major, the senior chamber-pages under the Empress, and Barclay and I remained in front on the dais.
I can’t say that there was order in the hall. The noble stewards pushed aside the invitees, wanting to create a more spacious place for dancing. The guests tried to get closer to the dais in order to see the Emperor, and therefore tried to break into the front rows. This interfered with order and spoiled the overall picture of the ball.
The stewards brought the best dancers from the officers of the guard regiments to the Grand Duchesses; many of them were known in St. Petersburg as excellent conductors at dance evenings. Although I never liked dancing, my pageboys often had to attend such evenings. In the last years before the war these evenings became increasingly brilliant. It became fashionable to make cotillions from fresh flowers, ordered from Nice during our harsh winter. And I must admit that it was very beautiful when these flowers appeared in the hands of the dancers, sometimes white, sometimes red, sometimes pink, fragrant and fresh. The same luxury was present at the described ball.
Of the conductors at that time, the most notable ones were Her Majesty's Lancer Captain Maslov, Baron Prittwitz of the 4th Infantry Regiment of the Imperial Family, Horse Guardsman Struve, aide-de-camp, a good show jumping rider, to whom we said goodbye exactly two years later, praying for the Repose of his soul. He was killed in February 1915 on the outskirts of Marijampole. He lay dead, just as handsome, with a face a little reminiscent of Emperor Nicholas I (that’s why he wore small sideburns), next to him lay a soldier of the Horse Regiment, killed in the same battle. The red-haired priest of the regiment served a funeral service. God! How many people have we already led to a better world!

Barclay and I were lucky again. Staying with our Grand Duchesses, we could watch the beautiful scene of the ball. Our Grand Duchesses sat in chairs on the left on the dais, exchanging impressions. But then an incident occurred that greatly worried poor Barclay. Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna began to say something to her neighbor, pointing with her eyes into the hall, and then, apparently wanting to make sure of something, she stood up. Thinking that the Grand Duchess was about to go down into the hall, Barclay pushed back his chair, and at the same moment the Grand Duchess, without turning around, began to sit down. With a quick movement, Barclay pushed the chair forward, so that the Grand Duchess nevertheless sat down in the chair, although only on the very edge of it. Don't Barclay make that quick move. The Grand Duchess would have ended up on the floor. With knitted eyebrows, she turned to him and said: “Vous et fou!” Blushing like a lobster, Barclay just whispered to me, “Ugh, how hot!”

I will end these memories of the celebrations in St. Petersburg with a brief description of the performance of the opera “A Life for the Tsar” at the Mariinsky Theater. It was one of the most beautiful sights I have seen in my life.
The Sovereign and senior members of the Royal Family attended the performance, sitting in the central, so-called Royal Box of the theater. Younger eminent persons were placed in the side grand ducal boxes. The parterre was occupied by the Senate, the Council of State, court officials and the ranks of the first first classes. The first ranks of the red Senate uniforms were replaced by the green uniforms of the Council, after which the gold of the court ranks shone. All this, combined with the gray hair of these dignitaries of the Empire, created an unusually colorful picture. Officers of the guard regiments sat in groups in the boxes: cavalry guards, horse guards and cuirassiers in classic uniforms, luxurious hussars, graceful lancers, our horse artillery in strict uniforms, guards infantry in colored lapels, riflemen of the Imperial Family, etc., etc.; in the boxes were ladies of state and ladies-in-waiting in their dresses decorated with gold, with kokoshniks on their heads; These dresses were introduced into court use by Emperor Nicholas I and have existed to this day without changes - the dresses were only extended with a train.

When the Tsar entered the box, the entire theater stood up and turned to face him. Entering the box behind Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, I was taken aback by the beauty of the picture that appeared before me, from this play of colors, the luxury of uniforms, the abundance of gold, the variety of attire.
Perhaps someone will ask me why this abundance of gold, this variety of colors, this emphasized luxury were needed? As a participant in this indescribable beauty, I will answer: in my deep conviction, all this was necessary. I have always perceived the Russian monarchy as some kind of earthly embodiment of spiritual, almost divine beauty. All this splendor seemed to me only an external manifestation of this one-of-a-kind, unique in the world, unique in its inner beauty, Idea of the Russian Monarchy.

During intermissions, the entire theater rose and the sidelines were enlivened by the uniforms of the guests emerging from the boxes and stalls. The Royal Family also left the box, and we, the chamberlains, followed.
Then I noticed the pair of sentries standing at the entrance to the box. These were two giants - sailors from the Guards Crew. They weren't exactly the same height. Apparently, it was not possible to find two people of the same height. I was 19 years old at that time, and although I grew up to 25 years old, even then I was about 1 m 70 cm tall. I came closer to the tallest one and found myself up to his chest, therefore, he was far over 2 meters tall and at the same time completely correctly built.

In terms of the voice cast, to tell the truth, the performance was less successful. The oldest and most honored soloists sang, and the years took their toll on both their voices and their complexions. Grand Duchess Ksenia Alexandrovna winced greatly when tenor Yakovlev broke on some high note.
This beautiful extravaganza ended with the singing of “God Save the Tsar...”, again the whole hall stood, and tears of delight welled up in their eyes, listening to this solemn hymn. The celebrations ended, and we returned to our daily activities in the building - lectures, rehearsals, drill exercises.

For participation in the celebrations of the 300th anniversary of the Reign of the House of Romanov, we all received personalized memorial badges to wear on the right side of our uniform. These signs are inherited by the eldest descendant of the participant in the celebrations. At the same time, we were given commemorative medals depicting Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich and Sovereign Nicholas II. They were worn in a block on a three-color “Romanov” ribbon (white, yellow, black). I formed an “impressive” block of medals and the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha cross.

This year we went to the Krasnoye Selo camp, as always, at the end of April and began filming and field tasks. At the end of May it became known that we would be called to Moscow to participate in the 300th anniversary celebrations, which were to take place in the Mother See.
Our joy was indescribable. Those who grew a mustache after a month in the camp had to shave it off, which is why there was a white, untanned spot on the upper lip (Voronov, Karangozov in particular). We were delighted not only by the new opportunity to participate in court celebrations and put on a shiny new uniform, but also by everything associated with the trip to Moscow - travel, life in a hotel, new surroundings, as well as the reduction and end of classes in the corps.

In a separate second-class carriage, we traveled overnight on a fast train without fatigue the 609 miles that separated St. Petersburg from Moscow. We were accommodated in the “Princely Dvor” hotel, not far from the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The cargo with our uniforms was brought there, and we ate at the hotel. Of the officers, we were accompanied by Colonel Karpinsky, Captain Malashenko and Staff Captain Salkov.
Already experienced in putting on a court uniform, in the morning before the service we quickly pulled on leggings, which in our time were called that only by legend and were made of white woolen material. Over the knee boots were no more difficult to put on than any high boots, only the hooks for pulling them were longer due to the tops going above the knees. It was not difficult to walk in boots; the upper parts of the boots rubbing against each other only delayed quick movements when running or dancing.
The uniforms were longer than the city ones and reached the middle of the thigh. On the front there were 14 double braids (court style), on the back of the pockets, as on the city uniform, there were four braids. To sit down, you had to unbutton the bottom buttons of your uniform. When lifting the Grand Duchess's train, it was recommended to bend to the side rather than straight forward. Firstly, the lower braid of the uniform was in the way, and secondly, the helmet hung on the sword slipped forward and prevented him from walking, and he had to pick up the train on the move. And thirdly, leaning to the side was more beautiful than straight forward, from which the Highest Persons walking behind presented a less presentable picture. In addition, when bending to the side, the tights were less strained. In the annals of the corps there was an oral report about how one of the page's leggings burst at the back when bending forward, and since we put them on a naked body to avoid wrinkles, the picture seemed unacceptable and hardly in keeping with court etiquette. I can’t guarantee that such an incident took place, but we were terribly afraid of its repetition and tried our best to cope with the shyness of the court chamber-pages’ uniform. The sword, which during production was traditionally passed on to younger comrades by those leaving, was worn on a gold belt outside (in the city uniform it was worn on a sling worn under the uniform, so that its hilt protruded from the slot on the left side of the uniform). The helmet was the same one that the combat company wore. But for the court, she was decorated with a white plume made of horse hair, attached to a shishak. On the boots, the spurs were not nailed on, as in the city uniform, but were attached with black belts made of the same patent leather as the boots.

Thanks to the warm spring weather, we didn’t put on our coats; we even rolled down the windows on the four-seater landaulets provided to us by the Palace Administration. They did this not without calculation - pour epater on the Moscow public, who looked with curiosity at our unfamiliar uniforms. Even the pair of sentries at the Kremlin gates, cadets of Moscow schools, had little understanding of the variety of forms of participants in the celebrations, and just in case they saluted us “corporal-style.” This amused us.
In our free time from court service, we visited friends and acquaintances in the city, went to the cinema to watch ourselves as participants in processions. The Emperor left the Mother See for Yaroslavl and Kostroma, and we returned to St. Petersburg.

Upon returning to the Krasnoselsky camp, a few days later we were assigned to the units to which we had been accepted.
On May 26, in the morning we went to the Grand Kremlin Palace, built during the reign of Emperor Nicholas I. It’s not far from the “Prince’s Court” to the Kremlin. Our carriages drove past the Rumyantsev Museum and the Big Manege through the Tainitsky Gate into the Kremlin. At the gate stood paired sentries from the Alekseevsky School. Having entered the walls of the Kremlin, we turned right past the building that housed the Palace Administration and the apartments of Prince Odoevsky-Maslov and Istomin. We approached the palace not from the main entrance, but from a side one, and the internal staircase led us to the part of the palace adjacent to the Borovitsky Gate. After the gathering of the Royal Family, the exit began. The procession was supposed to go through the halls of the palace onto the Red Porch, go down it and go to the Assumption Cathedral, where Metropolitan Vladimir of Moscow and Kolomna was waiting for the Tsar to serve a solemn prayer service.

The exit moved. I remember that through the windows of the palace overlooking Zamoskvorechye, a cloudy spring morning looked out, it smelled of rain, and the thought flashed through my mind: “It would be a pity if the exit from the palace to the Red Porch would be in the rain.” But there was no time to think about the weather. In an unfamiliar environment, one had to be especially alert, and besides, as always, the beauty of the exit was completely captivating.

I agree with style experts that the Grand Kremlin Palace, in its architecture, is completely alien to the antiquity that surrounds it. But nevertheless, its interior decoration, in its beauty and luxury, fully corresponds to the purpose for which it was built. In it, according to Nicholas I, the receptions of the newly crowned All-Russian Emperors were to take place. The halls were named after Russian orders, and their decoration matched the colors and emblems of these orders. From the inner chambers, our procession went out into the corner Catherine Hall, the red decoration of which advantageously emphasized the luxurious dresses of the court ladies and ladies-in-waiting gathered in it. Here we turned left, and all the way to the St. George’s Hall the exit moved in a straight direction, which is why, having spread out the Grand Duchess’s train, I was able to enjoy the picture of Zamoskvorechye and the view of the halls through which the procession passed.

The Emperor was in the uniform of the Astrakhan Grenadier Regiment. In the blue St. Andrew's Hall, which followed the Cavalry Guard Hall, delegations of regiments, mainly from the Moscow Military District, were concentrated. I looked with curiosity at these forms, which had just recently been introduced. In front of the blue Sumy stood their new commander Groten (an officer of His Majesty's Life Guards Hussar Regiment). St. Andrew's Hall is enormous in size. This is the throne room, it stretched along the facade of the palace and was especially beautiful due to the concentration of army delegations in it.
In the last. St. George's Hall, located at right angles to St. Andrew's, the Sovereign was met by the Moscow nobility, zemstvo and civil officials. The hall is very beautiful - the strict colors of the Order of St. George give it some kind of solemnity; The gold of the order stars decorating it emphasizes this with its luxury.
Alexander Dmitrievich Samarin came out to the middle of the hall to meet the Emperor, greeting the Emperor on behalf of the Moscow nobles, of whom he was the leader. In Moscow, even at the court celebrations there was some kind of imprint of “homeliness”. Probably because of this, when the Emperor stopped in front of Samarin, the entire procession did not remain in the column, but moved far and formed a semicircle around the Emperor.

Samarin, in his speech addressed to the Tsar, expressed the feelings of devotion to him of the Moscow nobility. Following my Grand Duchess, I found myself to the left and in front of the Emperor and could closely observe his face and listen to his response to the Moscow nobility. I heard the Tsar for the first time. He spoke extremely calmly, in an even, quiet voice. But thanks to his impeccable pronunciation, every word sounded clear. The character of his pronunciation was, as they say, “St. Petersburg,” in contrast to the softer pronunciation of Moscow and other Russian cities.

As it seemed to me. The Tsar spoke without preparation, which I deduced from the fact that in his answer he touched on many points of the nobles’ appeal to him. The Sovereign's speech addressed to His nobles was clear and pure and, calm and heartfelt, revealing all of Him. This moment of celebration made a strong impression on me. Having handed over the letter of nobility to the Sovereign, Samarin walked away with a bow.

The exit was again lined up to follow through the doors of St. George's Hall to the Red Porch. At the door stood paired sentries of cadets from the Alexander School. As I mentioned, the weather was cloudy in the morning, and here, when the King entered the ancient Porch, a miracle occurred, which I described in my story “One of the Forty-three.” A gust of wind instantly tore apart the clouds covering the sky, and the joyful spring sun flooded the Tsar with its light as he descended from the porch to the crowd of his people, who filled all the free space between the cathedrals. The ringing of bells, the music of orchestras and the cries of “hurray” from a countless crowd, everything merged into a jubilant, joyful, kind of spring chord. Under the incessant cries of the people, the procession slowly descended the stairs and entered the Assumption Cathedral.
After the joyful and jubilant mood of the square, we were instantly overwhelmed in the cathedral by that special feeling that happens when, with your head bare, you enter the walls of our Orthodox churches, covered with antiquity and generations. The luxurious vestments of the clergy, all strewn with gemstones, the chants, which seem unearthly in the frame of the ancient painted vaults, and the stern faces of the saints created a contrast with the exuberant rejoicing of the square. All this is etched in my memory for the rest of my life. After the prayer service, the celebration ended for us.

The dinner in the St. George's Hall of the Grand Palace was not much different from the same court dinners in St. Petersburg. Only the faces were different. During lunch, the trumpeters of the Sumy Regiment played and the choir of the Imperial Moscow Theater sang. But at the ball given by the Moscow nobility to their Royal Guest and His August Family, one must stay longer.

At dusk of this May evening we were taken to the Assembly of the Nobility. One after another, carriages with the Grand Duchesses began to arrive, and we met them at the entrance. The Tsar arrived with the Tsarina and the Grand Duchesses Olga Nikolaevna and Tatyana Nikolaevna. Of the young Grand Duchesses, Princess Irina Alexandrovna was present, distinguished by her austere beauty. The princesses were both completely different types of faces. Olga Nikolaevna could not be called beautiful, but she captivated with her freshness and the smile of her radiant eyes, like her Father’s. Tatyana Nikolaevna's face was distinguished by the originality of its beautiful features. But although completely different, they were both charming in their own way.

The ball in Moscow differed from the St. Petersburg one in its strict order, cordiality and some kind of cordiality of the reception. The Moscow nobles managed to receive their Tsar. The beautiful hall was decorated with delicate taste with pink spring flowers. Everywhere noble stewards, apparently according to a pre-thought-out plan, directed the huge number of invitees. One could see the concern to create and emphasize the mood of trust and closeness between the Tsar and the People, which was established in Russia after the storms of the 1905 revolution.

The Royal Family was placed on a raised platform along the short wall of the hall, right next to the entrance. From this place the entire hall was visible, in the depths of which several steps led under a colonnade supporting the choir, on which the orchestra was located.
The ball opened with a polonaise. The Emperor walked at the head, leading the wife of the Moscow district leader of the nobility A.V. Bazilevskaya. A.D. Samarin was single, and therefore she turned out to be the senior noblewoman of Moscow. The second pair was the Empress with Alexander Dmitrievich. Next came the Grand Duchesses and Princes with representatives of the Moscow Nobility. The Emperor was in the uniform of the Life Hussars Pavlograd Regiment. The hussar uniform suited the Tsar very well, his short but superbly built figure. He loved to put on the uniforms of the hussar regiments and knew how to wear them.
We, the chamber-pages, stood on the dais and observed this bright picture in which the light dresses of the ladies were mixed with gold and a variety of colors of uniforms.
After the polonaise there was a pause for a minute. The music began to play a waltz, but the guests were waiting for the initiative of the Royal Family. At the same time, the dancers were introduced to the Grand Duchesses, and the whole hall began to spin. Time passed quickly. The ball was fun and beautiful. The hall was filled with that difficult to define mood that distinguishes a successful evening from an unsuccessful one.

At a sign from the manager, the orchestra stopped and Samarin, bowing before the Tsar, asked the distinguished guests to proceed to dinner. Crossing the length of the hall, the procession climbed the steps under the colonnade and passed into the adjacent hall, where dinner was served. The table of the Royal Family would be set on a raised platform, facing the hall, the tables for guests stood perpendicular to it. We, the page-chambers, were placed along the wall behind the table of the Royal Family and facing the hall. Diagonally to my left at the invited table sat the Urusov princesses, familiar from St. Petersburg, horse guard Shirkov, Katkov and others.

Always so attentive to me. During dinner, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna handed me her glass of wine through the Moscow governor, His Majesty's retinue, Major General Vladimir Fedorovich Dzhunkovsky, who was sitting next to her. "Let him drink to my health"- she said with a smile.
This was the hardest "formal" glass of champagne I've ever had in my life. "Your health, Your Imperial Highness" Having bowed, I said, and, without breathing so that the gases of the champagne would not hit the sky, I drank the glass in one gulp under the gaze of the Grand Duchess, Dzhunkovsky and my friends from the table opposite.
The latter made fun of the difficulty of my situation. I gave the glass to a passing footman and stood up again.

After dinner, the departure soon began. Grand Duchesses Maria Alexandrovna and Maria Pavlovna left together. I saw my Grand Duchess for the last time. She said goodbye to me especially cordially and gave me the golden coat of arms of Moscow as a souvenir, which the nobles gave to all the participants in the ball. Ordinary mortals received silver ones instead of a gold badge. The Grand Duchess asked me which part I was going to.
“So, you will soon be an officer. Congratulations in advance. Once again thank you for your service."
And then, turning to Samarin, she continued:
“Alexander Dmitrievich, I kindly ask you to feed my chamber-page and see that he dances. The carriage doors slammed shut and the grand duchesses drove off.

Fulfilling the order of the Grand Duchess, Samarin took me upstairs to an open buffet, where he and I each drank a glass of vodka and I ate, as I was very hungry. Then I went down to the hall where the ball continued.

I think that many will not understand why the memories of serving at the Emperor’s court are so dear to us. Having re-read this short essay service in the palace, I came to the conclusion that if for me memories are the most vivid impression of my youth, then for the reader of this essay they are unlikely to be interesting.
These memories are dear to me not only as memories of youth, which over the years take on a sad charm, not only as a memory of the golden, beautiful uniform and splendor that surrounded me in those hours, not only because in those hours I was close to the Emperor, who was shining in the halo of the Royal Crown. No, that’s not the only reason! Participating in court celebrations, standing in churches or marveling at the fabulous beauty, luxury and splendor of the Mariinsky Theater, I unconsciously felt myself involved in that wondrous phenomenon that bore the name Russia.

ALEXANDER GERSHELMAN
Buenos Aires, 1956

M.A. Gershelman

200TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY'S CORPS OF PAGES

I emphasize the word - grounds, because. it existed only until 1917.
As an introduction, here are a few testaments of the Knights of Malta, which were passed on to the pages as a guide for faithful service to the Motherland.

You will be faithful to the Church. You will be a faithful son of your Motherland. You will never change your word. You will not retreat from the enemy. You will be hard as steel and noble as gold.

By the way, the last testament is symbolized by the pages’ graduation rings - a steel hoop embedded in gold indicating the number of graduates, and inside the ring, like on wedding rings, is the owner’s last name, day and year of production. This was also a symbol of the links of one chain, soldering all the pages into a single family. Even in exile, in every country they invariably gathered on the day of their holiday: December 12/25.

(Let me make a small digression. In the last months of his life, my father was worried about how he, already completely disabled, without two legs, would be able to greet pages on the day of his favorite holiday. The widow of his friend reassured him:
"And we will all gather around your bed..." My father died on the morning of December 2, and in the afternoon everyone gathered around him.
bed for the first funeral service. This was 25 years ago, i.e. on the 175th anniversary of the Corps.)

Now I will briefly share the stages of the formation of the Corps.
The title of pages was established in Russia by Emperor Peter the 1st, who in 1711 formed court ranks, following the model of German courts.
An attempt was made to achieve some order in the organization of pages by establishing a court school; in 1759, she ordered that instructions be drawn up according to which they were to be taught various sciences; it said:
“Everything that is necessary for an honest nobleman, so that the pages in a decent mind and noble deeds would prosper most naively and therefore could show themselves to be courteous, pleasant and perfect in everything, as the Christian law and their honest nature commands.”
All this is very important for court service.
In 1795, a common order for all schools was introduced in the Corps.
This court school, already in the first period of its existence, gave the state a number of prominent figures in different fields. And among the first Knights of St. George there are also a number of names of former pages.
Little by little, preparations were made for the reform of the Corps of Pages, which was soon transformed into a Military Educational Institution. The new regulations on the Corps were Supremely approved by the Sovereign in 1802.
Interesting detail:
The educational part was always in charge of the class inspector, who at that time was a Swiss who was taken to Russia by Generalissimo Suvorov to raise his son.

Finally, in 1810, the Corps was given the building of the former palace of Count Vorontsov on Sadovaya Street, which exists to this day.
Previously, the palace was purchased by Empress Catherine II for the treasury, and when Emperor Paul I became Grand Master of the Order of Malta, he granted it to the Chapter of the Order and ordered the construction of the Maltese Catholic Church, thus, there were two churches on the territory of the Corps: Orthodox and Catholic.

In the period between 1808 and 1830, young men passed through the Corps of Pages, who subsequently earned a good memory for their service to the Motherland, for example: A.A. Kavelin - tutor of Emperor Alexander II, Count V.F. Adlerberg - friend and associate of Emperor Nicholas I, poet E. A. Baratynsky, Ya.I. Rostovtsev, whose name is closely connected with the 1861 reform of the Tsar the Liberator, and many others.

Over the next 10 years, education and upbringing were placed so highly that its director had the right to admonish his students, who were promoted to officers, with the words:
“Don’t forget that your names belong to the Corps of Pages and that every page will blush for you and be proud of you. Let all the students of the Corps, to whom you owe your education, after many years, with a feeling of grateful pride, be able to repeat, remembering you - and he was a page". In 1885, his “Historical Museum” was founded in the building. It collected not only what related to the history of the Corps throughout its existence, but also concentrated enormous material for assessing the life and activities of the pages after they left the Corps.
Finally, the 100th anniversary of the Corps as a Military Educational Institution has arrived. On December 12/25, on the day of remembrance of St. Spyridon of Trimifuntsky, the Corps of Pages, consisting of three of its companies and a historical platoon, lined up in a deployed front against the royal box in the Mikhailovsky Manege. To the left of the pages were the officers and civilian ranks of the corps who wore okorma, and behind them were former pages according to the seniority of graduation from 1837 to 1902 inclusive.
Entering the arena exactly at 12 o'clock, the Emperor accepted the report of the director of the Corps and, accompanied by a brilliant retinue, walked in front of the line of pages, greeting and congratulating them on the Holiday and the Anniversary.
At the end of the round Vel. Book Konstantin Konstantinovich in a loud voice read the highest diploma granted to the Corps. Then the director of the Corps read the letter of award to the Corps of the banner, followed by the command"For prayer - helmets, hats, caps off"
, and the bannerman, the senior chamber-page, with 2 assistant officers, carried the banner to the lectern, where it was consecrated by the priest.
After the service, a ceremonial march began, and then a historical platoon in uniforms and weapons corresponding to the years of the reigns demonstrated the marching and techniques of those times.
After the parade, the Emperor, approaching the front of the former pages, said:
“Thank you, gentlemen, for your service to Me and my Predecessors, for your selfless devotion, which many of you sealed with their blood, for your honest service to the Throne and Motherland! I firmly believe that these covenants, passed down from generation to generation, will always live on with the pages! I wish you good health for many years to come!"
Then he turned to the pages with the words:
“Today I proved to the Page, My Name, the Corps, how great My favor is towards him, by granting him a banner, awarding his combat company and all the pages currently on the lists of the Corps of Pages with my monogram image on the shoulder straps, and enrolling my Brother and My Uncles in the lists Cases.
I am sure that, following the example of previous generations of pages, many of whose representatives are present here, you will all serve your Sovereign and our dear Motherland - Russia, with the same valor, just as honestly and faithfully! Goodbye, gentlemen!"

Stopping at the exit from the arena, the Emperor turned around and said again: “Thank you again for a great parade.”
At a state dinner in the Winter Palace, the Tsar, raising his glass, said:
“On behalf of the Sovereign Empresses and Myself, I drink to the health of my dear guests - all former and current pages, formerly and now serving in the Corps - to your health, gentlemen - Hurray!”
In response, Vel., who was included in the list of the Corps, the oldest member of the Royal Family. Book Mikhail Nikolaevich proclaimed a toast on behalf of all the pages for the precious health of the Tsar.
On December 14 at 3 o'clock in the building of the Corps a solemn act took place in the Highest presence, and in the evening at the Mariinsky Theater - an anniversary performance, also in the Highest presence, in which the luminaries of the Russian Imperial stage of Drama, Opera and Ballet took part.

“Probably, no one thought then that in 15 years the Page Corps, as such, would cease to exist and that we, the pages, would celebrate its 150th anniversary in 1952 far from Russia, outside the walls of our native Corps!”- wrote Iv. Mich. Daragan.
I would also like to add how erroneously and often unfoundedly it was believed that the Corps of Pages was a narrowly privileged institution. However, enrollment was not based on origin; Pages could only be the sons and grandsons of generals, no matter what class they were, but who had demonstrated their devotion to the Motherland by their service.

EVGENY VESELOV

THE SAINT RETURNED TO THE CORPS OF PAGES

Yesterday, the St. Petersburg Suvorov Military School, which considers itself the historical successor of His Majesty's Corps of Pages, celebrated the 195th anniversary of this imperial educational institution. To the Vorontsov Palace, which early XIX century and until 1918 served as a home for pages, descendants of former pupils, graduates of the SVU of different years (it has been located here since 1955), representatives of historical and cultural, military-patriotic, noble and monarchist organizations came together. There was also a living page here - God bless him! - Mikhail Ivanovich Valberg, 94 years old, who clearly remembers both his comrades in the corps and the parades in the Horse Guards Manege...

In the library, which was once an Orthodox church, where guests, Suvorov students and their teachers gathered, a prayer service was held. Father Gennady Belovolov, a priest of the Peter and Paul Church of the Tikhvin Deanery, who performed it, handed over the icon of St. Seraphim to the Head of the school, Major General Valery Skoblov. This event in the spiritual life of not only the current inhabitants of the palace on Sadovaya, 26, but also of all believing Petersburg residents is absolutely amazing. After all, Metropolitan Seraphim of Petrograd (in the world - Leonid Chichagov), innocently convicted and executed by the NKVD in December 1937, once studied within these walls. After graduating from the page corps in 1875, he went to the Balkan War, where he showed courage and was awarded many military awards. John of Kronstadt blessed this brilliant officer for pastoral service. Only now the council of bishops canonized Seraphim as a holy martyr.
The icon of the saint was given to the Suvorovites by the granddaughter of the metropolitan, Abbess Seraphim of the Novodevichy Convent, who lives in Moscow. Now, according to Father Gennady, Seraphim has returned to his native walls, and the guys in scarlet uniform have their own heavenly patron and protector. (By the way, our SVU - a sponsored educational institution of the editorial office of the newspaper "Evening Petersburg" - took first place among the Suvorov schools in Russia at the end of the outgoing year.)
The appearance of the icon of St. Seraphim can be considered the beginning of the revival of the Orthodox church within the walls of the school. Patriot of the Fatherland, according to the head. library of Olga Silchenko, they won’t stand for the price. In particular, the famous philanthropist Baron Eduard Falz-Fein, grandson of the director of the page corps (1900 - 1906), Infantry General N.A. Epanchin, said that he was giving 40 thousand dollars for this good cause.

The Corps of Pages is a privileged military educational institution designed to prepare the sons of “honored parents” for service in the retinue of His Imperial Majesty and in the guard troops. Gave general and military education and appropriate upbringing. The Corps of Pages as a military educational institution that trained thousands of officers for imperial guard, was established on October 10, 1802 by Emperor Alexander I in accordance with the project of Count N.P. Sheremetev and Major General F.I. Klinger.

According to the testimony of one of the directors of the Corps of Pages, Infantry General N.A. Epanchin, as a court institution, pages were still in Muscovite Rus', and they were called “rynds,” and under Peter I the title of page of the Highest Court appeared. Peter I became acquainted with the service and life of pages in 1697 from the Elector of Brandenburg. In 1711, after Peter I declared Catherine I empress, pages appeared under her. According to a number of historians, the boys Pyotr Ivanovich Yaguzhinsky, who became a count and rose to the position of chief prosecutor, and A.M. Diver, a count, adjutant general, and the first chief general of police of Russia, can be considered pages under Peter I. As for Pyotr Yaguzhinsky, the question of his service as a page raises serious doubts among some researchers.

At the beginning of the reign Elizaveta Petrovna For the first time, the number of chamber-pages was officially established - 8 people, and pages - 24. She announced this by a special decree on October 5, 1742. The Empress’s personal decree defined in detail the duties and rights of pages. This is one of the very first decrees concerning the internal life of pages. Pages were considered court servants, and their duties were to carry out various assignments for the persons of the Royal House.

The decree provided for the residence of the chamberlain, gouffurier, teachers and pages in the house that had previously belonged to Admiral Kruys, determined the procedure for attending classes, serving on ordinary days, Sundays, holidays, during the empress’s trip to Peterhof, Tsarskoe Selo and other places. Attention was drawn to the proper maintenance by pages of their appearance, hairstyle, clothing, keeping it “clean and in good repair”, to proper behavior during receptions, “so that no indecent acts and frolics and ridicule of anyone are made, and in the case of banquets with don’t take tables of food, sweets and other things.” The decree provided for limiting contacts of pages with strangers at the place of residence.

Teachers were required to provide quality training for pages, monitor their progress, and constantly inform the Court Office about the quality of their studies. Pages were prohibited from leaving the apartments in which they lived without permission, and in case of illness they had to immediately report to the court physician. If pages violated the established order, they should first of all report to the Court Office. The chamberlain had the responsibility to use reasonable initiative when necessary. This instruction for the first time clearly defined the duties of pages and established the procedure for pages to perform court service, which had previously been performed according to the tradition established by the chief marshals and their assistants. The decree signed by the empress legitimized what practice had developed.

According to historians, the instructions approved by the empress finally turned the court half-board into a court nobility educational institution, for the first time officially called the “Corps of Pages.” In paragraph 14 of the instructions it was stated that in order to “deliver the said chamber-pages and pages to the palace and back to their apartment from the court stable, two four-seater carriages must be supplied to the Page Corps.” In 1757 there was a sharp change in the life of the corps. Karl Efimovich Sivers was appointed chamberlain, who did a lot to organize the life of the pages. In September 1759, he was replaced by Colonel Fedor-Heinrich Schudi, specially discharged from France.

Pages were required to be taught German, French and Latin, physics, geometry, algebra, history, geography, fortification and heraldry. Particular attention was paid to instilling appropriate etiquette in the pages. As the authors of the publication dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Corps of Pages note, the teaching of the listed subjects was conducted poorly; there were no full-time teachers on the staff of the corps. The pages were constantly distracted from their studies to accompany the empress, who led a fairly active life. But they turned a blind eye to this, considering pages to be servants at court. Pages often stayed in the palace until 2-3 o'clock in the morning, and they were required to report to classes by 7 o'clock in the morning. To eliminate this inconvenience, a proposal was made to divide the pages into two shifts, one part of the pages should study, and the other should serve in the palace.

Under Elizabeth Petrovna, pages with torches in their hands participated in the funeral processions accompanying the body of the deceased highest person; on the days of coronation celebrations they accompanied the carriage of the empress and grand duchesses on horseback; during the coronation procession they invariably followed the cavalry guards with their chamberlain at the head. When foreign embassies arrived, pages again rode behind the imperial carriage, and they stood at the door when receiving ambassadors. Pages were present at banquets, serving the highest persons, handed invitation cards that determined the seating arrangement during a banquet, lunch or dinner, and carried playing cards those guests who preferred to spend the evening at the card table. Pages accompanied the empress on her travels and pilgrimages. They also had to serve their daily service at the royal table, where they served. There were also reit-pages and yagt-pages, whose duty was to accompany the empress when riding and hunting. The pages also had to carry out various assignments within the city and in the immediate vicinity.

The punishments applied to pages were not always humane. Thus, in the Chamber-Fourier journal for 1752, an entry was made that the page Peter Argamakov, leaving the hall where a dinner for high-ranking persons was being held, informed his friends about the promotion of one of those present at the dinner. Argamakov had no right to talk about this, and he was punished with rods. Taking into account that Argamakov did this out of simplicity of heart, it was decided to flog him with rods not in the kitchen in the palace, but at a meeting of the pages in their apartment.

Under Elizaveta Petrovna, the brothers Alexander Ivanovich and Pyotr Ivanovich Shuvalov, who were pages under her, were elevated to prominence. Alexander was first a page, then a chamberlain of Elizabeth Petrovna, later he became a full-time chamberlain, a non-commissioned lieutenant, and finally a major general, a count, an adjutant general, an chief general and the manager of the “secret chancellery.” Pyotr Ivanovich began his service as a page under Peter I, was a chamberlain cadet under Elizaveta Petrovna, then was promoted to chamberlain, major general, and field marshal general. Pyotr Ivanovich did a lot for Russian army, managing the artillery and weapons office. It was he who drew up the project for transforming the United Engineering and Artillery School into the Artillery and Engineering Gentile Cadet Corps.

The Shuvalov brothers also helped their nephew, Ivan Ivanovich Shuvalov, who played an important role in the history of education, to become a public figure - I.I. Shuvalov stood at the origins of the formation of Moscow University and the Academy of Arts. First a page, then a page-chamber and a chamber-cadet, he later became a lieutenant general and received the rank of adjutant general. He was the director of the Land Noble Cadet Corps. In 1778, I.I. Shuvalov was appointed chief chamberlain, and his duties included reporting to the empress on the state of affairs in the Corps of Pages. For nearly twenty years he was closely associated with the corps, which he himself completed.

Another former page under Elizaveta Petrovna, Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov, was a chamber page, a court cadet, a chamber cadet, the empress's secretary, vice-chancellor and, finally, became chancellor. For ten years he led foreign policy Russia. Young people who became pages at the end of the 53th century, according to historians, could learn practically little in the educational institution created for them, except languages and dances. But they gained experience communicating with high-ranking officials, and if fate smiled on them, they could achieve great heights in the civil or military field.

Under CatherineII The staff of the corps was increased and by 1786 there were 18 chamber-pages and 60 pages. In July 1762, the corps moved to the Naumov House, and after that to the old Winter Palace. Since 1766, the building was located in Amosov's two-story stone house on the Moika. This house was purchased by direct order of Catherine II and fully belonged to the Corps of Pages. In 1788, the building moved again, now to Millionnaya Street, to a house purchased from Senator Zavadovsky.

At the end of the 70s. In the Corps of Pages, a reform was undertaken in the field of education and training of pages. The reform project was entrusted to the development of Academician Miller, who by this time had gained great fame in Russia. In 1733, Miller took part in the Siberian expedition of V. Bering, knew well the life of Russia in the outback, and based on the results of the expedition he prepared a detailed report with maps, drawings and diagrams. His work was recognized as outstanding by the Academy of Sciences and by the Empress herself. In November 1747, Miller was entrusted with compiling a “general Russian history.”

Miller approached the task assigned with exceptional responsibility. His plan first of all provided for the location of the Corps of Pages in a building specially allocated for this purpose under the supervision of a page chamberlain and a teacher. These had to be scientists, smart and moral people. It was the chamberlain who had to be responsible for the moral character of the pages, for their health, the organization of training sessions, and the preparation of educational plans. The chamberlain, according to Miller, had to combine in one person the positions of director, class inspector and stand close to the students.

The staff of pages was to be distributed among teachers, 10-12 people for each teacher. Teachers were supposed to sleep in the same room with their students, eat with them, and constantly conduct useful conversations. The absence of a teacher from the building was allowed only in case of illness. Miller's main idea regarding teachers was to combine educational and teaching functions in one person.

Miller saw in the Corps of Pages a kind of professional court military-civil school, aimed primarily at training courtiers officials, and then officers for the army and persons for the civil service. According to Miller, studying in the corps was supposed to preserve cheerfulness in students and the desire for constant excellence. And in order for students to be able to successfully combine court service and training in the corps, teachers were asked to return to the material they had covered as often as possible and give students weekly tests on the material they had covered.

As a curriculum, Miller proposed the following subjects for study: God's Law, Russian language, penmanship, drawing, arithmetic, geometry, ethics, French, German, Italian and Latin, history, geography, military sciences, law. Miller described in detail the requirements for teaching each subject. It should be noted that while noting the importance of each of the subjects, Miller made special demands on the teaching of penmanship, since handwriting and the ability to write beautifully were of great importance for a civilian career. A person who could write beautifully could always count on working in some institution. Ethics was considered so important that it was proposed to deal with it from childhood, instructing little pupils to act in the spirit of good and warning them against evil. When teaching ethics, it was proposed to make extensive use of history lessons, memorize the sayings and statements of outstanding figures and philosophers. Knowledge of foreign languages had to be brought to perfection so that pages could express themselves freely and correctly in a foreign language.

As one of the authors of the history of the Corps of Pages, D.M. Levshin, testifies, Miller’s arguments, written in 1765, did not lose their significance at the beginning of the twentieth century. Military disciplines are not included among the subjects offered for study in the Corps of Pages. They were offered to study, as we now say, optionally for those who were interested in military affairs. Dancing and horse riding were offered as extracurricular activities.

Miller's approach to the selection of teachers for the corps is interesting. The mathematics teacher had to teach students arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, geodesy, artillery and fortification; teacher of philosophy - ethics, natural and international law, Latin; history teacher - history itself, geography, genealogy, heraldry; teacher of jurisprudence - civil and state law and the basics of ceremonies. These four teachers were also intended for educational work. In addition to the four teachers named, who were supposed to play the role of senior teachers, eight more teachers were invited to teach individual subjects. When drawing up the lesson schedule, it was necessary to strictly take into account the age of the pages and their success in certain subjects. According to many researchers, the treatise prepared by Miller was one of the outstanding documents of pedagogy and could be widely used in a wide variety of educational institutions. Studying Russia and Russian history, Miller realized that Russia needs, first of all, a vocational school. Unfortunately, Miller's proposals could only be partially implemented in the Corps of Pages and other educational institutions. The reason for this was the lack of teaching staff.

To correct this situation, Catherine II decided to send six pages to the University of Leipzig in 1766: Alexei Kutuzov, Pyotr Chelishchev, Alexei Rubanovsky, Alexander Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Radishchev and Sergei Yanov. Russian students showed their best side at the university. Within a short time, they successfully mastered the subjects they studied, despite the great temptations of life abroad compared to the conditions in Russia. Each of the pages listed above has reached certain heights in the state and civil service. Alexander Radishchev became a writer. For his book “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow,” in which he called on the authorities to abolish serfdom in Russia, Radishchev was exiled by Catherine II to Siberia and released from exile only by Paul I. Former pages, contemporaries of A.N. Radishchev, respected and loved their friend for his intelligence and ability to write, they considered him the first page-writer.

In April 1788, a new procedure for the preparation and training of pages, developed by Senator Zavadovsky, was established in the Corps of Pages. The training program was expanded to include military disciplines. It officially included artillery and fortification, fencing, and horse riding. The duration of training in the corps was set at eight years. Class hours were strictly scheduled by age, and a daily routine was determined that would best fit with court service. A feature of the new training program was that the Corps of Pages was recognized as an educational institution preparing graduates for military service, and preparation for civil service was relegated to the background.

The former page Brusilov, talking about court life in the last years of the reign of Catherine II, noted: “When I was eight years old, I entered the Corps of Pages. In total, 60 people were trained in the corps. The pages lived two or three people per room. Everyone had their own uncle. Pages did not have official dress; everyone dressed as they wanted. The chamber-pages did not go to the dining room; food was brought to them in their rooms. The pages went to the dining room at random, at the signal of the bell. There were four classes in the building. The first taught basic literacy and arithmetic; in the second - Greek, Latin, German and French languages, grammar, ancient and new history, geography, arithmetic and alegbre; in the third grade, geometry, mineralogy and fencing were added to these subjects; in the fourth - higher sciences and fortification. They taught us carelessly. We did not know the Latin and Greek alphabet, and the French and German languages were not much better. In most cases, we were left to our own devices, played a lot of pranks, and often did not go to classes. Some hired private teachers.

The composition of the pages was quite strange. Those who were more knowledgeable were promoted to chamber-pages, and from chamber-pages they were released into the guard as lieutenants. The procession in the chamber-pages took place in the spirit of knightly traditions: the page knelt, the empress touched his cheek with her hand, and handed him a sword. Pages who stayed in the corps for more than 9 years were released into the army as captains. For service, pages wore a uniform of light green cloth. The ceremonial uniform was very rich and cost up to 700 rubles. On special days, the ceremonial uniform was given to the pages, and then returned to the storeroom. To some of the guests, in our attire we looked like high-ranking officials, and we enjoyed laughing about it on occasion.

On ordinary days, eight pages were dressed up for duty: four for half the empress and four for half the heir. But since the heir lived in Gatchina, all eight pages were on the side of the empress. Our position was as follows: there were two pages at the cavalier's room, two at the entrance to the throne room and two at the entrance to the diamond room. When the Grand Dukes and Grand Duchesses entered, we opened the doors. Two chamber-pages served at the Empress's dining table, and the pages served those persons who sat at the Empress's table. During the service, we had no right to talk, much less laugh, if there was a reason for it. I had to hide behind the curtains.”

Brusilov further recalled: “After the capture of Warsaw, the glorious Suvorov arrived in St. Petersburg. The Tauride Palace was assigned to him; here, according to his custom, he, having hung all the mirrors and lying on straw, received the guards officers. He was invited to the empress's table. On the same day, his daughter Countess Zubova and her husband were invited. Everyone gathered in the diamond room, where the table was set, and waited for the empress. Suvorov ran into the room, jumped up to his daughter, crossed her, then crossed her stomach (she was in trouble).

The empress entered and seated the hero next to her on her left hand. Suvorov was in a ceremonial field marshal's uniform, embroidered with gold at all seams, and he had diamond insignia of St. Andrew, a diamond epaulette and a large diamond bow on his hat. Throughout lunch he talked about the assault.

The Empress ate quietly. In order not to delay the table, the dishes were served in their own order, and the empress head waiter served on two, and sometimes on four plates, those dishes that had already been surrounded. She would choose one.

Suvorov, talking about the assault, also lagged behind the others by three or four courses. The Empress looked at Baryatinsky, and immediately two head waiters brought Suvorov two plates from each side. As if he didn’t know what to do with them, he put everything on his plate, mixed it and began to eat. Nobody even smiled. At the end of the table, the empress deigned to retire to the inner apartments. Suvorov, without saying a word to anyone, began to pinch the Kalmychen, jumping around him, and bothering him. He started to run, Suvorov followed him. Not having caught up with the Kalmyk, he threw his hat with a diamond bow at him, ran down the stairs, got into the carriage and drove off.”

According to the testimony of the same Brusilov, the pages loved to commit minor mischief and hooliganism. Often, in the presence of the Empress, they made fun of elderly nobles, managing to tie the nobles’ wigs to a chair or armchair from behind, and when they stood up to bow when the Empress appeared, the wigs flew off their heads. For such jokes, the pages got off with a light reprimand from Catherine II herself, who sometimes liked to see her nobles in a funny position. One of the favorite pastimes of the pages was to steal cartridges from cavalry guards dozing at their guard posts and throw these cartridges into the fireplace. The explosion of cartridges greatly amused the pages. In one of the halls of the Winter Palace, pages were having a ride on their hats. Scarves were tied to the hat, one of the pages sat on the hat, and three others dragged this page along the slippery floor of the hall. After one such ride, the hat, embroidered with gold, became unusable.

Of the pages who served Catherine II, Semyon Romanovich Vorontsov, a Knight of St. George, who distinguished himself during the war with the Turks in the battles of Larga and Cahul, and the Russian Ambassador to England, achieved a high state position; Prince Sergei Alexandroviya Morkov, who received three degrees of the Order of St. George; Count Tormasov, hero of the war of 1812, Count Cozens, founder of horse farms under Alexander I; hero of the war of 1812, favorite of M.I. Kutuzov, Knight of St. George Dmitry Sergeevich Dokhturov; Alexey Petrovich Melgunov, director of the Land Noble Cadet Corps, governor of the Novorossiysk Territory, Yaroslavl, Kostroma and Arkhangelsk provinces. Under Catherine II, most pages from court servants became military men and most of them achieved high positions

With accession to the throne PavelI Changes also occurred in the life of the Corps of Pages. The new emperor tried to give the corps a more military appearance, the positions of reit and yagt-pages were eliminated, and the 5 chamber-pages chosen for duty with His Majesty’s person were ordered to be called life-pages. In December 1796, the next graduation of pages was made, and 25 new students were recruited. On October 7, 1800, Paul I ordered the release of life pages as lieutenants of the guard, with their appointment as wing adjutants, chamber pages as ensigns and cornets of the guard, and pages with the same ranks in the army . In 1800, the Corps of Pages graduated from the future complete gentleman Order of St. George, Field Marshal Life Page I.F. Paskevich.

Under Paul I, a regulation was drawn up on the Corps of Pages and the procedure for serving as pages at the Imperial Court, but Paul I did not have time to approve it. It was approved by Alexander I. During the coronation of the new Emperor Alexander I, the Corps of Pages consisted of 4 sections: the first - one chamber-page and 11 pages, the second - 6 chamber-pages and 5 pages, the third - 4 chamber-pages and 7 pages, fourth - 12 pages. The director of the corps at that time was Major General Fedor Sergeevich Shaposhnikov.

CREATION OF THE CORPS OF PAGES

Emperor AlexanderIby decree of October 10, 1802 transformed the Corps of Pages that existed before him into a military educational institution and ordered to call this institution the Corps of Pages of His Imperial Majesty.

The seniority of the Corps of Pages was determined by the day Alexander I signed the decree on transforming the existing educational institution into a military educational institution of a completely new type. The corps holiday was determined to be December 25th. It should be noted that when determining the seniority of the Corps of Pages, the tradition was violated to a certain extent, according to which the seniority of a newly created educational institution in most cases was determined by the time of founding of the educational institution that preceded it. Even before the issuance of the decree of October 10, 1802, Alexander I instructed the director of the 1st Cadet Corps, Major General Fyodor Ivanovich Klinger, to draw up a new Regulation for the Corps of Pages. Giving instructions to F.I. Klinger, Alexander I expressed the desire to see in the pages students studying science and receiving military education, and not young men serving at court. Thus, the main objective

On October 10, 1802, at the headquarters of the Corps of Pages, F.I. Klinger presented the Decree of Alexander I on the transformation of the Corps of Pages and the new Regulations for it. The Regulations stated: “The Corps of Pages is a school for the education of morals and character, in which the knowledge necessary for an officer is given; This corps is, collectively, a military institution in which noble youth, through education, are prepared for military service by strict obedience, complete subordination and not forced, but voluntary performance of their duties.” 29-year-old Major General Genrikh Grigorievich Gogel, who participated in the assault on Izmail and other battles against the Turks under the leadership of A.V. Suvorov, was appointed director of the corps.

One of the important provisions when establishing the Corps of Pages was to instill discipline among the pages “according to the precepts of Suvorov - by show.” And educational officers, in this case tutors, had to serve as a personal example for their students. Organizationally, the pages constituted a company, commanded by a staff officer who bore the rank of chamberlain. The company was divided into 4 squads, the role of squad commanders was performed by junior officers - tutors. Drill training classes were supposed to develop the pages' ability to keep themselves in ranks and familiarize them with various formations and drill techniques. The chamber-pages were required to be trained to command the formation and teach the squad how to use weapons. The pages carried out guard duty, for which a so-called picket (or guard) was formed of 12 pages with a corporal and a drummer under the command of a page-chamber. Pages were posted at posts established by the palace commandant.

At the beginning of the 19th century. there were four classes in the Corps of Pages. The training program approved for pages became more complex from class to class. At the same time, in the third and fourth grades, significant emphasis was placed on military disciplines. The training program included Russian, French and German languages, penmanship, geography, Russian, European and world history, arithmetic, geometry, trigonometry, physics, drawing, God's Law, fortification, artillery, history of diplomatic and political relations between states. In the first class, there were no military disciplines, in the second, pages began to study field fortification, in the third, artillery already appeared, and in the fourth, long-term fortification.

The right to enroll as pages was granted to the sons and grandsons of: military and civil officials of the first three classes (according to the Table of Ranks); persons who held the position of governor-general, envoys, provincial leaders of the nobility (if they held these positions at the rank of no lower than major general or actual state councilor), major generals who were killed in battle or served in this rank for at least five years; finally, to the great-grandchildren of persons of the first two classes, bearing the surname of their great-grandfathers.

In this regard, N.A. Epanchin wrote in his memoirs: “The sons and grandsons of full generals and admirals, lieutenant generals and vice admirals, and under certain conditions, major generals and rear admirals, for example, Knights of St. George, were enlisted as pages. In principle, all the pages were of noble origin. But there were fathers and grandfathers, who through their service reached well-known ranks of generals, and were of non-noble origin. Sons and grandsons of natives of the Grand Duchy of Finland were also enrolled as pages; for such persons there were five vacancies in the Corps of Pages, and for them it was not required that their fathers and grandfathers had a certain official position, as was established for the Russians.”

Initially, the Corps of Pages, established in 1802, was located on Fontanka, and in 1810 it was given the residence of Prince Vorontsov’s palace on Sadovaya Street, where the Chapter of the Order of Malta had previously been located. The staff of the corps at this time was 50 pages and 16 chamber-pages. Mikhail Illarionovich Vorontsov, a statesman and diplomat, took a direct part in the palace coup of 1741, as a result of which Elizaveta Petrovna was elevated to the Russian throne. It was in his sleigh that the future empress rode on an autumn night to raise the Preobrazhensky Regiment. She never forgot about this support. Three years after the accession to the throne of Elizabeth Petrovna, M.I. Vorontsov was awarded the title of count and became vice-chancellor. When Vorontsov decided to build a city estate, the Empress did not object to him rebuilding a house in the center of St. Petersburg, and the architect was F.B. Rastrelli.

The main facade of the Vorontsov Palace faces Sadovaya Street, and behind it, facing the Fontanka, lies a large park. The palace was fenced off from the street by a lattice cast according to the design of the architect himself. The interior decoration of the palace was striking in its sophistication; every detail of decoration was a work of art. On November 23, 1758, a church was consecrated in the Vorontsov palace. On this day, “Her Imperial Majesty deigned to eat with His Excellency and granted him her chancellor, and for housewarming she handed him a decree for 40,000 rubles.” The chancellor lived in his palace for five years. A.V. Suvorov, who had a good relationship with the owner, loved to stay with him. After his resignation, M.I. Vorontsov sold his house to the treasury.

From 1798 to 1803 the palace belonged to the Knights of the Order of Malta, who found shelter in Russia after they were expelled from Malta by the French. Paul I became their Grand Master. By his order, a Roman Catholic church (Maltese Chapel) was built in the Vorontsov Palace by the architect Kvarnegi, which on June 17, 1800 was solemnly consecrated in honor of the patron of the order, St. John the Baptist. In the autumn of the same year, the Orthodox Church of the Corps of Pages was built, consecrated on June 21, 1801 in honor of the birth of St. John the Baptist. As if in memory of the covenants knights of malta Orthodox Church was decorated with Maltese crosses - the emblem of chivalry. The short stay of the knights in the Vorontsov palace left an imprint on the fate of its subsequent inhabitants. The three-story palace was spacious, imposing and beautiful. The halls were larger than required for the purposes of the educational institution: one of them was used exclusively for dance classes.

The main person responsible for the educational process in the Corps of Pages, as in the cadet corps, was the class inspector. He was responsible for the recruitment of teachers, controlled the educational process, the progress of students, and through officer-educators influenced careless and poorly performing students. At the beginning of September, the class inspector, in the presence of the director and officers, examined the pages and determined the place of each page on the corps list.

Officers, commanders of squads, had an apartment to live next to the bedroom of their squad and had to be with their pages around the clock, including eating with their squad. They were responsible for constant monitoring of the behavior and performance of the pages, and for their proper performance of guard duty in the palace. The officers had to be polite and courteous with the pages, not show anger and not lose patience when dealing with them, and cultivate honor and nobility in the pages. The officers had to get acquainted with the families of the pages, visit them and inform the parents about the successes and shortcomings of the children. On the first day of each month, the educational officer submitted a report to the corps director about the state of affairs in the department, and the director reported this to the corps chief. The chamberlain and company commander were responsible for the performance of court service by the pages; the corps director did not interfere in this area of activity.

Order on the territory of the corps was maintained by the so-called corps police, which included two non-commissioned officers and a doorman. The porter was required to keep strict records of everyone entering and leaving the building. He had no right to release pages from the corps without a “ticket” signed by an officer for the right to leave the corps. However, pages circumvented this rule by bribing the doorman. The doors of the building opened at 7.30 and closed at 22.00.

The corps maintained a strict procedure for the production of pages as chamber pages. Since promotion to chamber pages was considered one of the most important incentive measures, the educational officer applying for the promotion of someone to chamber pages was required to draw up a certification, which was reported to the director. At the same time, certification was also prepared by the class inspector. The most severe punishment for pages was expulsion from the corps and sending them to their parents or to serve in combat units. Pages could be put under arrest, their behavior reported to the chief of the corps, and he directly to the emperor, who decided their fate. The emperor showed great daily interest in the life of the corps and was interested in everything that happened in it. For repeated violations of discipline, pages were subjected to “the strictest punishment,” which meant rods. The flogging of pages had to be carried out in the presence of officers, students and the director of the corps. It should be noted that in the Regulations for the Corps they considered it inconvenient to mention rods and wrote about “the strictest punishment.”

In the winter of 1812, 14-year-old page Mankovsky was detained in a confectionery shop for presenting a false banknote for payment. As it turned out, the page himself tried to forge this note with a pen. The military governor of St. Petersburg, Adjutant General A.D. Balashov, a graduate of the Corps of Pages, Mankovsky was arrested, and his offense was immediately reported to the director of the corps and the emperor. Alexander I ordered “page Mankovsky to be roughly punished for his daring actions (with rods - author’s note) at a meeting of the entire Corps of Pages, and then dressed in a gray dress, kept for a whole year outside the society of pages under special supervision over his behavior.” Only five months later this punishment was lifted from Mankovsky. He was released from the corps by an officer.

The establishment of a new educational institution did not affect the court service at all. Major General Fyodor Yakovlevich Mirkovich, director of the 2nd Cadet Corps, who was educated in the Corps of Pages from 1805 to 1809, recalled: “For service at the Court, the chamber-pages were distributed as follows: on half of the Sovereign and the reigning Empress there were four chambers each -page. Under the Dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna, there were eight page-chambers, divided into four shifts. After morning classes, the chamber-pages who served Maria Feodorovna combed their hair, powdered their hair, dressed in vice uniforms and by 12 o'clock went to the palace on duty, where they waited for the Empress to leave on horseback and accompanied her during her walk. After returning to the palace, the pages changed clothes for table service. These dinners were extremely interesting for us, since the conversations of the guests present at them were wonderful. The service of a chamber-page under the Empress in Pavlovsk and Gatchina from spring to autumn was very pleasant. At the age of 18 and 19, the entertainment that took place had its own charm: holidays, walks, dances, theaters, red tape made our heads spin. After being on duty for a week, returning to the building, we devoted ourselves to learning with complete dedication and sometimes spent nights reading books and study notebooks. The sense of ambition was so strong, none of us wanted to go out with the rank of ensign.”

After the transformation of the corps into a military educational institution, for a long time the old order operated in the corps, with which the new authorities had to fight. By the time the corps moved to Vorontsov’s palace in 1810, the new order was almost completely established. From that time on, examinations for the rank of chamber-page began to be held in the corps. At the same time, it was determined that promotion to officers upon completion of the corps would be carried out only after an exam. This decision came as a big surprise to the pages, who believed that the release from the hull was carried out without any testing. Pages who had reached the age of 19 and had not shown diligence in their studies had to kindly ask the director of the corps not to subject them to the exam, since “they were forced to begin their studies at such years when young people begin to lose their abilities.” All such applicants were denied their request, and they were required to take the exam on an equal basis with all graduates. Thanks to the efforts of the first directors of the Corps of Pages, by 1810 the corps had become one of the best educational institutions in Russia.

The War of 1812 caused a surge of patriotism in the Corps of Pages. Many high school cadets dreamed of completing their studies faster and going to fight Napoleon. One of the first to leave the corps was the page Gersevanov, who entered military service without waiting for his parents’ permission. Gersevanov’s example captivated many other pages who studied in the corps. The fate of the Corps of Pages graduates who fell in the first battles did not bother them. They were more concerned about the glory associated with the names of former pages who distinguished themselves in battle, including generals Tormasov, Dokhturov, Khrapovitsky, Count Sivers, Count Rastopchin, Velyaminov, Potemkin, and others. Many pages, under the guise of illness, were dismissed from the corps, and then entered the regiments as non-commissioned officers, where they were promoted to officers for distinction in battle and, of course, overtook their classmates in the service who continued to study in the corps.

The director of the corps was categorically against the pages leaving the corps early, and tried in every possible way to convince the students of the harmfulness of such an act, especially taking into account the fact that large amounts of money had already been spent on their training and education. However, in the second half of 1812, the corps began to receive letters from parents asking them to release their children from the corps early and allow them to defend their homeland in the fight against Napoleon. The emperor complied with the wishes of the pages and their parents. In August 1812, 49 chamber-pages and pages were released early. In November, 6 more pages were added to this group and promoted to officers. At the end of 1812, the question arose about the possible evacuation of the corps from St. Petersburg. However, this action was not carried out.

The ferment of minds that began in Russian society after the War of 1812 also reached the Corps of Pages. For the first time in many years of the corps' existence in the early 20s. clear cases of disobedience to superiors were noted. Page Pavel Arsenyev spoke rudely to the teacher during a lesson, for which he was put under arrest, and then he was to be punished with canings. During the execution of this punishment, several pages rushed to help Arsenyev. The punishment was carried out with great difficulty. Arsenyev and one of his friends were expelled from the corps. At the same time, the expulsion of the future poet Baratynsky from the Corps of Pages, accused, along with two other pages, of stealing a tortoiseshell snuffbox in a gold frame and 500 rubles from Chamberlain Priklonsky. Baratynsky was 16 years old at that time and, despite the petition of the chamberlain himself, all three pages were expelled from the corps and sent to become soldiers.

According to many graduates of the corps, at the beginning of the 19th century. teachers and tutors, despite their overall high level of training, treated their duties formally, did not delve into the lives of young people, did not know what worried them, and were not interested in their inner world. All educational measures were reduced to reading lengthy lectures or applying disciplinary measures. At this time, teacher Colonel Klingenberg, a graduate of the 2nd Cadet Corps, who served in the Corps of Pages for 17 years, stood out for the better in the corps. According to the testimony of some pages, “Klingenberg was close to the pages, lived their lives with them, was simple, affectionate and sympathetic; the pages respected, loved and feared him at the same time.”

According to the recollections of corps graduate A.P. Daragan, at the beginning of the 19th century. sciences in the building were taught without a system, superficially, fragmentarily; Pages were transferred from class to class based on the total of all points, including points for behavior. Sometimes it turned out that a student who had not properly studied arithmetic began to study geometry and algebra. In the first class, the page-chambers even had a class political economy. The official of the mining department read physics, but also without any system. Almost every class began with the pages surrounding him and asking him to perform magic tricks at the next lesson. The teacher said that these were not tricks, but physical experiments. The expenses for the experiments were paid by the pages, collecting copper nickels for the next lesson, and before the lesson this money was poured out on the table. The teacher, embarrassed, hastily collected the change in a handkerchief and hid it somewhere.

Another former page Gangeblov recalled in the same connection: “Most of the teachers, in their appearance and their techniques, were distinguished by some kind of eccentricity. None of the teachers knew how to present their science in a worthy manner and instill love and respect for it. The teaching method consisted of dull learning by heart; there was no mention of any application to practice; everyone studied not in order to know anything, but in order to become an officer. History was taught worst of all. It was a dry enumeration of bare facts, without mention of morals, civilization, trade and other manifestations of people's life. In addition, we were taught only Russian and ancient history, we did not hear about the history of the Middle Ages and modern history. In the classes, students took places according to the seniority of the scores each received in a specific subject, therefore every two hours, with every teacher change, the students were seated differently.” As Daragan noted: “In history lessons they talked about Oleg’s horse and how Svyatoslav ate mare’s meat.”

From pages who were not lazy to study, small groups of two or four people were formed to prepare lessons. The pages owed their studies in these circles the knowledge with which they eventually left the Corps of Pages.

From September 1, final exams were held in the presence of the director, class inspector and all officers in the corps. In language subjects, each student read and translated the text aloud, on large boards under dictation, so that everyone could see, wrote the given text, and after correcting errors, performed a grammatical analysis of what was written; in mathematics, those called to the blackboard solved problems on large boards in front of the whole class; in history and geography, each of the examinees had to be ready to answer any question from those present at the exam; in artillery, fortification, physics, mechanics they decided various tasks, represented drawings of fortifications, drawings with pencil, pen or paint. Those present at the exam gave marks on the examination sheet, after which the results for each subject were separately summed up, the points were summed up and an overall mark was given.

Based on the results of the exams, in accordance with the scores obtained in the exams, a general graduation list was compiled, where each page was awarded his place. Chamber-pages aged 18 years and older were released as officers into the guard, their place was taken by the first pages according to the results of the exams. The remaining pages at least 18 years of age were released as officers into the army.

In 1814-20 The grandchildren of A.V. Suvorov studied in the Corps of Pages. Suvorov's daughter, Natalya Zubova, specifically asked permission from the director of the corps for her sons to live with the inspector of classes at Aude de Sion, whom A.V. Suvorov took from Switzerland to raise his son Arkady. As a special exception, this request was granted by the Emperor.

For almost fifteen years, the pages lived in quarters of the building, more suitable for palace life than for housing an educational institution. “In the room of the fourth department, where my bed was,” recalled page A.P. Daragan, “the ceiling depicted the liberation of Andromeda by Perseus. Without any coverings, the lovely Andromeda stood chained to a rock, and in front of her was Perseus, slaying the dragon. It is not clear how the idea did not occur to any of the authorities that these mythological pictures were not at all in place here, that the incessant involuntary contemplation of the naked charms of the goddesses could have a detrimental effect on the imagination of the pupils.” Only under Nicholas I was the reconstruction of the palace premises carried out for the needs of the military educational institution.

The same page described the procedure for changing the guard: “At the end of the morning lessons, at 12 o’clock the pages gathered in a small recreational room, lined up in sections, the next daily guard of 10 pages, a drummer and a chamber page came, Klingenberg appeared and did the divorce according to all the rules the then guard service. The guard was commanded by the cell page on duty. This was the only front-line formation of pages. There was no single bearing, no rifle techniques, no marching, except for marching to the dining room, with the pages stamping their feet mercilessly. True, in the summer one month was devoted to training the front - but this was more for the chamber-pages, who, as future officers, strove with great diligence to study the drill regulations. Since 1811, the Emperor established a drill exam for graduates.

In December 1811, Emperor Alexander I personally examined the pages and was pleased with the knowledge of the graduates. The first in this issue was the future Decembrist P.I. Pestel, and the second was Count Adlerberg, who later became a general and minister of the court, a close friend and adviser to the monarch under Emperor Alexander II. He was one of the active participants in the preparation and implementation of reforms in the 1860s and 1870s. And yet, the Corps of Pages became primarily a military institution. This directly affected the curriculum. In two special classes preceding graduation, military history, tactics, fortification, artillery, topography and a number of other subjects were systematically studied.

In 1819, the Corps of Pages came under the control of the Chief Director of Cadet Corps. In November 1819, a graduate of the 1st Cadet Corps, hero of the war of 1812, Count Pyotr Petrovich Konovnitsyn, was appointed Chief Director of the Page and Cadet Corps. Konovnitsyn was one of the favorites of the pages. When he appeared in the building, the pages surrounded the count and wanted to receive his “affectionate attention and participation.” Konovitsyn remained in this position for only three years. In 1822 P. Konovitsyn died.

During the reign of Emperor Alexander I, many high government posts were occupied by pages who graduated from the corps back in the 8th century. O.P. Kozodavlev was the Minister of Internal Affairs, Adjutant General A.D. Balashov was the Minister of Police, Prince A.N. Golitsyn was the Minister of Education, A.N. Olenin was the director of the Public Library for thirty-five years, he belonged to number of the most educated people of his era. The Academy of Sciences was headed by Count N.N. Novosiltsev, who did a lot for education in Russia, both military and general. A.N. Olenin, A.D. Balashov, N.N. Novosiltsev managed to prove themselves in the military field, taking part in the war in the Caucasus and with the Turks.

In all the wars waged by Alexander I, graduates of the Corps of Pages distinguished themselves. In 1803, in the Caucasus, A. Leontiev earned the 4th degree St. George Cross; in 1807, P.V. distinguished himself in the war with the Turks. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, near Austerlitz - Y.A. Potemkin, Count de Balmain, A.S. Kologrivov, V.A. Rusanov, I.F. Buksgevden, outstanding Russian diplomat and intelligence officer, future minister Prince A.I. Chernyshev. In 1810, during the war with the Turks, the future field marshal Prince I.F. Paskevich received George 4th degree; in 1811 he received George 3rd degree. In 1812, graduates of the Corps of Pages laid down their lives in the war with Napoleon: I.F. Buxgevden, A.B. Miller, A.P. Levshin, K.K. Sivers, A.F. Klinger and others. The first nobleman who decided to enter the teaching field was Glinka's page, who became a professor of literature at Yuryev University. Almost all the pages who acted as civilian figures under Alexander I served in the military, and most of them remained military until the end of their lives.

TRANSFORMATION OF THE CORPS OF PAGES INTO A MILITARY EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION

Under Alexander I, the Corps of Pages finally turned into a military educational institution. And the presence of the corps in buildings where the spirit of chivalry was in the air contributed to the cultivation of knightly traditions among the pages. Each person entering the corps was given a Gospel with a white Maltese knight's cross and the Testaments of the Knights of Malta. The eight covenants, which corresponded to the eight ends of the knight's cross, included: devotion to the teachings of the church, respect for the weak, love of the Motherland, mercilessness towards enemies, religious intransigence, loyalty to one's word, generosity and charity, service to goodness and justice. In all three companies of the corps, marble plaques with the commandments of the Knights of Malta carved in gold on the walls were fixed on the walls. The Maltese cross became the official badge of the Corps of Pages. Essentially, it was an elite military educational institution with special privileges, one of which was serving at the Highest Court on Christian holidays, birthdays of the emperor and members of the imperial family.

During the reign of NicholasI the military education system in Russia has acquired significant harmony, military educational institutions established in different time and having nothing in common with each other, in the era of the new emperor began to acquire a uniform external and internal order, conditions of discipline and drill training. The programs of the cadet corps and the Corps of Pages include fencing and gymnastics. For all military educational institutions, general laws and instructions and training programs appear. For the first time, general teaching aids and textbooks are being published. Uniforms and underwear begin to be sewn and adjusted separately for each student.

Under Nicholas I, the number of students in the Corps of Pages was increased to 150 students (16 chamber-pages and 134 pages). Boys were accepted into the corps from the third grade, and they studied for seven years. The building had seven general classes (with the curriculum of the seven classes of the cadet corps) and two special ones (with the course of military schools). All students of the corps bore the rank of pages, and upon moving to the senior special class, the best of them, upon the recommendation of their superiors, were personally promoted to chamber pages by the emperor. In terms of ranks, the pages were divided into three companies, the special classes constituted one company and were considered on active service; regarding execution conscription they were equated to volunteers. The corps issued pages to the infantry, cavalry, artillery and engineering troops. Based on the results of the final exams, chamber pages and pages of the senior special class were divided into four categories. Those assigned to the first three categories were released as second lieutenants into the guard, army or special forces; those assigned to the fourth category - non-commissioned officers in the army.

IN summer time The first company was withdrawn to the camp in Krasnoye Selo. For the first time, the Corps of Pages was brought to the camp at the end of July 1826. The pages advanced to the camp on foot, in marching order, made a halt in Krasny Zucchini, and spent the night in the village of Kikiniki. The performance was preceded by a ceremony in the presence of high-ranking officials. In the camp, pages, together with cadets from other cadet corps, took part in maneuvers and were engaged in drill and physical training. The first camp training lasted one month, subsequent training camps lasted up to a month and a half. In 1831, the heir, Tsarevich Alexander Nikolaevich, took part in the camp training of the corps, and in 1843, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich.

Much later, under Alexander II, during camp training, pages began to be involved in large maneuvers, they were alerted at night, and they were forced to travel several dozen miles. The pages were engaged in practical surveying of the area and the construction of defensive fortifications. Sometimes officers came to the camp General Staff to check the work and give any advice

In December 1826, the Corps of Pages was visited by Nicholas I. The result of his visit was a tightening of control over the lives of pages. They were ordered that the educational officers had the keys to the boxes where the pages kept things, textbooks and notebooks and controlled their contents. The same applied to “the chests under the beds where the clothes were kept.” The inspection was to be carried out suddenly and as often as possible. Pages were allowed to unfasten the top hooks of their uniforms during classes.

In 1835, the corps first introduced rules defining the essence of court service, the first point of which was: “Chamber-pages are honored with service at His Highest Imperial Majesty’s court: on Sundays, solemn and holiday days, as well as at balls.” . The rules described in detail the place of pages during service in the palace, in the theater, during ceremonial trips, and exits of the emperor and his retinue. Only a hundred years after the appearance of pages in Russia, the provisions of the service performed by pages for a century were formalized.

The charter of the corps, defining the goals in the field of education of pages, at the same time emphasized the need to “treat chamber-pages and pages politely, casually, decently and without rudeness, not only in deeds but also in words,” “since it is not fear, but conviction in their duties must guide them." The education system met the basic requirements of physical and moral education and was aimed at maintaining a healthy spirit, discipline, curiosity and a penchant for mental work. Horseback riding and fencing appeared among the subjects studied. The page-chambers began to be introduced to “the history of state treaties and negotiations,” with political structure European states and their management system. Page-chambers were required to be fluent and perfect in the foreign languages they were studying.

In the early 30s. Х1Х century The Vorontsov Palace was subjected to a radical restructuring. After reconstruction, the building was fully adapted to accommodate an educational institution. For the first time, the inscription appeared above the pediment: “The Corps of Pages of His Imperial Majesty.” In 1830, Major General A.A. was appointed director of the corps. Kavelin, who established himself as a caring and fair boss, which was especially evident in the promotion of pages to chamber-pages and the promotion of chamber-pages to officers. The main focus of A.A. Kavelin turned his attention to the educational part, which he found in an unsatisfactory condition. The teaching staff was completely replaced. In May 1834, P.N. Ignatiev, a graduate of the Corps of Pages, became the director of the corps, to whom Nicholas I, when appointed to the position, said: “Here is the Corps of Pages for you. You know that the children of my oldest and best servicemen are raised there. Set them on their feet so that they can serve like their fathers.”

For twelve years P.N. Ignatiev was the director of the corps, where he proved himself to be a strict and demanding teacher. The students were afraid of his appearance in exams, especially in the exam on Russian history, which he knew thoroughly. According to Prince Imeretinsky (graduated in 1848), “General Ignatiev was the complete master in the corps and did not lose sight of anyone or anything. He took into his own hands the preventive, punitive, and encouraging aspects of the activity. If no one could cope with a stubborn and undisciplined pupil, then as soon as the director asked him to come to him and said that he would write a letter to his father and mother, the pupil began to behave better. Ignatiev could not stand it if someone did not want or was afraid to admit their guilt. “He who is afraid to admit guilt will be a coward on the battlefield,” General Ignatiev liked to tell his pages.” Under Alexander II, A.P. Ignatiev became chairman of the Committee of Ministers. Three ministers sat with him on the committee, from his former page pupils: Greig (Minister of Finance), Makov (Minister of Internal Affairs), Heyden (“for Minister of War”).

A bright mark on the life of the Corps of Pages was left by the company commander, Colonel Karl Karlovich Girardot, who served in the corps for thirty years. He appeared in the corps in 1831 and from the first steps set to work with great diligence and love. Having started his career by teaching French in grades 4 and 5, he immediately won the love of his students. A former page, Lieutenant General V.S. Semeka (graduated in 1834), commander of the troops of the Odessa Military District, recalled: “Girardot held the modest rank of company commander. But he was known to many generations of pages and, therefore, to many in St. Petersburg and throughout Russia. Girardot was the soul and engine of everything that was done in the corps, with the exception of the educational part, in which he wisely avoided interfering. He kept up with everything, looked at those beginning to study at the front, who were training in the dormitories, at those who were learning techniques with guns in the halls. The guards preparing for the divorce were trained by Girardot himself. We are just getting ready to try on uniforms, and Girardot is already sitting in the reserve room by the window on a chair, and next to him is the captain with a chalk in his hands. Not a single jacket, not a single uniform, overcoat, or ammunition was made without Girardot. Girardot closely monitored the food supplied to the corps. Every day in the morning he went to the kitchen to look at the beef or other products that had been delivered. In the dance class, he was especially interested in learning how to bow, the art of bowing. The impeccably neat Girardot made a list at the beginning of the year of who and where of the chamber-pages and pages would serve. Chatting incessantly with the pages in French about all kinds of subjects and doing this not three or four times a week, like a teacher, but every day, he taught not for school, but for life. Setting an example of exemplary accuracy, he insistently demanded the same from his students.”

Before dismissal to the city, each page was given a ticket (dismissal note - author's note), to whom exactly and until what time the pupil was dismissed. On the back of the ticket there was an inscription: “Always and in everything observe the rules of politeness and decency, as well as uniform and cleanliness in clothing. All Messrs. generals, headquarters and chief officers to do the front. Be on the street and in public meetings with an escort and have your ticket with you.” On the corporal and chamber-page tickets at the bottom there was added: “As a sign of special power of attorney, you are allowed to walk unaccompanied.” Girardot went out into the city on Saturdays and “caught” pages who did not front outside officers. By this he instilled fear in the pages, and they themselves watched so as not to miss any officer. Girardot left the corps in 1856, was promoted to major general, and was given a government apartment on the territory of the corps.

In the early - mid 40s. Х1Х century The quality of teaching in most disciplines has increased significantly in the building. Reviews of the pages themselves about their teachers differ great variety. According to some pages, in the corps they taught “something” and “somehow.” According to others, there were teachers in the building, especially professors from St. Petersburg University, who captivated the students with their lectures and practical exercises and taught the pages to think independently. In principle, the majority of graduates of the Corps of Pages agree that throughout the entire period of the existence of the corps, those pages who sought to gain solid knowledge, and were able to convince him of this by their parents or the example of senior pages, actually had the opportunity to obtain very good knowledge.

Prince Imeretinsky recalled in this regard: “In general, the composition of the teachers was far from ideal. There were people of routine who did not go beyond “from here to there.” It is clear that our knowledge was incomplete, fragmentary and soon disappeared. True, history, statistics, Russian literature, mathematics and chemistry in the last two classes were taught by professors, luminaries of science of that time. Only good students studied in the building. Very little attention was paid to those who were lazy and did not want to learn; teachers gave up on them and left their scientific knowledge to the will of fate.” In the classroom, the “lazy” occupied the back benches, the so-called “mountain,” and often from the “mountain” they tried to dictate their terms to the teachers, who were slack when conducting lessons and could not demand that students observe strict discipline. In one of the classes, on the back bench, sat the main ringleader, Kratz, a short, broad-shouldered, stocky young man with great strength.”

A graduate of the corps, D. Korsakov, noted that there were many excellent and even outstanding teachers in the corps. In the two senior classes, Russian literature teachers Klassovsky and Petrov were popular. In the mouth of Klassovsky, literary works received special expressiveness and attractiveness. These teachers left wonderful memories of themselves. Military history and tactics were taught by class inspector I.F. Ortenberg and Colonel of the General Staff P.S. Lebedev, who had an extraordinary memory and oratory. Artillery - famous artillerymen Generals N.A. Baumgart and N.F. Egerstrom. The works of fortification teacher A.Z. Telyakovsky were very famous abroad. Chemistry was taught by the outstanding professor and artilleryman Shishkov. History - outstanding historians Shulgin and Shakeev. A teacher of French literature would choose, for example, one of the scenes of a famous work by Corneille or Racine to study in the language and distribute roles among the students. One of the main characters of the work and those participating in the scene with him volunteered to answer characters. They lined up in front of the teacher and loudly, with the right intonations, acted out a scene, which the whole class listened attentively. In general, there was a strong opinion among historians that the teaching staff of the Corps of Pages during the time of Emperor Nicholas I was significantly stronger than what came before him.

Pages often tried to exploit the weaknesses of some teachers. They behaved unceremoniously with the French teacher Nouvel. Often his lessons were nothing more than a farce. The pages even managed to cut off the tails of Nouvel's uniform. Great liberties were taken during German lessons with teacher Schellendorf. In the Russian language lessons taught by Troitsky's teacher Vasily Stepanovich, the low discipline was largely due to the fact that Troitsky often showed up to lessons drunk. He even received the nickname Vasily Stakanovich. When the teacher was sober and began to make quite reasonable demands on the pages, this was always a big surprise for them, and they began to mock the teacher.

One day, when Troitsky was absolutely sober, he demanded that the pages prepare a home essay in the form of a letter or a story, to which the “presidents of the mountain,” pages Kratz and Makov, from the back benches demanded that the topics be light. Troitsky again came to the next lesson completely sober and asked to hand in the written essays. What happened next was described by Prince Imeretinsky: “The teacher directly addressed the back bench, but from there they responded with a booth. Paper arrows and cockerels flashed in the air towards the pulpit, and the teacher’s menacing glances could only be met by sticking out tongues, noses the length of ten fingers, figs, etc. Vasily Stakanych got seriously angry, wrote a lot of zeros in the journal, wrote down the entire presidium of the mountain in his notebook and got ready to go complain to the class inspector. In such a critical situation, Kratz made concessions and shouted to the whole class: “Lord, doesn’t anyone have written lies there! Give him that he is really boiling!” Then I gave Troitsky my essay. He read it and was moved, giving the essay 12 points. Before I could sit down, someone pulled me by the collar and I hit my head on someone’s buttons. Kratz was already standing nearby. With the words: “I am ready to reward you for this, my child,” he gave me a slap on the head, which made my ears ring. Then he and two other pages went to the table and demanded that Troitsky convert all the zeros into sixes. Troitsky was amazed at the impudence of the pages and decided to forgive everyone. While he was making his speech, the pages managed to attach tails to all the zeros and turn the zeros into sixes.”

During the lessons of geometry teacher A.M. Dokushevsky, the pages took advantage of the latter’s weakness for the water communication system in Russia and when they were poorly prepared for the lesson, they asked Dokushevsky a question about the Mariinsky system, explaining this by the fact that the geography teacher explained this material to them very poorly. When Dokushevsky realized that he was being fooled, the pages found another trick to avoid being called to the board. As the teacher demanded, they drew various polygons in notebooks, but the fact was that Dokushevsky was very fond of beautiful geometric figures, and then the students began to carefully draw all the figures and ran up to the teacher to get approval for what had been done. Dokushevsky admired it, made corrections, and then they slipped him another notebook. If the class was noisy and class inspector Ortenberg appeared, the person on duty would smartly report that page so-and-so made everyone laugh with his answer. During those lessons when the teacher was absent, the pages sometimes made such noise and hubbub that Ortenberg was forced to send some of the students to the punishment cell, and deprived others of dismissal on Saturday or Sunday, and sometimes for both days.

A graduate of the corps, Lieutenant General Richter, divided the entire teaching staff of the corps into three categories. The first group included professors who were feared and respected; the second - teachers who were loved, and, finally, the third - those who were treated indifferently, making inappropriate jokes with some of them. The first group had the main influence. Lectures by teachers belonging to this group were listened to in silence and with great attention, lessons on the subjects they taught were prepared with special care. According to Richter, cramming was pursued, special attention was paid to the smooth and sensible presentation of the material.

The author of the anniversary monograph Levshin, characterizing the life of pages in the mid-19th century. wrote: “Judging by the recollections of graduates, cheerfulness reigned in the building during lessons. This was facilitated by the awareness of the pages that it was possible to sit in the same class for a long time and that only in the second class an ambitious page had to try to get into the number of 16 page chambers, which ensured graduation into the guard and the advantages associated with going there. Thus, during the course I had to strain my strength only once. The lucky ones who managed to be among the chosen ones then laid down their arms, since they perfectly understood that they had achieved their intended goal, won the much-coveted right to become guardsmen, and indulged in idleness in their lessons. The pages were not intimidated by public exams, at which only the best students were asked. Then, by order of the emperor, more stringent rules for the stay of pages in the corps were established and special classes were transformed accordingly, from where graduation into the guard and army was carried out.

In terms of drill, the pages were not well prepared; this was due to the lack of regular additional classes in drill training, which was invariably practiced in the cadet corps. In 1847, during a drill review of the cadet corps and troops of the St. Petersburg garrison, Nicholas I expressed particular displeasure with the drill training of the pages and their performance of rifle techniques. Having watched how the pages performed rifle techniques, the Emperor shouted menacingly: “What are the pages doing? What is it? Mamzeli! White hands! I’ll drive you away from the parade ground!” After this tirade, the emperor ordered the pages to take their guns over their shoulders and forced them to stand there until their hands became swollen. The linear teaching ended with the pages being ordered to be removed from the parade ground, since the sovereign did not want to see them anymore.

In the middle of the 19th century, among the senior pages there were even twenty-year-old boys and older. Smoking in the building was strictly forbidden, but the “old men” used any method to smoke in secret: they smoked in vents (for heating stoves), in the vents, and smoked in classrooms. The “old men” categorically forbade the younger pages to touch tobacco, and they obediently did everything that their elders told them. There was not a single case of denunciation to the authorities by younger pupils.

Despite all the shortcomings that existed in the preparation and training in the Corps of Pages, many of its graduates achieved high government, public and military positions. During almost the entire reign of Nicholas I, the former page Prince A.I. Chernyshev was the Minister of War. The governor-general of Vitebsk, Mogilev and Smolensk was Adjutant General P. N. Dyakov, and later Prince Urusov. Ataman Donskoy troops - Adjutant General M. G. Khomutov. The commander of the troops of the Kingdom of Poland is Adjutant General E. L. Ramsay. The ambassador in Munich is Prince Yves. Iv..Baryatinsky, envoy to the Swedish and Norwegian courts - Ya.A.Dashkov. A.N. Olenin continued his activities as Chairman of the State Council. The star of the former page I.I. Rostovtsev rose, who in 1856 became the head of the General Staff of military educational institutions. During the reign of Nicholas I, Count N.N. Muravyov-Amursky, writers Fyodor Tolstoy and K.A. Druzhinin and many other military and government figures graduated from the corps. At the height of the Sevastopol campaign, the chief of staff of the Sevastopol garrison, the former page Prince Lieutenant General V.I. Vasilchikov (graduated in 1839), showed himself at his best. The Emperor ordered his name to be inscribed on a marble plaque and the plaque to be placed on one of the walls of the building. At the end of December 1855, the Corps of Pages enthusiastically honored the hero of Sevastopol.

Among the cadet corps, the Corps of Pages invariably occupied a privileged position. Even after military reform 1862-1864, when the cadet corps were transformed into military gymnasiums and lost the right to graduate officers into the troops, the Corps of Pages retained the right to graduate chamber-pages and pages who completed special classes as officers into the troops. However, Milyutin’s reforms also affected the Corps of Pages: 5 junior classes of the corps in terms of education were equated to 5 senior classes of military gymnasiums, and 2 senior and special classes in terms of development curricula and the organizations were equated to infantry military schools. Special classes were consolidated into one company. The staff of pages remained unchanged - 150 students.

From 1857 to 1862 One of its famous graduates, anarchist theorist Pyotr Alekseevich Kropotkin, studied in the Corps of Pages. P.A. Kropotkin was the first student in all classes. In his graduating class, as the first student, to the disappointment of many officers, he was appointed sergeant major and personal chamber page of Emperor Alexander II. Prince P.A. Kropotkin in his “Notes of a Revolutionary” described in some detail the life of the Corps of Pages.

Military reforms carried out in 1862-1864, the creation of military gymnasiums and pro-gymnasiums to a certain extent led to the democratization of life in military educational institutions, but did not contribute in any way to strengthening order and discipline in them. The general situation also affected the Corps of Pages. The pages began to be rude even to such a strict boss as the company commander K.K. Girardot. At the same time, Girardot noticed that even in the palace the pages began to behave differently from the etiquette. Girardot's etiquette rehearsals took place amid the laughter of the pages, since most of them had no grace in bowing. Girardot flew into a rage. Previously, pages who were curled before going to the palace tried to keep their curls as long as possible after the ceremony. Now, having returned from the palace, they ran under the tap to straighten their hair. They laughed at her feminine appearance. In the building, it came to a benefit performance, which was arranged for the drawing teacher Ganz. The pages did not forgive him for having favorites and giving the highest marks to those pages who worked with him separately for a special fee.

P.A. Kropotkin wrote in this regard: “When I entered the Corps of Pages, a complete change was taking place in his inner life. All of Russia then awakened from a deep sleep and was freed from the heavy nightmare of the Nikolaev region. This awakening was reflected in our corps. The director of the corps was an excellent old man, General Zheltukhin, but he was only nominally the head of the corps. The actual commander was a Frenchman in Russian service, Colonel Girardot. The method of his education was borrowed from the French Jesuit colleges." Kropotkin presents Girardot as a despot by nature, capable of hating a boy who does not completely succumb to his influence. All officers of the Corps of Pages had nicknames. But no one dared to give Girardot a nickname. The word "Colonel" was constantly on everyone's lips.

The page corps did not escape the disease of all cadet corps, the so-called “tsukania” (the most common hazing in relations between senior and junior pages - author’s note), the abnormal and often mocking attitude of senior pages towards the younger ones. Kropotkin notes in his memoirs that Girardot placed the page-chambers in a completely exclusive, privileged position. He gave the older pupils complete freedom and pretended that he did not know about the arbitrariness that they did. So, with the help of chamber-pages, he tried to maintain strict discipline. If a junior pupil in any way did not obey the whim of the chamber-page, then this led to the fact that 20 pupils of the senior class, with the tacit permission of Girardot, severely beat the disobedient one.

Because of this, the page-chambers did whatever they wanted. One of the favorite pastimes of the senior pages was that at night they gathered newcomers in nightgowns into one of the rooms and forced them to run in a circle like horses in a circus, while some chamber pages stood in the circle, others outside it and with gutta-percha whips the boys were whipped mercilessly. The colonel knew all about this, but turned a blind eye to the antics of the high school students.

Not a single page of the junior class had the right to pass by the sergeant major's bed - this was a sacred custom used by especially zealous senior pages. There were cases when older pages specifically forced the younger one to violate the established ritual, which he did not dare to do. Then, on the instructions of the senior page, the younger one had to make a large detour in the bedroom in order to get around the sergeant major’s bed, and “not to desecrate the sacred place with his feet.” This prank was sometimes repeated several times in a row for the amusement of the older class.

In the morning, the orderlies were required to wake up both classes: the younger one earlier, and the older one later. Having woken up the seniors, the orderly was obliged to stand in a certain place and, at certain intervals, loudly report how many minutes the senior class had left before they lined up for morning prayer. It happened that the junior class lined up for morning prayer before the senior class, when some of the pages of this class were still in bed. Some of those lying in bed shouted at their younger comrades, who, in their opinion, were not standing well enough in the ranks.

When at the end of the 19th century. pages were allowed to smoke; in the smoking room, the junior class was allocated a special corner, separated from the senior class section by an imaginary line, beyond which none of the juniors dared to step. Younger people, in the presence of their elders, even in the smoking room, did not dare to stand in a free position - anyone guilty of violating respect was immediately brought to order. Younger pages, when meeting with older ones, no matter where this meeting took place, were obliged to be the first to salute. Senior pages sometimes deliberately created situations when junior comrades could not immediately notice them and, accordingly, did not salute them. An entry immediately followed in a special journal about the indiscipline of the younger page. Finally, the third class, which included quite strong cadets, decided to put an end to all the torture and challenged the chamber-pages “to a fight to the death.” The senior pages were defeated, became quiet and became the guardians of the best traditions in the corps, i.e. which is what they were supposed to do. Girardot did not report the incident to anyone.

According to N.A. Epanchin, the wild custom of “tsukaniya” passed into the Russian army from the Prussian one, when it consisted of mercenaries, about whom Frederick the Great said that in his army “the soldier is more afraid of the corporal’s stick than the enemy’s bullet.” This custom, Epanchin noted, was an imitation of what especially flourished in the Nicholas Cavalry School, where the custom of “tsukana” had been established for a long time.

Teaching at the Nicholas Cavalry School for eighteen years, Epanchin could observe numerous manifestations of this unfortunate phenomenon. In conversations about “tsuk” with his students, he heard from them, in order to justify this custom, that Lermontov, a student of the school, did the same. “This custom,” Epanchin believed, “fundamentally violated comradely relations and undoubtedly contributed to the coarsening of morals, not at all in the spirit of our disciplinary regulations and the good customs of our army. Having accepted the Corps of Pages, I decided to take measures to eradicate this custom from among the pages.” In one of the orders for the corps it was said: “I instruct all gentlemen officers, and especially company commanders and officer-educators, to strictly monitor the execution by chamber-pages and pages of the established rules, in particular, the exact execution of the established rules by senior pages, who must serve as a junior example of diligence, and not self-will and arbitrariness.” Gradually, Epanchin managed to achieve a significant reduction in cases of hazing between pages.

Among the old traditions of the Corps of Pages was the wearing of the officer’s cap of the regiment to which the page intended to graduate in the garden of the Corps of Pages during free time from formation and study. In this case, while walking in the corps garden, one could observe pages of the senior special class walking not in uniform caps, but in officers’ caps of different regiments.

By order of the Military Department No. 15 of January 30, 1878 on the establishment of “Preparatory classes of His Imperial Majesty’s Corps of Pages,” the junior classes were formally separated from the corps and on their basis preparatory classes were created that trained students for the Corps of Pages. In 1885, the preparatory classes were again reunited with the Corps of Pages.

THE LAST YEARS OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE CORPS OF PAGES

In January 1889, a new regulation for the Corps of Pages was approved. In accordance with this provision, the Corps of Pages consisted of seven general classes, corresponding to the course of the cadet corps, and two special classes, with the course of military schools. In the three junior classes, exclusively external pages were taught; the total number of intern classes was determined to be 150 students. In terms of combat, the corps was divided into 3 companies: 1st company - pages and chamber pages of special classes; 2nd - pages U11 and U1 of general classes and 3rd - pages of all other classes. In 1891, the staff strength of the Corps of Pages was set at 170 interns and 160 externs. The pages continued to carry out their court service, which was combined with their studies.

Since 1890, the corps began to teach law, the purpose of which was to familiarize the corps graduate with the relationships that every person encounters in life, being in the family, society, and state. The new manual on jurisprudence was entitled “Basic Concepts of Morality, Law and Social Life.”

In May 1890, a museum of the corps began to be formed in the Corps of Pages. The initiator of the creation of the museum and its first director was the class inspector, Colonel N.N. Skalon, who served in the corps for many years. For the museum, printed and handwritten works related to the Corps of Pages, drawings of former pages and corps employees, lists of those killed, Knights of St. George, biographies of former pages, their personal belongings, photograph albums, individual portraits, etc. were collected. Published for the centenary of the Corps of Pages, the history of the corps, edited by D.M. Levshin, “The Corps of Pages of His Imperial Majesty for a Hundred Years,” is richly illustrated with drawings and photographs received by the museum. For the anniversary of the corps, a brochure “Extract from a message to pages regarding the tasks of the historical museum of His Imperial Majesty’s Corps of Pages” was published, edited by the class inspector and director of the museum, Colonel G.S. Osipov. This brochure was produced to arouse interest among pages in the history of the educational institution in which they studied.

Nikolai Alekseevich Epanchin recalled: “The educational part of the building was well known to me from ten years of teaching experience there; when I took over the corps, the class inspector was Major General Anatoly Alekseevich Danilovsky, and before him there was Major General Nil Lvovich Kirpichev, a military engineer, a serious, educated, cultured and knowledgeable inspector who maintains the training unit at the proper level. Danilovsky was a narrow-minded, almost ignorant person who did not enjoy any authority either among teachers or among pages. Suffice it to say that the pages called him “Toto”. He considered himself a great expert on pedagogy, although he had no idea about pedagogical literature, which did not interfere with his self-esteem.

Not all teachers met the necessary requirements, but replacing them with others was extremely difficult, and sometimes impossible. The small, meager content forced teachers to take lessons in several educational institutions, moving from lesson to lesson from one end of St. Petersburg to the other.

One day I learned that due to the insufficient supply of money for feeding, it is impossible to do without “dead souls”, i.e. show on the reporting sheets more pages on contention than was actually the case. Some of the pages were visiting, external students, for whom the treasury only provided money for breakfast, but sometimes external students had the right to a full daily allowance, such as those on duty, those under arrest, those detained after lectures to prepare lessons, etc. This is what they used to show more pages on report sheets than were actually on payroll, and this was called “dead souls.” Later I found out that some members of the economic committee did not hesitate to take food from the page’s cauldron to their homes, and as a result, I was forced to fire the housekeeper.”

Pavel Grabbe, the son of the head of His Imperial Majesty’s personal convoy, who entered the Corps of Pages in 1915, recalled the last years of the corps’ existence: “When I entered the Corps of Pages, I had no idea how special this institution was. Twelve members of my father's family have studied here over the past century. I was thirteenth. In my class, two-thirds of the students attended only during the day; the rest were on full board. Most were the same age as me - about thirteen - and belonged to about the same level as me. To be eligible for enrollment, the boy had to be the son or grandson of a general or a very high-ranking official. After seven years in the corps, he received the rank of officer and usually joined the imperial guard, which was considered the elite of the Russian army. But first, the corps graduate had to obtain the approval of the officers of the regiment he wanted to join of his choice. The decision was made taking into account the personality and character of the candidate, origin and was partly determined by the reputation that he had in the corps. If, for example, it was known that he liked to spread all kinds of gossip, few of the Guards regiments would accept such an officer.

The corps was closely connected with the Imperial House and life royal family. Every year, several of the best students in the graduating class were appointed as chamber-pages to members of the imperial family. This is exactly how my father was selected when he was studying in the Corps of Pages, which gave him the opportunity to personally communicate with the imperial family. Adjacent to the building was a large garden with tall trees, where younger boys ran about during their half-hour break after breakfast. Three junior classes - third, fourth and fifth - occupied the top floor of one of the outbuildings.

Our classrooms opened onto a large hall, where we were released for a ten-minute recess every fifty minutes. During these breaks, absolute bedlam reigned: we ran around the hall, fought and screamed. The officer on duty observed all this from a room occupying a strategic position at the exit from the hall. On the floor below there were classrooms for older boys - with the same layout. On our way to breakfast, we would sometimes pass by and look at them with an appraising gaze. They always walked in orderly rows, which could not be said about us.

The school chapel was large enough to accommodate all five junior classes. We stood through the service silently and obediently, languishing with boredom. One day the priest was served by some unknown deacon, whose appearance brought a smile. Some of the boys began to giggle quietly. The sound began to spread, grow, and soon every single boy was laughing out loud. The service was stopped. We were taken out of the chapel and lined up in one of the adjacent rooms. Deputy Director General Rittich walked back and forth in front of us with nervous steps, trying to shame us and threatening all sorts of punishments if such an incident were to happen again. We heeded this warning, and no one else laughed during the service. But the chapel lost its halo, which aroused reverence in us, and when discipline became loose after the revolution, we hid in it from the school authorities. No one would ever find us in the altar under a table covered with a heavy velvet blanket.

In the Corps of Pages, I studied Russian, French and German, geography, geology, physics, geometry and arithmetic. Of the subjects, I most loved Russian and geography, which was taught by B.I. Chizhov. He would often roll out a map on the board, point to an area, and challenge us to talk about its physical characteristics, climate, and natural resources. He asked us to describe the people who live there. What are they? How do they live? What are they doing? What is their faith? And often, without waiting for an answer, he himself began a fascinating story, answering all his questions. And almost invariably he managed to overcome our indifference and spark interest in his subject.

I studied poorly. Classmates despised the “bison” and respected those who were distinguished by physical strength, as well as those who showed initiative in class matters. An unexpected incident increased my authority. One day I found myself on the roof of a building, from where I saw our class teacher, Colonel Zarzhevsky, dating a pretty blonde. I rushed back to class, gathered a few friends and took them to the roof. From there we watched as our classmate, smiling and gesticulating, escorted his friend out the gate and into the street. We often suffered from the strict discipline maintained by Colonel Zarzhevsky. Now, after one of us gave him a few hints, he has changed for the better.

I did not share my comrades’ love for military affairs. They were fascinated by parades, uniforms and awards, and they all strived to serve in the imperial guard. Their conversations about the merits of this or that regiment did not interest me at all, and I especially disliked military drill. For the first two months I was not even allowed to wear a corps uniform because of my completely unmilitary appearance.

The so-called “tsukaniye” also did not dispose me to military affairs. It was a kind of oppression of the younger ones by the older students. My posture made it abundantly clear that I was not an ideal candidate for that military career, which many have been striving for. Several high school students decided that I needed to be taught a lesson. I was ordered to learn their names in alphabetical order or in some special sequence that they specially invented every week. I was also obliged to learn the names of all the regiments of the Imperial Guard and be able to describe their uniforms; or I was examined on questions of military traditions. If I made the slightest mistake, I was forced to stand at attention in the restroom, do squats, or remain motionless during recess, or not dare talk to my classmates.

I convinced my classmates to stage demonstrations whenever any of us were subjected to such harassment by high school students. After two or three such demonstrations, when we marched in a circle, shouting protest slogans and stamping our feet until the officer on duty ran out into the noise to find out what was going on, the high school students stopped their “tsking”. When the time subsequently came for our class to take “tutelage” of a new addition, most of my classmates could not resist the temptation to pose as a commander in front of the younger ones!

In 1915, sixteen boys were admitted to the junior class. We only had to stay together for two years. The revolution scattered us around the world. Many must have died during the civil war."

Upon completion of the body, pages received a white enamel Maltese cross on a gold plate and a ring that was steel on the outside and gold on the inside. This alloy symbolized "steel hardness and golden purity." The owners of these distinctive signs addressed each other as “you” all their lives, regardless of age, rank and position. The corporate spirit among the pages was unusually high. Strong camaraderie between pages, the desire to come to the aid of a friend in difficult times, were valued in the corps above many other virtues.

The directors of the Corps of Pages were successively:

1. Major General Gogel A.G. (1802-1805);

2. Lieutenant General Gogel I.G. (1805-1830), Land Cadet Corps;

3. Adjutant General Kavelin A.A. (1830-1834), Corps of Pages;

4. Major General Ignatiev P.N. (1834-1846), Corps of Pages;

5. Major General Zinoviev N.V. (1846-1849), Corps of Pages;

6. Lieutenant General Filosofov N.I. (1849-1854), Corps of Pages;

7. Lieutenant General Zheltukhin V.P. (1854-1861), Mountain Cadet Corps;

8. Lieutenant General S.P. Ozerov (1861-1865);

9. Major General N.V. Korsakov (1865-1867), Corps of Pages;

10. Major General Bushen D.H. (1867-1871), Corps of Pages;

11. Major General Mezentsev P.I. (1871-1878), Noble Regiment;

12. General of Artillery E.K. Diterikhs (1879-1894);

13. Lieutenant General Keller E.E. (1894-1900), Corps of Pages;

14. Infantry General Epanchin N.A. (1900-1907);

15. Major General Usov N.N. (1907-1914)

15. Major General Rittich (1914-1917)

During all the years of the existence of the Corps of Pages, each of the emperors considered it his sacred duty to select and appoint a director of the corps. In practice, a tradition has developed when a general was appointed to the position of director of the corps, having extensive teaching experience or having gained experience in commanding any military educational institution, mainly the cadet corps, and having proven himself in this position from the best side. Each of the directors of the Corps of Pages was an outstanding teacher and leader in his own way.

Lieutenant General V.P. Zheltukhin Before his appointment to the Corps of Pages, he was first the director of the Alexandrinsky Orphan Cadet Corps, and then the 1st Moscow Catherine II Corps. During all three years of his tenure as director of the Corps of Pages, General Zheltukhin V.P. maintained the educational institution in exemplary condition and enjoyed the love of the students.

Lieutenant General S.P. Ozerov came to the Corps of Pages after twelve years as director of the 2nd Moscow Cadet Corps. The warmest and most heartfelt words about Sergei Petrovich Ozerov were expressed by the historian of the 2nd Moscow Cadet Corps A.I. Polivanov (see essay about the 2nd Moscow Cadet Corps). Despite the difficult years that befell S.P. Ozerov during his command of the Corps of Pages, he honorably emerged from the difficult situation in which he found himself during his stay in the corps. The fact is that by the time S.P. Ozerov arrived in the Corps of Pages, his pupils, in the context of the military reform that had begun, began to neglect discipline, treat officer-educators and teachers without due respect and respect, violate internal regulations, be negligent in their studies, Internal licentiousness appeared in them. Raising pages required special tact, strong character and good teaching skills of the director, company commanders and officer-educators.

The company commander of the 2nd Cadet Corps, Colonel L.I. Yanush, noted in this regard: “In 1872, I had every opportunity to transfer to service in the Corps of Pages. The reason for my reluctance to go there as a teacher was his reputation, which stubbornly persisted both in society and among teachers at military gymnasiums. What frightened me most were the stories about the licentiousness of the pages, who were accustomed to treat their leaders with the utmost disrespect. It was said about the impossibility of proper educational influence on pages due to interference in the affairs and orders of educators on the part of high-ranking and influential parents.”

Former page General Nikita Vasilyevich Korsakov was appointed director of the Corps of Pages from the position of assistant to the Chief Director of military educational institutions. A rumor quickly spread among the pages that General Korsakov had been appointed to improve discipline in the corps. Korsakov kept the pages in line for two hours on the day of the performance. To the pages standing in line, he said in a thunderous voice: “You don’t know me yet, gentlemen, I’ll show you...”. The two years Korsakov spent in the corps became a significant milestone in its history, since it fell to this director to carry out a reform that was supposed to change the structure and order of training for students. Korsakov managed to improve discipline in the corps and defend the idea that the Corps of Pages should be primarily a military educational institution and have the right to produce officers. Despite the feigned severity, Korsakov turned out to be a man of a wonderful soul, who loved the institution that raised him and its students. He was a demanding and at the same time completely democratic boss, relying in his work on the pedagogical committee of the Corps of Pages.

Major General Dmitry Khristianovich Bushen headed the Oryol Bakhtin Military Gymnasium before his appointment as director of the Corps of Pages. The excellent condition of the military gymnasium attracted the attention of the emperor. In 1867, Bushen was entrusted with the Corps of Pages. He commanded the corps for only four years and died at the age of 46 while serving as director. In the obituary on the death of Bouchen, it was noted that his death was a great loss for the Corps of Pages. Due to the fact that after the death of Bushen, his wife was left with young daughters, whose education and upbringing required large funds, and there were none in the family, a special fund was created in the building to assist Bushen’s daughters. The teachers and educators of the corps pledged to educate and educate their daughters free of charge. The corps employees decided to deduct part of their earnings to a fund to help the family of D.H. Bushen.

Under the director of the corps, Fedor Karlovich Diterichs, a new one was firmly established in the Corps of Pages. pedagogical order. An experienced teacher, a widely educated person, artillery general Dieterichs introduced weekly meetings of the educational committee in the corps, on Saturdays, at which the successes and behavior of pages over the past week were discussed, fundamental issues were resolved in relation to individual pages, mistakes of educators were identified and measures were jointly developed eliminating such errors. The educational measures practiced in the corps under Dieterichs were based on the director’s deep respect for both the personality of the pupil and the personality of the teacher. The main educational measure under Dieterichs was the impact on the morality of the guilty pupil.

As a result of the consistently implemented pedagogical system of influencing students in the building, the number of disciplinary offenses has decreased and the level of academic performance has increased significantly. The educational requirements under Dieterichs were so high and serious that the success of the pages gradually became higher than the success of their peers from other military educational institutions. F.K. Diterikhs's direct attitude towards the students was distinguished by calmness and self-control. Despite the complete absence of strict, loud speeches, the pages treated him with respect and even a certain amount of fear. F.K. Dieterichs served as director for seventeen years. Over the years, 600 students received education in the corps and graduated from it. Transferring the building into the hands of the new director, Count F.E. Keller, Dieterichs noted that over the many years of his stay in the building, he had become fused with it and deeply regretted that he had to leave the walls of the building. For his services to the corps, Dieterichs was awarded the highest distinction - he was left on the lists of the Corps of Pages, and he was granted the right to wear the corps uniform.

According to the prominent Russian military historian Alexander Georgievich Kavtaradze, the author of the preface to the memoirs of Nikolai Alekseevich Epanchin, the study of archival materials provides numerous vivid examples of how proactive and fruitful the activities of Infantry General N.A. were as director of the Corps of Pages. Epanchina. When moving from the 2nd to the 1st combat company, the pages were enrolled in active military service and took the oath. However, before the arrival of N.A. In Epanchin’s corps, this ceremony was carried out casually, there was no sense of solemnity. The corps did not have a banner or its own military music orchestra. It is quite obvious that the absence of a banner during the taking of the oath “in an extremely undesirable way detracted from the significance of such important event in the life of future officers." Already at the first swearing-in of the 1st company under Epanchin in November 1901, on his orders, a banner and orchestra from the Preobrazhensky regiment were brought to the corps. At the request of N.A. Epanchin, the corps was given a banner in connection with its 100th anniversary, and from that time on the oath was taken in front of it.

In order to expand the pages' interest in scientific knowledge, on Epanchin's initiative, the practice of preparing reports on military issues was established in special classes: on military history, tactics and other disciplines, and in senior general classes - on general education subjects. Pages were given topics, sources were indicated, and a date was set for preparing the report. Under N.A. Epanchin, the Page Collection began to be published, the last issue No. 13 was published in 1916. For the aesthetic development of pages, a painting and sculpture class was established in the building for those interested. Extracurricular music classes on the piano, violin and cello were introduced.

By the end of the 19th century. There is a good library in the Corps of Pages. On the initiative of N.A. Epanchin, a special library of books on military topics was created for the 1st company. He ordered military magazines (Russian, German, French) to be subscribed to this library. Authors sent books with autographs for the building library famous works on strategy, tactics, military art, military history. The presence of autographs on books, according to Epanchin, contributed to the establishment of closer contact between the pages of the 1st combat company and the best representatives of military-scientific thought in the Russian army. Count D.A. Miloradovich sent his classic work “Suvorov’s Italian Campaign” with a dedication in his own hand.

The corps had riding horses and horse riding was one of the compulsory activities. Under Epanchin, a playpen was added to the already existing large arena, where pages were taught vaulting. The position of riding instructor officer was included in the corps staff. In order to give the pages the opportunity to thoroughly prepare for service in the army before promotion to officers, they were assigned to the regiments in which they would like to serve at the last camp training before promotion to officers.

An important tradition in the Corps of Pages was the tradition of a respectful and respectful attitude towards the oldest graduate of the corps, the opportunity to contact the oldest page on any issue, not only to the director of the corps and his officers, but also to any of the pages, no matter what hierarchical level of society or in the corps itself. was. In his memoirs, Epanchin does not specifically address this issue, but by talking about the oldest page, Adjutant General O.B. Richter, the author seems to highlight the role and place of the oldest page in the life of the Corps of Pages. During the years of leading the corps, Epanchin had to deal with rather difficult circumstances concerning the case of cadet Verkhovsky.

Impressed by failures in Russian-Japanese war A. Verkhovsky, sergeant major of the 1st company, personal chamber-page of Nicholas II, in a circle of chamber-pages and pages of special classes, expressed his views on the situation in the country in a sharp and emotional form and condemned the actions of the government. Very capable and extremely proud, Verkhovsky was always the first in academic success, and performed his duties as a chamber-page with great diligence. However, with his speeches, Verkhovsky alienated his classmates and strained relations with them. Two months before promotion to officers, students of the senior special class decided that A. Verkhovsky should leave the corps.

Nicholas II instructed the oldest page, Adjutant General O.B. Richter, to finally understand the “Verkhovsky case” and ordered him to submit a report addressed to him. Richter reported to the emperor that Verkhovsky’s actions could not be considered anti-government. However, Nicholas II ordered to deprive Verkhovsky of the rank of chamber-page and send him to an artillery brigade as a non-commissioned officer. In 1911, A. Verkhovsky graduated from the Academy of the General Staff. During the years of the revolution he remained in Soviet Russia, rose to the rank of major general, was in teaching. In 1937, A. Verkhovsky was repressed.

When preparing events dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the corps, O.B. Richter was appointed chairman of the anniversary commission. When Epanchin, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the corps, was enlisted by Nicholas II in the Retinue of His Imperial Majesty and awarded the order St. Stanislav 1st degree, the first person Epanchin paid a visit to was O.B. Richter, who was absent due to illness at the review, where the emperor’s decision was announced. During the gala dinner on the occasion of the anniversary of O.B. Richter, and not the director of the corps N.A. Epanchin, was instructed to proclaim the toast for the Emperor.

The main work of preparing and holding the 100th anniversary of the Corps of Pages fell to N.A. Epanchin. They took a personal part in the creation of the insignia of the Corps of Pages. The anniversary badge was intended for all members of the corps on the day of the anniversary; badge No. 1 was awarded to N.A. Epanchin himself. The badge of the Corps of Pages was awarded to all students who graduated from the corps and were promoted to officers and to those who were to be promoted to officer and class ranks.

50 silver and 2,000 bronze anniversary medals were made with the inscription on the edge: “In memory of the 100th anniversary of His Imperial Majesty’s Corps of Pages.” 140 lower ranks who were in active military service and lower corps employees, in addition to being awarded a bronze medal, each received a silver ruble (the date 1802-1902 was stamped under the eagle). In connection with the anniversary, N.A. Epanchin himself was awarded the Order of St. Svyatoslav, 1st class.

Archival materials indicate that the seven-year period, during which N.A. Epanchin was the director of the Corps of Pages, became one of the brightest pages in the history of this military educational institution. By the highest decree dated April 22, 1907 N.A. Epanchin “was promoted to lieutenant general for distinguished service.”

Over the years of its existence, the Corps of Pages has released from its walls hundreds of worthy sons of Russia, who glorified it in state and public positions through their activities in various fields of art: writers, professors, artists, musicians, generals and major Russian military leaders, chairmen of the State Council, ministers, ambassadors , envoys, governors general, senior court officials, heads of higher educational institutions, directors of cadet corps.

Among the students of the Corps of Pages are the names of the full Cavalier of St. George, Field Marshal General, His Serene Highness Prince of Warsaw, Count of Erivan I.F. Paskevich (1800), Field Marshal I.V. Gurko (1846), discoverer and explorer of the Far East, Governor General of the Amur Territory, Count N. N. Muravyov-Amursky (1822), Minister of War Prince A.I. Chernyshev (1802), ambassadors in Paris Prince N.A. Orlov (1845), in London Count S.R. Vorontsov, in Berlin Count P.A. Shuvalov, in Spain D.E. Shevich (1858), author of historical works N.K. Schilder (1860), Count V.F. Adlerberg (1811), Minister of Foreign Affairs V.N. Lamsdorf (1862), Minister of Railways M. I. Khilkov (1852), associate of Alexander 1 Count N.N. Novosiltsev (1783), writer A.V. Druzhinin (1843), musician Bakhmetyev (1826).

During the Patriotic War of 1812 they began to widely famous names students of the Corps of Pages, cavalry general Count A.P. Tormasov, infantry general D.S. Dokhturov, commander of the light-horse partisan detachment A.I. Chernyshev.

103 students of the Corps of Pages became St. George's Knights. Among them are holders of the Order of St. George 2nd degree I.V. Gurko, A.P. Tormasov, D.S. Dokhturov; 3rd degree - Prince V.I. Vasilchikov, P.A. Shuvalov, N.I. Svyatopolk-Mirsky, Prince Imereti.

Graduates of the Corps of Pages often served as Moscow governors and governors general: A.G. Shcherbatov (1844-1848), A.A. Kozlov (1905), S.K. Gershelman (1906-1909), F.F. Yusupov (1915). He graduated from the Corps of Pages and was one of the last governors of Moscow in 1908-1913. Vladimir Fedorovich Dzhunkovsky. V.F. Dzhunkovsky was awarded the silver medal “3a saving the dead” for “special works and energetic activity during the great flood that occurred in April 1908 within the Moscow province.” During his tenure as governor, monuments to N.V. were unveiled in Moscow. Gogol, pioneer printer Ivan Fedorov and F.P. Haas, Emperor Museum of Fine Arts Alexandra III(currently the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts), an exhibition of agricultural machinery was held at the Butyrsky Farm (1909), a tram line was built from the Zoological Garden to the Presnenskaya Outpost. In 1912, Dzhunkovsky was a member of the committee for the organization of the Museum of 1812. In December 1917, he retired. As an experienced counterintelligence officer, he collaborated after the October Revolution with F.E. Dzerzhinsky and served in the Cheka. In 1937, he was arrested and executed on trumped-up charges.

Despite the exceptional caste of the Corps of Pages, its pupils were distinguished by freethinking. Graduates of the corps were the author of the book “Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow” banned by Catherine II, Alexander Radishchev (1766), Decembrist officers P. Pestel, V. Ivashev, P. Svistunov.

The pages did not accept the February revolution. The news of Nicholas II's abdication of the throne left them in a state of shock. Being constantly close to the imperial family, they became part of this family to a certain extent, and the emperor's decision shocked them. When, on one of the March days of 1917, the pages were assembled to take their oath to the Provisional Government, the words of the 19-year-old first chamber page Golitsyn were addressed to the director of the corps, Major General Rittich: “Your Excellency, we will not swear allegiance to the provisional governments !” After this, the pages left the White Hall of the palace.

On September 19, 1917, the Corps of Pages was renamed the Petrograd Gymnasium. After various transformations of the Corps of Pages and renaming of its name, which occurred after the February Revolution, the building of the former Corps of Pages, damaged after the suppression of the Left Socialist-Revolutionary rebellion, was transferred to the jurisdiction of the District Commissariat of Military Educational Institutions. For many years, the Leningrad Twice Red Banner Infantry School named after Kirov was located in the Vorontsov Palace. In 1955, the Leningrad Suvorov Military School was formed on the basis of the infantry school. Over time, the infantry school was transferred to another location. The Suvorov School continues to be located in the Vorontsov Palace. After the February Revolution, the unique library of the building was transported from one room to another, and, as it turned out by chance in 1992, it ended up in the Tauride Palace. All attempts by the command of the St. Petersburg Suvorov Military School and adherents of the glorious history of the oldest military educational institution in Russia to return the library to its rightful owner were unsuccessful.

Scattered all over the world after the October Revolution, the pages nevertheless did not forget their Alma Mater. In February 1921, the Union of Russian Pages was formed in Paris with branches in England, Belgium, Germany, Finland, Yugoslavia, and the USA. Many of the descendants of the pages arrived in St. Petersburg in December 1992 for celebrations on the occasion of the 190th anniversary of the opening of the building. Those who arrived for the anniversary considered it an honor to donate precious relics of their ancestors to the Museum of Cadet Corps being created at the Suvorov Military School.

At the end of December 2002, celebrations took place at the St. Petersburg Suvorov Military School to mark the 200th anniversary of the Corps of Pages. During the celebrations, special attention was paid to the direct descendants of pages living in Russia and arriving from France, Switzerland, the USA and other countries. Among the descendants of the pages were Sokolov-Khitrovo, M.V. Averino, A. Glavatsky, O.B. Levshina, N.Yu. Krivoshein, F. Dedyulina and others. Baron Alexander von Falz-Fein, the grandson of one of the last directors of the Corps of Pages, Infantry General N.A. Epanchin, addressed the audience with a warm and heartfelt speech. An important part of the celebrations was the opening in the building of the Maltese Kopella of the Museum of the History of Russian Cadet Corps - a branch of the Military Historical Museum of Artillery, Engineering Troops and Signal Corps. The conference dedicated to the 200th anniversary of the Corps of Pages was of significant interest to all those who arrived at the anniversary celebrations. The head of the Suvorov Military School, Valery Nikolaevich Skoblov, and the head of the library, Olga Vladimirovna Silchenko, made a great contribution to the celebrations.

Brief bibliography:

“In the service of three emperors”, Infantry General N.A. Epanchin, memoirs. Magazine “Our Heritage”, Moscow, 1996. P.299

2. “The Corps of Pages of His Imperial Majesty for a hundred years 1802 - 1902.” Compiled by D.M. Levshin. Vol.II Appendix. St. Petersburg, 1902, 197-201